Gil Asakawa

A celebration and exploration of Japanese American culture will be featured in a book signing with Gil Asakawa, author of Being Japanese American, at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, August 16, at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose (JAMsj).

Being Japanese American is a fun and entertaining sourcebook, as well as a celebration of Japanese American culture, history, and heritage. While detailing favorite foods, customs, words, games and holidays, it explores the painful history of immigration and WWII internment, together with suggestions for connecting to your Japanese American community and passing on traditions across generations and into intermarried families.

This revised edition has fresh interviews with Japanese Americans about their life experiences and explores contemporary Japanese pop culture like anime and J-pop. It also includes information on traveling to Japan, together with resources on the Web.

Cost: Free with admission to the museum (nonmembers, $5; students and seniors over age 65, $3; JAMsj members and children under 12, free). 

In commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the devastating WWII atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the San Jose Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) and the South Bay Area Hiroshima Nikkei Jin Kai are teaming up to present a special free community screening of Steven Okazaki's award winning documentary White Light / Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, featuring interviews with fourteen Japanese survivors (hibakusha) and four Americans involved in the bombings. A short program on the hibakusha will follow the screening. 

Patti Hirahara, administrator of the Hirahara family collection, is looking for help in identifying babies, individuals, groups, and family photographs taken by her grandfather, George Hirahara, and father, Frank C. Hirahara, during WWII. These remarkable photographs were taken and processed in the Heart Mountain relocation camp from 1943 to 1945.

 

Tomiko Aoyama of San Francisco, in the hat, poses with friends for a group photo at the Heart Mountain Vocation Station Depot before her departure in 1943. Friends include her brother WRA photographer Bud, sister Miyuki, mother Ito Aoyama, George and Koto Hirahara, Roy Kito of Fugetsu-do Confectionery, and brother Masao Aoyama. Photo credit: George and Frank C. Hirahara Collection, Washington State University Libraries Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections

 

The Hirahara family collection of more than 2,000 Heart Mountain photos has been donated to Hirahara's father's alma mater, Washington State University. She has left two, 3-ring binders of photos with identification sheets and will be adding a third shortly, which represents only a small portion of the collection, here at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose (JAMsj) for people to look through. 

Class picture of the Heart Mountain High School Eighth Grade -- Four Homeroom taken in 1944. In the first row on the end is Albert Handa, father of NBC Bay Area's Robert Handa.  Photo credit: George and Frank C. Hirahara Collection, Washington State University Libraries Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections.

Hirahara lives in Anaheim, California, and would be happy to talk with any family members about the photos. She can be emailed at hiraharacollect@aol.com or reached by phone at (714) 392-2103 for more information. If you happen to be in the area, please stop by to see if you recognize anyone in the photos. Identifying as many faces as possible would deeply personalize the devastating experience that more 120,000 Japanese Americans endured as a result of Executive Order 9066.