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I didn’t eat much Japanese food growing up.  Born hapa Yonsei of a second generation German American mother and third generation Japanese American father who’d grown up together in the “old neighborhood” of Lakeview, Chicago, circumstances didn’t dictate much knowledge of overt Japanese customs, culinary or otherwise.

Our family emigrated from Kyushu in the early 1900s, farmers who plied their trade in California’s Central Valley, culminating in ownership of acreage purchased under the names of their American-born Nisei infants due to the California Alien Land Law that prohibited “aliens ineligible for citizenship” from owning land or even leasing it for a period exceeding three years.  “Jus Soli” provided them a loophole whereby they could eventually own property some twenty years post-arrival.

The Undeniables writers workshop was formed in 1999, inspired by a chapter from the novel VALLEY (Bend Press, 1998), by Mike Daily. Edren Sumagaysay and I had met the previous year in a touring theatre troupe based in Los Angeles, and got to talking about a mutual passion for writing while holed up between shows in a Maryland motel. We had both recently read Mike Daily's then newly released novel, and wanted to host a writers workshop of our own. The first workshop was held in my apartment on 163rd Street in Gardena, CA, a two-day affair attended by Edren, myself, and five others. The purpose was simple: to better our craft. 

[Day 1]

     On Friday, March 11, 2011, I found it strange that my 10-year-old daughter’s figure-skating coach called my wife’s cell phone around 9 o’clock in the morning just to ask how we were doing. Friday mornings are usually a quiet time for us because that’s the only day when my wife does not have to take our daughter to a daily pre-dawn figure skating lesson on Oakton and then drive her back before her school starts at 8:53. My wife had no idea what the coach was talking about until he muttered “an earthquake” and “Japan” in one sentence. We had not heard anything. I usually turn the radio off when the NPR does its fund-raising. We rarely watch TV, only DVDs and Netflix. Since we had just moved to a new house in Lincoln Park, we had no Internet service, either. After she hung up and told me about an earthquake in Japan, I wasn’t yet that concerned. Japan is an “earthquake-ready” country. The construction regulations are very strict so that the buildings can withstand significant quakes. Companies and schools have, by law, an annual training day to review proper procedures and the best evacuation routes in an emergency. Also, I had never met anyone who didn’t have non-perishable goodies stashed away just in case. Besides, I thought, it was already 11 P.M. in Japan, and my mother must’ve gone to bed some time ago.

For a majority of my life I have felt a little left out of the Japanese American community. This is despite the fact that my family incorporated both my mother’s American/Italian traditions and my father’s Japanese traditions. My dad was born and raised in Japan and moved to Chicago as a young man in 1971.

As a child, I watched Japanese tapes of Anpanman, called grapes budou, and even attended a Japanese Buddhist temple in downtown Chicago.  However, growing up in the  suburbs, the Japanese American community was sparse.  Few related to Japanese culture with the exception of the big Pokémon craze in elementary school. I spent a lot of my time playing soccer, baseball and even football. Yet I also managed to find solitude for manga, Japanese Dramas, and karate. 

I was born in Tokyo, Japan into an artisan family called TOYOAKI MOTO, traditionally categorized as OKIYA, meaning a booking and training agent for Geisha ladies in downtown Tokyo’s designated area. While the economy and social environment forced many of those traditional artisan family businesses to close down in the 1960s, I was fortunately able to receive some of the important essence of traditional Tokyo Geisha cultural training and studies at age 4, and became a part of the performing crew in early childhood. The business was organized and managed by my grandmother Aki, a second generation owner of TOYOAKI MOTO. Most of the training I received was from Aki and her disciples.

Looking back into my life, I have noticed that a certain invisible hand has always supported me.  I am not talking about the economics term of Adam Smith, the “invisible hand,” that describes the self-regulating nature of the marketplace.  The invisible hand that I am mentioning here is a guiding force that opens doors for me.  Help is offered to me when I am in trouble.  Something leads me to the right direction, when I am lost.  Opportunities are coming to me, rather than catching them.  It is something more than that I am a lucky guy.  I feel that I am always surrounded with a miraculous force that is filled with grace.   

I am a transplant in Chicago, having arrived from Hawaii with my wife, Carolyn, in 1954 to attend Northwestern University Law School.  Our children, Bryan and Shari, were both born in Chicago and we have made this city our home for the past 55 years. 

