About

I'm a middle-aged Nisei baby boomer from Los Angeles now living and working in Japan.

My parents were born in Nagano Prefecture. My father spent his childhood in northeastern China (formerly Manchukuo in preWW2 Japan) and was a POW there before returning to Japan then emigrating to the US as a war refugee.

My mom married him via parental arrangement and joined him in Los Angeles. She assisted in a Japanese TV production that focused on the father-son relationship of Mamoru and Ken Eto, the former a pastor, the son the highest-ranking Japanese American member of the Chicago mafia.

Like my dad, it has taken me quite a long time to accept my heritage. I conduct an undergraduate seminar in Asian-American issues at a university in Tokyo, but I'm a real neophyte in the area.