Gil Asakawa's Nikkei View | history
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Note: I'm now a regular monthly columnist for Discover Nikkei, the multilingual project of the Japanese American National Museum. For years they've repurposed my blog posts, but now the tables will be turned: I'll write something for DN first, then post them afterwards here. This is the first column I wrote for them. Consul General of Japan at Denver Makoto...

Note: This post was originally published on AARP's AAPI Community Facebook page. “The Martian” starring Matt Damon as an astronaut stranded on the Red Planet curiously won the Golden Globe Award in December as the best musical or comedy (hint: it’s really not either, though there’s some funny lines) but on Oscar night, despite being nominated for six awards; the Academy...

Late last year, Erin and I were lucky enough to travel to New York City to see the Broadway musical “Allegiance” starring George Takei. It’s a story about the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, and it vividly and powerfully brings to life the emotional toll of the experience on JAs for generations since then. I wrote about...

After a November performance at the Longacre Theatre in New York’s fabled Broadway district, AARP members were invited for a “talkback” with George Takei and other cast members answering questions about their powerful musical, “Allegiance.” (NOTE: This post was riginally uploaded to the AARP AAPI Community Facebook page.) “I remember we started the school day, each day, with the Pledge of...

Joe Sakato points to the name of his friend Saburo Tanamachi, who died in his arms during the WWII battle to rescue the "Texas Lost Battalion." I was saddened to hear yesterday of the passing of George "Joe" Sakato, a Denver resident who was a World War II hero, a veteran of the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team/100th Battalion that fought...

OCA just emailed out a brief statement from Daniel Wu, the star of AMC's action-drama "Into the Badlands," that's worth reading: "I grew up in America in the '70s when there were no Asian Americans on screen. After a career of 18 years in Hong Kong where I didn't have to think about race at all, coming back to America and...

Denver's Mayor Michael B. Hancock welcomes the 100 applicants and their family members to the citizenship ceremony. I was born in Japan, but because my father was born in Hawaii when it was a U.S. territory, I am an American citizen. I didn't have to take a test, and recite an oath of allegiance. After my family moved to the...

My most recent Denver ramen was at the original Osaka Ramen location in the RiNo district. I had the special Miso Ramen of the day with an order of kara age fried chicken. I grew up in Japan when I was a kid, and have vivid memories of bowls of ramen and soba noodles stacked high in bowls or boxes, being...