Many Japanese Americans who’ve grown up since World War II—myself included—dreaded December 7 every year. As kids (and sometimes as adults) we’ve been taunted with hateful calls to “Go home, Jap!,” “Go back where you came from!,” and the classic, “Remember Pearl Harbor!”
There’s no getting around it: one of the most reliable ways to generate international friendship and cultural understanding is through the stomach.
We recently were privileged to enjoy a concert of contemporary jazz by a vibrant young group from Japan, the Ai Kuwabara Trio Project. Simply put, the combo rocked the joint at the King Center for the Performing Arts at the Auraria campus. The auditorium was full for the free performance, …
We’re fans of the CBS series “Hawaii Five-0” for lots of reasons, including the fact that it’s a showcase for Asian and Pacific Islander actors such as Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park, and the entertaining “bromance” relationship between Steve McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) and Danny “Danno” Williams (Scott Caan).
At our local supermarket the weekend before Veterans Day, veterans were handing out little red poppies to pin on passersby’s lapels as tributes to generations of war dead (it’s a reference to John McCrae’s 1915 WWI poem, “In Flanders Fields”).
I was lucky enough to see Judith Hill perform in Los Angeles during the 2010 convention of the Asian American Journalists Association, when she played a set for opening night. Hill had a unique story as a performer: the daughter of an African American father and Japanese mother who are …
Recently a Seattle sushi restaurant, Mashiko, posted an open letter on its website saying that people who criticize the restaurant for having non-Japanese employees sushi are bigots.
I visited the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center in Portland, Oregon last week while on a business trip to the northwest, and I was struck at how important organizations like it, and the museum it operates are for our community.
Forget Pace Picante Sauce, which used to make a big deal of being made in San Antonio instead of phony salsas made in New York City. Forget San Antonio as well as New York City. Look no further than Pueblo and Boulder, Colorado.
For a long time, there were painfully few novels that were about the experience of Japanese Americans who were put into concentration camps during World War II. Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston which was published in 1973, stood alone, unless you counted the powerful …
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