The Four Immigrants Manga

by | Aug 19, 2026 | Classes & Events, Featured

The Four Immigrants Manga

Saturday, September 19, 1 pm

One of the first comic books in the U.S., “Manga Yonin Shosei” (or The Four Student Worker’s Manga”) by Henry (Yoshitaka) Kiyama was first exhibited in San Francisco in 1927, and published as a comic book in 1931.  Nearly forgotten for fifty years, “The Four Immigrants Manga”, translated by Frederik L. Schodt has become an engaging teaching resource on Japanese American immigrant history. 

The book chronicles the adventures of four Japanese immigrants in a world of possibility and prejudice in turn-of-the-twentieth-century San Francisco. Henry (Yoshitaka) Kiyama, arrived in San Francisco in 1904, to study fine art. He primarily focused on landscapes and portraits, and exhibited his work widely.

Frederik Schodt is a veteran author, translator, and interpreter. Fluent in spoken and written Japanese, he has written extensively on Japanese manga, as well as on pop culture, technology, and history. In 2006 he received the Japanese Government’s Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, for helping to promote Japanese popular culture in North America. 

Sunday Funday with a screening of “Meals That Made Us”

Sunday Funday with a screening of “Meals That Made Us”

by | Aug 10, 2026 | Classes & Events, Featured

Pre-order closes at 12 noon on 8/14.  Walk-ups available at event. Or try tasty bites from the Pop-Up Vendors.  See you on Sunday!

Sunday Funday

Sunday, August 16th

12 to 4 pm

Enjoy time outdoors for food, music, and fun with our multigenerational community.

FOOD VENDORS

Always Aloha Shave Ice Co

Bar Tanuki

Daruma Kiosk

Milk Cloud Bakery

Shared Cultures

Vinaka Island Mochi

Volcano Kimchi

ENTERTAINMENT

Mahjong with 13 Orphans

Lounge

Let’s Groove

Reserve tickets for the film screening of “Meals That Make Us”. You can pre-order or visit the vendors for good eats and gifts.

Meals That Made Us, a screening with Nisha

Sunday, August 16, 11 am or 2 pm

Meals That Made Us, directed/produced by Nisha Balaram is a three-part documentary short series exploring how Asian American chefs, farmers, and community leaders use food to reclaim heritage, reimagine identity, and build community across generations.

Set against the rich culinary backdrop of San Francisco and its surroundings, everyday people find meaning in unexpected places, whether it’s foraging as a connection to ancestral experiences, elevating institutional meals with cultural care, or creating third spaces that nourish bodies and hearts.

Moving between intimate interviews and sweeping cultural commentary, Meals That Made Us, funded by the Center for Asian Amercian Media (CAAM), shows that cooking and eating are evolving traditions that are both connections to the past and the groundwork for new communities. Yuji Ishikata, chef at J-Sei, is featured in this documentary.  Filmmaker Nisha Balaram and featured guests will join us. Celebrate with us!

Sunday Funday

PRE-ORDER MENU

by Casa de Kei, Ox & Tiger,

Hannah Tang, and Yuji Ishikata,

Tuna Poke Bowl  $20

Vegetarian Poke Bowl $12

Spicy Shrimp Maki $20

Salmon Skin Maki $20

Somen with Kurobuta Pork $20

Sea Stephanie Santa Barbara

Live Sea Urchin $28

Pre-Order Here

Join us for the community screening of

“Meals That Made Us”.

Reserve tickets for 11 am or 2 pm.

New screening added for 4 pm!

Donations welcome.

Reserve Your Ticket

Nisha Balaram is a documentary filmmaker who brings extensive experience as a producer and director, having worked with organizations such as PBS, the Center for Asian American Media, National Geographic Society, and APIAVote. Her work has been featured on PBS VOCES and PBS Vitals, High Country News, Disney+, and Mongabay.

Reiki Wellness at J-Sei

Reiki Wellness at J-Sei

by | Jul 9, 2026 | Classes & Events

Reiki means “universal life force energy” in Japanese. Through gentle hands-on
technique, Reiki has a profound effect on many forms of dis-ease. A treatment
removes toxic energy and substances from many levels of one’s being, be it
physical, emotional, mental or spiritual. It restores positive energy flow within
the body, enhancing the body’s natural ability to heal itself.

1st and 3rd Friday of the month beginning July 17

  • book your appointment at least 48 hours in advance
  • 20 minute sessions
    available appointments times: 10:30am, 11am, 11:30am, 12pm
  • nominal donation to j-sei

Please leave a message at 510-654-4000 x111 or email reikiclouds@gmail.com to book an appointment.

Questions: reikiclouds@gmail.com

America’s Last Concentration Camp: Crystal City

by | Jul 9, 2026 | Classes & Events, News

“One Fighting Irishman” Film Screening

Saturday, July 18, 1-4 pm – in-person is at capacity, please join us online. RSVP by clicking onthe button below.

