Nichi Bei Weekly

The Nichi Bei Weekly, published by the Nichi Bei Foundation, rose out of the ashes of the historic legacy of the Nichi Bei Shimbun (1899-1942) and Nichi Bei Times (1946-2009) as the first nonprofit ethnic community newspaper of its kind in the country. It has been published in San Francisco’s Japantown since September of 2009.

Updated April 2018

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Recollections from Jerome and Rohwer

By Arthur A. Hansen, Nichi Bei Weekly
22 Jan 2023

In 2002-2004, I was honored to serve with two distinguished historical colleagues, the late Roger Daniels and the late Franklin Odo, as a co-consultant for the Life Interrupted Project, jointly sponsored by the Public History Program of the University of Arkansas, Little Rock, and the Japanese American National Museum. Funded chiefly by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, an organization dedicated to promoting statewide issues of economic, racial, and social justice, this project generated eight new exhibitions, initiated elementary- and secondary-level educational curriculum, produced a n…

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'A Heuristic Model' for Historians to Emulate with Other Camps

By Arthur A. Hansen, Nichi Bei Weekly
8 Jan 2023

Having read in Saara Kekki’s Acknowledgements within the book under review that its contents had been favorably vetted by three historians of the Japanese American World War II experience that I greatly admire (Eric Muller, Greg Robinson, and Paul Spickard), and having observed that the latter two of these historical scholars had provided promotional comments on the book’s cover attesting to the work’s seminal significance, I was utterly thrilled with the fortuitous opportunity to read and review Japanese Americans at Heart Mountain. This was especially the case because t…

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Life in the Tule Lake Stockade

By Arthur A. Hansen, Nichi Bei Weekly
1 Sep 2022

There now exists a richly diverse number of publications devoted to the World War II concentration camp for Japanese Americans generically called Tule Lake. This penal facility was initially known as the Tule Lake Relocation Center when it opened on May 27, 1942. However, in the wake of an ill-conceived so-called “loyalty questionnaire” imposed on all 10 of the “relocation centers” and administered by the War Relocation Center in early 1943, it alone—thanks to pressure applied jointly by the U.S. government, the U.S. Army, and the Japanese American Citizens Leag…

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Bio of Issei Journo Shines

By Arthur A. Hansen, Nichi Bei Weekly
25 Aug 2022

Prior to reading this book, my knowledge about prominent Issei lawyer/journalist Sei Fujii derived from two starkly contrasting experiences. The first of these was co-authoring with Ronald Larson a forthcoming published essay entitled DOHO: The Japanese American “Communist” Press, 1937-1942. The second was my viewing of the 30-minute award-winning 2012 film Lil Tokyo Reporter directed by Jeffrey Chin (the co-publisher with Fumiko Carole Fujita of A Rebel’s Outcry) at the Nichi Bei Foundation’s 2016 Films of Remembrance. Whereas Doho roundly denounced Fujii for pa…

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‘Brilliant’ Work Relies on Oral Histories of Japanese American Hibakusha

By Arthur A. Hansen, Nichi Bei Weekly
17 Aug 2022

In 1974, Betty Mitson and I co-edited a modest and virtually self-published and crudely fabricated book titled Voices Long Silent: An Oral Inquiry into the Japanese American Evacuation. It was conceived and developed as a way to open up discussion about a World War II event that had heretofore largely been muted by the general U.S. public and even the Japanese American community: the Nikkei’s wholesale and unjust eviction by the U.S. government from their predominantly West Coast homes and subsequent incarceration in inland concentration camps. The principal methodology we used in this …

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Japanese migrants and their descendants

Nichi Bei Weekly

Nikkei Chronicles #3—Nikkei Names: Taro, John, Juan, João?

