Nikkei Uncovered: a poetry column

Hoping for a Rainbow

Curtiss Takada Rooks,  traci kato-kiriyama

We are overjoyed to again feature Dr. Curtiss Takada Rooks in this springtime edition of the Nikkei Uncovered poetry column. Professor and Los Angeles-based creative, Dr. Takada Rooks offers us two wondrous and personal pieces of memory, homage, and hope - inviting us to recall the songs of our families, …

Nikkei Uncovered: a poetry column

Wonder

Curtiss Takada Rooks,  Mariko Fujimoto Rooks,  traci kato-kiriyama

To close out 2020 and recognize it as a time of challenge, reckoning and coming together, we are excited to end on a strong and beautiful note with this month's feature. We are happy to host the return to Nikkei Uncovered by Mariko Fujimoto Rooks and, this time, feature Mariko …

Reflections on Being Mixed, but Not Mixed Up

Curtiss Takada Rooks

My mother was Japanese. My father was Black (African American). My father was Black. My mother was Japanese. I am Black. I am Japanese. I am both. I am Japanese. I am Black. I am both. 

On Being Japanese American

Curtiss Takada Rooks

The U.S. military occupation of Japan following World War II resulted in the largest cohort of Japanese immigration of Japanese to the U.S. since the 1924 Immigration Act. This migration of Japanese women married to U.S. soldiers drastically changed the make up and complexion of the Japanese American community as …