Chanda Ishisaka

A história do meu nome do meio me trouxe orgulho e também pressão quando eu ainda era criança. O meu nome do meio é Chiyoko, em homenagem à minha avó Chiyoko, a mãe do meu pai. A minha avó teve câncer de estômago antes do meu nascimento. Ela tentou sobreviver para me ver nascer, mas faleceu poucos meses antes do meu nascimento. Os meus pais me contaram como a família ficou triste com a morte da minha avó, mas eu trouxe a felicidade de volta à família. As recordações favoritas que o meu ...

Ser artista marcial não era para ter acontecido na minha vida. O plano era para eu me concentrar nos estudos e ganhar boas notas. Mas o meu pai quis que o meu irmão menor entrasse no judô quando ele tinha cinco anos, e eu fiquei com ciúmes. Eu perguntei ao meu pai se poderia entrar também. Ele disse que sim, com a condição de que eu teria que continuar a praticar judô até receber a faixa preta. Eu agora deveria mencionar que o meu pai era um judoca sensei que exigia que todos na fam ...

When thinking of the journal theme of Nikkei families, I thought of how much my family has shaped me but how little I have included them in my own involvement in the Japanese community. Even more, how much have I included my Mexican mother in my Japanese community?

Last year I was hit with a dilemma. My mother was coming to visit me in Seattle when I actually needed to leave for Idaho. My organization, the Minidoka Pilgrimage Planning Committee, was having our annual pilgrimage trip, bringing over two hundred people to the former World War II Japanese incarceration camp ...

Today I received the news that my friend and fellow Minidoka Pilgrimage Planning Committee member passed away. Frank was 2 years old during World War II when his family was told to leave Bainbridge Island and go to the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California and later sent to the camp called Minidoka in Idaho. To me, Frank was my elder, a man I respected and looked for guidance and wisdom. With his passing, I can’t help but reflect what the Minidoka Pilgrimage Planning Committee has meant to me over the years.

I joined the Minidoka Pilgrimage Planning Committee ...

I made some soba for dinner today. Soba is a Japanese noodle made with buckwheat flour. My memory of soba noodles is having them with my obachan (grandma) at this one restaurant I grew up with called Oki’s in Monterey Park, California, which is no longer open.

I must have been around six years old when one day, I was at Oki’s with my two aunts. I was trying to explain to them I wanted soba.

Although at that time, I didn’t know what they were called. I never knew the Japanese words for the things I ...