Nikkei Chronicles #4—Nikkei Family: Memories, Traditions, and Values
Nikkei family roles and traditions are unique because they have evolved over many generations, based on various social, political, and cultural experiences in the country they migrated to.
Discover Nikkei collected stories from around the world related to the topic of Nikkei Family, including the stories that tell how your family has influenced who you are, and allow us to understand your perspectives on what family is. This series introduces these stories.
For this series, we asked our Nima-kai to vote for their favorite stories and our editorial committee to pick their favorites.
Here are the selected favorite stories.
Editorial Committee’s Selections:
- ENGLISH:
Walk It Off: True Grit & Gaman
By Jeri Okamoto Tanaka
Don’t Worry Be Hapa
By Kimiko Medlock
- JAPANESE:
History of My Grandmother – Things I Learned About Her Life This Summer Just Before I Turned 20 –
By Dan Kawawaki
- SPANISH:
Father’s Adventures
By Marta Marenco
- PORTUGUESE:
My Life, Our Life: The Present, The Past, And The Future
By Kiyomi Nakanishi Yamada
Nima-kai selection:
- 23 stars:
A Letter to My Parents
By Mary Sunada
Stories from this series
My Life, Our Life: The Present, The Past, and The Future
Sept. 22, 2015 • Kiyomi Nakanishi Yamada
In this life we are the protagonists of a number of stories, but in many instances the actors remain unknown because their recollections have not been recorded. My maternal and paternal grandparents were born and lived in Osaka and Tokyo until the 1930s, when they came to Brazil to work in the coffee plantations. Sizuyo, my mother, currently at the age of 89, is the only “living memory” of her family as well as my father’s. When she turned 70, …
From Okinawa to Hawaii and Back Again
Sept. 18, 2015 • Laura Kina
I am a Hapa, Yonsei Uchinanchu (a mixed-race, 4th-generation Okinawan-American) who was born in Riverside, California, in 1973 and raised in the shadow of the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. My mom’s roots stem from Spanish-Basque migrants in California and white southerners in Tennessee. My father is Okinawan from Hawaii. Because I don’t look quite white, people frequently ask, “What are you?” From an early age, even though Hawaii and Japan were enigmas to me, I have had to explain …
Father’s Adventures
Sept. 15, 2015 • Marta Marenco
Every afternoon my father, Tatsuzo Tomihisa, sat on the sidewalk in the doorway of our house. He observed the street in silence, but the kids from the neighborhood came to see him right away, as if they’d been waiting for him. He greeted them with a smile, since he loved children and he patiently shared all his stories with us. Because the land of his birth was so far away, we all wanted to know how he had crossed that …
A Letter to My Parents
Sept. 9, 2015 • Mary Sunada
My Dearest Mom and Dad, I am Mary, your daughter, and you are my parents, Yaeko and Yoneto Nakata. I am very sorry that this letter has taken so long to write. I became very busy with work, marriage, and family. Then I could not find the right words to express my appreciation and gratitude to both of you. I did not realize all the pain that you have suffered after World War II. New Year’s Day of 1948 was …
What Meeting My Long-lost Uncle Taught Me About Family
Aug. 26, 2015 • Mia Nakaji Monnier
Until I went to Japan, I’d talked to my uncle only twice: once when my Japanese grandmother died, and again when my grandfather did. Only two people regularly called the house and spoke in Japanese, and I knew both their voices well: the elderly one was my great-aunt; the younger one with a British accent was Mayumi, an old friend of my mom’s, who Anglicized her name herself, as “Muh-you-me.” So when the “moshi-moshi”—that special phone version of “hello”—came across …
Lighthearted
Aug. 12, 2015 • Barbara Nishimoto
In my family we told stories; we reminisced. During and after meals. Sitting in the living room all together for no particular reason. Because we were all so tightly bound together there was no need for a beginning, middle, and end. One of us would utter a single sentence, a phrase. That was enough. It was a cue. “Oh, I remember.” We would smile and nod, and like a chorus replay together the memory. The stories were always about one …