Ben Arikawa
@Ben_AriBen Arikawa es un Sansei del norte de California. Vive no lejos de donde sus abuelos paternos se establecieron hace unos cien años para trabajar en un huerto frutal. Ben asistió recientemente a la peregrinación al lago Tule, donde conoció a Brad y George Takei. Más adelante en su vida, se dio cuenta de que necesitaba contar historias y ha estado explorando su lado literario. Ben ha contribuido con un artículo para Pacific Citizen , el periódico galardonado de la JACL, y varios artículos para Discover Nikkei . Sus historias reflejan sus experiencias como japonés americano, hijo, esposo y padre. También está explorando su lado artístico como director de fotografía en la serie web de Ikeibi Films , Gold Mountain (2016), y como actor en Infinity y Chashu Ramen (2013).
Actualizado en agosto de 2016
Historias de Este Autor
Un viaje a Jerónimo
24 de agosto de 2016 • Ben Arikawa
Otousan , Obasan , Ojisan, ¿cómo estuvo el viaje en tren? Mi padre, mi tía, mi tío y su familia viajaron unas 2.000 millas en tren desde el Centro de Asamblea de Fresno en California, donde fueron encarcelados por primera vez, hasta el Campo de Reubicación de Guerra Jerome, que estuvo abierto de 1942 a 1944. Más de 70 años después, mi esposa y yo viajamos casi esa distancia desde nuestra casa en el norte de California hasta Little Rock, …
All My Friends, They Went to Tule
19 de febrero de 2013 • Ben Arikawa
There are many untold and, possibly, forgotten stories in one’s family history. In an earlier article in the 2011 Holiday Issue of Pacific Citizen, the official newspaper of the Japanese American Citizens League, I wrote about what little I knew and what I didn’t know about my father’s incarceration in Jerome during World War II. Even before that article was published, I began to research the files of persons incarcerated in War Relocation Authority (WRA) camps that were available through …
Homemade Miso Soup
23 de octubre de 2012 • Ben Arikawa
If you have been to a Japanese restaurant in the United States, you probably have been served a warm, salty, light brown miso soup. Sometimes it will have thinly sliced scallions floating in the broth. Sometimes there will be miniature cubes of tofu hidden in the depths below the particles of miso suspended in the broth. It is offered more as an afterthought, usually before a meal of overly large portions of protein or sushi. My daughter, Elizabeth, came back …
Mochi and Me
4 de septiembre de 2012 • Ben Arikawa
Mochi is a quintessential Nikkei food. Mochi is a symbol of our ties to our ancestral homeland, the land of small, terraced rice fields tended by family farmers. Mochi is made from rice. Not the typical rice you cook at home, but a glutinous rice that is very sticky when cooked. In the traditional method, the rice is steamed, ground and pounded by people wielding wooden mallets into a sticky dough. I have a very vague memory of my extended …
Two Weddings and a Funeral
4 de junio de 2012 • Ben Arikawa
I’m not yet at the age where I scan the obituaries for people I knew, like I remember my father doing. In his later years, he would open the paper to the obituaries most days, looking for the names of acquaintances. I remember my father saying: “I was talking to Don the other day. Frank is gone. Don and I are the only ones left from camp now.” (Don and my father were roommates for a time in the Jerome …
Cooking Traditions with Mom
21 de mayo de 2012 • Ben Arikawa
I have been told by various people that I am a “good” cook. I’m usually able to put together dishes without recipes from whatever is in the refrigerator or to come up with menu ideas just walking down store aisles. Breakdown a chicken? Just give me the sharp cleaver. Need a grilled 20 pound Thanksgiving turkey instead of an oven roasted one? No problem. Need an easy appetizer for 20? Caramelized onion/pancetta quesadillas with guacamole. Sushi for six? Just let …
Will We Feel the Ghost of the Past at Jerome?
23 de enero de 2012 • Ben Arikawa
14-8-C…A few years ago, this series of numbers and a letter were meaningless to me. Then I happened to find my father’s photo album that contain scenes stretching from his childhood in Japan to camp in Arkansas and Arizona and back to Japan where he married my mother in the 1950s. I don’t think that my brothers, sister, or I had seen any of these pictures and my father rarely spoke of his life before kids except for a typical …
The Accidental Actor: On Location with the Cast and Crew of Infinity and Chashu Ramen
6 de diciembre de 2011 • Ben Arikawa
I have spent a great deal of my life trying not to be conspicuous. Maybe it’s the result of my painful lack of social skills when I was younger, my innate shyness in front of people, or maybe it was my mother’s entreaties not to stand out. Though born in Los Angeles, she lived in Japan during World War II. My mother was painfully aware of the incarceration of Japanese Americans, including my father, grandfathers, aunt, uncle, and cousins. She …
Reflections on a Road Well Traveled
31 de agosto de 2011 • Ben Arikawa
My daughter and I recently took the 180 mile trip from Placer County, California to my hometown, Fresno. Most of the trip is made on Highway 99, which runs down the middle of the Central Valley. This is a drive that I know very well. During an eleven year span from 1988-1998, I made the trip once a month to check up on my mother. I separately visited my father since my parents had divorced in the mid-1980s. Since my …
