Opening Reception for the Nuchi du Takara

On Saturday, February 15, 2011, NJAHS and the Nuchi Du Takara Committee had an opening reception for the new exhibit "Nuchi du Takara: Lessons from the Battle of Okinawa". The reception was held at the exhibit space at the NJAHS' Peace Gallery. About 100 people were in attendance.

The event started at 2:00 p.m. with a Native American blessing with drum and song by John-Carlos and Jessica Perea of the American Indian Studies Department at San Francisco State University. Yuko Morita was the mistress of ceremonies who then introduced Tsugiko Taira, curator of the Haebaru Town Museum in Okinawa and three students who performed an Okinawan ceremony in honor of the war dead.

Next Ms. Morita introduced Dr. Wesley Ueunten who made a few remarks to open the program. He then performed some Okinawan music with the Nakayoshi Group which is group of Okinawan women singers who live in the Bay Area and the Genyukai Berkeley.

Then there was a break for conversation and consumption of saataa andagi; Okinawan doughnuts, sweet potatoes and Okinawan coffee cakes. A documentary made by Fuji TV in Japan about Frank Higashi meeting his brother during the war as enemies was shown.

Following this Rosalyn Tonai of NJAHS made a short talk and the event was concluded with music by Sushi Cal Band who are Japanese and Japanese American Bay Area musicians with Francis Wong on saxophone. There was kachashi at the end of the program with many people joining in. A good time was had by all.

Kappa and the Haunted Ponds of Hawaii

By Ben Hamamoto, Editor Nikkei Heritage

The new issue of Nikkei Heritage, "The Supernatural" has just come out and, as often happens, we didn't have enough space for every article.Here is an article I wrote on Kappa and Hawaii's water spirits.

Water has always held a special place in Japanese folk belief. The source of all life, water purifies and, in the “toro nagashi” lantern ceremony at the end of “O-bon,” it carries visiting ancestral spirits back to the land of the dead. Certain bodies of water are said to be haunted by spirits of the dead, nature spirits, and sometimes by living supernatural beings called “kappa.” One of the most iconic Japanese mythical creatures, the water imp kappa is about the size of a child. It has long, scaly green limbs, a turtles beak and shell, but also scraggly matted hair, surrounding a small saucer on the top of its head. In contemporary Japan, cute cartoon kappa are sometimes featured in advertising, giving the impression they are friendly creatures. However, despite some playful qualities, (like a love of sumo and shogi chess), kappa are said to be quite vicious. In the middle of the night, kappa sneak out of the water to suck the blood and eat the organs of livestock, steal vegetables, and prey on humans when they are alone and vulnerable, even dragging women into the water to assault them and luring children into ponds to pull their organs out through their anus.

Kappa can be subdued by emptying the water from the saucer on their head, rendering them helpless. They can also be bribed with their absolute favorite food, cucumbers — hence the name of cucumber-roll sushi, “kappa-maki.”

The late Glen Grant, Hawaii’s foremost expert on folk belief, never wrote about a kappa sighting, but did note that Issei mothers used to warn their children from walking too close to ponds for fear kappa or water spirits would drag them in.

Grant also came across first-hand accounts of murderous water spirits and a creature, dubbed “the green lady” by the Wahiawa community it frightened, that bears a striking resemblance to the kappa.

In 1957, six children an elementary school in Wahiawa elementary school on Oahu reported seeing a woman with green scaly skin, seaweed hair, webbed feet, clawed hands and a deformed face with no nose. Police questioned the children, who claimed to have spotted it in the gulch behind the school gymnasium, but ultimately dismissed the claims as the product of overactive imaginations. Still, rumored sightings persisted, even in the area surrounding Makaha Elementary School in the 60’s.

According to John Kaikonu’s article in the book “Weird USA,” in 1947 in Ola’a village on the Big Island, a boy, whose last name was Tanaka, was suddenly pulled into a pond by an unseen force while playing with his friends. The children alerted the authorities who sent a dive team after the drowned boy. They were shocked by what they found. The dead boy was sitting on a rock; hands on his sides, eyes and mouth open, swaying gently back and forth with the current in complete defiance of physics.

According to Dr. Grant, from then on, villagers heard the sound of crying coming from the pond. Children were warned to steer clear of the pond and those that didn’t reported feeling something tug at their ankles when they got near.

One man was walking with his son, when the young boy was suddenly dragged into the water, screaming and clawing at the ground. The father quickly summoned a rescue team and they found the child at the bottom of the pond, sitting on a rock just like the Tanaka boy. They were able to pull him up in time and a Shinto priest was subsequently summoned from Hilo to exorcise the pond.

