Koji Steven Sakai
@ksakaiKoji Steven Sakai has written four feature films that have been produced, Haunted Highway (2006), The People I’ve Slept With (2009), Monster & Me (2012), and #1 Serial Killer (2012). He also served as a producer on The People I’ve Slept With and #1 Serial Killer. His feature length screenplay, Romeo, Juliet & Rosaline, was optioned by Amazon Studios. Koji’s debut novel, Romeo & Juliet Vs. Zombies, was released by Luthando Coeur, the fantasy imprint of Zharmae Publishing Press in February of 2015.
Updated March 2015
Stories from This Author
Helen H. Ota, Artistic Director, Cold Tofu
Oct. 13, 2011 • Koji Steven Sakai
Helen H. Ota is the Artistic Director of COLD TOFU, the nation’s premier Asian American comedy improvisation group. A member since 1993, she has performed in and produced numerous COLD TOFU improv and sketch shows. She is also the co-founder of Yes, And…Productions which produced Songs for a New World at the Tateuchi Democracy Forum in Downtown Los Angeles. They are currently working on a new musical which will make its world premiere in 2012. Helen is also a performing …
Part 5 of 5: Postscript
Sept. 30, 2011 • Koji Steven Sakai
Read Part 4 >>Even though my grandparents and their children were allowed to stay in the United States, it wasn’t until 1958 did they get their citizenship back. The World War II experience probably affected my grandparents in ways that I could never know. I have heard that my grandmother would cry when people asked her about the camps. This is probably why no one in my family discussed those years and it wasn’t until I started working at the …
Part 4 of 5: Decision
Sept. 23, 2011 • Koji Steven Sakai
Read Part 3 >> When the war ended, my grandparents requested that they not be sent to Japan, despite the fact that they had renounced their citizenship. However, once a person willingly gives up their citizenship, it’s not easy to get it back. The following is the end of a FBI report on whether the family should be allowed to stay or not. The part that stands out to me is: “The entire hearing very definitely shows (crossed out) this …
Part 3 of 5: Renunciant
Sept. 16, 2011 • Koji Steven Sakai
Read Part 2 >>After my grandparents answered “No No” to questions 27 and 28, the whole family was sent to Tule Lake, Northern California. A camp that was designated for “bad” Japanese Americans—in other words those who had answered the loyalty questionnaire negatively or had caused “trouble.” It was in Tule Lake that my grandparents, and thousands of Japanese Americans like them, willingly gave up their American citizenship and asked to be sent to Japan. His decision would forever brand …
Part 2 of 5: No No
Sept. 9, 2011 • Koji Steven Sakai
In Part 1, my grandfather, Takaichi Sakai, was arrested and investigated by the FBI. An Internee Hearing Board in February 1943 ordered that he be “interned for the duration of the war.” A few weeks later, the Military Governor had him sent to a “relocation center” on the Mainland. My grandmother, Sato Sakai, was given the opportunity to stay in Hawaii or accompany her husband to prison camps on the mainland. Her trouble with her in-laws, her inability to care …
Part 1 of 5: Crimes
Sept. 2, 2011 • Koji Steven Sakai
He burned sensitive files while working for a foreign government. He said that he was not willing to fight for the United States and would not give up his allegiance to a foreign power during a time of war. He renounced his American citizenship. Who was this enemy of the United States? He was my grandfather on my dad’s side. Having died before I was born, he was and has always been an enigma to me. My Aunt doesn’t remember …
SHOKORA's Junichi Hernandez Yoshikai
Aug. 23, 2011 • Koji Steven Sakai
Last year I was lucky enough to be invited to Japan and meet with other Nikkei (Japanese migrants and their descendants) from around the world. As an Asian American, I admit I sometimes forget that there are people of Asian ancestry who live in Mexico. In fact, there are strong nikkei communities throughout the Americas. The biggest Nikkei population (outside of Japan) is in Brazil (with the United States coming in second). One of the people I met in Japan …
Ellen Somekawa, Executive Director, Asian Americans United
Aug. 3, 2011 • Koji Steven Sakai
Ellen Somekawa is a third-generation Japanese American from Minneapolis. There she was an activist in the Asian American student movement, the anti-apartheid movement, the anti-nuclear movement and the movement against uranium mining and for indigenous land rights in the Black Hills. Ellen received her M.A. in history at Penn, where her research focused on Southeast Asian refugee resettlement in Philadelphia. She was active in the Asian American Student Alliance, a group that successfully fought for Penn to change the offensive …
Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, George & Sakaye Aratani Chair, UCLA Asian American Studies Center
July 19, 2011 • Koji Steven Sakai
Lane Ryo Hirabayashi is professor in the Asian American Studies Department, and affiliate of the Asian American Studies Center at UCLA, where he is also the inaugural “George & Sakaye Aratani Chair in Japanese American Internment, Redress, and Community.” Lane earned an M.A. (1976) and then a Ph.D. (1981) in Socio-cultural Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. Subsequently, he held a post-doctoral fellowship at the UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center in 1981-82. Lane is author of over thirty scholarly …
Karen Narasaki, President and Executive Director of the Asian American Justice Center
June 23, 2011 • Koji Steven Sakai
Karen K. Narasaki is the President and Executive Director of the Asian American Justice Center (AAJC), one of the nation’s leading voices advocating for the rights and interests of Asian Americans. Ms. Narasaki serves in a number of leadership positions in the civil rights and immigrant rights communities. She is vice chairwoman of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the nation’s oldest and broadest civil rights coalition. She heads the Rights Working Group, a coalition of human rights, civil rights, …
