by Jill Shiraki | Jan 15, 2025 | Classes & Events, Featured
COURTING A MAN WHO DOESN’T TALK
Writer Shizue Seigel, in conversation with Alameda Poet Laureate Kimi Sugioka
Saturday, February 15th, 2 pm
Courting A Man Who Doesn’t Talk began thirty years ago as midnight journaling to puzzle out a budding romance between a fortyish, Asian American single mother and a twenty-something white man. The personal experiment has stood the test of time, but the larger social battle for equality and respect between women and men is still being waged, one day at a time, one person at a time.
Many men don’t have words to express what’s deepest in their hearts. Lover or husband, father or son, employer or co-worker—each has different styles of wordlessness and different reasons for it. In today’s polarized world, breaking through the silence is essential, especially across divisions of race, class, generation, culture, or religion.
Shizue Seigel is a Japanese American writer, visual artist and arts activist who has supported 500+ writers and artists of color with workshops, events and publications since 2015 through her arts organization Write Now! SF Bay.
Shizue Seigel, founder/director of Write Now! SF Bay, is a third-generation Japanese American writer, visual artist and community activist who explores complex intersections of history, culture and spirituality through prose, poetry and visual art.
Born just after her family’s release from WWII incarceration camps, Shizue grew up as an Army brat in segregated Baltimore, Occupied Japan, California farm labor camps and skid-row Stockton, before finding home in San Francisco in 1956. She’s a college dropout who learned from experience in the Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, Indian ashrams and the counterculture in the 1970s, corporate advertising in the 1980s, and HIV prevention in the 1990s.
She has helped tell community stories for 25 years. She’s written, co-written or edited nine books, Including In Good Conscience, My First Hundred Years, and five Write Now! anthologies. Her poetry and prose have been widely published, most recently in Ginsoko Journal, Porter Gulch Review, and Colossus: Body. Her work was recognized with a KPIX Jefferson Award in 2021, and her literary and visual art papers are archived at the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives, University of California, Santa Barbara
Kimi Sugioka is a mother, educator, songwriter and poet. She earned an MFA from Naropa University and has published two books of poetry; the newest of which is Wile & Wing on Manic D Press. She has been published in numerous anthologies and is the Poet Laureate of Alameda, California. As an active board member for literary arts organizations, she curates and hosts readings for the Alameda Island Poets and the San Francisco International Arts Festival, among others. She believes that creating community through art is a revolutionary act.
Born to a Japanese American father and Scots Irish American mother in North Carolina, Kimi Sugioka grew up in Chapel Hill and Berkeley, California. Constantly moving between the two starkly different cultures and not blending into either, Kimi often found herself in liminal circumstances that squarely placed her in the category of other. Family divisions and trauma contributed to her feeling a lack of home and identity. Consequently, she was always trying to fit in and please whoever she was with.
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by Jill Shiraki | Jan 14, 2025 | Classes & Events, Featured, Other News
KINTSUKUROI
FILM SCREENING
followed by Q&A with cast and crew
Thursday March 13, 6:30 pm
Rialto Cinemas Cerrito, 10700 San Pablo Ave, El Cerrito, CA
Tickets: $20
For tickets: https://rialtocinemas.com/coming-soon-cer/
Back by popular demand, join us for a theatrical screening of KINTSUKUROI. The film, with its cleverly written script, interwoven stories and depth, this movie is a must see and must see again favorite. Get your tickets now!
About the Film
The philosophy of KINTSUKUROI shows us that something shattered can be restored and made stronger and more beautiful. The term is an apt metaphor for the Japanese American experience of WWII.
Forced from their homes, farms and businesses, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were unjustly imprisoned simply because of their race. Our new feature-length film KINTSUKUROI follows the Ito family from pre-war San Francisco to the concentration camps of the American West to the battlefields of Europe as it endures one of the most shameful periods in American History.
RESTORING OUR BROKENNESS
Join us for an intergenerational conversation inspired by the film KINTSUKUROI by director Kerwin Berk.
