Fuku Yokoyama Tsukiyama
Fuku Yokoyama Tsukiyama was born near the foothills of Salinas, California, but considers Honolulu, Hawaii her home. She was at the Poston II concentration camp in Arizona during World War II, and attended schools in Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; and at the University of Hawaii where she received a B.A. in English. Her interests include writing, tennis, reading Asian American literature, travel, drama, and music.
Updated December 2010
Stories from This Author
FELIZ NATAL! — MERRY CHRISTMAS!: The Brazilian Connection - Part 2
Dec. 25, 2010 • Fuku Yokoyama Tsukiyama
>> Part 1Early the next morning, Cousin Hiroshi, who spoke fairly good English, Mandarin and Cantonese, Portuguese, and of course, Japanese, led us on a fascinating walk through the predominantly Japanese farmers’ and growers’ marketplace, which was the size of a huge stadium. The place smelled refreshingly clean and spring-like. There were boxes of all varieties and colors of papaya—red, yellow, orange, yellow-orange, some the size of boots, others like Hawaiian or larger fruit; star fruit; mangoes of all colors …
FELIZ NATAL! — MERRY CHRISTMAS!: The Brazilian Connection - Part 1
Dec. 24, 2010 • Fuku Yokoyama Tsukiyama
It wasn’t until the samba beat of the tune “Brazil” roused me from a semi-stupor that I realized our Varig flight was finally approaching the Rio de Janeiro aeroporto Galeão. The early morning skies were lit enough to reveal Sugar Loaf and blue-green beaches in the distance. The perky flight attendant, speaking Japanese and Portuguese, hurried about the cabin collecting the empty cups of café zhinho and small breakfast croissants and instructing us to fasten our seatbelts. I unzipped my …
The Remembering Tree III - part 2
Dec. 23, 2010 • Fuku Yokoyama Tsukiyama
>> Part 1Japan CruiseThis past April, my husband and I joined several of our close Hawai‘i friends on a 10-day cruise around Japan. From Yokohama, we traveled along the Pacific Ocean side of Honshu and Shikoku, down to Kyushu, then up along the Japan Sea to Hokodate and down again to Yokohama. We sailed at night, arriving the next morning at large, bustling ports and sometimes, small, delightful ones, too. We would go sightseeing during the day and return to …
The Remembering Tree III - part 1
Dec. 22, 2010 • Fuku Yokoyama Tsukiyama
The lingering scent of Douglas fir or silvery blue spruce, or groves of pine trees evokes childhood memories of a relatively peaceful time before the tumultuous Second World War when my father used to cut down the family Christmas tree in the forest near our home in Northern California. Each year, like a ritual, he first set down in the middle of the parlor, (it truly was a “parlor,” not an informal living room, in our large, rambling, old-fashioned house …
The Best All-Seasons' Gift: Joe Finds His Uncle at Kalaupapa
Dec. 21, 2010 • Fuku Yokoyama Tsukiyama
In the middle of the old burial grounds, facing the ocean in the shadows of the tall and forbidding cliffs of Moloka‘i, stood a small but elegant stone memorial, edged by carefully placed, polished concrete blocks. The skillfully chiseled inscription read: Rokuro James Kuri Hānau August 10, 1915 Make March 25, 2000 Roku served God with a kind and gentle spirit. As soon as the once-a-day small plane touched down on the Kalaupapa airstrip, Joe and Ann Abe gathered up …
