Tim Asamen
@TKATim Asamen is the coordinator of the Japanese American Gallery, a permanent exhibit in the Imperial Valley Pioneers Museum. His grandparents, Zentaro and Eda Asamen, emigrated from Kami Ijuin-mura, Kagoshima Prefecture, in 1919 and settled in Westmorland, California, where Tim resides. He joined the Kagoshima Heritage Club in 1994, serving as president (1999-2002) and as the club's newsletter editor (2001-2011).
Updated August 2013
Stories from This Author
Asamen - Is it Japanese?
July 1, 2014 • Tim Asamen
My name is Tim Asamen, and, yes, I am a full-fledged Sansei. I say that because my surname is so strange that it can be downright baffling to ethnic Japanese. Whenever I introduce myself to both Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans, it always causes confusion. When I say “Asamen” the usual response is “huh?” It’s even worse when some of my own family members say our name because they don’t pronounce it with a Japanese accent, so it sounds more …
Climbing Out of the Well: My Impressions of the JANM 2013 National Conference in Seattle
Aug. 20, 2013 • Tim Asamen
If you have not taken in a Japanese American National Museum (JANM) event, be it a workshop, book reading, or some other special program, I highly recommend that you do so. The National Museum knows how to put on a good show, and everything is always meticulously planned down to the last detail. JANM’s 2013 National Conference “Speaking Up! Democracy, Justice, Dignity” held at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel, July 4 through 7, 2013, was no exception. Some five hundred of …
Will the Rafu die like my grandfather?
June 10, 2010 • Tim Asamen
My grandfather passed away when I was four years old. My only memories of him are from when he was already bedridden and deathly ill. At that time, my father would take me for a ride to the post office in Westmorland every morning where we picked up our mail since we lived on a farm and there was no rural delivery. On our way home, we always stopped at my grandmother’s house to drop off her mail. As my …
The 1940 Earthquake
May 19, 2010 • Tim Asamen
Takanori “Pro” Nimura never forgot the 1927 earthquake because of the auspicious day on which it struck—January 1. In the Nimura family’s small moveable house in rural Calexico, his mother had stayed up all night preparing special New Year’s delicacies (Osechi-ryori), but the kitchen table toppled over during the earthquake and all of the food ended up upside down on the floor! The magnitude 5.8 quake was centered in Mexicali and it killed fifteen people. Not all Nisei remember the …
Kagoshima Heritage Club
March 25, 2009 • Tim Asamen
The Kagoshima Heritage Club (KHC) is a sub-organization of the Nanka Kagoshima Kenjinkai (Kagoshima Prefectural Association of Southern California), the oldest Kenjinkai in California founded in 1899. During the early 1980s, the Kenjinkai became aware of its aging and declining membership and worried about its future. In 1983, then-Kenjinkai president, Takeyuki Miyauchi, asked the members to encourage their children to form an English-speaking club within the prefectural association. As a result, the Kagoshima Junior Club was formed on June 12, …
