Kizuna 2020: Nikkei Kindness and Solidarity During the COVID-19 Pandemic
In Japanese, kizuna means strong emotional bonds. In 2011, we invited our global Nikkei community to contribute to a special series about how Nikkei communities reacted to and supported Japan following the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Now, we would like to bring together stories about how Nikkei families and communities are being impacted by, and responding and adjusting to this world crisis.
If you would like to participate, please see our submission guidelines. We welcome submissions in English, Japanese, Spanish, and/or Portuguese, and are seeking diverse stories from around the world. We hope that these stories will help to connect us, creating a time capsule of responses and perspectives from our global Nima-kai community for the future.
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Although many events around the world have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have noticed that many new online only events are being organized. Since they are online, anyone can participate from anywhere in the world. If your Nikkei organization is planning a virtual event, please post it on Discover Nikkei’s Events section! We will also share the events via Twitter @discovernikkei. Hopefully, it will help to connect us in new ways, even as we are all isolated in our homes.
Stories from this series
I want to leave, live... Aiko's lamentations
Nov. 23, 2020 • Katsuo Higuchi
Before the arrival of this terrible pandemic that is ravaging the world, Aiko, a retired housewife, living in the traditional neighborhood of Santana in the Capital of São Paulo, had a routine that was quite lively for a lady of her age. Known by her Brazilian neighbors as Dona Maria and Aitian or Aiko-san by her relatives, in addition to the usual walks she took in streets close to where she lives, she took tai chi chuan and brain gymnastics …
Care Is Free: Behind the Scenes with Two Nikkei Sisters and 35 Care Packages
Nov. 6, 2020 • Tamiko Nimura
In October 2020, Tamiko and Teruko Nimura were asked to create a community engagement public art project for Tacoma Arts Month (a month celebrating arts and artists in Tacoma). They drew on their Japanese American heritage and created a batch of care packages which they distributed all over Tacoma, Tamiko’s hometown. Each care package had a letter describing the purpose and the contents of the package. Below is the letter. * * * * * September 25, 2020 Dear neighbor, …
Japanese Canadian Art in the Time of Covid-19 - Part 4
Oct. 28, 2020 • Norm Masaji Ibuki
Read Part 3 >> So, here we are entering fall 2020 and the second wave of Covid-19 is upon Canada…. the inevitable has arrived. So, from Nelson, BC there is Diana who I met last summer on a short trip to the Kootenays that now seems like a lifetime ago. I like the edginess of her American Niseiness. Her “Sideways” memoir gave me insight into what it was like to grow up as someone born into internment in Minidoka Internment …
Waves of Pandemics and the Prewar Japanese Canadian Community
Oct. 23, 2020 • Yusuke Tanaka
The 1918 influenza epidemic swept the world for two years, infecting 500 million people and killing approximately 50 million. The outbreak first infected World War I soldiers on the battlefield, and the pandemic occurred as the soldiers returned home from the war zone, spreading the virus all around the world. Canada was not an exception, and nearly 50,000 Canadians died. Meanwhile, racism against Japanese immigrants seemed to have toned down during the war (1914-1918). This was partly because Japan’s warships …
Nikkei cuisine in resistance - part two
Oct. 21, 2020 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Read the first part >> The news coming from Peru at this time is not very auspicious: more than 32 thousand deaths before entering the seventh month of quarantine (the third since the focused quarantine was applied), increase in unemployment (between April and June they were left without work) and there is still speculation about a second wave of infections. In this scenario, many Peruvians have had to continue working despite the pandemic, which has brought good and bad news. …
Okinawan Association of Peru, 110 years of history
Oct. 16, 2020 • Enrique Higa Sakuda
In 1906, immigrants from Okinawa arrived in Peru for the first time. Four years later, they formed what is now the Okinawan Association of Peru (AOP). The coronavirus pandemic has ruined the possibility of celebrating the 110th anniversary as it deserves. That does not mean, however, that its managers and members have stood by and waited for the health crisis to be resolved or mitigated before acting. The AOP did not paralyze its activities due to the restrictions derived from …