Summer Nakaishi

Summer Nakaishi is a staff writer and digital media editor for The Hawai’i Herald. She received her bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and master’s degree in writing and publishing from DePaul University. She is a Japanese and Okinawan Yonsei, born and raised in Honolulu, where she resides with her husband and two kids.

Updated February 2023

Stories from This Author

The Life of an American Sign Language interpreter — Part 2

Sept. 28, 2023 • Summer Nakaishi

Read Part 1 >> Shimizu, who is 36 years old, said he enjoys working with older Deaf people around his parents’ or grandparents’ or godparents’ age, noting that younger kids and teenagers tend to use slang within ASL and make up new signs, and he sometimes doesn’t know what they’re talking about. “The most important part of being an interpreter,” said Shimizu, “is providing that communication access.” He says that as a local person, he feels like it’s important to …

American Sign Language Deaf families Hard of Hearing Hawai'i interpreters for the Deaf United States

The Life of an American Sign Language interpreter — Part 1

Sept. 27, 2023 • Summer Nakaishi

Shaun Shimizu lives in two worlds. In one world, he’s an American Sign Language interpreter, both personally and now professionally. Shimizu, who grew up as the only Hard of Hearing person in his Deaf family, has been interpreting as long as he can remember. In the second world, Shimizu was born hearing and became Hard of Hearing by the age of 5, attending speech therapy between classes and occasionally on the weekends. His life is in constant flux between those …

American Sign Language Deaf families Hard of Hearing Hawai'i interpreters for the Deaf United States

Being Blasian

Feb. 14, 2023 • Summer Nakaishi

In the midst of the global pandemic, Sascha Koki discovered something unexpected—her curls. Sascha, a thirty-something Japanese and Black woman, had been straightening her hair as soon as she’d been able to get hold of a flatiron. The slow, endless early days of the pandemic offered much time for pause and introspection; but jumping deep down a rabbit hole of self-identity wasn’t Sascha’s intention. Just months before the stay-at-home orders took effect, Sascha serendipitously chopped her hair into a short …