Saturday, March 22
12pm to 3pm
J-Sei, 1285 66th St., Emeryville, CA
Free registration: https://bit.ly/3WE7cVV
Please note that the film will not be shown at the event but all are welcome, whether or not you have seen the film.
Kintsukuroi is the Japanese art practice of piecing together shards of pottery to repair, then using gold leaf to restore beauty and make it whole again. The film touches on the legacy of the Japanese American incarceration, a range of experiences, from loyalty to resistance, despair and loss, and rebuilding of lives. What is your connecting point and how does it impact you today? Connecting Across Generations is an evolving collaboration of individuals and Japanese American community groups interested in broadening cross generational relations.
Connecting Across Generations including J-Sei, Japanese American Women Alumni of UC Berkeley, Japanese American Youth Alliance, Nikkei Student Union of UC Berkeley, Berkeley JACL, Berkeley Buddhist Temple, Okaeri Northern Cal, and Friends of Topaz Museum.
by Jill Shiraki | Jan 3, 2025 | Classes & Events, Featured
Mokuhanga: Japanese Woodblock – six 3-hr classes
Fridays Feb 7, 14, 28, Mar 7, 14, 28 (no class on the
3rd Fridays)
9:30 am -12:30 pm
Mokuhanga – a water-based Japanese woodblock printmaking – is environmentally friendly and can be done at home, any time, and anywhere without a press! Participants will learn the basics of this unique process, carving the woodblock, using kento (registration system), and printing with water-based ink on Japanese paper. Participants will create a small edition of beautiful, multicolor prints. All levels are welcome.
The suggested donation for the six class session will be $150( includes $45 materials fee).
Limited space is available. This class is for beginners and continuing students. For any questions, please email
jill@j-sei.org
by Kathy Hashimoto | Jan 2, 2025 | Classes & Events
J-Sei At The Movies (on Zoom)
Friday, January 10, 6:30 pm
J-Sei Movie Night is dedicated to the wonderful and fascinating world of Japanese cinema, as well as Japanese American and AAPI films!
Join us for our next Japanese Movie Night program, when we will watch and discuss one of the best representatives of 1960s-era chambara: THREE OUTLAW SAMURAI (Sanbiki no samurai), directed by legendary action filmmaker Gosha Hideo. Gosha’s debut feature-length film was a prequel to his hit TV series, telling the origin story of how the three samurai met, amidst a dispute involving a magistrate and a group of poor farmers, with shifting alliances that will turn traditional notions of samurai loyalty and honor on its head.
If you would like to join us, please RSVP to jill@j-sei.org with “Jan 2025 Movie” in the subject line to receive Zoom info prior to the event.
See you at the movies!
J-Sei Movie Night Bento
MOVIE NIGHT BENTO: NOW TAKING ORDERS!
Great news for local Bay Area viewers! Chef Yuji has come up with two delectable options for movie night bento:
– Salmon & Chicken Teri Bento ($18): Roasted salmon and chicken in homemade tare with roasted cabbage and koshihikari rice;
– Sabazushi ($34): Masaba from Japan pressed into a bozushi (boxed or pressed sushi) with ginger, negi and sweet kelp.
To order: When you click on the button above, it will take you directly to a pop-up order form on the My Friend Yuji Tock webpage, where you first select a pickup time. In the next window, click on an item and select the number you want to order, then click “Add”; repeat with other items if desired. Click the “View order” bar at the bottom to confirm your order, then click “Continue to payment” to sign in and pay for your order.
Support J-Sei At the Movies
Thanks to you, J-Sei At the Movies is in its Eighth Year! We look forward to more creative programming with educational and inspiring Japanese and Japanese American films. We are especially grateful for the up close and personal chats with filmmakers as we learn so much from the exchange.
We love having a growing and enthusiastic audience. We welcome any donations to help us offset costs for Movie Night. Thanks for considering this.
