3rd Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest

The Little Tokyo Historical Society’s third short story contest has concluded with more creative stories related to the Little Tokyo community. As in the previous year, there were winners in the English language category, the Japanese language, and also the Youth category with cash prizes for the First Place winners. This year there was a special donation made by the Bunkado gift shop located in Little Tokyo in celebration of Bunkado’s 70th Anniversary of doing business after World War II.

Winners

English Language Category: “Last Master of Go” by Joe Wocoski
Youth Category: “Kumiko With Hidden Worlds” by Sarena Kuhn
Japanese Language Category: “Obon to machi to ojiichan (Obon, the Town, and Grandpa)” by Shirley Watanabe-Nishida (Japanese only)

Runner Ups

English Language Category: “Merry Christmas Mario-san” by Rubén Guevara
Youth Category: “Home is Little Tokyo” by Yuriko Chavez
Japanese Language Category:
- “Father & Daughter and Little Tokyo” by Akira Tsurukame
- “Fusion City” by Takiko Morimoto

*Read stories from other Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contests:

1st Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest >>
2nd Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest >>
4th Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest >>
5th Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest >>
6th Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest >>
7th Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest >>
8th Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest >>
9th Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest >>
10th Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest >>

community en

Home is Little Tokyo

By Yuriko Chavez
23 Aug 2017

Year: 2082

It was quite an unusual action for Takeo to venture out into the streets of Los Angeles. The old man was reserved and reticent, only making small talk to a few. Usually he stayed home, painting and reading books. Yet today, he felt different. He felt he needed to go to Little Tokyo, as if a string of fate was pulling him to a place he needed to be.

Takeo firmly believed in fate. Ever since he was a young boy, he believed in the myth that he and his soulmate were connected by the red thread of …

community en

“MERRY CHRISTMAS, MARIO-SAN”

By Rubén “Funkahuatl” Guevara
3 Oct 2016

Little Tokyo, 1989

One night, Mario Martinez, a struggling musician from Boyle Heights, was sitting in a booth at the Atomic Café in Little Tokyo when punk god Sid Vicious walked in with his entourage and ordered fried rice. Suddenly rice balls were flying through the air but no one seemed to mind or notice. It wasn’t unusual for that kind of craziness. Other punk bands would come by such as X, The Bags, The Ramones, even David Bowie and the avant-garde artist Andy Warhol once paid a visit. Even though punk music wasn’t Mario’s cup of tea, he liked …

community en

Kumiko with Hidden Worlds

By Sarena Kuhn
19 Sep 2016

He strolled leisurely through the Japanese Village Plaza, squinting slightly in the light of a five-till-noon sun. Gone were the hustle and bustle of the weekend, replaced by the tranquil aura known only by a Tuesday morning in Little Tokyo. At the smell of fresh imagawayaki, his fingers danced around his wallet with indecisiveness.

No, I came here for one reason.

Reassured, he confidently strode through the doors of the market, making a beeline to a familiar shelf with the efficiency of a shopping pro. His eyes searched the area to no avail. It had to be here; it always …

community en ja

The Last Master of Go

By Joe Wocoski
12 Sep 2016

In the last edition of The Rafu Shimpo newspaper it was written, “Kazuki Tsukuyomi, the Last Master of Go, lived just long enough to witness the total lunar eclipse of August 11, 2185 and then passed quietly out of existence along with the last remnants of Little Tokyo. Kazuki Tsukuyomi was 124 years old when he died. It was in this manner that the long protracted twenty year legal battle over the Japanese American National Museum came to an end. The museum was the last cultural icon left of the Japanese in Little Tokyo. Sadly, in the days that followed, …

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