Documentary - El México más cercano a Japón/The Closest Mexico to Japan
A documentary by Shinpei Takeda portrays the life of the Japanese community in Tijuana, Mexico before and after World War II. The title of his documentary is "El México más cercano a Japón/The Closest Mexico to Japan." Takeda is the co-founder and creative director of The AjA Project ("www.ajaproject.org) and international project helping better the lives of refugee and underprivileged youth. [article from the Union-Tribune] "Little-known Japanese-Mexican community endures despite a world war's injustices" By Pablo Jaime Sáinz March 2, 2008 TIJUANA – Genaro Nonaka remembers the parties at his house when he was a child, parties in which Japanese intermingled with Spanish, where carne asada was served alongside steamed rice. “The elders spoke Japanese, but us kids used to play around speaking Spanish to each other,” says Genaro Nonaka, the 77-year-old son of a Japanese father and a Mexican mother. He said he's proud to be Nisei, a second-generation Japanese living in Tijuana. His father, José Genaro Kingo Nonaka, was a Japanese immigrant who arrived in Tijuana in the early 1920s and became the city's first official photographer. |