Shigeharu Higashi
@culturalnewsBorn in 1954, in Kure, Hiroshima. In 1981, Higashi moved to the U.S. and worked as a reporter for Japanese-language newspapers in Los Angeles and San Francisco. He also has experience as an assistant to a special correspondent for the Los Angeles Asashi Shimbun and as Japanese-language news distribution manager for Kyodo News Service’s U.S. corporation in Los Angeles. In 1998, he founded the monthly English-language newspaper Cultural News, which covers cultural news focused on Japanese art and cultural events in the Los Angeles area, as well as the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake. Both the monthly newspaper Cultural News and its online edition, www.culturalnews.com, can be subscribed to for a fee.
Updated June 2014
Stories from This Author
A profile of a century-old Buddhist church in Southern California and its missionaries
Feb. 14, 2018 • Shigeharu Higashi
In the Japanese community of Southern California, which has a history of 120 years, the Jodo Shinshu Nishi Honganji Buddhist Church played a role as a cultural and community center for Japanese immigrants more than just a religious institution, especially for about 60 years in the first half of the 20th century. The American Buddhist Association, the Nishi Honganji sect's American organization, has called places where believers gather "Buddhist churches" rather than "temples" since before the war. Recently, more and …
History of Japanese Postwar Immigration: A Los Angeles doctor publishes an autobiographical novel about his experience of abuse and his journey to the United States
July 25, 2017 • Shigeharu Higashi
The story is set in Tokyo just after the war. Jiro walks five kilometers to school every day to attend an elementary school attended by children from wealthy families in the educational district of the city center. There is something that Jiro cannot tell his classmates or teachers. Jiro has been abused by his father. "A Story of a Baby Abandoned at Home" (published by Ronsosha in November 2016) is an autobiographical novel written by Kenji Irie, a Japanese doctor …
Buddhist churches that had a major impact on the Japanese community in Los Angeles: Records of Jodo Shinshu missionaries from the 1930s
Feb. 27, 2017 • Shigeharu Higashi
Nishi Honganji Los Angeles Betsuin, located in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, can be said to be the base of the Jodo Shinshu Nishi Honganjiha sect in Southern California. For over 45 years, this temple has been hosting a song show called the "American version of the Red and White Battle" in early January, attracting an audience of nearly 1,000 people every year. Nishi Tuck (80 years old), a second-generation Japanese who has participated in planning and hosting the "American version …
Japanese Christians in the Sawtelle district of Los Angeles
Oct. 21, 2016 • Shigeharu Higashi
Most Japanese language schools in Los Angeles, established by Issei nearly a century ago, have the word gakuen in their names—such as Pasadena Gakuen. However, the original Japanese name of “Japanese Institute of Sawtelle (JIS)” is “Sawtelle Nihon Gakuin.” The difference between the terms gakuen (学園) and gakuin （学院）lies in the original Chinese characters: gakuen means “a garden for learning” while gakuin means “a temple for learning.” For a long time, I mistakenly assumed that “Sawtelle Gakuen” was the Japanese …
Japanese Americans begin to talk about "Another Courage" - Restoring the honor of a former Japanese American soldier who refused combat training and was charged with treason -
Nov. 4, 2015 • Shigeharu Higashi
The history of Japanese-American soldiers during World War II is best known for the 442nd Combat Team, which served on the European front. However, during the training stage before being sent to the European front as part of the 442nd, 21 Japanese-American soldiers were charged with treason, sentenced to prison, and dishonorably discharged for refusing combat training. The first book about the punished Japanese soldiers was published in 2012, and they finally became known among Japanese people in Los Angeles. …
"Children of the Camp" is a documentary about group counseling that revived forgotten memories of wartime concentration camps.
April 15, 2015 • Shigeharu Higashi
Satsuki Ina (70), professor emeritus at California State University, Sacramento, was born in May 1944 in the Tule Lake internment camp in California. She is a counseling professional who has worked to provide mental care to Japanese Americans who experienced life in the internment camps. In my previous essay , I mentioned that Ina was involved as a producer in two films on the theme of concentration camps, and introduced the content of one of them, "From Cocoon of Silk," …
Henry Fukuhara, a second-generation Japanese painter who started a watercolor painting workshop on the site of a former concentration camp
Feb. 18, 2015 • Shigeharu Higashi
I first heard the name Henry Fukuhara, a second-generation Japanese watercolor artist, in May 2014 when I met Mary Higuchi, a third-generation Japanese artist who was expressing her experiences in the internment camps through watercolors. Higuchi has no memories of her time at the Poston internment camp in Arizona, as she was between the ages of three and six. However, through her annual participation in a watercolor painting workshop at the former Manzanar internment camp site, which Fukuhara began in …
![Thumbnail for “From a Silk Cocoon” (produced in 2006) Depicting the Anguish of Parents [of being] in the Internment Camps, Was Produced by SENSEI Who Was Born in an Internment camp](https://devmedia.discovernikkei.org/cache/68/98/68989b5aea21ed24319b2fd161c90258.gif)
“From a Silk Cocoon” (produced in 2006) Depicting the Anguish of Parents [of being] in the Internment Camps, Was Produced by SENSEI Who Was Born in an Internment camp
Nov. 19, 2014 • Shigeharu Higashi
I was asked to go to Berkeley in September to interview Satsuki Ina- Sensei, emeritus of California State University Sacramento. (Satsuki Ina is 70 years old). Ina-san’s mother was born in America, raised in Nagano prefecture, and returned to America before the War. After interviewing Ina-san, I told her that I would like to profile her for Discover Nikkei. A few days after the interview, Ina-san sent two DVD films with Japanese subtitles that were produced by her. Her first …
A third-generation woman describes life in a concentration camp based on photographs left by her mother, who never spoke about her experiences there.
Aug. 4, 2014 • Shigeharu Higashi
My aunt (my mother's sister), who is now nearly 90 years old, never spoke about her experience of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima until about 20 years ago. My mother's family lived in Kure City, near Hiroshima City, during the war, and my aunt was on a train that stopped at Hiroshima Station on the morning of August 6, 1945. I recently noticed that there is a tendency among Japanese Americans in Los Angeles to not talk about their wartime …
"Nisei Week Queen" is the bond that unites Japanese American organizations in Southern California
June 23, 2014 • Shigeharu Higashi
The "Nisei Week" event, which was started by Japanese shop owners in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, where about 30,000 Japanese people lived in the 1930s, overcame a hiatus during the war and is now celebrating its 80th anniversary this year. Nisei Week takes place in Little Tokyo over the course of a week in mid-August. The festival kicks off with a Grand Parade on the first Sunday and ends with a daytime Bon Odori dance called Ondo on the following …
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