gotohealth's Blog

 

The custodian answered, "I'm helping us get to the moon."

 

Using this example and because I'm a board member,  I called the receptionist at the JCCCW (Japanese Culturall and Community Center of Washington) asking Atsuko, "What do you do?" 

 

With not too much explanation,  she answered, "I try to make the caller feel good and want to become involved." Atsuko is talking about being involved with some of the activities at the center.

 

Asking myself the same question as a blogger, I answer, "I write once a week about what I am learning from being human with Japanese Heritage living in America. " 

 

Our senior years, when my husband was alive, our purpose was to pass on stories of our heritage to our future generations.

 

My daughter came back to live with me with her two daughters who are in high school. I am strong about her taking over the house and making it her own. She likes to see me set an example for the girls of being active and continue to be involved with community and keep learning at age 86. 

 

My life is for learning, sharing and I am grateful.

 

 

“You don’t have to believe everything you think!” are the words on the door in my room. I printed and put up those words after I was given a “Joe Dispenza Seminar” on my computer for my birthday about 5 years ago. Dispenza is a popular author, lecturer, and researcher, focusing his work on how people can transform their lives by retraining their brains and bodies. Many of the nationally known podcasters talk about going to his week long seminars and the benefits. 

 

Joe Dispenza explains how every thought I have produces a CHEMICAL IN MY BODY and how I can learn to manage my thoughts! 

 

Joe Hudson is one of the most sought-after teachers among the world's top leaders at OpenAI, Alphabet, Apple, and more. He talks about how we benefit way more from the other parts of the body's emotional regulation, like the nervous system's heart and gut rather than "head advice".

 

Sam and I used to walk around Mercerdale Park near our home for our exercise so I avoided the park for a number of years because of the memories. I even told some friends how I get a back ache when walking.

 

For some reason I didn’t get a back ache on the treadmill. But the treadmill was put away with remodeling our basement. So, I decided to use the park walking for meditation and started telling various organs in my body how much they are appreciated and to help with chemicals to heal my back pain. It’s working!!!

 

Skeptics will laugh and say, "Of course it's the exercise." But what the heck, what's wrong with paying more attention to what I'm thinking???

 

 

 

As a Sansei (third-generation Japanese American), I’m on fire with a vision of a JAPANESE CULTURAL AND COMMUNITY CENTER OF WASHINGTON, that Seattle city tour guides direct visitors to, 100 YEARS FROM NOW! In addition to the Historically Designated buildings currently on the property from 1913, I visualize the following:  Additional iconic buildings with a Japanese style, elevator-lifting-cars, parking facility, a 500-people gathering space bringing enthusiastic participations from the broader community to the center, strategic rentals and a covered alley retail Street Mall. How “zen” to have tea/coffee/ramen/business transactions/ educational classes while overlooking the Kintsugi Japanese Garden!

 

In 1989, after twenty years of gathering documentation of the Japanese in America experience for the University of Washington Archives, I realized, “Seattle doesn’t have a Japanese Historical organization.” I made an appointment with Tomio Moriguchi, CEO of Uwajimaya, who suggested I talk to Chuck Kato, president of Japanese Language School & Japanese Community Service. (JLS/JCS). Chuck had tried to develop a Japanese cultural center at the Seattle JLS a couple times the previous 20 years. Chuck asked me to join the board, but both of us were blackballed because several board members considered us to be part of the “typically young spenders and no longer traditionally prudent”. Those board members had reestablished the JLS after WWII incarceration of Japanese and were proud of being in the black financially, over their previous thirty years.

 

Ten years later, by year 2000, it became clear that younger people, like us, were needed for fundraising and survival. In 2003 Nikkei Heritage Association was incorporated, gradually combining JLS/JCS for a broader purpose and known publicly as JCCCW. With good management and donations, the board and the Executive Director developed a balanced budget in 2020, but realized that what was needed was a funding mechanism like an Endowment Fund for sustainability.

 

June 2025, I was invited to an all-paid conference to establish a National Archive of Japanese in America Heritage stories with Professor Maruyama at the University of Connecticut because of my work with our OMOIDE (memories) writing program. I established OMOIDE 34 years ago with the late Chuck Kato. The current participants are now ready to publish OMOIDE VII.  

