by Jill Shiraki | Dec 9, 2020 | Classes & Events
Thursday, December 10th – 6:30 pm
In Conversation with Nina Revoyr
Author of six novels including Southland
Join us for this special honor to meet with Nina Revoyr, notable author. While the dialogue will begin with a focus on Southland, J-Sei’s Book Club recent pick, the conversation will expand to touch on Japanese American community, race relations, neighborhood, and family dynamics through an expanse of time. It’s really a rare opportunity for us to speak with Nina directly. And it turns out that we are ahead of the curve, as Nina and SOUTHLAND are receiving renewed attention in the current context of racial justice and allyship. The online literary journal Alta has just announced SOUTHLAND as one of its California Book Club selections in early 2021.
Though Southland has some of the characteristics of a detective novel, Revoyr said: “I didn’t really conceive of it as a mystery, although I’m delighted that people are embracing that aspect of it…. But this situation … was the mechanism through which [the female character] was going to go back and discover all of these things about her and her family’s past. What I was very intrigued by was … what were the dynamics of the Crenshaw district, and interracial relations, and economics in Los Angeles that could have caused the riots to have happened in the first place…. The real revelation … has to do with some of the relationships between the people in the past; that was always where I was trying to get to.” [Excerpt from Book Sense “Nina Revoyr’s Southland Stakes Out A Different Los Angeles”}
Southland explores the fragile understandings and sometimes painful misunderstandings that occur across the lines of race and culture. It is also the story of an ever-changing city. Moving in and out of the past, from the shipping yards and internment camps of World War II; to the barley fields of the Crenshaw District in the 1930s; to the means streets of Watts in the 1960s; to the night spots and garment factories of the 1990s, Southland weaves a tale of Los Angeles in all of its faces and forms.
NINA REVOYR is the author of six novels, including A Student of History; Lost Canyon; The Age of Dreaming, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Southland, a Los Angeles Times best seller and “Best Book” of 2003; The Necessary Hunger; and Wingshooters, which won an Indie Booksellers Choice Award and was selected by O, The Oprah Magazine as one of “10 Titles to Pick Up Now.” Revoyr lives and works in Los Angeles.
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by Jill Shiraki | Nov 16, 2020 | Classes & Events, Other News
J-Sei’s Virtual Harvest Day Program
Friday, November 20th, 1 pm
This harvest season, we are grateful for the cultivation of the land and the ties we have to the earth from our past to our present. We are grateful for the bounty and the many helping hands that nurture the food that we prepare and serve for our J-Sei seniors. This year, despite all that we’ve endured with the COVID pandemic, we are especially thankful for the supportive community we are at J-Sei.
Join us for an afternoon to see the many faces of J-Sei classes, the volunteer kitchen crew, and hear personal reflections from Leslie Tsukamoto, Joyce Nakamura, and Pat Yamamoto, and special songs prepared by the J-Sei choir directed by Emiko Katsumoto and Carol Newberger.
Enjoy an easing of the soul with a meditative photo slideshow by Alan Maeda and soothing sounds by special guest, jazz guitarist Hideo Date.
RSVP for the link to the program.
by Jill Shiraki | Nov 11, 2020 | Classes & Events
Japanese Movie WATCH PARTY
Saturday, November 14th, 6:30 pm
Please join us this Saturday, November 14, at 6:30pm, for a JAPANESE MOVIE WATCH PARTY! We will watch a Japanese film via livestream, and we can comment in real time on the film in Chat while viewing, as well as have a short discussion afterward. We have not selected the film, but it will be Japanese (in Japanese with English subtitles), probably about an hour long, and it will transport us to a place where presidential elections are not of concern. And we can engage in a bit of armchair tourism. How does that sound?
If you’d like to participate, please RSVP by email to Jill (
jill@j-sei.org) with “J-FILM WATCH PARTY” in your subject line. We’ll send you a Zoom link before Saturday.
SPECIAL BENTO THIS MONTH!
Chef Yuji is preparing an extra special
obento for us this month, which will make all of us
unagi fans really happy. He’s making UNATAMA DONBURI, which is unagi (freshwater eel) omelette with mixed vegetables over rice. Yum! Because this bento features unagi, the price for this special bento is $20. Pickup will be at J-Sei, with staggered pickup times between 2:00 and 3:30pm. To place your order, please go to
MY FRIEND YUJI on Tock:
https://www.exploretock.com/myfriendyuji/
SPECIAL BENTO THIS MONTH!
