Like many Sansei, I have agricultural roots. My father’s family worked as sharecroppers during the Depression. My aunties have told stories of harvest time, of the youngest auntie running away to read a book in the orchards. As for me, I grew up in California’s Central Valley and have been …
In the Pacific Northwest, there are a couple of famous sites related to Japanese American history, such as Seattle’s Panama Hotel (made famous by Jamie Ford’s novel Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet), where Japanese Americans stored their belongings during their mass incarceration. Locals from Seattle may know …
The Fife History Museum is a converted midcentury home, awaiting its next stage of storytelling—but it’s a place filled with objects waiting to speak.
In these difficult political times, resistance appears every day—from marches to political organizing to Star Wars movies to hashtags. But for many within the Japanese American community, resistance remains a difficult and painful topic. Yonsei Konrad Aderer’s latest documentary, Resistance at Tule Lake, seeks to address that topic, focusing on …
The women were standing just about eye level with me, their faces sketched on the wall by Issei artist Takuichi Fujii. They were standing in front of barracks at Minidoka, but in the picture they seemed—and felt— at an arm’s length away. One woman had her hand up to her …
In past columns for Discover Nikkei, I’ve written about the challenges of finding Japanese American history in Tacoma. I know that, as with so many stories of Japanese Americans, there is much more to tell. So it was a pleasure and an education to be at Dr. George Tanbara’s life …
“It feels right,” says Jane Beckwith, director of the Topaz Museum in Utah. “It feels like the painting is coming home.” She is talking about a new donation, a Chiura Obata work coming to the Topaz Museum from Bainbridge Island in Washington State.
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