Nikkei Chronicles #13—Nikkei Names 2: Grace, Graça, Graciela, Megumi?

What’s in a Nikkei name? In this series, we asked participants to explore the meanings and origins behind Nikkei names.
Discover Nikkei accepted submissions from June to October 2024. We received 51 stories (32 English; 11 Portuguese; 7 Spanish; 3 Japanese) from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Cuba, Japan, Mexico, Peru, and the United States, with one story submitted in multiple languages.
We asked our editorial committee to select their favorite stories. Our Nima-kai community also voted for the stories they enjoyed. Here are their selections!
Editorial Committee’s Selections
- ENGLISH
Mako
By Mako Kikuchi
- JAPANESE & PORTUGUESE
Why I Don’t Have a Japanese Name
By Laura Honda-Hasegawa
- SPANISH
The Long-Awaited Harumi
By Harumi Murakami Giuria
Nima-kai selection
- 67 stars:
A nikkunēmu of identity
By Alvaro Moscoso
To learn more about this writing project >>
Community Partners
Logo designed by Jay Horinouchi
Stories from this series

Her Name Was Not Margaret
Dec. 10, 2024 • Marsha Takeda-Morrison
My mother’s name was Margaret. But actually it wasn’t. Her kindergarten teacher gave her this name, after saying my mom’s actual name, Tsutako, was too hard to pronounce. “That’s just how it was,” my mother said. I never asked her how she felt about her American name, given to her by a hakujin woman who thought it was within her right to rename a five-year-old without consent from her or her family. At the first volunteer meeting at my daughters’ …

Discovering Myself in My Name
Dec. 6, 2024 • James Okumura
My parents named me James Noboru Okumura. My birth certificate from The Japanese Hospital of Los Angeles declared my full name in uppercase 1950s typewriter font. I have known that name since the time I could recognize it. My parents chose my given name, James, because they wanted to give me an acceptably American name. It sounded nice, but I have no ancestors with that name. As a young child, I never answered to James. My family and our lifelong …

A beautiful name
Dec. 5, 2024 • Edna Hiromi Ogihara Cardoso
Hiromi-chan, iiiko, right! – that’s how Mrs. Takeko, also known as Mrs. Carmen, rocked the baby while humming Japanese children’s songs. Miwa-chan, a year and a half older, looked at this miniature with interest. Hiromi, a carefully chosen name, means broad beauty. What were my parents' dreams and expectations for me when they chose this name? They certainly thought of good things, they wanted a being who would come into the world to make it better. What is the function …

Mako
Dec. 4, 2024 • Mako Kikuchi
This is Arthur Makoto Kikuchi, my grandpa. I’ll never know, but my assumption is that his parents, Zenkichi and Hagino Kikuchi, who were Issei, felt the need to give him an American name but called him by his Japanese name, Makoto. The quandary of what to name the first born in a new land must be common in the immigrant experience: how does one weigh the pressure of assimilation with the comfort of addressing your child in your native tongue? …

Kisaku Sakagami
Dec. 3, 2024 • Ronel Hoffstot
When we see the letters that make up a person’s name, we also imagine the story behind them. Who named you? What is the story? Kisaku Sakagami are but two names for my brother and me. He has no story. His story ended when he was arrested and removed from St. Petersburg, Alaska, and taken to New Mexico, then Minidoka, where he passed away. Julia Mae Sakagami, his youngest child and our mother, had three names. We do not know …

Conversations with the Ancestors I Never Got to Meet
Dec. 2, 2024 • Midori Samson
“You can’t give her a Japanese name. It will ruin her life.” My grandmother Marjorie Julia pleaded with her son, Gregory Michael, my father, on the day I was born. My parents gave me the name, Midori Faye, despite having zero proficiency in Japanese, and despite my grandmother’s wishes. After all, her good ol’ American name, Marjorie Julia, protected her and kept her Japanese identity a secret (or so she hoped). I can’t blame her for wanting to keep me …
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See exciting new changes to Discover Nikkei. Find out what’s new and what’s coming soon! Learn MoreEdna Hiromi Ogihara Cardoso was born in the interior of the State of São Paulo. She is married and has one daughter. A graduate of FAUUSP [School of Architecture and Urban Planning of the University of São Paulo], she is a volunteer handicraft teacher. Watercolor is her hobby and she writes whenever inspiration strikes.
