Leah Nanako Winkler
@LeahNanakoLeah Nanako Winkler é uma hapa de primeira geração que mora no Brooklyn, Nova York. Ela é escritora de peças, ensaios e pilotos de televisão. Você pode aprender mais sobre Leah e seu trabalho em www.leahwinkler.org .
Atualizado em fevereiro de 2013
Stories from This Author
Maneuvering Margins – Adventures From The Between
9 de Janeiro de 2012 • Leah Nanako Winkler
It didn’t take long after I moved from a cramped apartment I couldn’t afford on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to a friend’s house in Astoria, a highly cultural yet homely neighborhood in Queens, that I began to notice that my surroundings had become more Japanese. Whether I was buying onigiri and natto at the Family Market (no relation to the eerily similar looking Family Mart—the Japanese konbini franchise) around the corner or dining at the deliciously authentic Lin restaurant (also …
Five Places That Can Make a Hapa Feel at Home in NYC
6 de Julho de 2010 • Leah Nanako Winkler
For the first six years of my life, I was convinced that the United States and Japan were literally on different planets. During fourteen-hour red-eye flights from Narita to Ohio, I envisioned the airplane as a rocket ship, speeding through the silver clouds in the night sky. I was stupidly thrilled by the notion of passing through the orbiting stars of the galaxy while my mother nervously downed multiple Bloody Marys in preparation for a visit with the in-laws who …
I Am Job
18 de Março de 2010 • Leah Nanako Winkler
I was fourteen when I got my first job as a cashier at a Japanese convenience store in Lexington, Kentucky. We sold imported goods like Haichu and Pocky at inflated prices and welcomed each customer with a pleasant “irasshai mase!” Soon after, I made enough connections in the small Japanese community to acquire a waitress position at a local sushi bar. I was fired after three weeks for (a) being a horrible waitress and (b) not being able to understand …
Forgetting
5 de Março de 2010 • Leah Nanako Winkler
I know that the last time I said goodbye to my Grandfather, he told me he loved me very much. But when I look back at that moment, I can only see blurry flashes of memories that never existed. He opens the shoji, walking towards the genkan of a white space. He smiles, looking chubbier than usual—similar to how he looked before dialysis treatments when he could enjoy the poisons of his choice—like soy sauce and sake. I don’t know …
A Day in a Life of a Not Quite New York Hapa Who Is Told She Looks Like Winnie Cooper From The Wonder Years
15 de Fevereiro de 2010 • Leah Nanako Winkler
8:15 a.m. Alarm. Cotton mouth. The side effects of the sertaline (a Zoloft generic because I can’t afford the real thing) are kicking in. Lament Dr. Hoffman for increasing the dosage. I did not sleep well. Eyes still heavy. Press snooze. 8:30 a.m. Alarm. Half-dreaming of floating balloons and cranes. See a missed call from my mother. I miss her but she stresses me out. Forget to press snooze. 8:55 a.m. Sound of a blender. Pretty White Roommate is making …
Nature vs. Nurture - Everything is going to be okay
14 de Janeiro de 2010 • Leah Nanako Winkler
As a bewildered immigrant child imported to the hills of central Kentucky from metropolitan Japan, I often found solace in torturing small animals. Although my peers seemed to migrate to me during those first few years of living in the south due to my inadvertent ‘foreign’ allure, I was often distant towards their offers of friendship. When asked about my after-school playtime activities, I hid underneath a façade of a benevolent tomboy who enjoyed solitude and basketball. In reality though, …
On Isolation
18 de Novembro de 2009 • Leah Nanako Winkler
I saw her picture on my computer screen after I pseudo-accidentally hacked into my boyfriend’s Facebook account. When you’re sharing a disintegrating relationship and a tiny bedroom with a partner, social networking sites left unattended morph into mere temptations of privacy invasion. By frequently using my laptop and forgetting to log off, he had unintentionally left me the option to find his guilt-ridden messages of infatuation to Amalia Sajaro—a gnomish yet striking violist he met at music camp that summer. …
The Hapa Advantage
24 de Julho de 2009 • Leah Nanako Winkler
“Hybrids are better”—Shayne KaoFor as long as I’ve lived here, New York City winters have put me into voluntary solitary confinement. December through March is a particularly bleak period when everyone in the city seems to be wearing only black, and I want to do nothing but crawl under my covers to avoid the oppressive buildings and empty expressions of those who pass me by on the dark and heinous streets at night. Even the purse Chihuahuas know that after …
Am I Unstable? Or am I just a Hapa?
6 de Março de 2009 • Leah Nanako Winkler
I have an early memory of a “bowing war” that occurred between my Japanese grandmother and a visiting neighbor who had come to her home bearing gifts of mochi and tangerines in Shimabara. In my mind, the conversation went like this: GRANDMA (bowing down to NEIGHBOR) Thank you so much for coming over to my pathetic excuse of a home! NEIGHBOR (bowing down to GRANDMA) Don’t be silly! Thank YOU so much for letting my pathetic self come over to …
Suupaa Gaijin Justin Baldwin
29 de Janeiro de 2009 • Leah Nanako Winkler
Justin Baldwin hands me a business card. He is endearingly tense as he begrudgingly mingles at a benefit honoring his mentor Roger Shimomura—the infamous yet acclaimed artist known for his controversial social political art on Asian America. I immediately notice that Justin and I have two things in common. (1) He is trying hard not to be uncomfortable at this elite social gathering. (2) He is a Hapa. Justin is seemingly a timid artistic type. Sporting black and grey-framed glasses, …
