Kimiko Medlock
@chikkishimanjuKimiko Medlock is an occasional freelance writer currently living in the Bay area. She holds an MA in modern Japanese history.
Updated January 2022
Stories from This Author
Just One Place for Easy Japanese Recipes
Aug. 28, 2017 • Kimiko Medlock
“Many of you grew up eating Japanese food prepared by your grandmother or mother. I would like to encourage you to try making these natsukashii (nostalgic) dishes at home. You will be surprised how much joy it will bring you! Food has the ability to connect the present and the past. It also plays a big part in preserving our cultures and traditions. I would be very happy if Just One Cookbook became a reliable source for your daily Japanese …
Writing-to-Rediscover & Writing-to-Redress—Mira Shimabukuro Visits JANM
May 9, 2017 • Kimiko Medlock
“FIRST OF ALL, DO I THINK THAT IT WAS CONSTITUTIONAL? NO I DO NOT… DO I THINK RACIAL PQEDD PREDJUDICE WAS INVOLVED? YES I DO… DO I THINK THAT THE EVACUATION DID OR WILL DO SOME GOOD? YES” (Hayami) Reading Mira Shimabukuro’s newly released book Relocating Authority (2016) is to travel back. Back to WWII and back to your own high school history lessons, in which you learned that barring a few outliers, Japanese Americans walked quietly and cooperatively …
The Japanese American National Museum Serves Up East Side Sushi
Jan. 24, 2017 • Kimiko Medlock
The independent film East Side Sushi debuted in 2014 on the film festival circuit, and depicts a young single mother on her journey to become a sushi chef. It has already garnered over 13 awards at various festivals, including a Jury Award at the 2014 Napa Valley Film Festival, and Audience Award at the 2015 CAAMFest. It has touched audiences around the country, and now it is coming to the Japanese American National Museum on Saturday, January 28 at 2 …
The Principles and Convictions of Fred T. Korematsu
May 20, 2016 • Kimiko Medlock
November 10, 1983, was a big day for Fred T. Korematsu and his legal team. Ten months after filing a legal petition on Fred’s behalf, they all finally stood before a judge in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. In 1942, Fred had been convicted of violating WWII exclusion orders for choosing to remain behind in California as other Japanese Americans reported for incarceration. And now, after carrying the burden of that conviction for over 40 years, Fred was back …
Civil Rights Advocate Recounts The Japanese American Story
Jan. 19, 2016 • Kimiko Medlock
S. Floyd Mori is the former National Executive Director/CEO of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), current president of the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS), and has held numerous other positions besides. He has worked as an international business consultant, a professor of economics, the mayor of Pleasanton, California, and been elected to the California state assembly. His greatest achievement though, by his own account, has been his lifelong commitment to Japanese American civil rights advocacy. After …
Ozōni Soup for the JA Soul
Oct. 29, 2015 • Kimiko Medlock
When Matthew Hashiguchi first began to record his grandmother’s story, he expected to produce one full-length documentary about Japanese Americans in the Midwest and Canada. He did not foresee the community’s overwhelming enthusiasm or the project’s resulting expansion to include an online storytelling platform that showcases JA history both before and after the war. He has named the platform Good Luck Soup. Good Luck Soup has been a new type of endeavor for Hashiguchi, whose earlier photo and multimedia journalism …
A Poet, a Mystery Novelist, and Writing in Japanese America
Sept. 11, 2015 • Kimiko Medlock
The Japanese American experience is rarely tackled in mainstream literature. In 2015, Asian protagonists are still conspicuously absent from novels, missing in popular films, and seldom cast in leading theater roles. But we are not invisible. Asian American authors and artists in the past century have taken representation into their own hands, voicing their own life experiences through creative arts. On September 19, the Japanese American National Museum will feature two such Asian American artists in an event titled Writing …
TAIKOPROJECT in Collaboration with Mexican Folk/Rockers
Aug. 21, 2015 • Kimiko Medlock
TAIKOPROJECT is at it again. The fast-paced, world-class LA taiko group has recently finished a nationwide tour. And now, fresh off the April release of their CD, Our Many Sides, they are busy with a new project. On September 18-19, 2015, they will perform an integrated concert with the Chicano rock band Quetzal at 8 p.m. at the Tateuchi Democracy Forum at the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy (across the courtyard from the main Japanese American National Museum …
Don’t Worry Be Hapa
July 24, 2015 • Kimiko Medlock
My sisters and I all have the same dry humor and vertically conservative height, but that’s about where our obvious similarities end. We all have the same Sansei Okinawan mother and Southern-ish Florida father, but we’re often told that we don’t look alike. I might describe our general connection growing up with our “Japanese-ness” as tenuous at best. We ate rice with every meal and never failed to bring gifts to friends’ houses. But then we also heard Pidgin and …
East Coasters on the Taiko Scene
June 22, 2015 • Kimiko Medlock
Discover Nikkei readers may know taiko as an originally Japanese art, heard on obon nights as grandmothers encourage the community to join in a circular dance. Or perhaps they know it in its post-WWII performance variety. The famed Japanese ensemble taiko group Kodo, for example, tours around the world and brings their rhythms and notions of Japanese culture with them wherever they go…or perhaps readers have never heard of taiko. Japanese drumming has been playing a unifying role in West …
