Keiko Fukuda
@fukudaAfter graduating from International Christian University, Keiko Fukuda worked at a publishing company for an information magazine in Tokyo and moved to the U.S. in 1992. She served as Editor-in-Chief of a Japanese information magazine in Los Angeles until 2003 and transitioned to freelance work that same year. She conducted interviews with various people and reported on topics such as education in the U.S. and Japanese food culture. In 2024, she relocated her base to her hometown of Oita and has continued her reporting and writing online. Website: https://angeleno.net
Updated October 2024
Stories from This Author
Shibucho Owner Shigeru Kudo, who has been making Edomae sushi in LA for 42 years
Oct. 31, 2013 • Keiko Fukuda
99% of the customers at this long-established restaurant are American The restaurant is located between downtown Los Angeles and Koreatown. I don't know what the environment was like in the 1970s when the restaurant opened, but now it is concentrated in Hispanic stores, as can be seen from the surrounding signs. The sushi restaurant stands alone in a place where there are no other Japanese restaurants.The name of the restaurant is Shibucho. As one of the oldest restaurants in the …
3rd session: "Opening our eyes to the Ryukyu spirit on the 100th anniversary of the North American Okinawan Association" (Joey Kamiya) and "For all generations and people interested in Okinawa" (Gramko and Yokota Itsuki)
July 17, 2013 • Keiko Fukuda
The 2nd World Youth Uchinanchu Festival will be held for four days from July 18th to 21st, 2013 at the Torrance Cultural Arts Center in the suburbs of Los Angeles. The themes are "Inheriting Identity" and "Expanding and Strengthening Global Networks." On the day of the event, you can imagine Joey Kamiya busy working with his filming equipment at the venue. Born in Los Angeles and graduated from an art college in Santa Monica, the 25-year-old Joey works as a …
Speaking engagement: “Back to California after 100 years with Misaki Matsui” - Q&A; with Misaki Matsui
July 3, 2013 • Keiko Fukuda
An opportunity to reflect on my family history After working at an advertising firm in Japan, Misaki Matsui headed to America on her own. Now she is an up-and-coming photographer in the greater New York area. While she was born and raised in Japan, it wasn’t until Misaki took a visit back to Japan that she would find out a little known fact about her family history—her great-grandfather had once lived in California and managed a vineyard in the 1910s …
Part 3 (Part 2) Terminal Island
June 26, 2013 • Keiko Fukuda
Part 1 >> Minoru Fujiuchi, a second-generation Japanese-American born on Terminal Island, raised in San Pedro, and with roots in Wakayama, spent his time in an internment camp from age 13 to 16. After passing through Santa Anita, his family returned to Los Angeles in September 1945 after the war ended in Amache, Colorado. However, there was nothing left of Fujiuchi's hometown, Terminal Island. The U.S. government had destroyed all the facilities for Japanese fishermen and evacuated them, so that …
Part 3 (first half) Terminal Island
June 7, 2013 • Keiko Fukuda
One Saturday afternoon, I was driving toward San Pedro. At a fork just before the end of the Harbor Freeway, I headed toward the green Vincent Thomas Bridge. The bridge, where a famous film director jumped to his death last summer, is quite high above the water and offers a view of the Port of Los Angeles below. Terminal Island spreads out to the right as I head toward the road. Before the war, this was a fishing village where …
Part 2: "Dedicated to building a network for young people, going beyond the boundaries of being born in the US and Okinawa" - Hiroshi Yamauchi
May 29, 2013 • Keiko Fukuda
Hiroshi Yamauchi is a second generation Okinawan born in Los Angeles and is one of the key people in the US preparations for the World Youth Okinawan Festival, which is scheduled to be held in July 2013. I tried to contact him several times to arrange an interview, but he was in the middle of tax season and worked as a certified public accountant, so he seemed to be very busy. He sent me an email saying, "I'm sorry, I'll …
2nd Venice
May 14, 2013 • Keiko Fukuda
Although the Southwest District was once the center of the Japanese community in Los Angeles, the Japanese population plummeted like the tide after the Watts Riots. Venice, which we visited next, has a very different appearance from the Southwest District. This is because the Japanese community is still firmly established, centered around the community center and Honganji temple. It is true that the population has decreased compared to the past, but the unity of Japanese people in this area remains …
Part 1: "I want to share the charm of American Uchinanchu with the world" by Yuko Yamauchi
April 25, 2013 • Keiko Fukuda
The World Youth Uchinanchu Festival, which was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil in July 2012, will move to the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance in 2013. This festival is a youth version of the World Uchinanchu Festival, which is held once every five years and celebrates immigrants with roots in Okinawa from all over the world gathering in their hometown, Okinawa. I have never heard of immigrant ancestors gathering in their hometowns in Japan in other prefectures. Moreover, in Okinawa's …
Part 1 (Part 2) Southwest Los Angeles (Crenshaw District)
March 26, 2013 • Keiko Fukuda
Read the first part >> Why on earth did all the Japanese people in the Southwest area disappear to where? Kunio Shiba, president of the Southwest Senior Center, answered this question."I think the Watts riots were a catalyst. Those riots were so violent that the whole city was wiped out. When people think of riots these days, they tend to think of the Los Angeles riots of 1992, but the Watts riots were on a completely different scale." The Watts …
Part 1 (first half): Southwest Los Angeles (Crenshaw District)
March 5, 2013 • Keiko Fukuda
One day, a friend showed me a photo he had taken on his digital camera. A torii gate stood with the sunlight of the seaside as its backdrop. "Where do you think this is? Terminal Island between San Pedro and Long Beach (in the suburbs of Los Angeles). Apparently there used to be a Japanese town there. Apparently this torii gate is a remnant of that." I have heard of Terminal Island. Before the war, it was a town for …
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