Updated October 2020
Vivian Kay Clausing, a hapa Yonsei, grew up in Camarillo, California. She and her brother often traveled to Hilo, Hawaii to visit their Grandma Kay and aunts, uncles, and cousins who lived in Honolulu and Lihue, Kauai. She worked as a lawyer, educator, and director of a program for formerly incarcerated women. Now retired, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is seeking representation for RELOCATED!, a novel set in Honolulu during WWII and inspired by family history.
Updated October 2024
Linda Cooper is a communications consultant and freelance writer with more than 30 years of experience as a public relations practitioner, U.S. Senate press aide and journalist. She holds a BA in journalism and political science from Mississippi University for Women. Cooper resides in Tennessee with her husband. Her best friend Brenda is a retired registered nurse and lives nearby with her family.
Updated October 2024
Harry Takahide Daijó was born in Foz do Iguaçu, Paraná. He is the second son of Harry and Ligia Daijó. Married to Adriana Rodrigues Daijó for over 20 years, he has no children. He graduated in Law from the Bauru Law School and began his professional career with the Public Prosecutor's Office of the state of São Paulo, in the district of Bauru/SP. He has a postgraduate degree in Strategic Business Management (Executive MBA) from the University of São Paulo (USP) and in Forest Management from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR). He holds a Bachelor's degree in History from Uninter.
Author of the articles “The urgency of learning Portuguese for Japanese immigrants in Brazil in the 1940s” and “Passages from Takahide Daijó’s life correlated with Tomoo Handa’s work ‘The Japanese Immigrant’”, both published in Caderno Intersaberes . He also wrote the article “Excerpts from the diary of Japanese immigrant Takahide Daijó related to his union with Rosa Kiguti”. In 2015, in partnership with his brother, Hedryk Genson Daijó, he published the book: An awakening: behind the scenes of a transplant (Editora Eureka). A businessman, Harry has been a managing partner of the company Expoagro – Exportadora Agropecuária Ltda. for 30 years.
Updated October 2024
Steve Dawson is a Gosei, fifth generation Nikkei Australian, husband, father, and grandfather. He was engaged in long-term careers in the Austrailian military and foreign affairs, and his work included living, studying, and working abroad. Dawson worked professionally as a ESL/TESOL teacher and career development practitioner; he also has linguistic expertise in the Mandarin Chinese and Indonesian languages. He is now retired, and enjoys time with his family including his dog, watching movies, riding his motorbike, and learning new things.
Updated May 2024
Sydney (Syd) Haupt recently graduated from UC Santa Barbara, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Communication. She is from Pasadena, CA, and is currently serving as the joint intern between the Japanese American National Museum and Japanese American Bar Association as part of the Nikkei Community Internship. Syd is always looking for an opportunity to learn, and cannot wait to see how stories from the Japanese American community will impact her perspective. This fall, she will be pursuing her Master’s degree at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. She hopes to eventually get a PhD and spend her life conducting research that helps honor the rich diversity of communities like this one.
Updated June 2024
Alden M. Hayashi is a Sansei who was born and raised in Honolulu but now lives in Boston. After writing about science, technology, and business for more than thirty years, he has recently begun writing fiction and essays to preserve stories of the Nikkei experience. His first novel, Two Nails, One Love, was published by Black Rose Writing in 2021. His website: www.aldenmhayashi.com.
Updated May 2024
Naomi Hirahara is an Edgar Award-winning author of multiple traditional mystery series and noir short stories. Her Mas Arai mysteries, which have been published in Japanese, Korean and French, feature a Los Angeles gardener and Hiroshima survivor who solves crimes. Her first historical mystery, Clark and Division, which won a Mary Higgins Clark Award, follows a Japanese American family’s move to Chicago in 1944 after being released from a California wartime detention center. A former journalist with The Rafu Shimpo newspaper, Naomi has also written numerous non-fiction history books, including the award-winning Terminal Island: Lost Communities on America's Edge (co-written with Geraldine Knatz) and curated exhibitions. She has also written a middle-grade novel, 1001 Cranes. Her follow-up to Clark and Division, Evergreen, was released in August 2023 and was on the USA Today bestseller list for two weeks.
