Ask any Nisei from the south end of the Imperial Valley about their childhood Christmas experiences, and their fond reminiscences inevitably take them back to the Kokubuns’ church. Reverend Jingoro Kokubun was the pastor of two non-denominational Christian churches. In 1920, he founded both the Calexico Independent Church and Union …
During my college days I once wrote an essay on the three ideals that I thought best epitomized the samurai: giri (duty), on (obligation), and chū (loyalty). It is no coincidence that a few years later as the coordinator of a Japanese American exhibition in the Imperial Valley Pioneers Museum, I …
Were there samurai in the Imperial Valley? The answer is yes, but that’s not why a suit of samurai armor is on display in the Imperial Valley Pioneers Museum. For those of you who have not been to the Pioneers Museum in Imperial, California, it is one of the few multi-ethnic …
Thirteen-year-old Tatsuo Asamen did not yet have a driver’s license but he nonetheless drove an old farm truck each evening to the corner of a field located about two miles west of his home. Waiting for him amongst a clump of tall arrowweed brush was his father, Zentaro Asamen. The …
I live on a farm in the Imperial Valley, which is located in the southeastern corner of California. My Issei grandparents established our farm before the Second World War when thousands of Japanese immigrants converted barren desert into fertile farmland. When I was growing up, my grandmother lived on the …
A note on names: The names of the Issei photographers, including Shimotsusa even though he returned to Japan, are presented in Western order, that is, personal name followed by surname. For the names of Japanese nationals in Japan, I have maintained the Japanese custom of surnames preceding personal names.
Shake & Bake—that is how we characterize the Imperial Valley. The temperature was almost 110 degrees on the afternoon of August 26, 2012, when a magnitude 5.5 earthquake struck. It was centered just a mile or two north of Brawley. Riverview Cemetery is on the northern edge of town and …
In early February 2014, just as The Rafu Shimpo was beginning to mark the third anniversary of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan and extol the continued relief efforts of the Nikkei community in the United States, Randy Sakamoto, the historian of the West Los Angeles …
Journal feed