Filmmaker Sharon Yamato will discuss her film on lawyer Wayne M. Collins and his defense of Japanese Americans at Tule Lake, as well as his representation of Japanese Latin Americans at the Crystal City Family Internment Camp. Collins’s son, Wayne M. Collins will also speak about his father’s work as well as his own efforts for Tule Lake renunciates. Also, joining the panel is Tule Lake Segregation Camp Survivor Hiroshi Shimizu and Crystal City Camp Survivor Japanese Peruvian Eloy Maoki.

ONE FIGHTING IRISHMAN, a 30-minute documentary, tells the story of the man who rescued more than 5,500 people from being deported to a country upon which many of them had never stepped foot.

This program is held in conjunction with “America’s Last WWII Concentration Camp: Crystal City”, the debut of a new traveling exhibit. Special Guest Diana Palacios, founder of the My Story Museum in Crystal City, Texas will attend. This will be the last event held in conjunction with the Crystal City exhibit at J-SEI.

Doors open at 12:30 pm.  Program begins at 1 pm.  Gallery open from 3 to 4 pm.

RSVP by clicking on the button below. Limited seating.

RSVP for 7/18

America’s Last Concentration Camp: Crystal City

Exhibit Dates: May 20 – July 22, 2026

J-Sei Gallery, 1285 66th Street, Emeryville

Gallery Hours: M Tu Th Fr 2-5 pm, or by appointment: 510-654-4000

About the Exhibit

The Crystal City Pilgrimage Committee will premiere its national traveling exhibit, based on their permanent exhibit at the My Story Museum in Crystal City, Texas. Additional interpretive panels will depict stories of the individual families who were incarcerated at Crystal City. Crystal City  Family Internment Camp, as it was called during the war, administered by the Department of Justice, held thousands of Japanese, Germans, and Italians in addition to Latin American residents of Axis nationalities.

Created as a family reunification center for immigrants arrested under the Alien Enemies Act in 1942, Crystal City remained open until 1948, long after WWII ended. Several hundred families were moved to Crystal City after their applications for reunification were approved. Several hundred families were moved to Crystal City after their applications for reunification were approved. In some cases, families waited a year or more to be reunited with their husband or father.

Crystal City was also used as a detention facility for individuals awaiting deportation in a prisoner of war exchange with Axis countries. The State Department devised a secret program called “Quiet Passages” to exchange prisoners held in DOJ prison camps for US civilians held behind enemy lines. Some prisoners went willingly, others were forcibly deported to Axis war zones. This included some children with US birthright citizenship whose parents were ineligible for naturalization, and Japanese Latin Americans who were kidnapped and brought to the US.

“By sharing our nation’s hidden histories and the powerful stories of survivors, we can begin to undo the historical amnesia that allows our government to harm children and families today,” said Crystal City Pilgrimage President Kaz Naganuma, whose family was forced to leave a flourishing laundry business in Peru and travel for three weeks by boat and train before being imprisoned in Texas.

PHOTO: George Kumemaro Uno teaches English to Japanese Peruvian imprisoned students at Crystal City. The students from Latin American countries only spoke Spanish and/or Japanese.

Newly Released Memoir

“Detour to Crystal City: Memories of a Japanese Latin American WWII Internment camp Survivor,” details the life of her Japanese immigrant family from their arrival and settlement in Peru to their forcible removal and incarceration in a Department of Justice Internment camp in Crystal City, Texas. Libia Hideko Maoki Yamamoto was a young girl when she and her family were forced from Peru to the Crystal City Internment Camp. Imprisoned with other families from Latin America, Libia vividly recounts her family’s experiences in Peru and in America’s Last Concentration Camp. 

Libia attended an adult writing class at J-SEI, facilitated by Grace Morizawa. She was already a born leader and spokesperson in the Japanese Latin American community. She served as co-founder, advisor, and treasurer for the Japanese Peruvian Oral History Project, the Campaign for Justice, Redress for JLAs Now! 

Exhibit Programs

May 23, 1-3 PM – Opening Program

June 20, 1-3 PM – From WWII Kidnapping to Reparations: The Japanese Latin American Experience Resonates Today

July 18, 1-3 PM – One Fighting Irishman: Wayne M. Collins

Opening Program

Saturday, May 23, 1 pm

The opening program will include a panel presentation with survivors Kaz Naganuma, Hiroshi Fukuda, Heidi Gurcke Donald and the showing of the short documentary, Then Becoming Now.

Then Becoming Now (2019, 24 min.), directed by Emiko Omori, follows the journey of three men who went from incarcerated children to social activists. Seventy-seven years ago Hiroshi “Shim” Shimizu, Kaz Naganuma, and Hiroshi Fukuda met as toddlers in the Crystal City Family Internment Camp. Today, their childhood experiences motivate them to join the protest of current immigration policies of detaining and separating families.

The gallery will be open until 4 pm for viewing of the exhibit.

