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Masako Miki


Masako Miki is the Japanese Liaison Officer at the Japanese American National Museum, where she is responsible for marketing, PR, fundraising, and improving visitor services for Japanese people and Japanese companies. She is also a freelance editor, writer, and translator. After graduating from Waseda University in 2004, she worked as an editor at Shichosha, a poetry publisher. She moved to the United States in 2009 and served as deputy editor of the Japanese information magazine The Lighthouse in Los Angeles before assuming her current position in February 2018.

(Updated September 2020)


Stories from This Author

Thumbnail for Toshiyuki Seino - Part 7: His days at JAL and induction into the Judo Hall of Fame
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People on the Move: Postwar Return to America and Postwar Japanese Immigrants
Toshiyuki Seino - Part 7: His days at JAL and induction into the Judo Hall of Fame

April 18, 2022 • Masako Miki

Read Part 6 >> Working at an airport often meant no weekends. Then in 1966, their son was born, and Toshiyuki and his wife Midori's lives became busier all at once. Even so, Toshiyuki would go out to the garden and continue practicing judo alone whenever he had time. In 1967, the World Championships were held in Salt Lake City, and Toshiyuki, representing the United States, placed fourth. "The last time I competed in a tournament was in 1970. I …

Thumbnail for Toshiyuki Seino - Part 6: Discharge, employment, marriage
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People on the Move: Postwar Return to America and Postwar Japanese Immigrants
Toshiyuki Seino - Part 6: Discharge, employment, marriage

April 11, 2022 • Masako Miki

Read Part 5 >> Although judo took up the majority of Toshiyuki's life during this time, it was not all about it. During his three-month stay in Japan in 1960, he also had some important encounters. "The Kodokan was closed on the weekend, so I decided to visit my cousin in Kobe. At that time, Midori's older brother (who would later become my wife) told me, 'My younger sister is attending nursing school in Kyoto, so please come and meet …

Thumbnail for Toshiyuki Seino - Part 5: Joining the U.S. Air Force
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People on the Move: Postwar Return to America and Postwar Japanese Immigrants
Toshiyuki Seino - Part 5: Joining the U.S. Air Force

April 4, 2022 • Masako Miki

Read Part 4 >> Before we look at what happened to Toshiyuki after 1959, let's first trace the story of his family. Toshiyuki returned to the United States in 1956, and his parents and younger siblings returned to Los Angeles the following year in 1957. Around this time, the 1952 amendment to the immigration law limited immigration from Japan to 185 people per year, but this limit did not apply to family members of Japanese citizens. "My father worked in …

Thumbnail for Toshiyuki Seino - Part 4: Returning to America and Starting Judo
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People on the Move: Postwar Return to America and Postwar Japanese Immigrants
Toshiyuki Seino - Part 4: Returning to America and Starting Judo

March 28, 2022 • Masako Miki

Read Part 3 >> After a two-week voyage, he arrived in San Pedro, Los Angeles. He was picked up in a car and arrived in Denver in June 1956. After staying with his father's friend for about a week, Toshiyuki became a schoolboy in a white American's house. A schoolboy was a live-in housekeeper-like job that was often done by Japanese immigrant students in the past. The student rented a room in an American's house, did housework such as washing …

Thumbnail for Toshiyuki Seino - Part 3: Returning to Japan from Tule Lake on a return ship
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People on the Move: Postwar Return to America and Postwar Japanese Immigrants
Toshiyuki Seino - Part 3: Returning to Japan from Tule Lake on a return ship

March 21, 2022 • Masako Miki

Read Part 2 >> At the end of 1945, the Seino family boarded the Gordon ship bound for Yokosuka from Portland, Oregon, and headed for Tsunuki, Kagoshima Prefecture, the hometown of his parents. Their new life in postwar Japan was one of scarcity, with not enough food, and the rural areas still lacking running water, so they had to draw water from a well. Toshiyuki entered the second grade at Tsunuki Elementary School. "I believe that at Toole Lake, the …

Thumbnail for Toshiyuki Seino - Part 2: From the Lower Concentration Camp to the Tule Lake Concentration Camp
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People on the Move: Postwar Return to America and Postwar Japanese Immigrants
Toshiyuki Seino - Part 2: From the Lower Concentration Camp to the Tule Lake Concentration Camp

March 14, 2022 • Masako Miki

Read Part 1 >> The Seino family purchased a house in Hawthorne just before the war and ran a fairly large farm. However, in 1941, the Pacific War broke out. The following year, the family received a forced eviction order and had to leave their home and farm behind. After being sent to an assembly center built at Santa Anita Racetrack, Matsukichi and Fumiko, along with Shunichi, Toshiyuki, Tatsuo and their three young sons, were sent to the Lower Internment …

Thumbnail for Toshiyuki Seino - Part 1: His father's immigration and his mother's return to Japan
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People on the Move: Postwar Return to America and Postwar Japanese Immigrants
Toshiyuki Seino - Part 1: His father's immigration and his mother's return to Japan

March 7, 2022 • Masako Miki

When we hear the word "immigration," some may imagine someone moving from one country to another. In the immigration history of each country, the stories of people who settled there tend to be recorded, but the stories of people who moved back and forth, or moved between countries and regions, can sometimes be hard to see due to the cultures and languages ​​in between. Living in both the Japanese and Japanese American communities in Los Angeles, and through my work …

Thumbnail for Tracing the history of Japanese Americans through the relationship with African-American history: Part 4
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Tracing the history of Japanese Americans through the relationship with African-American history: Part 4

Oct. 5, 2020 • Masako Miki

Read Part 3 >> Los Angeles riots amid systemic racism While efforts to rectify racial discrimination were gradually progressing, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the establishment of redress for the internment of Japanese Americans, under neoliberal policies, institutional racism that was deeply rooted in society continued to widen economic disparities both between and within races. Around the same time, the immigration law was revised in 1965, opening the door to immigration, and new immigrants from Asia …

Thumbnail for Tracing the history of Japanese Americans through the relationship with the history of African-Americans in America: Part 3
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Tracing the history of Japanese Americans through the relationship with the history of African-Americans in America: Part 3

Sept. 28, 2020 • Masako Miki

Read Part 2 >> Civil Rights and Asian American Movements   In fact, in the 1960s, problems arose in the Japanese community, such as drug abuse among young people and social welfare for elderly Issei who were unable to rebuild their lives after returning from the internment camps and lived in poverty. However, these issues were ignored in the Japanese community, which was supposed to be a "model minority," which only made the problems worse. One of the social workers …

Thumbnail for Tracing the history of Japanese Americans through the relationship with African-American history: Part 2
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Tracing the history of Japanese Americans through the relationship with African-American history: Part 2

Sept. 21, 2020 • Masako Miki

Read Part 1 >> From Little Tokyo to Bronzeville When war broke out between Japan and the United States in 1941, suspicion fell on Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Americans of Japanese ancestry. Immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Issei, who were considered to be leaders in the Japanese community, were arrested, and the following year, in 1942, all approximately 110,000 Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast were sent to internment camps built in remote wilderness and swamps. There was …

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