Grant also writes of another haunted pond on Oahu, which a former police sergeant who corroborated his story with a police report told him about. The pond at Waihe’e Falls is a popular diving spot and the sergeant had recovered a dozen bodies out of its murky waters during his time on the force.

Bodies found in Waihe’e Falls, the officer said, don’t float. Generally, gasses accumulate in a corpse’s body cavities, causing them to float within 24 hours. People that drown in the pond, though, are often not recovered for three to four days. So when the sergeant got a call about a missing body in the pond on a July afternoon in 1952, he was not surprised.

A group of Merchant Marines had been swimming in the pond when one of them, a man named Bill, lost his footing while attempting a dive. The back of Bill’s head struck a rock as he fell into the water and he died — an autopsy later revealed — instantly. His friend’s jumped in and searched for him for a full 10 minutes, but could find no trace. Then, suddenly, Bill’s shoulders popped up out of the water. His head and body drooped as if something was lifting the corpse by the nape of its neck. His friends rushed over, but before they could reach the body, it plunged back into the depths of the water as quickly as it had risen.

The police arrived on the scene with a full recovery team of 12 people. They dredged the bottom of the pond with hooked poles and nets, they sent divers in, but they were unable to find any trace of Bill by sundown.

The sergeant and crew took off for the night, planning to return at sun-up to continue the search. Bill’s friends, though, pledged not to leave until the body was recovered and camped out by the pond that night.

The next morning, before they could reach the pond to resume their search, the sergeant and his crew found the young men running down the trail in a panic. The previous night, about 10 p.m., the men began hearing noises coming from the pond. From within their tent, they heard something emerge from the water and dash into the bushes nearby. The thing moved about the bushes and trees in a distinct pattern. It paused and all was quiet for a moment, before it leaped over their tent and into the water with a splash. Minutes later, the sound emerged from the water and repeated. Before long, the young men came to the conclusion it was stalking them. Then around 1 a.m., it began making a noise. The men imitated it for the sergeant, an experienced hunter, as best they could. He did not recognize the sound as similar to any animal that lived in the area. Though he did not tell this to the young men, the sound, the sergeant told Grant, sounding like a human being shrieking in pain.

When the rescue crew reached the pond, though, they froze in their tracks. The normally murky water had become crystal clear overnight. Though this should have made the body easy to find, an hour later, they had no success and were beginning to think it had floated downstream. The sergeant, though, hiked to the top of the falls to get a better look, and from that vantage point, he was able to see Bill’s body, laid face down on a flat rock under water. He gave his crew the location by walkie-talkie, but they could not see Bill or the rock, possibly, the sergeant thought, due to a refraction of light. Going on their sergeant’s verbal directives, the crew was able to hook the rock and began pulling Bill’s body up. However, the second his feet left the water, the sergeant felt a shock in his body. His men immediately radioed — they felt it too. The water, at the spot Bill’s body had been pulled up, began bubbling.

From his vantage point on top of the falls, the sergeant could see something moving quickly back and forth through the water. Soon, he said, the whole pond looked like a washing machine, with water frothing in a circle.

The frightened crew bagged the body up and hurried down the mountain, but when they had gotten about 200 feet away, the waters of the pond came after them as a giant tidal wave. The wave hit the crew and carried them all the way down to the beach. The pond had been completely emptied, causing the worst flood in decades.

Looking for answers, the sergeant went to the University of Hawaii, but its scientists didn’t have any. The only explanation he got, years later, was from an old Hawaiian man.

In the old days, the man said, Waimea valley was sacred ground. The pond contains an “akua,” a god, who takes human sacrifices, in a ritual that lasts three days. By removing the body, the man said, they had interrupted the ritual before the waters were cleansed of the sacrifice’s “lepo” or “dirt.” The pond, he said, had no choice but to spit out the dirty water.

Whether caused by spirits or a yet unexplained natural phenomenon, these drownings provide a word of caution for swimmers a

Tim Kang and the Nikkei Heritage Science Issue

by Ben Hamamoto, Editor Nikkei Heritage

In an early draft of my editor’s note for the science issue of Nikkei Heritage, I made mention of an Asian American actor who appeared in a Shell gasoline ad. It turns out said actor was Tim Kang, who I recently interviewed for the Nichi Bei Weekly. Here's the original draft, in which I make reference to Tim in the second paragraph, not knowing who he was at the time:

Science: it’s given us nanotechnolgy, wi-fi, space travel, x-rays, CAT scans and biotech. In short, it’s what makes our modern world modern. Yet despite all the exciting, sexy things it does for us, science (and scientists) get a bad rap. They are stereotyped as being dry and boring, at best, and at worst as being “spacey” and completely unable to understand the world in qualitative terms. This happens to coincide with another stereotype: Asians are boring and unable to understand the world in qualitative terms – and therefore, they make great scientists.

