Tom LaVenture
Thomas J. LaVenture is the Managing Editor of the Asian American Press, pan-Asian, English language weekly publication based in St. Paul, Minnesota, with a circulation of 15,000. He has worked at the paper since 1997 as a writer and with related nonprofits and became the managing editor in 2001. He has also worked as a staff writer at The Daily Journal in International Falls, Minnesota in 2008, and is currently readying to work at The Garden Island daily newspaper in Kaua'i, Hawai'i in July 2011. He will continue to assist with Asian American Press operations for the time being. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Superior in 1997 with a degree in Political Science and Journalism. He is also a U.S. Army veteran.
Updated June 2011
Stories from This Author
Sharing War Stories: Five-year study leads to museum updating exhibit of internment of Japanese Americans
Jan. 3, 2014 • Tom LaVenture
Piece by piece, clue by clue, the big picture is coming together. Patched together from black and white photos, diaries and letters, the missing history of the Japanese-American internment on Kauai during World War II is starting to fill. More light is being shed, thanks to intensive research. In the ongoing effort to update the available information, the Kauai Museum announced recently that five years of research has culminated in a major update to the exhibits related to the war …
From Shakespeare to tiger mom Jodi Long has done it all - Part 2 or 2
June 21, 2013 • Tom LaVenture , Asian American Press
Read Part 1 >> Long Story Short Long will also reprise her one-woman show, Surfing DNA, this June with East West Players in Los Angeles. Her performance about her own growing up in a show business family earned Long an Ovation Nomination for Best Solo Performance in 2012. The film documentary version of Long Story Short, directed by Academy Award-nominated Christine Choy, is Long’s screenwriting debut. The film tells the same story about her vaudevillian parents as the Larry and Trudie Leung …
From Shakespeare to tiger mom Jodi Long has done it all - Part 1 of 2
June 14, 2013 • Tom LaVenture , Asian American Press
Jodi Long was made for the theater. Yet, she enjoys her work in films and has a knack for playing judges and tiger moms on television. Long is a Broadway actress with more than 30 major theater roles, and appearances in 18 feature films, dozens of television shows, and produced her own documentary about her theatrical parents. She is going strong with television and her own one-woman theater project for 2013. “I have made a living from acting for a …
Don Maeda still making crowns at 86 - Part 4 of 4
July 21, 2011 • Tom LaVenture
Read part 3 >>Raising a familyJanet (Carlson) is the eldest daughter. After she earned a doctorate she was on the faculty of Macalester College for many years. She has a grown son, Matthew. The second daughter, Joan, is a writer who earned a Master of Fine Arts degree. She also manages a bookstore and has five children, Nate, Megan, Brynna, Eben and Jonathan. The third daughter, Donna, has a Ph.D and a law degree. She lives in California, where she …
Don Maeda still making crowns at 86 - Part 3 of 4
July 14, 2011 • Tom LaVenture
Read part 2 >>Katheryn KuboMaeda and his wife Katheryn (Kay) raised five children together. She passed away from cancer 11 years ago. Maeda met Kay at a youth group event at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church at 22nd and Blaisdell in Minneapolis. It was organized for Japanese American young adults by Father Daisuke Kitagawa, who also held services for Japanese elders. “It was hard to make friends and they started a youth fellowship center and that is where a lot of …
Don Maeda still making crowns at 86 - Part 2 of 4
July 7, 2011 • Tom LaVenture
Read part 1 >>The ArmyBy 1943 many of the men in the camp had already volunteered or had been drafted to serve as replacements in the 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team. Maeda was drafted into the U.S. Army just as the family was relocating to St. Paul, and was granted a ninety-day extension to help the family resettle. The family lived for a year in a rooming house near Hamline University. Toshishige quickly reestablished himself as a skilled dental …
Don Maeda still making crowns at 86 - Part 1 of 4
June 30, 2011 • Tom LaVenture
For more than half a century Donald S. Maeda has been making dental crowns—and is still making them at age 86 in his own Roseville dental lab. He prefers work to idle time and says he won’t slow down as long as he can do the job. Maeda’s extraordinary longevity is just part of a lifetime of stories set during the tumultuous twentieth century. Starting out in Seattle, then subjected to internment as a teenager in Idaho during the World …
