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
Thanks for a great 2024
We’re closing out 2024 and the launch of The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration with appreciation for everyone who attended one of our events this year or picked up a copy of our Penguin Classics anthology.
Continue reading Thanks for a great 2024
Teachers Guide for “The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration”
Just in time for the annual conference this week of the National Council of Teachers of English in Boston, Penguin Random House Education has issued a new Teacher’s Guide to accompany our new Penguin Classics anthology of The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration. You can download it for free as a ten-page PDF.
Continue reading Teachers Guide for “The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration”
What now? Look to our shared history
In an instant, the election changed everything. It has profoundly shifted the context of the work we do toward the darkness that is openly promised by a new president.
I gave my first post-election interview to Bianca Vandenbos at the Book Notions blog:
Continue reading What now? Look to our shared history