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Protesting the injustice of the incarceration
SPEAKING ABOUT RESISTANCE AT TULE LAKE — Hiroshi and Sadako Kashiwagi at a recent event at the Commonwealth Club. Hiroshi Kashiwagi spoke on a panel entitled “The Art of Resistance in the Bay Area.”...
View ArticleFinding my own ‘Place’ through art
It’s one thing to write for a living and another to create art. Art often speaks personal truths or attempts to articulate something difficult to tangibly describe. So it was a radically different...
View ArticleAntonio Villaraigosa and Asian Americans
Antonio Villaraigosa is the only gubernatorial candidate to demonstrate leadership to the underrepresented people in California. I had the honor and privilege of serving with Antonio during his...
View ArticleMountain View Buddhist Temple impermanence
“How, are we going to do Obon … without rice?” Randy Sato, co-chair of this year’s Obon Festival and Bazaar at the Mountain View Buddhist Temple, pushed his tensed fingers thru his hair. The members of...
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‘We need to … protect the rights of our Muslim brothers and sisters’
Rev. Hiroko Suzuki Editor’s Note: The Rev. Hiroki Suzuki gave the following message at the Community Memorial Day Service in Colma, Calif. May 28. Hebrews 12:1-2: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by...
View ArticleJapanese Americans condemn Trump Executive Order detaining families
Los Angeles’ Nikkei Progressives and San Francisco/Bay Area’s Nikkei Resisters condemn the Trump Administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that has separated children from parents and placed them in...
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Season of Obon
Rev. Ken Yamada In the summer heat, Japanese love a good ghost story that’ll send chills up their spine. In some ways, the Obon tradition reflects that feeling with crowds of people dancing joyfully in...
View ArticleWhat my grandma left behind
My grandmother and I were always very close. But she had never spoke of her experience of the atomic bomb. “It is too painful for your grandma to talk about it,” my mother once told me. My grandma lost...
View ArticleKorematsu overruled or reaffirmed?
On June 26, 2018, by a 5-4 majority, the Supreme Court in Trump v. Hawaii upheld President Donald Trump’s so-called “Travel Ban,” the thrice-revised executive orders barring entry of people from...
View Article‘Tales of Clamor’ – a masterful, magical theatrical experience
Silence … sadness … strength … solace — these words rippled through my mind as I watched the preview performance of “Tales of Clamor,” the new play about the Japanese American redress/reparations...
View ArticleTwo down, one to go — Court rulings pile up against citizenship question
An Interview with Thomas Saenz by Pilar Marrero, La Opinion & Ethnic Media Services Editor’s Note: Two federal judges recently ruled against the Trump administration’s plans to add a citizenship...
View ArticleThen and now
During World War II, the Japanese Americans were detained in incarceration camps just because they looked like the enemy, Japan. Today, immigrant children are being removed from their families and put...
View ArticleMy homeless friend
The first few times I passed her she seemed to have gathered the quiet around her. I walked past her, noticing that her eyes were closed in contemplation. She was always neat and might’ve been waiting...
View ArticleBuddhist Church of Florin anniversary 100 years, four generations of service
It would have astounded Japanese American immigrant grape farmers Tomokichi and wife Sekiyo Tanaka that their co-founding of the Buddhist Church of Florin in 1919 would be honored 100 years later by a...
View ArticleEliminate inhumane nuclear weapons now!
Editor’s Note: The following is the text of the speech Rev. Nobuaki Hanaoka gave Aug. 6, 2019 at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. On Aug. 9, 1945, three days after the first atomic bomb was...
View ArticleOPINION: Donald Trump: a disruptive president
Traditionally, American presidents have governed with dignity and a strong sense of national purpose and international responsibility. Since his election in 2016, however, Donald Trump has debased the...
View ArticleJACL apologizes to Tule Lake incarcerees
The new generation of JACL leaders and members should be congratulated for acknowledging and understanding the need for voting in favor of the resolution offering a sincere apology to Tule Lake...
View ArticleGag Order Lifted!: Update on Tule Lake Litigation and Preservation
It has been over a year since the Tule Lake Committee filed a civil rights complaint in federal court to stop the sale of the Tulelake Municipal airstrip to an entity that vows to expand aviation...
View ArticleNavigating the new normal
We were faced with a new uncertainty following Bay Area-wide shelter-in-place orders imposed upon us on March 17. That was followed by a statewide order just two days later. States from coast to coast...
View ArticleJapantown’s Peace Plaza — A chance to heal
Shattered tiles, forced removal and broken promises. To those unfamiliar with San Francisco Japantown, some might think that the Peace Plaza is just another open space in the city. But the cold,...
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