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
Fumiko Yonetani, a writer who continues to speak out against nuclear weapons in the United States and Japan
Aug. 4, 2011 • Keiko Fukuda
The importance of life: what I realized at the end of the war Author Fumiko Yoneya was born in Osaka in 1930. Her precious youth until her early teens overlapped with the war years. "As a child, I was depressed until the end of the war. Every day, I thought that my family and I might die, and the future seemed bleak. I had no hope. But when the war ended, my mind suddenly became clear. I cannot put into …
Informing the world about mistakes of history to stop the spread of prejudice: Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission, Executive Director, Robin Toma
July 4, 2011 • Keiko Fukuda
Fighting for the Rights of Latin American InterneesIn the spring of 2006, I had the opportunity to hear about the story of two Peruvian Nikkei who currently reside in Los Angeles. One of them, while he was still a child, was forcibly moved from South America and imprisoned in the United States during the Second World War in exchange for Americans who became prisoners of war. The other person was a woman who followed her deported husband to the United …
What is the key to succession to the new generation? Interview with the leader of the Okinawa Prefectural Association and Ryukyu Kokusai Taiko
June 9, 2011 • Keiko Fukuda
There are 41 prefectural associations in Southern California. The North American Okinawan Association is by far the largest in terms of membership. The association is divided into sections such as the Youth Division and the Women's Division and is actively involved in activities. One day, I had the opportunity to meet and talk with two instructors of the Ryukyu Koku Matsuri Taiko group, which is part of the Performing Arts Division. It all started when I heard that Tomoko, a …
"Going to the US was a turning point for me, and I want to continue this work until I die" - Eiichi Naito, CEO of Domo Music Group, producer of Grammy Award-winning artist Kitaro
March 24, 2011 • Keiko Fukuda
This year, B'z's Taku Matsumoto won his first Grammy Award, which was a big topic in Japan, but Kitaro has been nominated for the award 14 times in the past (including winning in 2001), and is the Japanese artist with the highest recognition and popularity in the American market. Kitaro's producer is Eiichi Naito, president of Domo Music Group, based in Los Angeles.Naito came to the US in 1974. "I had been working as a recording engineer and PA since …
"I want to be a beloved Okinawan restaurant" - Nao Kimura, new owner of Okinawa Izakaya SHIN
Nov. 25, 2010 • Keiko Fukuda
It has been more than three years since SHIN, a restaurant serving Okinawan cuisine and awamori, opened in Torrance, a suburb of Los Angeles, a town with many Japanese and Japanese residents. Until then, there had been no precedent for an Okinawan restaurant to thrive in California, which has the second largest population of people of Okinawan descent after Hawaii. Although SHIN started off well, its somewhat high prices and other factors caused customers to stop coming, leading to a …
“Soy Sauce Runs Through My Veins” Owner of popular LA-area restaurants, Michael Cardenas
Nov. 4, 2010 • Keiko Fukuda
Working in and around the LA area, restaurant owner Michael “Mike” Cardenas manages several highly acclaimed restaurants, including Sushi Roku, Katana robata and sushi bar, BOA steakhouse, and the Lazy Ox Canteen the latter of which the LA Times raved, immediately after its 2009 opening, that “reservations are probably going to need to be made well in advance.” Mike, who speaks fluent Japanese, was born in Yokosuka city, Kanagawa, Japan. His father, an American, served in the U.S. Navy, and …
The Recollections of a “Mixed” Woman Raised in Post-war Japan: Author of “Little Caterpillar in Training” Grace Lee
Oct. 11, 2010 • Keiko Fukuda
In the beginning of summer, I had scheduled to meet with a woman for the first time at a café in Little Tokyo. As a journalist making a living through interviews, it’s not uncommon for me to be meeting somebody new. I could even say that has become a daily routine for me. Yet I was especially looking forward to meeting the woman whom I had promised to see on this day. The reason lies in the book that this …
A record of the life of Minoru Yamasaki, a second-generation Japanese-American architect - "The Man Who Built the Targets of 9/11" by Makiko Iizuka
Sept. 22, 2010 • Keiko Fukuda
Los Angeles-based journalist Iizuka Makiko's new book, "The Man Who Made the Target of 9/11" (published by Kodansha) in August 2010, has a provocative title that draws attention. The "target of 9/11" refers, of course, to the World Trade Center (hereafter referred to as WTC), which collapsed in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The architect of the WTC was Minoru Yamasaki, a second-generation Japanese-American, and the protagonist of the book.Yamasaki was born in a Seattle slum in 1912 …
From Sendai to LA--Workshop Support Arrives in LA from the Home of the Tanabata Festival
June 3, 2010 • Keiko Fukuda
A genuine love for Japan, felt in Los AngelesThe Tanabata Festival became the new talk of the town during the 2009 Nisei Week, the Los Angeles Japanese American community’s biggest annual festival. In preparation for an encore display in this year’s festival in August, volunteers gathered on the weekend of May 14th at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center in Little Tokyo for a Tanabata ornament-making workshop. For this workshop, Koichiro Narumi, the 6th generation general manager of the …
Andres Shimabukuro, a third-generation Japanese-Peruvian active in Okinawa
March 31, 2010 • Keiko Fukuda
"Migration" from South America to Okinawa I had the opportunity to visit Okinawa in January 2010. I accompanied a group of 10 North American travel agencies on a fam trip organized by the Japanese government to Japan as a reporter. The group arrived in Okinawa after spending one day each in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka.On the second day of my stay in Okinawa, a preliminary inspection of a hotel was included in the schedule, which was one of the objectives …
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