The Child of a Thousand Generations

Tad Nakamura’s Art and Activism

Nikkei Chronicles #5—Nikkei-go: The Language of Family, Community, and Culture

The Chuo Gakuen School: The Seeds of Prestige for the Japanese Community in Mexico

Postwar Japanese Emigration to the Dominican Republic — Part 1: A Tragic Tale

Uka Sake: Closing the Circle on a Trans-Pacific Rice-Growing Legacy

A Sansei Selective Service Story

日本時間 ～日本語ラジオ放送史～ 《ロサンゼルス編》

第10回 尾座本導のサンデー毎日放送とラジオ小東京

10th Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest

The Last Days of The Dandy Lion

My Name is Neal

Journal Entry #Size 42-44: "Casual Commentary..."

書評：和泉真澄『日系カナダ人の移動と運動―知られざる日本人の越境生活史』

1992年渡米、目標は「アカデミー賞」— 俳優の井上英治さん

Kizuna 2020: Nikkei Kindness and Solidarity During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Tiempos pandémicos: teletrabajo y koden digital

Kizuna 2020: Nikkei Kindness and Solidarity During the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 e os heróis anônimos

香川県海外移民の父：今雪真一の情熱と功績

第３部：金子正則知事の南米訪問とその主な見解

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Uka Sake: Closing the Circle on a Trans-Pacific Rice-Growing Legacy

A Sansei Selective Service Story

The Last Days of The Dandy Lion

Journal Entry #Size 42-44: "Casual Commentary..."

Chapter 2—Role Reversal

Mom Was Young Once, Too!

Color

Experience Okinawa!

Big Band Music is My Jam

One Thousand Cranes

Journal Entry #Even Just 1 Would Help: "Save Us!..."

Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest – Voice Actor Mayumi Saco Reads Aloud a Winning Story

Another Willard Scott Moment

Bertram Akira Tsunematsu

Paul Takagi: A Centenary Remembrance

Journal Entry #7 Whackadoodles: "Snow's Posse..."

Tad Nakamura’s Art and Activism

Life Lessons of Mottainai

Part 4: World War I - Japanese Loyalty to the US

Making History: Remembering Nikkei Legacy

Journal Entry #First Coined in '56: "We Need Asimov's 3 Laws..."

History Lessons with Professor Masumi Izumi — Part 1: Family Background

Want to make authentic Japanese food? Just One Cookbook's Nami Chen is here for you

I Am a Rainbow! - Part 2

Excerpt form Atomweight — Prologue

On “Authenticity” in Japanese food

An excerpt from Unforgotten Voices from Heart Mountain: As American As Apple Pie—Yellowstone - Part 2

Chapter 1—Passing Time

Sakura of Wahiawā

Surrender — Part 2

Journal Entry #Lesson 6,141: "I've Got a Million of These..."

History Lessons with Professor Masumi Izumi — Part 2: Japanese American vs Japanese Canadian Internment/Incarceration

Chef Akira Hirose Feeds a Community with Food Fit for an Emperor

80 Years of the 442nd

Surrender — Part 3

I Am a Rainbow! - Part 1

Interview with Emi Sasagawa, Author of Atomweight

Journal Entry #More than 100,000: "50-100 Fall Out Per Day..."

An excerpt from Unforgotten Voices from Heart Mountain: As American As Apple Pie—Yellowstone - Part 1

Chapter 12 (Part 2): Nisei Education in Japanese Schools

Part 5: New Japanese Women as Comrades — Fujinkai

The legacy of Toyo Takata, Who Captured the Voice of Japanese Canadians

Bay Area Woman Turns Love of Softball into Coaching Career

Navigating With(out) Instruments: traci kato-kiriyama’s art for love, hope, and healing

Obituary: Hank ‘Toto’ Kagawa, Owner of Fish King Market

A Miraculous Family Gathering: Wasuke Hirota’s Mixed-Race Descendants Celebrate at Ireichō

Journal Entry #Between 0-5 Toes: "Extreme Extremities..."

A Partial and Personal Timeline of Asian American Men on Stage and Screen

日本時間～日本語ラジオ放送史～《ロサンゼルス編》

第10回尾座本導のサンデー毎日放送とラジオ小東京