Francesca Yukari Biller

Francesca Biller is an award winning investigative journalist, political satirist, author, and social commentator for print, radio, and television. With a background of Japanese and Jewish, she writes about her interesting background in both an introspective and humorous way and her work has been been published for The Huffington Post, CNN, The Los Angeles Times, The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, and many other publications. Awards include The Edward R. Murrow award, two Golden Mike awards, and four Society of Professional Journalists awards for Excellence in Journalism. Biller is currently writing three books, the first a novel about the 442nd Infantry set in Hawaii, the second a compilation of humorous essays about growing up as a Japanese Jew in Los Angeles during the 1970s, and the third a Lifestyle book about how a diet of Hawaiian, Japanese, and Jewish food keeps her family healthy and happy. She is also currently on a national radio tour discussing her humorous take on politics, pop culture, and families.

Updated June 2012

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Perspective on the Dodgers: The Level Playing Field that Inspired Us All - Part 2 of 2

  • By Francesca Yukari Biller
  • 25 Apr 2014
Read Part 1 >>What is entirely inspiring about the show is its revealing account about the Dodgers’ role in what both Kimura and Langill articulated, through community building, globalization, and civil rights. As a spectator, fan, and journalist, I had not expected to experience such a moving show insofar as history and the art of storytelling. When it comes to globalization of the game, the Dodgers are at the head of their game, especially when it comes to reaching out to talented players they have signed from Asia; mainly Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. In 1980, former Dodger owner …

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Perspective on the Dodgers: The Level Playing Field that Inspired Us All - Part 1 of 2

  • By Francesca Yukari Biller
  • 24 Apr 2014
It is difficult to remember any span of my childhood without thinking about baseball as the sentimental and grounding backdrop that has helped bond our mixed-race family together in Los Angeles. When the Dodgers played, it was an event that inspired in us a feeling of hope, celebration, and in the confidence of knowing that our multicultural home was always ready for center field, and with no apologies needed. My siblings and I shared interesting parents who were from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds of Japanese, Russian-Jewish, and Irish, which meant that life was not always simple…

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Half Girl from Full Mother

  • By Francesca Yukari Biller
  • 11 Mar 2014
Long before my mother was ever a child, She dreamt of my face as her Eurasian song,Never looking away at my round Asian eyes,She stared instead deeply, and flowered my rise. Half Japanese in the length of her sash,That she folded in silks, she knew me wellNot part of the crowd, and yet full and strong,We cradled our comforts, as she knew we belonged. Wanting for nothing in the sorrows of war,She told herself stories of a day that would passWhen the farmlands her parents grew out of a dream,Would return with her brothers, in a day of clear sheen. The terrors of imagining, when she could not…

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Nikkei Chronicles #2—Nikkei+: Stories of Mixed Language, Traditions, Generations & Race

My Japanese Jewish Girl Fears

  • By Francesca Yukari Biller
  • 9 Oct 2013
As a Japanese-Jewish American girl, I have suffered. It’s not just that both of my tribes were placed in camps because they were simply born, or perhaps hated for being smart, bold, different, and even oddly wonderful. As a Jew, I am reminded continually that I am lucky to be alive, part of the chosen, and should I kvetch about my standing in life, may God burn me like a self-burning bush—and one that isn’t even on sale. And as a Japanese woman, I have been taught from an early age that suffering is in fact a divine art to be lived daily, and part of a quiet, grueli…

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Menorah Musubi

  • By Francesca Yukari Biller
  • 18 Dec 2012
It’s that special time of the year again when my family will gather around the menorah while simultaneously being reminded to take off our shoes and yelled at to start the rice. Yes, it’s the only kind of holiday I have ever known, a merry Bewish festive season, a word made up for a combination of both my parents who are Buddhist and Jewish. Let’s just say that I grew up thinking that while Jesus was a suffering member of my tribe I was not supposed to worship; Buddha taught us that “Life as we know it ultimately leads to suffering.” You see, I couldn’t w…

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