Susan Yamamura

Em Seattle, a temporada de caça aos cogumelos da minha família começava com debates em torno da grande mesa do café da manhã que ficava num amplo recanto rodeado de janelas lá em casa, onde a família fazia todas as refeições do dia-a-dia. À volta da mesa de jantar, eram analisados meticulosamente os rumores sobre amigos e conhecidos vistos em vários locais onde se encontram os cogumelos matsutake – nas Montanhas Cascade, na Península Olímpica e na área da cidade de Shelton [todas localizadas no estado de Washington, no noroeste dos E.U.A ...

How Jichan Became an Araki

Although Jichan was born Nisaku Kaneda, the second of four sons in the Kaneda family of Fukui-ken, when he married, he took the family name of his wife, Masa Araki, acting as a yoshi, so that the Araki family name could be continued. Jichan, around twenty-seven years old, and Bachan, about twenty, were married in Tacoma, WA in December of 1913.

Bachan was an only child, and as a female, she could not carry on the Araki name for the Tokyo branch of the Araki family that was established by her father, Kyuzo Araki. Bachan ...

This month, we feature California-based Yonsei writer, Kendall Tani, and Arizona-based Sansei writer, Susan Yamamura. Susan’s is a lighthearted parody poem that heralds where we look for some solace during a time of major strife, while Kendall’s first piece featured here, soft bodies, speaks to a relationship with oneself through an intimate practice of shaping earth (and future) by hand. Both reminded me of the ideas of comfort and doing something good for ourselves...like poetry, a vessel through which we might practice introspection, our potential, or a bit of peace....enjoy.

—traci kato-kiriyama

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Kendall Tani is a ...

I awoke this morning to memories of the cowboy lament, “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie.” Perhaps the memories had been triggered when I had confronted my mixed feelings about where to be buried. Last evening, I had decided to request burial for the ashes of my deceased husband, Hank, at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known to many as the Punchbowl Cemetery, close to Pearl Harbor. Hank had served as a Captain in the United States Army in the Vietnam era. As Hank’s widow, my ashes could be placed with Hank’s ashes in Punchbowl ...

The grandfather of my heart will always be my father’s father, Grandfather Araki (born a Kaneda but taking the Araki name as a yoshi), whom I called Jichan. He gave me the precious gift of unconditional love. I thought Jichan was his given name. In reality, it was a child’s version of ojisan, which means “old man” or “grandfather” in Japanese. Jichan’s true given name was Nisaku.

Grandfather asked me once why I called him Jichan. I told him all my friends’ names ended in chan and since he was my friend, I had added chan to ...