ニッケイの視点

昨年末、エリンと私はニューヨークを訪れ、ジョージ・タケイ主演のブロードウェイミュージカル、『アリージェンス』を見る機会に恵まれた。第二次世界大戦中の日系アメリカ人の強制収容を描いた物語で、日系人が当時から何世代にも渡って経験してきた精神的苦痛が、鮮明かつパワフルに再現されている。私は、全米退職者協会（AARP）のアジア系・太平洋諸島系アメリカ人コミュニティに向けてミュージカルの感想を書き、ジョージ・タケイ等にインタビューを行った（英語のみ）。

パリの事件は、ミュージカルの2日後、私たちがまだニューヨークに居た時に起きた。その翌日にはロウアー・マンハッタンの9.11記念博物館を訪れることにしていた。『アリージェンス ...

During the Coronavirus pandemic, we’ve all gotten used to staying home every evening – no parties, dinners at restaurants, movie nights, concerts. Just a lot of plopping down on the couch to see what’s available on demand via cable, Netflix, Amazon Prime, or other streaming source that brings entertainment to your living room. A lot of people have been reading too. Book clubs seem to have been embraced by a whole new crop of eager readers.

I was honored this spring to be asked to create an educator’s guide for a novel so that teachers could use the ...

I was driving on the highway one night some years back between Denver and Boulder, when I got harassed by a couple of young white guys who were tailgating me, probably in their teens or early 20s at the most. When I pulled off at an exit they followed me so I pulled into a parking lot and got out of my car. They did the same, and started yelling at me.

“Go back to China, you dirty Jap! Remember Pearl Harbor!!”

I shot back some pleasantries myself, educating them on the fact that I’m Japanese American, and that ...

My mom has suffered from worsening dementia for years, and when my brothers and I saw increasing signs that she would no longer be able to live by herself, we moved her into a Memory Care Center nearby.

Two years ago, my wife, Erin, and I took the last of several trips to Japan with my mom. She has a brother in Sapporo, and another brother lived in Nemuro, her hometown in eastern Hokkaido, until he passed away in January 2016. His widow, my aunt, still lives in the small fishing town. And in Tokyo, my mom has a distant ...

My brother Glenn and I moved my mom from her house in Lafayette, Colorado, last month to live in a memory care facility nearby. She’s had dementia for a long time, and it’s gotten noticeably worse for the past couple of years. I’m still sorting through how it felt to take her out of her house, and how it feels now.

Junko Asakawa was born and raised in Nemuro, a small fishing town in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. She grew up in the pre-war years, and was even crowned “Miss Nemuro” when she was a ...