 

With a 28-hour weather delay, I missed my connection back to Seattle and stayed overnight in Chicago with Malia Huff, a Northwestern University friend of my daughter Kelly. Malia is a professional fund raiser and as she was driving me back to O’Hare, she inspired me to look at JCCCW funding and she gave me a mini-fundraising seminar. 

 

Sharing Malia’s ideas with several key Seattle associates, the responses have been, “Yes, Seattle would benefit with a Japanese Cultural Center 100 years from now. I am willing to help!” 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday, August 2025, cousins from my mom’s youngest brother, Frank, came for a visit from Hawaii & Portland. We shared stories about their mom, Alice. My memories start with my excitement when the parents got married on January 27th, 1947 in Ontario, Eastern Oregon. I was eight-years-old. It was one of the first social events in our Japanese community in the local paper, the Ontario Argus Observer.

Especially, thrilling was being dressed with the long pretty pink dress that my mother made of sheer pink organza over pink nylon and the gold locket that I got for being flower girl. It was 4pm, and just like we had rehearsed, but now I had real rose petals in my basket. I went down the aisle first, scattering the petals along the way as I made my way way to the front of the guests sitting on folding chairs in two sections at the Ontario Women’s Club. Uncle Frank Tsukamaki married Auntie Alice Mizomoto and she became part of our family.

 

My parents were poor, so poor that we lived in a one-room farmhouse, 30 miles south across the Snake River into Idaho.  We had an outhouse, a wood/coal stove, no running hot water and no telephone. But, I never felt poor because of people in my life like Auntie Alice. From the time they were engaged Auntie took me shopping.

 

That first Easter after they married, Auntie bought me this wonderful rayon, yellow dress. The next Easter, it was a pink one. I remember, she picked me up from the farm in Sand Hollow, Idaho, and drove me to Boise. My sister, Kathy - five years younger than me, got dresses too.

 

Another incident, five years later - we had moved to Ontario by then, they dropped by our house after a summer vacation trip to California. Kathy spotted a Terri Lee Doll in the back of their station wagon. All of Kathy’s friends had the doll and she was dying for one. Auntie Alice had bought it for Christmas and I knew it.  We had an Ouiji Board and that night Kathy asked if the doll was for her and when she would get it. The answer was, “Tomorrow.” I didn’t believe it but Uncle Frank found out she had seen the doll and gave it to her the next day. I got a rhinestone necklace that was my favorite piece of jewelry for years. 

 

In 1993, when Auntie Alice turned 70-years-old we had a reunion at Sugai’s Eastside Cafe in Ontario. I went to JAE AWARDS, here in Seattle’s Beacon Hill, owned by the John Shigaki family. I had the trophy inscribed with the tribute: WORLD’S GREATEST ENCOURAGER!

 

I gave a toast, “You are remembered most for your complete dedication to helping and encouraging your husband and four children to accomplish successful lives. You were always known to be the most vocal and enthusiastic fan at all three boy’s ball games for years. It’s about time you have a trophy of your own, like the ones all over your house. You helped your family win. We could all learn a few skills from the WORLD’S GREATEST ENCOURAGER. Everyone needs an Auntie Alice!” 

 

 

 

 A few years ago, I asked my 18-yr-old granddaughter, “How do you feel about your Japanese Heritage?”

 

She answered, “It gives me energy and I feel more power?”

 

“Give me an example of when you feel like this,” I implored at that time. 

 

“Well, a couple times when I was with some friends and the subject came up, I said ‘I’m Gosei (5th generation Japanese American)’ and I felt good.”

 

Today, three years later, she is considering a journaling career and says, “All heritages are important, but I think being Japanese makes me emphasize accountability and honesty with ‘wabi-sabi’ (not needing perfection) uniqueness.”

 

This response is thrilling to me. Perhaps our parenting, my husband’s comic strips for the North American Post and our books are resonating? I have a vision for a better Pacific Northwest community because we are sharing our OMOIDE (Memories) program at the JCCCW (Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington). Our stories, for 5th graders are currently working on publishing OMOIDE VII. 

 

I am surprised daily with leading scientists around the world citing Japanese cultural examples. Ethnologist Frans de Waal talks about conflict resolution. His example is about how in Japan adults and teacher do not intervene in children’s fights. They consider it natural learning to let them work things out for themselves at their level, without adult or community rules. De Waal did a lot of studies with chimps and monkeys, citing, “Are we smart enough to know how smart animals are?”

