Here is the most detailed story yet from my recent talks on the links between wartime incarceration and the scourge of ICE abductions. 
You should read the story by Kai Curry online at the Northwest Asian Weekly, but it conveys so much that’s important, and so much has changed since I first spoke on this in April, that I’ve shared it in full below. Thanks to the King County Library System and the Bellevue Library branch for centering We Hereby Refuse as their “One Bellevue, One Book.” Continue reading “One Bellevue, One Book:” the links between wartime incarceration and ICE abductions
First live audience for staged reading of “NO-NO BOY” adaptation
Audience is who we make theater for, and it was a privilege to have such a lively one witness the first staged reading of our new theatrical adaptation of John Okada’s No-No Boy at the Seattle Rep on Thursday, May 8. Continue reading First live audience for staged reading of “NO-NO BOY” adaptation
What Japanese American Wartime Incarceration Tells Us About Mass Deportation Today
Prepared remarks for a public talk presented April 22 at Wellesley College in the Pendleton Atrium. See below for video of an updated version presented in Oakland on June 22, 2025.
One year ago, when Elena Creef and I first discussed my speaking here, I never thought my talk would take such a dark turn. Then came the election. Elena asked me for a title for the program. By then, we knew the general direction things would take, but not the precise details. So this umbrella title seemed likely to stick by the time April 22nd rolled around.
Continue reading What Japanese American Wartime Incarceration Tells Us About Mass Deportation Today
Public reading set for “No-No Boy” work-in-progress
I’m grateful to the Seattle Rep and artistic director Dámaso Rodriguez for another opportunity to develop the script for this new stage adaptation of John Okada’s No-No Boy.
Continue reading Public reading set for “No-No Boy” work-in-progress
This poster art for my public talk on April 22 says it all
The manufactured hysteria over diversity, equity, and inclusion
At the March 1 Lunar New Year banquet for the Seattle chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association, I was asked to say a few words as one of the chapter founders on its 40th anniversary. I felt I had to say what is apparent — that in the last six weeks our nation has been turned upside down.
Continue reading The manufactured hysteria over diversity, equity, and inclusion
PODCAST: Complying in advance by canceling the Day of Remembrance
Let me frame this post and the embedded podcast below by saying the issue here is not to shame the Pike Place Market Foundation for backing out of hosting the observance of this year’s Day of Remembrance in Seattle at the market stalls, which before the war were three-fourths occupied by Issei truck farmers from the Eastside and Green River Valley. The Market should be held to account, and they have since apologized.
Continue reading PODCAST: Complying in advance by canceling the Day of Remembrance
“Criminals,” a novel in the spirit of John Okada
Before a packed house on February 2 at mam’s books in Seattle Chinatown, I was honored to help launch Criminals, the debut novel by Ben Masaoka of Seattle of a postwar Japanese American family that was published after his recent death.
Continue reading “Criminals,” a novel in the spirit of John Okada
In Memoriam: Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston
To me she at first was just Jeanne Houston, my housing officer in 1970 at Cowell College in the early days of UC Santa Cruz, a younger Nisei with a sunny smile who seemed more like a peer than administrator. We’d share breakfast in the Cowell Commons and not once did she ever mention camp or the war.
So I was surprised a few years after graduating to learn she’d published her memoir as Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, even more surprised when a TV-movie was announced based on her book. By then I was an acting student in San Francisco and it was amazing to reunite with her and husband James Houston at the audition with John Korty. Continue reading In Memoriam: Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston
Asserting our history and defending civil liberties in 2025
On this date we’re in a strange transitional phase, preparing to defend democracy and civil liberties, books and libraries, history and knowledge and education, as they all come under concerted and coordinated attack in the four years to come. The example and literature of Japanese American resistance to wartime incarceration is more relevant than ever, and the script will continue to be written and rewritten to confront events as they unfold. Without question, we will look back at this time of relative peace and grace with nostalgia and a degree of anger at how we got here. However, we press forward, and here’s what’s on tap for the first half of 2025.
Continue reading Asserting our history and defending civil liberties in 2025