Discover Nikkei Logo

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/1273/

Gidra Production

There wasn’t really a division of labor, per say. Some people were better at things than others, obviously the illustrations you know, was pretty specialized, but the production of the paper, which meant receiving an article typing it into the format that we used, generating the columns, proofreading them, making corrections, making the physical corrections on the lightbox and then putting ‘em together again and then laying out a page even, everyone did those things.

I know it’s hard to imagine, but if you look at Gidra, you can tell that because some, some of the pages, are pretty bad.

There’s one where someone went crazy with that black tape, we just discovered that. So they put black tape all over and that was their design. But that was also a part of the movement of the time, and was like, “you don’t have to be an expert to do something, just try it." You know there was a lot of that kind of feeling, too, at Gidra we put that into practice.


newspapers

Date: September 28, 2011

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Kris Kuromitsu, John Esaki

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Born in Denver where her family had resettled after leaving the WWII concentration camp at Poston, Arizona, Evelyn Yoshimura was still a child when the family moved to the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles. Growing up in a predominately Black community during the tumultuous civil rights era of the 1960s, she witnessed firsthand the Watts Rebellion of 1965. After graduation from Dorsey High School, she attended Cal State Long Beach, where she helped to develop its fledgling Asian American Studies program. During this period, she was one of the founders of Amerasia Bookstore, a cultural institution in Little Tokyo for two decades, and was a staff member of Gidra, the innovative Asian American publication that featured a provocative mix of journalism, graphic art, and social, cultural and political commentary.

Evelyn was active in the Redress campaign and served as a key community organizer for the Los Angeles Hearings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians that took place in 1981. She is currently Community Organizing Director at LTSC (Little Tokyo Service Center), where she has worked on many projects including building connections with Arab American and Muslim communities after September 11th 2001. (August 2012)

Henry Shimizu
en
ja
es
pt

Government's permission to publish Japanese newspaper in Canada during World War II

(b. 1928) Doctor. Former Chair of the Japanese Canadian Redress Foundation.

en
ja
es
pt
Robert A. Nakamura
en
ja
es
pt

An Unexpected Ephiphany

(b. 1936) Filmmaker

en
ja
es
pt
Mike Murase
en
ja
es
pt

Where did the Name Gidra Originate

Community activist

en
ja
es
pt
Mike Murase
en
ja
es
pt

Struggle and Activism

Community activist

en
ja
es
pt
Mike Murase
en
ja
es
pt

Gidra's Editorial Process

Community activist

en
ja
es
pt
Mike Murase
en
ja
es
pt

Gidra - Community Newspaper

Community activist

en
ja
es
pt
Mike Murase
en
ja
es
pt

Gidra Collaborations

Community activist

en
ja
es
pt
Mike Murase
en
ja
es
pt

Common Cause

Community activist

en
ja
es
pt
Mike Murase
en
ja
es
pt

Gidra's Contributors

Community activist

en
ja
es
pt
Mike Murase
en
ja
es
pt

Gidra's Content

Community activist

en
ja
es
pt
Mike Murase
en
ja
es
pt

Content Conflict

Community activist

en
ja
es
pt
Mike Murase
en
ja
es
pt

Camp Experiences

Community activist

en
ja
es
pt
Mike Murase
en
ja
es
pt

Cincip

Community activist

en
ja
es
pt
Mike Murase
en
ja
es
pt

Staff and Struggles

Community activist

en
ja
es
pt

Discover Nikkei Updates

SUPPORT THE PROJECT
Discover Nikkei’s 20 for 20 campaign celebrates our first 20 years and jumpstarts our next 20. Learn more and donate!
SHARE YOUR MEMORIES
We are collecting our community’s reflections on the first 20 years of Discover Nikkei. Check out this month’s prompt and send us your response!
PROJECT UPDATES
New Site Design
See exciting new changes to Discover Nikkei. Find out what’s new and what’s coming soon!