コウジ・スティーブン・サカイ

I admit that I cringe whenever I see or hear of an Asian American or Japanese American doing something stupid, embarrassing, or downright immoral and unlawful. I always feel as though it reflects badly on myself.

Like when that crazy Asian American kid shot up his college in Virginia. Or that Japanese American guy that was involved in the Barry Bonds homerun baseball lawsuit. Or even something smaller, the bad Asian driver or the Japanese tourist taking photos of everything.

After any of these kinds of public moments of humiliation or confirmation of long standing stereotypes, I always feel that ...

Names have power. Names convey a message about who you are, where you come from, and has at times in our history meant that you were either on our side or “theirs.” My name is Koji Steven Sakai, what does that say about me?

Like a lot of kids, I dreamed of one day becoming President and ruling the country and all my minions with an iron fist. But I wasn’t a stupid kid. I knew my foreign sounding first and last names would instantly say that I was not like everyone, that I wasn’t from here, and ...

I think my nisei grandfather was a spy for Japan during the Second World War. I know that’s a loaded thing to say in the Japanese American community, but the more I find out, the more certain I become of it.

Let me start from the beginning...

Over the last few years I have been doing research on my family. Specifically, what happened to us during WWII. It started when I requested my grandfather’s papers from the National Archives.

My grandfather and his family was one of only 3,000 Japanese Americans to be incarcerated from Hawaii. The ...

A couple of weekends ago I found out I was a racist. Not the white pillow case over my head kind but something quieter, more insidious. It’s made me rethink my own racial sensitivity and question the times where I’ve felt racially offended.

But let me start from the beginning...

I was walking home with my dog when an African American man started talking to me. He was nice and when he turned onto my street I asked him if he had just moved onto the block. When he said he had, I then told him that I ...

This year’s presidential election is exciting because for the first time in our history, a woman or a person of color has a real shot of being President of the United States. I didn’t think it would happen in my lifetime. All of this excitement has got me thinking: Could an Asian American ever become president?

The cynical (smart money) answer is no. I think to the vast majority of people in the United States, Asian Americans are still martial arts experts, geishas, good at math, hard working, dragon ladies, nerds who like to lust after blond-haired blue-eyed ...