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Sports

From judo to kendo, baseball to basketball, sumo to weightlifting and ice skating, people of Japanese descent have established themselves on the playing field and in the arena.

The achievements and contributions of athletes like San Francisco 49er and baseball player Wally Yonamine, Olympian weightlifter Emerick Ishikawa, Canadian hockey star Paul Kariya, and Brazilian sumo wrestler Fernando Yoshinobu Kuroda, represent only a few of the colorful stories of individual Nikkei success in sport. Similarly, the stories of teams such as the L.A. Nippons, the Aloha Team, and the Vancouver Asahis reflect the historic role of sports in Nikkei communities around the world.

Resources on Nikkei in Sports

Chicago Japanese American Historical Society, the Discover Nikkei affiliate, created an online version of its first travel exhibit "Japanese American Team Spirit: the Chicago Nisei Athletic Association" and contributed it via link from the Discover Nikkei web site.
Alec Yoshio MacDonald, Sports, Community, and History: Reflections on Recording the Japanese American Experience in Chicago (Voice of Chicago)
"[The exhibition] tells the story of one immigrant group through the universally popular topic of sport. From initial immigration in the late 1800s through incarceration during World War II and the triumph of the 1952 Olympics where four Japanese Americans won a total of seven medals, the exhibition reveals a unique, and often untold, perspective on how sport influenced and impacted the evolution of the Japanese American community."
"Japanese Americans have attained the highest sporting honors imaginable: NCAA basketball championships, Wimbledon tennis crowns and Olympic Gold Medals. While much is made of current Japanese athletes like Ichiro and Shinjo, a group of brave and remarkable nisei have gone unsung — until now. The Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California (JCCCNC) honored five pioneering athletes with the creation of its new Japanese Sports Hall of Fame, which got a royal opening at Pacific Bell Park this past Saturday."
"Elas conquistaram os tatames e agora dão socos, chutes, pontapés e até chaves de braço e colocam muitos marmanjos para correr."

Research resources on Nikkei in sports include:

Sports (A-Z)

Baseball

Basketball

Describes efforts to revitalize Los Angeles' Little Tokyo district by building a basketball recreation center.
"In the Bay Area, Japanese American basketball teams emerged in the 1930s. Over the decades, the race-based teams expanded to include other Asian ethnicities, and many are now debating their mission. In this era of greater inclusion, are they practicing a form of the same discrimination once faced by many Asians? Or do they protect the community from the forces of assimilation and build strength from within?"


Bowling

Boxing

Chess

Diving

Fencing

Football

  • Peter Okada (1919-2004); introduced football to Japanese high school students after World War II.
    • Obituary: King County Journal, October 19, 2004.
    • Profile: Japanese-American Veterans Association
"The San Francisco 49ers signed wide receiver Johnnie Morton to a two-year contract and the New England Patriots agreed to a one-year deal with kick-returner Chad Morton on Tuesday."
    • 10-year comprehensive player statistics from NFL.com.
    • Morton describes how he gained an appreciation of his own multi-racial heritage through sports in the Real People video archives.
"The San Francisco 49ers signed wide receiver Johnnie Morton to a two-year contract and the New England Patriots agreed to a one-year deal with kick-returner Chad Morton on Tuesday."

Hockey

Ice Skating

Judo

Kendo

Soccer

海を渡ったサムライたち--日伯セレソン物語--(コロニアニッケイ社会ニュース)

Sumo

Asato Yamamoto, Mitsugu Hamanaka and Mitoki Kawaguchi, Fresno, California, June 1938. Japanese American National Museum, Gift of Mitsugu Hamanaka (97.29.4).
Asato Yamamoto, Mitsugu Hamanaka and Mitoki Kawaguchi, Fresno, California, June 1938. Japanese American National Museum, Gift of Mitsugu Hamanaka (97.29.4).
Describes the return of sumo to the fishing village of Steveston, British Columbia.
"Though known as the national sport of Japan, sumo has a long history in the United States. Prior to World War II, the story of sumo in the U.S. is a Japanese American one, where it played an important and largely forgotten role in many Japanese American communities in Hawai'i and on the West Coast. This exhibit traces the history of sumo in Hawai'i from its Japanese American roots to its current popularity and includes an explanation of the culture, ceremony and rules of sumo. It was originally mounted by the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawai'i and has been augmented with a section on the history of Japanese American sumo on the mainland."

Surfing

  • Wayne Miyata (1942-2005), surfer and surfboard maker
    • Associated Press, Obituary. New York Times, March 25, 2005.

Swimming

  • Ford Hiroshi Konno, Olympic medalist (Hawai'i Sports Hall of Fame and Cybermuseum)
  • Soichi Sakamoto (d.1997), swimming coach

Tennis

Track & Field

Weightlifting

Profiles the "golden age" of Hawaiian and U.S. weightlifting, one of the first integrated sports. Includes Richard Tom, Emerick Ishikawa, Harold Sakata, and Richard Tomita.

Wrestling

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