Updated October 2024
Ronel Hoffstot was born in Portland, Oregon and raised in the Seattle, Washington, area. She currently lives in Orange County, California. She recently discovered that her grandfather was in Camp Minidoka and has been researching to uncover more information about his story.
Last updated November 2024
Born in São Paulo, Brazil in 1947. Worked in the field of education until 2009. Since then, she has dedicated herself exclusively to literature, writing essays, short stories and novels, all from a Nikkei point of view.
She grew up listening to Japanese children's stories told by her mother. As a teenager, she read the monthly issue of Shojo Kurabu, a youth magazine for girls imported from Japan. She watched almost all of Ozu's films, developing a great admiration for Japanese culture all her life.
Updated May 2023
Tieki Irii is from São Paulo, and graduated in cinema from FAAP in 1988. She lived in Japan between 1989 and 1991, where she studied Japanese architecture and culture. In Brazil, she built a 25-year career as a set designer and art director. She worked for production companies such as O2 Filmes, Mixer and Delicatessen. She participated in hundreds of advertisements and feature films such as Os Matadores, O Menino Maluquinho 2, and Castelo Rá-Tim-Bum. She was the art director for the series Retrato Falado, Dias de Glória, Cenas de Casamento, Soy Loco por ti, América, on the TV show Fantástico, from 2002 to 2007. She published the children's books: Tibi e seus mundos (Editora Globo, 2001); Tibi Quanta Gente (Editora Evoluir, 2004) and Tibi Volta as Estrelas (Editora Evoluir, 2016). In recent years, she has returned to writing based on her father's autobiography, where she traces a historical and social panorama that spans three generations of Japanese immigrants.
Updated November 2024
Kimi (kee-mee) Laurel Ishikawa is a retired elementary school teacher living on a New Mexico mesa with her husband and chickens (and yes, she kept her original name when marrying). She loves many things about New Mexico, including the ability to blend into a crowd of New Mexicans with similarly not-immediately-obvious ancestry, and an entire population familiar enough with Spanish words to be unfazed at the pronunciation of her name.
Updated September 2024
Emi Kasamatsu is a Paraguayan Nisei, a researcher on Japanese immigration and gender, a graduate of the Bachelor of Arts and a Master's in Gender and Development from the National University of Asunción. Abroad, she took courses in Applied Anthropology; Research Methodology; Governance and Leadership; Social Feminist Economy; Ethics, Social Capital and Development; and Care Economy. She belonged to INRP (International Nikkei Research project). She gave numerous lectures on these topics.
Publications: Japanese Presence in Paraguay ; History of the Pan-American Nikkei Association ; Life Path in Bushido ; Evocations . In group: Encyclopedia of Japanese descent in America; New worlds, New lives; “When the East arrived in the Americas”; “Bicentennial of the independence of Paraguay (1811-2021)” and has appeared in numerous anthologies.
Distinctions: Decoration of the Rising Sun with Gold and Silver Rays, Red Cross of Japan, Academic of the Paraguayan Academy of History, Honorary President of the PEN Paraguay Center. Ambassador of Kagawa.
Last updated November 2024
Thoshio Katsurayama lives in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He is the director of the Associação Cultural e Literária Nikkei Bungaku Brasil. He published his first book Califórnia in 2011 and later other children's books, biographies, and novels. The book As Aventuras do Samurai Caolho published in 2017, received an honorable mention at the Maria Antonia da Costa Lobo Award – UBE RJ (União Brasileira de Escritores). His last book published by Telucazu Edições was Contos de um Velho Samurai sobre Bushido (Tales of an Old Samurai on Bushido).
Updated October 2024
Karen Kawaguchi is a writer based in New York City. She was born in Tokyo to a Japanese mother and a Nisei father from Seattle. He served in the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Service while his family was incarcerated at Minidoka. Karen and her family moved to the U.S. in the late 1950’s, living mostly in the Chicago area. In 1967, they moved to Okinawa where she went to Kubasaki High School. She subsequently attended Wesleyan University (CT) and later lived in Washington, D.C., Dallas, and Seattle. She recently retired as an editor in educational publishing, having worked for Heinemann, Pearson, and other leading publishers. She volunteers for organizations such as Literacy Partners (adult ESL) and enjoys going to Japan Society, art museums, and botanical gardens. She feels fortunate to be able to draw deeply from the three cultures in her life: Japanese, American, and Japanese-American.
