Introducing Clark and Division, a new mystery by Naomi Hirahara 

Saturday, Aug 21 , 2 pm

Help us provide a warm welcome for the Bay Area book launch of the new historical mystery, Clark and Division. We will host a hybrid book reading for a small in-person audience with priority given to those who sign up early.  Others can log on and join the conversation. The program will be followed by an informal time to meet the author. Buy your book in advance or at the event from Eastwind Books and have it personalized and signed by the author.

Edgar Award-winner Naomi Hirahara’s eye-opening and poignant new mystery, Clark and Division is the story of a young woman searching for the truth about her revered older sister’s death. Set in 1944 Chicago, the book brings to focus the struggles of one Japanese American family released from mass incarceration at Manzanar during World War II.

“Clark and Division does what crime novels do best: It uses a wonderfully wrought, ticking time-bomb of a story to illuminate a larger social issue, in this case the incarceration and resettlement of tens of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II. A jewel of a novel. Buy it, read it, enjoy it.” —Michael Harvey, author of The Chicago Way

“An engrossing mystery filled with unexpected twists. Whether you are already a fan or are about to become one, this is not to be missed!” —Brian Niiya, editor of the Encyclopedia of Japanese American History

Naomi Hirahara is the Edgar Award–winning author of the Mas Arai mystery series, including Summer of the Big Bachi, which was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year and one of Chicago Tribune’s Ten Best Mysteries and Thrillers; Gasa Gasa Girl; Snakeskin Shamisen; and Hiroshima Boy. She is also the author of the LA-based Ellie Rush mysteries. A former editor of The Rafu Shimpo newspaper, she has co-written non-fiction books like Life after Manzanar and the award-winning Terminal Island: Lost Communities of Los Angeles Harbor. 

RSVP on Eventbrite.

J-Sei At the Movies with Special Guests Kerwin Berk and Ben Arikawa

Friday, August 13, 6:30 pm via Zoom

Please join us for this special evening with director-writer-producer Kerwin Berk, who will visit with us to discuss his career making films, including The Virtues of Corned Beef Hash (2010), Infinity & Chashu Ramen (2013), and Kikan: The Homecoming (2019).

Kerwin will also join us to remember Hiroshi Kashiwagi, the celebrated and beloved Nisei poet, playwright, writer, and actor who sadly left us in 2019, just shy of his 97th birthday. Hiroshi is the star/featured performer of Kerwin’s “Japantown Trilogy,” and we’ll watch a trailer and shorts, including a moving video tribute to Hiroshi, A Meeting at Tule Lake, by cinematographer Ben Arikawa, who will also be our special guest this evening.

Kerwin has kindly agreed to grant us access to watch Infinity & Chashu Ramen online prior to our meeting on the 13th. We’ll send you the link when you RSVP.

RSVP with “August Movie Night” in the subject line.
You’ll receive Zoom information prior to the event.

About the Filmmakers

KERWIN BERK is a Sansei filmmaker who was born and raised in San Francisco’s Japantown. He is an award-winning journalist who worked at newspapers and wire services in Asia and the United States for more than 20 years. His last stop was at his hometown newspaper – The Chronicle. Today, he is a freelance writer and independent filmmaker who still calls The City his home. He has written, produced, and directed award-winning films and web series, including The Virtues of Corned Beef Hash, Infinity & Chashu Ramen, and Gold Mountain.
https://ikeibifilms.com/

BEN ARIKAWA is a Northern California Sansei. He lives not far from where his paternal grandparents settled to work on a fruit orchard about a hundred years ago. Late in life, he realized that he has a need to tell stories and has been exploring his literary side. Ben has contributed an article to Pacific Citizen and several articles to Discover Nikkei. His stories reflect his experiences as a Japanese American, son, husband, and father. He is also exploring his artistic side as a director of photography for Ikeibi Films on Kikan: The Homecoming (2019), the web series Gold Mountain (2016), and as an actor in Infinity and Chashu Ramen (2013).

Support J-Sei At the Movies

Thanks to you, J-Sei At the Movies recently celebrated its third anniversary! 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. You are the best! We welcome any donations to help us offset costs for Movie Night. Thanks for considering this.

J-Sei At the Movies – An evening with filmmaker Yuriko Gamo Romer

Friday, July 16, 6:30 pm via Zoom

Please join us as J-Sei At the Movies continues its tribute to amazing women of Japanese heritage in history and film.

Just before the Tokyo Summer Olympics are scheduled to start on July 23, our evening with special guest Yuriko Gamo Romer will focus on a major theme in her films: breaking barriers and bridging U.S. and Japanese societies through sports and competition. We’ll discuss her current project, Diamond Diplomacy (in production), which charts the 150-year history of the beloved pastime shared by both nations—baseball. We will also talk with Yuriko about her acclaimed 2012 documentary, Mrs. Judo: Be Strong, Be Gentle, Be Beautiful. Featuring archival footage and close-up interviews, it presents the moving and inspirational story of Keiko Fukuda (1913-2013), a pioneer in Japan and the U.S. who spent her life devoted to the martial art of judo and overcame gender inequality to become the highest-ranking woman in judo history.

Yuriko has kindly agreed to grant us access to watch Mrs. Judo online prior to our meeting on the 16th. We’ll send you the link when you RSVP.

RSVP with “July Movie Night” in the subject line.
You’ll receive Zoom information prior to the event.

