ニューヨーク市、および南加に30年滞米、1994年、帰国し、現在北九州市に住む。 ジョアン・オッペンハイム著『 Dear Miss Breed: True Stories of the Japanese American Incarceration During World War II and a Librarian Who Made a Difference （邦題：親愛なるブリードさま -強制収容された日系二世とアメリカ人図書館司書の物語-）』の邦訳を東京・柏書房より出版。
（2012年9月 更新）
この執筆者によるストーリー
Panama Hotel
2012年5月25日 • 今村 亮
New York Times Best Seller Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet was a Christmas gift from my daughter. The author Jamie Ford autographed and wrote: “Rio, inspiration comes from life and good books. Keep writing” and an actual size “Do Not Disturb (reading)” book marker attached, jutting half an inch out of the book. My daughter wrote, “I met Jamie Ford in person at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. He signed the book for you and for …
Revisiting Little Tokyo / Japanese American National Museum
2012年5月11日 • 今村 亮
On my recent trip to Little Tokyo branch library in Los Angeles, notices for two fund-raising campaigns were posted—one to build a Ryoma Sakamoto statute and the other to save Bunichi Kagawa’s poem epitaph. Ryoma Sakamoto (1836-1867), a legendary Meiji Restoration icon, who attempted to organize a peaceful revolution, but instead was assassinated, is one of the best loved historical figures of Japan today. Ryoma, a visionary Samurai, who deserted Tosa-Clan, conceived the first trading company and ocean support fleet, …
Van Nuys Japanese Garden
2012年4月19日 • 今村 亮
It seemed like a step down. Back then, the Valley was a big oven with nothing in it, a great sea of nothing, an ocean with no ships and at night, if you went out there, were very few lights. —Robert Redford on moving to Van Nuys as a teenager in a 1998 New Yorker interview. Sepulveda (taken from the family name of the early Angelinos) Basin is where San Diego …
Congressional Gold Medal Moment To Share
2012年4月9日 • 今村 亮
On November 2, 2011, the long awaited Congressional Gold Medal (CGM) presentation to hundreds of Japanese-American veterans who collectively fought bravely during WW II was held in Washington D.C. Amid the applause of many well-wishers and families, the ceremony was met with much fanfare, many speeches, including the keynote speech by President Obama. Japanese-Americans fought to prove their faithfulness to the U.S., while their parents, brothers and sisters were detained behind barbed wire. For those veterans who were unable to …
Frank and Nevelo Yasuda, Alaskan Mining Hall of Fame
2012年2月6日 • 今村 亮
“We stayed six months cumulatively in Point Barrow, Alaska for scientific research,” said an unexpected message from my San Diego Japanese friends. “In the Barrow research library, we found a Japanese book An Alaskan Tale written by Jiro Nitta about Frank Yasuda1. Jujiro Wada (1875-1937) and Frank Yasuda (1868-1958)—all in the same generation. Have you read Jiro Nitta’s book that became a movie?” Well, I know author Nitta (1912-1980) who wrote the Death March on Mt. Hakkoda, the deadly military …