Updated June 2022
Yukio Kawaratani is a retired urban planner, who worked on the redevelopment of Downtown Los Angeles from 1962 to 1993. He is a community volunteer/activist in the City of Monterey Park and in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. As a Nisei teenager during World War II, his family was incarcerated in the Poston, Arizona and Tule Lake, California concentration camps.
Updated December 2012
Mako (formerly Paul) Kikuchi (he/him) heard Ella Fitzgerald in concert from the womb and was born the next day. He shares a birthday with Prince. Mako’s music is wide ranging—from drone/ambient soundscapes to compositions for traditional Japanese instruments. His interests in community, identity, and activism inform his creative process. His work has been supported by the National Endowment of the Arts, Chamber Music America, and New Music USA, among others. Mako is tenured music faculty at South Seattle College. As an educator he is committed to the decolonization of music curricula and the cultivation of life-long connections to music. He lives in Seattle.
Last updated December 2024
Jhonny Zenjy Kobayashi is a Sansei born in São Paulo, raised in Valinhos, and currently living in Brasília. He is the father of two daughters and married, he is an interdisciplinary entrepreneur with a degree in administration and several postgraduate degrees in the areas of innovation, technology, neuroscience and foreign trade. He has extensive professional experience, having worked for over 17 years in the financial sector, advising boards of directors and leading strategic projects in Brazil and abroad. He has also worked in the automotive industry, developing markets and representing international companies in advanced technologies.
Last updated November 2024
Augustinha Kazuyo Kodama is a Brazilian born in the state of São Paulo, the daughter of Japanese immigrants. She graduated in Literature and has a postgraduate degree in Environmental Management. She studied Japanese at a local school and practiced the activities related to this school curriculum. Retired, she is a mother, grandmother and writer under the pseudonym Gu Kodama. She has published two books: Ave Redentora and A Descoberta do Planeta Coco.
Updated September 2024
Lawrence Matsuda was born in the Minidoka, Idaho Concentration Camp during World War II. He has a Ph.D. in education from the University of Washington. After retirement, he became a writer and educational consultant.
In 2010, A Cold Wind from Idaho (poetry) was published by Black Lawrence Press. In 2014, Glimpses of a Forever Foreigner was released. In 2015, Matsuda collaborated with artist, Matt Sasaki, and produced a graphic novel, Fighting for America: Nisei Soldiers. Chapter one was animated by the Seattle Channel and won a 2016 regional Emmy. In 2016, he and Tess Gallagher collaborated on Boogie Woogie CrissCross, a book of poetry. In 2019 his novel, My Name is Not Viola, was published by Endicott and Hugh Books. In 2023, his book Shapeshifter-Minidoka Concentration Camp Legacy won one of two Honorable Mentions in the Idaho Book of the Year competition.
Profile image by Alfredo Arreguin.
Updated September 2024
Born on July 16, 1942 in Makurazaki City, Kagoshima Prefecture. Spent time in various parts of Kagoshima Prefecture due to his father's job transfers. After graduating from the Department of Agriculture at Kagoshima University, he decided to move to Brazil, and moved there at the end of July 1966, overcoming the objections of his parents and siblings. Worked in the states of São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul. Member of the Kagoshima Prefectural Association and the local cultural association. Obtained Brazilian citizenship.
Updated November 2024
Tuney-Tosheia McDaniels is focusing on Chemicals and Real Property Law. Many people have various ideas about what and how property should be. In the end, people are more alike than they are different.
Updated February 2025
Gustavo Miyamoto (Lima, Peru 1969) is a third-generation Japanese-Peruvian. He completed his primary and secondary school at Colegio La Victoria, a Peruvian school whose roots are Japanese. He had a short experience as a dekasegui between 1992 and 1993 working at the Hino factory in Hamura, Tokyo. He currently participates in activities organized by Nikkei in Lima, Peru and is a member of the Asociacion Estadio La Union, a club established by the community.
