Edna Horiuchi
@ednaihEdna Horiuchi is a retired Los Angeles teacher. She volunteers at Florence Nishida’s teaching garden in South LA and is active at Senshin Buddhist Temple. She enjoys reading, tai chi, and going to opera.
Updated June 2023
Stories from This Author
An Albuquerque Childhood
Nov. 3, 2023 • Edna Horiuchi
I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico during the 1960’s. My parents had grown up in Hawaii, confident in their Japanese American heritage. There was never any doubt in my mind that I was Japanese American, but I rarely saw people outside of my family who looked like me. During my early childhood, my Nikkei community consisted of my parents, younger brother, and a few others. We were the only Asian family in our neighborhood of tract homes, surrounded by …
In Their Own Voices: Understanding Heart Mountain through Oral Histories
Sept. 18, 2023 • Edna Horiuchi
The book Unforgotten Voices from Heart Mountain by Joanne Oppenheim and Nancy Matsumoto captures the emotions and everyday life during World War II at the Wyoming concentration camp. Presented in a reader’s theater format, the book uses primary-source materials from both inside and outside the camp to illuminate the lived experiences at Heart Mountain. Voices features first-person oral histories from both imprisoned Japanese Americans and the nearby townspeople. The book also includes official documents and letters from camp administrators and …
Eugenia “Jeanie” Kashima, First Topaz Baby
June 6, 2023 • Edna Horiuchi
She was the first baby born at the Topaz Concentration Camp in central Utah. The hospital was not completed yet, so her mother gave birth on a laundry room floor less than two weeks after their arrival in September 1942. A wooden food crate improvised for a crib. Her father was so grateful to the Nikkei doctor, Dr. Eugenia Fujita, that they named the baby after her. Eugenia “Jeanie” Kashima began a series of Topaz collages during COVID isolation. Her …
Navigating With(out) Instruments: traci kato-kiriyama’s art for love, hope, and healing
April 10, 2023 • Edna Horiuchi
It was only a year ago that artist traci kato-kiriyama (they + she) launched their second book, Navigating With(out) Instruments at a party in Little Tokyo on April 10, 2022. Navigating was named in Ms Magazine’s 2022 Poetry Roundup and in the 2021 L.A. Taco Book Guide, which recommends LA-centered books. traci is a queer, third/fourth generation Nikkei writer and performer. She said, “One of the questions I asked myself was what kind of conversations do I want to have …
Redress: A film about the Office of Redress Administration
Feb. 15, 2023 • Edna Horiuchi
For Emi Kuboyama there was “one story that has been haunting me in a way for decades.” Now that story has finally been told in the film Redress which was co-created by Kuboyama, a former ORA lawyer, and Todd Holmes, a UC Berkeley historian, in collaboration with filmmaker Jon Ayon. Redress is an educational short film about the Office of Redress Administration (ORA) and its relationship with the Japanese American community after the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of …
Coronado Japanese community, a Tea Garden, and a Movie Star
Aug. 3, 2022 • Edna Horiuchi
Before World War II, there were sixteen Japanese families (including children, about 100 individuals) living in the resort town of Coronado on a peninsula in San Diego Bay, California. These were Issei who were mostly from Kagoshima, Japan and their Nisei children. Many of the Issei worked at the luxurious Hotel Del Coronado as gardeners, maids, or cooks, or at the nearby North Island naval base as cleaners or doing laundry. Shizue Koba was the only Coronado Issei woman who …
Nobuko Miyamoto: Giving Voice to Asian American Stories - Part 2
Feb. 9, 2022 • Edna Horiuchi
Read Part 1 >> On the influence of Reverend Mas Kodani of Senshin Buddhist Temple (in Los Angeles, CA): I believe one of the most influential people in my art making, actually. But when I came back here to be able to be at Senshin, Rev. Mas just openly gave me the key to the social hall without really knowing me that well. And trusted me. He said, "You could teach dance, you know. You could rehearse here." And that …
Nobuko Miyamoto: Giving Voice to Asian American Stories - Part 1
Feb. 8, 2022 • Edna Horiuchi
Despite the pandemic, 2021 was a landmark year for Great Leap Artistic Director and activist, Nobuko Miyamoto. Her autobiography, Not Yo’ Butterfly, My Long Song of Relocation, Race,Love, and Revolution was published in June by the University of California Press. Her double CD set, 120,000 Songs, was released in February by Smithsonian Folkways and included new songs as well as re-recorded oldies. A Nobuko Miyamoto Christmas Ornament was featured in the Japanese American National Museum’s (JANM) holiday catalog (the previous …
The Highflying Artistry of Miné Okubo
Nov. 12, 2021 • Edna Horiuchi
A whimsical drawing by Miné Okubo portrays a family and dog adrift in a hot air balloon over downtown Los Angeles, the distinctive city hall building in the foreground. The subject matter is very different from the camp drawings of Citizen 13660. Okubo produced this sketch for the holiday edition of the Japanese American newspaper Kashu Mainichi sometime between 1965 and 1975. The drawing was part of a larger collection donated to the Japanese American National Museum in 1998 by Hiro …
Mine Okubo
Oct. 3, 2019 • Edna Horiuchi
The artist Mine Okubo is most famous for her book, Citizen 13660, a graphic memoir of the Japanese American concentration camps. She became my hero while I was a student at University of California (UC), Riverside in 1979. As a young woman in my twenties, I felt inspired by Mine’s accomplishments as part of the “greatest generation” that survived World War II. She did it on her own terms and without apology. She persevered as a female artist and in …