The gas station around the corner from my apartment has a new video ad that plays while you’re pumping fuel. In it, two men in lab coats (we’re to assume they are scientists) explain the advantages of using their brand of gasoline. One of the men is white; he looks somewhat aged, and he’s thin and bald. The other man is Asian; he’s young, muscular and handsome. I like the ad a lot, and it’s sort of cool to see a good looking Asian dude as part of a prominent campaign—my partner has expressed (repeatedly) that she doesn’t mind either. But there’s something interesting at work here. I think that there’s a good chance that, if he weren’t Asian, they wouldn’t have chosen an actor that handsome or masculine. The fact that he’s Asian alone (and wearing a lab coat) makes him believable as a scientist.

There are plenty of scientists who do fit stereotypes and there’s nothing wrong with that. These people cure diseases and prevent us from dying in car crashses—asking them to also not conform to stereotypes seems a bit silly. However, this issue we happen to have the stories of many Nikkei scientists, whose scientific achievements were made possible not by a detachment from humanity, but by their remarkable compassion for mankind: Linda Dairiki-Shortliffe, a pioneering surgeon in a field notoriously unwelcoming to women. Ruby Ichinose MacDonald, who had a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Sussex in England and the University of Chicago, and then decided to spend her would-be retirement teaching underprivileged youth in a public high school. Tooru Nemoto, who traded his salaryman life in Japan to do research in San Francisco with the transgender and sex worker community. And Michio Kaku, one of the leading figures in ‘String Theory,’ -- as well as a nationally syndicated progressive radio show host.

Nikkei Heritage even took some time out to chat with two prominent Nikkei who, like Kaku, are using the airwaves to educate and entertain the world (as well as dispel the image of the boring scientist). Our summer issue features an exclusive interview with “The Nature of Things” host David Suzuki, one of the world’s foremost environmentalists, and Grant Imahara, special effects guru and host of TV’s “Mythbusters.”

Students Share Their Experience at NJAHS: Reiko’s Story

Reiko remembers how camp life was in Jerome, Arkansas. As a native Hawaiian, she and her family had to relocated to the interned camp. Her father was a Buddhist Minister and Community leader. As Community leader, many of the people who were illiterate, asked helped to for help. Her father helped Japanese Farmers with registering of newborn babies in the Japanese Counsel. She believes that her father was targeted due to his Community leadership and close connections to the Japanese Council. In realty, he was only a serving the Japanese Community. Her family, along with her dad, was sent to Jerome, Arkansas. They are later relocated to the more segregated camp, Tule Lake.

While in Jerome, Reiko tells us of about the kind human kindness of some of the white Anglo-Saxon teachers, whom willing wanted to educate the Nisei children. She tells us of the professors willing to help with English and Math, despite the fact the internees were Japanese-Americans. During this time, there was a lot of discrimination and racism because of the war. After the war, some students and teachers have made long lasting friendships.

She remembers an eye opener of un-equality when she was talking to young U.S Army Soldier Guard. She was surprise that there was in illiterate soldier in U.S. Army. She remembers that in a 3 to 4 day period, she attempted to help him how to read. In Hawaii everyone knew how to read and write, and she felt compelled to help him how to read.

When Reiko was asked how do they (farmers) deal with so much boredom, she states, ” They take the circumstance under which they live and they make the best of it.” She sums up as the “Art of Gaman”. They had to leave their farms and the only way to release an energy disillusion and frustration, events they had nothing to do with, was by planting a small flower gardens. Her story has a special meaning of courage. You your best under the circumstance your put in, as it was for all Japanese-American people that were interned in the relocation camps.