Updated November 2024
Her Buddhist name (dharma name) is Kanryo, and her secular name is Kumiko. She was born in a Jodo sect temple. She started learning classical ballet at the age of seven. She graduated from the Western Dance Course at the Department of Theater, College of Art, Nihon University. She taught at an acupuncture school in Tokyo and worked at a hospital before coming to her current position. She completed her master's degree in social welfare studies. She is the mother of two children. She trained at the head temple, Chion-in, and became a Jodo sect nun. With 20 years of experience as a doctoral student and 13 years as a nun, she provides treatments that are attuned to the body and mind of each patient. She is also one of the few people in Japan who has inherited the technique of tapping acupuncture, and she incorporates this technique into the acupuncture clinic she runs.
Updated November 2024
Alvaro Martin Moscoso Andrade was born in Peru on June 20, 1984. He lives in the city of Huacho, two hours north of Lima. He is a Yonsei citizen through his great-grandfather Sueju Sonoda. He belongs to Peru Kumamoto Kenjinkai, an association that brings together descendants of this prefecture who live in Peru. He has a degree in Business Administration with a Master's in Public Management, which has given him the opportunity to work in the Provincial Municipality of Huaura, where he promotes ties of friendship and fraternity between Japan and Peru.
Esperanza Harumi Murakami Giuria was born on March 3, 1990. She attendedjiushuryoand primary and secondary school at La Unión School. She has been married for 12 years and is the mother of a 10-year-old daughter. A stylist by profession, she has always been passionate about writing, and in 2021 received first place in the “Letters for the Bicentennial” competition organized by the Japanese-Peruvian Association. She is currently a member of the board of Peru Kumamoto Kenjinkai.
Last updated September 2024
Graciela Nakachi Morimoto was born in Huancayo, Peru. At the age of four, her parents decided to live in Lima. She studied at the Jishuryo Japanese Primary School and at the “María Alvarado” secondary school. With a scholarship from Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Virginia (USA), she obtained a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree with a major in Biology. She studied Human Medicine and Pediatrics at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM) and completed a Master's degree at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia. Fellow in Pediatrics at the University of Kobe, Japan, she worked as a pediatrician at the Policlinico and the Centenario Peruano Japonesa Clinic. She was an intensivist pediatrician in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and head of the Emergency and Critical Areas Department at the National Institute of Children's Health (INSN) in Lima. She is a Senior Professor at the UNMSM Faculty of Medicine. Fond of reading, music and painting.
Last updated December 2023
Akina Nishi is a second-generation Japanese American. She was born and raised in Los Angeles, and plans to continue living in the sunny west coast. She is passionate about education equity and language learning, and is working towards getting a teaching credential in Japanese.
Updated November 2024
Melissa Fujiyo Okabe is a 4th generation Japanese American residing in Los Angeles, CA. She is a Real Estate Broker-Associate and certified Yoga Instructor RYT-500 with a passion for history, storytelling and connecting with her Japanese heritage and ancestral wisdom.
Last updated September 2024
Ariel Megumi Okamoto is a fourth-generation Japanese American living in Washington, DC. She currently writes grants and communications for Polaris, an anti-human-trafficking nonprofit, and volunteers with her church and local community organizations. In her spare time, she enjoys bookstores and museums, reading and creative writing, and cultural learning.
Updated November 2024
Born in Boyle Heights near downtown Los Angeles, Sansei and native Angeleno James Okumura (奥村ジェイムス登) grew up in the foothill communities of Altadena and Pasadena, California. He worked in Information Systems for nearly 30 years before retiring to pursue his lifelong interests in ceramics, family history, and gardening. His maternal roots lie in the Yokohama area of Kanagawa-ken and his paternal ancestry originates in Ise-Shima in Mie-ken. James is a JANM charter member.
Updated April 2023
Glória Megumi Omori de Mendonça is a Brazilian Nisei, with academic degrees in Social Sciences and Law (USP). She practiced law specializing in civil, family and inheritance law. Currently retired, she is a collaborating associate of Nikkei Bungaku do Brasil.
Updated November 2024
Mai Omoto is a junior at Pitzer College, majoring in psychology with a minor in Japanese. She recently completed the Kizuna Nikkei Community Internship at the Rafu Shimpo. In the fall of 2024, Mai will study abroad in Japan through the Associated Kyoto Program, deepening her connection to her Japanese heritage. She aspires to pursue a Master's degree in social work and ultimately become a social worker.