 

Psychiatrist and philosopher, Iain McGilchrist, who researches the difference between the left and right hemispheres of the brain says, “The Western Culture has been mostly created by left brain activity which deals with numbers and goals.” He suggests we incorporate more Asian and particularly parts of the Japanese Culture into our lives for more balance with right brain emotions and look at our work and world as a whole instead of just parts.

 

Although it’s not empirical studies sanctioned by modern universities, the Japanese had 200 years of the Edo Period which brought the practices of the arts and cultural expectations to a PhD level.

 

As a member of the board of the JCCCW, I am picturing a tour guide, 100 years from now, bringing attention to the strong Japanese heritage values of GAMAN - enduring hardship with patience and dignity and GAMBATTE - do your best with resilience. Trust our stories shared today, will help shape our Northwest community tomorrow.

 

 

The artwork is the creation of my youngest granddaughter. I’m using this to illustrate how I’m feeling this morning as I post on my blog. I’m listening to a podcast by Simon Sinek in conversation with Mo Gawdat. 

 

As I planned my weekend, I started to text a friend about having lunch and was feeling more of a social obligation than an activity that I really wanted in my heart. Listening to the podcast I heard the words, “A real friend is someone who agrees with you to grow together.” 

 

I’m thinking, “This person has made up her mind to listen to the news and the political chaos. That is not the growth that I want.” 

 

Then, I heard Gawdat talk about how he learned from his son, “The ‘gravity of the battle’ means nothing to those at peace!” Also, PEACE and clarifying THE INNER REAL ME are the podcasts I’m enjoying.

 

I had such a friend/spouse for 56 years, where we grew together. But, he passed seven years ago and I lost five lunch 50-year friends last year.  I'm being guided to write down what I want!  I wrote on my note pad: “WHAT I WANT: ‘some new friends with whom I can exchange videos I like and talk about the ideas,  with the agreement that we continue to grow together!’” The key is that I want to keep growing and I'm avoiding those that have nothing on their mind but their latest health crisis. 

 

Forty plus years ago, Sam and I set a goal to work at keeping our health because he was diagnosed with eminent Diabetes, which was inherited. He made it to age 85 doing yard work to the end and was never diagnosed as Diabetic but did secumb to related issues. I am benefiting from our attention to health, but it's clear, I need to find a new set of friends. "Hmmmmmmm? thinking!"

 

I'm excited about asking my granddaughters and their boyfriends to help me. I am inviting them to lunch or dinner tonight and next week. It’s a new thought that I get them to help me on “my new path”. I had been stuck in looking to find retired individuals who would have more time. 

 

Wow, writing things down is working!

 

Dad was never on my list of mentors until this past few years. Now,  I realized it is important to live the person that we really are and not what society describes as "living successfully".

 

A few years ago, 2010, I was having lunch with my cousin, Don Tsukamaki, on a trip to Portland from where I live in the Seattle area. He said, “Do you know how poor you were growing up?!” His father was my Mom’s younger brother and their family had done a lot to help my parents with gifts and finances.

 

Part of the reason we were so poor was because Dad was not entrepreneurial. He played his harmonica, violin and musical saw. He built all the beautiful furniture we had - dining table, chest of drawers, desk - in his high school carpentry class. He built our one-room farm house. He was not a good farmer, at a time when that was the only occupation available to those with Japanese heritage during WWII. Dad was a born-again Christian and went to church and didn’t work 7 days a week to get ahead. Visiting Joe Saito, he said, “Your dad was known for telling us to stop smoking!”

 

My father, Sago (likely anglicized from Seigo a famous samurai warrior) Miyamoto, was born 1908. He was born to Grandpa, Kanekichi, and Grandma, Yoshi Miyamoto; immigrants from Hiroshima, Japan. Kanekichi was head of “Jap Camp” for Eatonville Lumber Company and Yoshi did laundry for the workers. Dad was sent back to Japan for a few years during his grade school years and hated it. American Nisei (second generation Japanese Americans) were treated as foreigners in Japan and not treated well by neighbors and fellow students. Dad graduated from Eatonville, WA, high school around 1927 and went to the U of Minnesota in St Paul. 

