Scanning Isago Tanaka's Photo's - My Last Day - Terry Wong

I have finally completed my primary internship task, which is to scan photos artifacts by Isago Tanaka. I feel a sense of accomplishment and relief. Some of the photos I scanned today have American Indians in them, appearing to protest against cheap land sales. Land was made a commodity since the arrival of Europeans to America. Asian American studies often mention about the Alien land law and various issues related to the ownership of land in America for minority groups. Indeed, similar to American Indians, Asian Americans' land ownership rights were limited and deprecated. I feel that these pictures are evidence that the ongoing struggles for justice and equity in Law for Asian Americans are imperative for us and our children. Because we have to fight for equality for us to have proper consolidated ownership of land and properties in order to raise our offspring and make sure their future is bright and fair.

                                                                                                                   - Terry Wong

Beauty Pageant - Terry Wong

After I finished scanning the photos today, I realized I came across some interesting candid pictures that are related to the textbook called "True Beauty" that I am reading for my Asian American Study class. These pictures show beautiful Japanese girls shown to be in a beauty pageant of a sort. Some of them actually have banners across their shoulder to waist stating "Miss Cherry Blossom", "Miss Japan Town", representing that they have already won titles or awards. Besides the appreciation for their outward appearance of beauty, I also appreciated the racial dynamics the beauty pageants demonstrated. Asian Americans hosting events such as beauty pageants help promote a racially diverse judgment on beauty. People of all ethnicity can praise the Asian beauty these congenial ladies carry, as well as to embrace it in a larger community. The Miss USA title shouldn't condescendingly link to one's racial background after all. We should focus our community events on a pan-ethnic cultural background for major national events.

                                                                                                                Terry

Finished My Task - Terry Wong

Just finished my task at NJAHS today. I scanned photos for an event related to a protest of the bombing of Hiroshima in August, 1985. The photos I scanned contain people holding banners saying, "No More Hiroshima!". People look emotional in those pictures and they look determined to get their message across. One of the pictures has a post board with a child who'd been affected by the nuclear weapon. He's shown to be in dire straits and have loss of hair. Once again, I feel a deep sorrow and sympathy at my heart. People shouldn't be like this. I detest wars that bring illness and destruction to innocent people. I seek the day when we no longer need catastrophic weapons of mass annihilation, for the reason that these weapons are destroying our living environments.

                                                                                                                          - Terry Wong

A Fun Day Scanning Photos Taken by Isago Tanaka - Terry Wong

I had a fun day scanning historically significant picture-artifacts dating as far back as during the WWII taken by photographer Isago Isao Tanaka. The pictures in the particular album I scanned vividly represented the strong cultural roots of the Japanese in Americaa back in the past. People were celebrating the "Bon Odori" commemoration in the pictures I scanned. I assumed that it is a Japanese holiday event that consists of parades, carnivals and playing cultural musical instruments. Occasionally, there's a "Hakujin" in kimono in one of those pictures. This shows the harmonious period that these pictures were taken in, as opposed to the war period. Japanese American people were having a blast while enjoying the peace and harmony. These pictures should be preserved for its presented happiness that we as social justice workers strive for.

                                                                                                                  - Terry Wong
                                                                                                                    NJAHS volunteer intern

Internship at NJAHS - Mika

I have been doing internship at NJAHS for about three months.
Before I came here, I was very nervous because I had never had working experience here in America but I have learned a lot of things more than I expected.


First of all, all the works they gave me were very challenging especially transcription and reformatting. They were the most difficult tasks. I think that's because no body had done that before so I was the first one to find the way to finish. I could manage to do it because other people in NJAHS helped me a lot and they always asked me to how it is going so I felt comfortable to ask them whenever I had questions. They really helped me a lot. I appreciate that very much. When I did transcription, they were mostly about the world war so I could learn how they had life at that time in America and how they survived. Some stories about the camps were very sad but still, I was impressed by how they were strong and managed to have life here in America. It was really interesting for me as a student from Japan.

I still have a lots of things to do before I leave but I feel confident to finish all of them. It is the great place to intern because I could experience like real office work at the company or even more and also I can challenge myself in this organization. I am sure I will make use of these experiences for my future. Thank you so much.

Mika

I learned three things during my internship.
First, Planning carefully before I start to work on a project.
Second, We should listen and stay true to our supervisor directions, But still have our own creative vision.
Third, Make people happy.
Those ideas will be extremely useful in my career, I think. I also realized one more important idea which is to always be thankful to the people I work with.    

At NJAHS, I met many people who have shown me kindness they were always helpful to me. In the beginning, I couldn't communicate well with NJAHS staff because of my poor English skills. But even when I can't express my idea in English they tried to understand and helped me so that I was able to express my thoughts, feelings and ideas. So, I appreciate them for all their help. It is just too great to describe in words.

I'm happy that I go to work and build relationships with NJAHS staff and coming to the U.S.

I'll be back to SF and NJAHS one day !!!

Tsuyoshi Inoue        -Intern from Japan-

 I did an internship at NJAHS for five weeks. Before coming here, I was not excited enough to do internship at NPO because my hope was to do internship at business company. However, this internship gave me lots of challenging tasks, which made my internship more satisfying.

 The most interesting and toughest task I did was creating a presentation at university. I learned about how to make presentations at my university in Japan though this was my first time to make presentation in front of native english speakers. I tried to think about what they will be interested in through our presentation to make sure they will listen to it. When we did our presentation, most of the audience listened intently. Also I was able to make them laugh during my presentation. I was really satisfied with the results.

 During internship here, the most interesting and meaningful things that I learned was human relationship. Based on my friend's story, when you work at business situation, most of your task will be based on computer. However, at NPO, our work will be fundamentally based on human relationships.  I had lots of opportunities to talk with many diverse people, for example, professor, university students, photographer and senior citizen. I found it really interesting to communicate with people and I hope I can get a job where I can meet many kinds of people.

In the end, I can definitely say this internship influenced my future career. I would like to say thank you to all the people who helped me doing internship, including my supervisor Rachel and boss Rosalyn.

Yuto