Interviews

1. Experiencing discrimination as a child

2. Feeling empowered by taiko

3. Taiko as self-expression

4. Sense of lineage between Sansei and Issei through Taiko

5. Learning from and appreciating the Nisei experience

6. Diverse membership in San Jose Taiko

7. Bringing Japanese American taiko to Japan

8. A “principally-based” taiko group in England creating a global taiko community

Hirabayashi,PJ

Co-founder and creative director of San Jose Taiko

Feeling empowered by taiko

Why Taiko spoke so vigorously to me was because I felt like there was a sense of empowerment through the energy. And I could not find anything that was in the cultural arts for me to tap into. I couldn’t get into classical dancing. I could not get into flower arranging or tea ceremony. It was just not me. I just really encapsulated everything about the physicality of sports, the martial arts, the dance, the movement, the musicality, the discipline, the theatrics. Just everything that could just make me very ballistic and very open.

culture drum identity taiko

Date: January 26, 2005

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Art Hansen, Sojin Kim

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Patti Jo “PJ” Hirabayashi is among the most prominent women taiko players in the United States. Born and raised in Northern California, she attended Cal State Hayward where she became involved in Asian American movement activities before transferring to UC Berkeley. After graduation, she spent a year living in Japan before returning to San Jose where she was a graduate student in Urban and Regional Planning at San Jose State University. While there, she became acting director of the school’s Asian American Studies Center. She wrote her master’s thesis about the future of San Jose’s Japantown.

Hirabayashi joined San Jose Taiko in January 1974 as a charter member of the group. She is now the creative director of the ensemble, and she draws inspiration from the Asian American civil rights movement. She performs, trains, teaches, develops repertoire, tours, holds public workshops and conducts school outreach programs.(January 26, 2005)