OAA'S VIRTUAL WORLD UCHINAANCHU DAY CELEBRATION

Special online screenings of Ryūkyūkoku Matsuri Daiko Los Angeles Branch's 25th Anniversary Concert featuring members from 6 countries!

October 29th (Saturday) & 30th (Sunday)
Showings at 12 noon, 4 p.m., and 8 p.m. Pacific Time
WATCH HERE

To commemorate World Uchinaanchu Day, the OAA teamed up with the Los Angeles Branch of Ryukyukoku Matsuri Daiko for special online showings of their monumental 25th Anniversary Concert, which was an international celebration featuring members from Uchinaa (Okinawa Island), Myaaku (Miyako Island), Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, and across the U.S.!

With that concert being an international affair represented by SIX countries, we felt that showing the recording would be a perfect way to virtually celebrate World Uchinaanchu WEEKEND: There will be three showings on both Saturday and Sunday, each one featuring a live chat to interact with fellow viewers.

Filmed in February 2020, this was one of the last community gatherings many of us attended before the lockdown.

What is "World Uchinaanchu Day"?「世界のウチナーンチュの日」とは？

At the closing ceremony of the 6th Worldwide Uchinaanchu Taikai/Festival 世界のウチナーンチュ大会 – a massive, global “homecoming” for the descendants of Okinawan immigrants – in 2016, the late-Okinawa Prefecture Governor Takeshi Onaga announced that October 30 would henceforth be declared as World Uchinaanchu Day (WUD). The idea was proposed by Andres Higa and Tadashi Andres Ysa Urbina, third-generation Okinawan descendants from Argentina and Peru, respectively.

They took to the stage at the closing ceremony with a powerful message: “We have gratitude for our ancestors in our hearts. We have love for all those we meet in our hearts. We have love for our ancestral home in our hearts.” The speech -- spoken in Japanese with a large screen displaying English, Portuguese, and Spanish translations -- was received with loud cheers from the audience.

“[Today] Uchinaanchu of the world have gathered once again, and once again our hearts have become one. Let us celebrate the fact that we are all Uchinaanchu.” (Click here to watch the full speech)