community en ja

Yoemon Shinmasu – My Grandfather's Life in Seattle

Part 2 – Yoemon’s first job and life in Seattle

Barbershop business in Seattle Part one introduced Yoemon’s hometown, Kamai, and how he sailed across the ocean via Hawaii, pretending to be a sailor ...

community en

Japanese Canadian Internment and Family Experiences - Part 2

Read Part 1 >> While the family was in camp, the Canadian government was doing everything in its power to rid the Japanese Canadians from British ...

migration en

Japanese Canadian Internment and Family Experiences - Part 1

The Japanese Canadians were among the first non-native settlers of Salt Spring Island. The 1901 census shows 59 islanders of Japanese origin. In 1941, there ...

community en ja

Yoemon Shinmasu – My Grandfather's Life in Seattle

Part 1 – From Kamai to Seattle

Kamai Village in Yamaguchi Prefecture Kaminosekicho Kamai in Yamaguchi Prefecture is a village on the southern coast of Nagashima, a thin island in Seto Inland ...

identity en

Nikkei Chronicles #8 — Nikkei Heroes: Trailblazers, Role Models, and Inspirations

My Hero: Setsutaro Hasegawa

By the time I was born in the early 1960s, the long shadow of World War Two was starting to fade. The 1950s and ’60s ...

business en ja

King of “Ikejime”—Seiichi Yokota

“To spread ‘Ikejime’ not only in the States, but throughout the world is my big dream,” says Shin-Issei Seiichi Yokota. The 43-year-old from Toyama prefecture ...

migration en ja

The 150th Anniversary of Wakamatsu Colony, the First Japanese American Settlement on the North American Frontier

Supplement: The Article that Revealed Okei to the World

The Wakamatsu Colony, born of the dreams and labor of the new immigrants, collapsed in only two years. One of the members of the group ...

community en ja

The 150th Anniversary of Wakamatsu Colony, the First Japanese American Settlement on the North American Frontier

Part 3: Sharing of Family Stories

Read Part 2 >> Kuni Takes a Local as His Wife Following the collapse of the Wakamatsu Colony, a settler by the name of Kuninosuke Masumizu ...

identity en

The Sound of the Japanese Diaspora: An Interview with G Yamazawa

When you first hear G Yamazawa you instantly want to bob your head while carefully listening to his astute observations of the world he inhabits ...

migration en ja

The 150th Anniversary of Wakamatsu Colony, the First Japanese American Settlement on the North American Frontier

Part 2: Okei's California Home

Read Part 1 >> The story of the first Japanese woman to be buried in American soil emerges from history’s shadows. The Wakamatsu Colony had ...