HELPING OTHER PEOPLE WIN WITH STORIES!!
6月
24日
OMOIDE (memories) writing group meets every third Saturday of each month at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington in Seattle.
OMOIDE 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.
Janine and I met at the Kirkland Book Festival in 2012 when Sheryn Hara was the organizer of the festival in Kirkland. We shared a booth with our published material while Ats Kiuchi, like a Carnival Barker, invited patrons to come and look at our material.
Last Saturday was a specially enthusiastic session as 15 of us met and shared our stories. One of the highlights was the sharing of the newly published LP recording by Mako Kikuchi’s music composition in collaboration with our OMOIDE writers about the WWII Japanese In America Incarceration; 2/3rds of us were American citizens. Mako’s music was 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!
Now in 2025, there are still members of OMOIDE who lived through WWII and the 1942 -1943 incarceration of those of us who were as little as 1/16th Japanese Heritage. 120,000 thousand were housed in hastily built barracks when removed from the West Coast states’ restricted zone. 7000 of us were outside the approximately 400 mile zone from the Pacific Ocean.
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. This is including memories before, during and after WWII. Our writing participants and stories are now of several 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.
Last Saturday’s, specially researched piece, was written by Nancy Hatfield. It was about her Auburn, WA, neighbor growing up, who served on a US submarine. He helped rescue a raft of Japanese enemy soldiers in the Sea of Japan; so soon after the USA/Japan peace agreement that enemy wariness was still an issue.
As OMOIDE writers continue meeting, we are 4th and fifth generation Americans of Japanese heritage and seek collaboration with our neighbors of all heritages! We have a impactful historical story that needs to be spread with the goal of WINNING WITH STORIES for general human fulfillment!
