Nikkei Chronicles #9
More Than a Game: Nikkei Sports

English:

• Why Coach Sports? Bob Kodama’s Legacy Coaching Youth Sports
  By Michael Kodama

  Comment from Brian Niiya
  Michael Kodama’s moving tribute to his father, Bob Seiko Kodama, and to the role sports and coaching played in their lives captures much about the importance of sports in general as well as in the Japanese American community. Bob learns to play baseball while incarcerated at Minidoka as a child, and coaching baseball and other sports becomes a core of the father-son relationship that even continues on to the next generation. Kodama’s story highlights the best aspects of sports and coaching and the role it has played in the lives of generations of young people, while also noting the reasons his father and others choose to serve as coaches. I hope his story inspires others to take up this noble calling.

Japanese:

• Family History of Kenichi Doi, Vancouver Asahi pitcher in 1926
  By Yobun Shima

  Comment from Yusuke Tanaka
  As I was reading Yobun Shima’s “Family History of Kenichi Doi, Vancouver Asahi pitcher,” the past 30 years of my life with the Asahi flashed through my mind. This is a very valuable piece of family history. It’s a story of the Asahi’s history from 1914 to 1941, with bits and pieces of information collected through time. Who would have thought that their legacy would continue to expand its wings more than 100 years after the team’s birth?

  As an editor, though, I should probably read the piece with an objective eye, but I don’t think that I ever spent a day without having the name “Asahi” cross my mind in the past 22 years of my life as an editor at Nikkei Voice since they hired me in 1989 and in the following 9 years after I became a freelancer. This is because Asahi baseball can be found in just about any place in Nikkei history, somehow always connected to its narrative.

  In Yobun Shima’s story, he writes, “At age 12, Kenichi had to get up very early in the morning to take care of the cows at Kishimoto Dairy Farm, located near Royston, before marching off to school.” And according to Tokugi Suyama, who’s knowledgeable about the history of Cumberland, the farm owner Kishimoto ran a farm in Ontario, too, as he resettled there after being forced to move out. Those with the spirit of entrepreneurship had the power to quickly get back on their feet, even after losing their property.

  There were some great autobiographies written by talented athletes, but since they have been published elsewhere, I chose Yobun Shima’s essay particularly for the reason that it synced with me in my career.

Spanish:

• 60th Anniversary: Close to the Heart
  By Luis Iguchi Iguchi

  Comment from Mario Kiyohara Ramos
  Through his story, he passes on to the following generations (and all of his readers) not only the sweetness and the solidarity of the humble origins of La Unión Stadium (A.E.L.U. — Asociación Estadio La Unión) but also 60 years of continued growth and modernization of the facilities. La Unión Stadium has been a constant companion during the second half of the history of the Japanese-Peruvian community, which celebrated its 120th anniversary last year. A story of growth and an important presence in Peruvian society, without losing its core values of shared and almost anonymous work toward a common objective. In these lines, the author asks us, in a subtle way, to pass on to our children the ideals and values that originally motivated every community member to contribute funds, pick up a rocks, or lay bricks to build a dream that fills our community with pride and satisfaction today.

Portuguese:

• Our Daily Radio Taiso Workouts
  By Edna Hiromi Ogihara Cardoso

  Comment from Aldo Watao Shiguti
  Edna Hiromi Ogihara Cardoso regales us with a delicious essay about the practice of Radio Taiso workouts, demonstrating in subtle fashion and clear prose the benefits of this activity, introduced in 1978 on the occasion of the celebrations of the 70th Anniversary of Japanese Immigration in Brazil, and which over the years has attracted countless enthusiasts, including those of non-Japanese ancestry. The author manages to “transport” the reader to the workout site—in this case, a sports court—while making the story’s characters feel close to us, as if we’d known them for some time; like, for instance, in the exchanges among the regulars and the peculiarities of some of them.

  In an objective manner, the author conveys information about the benefits of the Radio Taiso exercises, particularly the resulting social interactions, which have been temporarily rattled by the new coronavirus pandemic. That lack, one should add, is somewhat mitigated by conversations over the phone or via Whatsapp. Anyway, as the author makes clear, happy moments to be cherished.