HELPING EACH OTHER WIN WITH STORIES SEPTEMBER 2025!
2025-11-13
It's a good feeling to "connect" and
absorb the energy of a gathering.
OMOIDE (memories) is a program where I love being one of the leaders, since 1991, when Margaret Yasuda, Dell Uchida, Chuck Kato and I started meeting in my kitchen weekly to start. Janine Brodine is our “coach” and I’m the “manager” of our team. We meet the third Saturday of each month at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington (JCCCW) in Seattle.
Janine and I met at the Kirkland Book Festival in 2012 when Sheryn Hara was the organizer of the Kirkland Book Festival. Sheryn published OMOIDE V (2011) - a compilation of OMOIDE I, II, III. Janine and I shared a booth with our published material while Ats Kiuchi, like a Carnival Barker, invited patrons to come and look at our material. OMOIDE I (1993), II (1995), III (2001) were printed at Kinko with hand stapled booklets for friends and relatives for Christmas. OMOIDE IV was published in 2005 with a Kip Tokuda OSPI (Office of the Superintendent of Public Education) grant and with help from Yutaka Sasaki and the Tomita family’s West Coast Printing. OMOIDE readings were part of Seattle Film Festival (2014) narrated by Lori Matsukawa, filmed by Tyler Sipe.
Many OMOIDE writers lived through WWII and the 1942-1945 incarceration where 120,000 were housed in hastily built barracks when removed from the West Coast states’ restricted zone, approximately 400 miles in from the Pacific Ocean. 7000 of us were already living east of the zone, in the eastern states.
September 2025 was an enthusiastic session with 15 of us. Mako Kikuchi gave each of us an LP recording of his music, created in collaboration with our OMOIDE writers, depicting the WWII Japanese In America Incarceration. Mako and friends presented live at the Benaroya in 2023, as well as with our OMOIDE STORY READINGS at the Seattle Rep Theater that year. Our OMOIDE presentations were a sellout at the theater in both 2023 & 2024!
OMOIDE VI will be published soon with stories that depict Japanese Heritage Values practiced by the early immigrants and their descendants, as well as stories of those who immigrated after WWII and their descendants.
Currently, we are gathering stories for OMOIDE VII, stories of COMPASSION & KINDNESS, of those helping each other during hard times, especially from outside the Japanese American community, including memories before, during and after WWII. Our writing participants and stories are also of Shin-Issei, first generation immigrants from Japan after WWII, and stories of growing up in Japan. In 1924 the immigration law was passed where no more Asians could immigrate to the USA; rescinded with the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act which eliminated national-origin quotas.
One captivating story, read to us in September, was written by Nancy Hatfield. It was about her Auburn, WA, neighbor growing up, manning the periscope on a US submarine that helped rescue a raft of stranded Japanese enemy soldiers in the Sea of Japan; so soon after the USA/Japan peace agreement, that enemy wariness was an issue.
As OMOIDE writers continue sharing, we seek collaboration with our neighbors of all heritages! We have impactful historical as well as current stories that need to be found and shared with the goal of WINNING WITH STORIES for human fulfillment!