Erik Matsunaga

Erik Matsunaga’s investigations into the history of Chicago’s Japanese American community have been featured by the Japanese American National Museum, Alphawood Gallery, WBEZ Radio, and the Newberry Library. Born in Chicago, a descendant of WWII-era Nikkei resettlers from California, he curates @windycitynikkei—“Bite-sized Glimpses of Japanese American Chicago”—on Instagram.

Updated November 2020

culture en

Be Strong

  • By Erik Matsunaga
  • 7 Nov 2013

Be strong, be gentle, be beautiful. In judo you need strength of mind, body, and soul. I don’t mean beauty in the external sense. A compassionate soul is inner beauty. I believe that is true beauty.
   —Keiko Fukuda

Yuriko Gamo Romer’s introduction to Keiko Fukuda came by happenstance. The San Francisco, CA-based filmmaker explains, “In 2006, Oprah’s ‘O’ magazine did a story about her. I was intrigued by this story and realized that her dojo was in my neighborhood. So I went to introduce myself. She was very happy to chat with me in Japanese, so she ...

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food en

Nikkei Chronicles #1 — ITADAKIMASU! A Taste of Nikkei Culture

Farm Food

  • By Erik Matsunaga
  • 7 Aug 2012

I didn’t eat much Japanese food growing up. Born hapa Yonsei of a second generation German American mother and third generation Japanese American father who’d grown up together in the “old neighborhood” of Lakeview, Chicago, circumstances didn’t dictate much knowledge of overt Japanese customs, culinary or otherwise.

Our family emigrated from Kyushu in the early 1900s, farmers who plied their trade in California’s Central Valley, culminating in ownership of acreage purchased under the names of their American-born Nisei infants due to the California Alien Land Law that prohibited “aliens ineligible for citizenship” from owning land or ...

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culture en

Voices of Chicago

Welcome to the Writers Workshop

  • By Erik Matsunaga
  • 14 Dec 2011

The Undeniables writers workshop was formed in 1999, inspired by a chapter from the novel VALLEY (Bend Press, 1998), by Mike Daily. Edren Sumagaysay and I had met the previous year in a touring theatre troupe based in Los Angeles, and got to talking about a mutual passion for writing while holed up between shows in a Maryland motel. We had both recently read Mike Daily’s then newly released novel, and wanted to host a writers workshop of our own. The first workshop was held in my apartment on 163rd Street in Gardena, CA, a two-day affair attended by ...

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