WHAT IS THE “WHY” THAT KEEPS ME UP AT NIGHT?
10月
24日
I generally sleep well, but last night I was awake at 3am thinking about my WHY questions. Why is the OMOIDE writing program important to me. Why do I want to work to raise money so the Japanese Cultural and Community Center will be impacting our community for the next 100 years?
Last Sunday evening I brought two new neighbors from Guadalajara, Mexico, with me to a Seattle Symphony Community Concert at the Benaroya in downtown Seattle. The reason I asked my neighbors to attend was because I wanted them to learn about some of our Japanese in America experience.
The evening’s experience was the collaboration of composer Paul Kikuchi putting wings of sound to our OMOIDE (memories) stories of Executive Order 9066. In 1942, 110,000 of us with as little as 1/16 Japanese Heritage living in the west coastal states of Washington, Oregon & California were incarcerated. Families could only take what they could carry, leaving their homes and businesses.
Why is it important to capture and remember the stories of such a tragedy in American History? Why are we writing stories that will impact the 5th grade?
Today, I’m listening to a podcast by Navy Seal, Jocko Willink, who explains why he writes children’s books. He is explaining how his older daughter wasn’t learning her times tables in school. It dawned on him that she would benefit from some of his Navy Seal training. Subsequently, he chose to write a children’s book about dealing with “bullying” which became a best seller. The most satisfying review was from an adult woman that said the book changed her life.
Jocko Willink goes on to say, “The most important part of life is to learn to face our setbacks. Anyone’s heritage is full of cataclysms!! It’s important to remember, shorten our reaction times, and practice ways to overcome.” His daughter practiced math skills and the victim of the bullying found out the person who was bullying him was just as scared as himself.
Similarly, our OMOIDE books are generating the most reviews from adults. For 30 years we have documented stories of the Japanese Experience in the Pacific Northwest of Immigration and the Incarceration with first person stories of the experience as children of the Issei, Nisei and Sansei.
Everything rises and falls on “leadership”, ”Infinite Parenting” and waking up at night asking “Why”. It is exciting to see our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren doing spectacular things with their learning, writing, music and art as humanity continues to evolve.