I have been asked a countless number of times what made me leave the Hawaiian Islands and relocate in Chicago.  My short answer has always been, “You can’t eat sand and sunshine.”  My real reason for choosing Chicago as our permanent home was the fact that attempting to establish a law practice in Hawaii in 1957 was not appealing, encouraging or promising to me.  I wanted to be in the “mainstream” of America and not confined to a few islands in the Pacific, as beautiful and romantic has they may have been touted to be.  California where many people from Hawaii have relocated in the past half century did not appeal to me because of the forced relocation to concentration camps (politely call internment camps by the government) that Japanese Americans experienced during the tragic war years.  Chicago was a new frontier to me with its many challenges and opportunities.  My wife fully concurred in our decision to give up the Hawaiian Islands permanently. 

Once upon a time, there was such a thing as the Bubble Economy. No one was aware of it while it was around. Then everyone started calling it “Baburu” only after it had     supposedly popped and disappeared without a trace. It was in reference to the economic growth of the 80's in Japan. In the later part of that decade, Japanese corporations  got so lush with dollars they were able to buy the pride of America: the Hollywood studios. There were many media backlashes to this action. Some Japanese cultural figures even forewarned of such a bold move as being out of our class and too arrogant against our good American friends. In reality, it was merely a rational business step; the world’s largest home video manufacturers acted on their long-term interest to secure access to Hollywood studio libraries. But it was virtually unfathomable for most of the common Japanese folks. For us it meant being the boss to those blond, blue-eyed Hollywood actors, whom we only knew to admire on our knees and faint. I remember, as a Japanese high school teen, I wanted to apologize to my American Mormon missionary friends, who used to host bi-weekly English conversation classes at a nearby community center. Half of them said I should not feel that way. The other half was elated that I felt that way.  

The first time I heard of Tetsuo Matsuda was in 1992 in Tokyo. I was a violin student at a music conservatory in Tokyo and had just discovered and become infatuated by the dark rich sound of the viola. This is an often overlooked  instrument of the string family.  The viola is larger than a violin with a different set of strings but still played on the shoulder.  A Japanese professor from the Julliard Conservatory in New York City was visiting Japan and he had just given me a viola lesson.  After the lesson, he recommended that I purchase a viola.  Good quality, reasonably priced contemporary violas were hard to find in Japan.  He suggested that I obtain one, at a very good price, from a Japanese maker who was living in Chicago, Tetsuo Matsuda.  I had just started playing the viola and wanted to learn the instrument well before purchasing one.  The following year, I came to America to study at the Peabody Conservatory.  After graduating, I moved to Chicago to perform with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.

I was born in 1962 in Tokyo. I grew up just like an average Japanese. I went to junior high, high school, and to University. Unfortunately, I goofed off and did not study, dropping out at the end of the fourth year. I got a job at a children's clothing company doing accounting, sales, and production management. I learned a lot about business and it was fun, but after four years, I decided to change my job. My Dad asked if I wanted to go to America for while since our family had hosted an exchange student from Chicago

Normally, I am a fearless writer, but this commission from the Chicago Japanese American Historical Society (CJAHS) has created endless procrastination, writer’s block and even fear for this author. For months, I could not figure out why- but today, it hit me. My generation is hard to define. We’re not supposed to be “too open,” show our emotions or attract attention- all cultural remnants from being racially profiled in America during WWII. We Sansei (Third Generation Japanese American) are furthering the transition that our parents (Nisei) and grandparents (Issei) pioneered, yet we remain largely invisible. Our assimilation is relatively smooth. Our attempt at not drawing too much attention to ourselves has been successful, perhaps to a fault. As our society becomes truly integrated, there are a certain percentage of us Japanese Americans (JA’s)-who assimilate well enough to “dissolve.” That is, to integrate well enough remove one’s self from the Japanese American community entirely. Herein lies the conflict. Is this success? Many of us marry partners from another ethnic group/heritage.

Introduction
I joined the staff of the JACL as its Midwest Director in October 1978 and I knew immediately that I wanted to be part of the effort to seek a remedy for the injustice of the Japanese American internment. The JACL had just passed a resolution at its national convention in Salt Lake City declaring that the organization would undertake a campaign to seek redress for those who suffered injustices by action of the government during World War II. Shortly after I started working for the JACL, I attended a staff meeting in San Francisco where I met John Tateishi who had recently been appointed as the chairman of JACL’s National Redress Committee. After meeting John, we quickly established a close relationship and I soon became engaged in the activities of this nascent campaign.