Gil Asakawa
@gilasakawaGil Asakawa is a journalist, editor, author, and blogger who covers Japan, Japanese American and Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) culture and social justice issues in blogs, articles, and social media. He is a nationally-known speaker, panelist, and expert on Japanese American and Asian American history and identity. He’s the author of Being Japanese American (Stone Bridge Press) and his next book, Tabemasho! Let’s Eat! (Stone Bridge Press), a history of Japanese food in America which will be published in 2022. His blog: nikkeiview.com.
Updated January 2022
Stories from This Author
The Little Exile is a terrific addition to the JA reading list
Oct. 25, 2017 • Gil Asakawa
The historical story of the Japanese American incarceration during World War II is still not well-known in mainstream American culture and literature. When it comes to books, there are only a handful of books that are based on Japanese Americans’ wartime experience. After the groundbreaking, angry No-No Boy by John Okada in 1957, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston’s Farewell to Manazanar was the first well-known memoir in 1973 (and made better-known because of its 1976 TV movie adaptation). The 1994 novel Snow Falling on …
The Legacy of the Sansei from a “Ni-hansei” perspective
Oct. 5, 2017 • Gil Asakawa
When I was a kid, I used to tell people who asked what generation I was, that I was “Ni-hansei,” or second-and-a-half. That’s because although my father was a Nisei born in Hawaii (technically a Kibei because his family moved to Japan in 1940 and he was stuck there during the war, but that’s another essay), I was born in Japan. My dad was in the US Army during the Korean war, and met my Issei mom in Hokkaido when …
NHK is Your Direct Line to Japanese News
Aug. 24, 2017 • Gil Asakawa
The recent 72nd anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima went by quietly on American news (in part because there’s just so much news to cover exploding out of our own White House). So on August 6, I turned to the one place I knew would give the commemoration of the bombing its due coverage: NHK World, Japan’s English-language public television network. NHK World didn’t disappoint. The network aired live the annual solemn ceremony at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park that …
George Takei is the Energizer Bunny of the JA community
Aug. 7, 2017 • Gil Asakawa
Like many people, and especially many Japanese Americans, I’m a big fan of George Takei. I’ve followed his career since I first saw him in the role of Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu in the original 1960s television Star Trek series and as he reprised the character in subsequent Star Trek movies in the 1970s and 1980s. Instead of fading into pop culture history after the Star Trek movies, he’s reinvented himself in both politics and pop culture, and today he’s hands-down …
Read Who, How and Why Japanese Settled in Colorado
Jan. 31, 2017 • Gil Asakawa
Most books about Japanese Americans focus on the West Coast because that’s where Japanese first arrived and settled on the US mainland. So few well-known books tell the stories of Japanese as they crossed the country and decided to live in the mountains, or the midwest, or the northeast or the south. Yet I know of communities of JAs in New York (not surprising), Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, Nebraska, and Utah. I have JA family in Atlanta who speak with …
Trump Supporter Says Internment Is Precedent for Muslim Registration
Nov. 25, 2016 • Gil Asakawa
The slope just got a little slippery. Carl Higbie, a former Navy SEAL who’s the spokesman for the Great America PAC supporting Donald Trump, was recently interviewed on Fox News’ “Kelly File.” The president-elect’s transition team is discussing plans for a registry for Muslim immigrants, he said, and there were historical precedents for such a registry including the imprisonment of Japanese in “internment camps.” “We’ve done it with Iran back a while ago,” Higbie said, and continued, “we did it …
Japanese Cleaning
July 13, 2016 • Gil Asakawa
Here’s all the dirt on my feelings about cleaning. I don’t have the joy of cleaning. Maybe it’s because I’m male. Maybe it’s because my family came to the US when I was only 8 years old. Maybe it’s because I’m just a rebellious dude. I hate cleaning. Not myself or my body, mind you—I like to be personally clean (except for my language). I take showers every day and dislike outdoorsy activities like camping because it means I can’t …
Funerals in the Japanese American community
June 2, 2016 • Gil Asakawa
It’s a hackneyed cliché to say “death is part of life,” but like many clichés, just because it’s become trite doesn’t mean the phrase isn’t true. Especially for Buddhists, death is a natural part of the cycle of living in this world. Death didn’t touch me much when I was young—I didn’t attend my first Japanese community funeral until my father died in 1992 and I was in my 30s, and my mother arranged for a Buddhist service. Since then, …
Peachy: Changing Season Captures the Passing of a Family Farm from One Generation to the Next
May 18, 2016 • Gil Asakawa
You’d think after a lifetime of growing and harvesting peaches, you’d get sick of eating them. But the Masumoto family still loves peaches and serves them up every way imaginable. David “Mas” Masumoto, 62, the farmer who has nurtured his parents’ peach groves, says “Actually no. I love peaches, almost literally in my blood.” Nikiko Masumoto, his daughter, adds, “We have 10 varieties and each has a window of ripeness for two weeks. So it’s like getting to see your …
Cross-cultured leader keeps Asahi Foods’ promise of perfect sushi fish
May 5, 2016 • Gil Asakawa
It’s cold outside, but it’s colder in Asahi Foods’ refrigerated cutting room, where stacks of cardboard and styrofoam boxes filled with giant fish await. The fish cutter is in early on a Saturday, wearing a white lab coat and heavy rubber gloves, various razor-sharp knives at the ready. Charlene Thai, a tiny woman in a similar lab coat, hovers nearby, watching over the daily cutting ritual that begins the flow of fresh-cut fish for sushi and sashimi to 200 restaurants …
