Japan’s love affair with baseball began in the early 1880s and this shared passion created an enduring bond with the United States, surviving even through war. In fact, in Nicholas Dawidoff’s book “The Catcher Was a Spy,†the author notes that after the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, Major League ballplayer Moe Berg pleaded with […]
IMPORTING AMERICA’S PASTIME: The 75th anniversary of U.S. ball players in Japan
June 10, 2011 by 1 Comment
Cupertino Cherry Blossom Festival celebrates Sister City ties and calls for relief
April 22, 2011 by Leave a Comment
CUPERTINO, Calif. — The 28th annual Cupertino Cherry Blossom Festival honoring the Sister City relationship with Toyokawa, Japan will be held Saturday, April 30 and Sunday, May 1 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Memorial Park on Stevens Creek Boulevard across from De Anza College. In 1983, a delegation from Toyokawa, Japan visited […]
Japanese American Leadership Delegation to depart for Japan March 4
February 3, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Thirteen Nikkei from across the nation will on March 4 embark on a trip to Japan as members of the 2011 Japanese American Leadership Delegation. The delegation will be comprised of senior Japanese Americans who are at the foremost level of leadership in their professions, have had moderate to extensive experience in U.S.-Japan relations, and […]
OBITUARY: Chalmers Johnson
November 25, 2010 by Leave a Comment
LOS ANGELES (Kyodo) — Chalmers Johnson, an international politics scholar known as the original “Japan revisionist,†died Nov. 20 at his home in California aged 79, people close to him said. The cause of his death was not immediately known. As a revisionist, Johnson considered Japan different from other developed countries and his book “MITI […]
U.S. ex-POW says door to reconciliation opened with recent visit to Japan
September 16, 2010 by Leave a Comment
TOKYO — The visit by six former American prisoners of war to Japan has opened the door for reconciliation and it should be opened more, said one of the six, Lester Tenney, who survived the 1942 Bataan Death March as a captive of the Imperial Japanese Army. In an interview with Kyodo News in Tokyo […]
America-Japan Grassroots Summit concludes in San Francisco
September 2, 2010 by Leave a Comment
The 20th America-Japan Grassroots Summit kicked off on Aug. 25 with an opening ceremony at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. The summit began as a way to honor the legacy of a friendship that began nearly 170 years ago between the shipwrecked John Manjiro and William Whitfield, the captain of a whaling […]
Summit participants experience Bay Area culture
September 2, 2010 by Leave a Comment
BERKELEY, Calif. — Kazuki Miyamoto has a dream. His trip to the United States for the America-Japan Grassroots Summit reaffirmed his resolve to realize that dream. “I want to learn to speak fluent English and come back here for graduate school to become a robotic scientist,†said the 19-year-old Fukuoka college student while he was visiting […]
JET alums rally to save group’s funding from chopping block
August 26, 2010 by Leave a Comment
NEW YORK — More than 40 former Japan Exchange and Teaching Program alumni from across the United States recently holed themselves up in a Manhattan hotel to figure out how to sell their organization’s value to the Japanese government as potential budget cuts loom large. “I think the Japan Exchange and Teaching Alumni Association of […]
‘The Harimaya Bridge’ spans generations, cultures and the Pacific
August 19, 2010 by Leave a Comment
Through most of the film “The Harimaya Bridge,†protagonist Daniel Holder wears a sullen, stone-faced stare, communicating profound distaste for his surroundings. He simmers with hostility while tromping around Japan, and understandably so — this is the land where first his father and then his son perished. Daniel (played by veteran actor Ben Guillory) has […]
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The Japan earthquake and tsunami
On March 11, 2011, still another catastrophe (not close to home in America but 5,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean) defined our lives. On the worldwide stage, Japan reacted to the force of nature and the devastation left in its wake. We who are Japanese by ancestry can understand (and be proud) of the courageous […]