Naomi Hirahara
@gasagasagirlNaomi Hirahara is the author of the Edgar Award-winning Mas Arai mystery series, which features a Kibei Nisei gardener and atomic-bomb survivor who solves crimes, Officer Ellie Rush series, and now the new Leilani Santiago mysteries. A former editor of The Rafu Shimpo, she has written a number of nonfiction books on the Japanese American experience and several 12-part serials for Discover Nikkei.
Updated October 2019
Stories from This Author
Chapter Three—The Curse of Mottainai II
Feb. 4, 2021 • Naomi Hirahara
Clement of the Japanese American museum called me back an hour later. His hunch was right: the photos and the name plate in the mystery storage unit were connected to this Tokko Kinjo at a retirement home in Boyle Heights. He had even touched base with Tokko’s eldest son, who lived in Alhambra. “I’m sorry,” Clement said to me over the phone. “The children don’t want you to be interacting with the father, even virtually.” I let out a sigh. …
Chapter Two—The Curse of Mottainai I
Jan. 4, 2021 • Naomi Hirahara
While many post-World War II Japanese families were all about discarding old tansu and kimono, my mother closely held to the value of mottainai, that it was a disgrace to throw something away before its time. In other words, as long as an object had not completely disintegrated, she was against throwing it away. We were from a small town, Minamiawaji, on Awaji island in Hyōgo prefecture. Our family house was an old wood-framed structure that should have been torn …
Chapter One—The Contract
Dec. 4, 2020 • Naomi Hirahara
“Hello, Souji RS. Hiroko speaking.” I held my cell phone to my ear as I defrosted some natto in the microwave. My 10-year-old daughter Sycamore’s lunch break was in a few minutes and she had 50 minutes before her next Zoom session. “Are you the cleaning service?” The voice on the other line was male, low without any warmth. He sounded American, which meant he could have been any race or ethnicity. “Ah, I provide a soul cleansing and past …
Chapter Twelve—A Japanese Girl
Oct. 4, 2020 • Naomi Hirahara
For the past two days, Okei’s teeth chattered, all day and all night. It was as if a spirit had entered her body and she had no control over it. “I don’t want to die here, Sakurai ojisan,” she said to her constant companion, Matsunosuke “Mats” Sakurai. Both of them had joined the Veerkamp household after the Schnells had disappeared. Since Francis and Louisa had so many young children, Okei was supposed to help lighten the matriarch’s load. As it …
Chapter Eleven—In the Dark Night
Sept. 4, 2020 • Naomi Hirahara
The sounds of the explosions seemed to get louder every day. Kintaro felt his whole body shake as the booms seemed close to shattering his ear drums. His roommate, Makoto, had disappeared in the night. There was no one to retrieve him from his dark thoughts. He was afraid to sleep because he didn’t want to be caught off-guard. That’s what happened in the Boshin War. He had closed his eyes for a few minutes and then—BAM! A projectile tore …
Chapter Ten—Lost Samurai
Aug. 4, 2020 • Naomi Hirahara
Shin: To become a person who is trusted, and who can trust others. —a principle of the Aizu people As the Wakamatsu colonists began to leave Gold Hill, Matsunosuke “Mats” Sakurai began to have vivid dreams from his past in Aizu. It was almost as if the celestials were populating his world in his sleep to compensate for the ones who left in reality. Gone were the Saitos, the young couple whose marriage seemed to be strained by the complaints …
Chapter Nine—Pickles and the Promised Land
July 4, 2020 • Naomi Hirahara
Matsugoro Ohto wiped the sweat off of his forehead as he and his fellow carpenter, Kuninosuke “Kuni” Masumizu, took a break from their woodworking project inside the Veerkamp family’s barn on Gold Hill. Led by the family’s German patriarch, Francis, the Veerkamps were plentiful. By last count, Matsugoro thought that there might be at least six children, all boys. His fellow Japanese countryman, Kuni, was more than twenty years younger than him. Kuni, in fact, was about the same age …
Chapter Eight—Death of the Mulberry Tree
June 4, 2020 • Naomi Hirahara
Keiko Shinshi hadn’t been feeling well for days. Her husband, Tatsutaro, thought it was because the last mulberry tree in the colony had died. Their silkworm room seemed like a gravesite, with the remains of shriveled up caterpillars lining the floor. A few cocoons were hanging from trees branches that his wife brought in. It was quite a barbaric process, with the cocoons being dropped into boiling vats of water so that the silk exteriors could be removed. In other words, …
Chapter Seven—A Night in San Francisco
May 4, 2020 • Naomi Hirahara
Among the Japan-born Wakamatsu colonists, Makoto and Kuni were the strongest English speakers. As a result, when the colony’s founder, John Henry Schnell, announced that he would be taking a trip to San Francisco to meet with some Japanese envoys, as well as do research into future agricultural exhibitions, he asked these two men to accompany him. Makoto was elated. He had a visible scar in the middle of his face, a remnant from a failed battle to save their …
Chapter Six—Okei: Star Stories
April 4, 2020 • Naomi Hirahara
Okei Ito hated mosquitos. In the California inaka, they seemed to swarm everywhere, breeding in water collected in surrounding ditches. In these same ditches, old miners, still fueled by the twenty-year-old dream of striking it rich, spent hours panning for gold. She wasn’t used to all the mosquitos. She, like the other Wakamatsu colonists, were from northern Japan. Even in the middle of summer, it was cooler back home. Light rain would even fall at times. In contrast, the weather …