America’s Last Concentration Camp at the My Story Museum in Crystal City, Texas opened in October, 2025.

From WWII Kidnapping to Reparations: The Japanese Latin American Experience Resonates Today

Saturday, June 20, 1-3pm

The Japanese Latin American wartime and redress experiences and their relevance in today’s fight against anti-immigrant persecution and anti-democracy authoritarianism will be explored with a panel discussion, including Grace Shimizu, Jeff Matsuoka, and Bekki Shibayama of the Campaign for Justice: Redress NOW for Japanese Latin Americans! and the Japanese Peruvian Oral History Project, and with the U.S. premiere of film clips produced by Casey Peek of Peek Media.

Finding Okinawan Roots

Finding Okinawan Roots

by | Jul 9, 2026 | Classes & Events

Finding Okinawan Roots!

Monday, July 27, 2 – 4 pm

Meet with staff from the Okinawa Prefectural Library’s ‘Finding Okinawan Roots!’ The project helps people of Okinawan descent trace their family history using its passport issuance records database and comprehensive Okinawan historical materials. The team will visit J-Sei on July 27th to introduce the project and offer research consultations for those interested in discovering their Okinawan roots.

If you have ancestors who emigrated from Okinawa between 1900 and 1944, the Okinawan Prefectural Library staff can research information in advance of their visit.  Please provide any information you have such as name, hometown, date of birth, and year of emigration.  Complete this research request by 7/17/26 for advance research to be conducted.

RSVP for presentation.

Honor Bound Revisited: Retracing My Father’s Path with the 442nd

Honor Bound Revisited: Retracing My Father’s Path with the 442nd

by | Jul 7, 2026 | Classes & Events

Honor Bound Revisited:

Retracing My Father’s Path with the 442nd

Saturday, August 8, 1 pm

More than 30 years ago, television journalist, Wendy Hanamura, set out to capture the story of the 442nd/100th Regimental Combat Team through the eyes of her father, Sgt. Haruo Hanamura. Her father and his 442nd comrades were then in their seventies, able to laugh and cry and recount some of the darkest days of the war. Wendy travelled with these Company L veterans to France and Italy retracing their footsteps through some of the bloodiest battles of WWII. The resulting documentary, Honor Bound: A Personal Journey is now available to the public in the Densho Library and the Internet Archive.

Come watch this Emmy-award-winning documentary with multimedia producer, photographer & archivist, Brad Shirakawa.  Together last summer, Wendy and Brad retraced her father’s time in the south of France during the “Champagne Campaign,” exploring what is left of the villages, bunkers, and grand hotels of Nice where the 442nd wintered in 1944. Brad will share his research and photo documentaries of this little-known part of the 442nd story.

The event is presented by Friends of Topaz, Topaz Museum, and J-Sei.

Photo (above): Wendy Hanamura at Col de Braus, September 13, 2025. Photos are courtesy of Brad Shirakawa.

RSVP for this free event by clicking on the button below.

RSVP for in-person or online

Wendy Hanamura 

Over her 30+-year career in the media, Wendy has reported and produced stories around the world for Time, CBS, World Monitor Television, NHK (Japanese Broadcasting Corporation), LinkTV and PBS. In 2014 she joined the Internet Archive—the world’s largest digital library– as the Director of Partnerships.

Wendy began her career as a photo editor for Time Magazine in New York. Her 1983 thesis took her to Hiroshima to live with and photograph aging hibakusha, survivors of the atomic bombing. Her favorite project remains Honor Bound: A Personal Journey, the Emmy-award winning documentary she produced about her father and his storied unit, the Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team. 

Brad Shirakawa

Brad took his first serious picture in 1970, idolizing Ansel Adams. He graduated from San Jose State with a photojournalism degree and worked for a small town newspaper for several years, where he photographed President Bill Clinton, the 49ers and the Pet of the Week.

For some 20 years he has produced Japanese American history. Brad was the author of The Street That Dreams Are Made Of, a book commemorating the 100 year history of a Japanese church in Palo Alto, CA. He was also the photo editor for Generations, a Japanese American Community Portrait. More recently he was the Project Director for the Alameda Japanese American History Project, a three year federal grant. Several thousand photographs, documents, PDFs and stories were generated and all went to Densho and the Internet Archive. Brad is currently a reporter, page designer and photographer for the Nikkei West newspaper where he does not have to shoot the Pet of the Week.

Pont Vieux, Sospel

Sospel, France

Wendy Hanamura and Brad Shirakawa, 2025.

442 in the Alpes-Maritime

 

Honor Bound

HONOR BOUND tells the story of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team through the story of one soldier, Haruo Howard “Howe” Hanamura, and his daughter, television reporter Wendy Hanamura, who travel to Europe in October 1994 for 50th anniversary ceremonies of the liberation of Bruyeres and Biffontaine by the 442nd. The film was produced by the National Japanese American Historical Society (NJAHS) and KPIX, San Francisco