Interviews

1. General reasons why people left Japan for Peru

2. Great grandfather Asato was a sumo wrestler

3. Grandfather loved to tell her stories of her great-grandfather Arakaki

4. Prosecution of Japanese Peruvians during the war

5. Where parents went to school in Peru

6. Parents leaving Peru to move to California

7. Reflections on childhood

8. Okinawan cultural appreciation

9. Prejudice against Okinawans from mainland folks

10. Okinawan Americans

11. Parents identification as Peruvian Okinawan

12. On Nikkei identity

13. Japanese values that she aligns with

14. American values she aligns with

15. Working together in Okinawa using three languages

Michelle Yamashiro

Okinawan American whose parents are from Peru.

Where parents went to school in Peru

In Peru and Lima there’s a big Japanese stadium called La Unión … Asociación Estadio La Unión – I know it’s really hard for me to say – and it’s a stadium that a lot of the Nisei that came to Peru built – Japanese and Okinawan. They put in all their funds and they built this huge…kind of like the equivalent of what Budokan would be to us today. They have swimming pools and tennis courts and all this good stuff and in it they also had a Japanese school called La Unión and so my mom grew up going to that Japanese school and most Japanese Peruvians grew up going to that school so it was just a Japanese Peruvian school.

My father on the other hand, him and his siblings grew up going to…I believe it’s called Lincoln, which is more of an American school, I want to say. It was more multi-cultural so my father grew up still doing these activities within La Unión, or there’s another school club called Sakura that my grandparents Yamashiro and Arakaki founded. So they still did all these different Japanese things but my dad grew up with different friends. A lot of them live in the United States now too.

Date: August 30, 2018

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Sharon Yamato

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

Interviewee Bio

Grew up in Gardena, California. Her parents moved to the United States from Lima, Peru where they grew up in the Japanese and Okinawan Peruvian community. Because of this diverse background, she was exposed to a mixing of different cultural traditions. She is involved with the Okinawa Association of America and has visited Okinawa and Peru.

She received her teaching credentials but with an opportunity at the Gardena Valley Japanese Cultural Institute (GVJCI), she turned to non-profit work and is a volunteer at GVJCI and the Okinawa Association of America. (August 2018)