ハリー・K・ホンダ

ブラジルサンパウロで7月14日から21日にかけて第48回海外日系人大会と第14回パンアメリカン日系人大会の合同大会が開催された。約500人 近い参加者が集った。ブラジルから245名、ペルー、パラグアイ、メキシコ、アルゼンチン、チリ、ボリビアなどのスペイン語圏からは156名、英語圏のア メリカ合衆国、カナダ、オーストラリアからは66名ほどの参加者であった。

今回はインドネシア、ベネズエラ、ニューカレドニアからも代表者が初めて参加した。約100世帯規模の日系社会であるウルグアイは、アルゼンチンとパラグアイの協力をもって2009年のパンアメリカン日系人大会の開催国となることに合意した。

サンパウロは人口約1900万人を抱える大都市であり、サンパウロ州にはは約150万人*の日系人がいるといわれており、日系人人口の大部分そこへ集中している。また、およそ31万人の日系ブラジル人はデカセギとして日本へ移住している ...

The dictionary in question is the New Kenkyusha Japanese-English Dictionary, published in Tokyo in 1931. This was a gift from Masaru Miyauchi, my cousin, in Fukuoka Prefecture on my mother’s side, when I graduated from Maryknoll School as an eighth grader in 1932. The dictionary, its binding scotch-taped around the spine now, remains in good use and standing to this day.

During my high school days, Mom kept encouraging me to write letters to my cousin in Nihongo and Masaru-san responded in English. Our letters were truly simple. We were writing about the weather, our high school, and weekend ...

Almost twenty years ago, on January 15, 1985, a steel container, 4 feet high and 18 inches in diameter, was buried beneath a tree fronting the George and Sakaye Aratani Japan America Theater at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center. The tiny plaque marking the spot where this Little Tokyo Centennial Time Capsule is today is no longer there, having been removed for safekeeping. Some have noticed bronze plates were pulled off the other sites within J-town.

Perhaps, as each decade looms, the Nikkei community should be reminded that there is a time capsule containing a variety of memorabilia ...

The first Japanese to arrive in 1869 were two servants, T. Kamo and I. Nosaka, of the Kewen family living in El Molino Viejo, the Old Mill, previously owned by Mission San Gabriel in San Marino today. Their names are recorded in the 1870 Census. The late senior curator William Mason of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History believed they were members of the ill-fated Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony near Sacramento.

By 1884, there were fewer than fifty Japanese in town, one of whom, Hamanosuke Shigeta, opened a restaurant at 340 East First Street, in a ...

ONE AUGUST MORNING, time allowed for me to view Killer Subs at Pearl Harbor, a DVD about the five Japanese mini-submarines, called “tubes” while being produced at Kure Naval Base in Hiroshima. To remain submerged for a long time, air conditioners were installed for the two-man minisubs. Torpedoes were trimmed to fit. Gyrocompass provided direction while undersea.
 
By late November, 1941, minisubs were transported by a mother sub for Hawaii. Their mission was not to fire until after the air attack. That their orders were personally handed from the Japanese Sixth Fleet admiral only heighten the glory to come.

The ...