Updated September 2024
Roberto Oshiro Teruya is a 53-year-old Peruvian of the third generation (Sansei); his parents, Seijo Oshiro and Shizue Teruya, both came from Okinawa (Tomigusuku and Yonabaru, respectively). He lives in Lima, the capital of Peru, where he works in the retail clothing business in the city's downtown. He is married to Jenny Nakasone and they have two children Mayumi (23) and Akio (14). He has a deep interest in continuing to preserve the customs inculcated by his grandparents, including cuisine and the butsudan, and hopes his children will do the same.
Updated June 2017
Junko is an educator in Pomona, California, and a graduate of UC Riverside and Claremont Graduate University. California is home, but she has traveled extensively because her father was an air traffic controller in the Air Force, which instilled in her a fascination for travel and observing different cultures around the world. Currently, Junko is an adjunct instructor at the University of La Verne. She is married to her handsome husband Robert Elias and they have one dog, an 8 year-old pug named Nancy.
Updated August 2024
Mayumi Sakugawa was born in Yachiyo City, Japan, where she lived until she was seven years old. After her parents separated, she and her mother moved to Brazil, settling in São Paulo. From a young age, Mayumi nurtured a passion for Japanese culture, especially its cuisine, with curry, known as karê, and natto being her favorite foods. With a degree in nursing and marketing, Mayumi combined her skills to create a beauty studio in the east side of São Paulo, where she offers services that reflect her love for aesthetics and well-being. In addition to her career, Mayumi is active on social media, sharing moments from her life, including her connection with her Japanese roots and the importance of family, especially on her Instagram. With a vibrant personality and an unconditional love for her cultural heritage, Mayumi Sakugawa is an example of adaptation and success, uniting the best of both worlds—Japan and Brazil.
Updated November 2024
Midori Samson (she/her) is a music professor and social worker located in Lawrence, Kansas. Her work as an artist and practitioner broadly explores healing from collective and historical trauma through musical social work projects, sound art composition, and autoethnographic research about her mixed-race Filipino/Japanese/American identity. You can learn more at her website.
Last updated November 2024
Melissa Segura is a rising fourth-year sociology student at the University of California, Davis. She is a sansei Japanese American and is very active in the Japanese American community in Northern California. She is a member of the Japanese American Student Society at UC Davis as well as the Asian and Pacific Islander Community Coordinator at the Cross Cultural Center. When she is not working, you can find her figure skating or spending time with her friends and family (and cats)!
Updated June 2024
Glaucia Tiemi Silva has a degree in Audiovisual from ECA-USP (School of Communications and Arts at the University of São Paulo). She has experience in different areas of audiovisual and is a writer. She is part of the Tiemis label, which publishes zines. She currently works as a freelancer.
Last updated November 2024
Tamio Spiegel is a bi-racial Sansei native New Yorker. He has worked in manufacturing, importing, and retail operations in the USA and China. His interests include celebrating and exploring Japanese American culture, with an emphasis on uniquely JA culinary customs and conventions. He lives in the Washington Heights neighborhood in Upper Manhattan.
Updated November 2024
Mary has been married to John Sunada for 44 years. They have two sons, James and David. Mary retired from the Los Angeles United School District after 36 years of teaching. She is a member of the Orange County Buddhist Church, Japanese American National Museum and the “Go for Broke” National Education Cent1er. Her interests are getting together with family and friends to fish, to dance, to travel and to dine. She has written many stories at DiscoverNikkei.org
Updated October 2024
Lidia Antonia Sánchez Fujishiro (Santiago de Cuba, 1946). Graduate in History. Currently retired. She worked as a professor at the University of Oriente and as a Museologist specializing in Cultural Didactics in the Plaza de la Revolución “Mayor General Antonio Maceo” in the city of Santiago de Cuba. She has national and international recognition as a researcher, disseminator, teacher and cultural promoter. In 2019 he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun. Silver Rays by the Emperor of Japan. She is a member of the Union of Historians of Cuba, the Association of Latin American Studies and the Steering Committee for an Association of Japanese descendants in Cuba, as coordinator of the provinces of Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo.
Last updated June 2020
Marsha Takeda-Morrison is a writer and art director living in Los Angeles who drinks way too much coffee. Her writing has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Parents, Genlux, Niche, Mom.com, and other lifestyle, education, and parenting publications. She also covers pop culture and has interviewed the likes of Paris Hilton, Jessica Alba, and Kim Kardashian. While she spends a lot of time in Hollywood she has never had plastic surgery, given birth to an actor’s child, or been on a reality show. Yet.
