Naomi Hirahara

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I woke up the next morning with my throat parched. Was I coming down with something? My throat was the weakest part of my body. Whenever I got sick, I felt it in my throat first. I tried gargling with salt water but it only made me thirstier.

I spent extra time cleaning my teeth and drying my hair. I wore a dress that I had bought on the Venice Boardwalk on a whim. I knew that I was being stupid, but I couldn’t help it. Two years without a man was actually a long time ...

“What’s your real name?” GEISHA GIRL asked, picking up my business card after I was finished with him.

I named all my customers by the tattoos they ordered. I had at least five GEISHA GIRLs this week, ten SAMURAI WARRIORs, five BUTTERFLYs, five BARBED WIREs, one AMERICAN FLAG, and assorted lettering, both standard and custom. This GEISHA GIRL was fat, blonde, and hairy. I had to shave his back at least two times to get to a smooth canvas.

My motto was to talk to the customer as least as possible, so I pointed to the wall near my ...

If you’ve ever visited San Jose’s Japantown, odds are you’ve stepped in a building constructed by the Nishiura brothers. Born in Nara prefecture and raised in the shadow of ancient temples, the two brothers, Shinzaburo and Gentaro, learned their carpentry skills from their father Tsurukichi, himself a skilled craftsman. The story of the Nishiura brothers and their superb aesthetic reflects how art is often integrated into our everyday lives, for example, within the buildings where we live, worship, play, and work.

Gentaro, the younger brother, came to the United States from Mie prefecture, arriving in Hawai‘i ...

When my uncle in Tokyo spotted me in Narita Airport in Japan, he almost breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, you are like the old model,” he said, picking up my carry-on baggage.

I was 21 years old, and too busy absorbing the rush of businessmen and tourists to register what he said. Later his words were interpreted by my aunt. Although they had seen me when I was 14, they feared that somehow the American air would kick in during my adolescence, transforming me into a bosomy, long-legged Wonder Woman seductress. But I was like Japan’s “old model ...

Although my parents and I visited Watsonville every summer during my childhood, I only became familiar with the name—Pajaro Valley—of this region on the central California coast much later, in my thirties. Before then, Watsonville was just the inaka, the country, where we would travel north several hours from Los Angeles in my father’s white van that carried gardener’s tools most of the year. My father was born in Watsonville but had moved to Japan after his grandfather was killed by a horse on the farm. After World War II, my father returned to Watsonville, in ...