ティム・アサメン

(Tim Asamen)

インペリアルバレー開拓者博物館の常設ギャラリー、日系アメリカ人ギャラリーのコーディネーター。祖父母は、現在ティムが暮らすカリフォルニア州ウェストモーランドに鹿児島県上伊集院村から1919年に移住してきた。1994年、ティムは鹿児島ヘリテージ・クラブに入会し、会長（1999-2002）と会報誌編集者（2001-2011）を務めた。

（2013年８月更新）

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ニッケイ物語３—ニッケイ人の名前：太郎・ジョン・フアン・ジョアオ？

Asamen - Is it Japanese?

ティム・アサメン
2014年7月1日

My name is Tim Asamen, and, yes, I am a full-fledged Sansei. I say that because my surname is so strange that it can be downright baffling to ethnic Japanese. Whenever I introduce myself to both Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans, it always causes confusion. When I say “Asamen” the usual response is “huh?” It’s even worse when some of my own family members say our name because they don’t pronounce it with a Japanese accent, so it sounds more like “Osmond” without the “d.” Invariably I’m asked, “Are you sure it&r…

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Speaking Up! Democracy, Justice, Dignity

Climbing Out of the Well: My Impressions of the JANM 2013 National Conference in Seattle

ティム・アサメン
2013年8月20日

If you have not taken in a Japanese American National Museum (JANM) event, be it a workshop, book reading, or some other special program, I highly recommend that you do so. The National Museum knows how to put on a good show, and everything is always meticulously planned down to the last detail. JANM’s 2013 National Conference “Speaking Up! Democracy, Justice, Dignity” held at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel, July 4 through 7, 2013, was no exception. Some five hundred of us from across the country converged on the “Emerald City” to commemorate the 25th anniversary of…

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Will the Rafu die like my grandfather?

ティム・アサメン
2010年6月10日

My grandfather passed away when I was four years old. My only memories of him are from when he was already bedridden and deathly ill. At that time, my father would take me for a ride to the post office in Westmorland every morning where we picked up our mail since we lived on a farm and there was no rural delivery. On our way home, we always stopped at my grandmother’s house to drop off her mail. As my dad sat down at the kitchen table for a cup of coffee or tea with my grandmother, he would hand me two newspapers rolled up in small white paper sleeves on which our address was stamped i…

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The 1940 Earthquake

ティム・アサメン
2010年5月19日

Takanori “Pro” Nimura never forgot the 1927 earthquake because of the auspicious day on which it struck—January 1. In the Nimura family’s small moveable house in rural Calexico, his mother had stayed up all night preparing special New Year’s delicacies (Osechi-ryori), but the kitchen table toppled over during the earthquake and all of the food ended up upside down on the floor! The magnitude 5.8 quake was centered in Mexicali and it killed fifteen people. Not all Nisei remember the New Year’s earthquake, but the earthquake that is forever etched in the mem…

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Kagoshima Heritage Club

ティム・アサメン
2009年3月25日

The Kagoshima Heritage Club (KHC) is a sub-organization of the Nanka Kagoshima Kenjinkai (Kagoshima Prefectural Association of Southern California), the oldest Kenjinkai in California founded in 1899. During the early 1980s, the Kenjinkai became aware of its aging and declining membership and worried about its future. In 1983, then-Kenjinkai president, Takeyuki Miyauchi, asked the members to encourage their children to form an English-speaking club within the prefectural association. As a result, the Kagoshima Junior Club was formed on June 12, 1983, during a meeting held at the Nishi Hong…