The Culture of Okinawa is the Culture of Awamori
Peace, Love, and Gratitude are most important to Okinawan people. So important, they infuse it into everything. Awamori is no exception. In various small villages of Okinawa, an awamori distillery is the heart that keeps the community thriving. The employees are a family that consists of people of all ages and abilities. When awamori is […]
Jean Kodama: Masters Ancient – and Male-Dominated – Japanese Martial Art of Kendo
To an untrained onlooker, Jean Kodama appears as an unassuming Japanese American woman with a quiet and steady tone. But behind her reserved demeanor is a powerhouse to be reckoned with. Kodama is a master of kendo, which translates to “The Way of the Sword” and harkens back to the days feudal samurai warriors sparred […]
Madame Yuriko Soyu Tanaka: “Tea is my life”
Madame Yuriko Soyu Tanaka sat under folded legs on pristine tatami mats, perfectly posed in a pastel silk kimono as she watched her student make tea. She was playing the role of honored guest, but she noted her student’s every move: the way Sachiko Okazoe entered the room with tea utensils and bowed. The way […]
Herbert Yaka: Racehorse Photographer’s Photo Finishes Determined Champions
It’s been decades, but whenever JoAnn Jamora smells cigars, memories of bustling racetracks wash over her. She grew up watching horses race, and remembers wandering around the tracks, picking up discarded tickets to check if they turned out to be winners. Meanwhile, her father sat in a tiny photo booth above the racetrack, in his […]
The Downtown General Store’s Nostalgic and Fun Flour-Sack Towels
Hawaii family draws on Japanese roots and island plantation life to create flour sack towels. Take one ‘ohana (family) and add one part Old Hawai‘i plantation life, one part artistry and lots of aloha, and what do you get? The traditional flour-sack towel. This is the story of Penny Sato Kiyabu, a Japanese American who […]
Dr. Glen Komatsu: Compassionate Steward at Life’s End
Dr. Glen Komatsu brings quiet compassion to patients and their families at the most difficult, darkest time of life. As Regional Chief Medical Officer of palliative care and hospice and Medical Director of TrinityKids Care, Komatsu has developed one of the nation’s largest hospice programs for terminally ill children and highly regarded palliative care programs […]
The Art of Shigin Through Patrick Seki: A Distinctly Japanese American Journey
Unbeknownst to most Americans, within the aging Japanese American community, there is an incredibly vibrant group that routinely congregates to perform an ancient Japanese performing art known as shigin. Community leader and shigin master, Patrick Mitsuo Seki, leads this following that spans throughout the West Coast and Hawaii. Since the shigin community primarily communicates through […]
Gerald Tanaka: Retiree Builds Homes, Creates Hope for Baja Families
At a time when the world can use as many heroes as it can find, a 65-year old Yonsei is demonstrating how one person can make a difference with fierce determination and a hammer. Since 2005, Gerald Tanaka has been leading groups of volunteers on missions to Baja California, a section of Mexico known as […]
Nikkei Student Unions Thriving on College Campuses
It’s more than basketball and boba. To many Japanese American college kids in California — or students interested in JA culture — those are big draws of the Nikkei Student Union. But members like Kayla Tanaka say she’s a different person now because of NSU. “It’s important to have a space, whether it’s a physical […]
Junji Sarashina: Shining a Light on Horrors of Atomic Bombing
“I’m still alive. If I don’t speak up, who else is going to speak up?” Ninety-year-old Junji Sarashina has made it his mission to share the horrors he experienced as a young teen on a sunny morning in August 1945. But the contours of his life do not just run through Hiroshima, Japan. He is […]