 

By the year 1936, there was talk of war, and his parents decided they had made enough money in America to go back to Japan. Left penniless, in hopes that Dad would follow, my dad remained very resentful and I knew nothing about his family until years later, because he would not talk about them. 

 

That same year, 1936, my Mom, who had been sent to Hiroshima with her three younger brothers to live with their Grandpa J Tsukamaki, because their mother had died, were coming back to America because of national political unrest. Mom’s dad, K Tsukamaki, owed K Miyamoto money - likely because of the discrimination and hard times when Japanese Dairy Farmers were run out of the business due to the 1921 Alien Land Law passed by the Washington legislators. K Miyamoto said if my Mom, Mary, would marry my Dad, Sago, the debt would be forgiven. 

 

By 1947, Mom’s Dad and two brothers, Ben and Frank, had established the ONTARIO FISH MARKET in Ontario, Oregon, where the Mayor, Elmo Smith, had welcomed over 800 Japanese leaving Minidoka incarceration - unlike other towns in that Idaho/Oregon community along the Snake River, not far from Boise, Idaho.

 

Dad sold his 30 acre Caldwell, Idaho, farm and became the FISH MAN; delivering groceries with his panel truck to the farmers starting over with row crop farming when they didn’t have a car, money or time. Dad loved to talk and help; distributing a lot of the unsold food items to the poor - along with the community news to the housewives as he carried the groceries to their kitchen and got paid.

Today, the national news is about the Texas floods. I’m not a big fan of Gale King, but I want to commend her for interviewing this family with two boys around 5 & 7 years of age who were successfully rescued. The kindergartener said, “No, I wasn’t scared.” And the mother talked about prayer and gratitude. 

 

I may be too much of a Pollyanna, but I want to find the bravery in the situations we face daily. Therefore, there is no doubt that bad things and problems have to occur as part of life so “bravery” can be chosen!!

 

Yesterday was the first Sunday of the month of July 2025 and we had another session of STORIES AT THE PANAMA. Fourteen of us gathered and shared stories of our heritage and how various immigrants found refuge here in Seattle after escaping political difficulties in their heritage. Particularly impactful was the story from Justin and how his family escaping across the Mekong River in Laos. Another story was from Stephen whose family had to flee across Siberia. Raku told us about how at age 3-1/2 her house was bombed in Japan and she survived from underneath the rubble. Years later, here at the U of Washington, at a reception, she met the person who as an American pilot had potentially dropped that bomb in Kyushu at the end of WWII.

 

I am connecting with individuals like Hana Maruyama and her FUDEKO project in Connecticut. Today, I answered an email from Sandra Buscher, in Connecticut, who has developed a OUR DEBT OF GRATITUDE project with Margaret Mukai in New Jersey. They are  seeking stories about individuals of non-Japanese Americans who helped us during the mass forced removal and incarceration of World War II and the nationwide denial of. Civil rights.

 

Locally, here in Seattle, I have blogged a few of our stories of COMPASSION AND KINDNESS and continue to seek more. It is important to me that as our stories are read by school children when our OMOIDE books are distributed to Washington State School libraries. I am counting on finding stories that inspire individual students to overcome their own difficulties and serve their communities - wherever they live out their lives with BRAVERY!

 

PS. A day later, now sending condolences to all involved in the horrific Texas flood! What a traqedy!

The Fudeko two-day conference was headed by Professor Hana Maruyama. My purpose in attending is because I have gathered stories of our Japanese in the Pacific Northwest experiences since 1970 when I was hired by the U of Washington library archives to help start the Japanese Collection of documenting the Japanese experience . I did over 20 taped interviews of the Issei - first generation stories until the funding for the grant ran out. 

 

Twenty years later in 1991, I decided it would be a good idea to create some documents with a writing group. Four of us, Chuck, Margaret Del and me, met in my kitchen once a week to get started; just talking around the table and sharing memories. 

 

Hana has a grant for a national effort to collect stories and the technological staff to record, digitize and store the stories with a national archive. I am agreeing to be an ambassador. I believe there is a short window of time left for recording first person stories of those of us who have lived through WWII and the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese heritage individuals living in the West Coast States.

 

My goal is to see the story as part of the middle school history curriculum in all the USA schools. There are many books with the facts about this history, but personal story telling/sharing/writing is important and I am committed to that purpose for the rest of my life.