In recent decades, Asian-born performers have occupied a visible place in western classical music. These Musicians From a Different Shore, in scholar Mari Yoshihara’s phrase, have included renowned soloists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Mitsuko Uchida, Cho-Liang Lin, Midori, Kyung-Wah Chung, and Lang Lang, conductors such as Seiji Ozawa and Myung-whun …
One of the most fascinating, and most poignant, stories of Nikkei performers in the “golden age” of Hollywood is that of Miki Morita (AKA Mike Morita). While he never achieved the stardom of Sessue Hayakawa, he appeared in some 50 films in 1930s Hollywood. He also distinguished himself by his …
The current exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum, entitled Sutra and Bible: Faith and the Japanese American World War II Incarceration, centers on the role of religion in the wartime Japanese American experience. It follows on the work of scholars such as Duncan Ryuken Williams, Anne Blankenship, and Beth Hessel, …
Two Nisei whose lives and career paths were strikingly uncommon were the siblings Miwa and Yoshio Kai. Miwa was a musical prodigy who starred as a classical pianist on the international stage in the years before World War II, then devoted herself afterwards to work as a skilled librarian—all of …
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