Updated May 2023
Chuck Tasaka was born in Midway, B.C., but he spent most of his life growing up in Greenwood, B.C., the first Japanese Canadian Internment site. Grandfather Isaburo lived in Sashima, Ehime-ken, immigrated to Portland, Oregon in 1893, then to Steveston and came with his wife Yorie to settle on Salt Spring Island in 1905. They decided to return to Sashima permanently in 1935. Chuck’s father Arizo was born on Salt Spring Island but lived in Sashima during his youth. His mother was born in Nanaimo, B.C., but was raised in Mio-mura, Wakayama-ken. Chuck attended University of B.C. and became an elementary teacher on Vancouver Island. After retiring in 2002, Chuck has spent most of his time researching Japanese Canadian history and he is presently working on the Nikkei Legacy Park project in Greenwood.
Updated September 2024
Arturo Wakabayashi is a civil engineer. He is a third generation Nikkei, born in Lima. Paternal grandparents are immigrants from Shigaken , and maternal grandparents are immigrants from Yamagataken.
Last updated September 2022
Norma Chie Wakizaka grew up in the countryside of São Paulo, among guava trees, streams, farms and ranches. Her ancestors came from Japan and she has distant Ainu ancestry. They wandered from Japan to China, the Philippines, Siberia, Argentina and then arrived in Brazil. Her cultural and linguistic wealth made her a historian, writer and teacher. She writes to make visible the memories of those who make life more beautiful. Her Instagram is @chienorma.
Updated November 2024
Alice Aiko Okamoto Weiner, a Japanese Sansei/Nisei, grew up in Oxnard, California. She spent many weekends in the West Los Angeles area where most of the Okamoto family members lived, such as Bachan, uncles, aunties, and cousins. She remembers BBQs, playing cards like Hana or poker, and staying up late watching old movies. The Okamoto family was involved in the Venice Buddhist Temple community. While growing up, Alice also visited her mother’s Masumoto family in Ono-Hiroshima, Japan. Alice and her mother would visit Bachan, Jichan, ojisans, obachans, and cousins. She worked for over 25 years as an elementary school educator in Ventura, California. Now retired, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, staying physically active, volunteering with organizations like Food Share, crafting, reading, cooking, baking, and gardening.
Updated November 2024
Yayoi Lena Winfrey is an artist, writer and filmmaker. Her short screenplay Obaa-chan in the House is about a multigenerational Japanese family living in California. Chaos ensues when their matriarch arrives from Japan and questions who can claim to be authentically Japanese. The script was a Finalist in the 24 Hour APIDA Writing Contest and table read by Entertwine actors in July 2023 at JANM in Los Angeles.
Yayoi’s 5-part film series War Brides of Japan, a docu*memory is available for viewing on Gumroad.
Updated October 2024
Tomoko Yamada is a Japanese artist and designer based in Broome, Western Australia. She creates site-specific and site-responsive installations using hand-crafted fishing nets and threads. Her work communicates the past, present and future by drawing on memory and emotions to map humanity. Learn more at tomokoyamada.com. Tomoko is also a member of Nikkei Australia and involved in the global research project Past Wrongs, Future Choices.
Updated November 2024
Pam Momoko Yan is third generation Japanese American, and fourth gen native Angeleno. Her maternal line hails from Hokkaido and is descendant from the Ainu. When she’s not writing or volunteering, you can find her exploring the outdoors with her pitbull or napping with her demanding cats. One of Pam’s newest hobbies is tracing her ancestry. Finding family relics is precious and each discovery is a peak into the past to those she’s never met. She hopes to learn more about her family and Nikkei culture in the years to come.
Updated September 2024
Ken Yoshida is a Japanese Canadian with a Japanese father and a Thai mother. He grew up in Ottawa, Ontario and moved to Edmonton, Alberta to pursue a career as a policy analyst at the provincial government after graduating with his master’s degree. His master’s thesis was on the political memory of Japanese colonialism in Taiwan and Korea, a topic conceived after reading Leo T.S. Ching’s book Becoming Japanese: Colonial Taiwan and the Politics of Identity Formation.
Last updated November 2024
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