Students Share Their Experience at NJAHS: Eiko’s Story

I have just finished transcribing Eiko's interview where she talks about her life before the war, in the internment camps and her life after the war. Eiko didn't have much of a childhood, her mother was a hypochondriac and so she had to raise her two younger brothers. She completed high school while interned in Tule Lake and was part of their first graduating class. Her family was then moved to camp Jerome in Arkansas, after the no, no questionnaire. A few months later Eiko's family was moved again to Gila, Arizona. She had a job in all three camps, working as a trey girl in the camp hospital and as a dish washer to help support her family. Because Eiko had a job and took care of her brothers she didn't have much of a social life within the camps.
Once they were released her family moved to Los Angeles to be closer to her fathers brother. She then worked as a housekeeper for a Jewish family and gave most of her earnings to her family. Eiko was introduced to her husband through her friend's brother and were engaged about three months later. Eiko and her husband Jimmy have four kids and have been married sixty-two years. Jimmy was also interned at Tule Lake and they both have attended several pilgrimages to the camp.
I really enjoyed transcribing Eiko's story, I've learned a lot from her experience and have a better understanding of what it was like for her and many others that endured the internment camps.

-Sophia Salazar

FAITH, COMMUNITY AND THE CAMPS

On Thursday, December 9, 2010 NJAHS showed the film “Leap of Faith” at the gallery. The film was about how religion kept the people in camps strong and how the young adults stood up and made a difference in their communities. The faiths in the camps also strengthen the people.



After the film screening, Lloyd Wake, Nob Fukuda, and Hiroshi Kashiwagi talked about their experiences of their faith in camps with Julie Yumi Hatta being the facilitator. The three of them had different experiences and faced different obstacles while they were in camp. Lloyd was a Christian and he was relocated to Poston 3 with about 5,000 Japanese Americans. His camp was really relaxing and the guards did not use the guard towers to watch over the Japanese Americans. He was only a kid when his family was put in the camp. What he remembered was that many of the Church members made trips to the camp and held many services. Also, there were a young group of pastors coming out and they spoke English during services. It was a new change because the young pastors attracted many young people to the services. During one Christmas, the youth group performed three concerts in Poston 1, Poston 2 and Poston 3. However for Nob Fukuda, the experience was different. He came from the Shinto Church and was resettled in Topaz. The camp was stricter and they were not allowed to hold any service in camp except for funeral. A lot of their Church members came and socialized with them but service was not allowed. Hiroshi Kashiwagi believes in Buddhism and his experience was also different. He was around 19-20 years old when he was relocated to Tule Lake. They formed a youth leader organization and had Sunday evening services with speaker talking in English to attract the youth. They even held conferences to get all the young people together and he was even a Sunday school teacher.

The three panelists’ experiences show that everyone experienced camp life differently. Some camps are stricter while some are easy-going. Also, the Christian religion was freely allowed to hold services but the Shinto religion was forbidden. The camps were against the Japanese religions because they want everyone to be loyal and if anyone didn’t practice the Christianity, they were the enemies.


Camp life caused some of them to be ashamed of being Japanese Americans and they eliminated everything about them that were related to Japanese. For example, Hiroshi didn’t practice his religion anymore after he left camp. He was ashamed of his Japanese and didn’t accept his religion again until many years after when he realized that other non-Asians were interested in the religion. Internment camps changed many people’s lives but after many years, they finally accept who they are again and came back to support the Japanese American community.

The movie night was a good turn out because there were 12 people that attended the event and it was a nice way to learn new things about life in the internment camps from the actual person instead of just reading books about them. First hand experiences are valuable information and more people should come to more of NJAHS events and they will learn many new things.

Students Share Their Experience at NJAHS: Asa’s Story

Asa Hanamoto was one of the "Yes-yes" internees that managed to find a way out of the Japanese internment camps. As a child in a farming family, Mr. Hanamoto was quite experienced with agricultural work. He was able to use these skills to his advantage, and volunteer as an agricultural worker during the internment. He succeeded in avoiding staying in the camps for quite a while, but was eventually forced to return. Here, he came into contact with the "No-no" group in the camps, and was forced to tread carefully in camp. However, it was at this point that he was drafted into the army.

Mr. Hanamoto's was drafted into the army as a regular soldier, but due to his background and knowledge of at least basic Japanese, he was recruited to join the military's MIS division, working as a translator and interpreter. He trained both as a soldier and as a translator, but by the time most of his training was finished, the war was practically over.

Since the war was already finished, Mr. Hanamoto was only required to go to a few places while in the military. First, he stayed in the Phillipines, then he moved to Japan, where the military was doing it's post-war occupation.

Mr. Hanamoto's stories were very detailed, as well as very informative. He had a very active life during the internment period, and his stories were very interesting to listen to and transcribe. He was able to continue his life to some degree instead of being stuck in the internment camps, and he had quite a few stories to tell because of it. It was an interesting experience to listen to him.