Nikkei Chronicles #8—Nikkei Heroes: Trailblazers, Role Models, and Inspirations
The word “hero” can mean different things to different people. For this series, we have explored the idea of a Nikkei hero and what it means to a variety of people. Who is your hero? What is their story? How have they influenced your Nikkei identity or your connection to your Nikkei heritage?
We solicited stories from May to September of 2019, and voting closed on November 15, 2019. We received 32 stories (16 English; 2 Japanese; 11 Spanish; and 3 Portuguese) from individuals in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Peru, and the United States.
Here are the selected favorite stories by our Editorial Committee and the Nima-kai.
Editorial Committee’s Favorites
- ENGLISH:
Mine Okubo
By Edna Horiuchi - JAPANESE:
My Roots—The Legacy of Matsugoro Ohto
By Naori Shiraishi - SPANISH:
My Hero: Kiyoshi Kuwahara
By Fuyiko Kuwahara - PORTUGUESE:
Miyoko Fujisaka, 95 years old – Our Heroine
By Iraci Megumi Nagoshi
Nima-kai selection:
- 48 stars:
My Father Was A Tule Lake Resister
By Keiko Moriyama
Stories from this series
A Moment in Time
Sept. 13, 2019 • Mary Sunada
As I gazed upon my mom’s old wooden hand mirror, I found that time has not been kind to my face. There were noticeable lines across my forehead, wrinkles around the corners of my mouth and dark spots of old age. Whenever I held my dad’s old broken wrist watch against the windowpane, I noticed that time had stopped at 10:30 a.m. The face on the watch was made of glass which was dome shaped and tinted yellow with age. …
The Hero I Never Met
Sept. 12, 2019 • John Sunada
My hero Is my late father-in-law Yoneto James Nakata. He was the father of my wife, Mary Nakata. She asked me to research her father’s life as she never knew him because he died when she was only six months old. Over a period of 30 years, I came to know him through the few documents that Mary had. Yoneto Nakata was born in Sanger, California on November 25, 1918 to immigrants from Hiroshima, Japan. They worked in the San …
The Great-Grandmother Damashii
Sept. 11, 2019 • Sumōru Maunten
I often could feel the presence of another person, even though nobody was there and would frequently hear voices that only I could hear. It was strange to me and I couldn’t stand it as to why other people couldn’t hear the voices. This was my situation six years ago, during the time when I was diagnosed with schizophrenia by a psychiatrist. I dropped out of college and was involuntarily hospitalized. I had no freedom in the hospital, and the …
The Teacher Who Crossed the Ocean
Sept. 9, 2019 • Kyomi Vargas Hoshi
As we commemorate 120 years of Japanese immigration to Peru, I'd like to share a personal reflection inspired by the immigration story of my great-grandmother, who has been an enormous source of admiration for me both as a person and as a woman. Her story is probably similar to that of many other women, a story that is so rarely told. I’m going to take this opportunity to tell it, since it has been 120 years since the Sakura Maru arrived …
A Full Immersion in Today’s LA (Area) Japanese American Community
Sept. 3, 2019 • Kayla Tanaka
Being of only Japanese ancestry and growing up in the South Bay (Torrance) I have never questioned whether or not I belonged to the Japanese American community. My generational identity is that I am Yonsei (fraternal) and Shin-Nisei (maternal), which put me in situations where I am more “Japanese” than my Yonsei friends, but not “Japanese” enough to really be a Nisei. The social outlets that I found myself participating in within the JA community was playing basketball, doing Girl …
Planet Watanabe: Influences of a Nikkei poet
Sept. 2, 2019 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Peruvian poetry has produced great names (César Vallejo, César Moro, José Santos Chocano, Blanca Varela and more signatures) among whom is, without a doubt, the Nikkei writer José Watanabe Varas (Laredo, 1945), whose work has achieved influence different creators through their poems, theater, film scripts and children's literature, among other writings. To know the 'planet Watanabe' is to enter a universe that continues to expand. Books that analyze his life and work, poets who figure in a literary tradition where …