Before World War II, there were sixteen Japanese families (including children, about 100 individuals) living in the resort town of Coronado on a peninsula in San Diego Bay, California. These were Issei who were mostly from Kagoshima, Japan and their Nisei children. Many of the Issei worked at the luxurious …
The artist Mine Okubo is most famous for her book, Citizen 13660, a graphic memoir of the Japanese American concentration camps. She became my hero while I was a student at University of California (UC), Riverside in 1979. As a young woman in my twenties, I felt inspired by Mine’s …
My first trip to Japan was in the summer of 2016. I was very nervous about meeting my recently-discovered Minami relatives, on my dad's mother's side. What if I didn't like them or if they didn't like us? I brought a whole suitcase of gifts or omiyage, carefully selected from …
I had not expected to ever touch the temple entrance gate from the 1939 photo of my great-grandfather and his family. But here I was in Yamaguchi, Japan, reverently stroking and leaning against the weathered wood pillars and admiring the “Saikoji” sign. I was visiting my son, Kenzo, who did …
My favorite restaurant in Little Tokyo is called Suehiro’s. It is a small Japanese restaurant on First Street between San Pedro and Alameda. It used to resemble a little mom and pop restaurant, but was recently remodeled to keep up with the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. It is now more elegant …
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