About the Filmmaker

YURIKO GAMO ROMER is an award-winning director based in San Francisco. She holds a Master’s degree in documentary filmmaking from Stanford University and is a Student Academy Award winner, National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Scholar, and American Association of Japanese University Women Scholar. In June 1999 she started Flying Carp Productions. Her current documentary project, DIAMOND DIPLOMACY, explores the relationship between the United States and Japan through a shared love of baseball.

Romer directed and produced MRS. JUDO: Be Strong, Be Gentle, Be Beautiful the only biographical documentary about Keiko Fukuda (1913-2013), the first woman to attain the 10th degree black belt in judo. MRS. JUDO has traveled to more than 25 film festivals internationally and was awarded the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary at the 2013 International Festival of Sport Films in Moscow and broadcast on PBS nationally as part of CAAM’s Japanese American Lives 2014. Additionally, her film Occidental Encounters won numerous awards, among them a Student Academy Award Gold Medal; Heartland FF’s Jimmy Stewart Memorial Crystal Heart Award; and National Media Network’s Silver Apple. Romer’s short films include Reflection, Kids will be Kids, Sunnyside of the Slope, Fusion and Friend Ships, a short historical animation about John Manjiro, the inadvertent Japanese immigrant rescued by an American whaling captain.

Support J-Sei At the Movies

Thanks to you, J-Sei At the Movies recently celebrated its third anniversary! 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. You are the best! We welcome any donations to help us offset costs for Movie Night. Thanks for considering this.

Simple Japanese Cooking

Thursdays,Oct 7 & Nov 4 at 3 pm

We will continue online cooking classes to try new recipes and learn to create heart-warming, soul-satisfying dishes with tips and techniques taught by Azusa Oda. You are invited to cook alongside Azusa, or log in to see the demonstration. The best part is in the tasting which can be enjoyed when you try out the recipe. 

We have 2 classes this Fall on Thursdays, October 7th and November 5th.  Then, our cooking instructor Azusa Oda will be traveling to Japan’s countryside to explore sustainable and creative living.  We look forward to hearing of her adventures.

Suggested donation is $10-$15 per class. RSVP to jill@j-sei.org and indicate “Cooking” with the date of the class you plan to attend. A recipe and ZOOM link will be sent out.

J-Sei At the Movies – Meet filmmaker Rea Tajiri

Special Guests: Audee Kochiyama-Holman and Eddie Kochiyama

Friday, June 11, 5:30 pm

With a multitude of films and a mastery of layering images and fragments of memories, award-winning filmmaker and media artist Rea Tajiri continues to push the edges of her craft to capture the stories, often unspoken and forgotten. To begin our evening program, we will chat with Rea to hear about her journey as a filmmaker and take a peek at some of her latest work. Then we will hear from the Kochiyama family on the legacy of their mother Yuri Kochiyama and the passion for justice that lives on.  After the talk, we will have a chance to see the film, Yuri Kochiyama: Passion for Justice.

RSVP with “June Movie Night” in the subject line.
You’ll receive Zoom information prior to the event.

Featured films

• Wataridori – Birds of Passage (2018) was a multi-site installation project in Philadelphia mapped and enlivened forgotten traces of local Japanese American history linked in a series of locations around the city.
• Wisdom Gone Wild is Tajiri’s current documentary-in-progress that chronicles her sixteen year journey of elder care for her mother who had dementia, and illuminates their lifelong passion for the arts and the language of the elders.
• Yuri Kochiyama: Passion for Justice (1993) is a biography in political and social context of Yuri Kochiyama, an Asian American woman and humanitarian civil rights activist who first became aware of social injustice in the United States during her time in a Japanese-American interment camp during World War II. She stresses the need for members of all races and ethnicities to work together for common goals, and for a fundamental change in political power structures. Through interviews, writings, music and archival footage, this film captures the extraordinary vitality and compassion of Yuri Kochiyama as a Harlem-based activist, wife, mother of six children, educator and humanitarian.

About the Filmmaker

REA TAJIRI is a filmmaker and visual artist who was born in Chicago, Illinois. She earned her BFA and MFA degree from the California Institute of the Arts in post-studio art. Her ground-breaking, award-winning film, digital video and installation work, has been supported by numerous grants, fellowships and artistic residencies, has been exhibited widely in museums, on television and in international film festivals. Poetic, subtly layered and politically engaged, her work advances the exploration of forgotten histories, multi-generational memory, landscape and the Japanese American experience.

Her experimental documentary History and Memory for Akiko & Takashige, and feature film Strawberry Fields have influenced a generation of filmmakers, leading to their inclusion in Asian American, Cinema Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies curricula in the US. Her recent multi-site installation project Wataridori-birds of Passage (2018) in Philadelphia mapped and enlivened forgotten traces of local Japanese American history linked in a series of locations around the city. Her feature documentary Lordville (2014) probed the material and immaterial traces of an upstate New York town’s history. Her current documentary-in-progress is Wisdom Gone Wild. The film chronicles her sixteen year journey of elder care for her mother who had dementia, and illuminates their lifelong passion for the arts and the language of the elders.

As an advocate of emerging artists and directors, Rea co-founded The Workshop, an incubator for Asian American film directors in New York City. She has taught extensively throughout the U.S. as a visiting professor and artist-in-residence. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in the Film Media Arts Department at Temple University where she teaches documentary production.

Support J-Sei At the Movies

Thanks to you, J-Sei At the Movies recently celebrated its third anniversary! 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. You are the best! We welcome any donations to help us offset costs for Movie Night. Thanks for considering this.