Sharon Yamato
@Sharony360Sharon Yamato é uma escritora e cineasta de Los Angeles que produziu e dirigiu vários filmes sobre o encarceramento nipo-americano, incluindo Out of Infamy , A Flicker in Eternity e Moving Walls , para os quais escreveu um livro com o mesmo título. Ela atuou como consultora criativa em A Life in Pieces , um premiado projeto de realidade virtual, e atualmente está trabalhando em um documentário sobre o advogado e líder dos direitos civis Wayne M. Collins. Como escritora, ela co-escreveu Jive Bomber: A Sentimental Journey , um livro de memórias do fundador do Museu Nacional Nipo-Americano, Bruce T. Kaji, escreveu artigos para o Los Angeles Times e atualmente é colunista do The Rafu Shimpo . Ela atuou como consultora do Museu Nacional Nipo-Americano, do Centro Nacional de Educação Go For Broke e conduziu entrevistas de história oral para Densho em Seattle. Ela se formou na UCLA com bacharelado e mestrado em inglês.
Atualizado em março de 2023
Stories from This Author
Emergindo da sombra de um herói: filho de um veterano fala sobre sua própria experiência de guerra
11 de Novembro de 2014 • Sharon Yamato
Enquanto o sol aparecia em um dia ligeiramente nublado de verão, alguns veteranos da Segunda Guerra Mundial se reuniram com uma multidão de amigos e familiares por ocasião do 15º aniversário do Monumento Go For Broke, no coração de Little Tokyo. Principalmente na casa dos 90 anos, os homens de cabelos brancos carregavam bengalas e caminhavam lentamente. Parecendo um pouco cansados da atenção que vinham recebendo da Medalha de Ouro do Congresso, eles sempre foram conhecidos por nós como homens …
Carregando a tocha: Wayne Collins Jr. sobre a defesa dos renunciantes por seu pai
21 de Outubro de 2014 • Sharon Yamato
A inscrição na primeira página do livro histórico de Michi Nishiura Weglyn, Anos de Infâmia: A História Não Contada dos Campos de Concentração da América , diz: “Dedicado a Wayne M. Collins, que fez mais para corrigir o erro de uma democracia do que qualquer outra pessoa”. Numa altura em que as pessoas mal sabiam o nome de Colllins, o historiador nissei Weglyn chamou a atenção para o advogado responsável por combater quase sozinho a deportação e restaurar a cidadania …
O feliz poder de Obon
21 de Agosto de 2014 • Sharon Yamato
A temporada de Obon é um momento em que as comunidades se reúnem para celebrar a vida e a morte através da comida e da dança. Como a batida do tambor taiko, os Obons reúnem energia por meio do movimento e se movem com ritmos alegres próprios. Os dias e noites quentes de verão dão lugar a um ou dois festivais de Obon todos os fins de semana, de julho a meados de agosto – com a lista crescendo a …
What It Means to Go On a Camp Pilgrimage
28 de Julho de 2014 • Sharon Yamato
pil•grim•age noun: pilgrimage; plural noun: pilgrimages 1. a pilgrim’s journey. 2. Synonyms: religious journey, religious expedition, haji, crusade, mission, “an annual pilgrimage to the Holy City” 3. a journey to a place associated with someone or something well known or respected “making a pilgrimage to the famous racing circuit” 4. life viewed as a journey “life’s pilgrimage” The dictionary definition of pilgrimage refers to a journey taken for religious purpose, or at the very least to some place “respected.” Perhaps literature’s …
Stranger in a Strange Land: A Sansei’s First Trip to Japan
17 de Junho de 2014 • Sharon Yamato
I’d never felt a passionate connection to the country of my ancestors. I blamed it on the war: postwar America saw Issei and Nisei trying to get over being labeled the “enemy,” and we Sansei children were faced with a curious dilemma in many ways initiated by our parents—how much did we identify with our grandparents’ Japanese culture and how much did we mold ourselves into assimilated Americans? With Japan still reeling from its stereotypical image as an “inscrutable” and …
Kawana’s Kamaboko Kingdom
29 de Abril de 2014 • Sharon Yamato
One thing was clear to businessman Frank Kawana when he took over his father’s Little Tokyo kamaboko business in 1955: people were not clamoring for fishcake. Quite the opposite—once a Japanese American staple, kamaboko sales were declining in the U.S. Like his father Otoichi Kawana, Frank somehow could not abandon what he secretly hated as a “smelly business.” At his mother Kume’s pleading, he reluctantly joined the family enterprise. While working to keep the company alive, he did something few …
Through the Fire: One Soldier’s Story
9 de Novembro de 2011 • Sharon Yamato
With the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony held last week honoring the 100th Infantry, 442nd RCT and MIS in Washington, D.C., it seems appropriate to take a moment to pause and remember all those who are not here to share in the celebration. Besides the many that have died in the years since the war, I am specifically referring to those killed in action. It has been rightly said that those brave men who risked their lives fighting for the country …
A Historic Time for Our Community: Celebrating The Congressional Gold Medal
2 de Novembro de 2011 • Sharon Yamato
On a rainy Washington DC day in July 1946, President Harry S. Truman presented the Presidential Unit Citation to members of the segregated 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team with the words, “You fought not only the enemy, but you fought prejudice, and you have won.” Now more than 65 years later, in a ceremony on November 2, 2011, Congress will award its highest civilian honor to these same brave men by granting the Congressional Gold Medal, collectively, to the …
Getting to Know Michi Nishiura Weglyn
18 de Outubro de 2010 • Sharon Yamato
Like it was yesterday, I remember the first time I picked up and started to read Michi Nishiura Weglyn’s Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps. My now-faded, coffee-stained, first-edition William Morrow copy is dated 1976, so I must have gotten it shortly after it came out. After reading the first several chapters that gave a moment-by-moment description of the events leading up to the decision to incarcerate and Roosevelt’s EO 9066, I was dumbfounded. Never before …
Through the Fire: Sharing Redress Stories
1 de Abril de 2008 • Sharon Yamato
The following article was written in response to The Community Day of Remembrance, an annual public program held at the Japanese American National Museum on February 16, 2008 to mark President Roosevelt's signing of Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, that authorized the unconstitutional forced removal of 120,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast and Hawai`i during World War II. This year's program recognized the grassroots activism starting with Japanese Americans testifying at government-sanctioned hearings in 1981, through letter …