Chef Yuji is preparing an extra special
obento for us this month, which will make all of us
unagi fans really happy. He’s making UNATAMA DONBURI, which is unagi (freshwater eel) omelette with mixed vegetables over rice. Yum! Because this bento features unagi, the price for this special bento is $20. Pickup will be at J-Sei, with staggered pickup times between 2:00 and 3:30pm. To place your order, please go to
MY FRIEND YUJI on Tock:
https://www.exploretock.com/myfriendyuji/
by Jill Shiraki | Oct 29, 2020 | Classes & Events
Sake Brewery Tour of Hachinohe Shuzo
Thursday, December 3rd, 6 pm
Hachinohe Shuzo, producers of the Mutsu Hassen brand of sake originated almost 300 years ago. Today, Hachinohe Shuzo is one of the most progressive and creative sake breweries, emphasizing environmentally-friendly, locally-sourced Aomori ingredients. Mutsu Hassen can be described as being elegantly aromatic with a full and rich ginjo style and a light, clean, refreshing finish.
Our program will feature a video tour of the brewery We will also get some insights about Hachinohe, a sea port town with so much history and culture, and of course, excellent seafood. Following our video tour, we will have a discussion with representatives of the brewery, so get ready to ask many questions about the sake making, the industry, the history or anything else sake. Sake expert David Sakamoto will host the program.
Sake tasting kits will feature four premium Mutsu Hassen sake for $30. Sign up to reserve your sake tasting kit.
by Tara Kawata | Oct 20, 2020 | Classes & Events, Other News
Medicare Presentation
Thursday, November 5th, 1-2 pm
The annual enrollment period is now underway October 15 – December 7. It’s easy to make mistakes when signing up for Medicare that can result in lifelong penalties or coverage gaps. HICAP counseling is here to help!
We Will Cover :
- Important information on changes to the Medicare Prescription Drug (Part D) Plans and Medicare Advantage (Part C) Plans in the coming year
- An overview of eligibility, costs, benefits, and changes in Medicare Parts A and B
- Options for supplementing Medicare and getting help with medical costs (including the Extra Help program)
RSVP for the webinar
A free presentation by the
Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy Program (HICAP) of Legal Assistance for Seniors
HICAP provides free and unbiased community education, individual counseling, and advocacy to Medicare beneficiaries about Medicare, Supplemental Insurance, Prescription Drugs and Medicare Advantage plans, Long Term Care Insurance, Medicare Appeals, and Low Income Assistance programs.
by Jill Shiraki | Oct 11, 2020 | Classes & Events, Other News, Seen and Unseen
EXHIBIT OPENS OCTOBER 11TH
Seen and Unseen: Queering Japanese American History Before 1945 is the first-ever exhibit focused on Nikkei (Japanese Americans) who were involved in intimate same-sex relationships or defied gender roles in the early 20th century. Queer Nikkei are virtually non-existent in Japanese American history, but this exhibit brings them into view. Drawing from recent research by scholars in history, cultural and literary studies, Seen and Unseen brings to light a hidden past when same-sex relationships and female impersonation were accepted parts of Japanese immigrant culture, and how queer Japanese Americans expressed themselves as the Nikkei community came to mirror white American fears of same-sex intimacy and gender nonconformity.
Seen and Unseen will open on October 11, 2020 to coincide with National Coming out Day, and run through Feb 19, 2021. Seen and Unseen: Queering Japanese American History Before 1945 is hosted by J-Sei and co-curated by Amy Sueyoshi and Stan Yogi.
Co-Curators of Seen and Unseen
Amy Sueyoshi is the Dean of the College of Ethnic Studies with a joint faculty appointment at the rank of Professor in Race and Resistance Studies and Sexuality Studies at San Francisco State University. She holds a Ph.D. in history from University of California, Los Angeles and a B.A. from Barnard College of Columbia University. Amy has authored two books, Queer Compulsions: Race, Nation, and Sexuality in the Intimate Life of Yone Noguchi and Discriminating Sex: White Leisure and the Making of the American “Oriental.” She additionally wrote the section on API queer history titled “Breathing Fire” for the National Parks Foundation’s landmark LGBTQ theme study, which won the Paul E. Buchanan Award from the Vernacular Architecture Forum. Amy served as a founding co-curator of the GLBT History Museum, the first queer history museum in the United States, and also seeded the Dragon Fruit Project, a community oral history project for API Equality Northern California, a queer Asian Pacific Islander advocacy group in San Francisco Chinatown. She has won numerous community recognitions including the Clio Award for her work in queer history and the Phoenix Award for her contribution to the Asian Pacific Islander queer women and transgender community. In 2017, San Francisco Pride honored Amy as a Community Grand Marshal.
Stan Yogi is co-author of the award-winning books Wherever There’s a Fight: How Runaway Slaves, Suffragists, Immigrants, Strikers, and Poets Shaped Civil Liberties in California (2009) and Fred Korematsu Speaks Up (2017). He is the co-editor of two books, Highway 99: A Literary Journey Through California’s Great Central Valley (1996) and Asian American Literature: An Annotated Bibliography (1988). His essays have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Daily Journal and academic journals and anthologies. He co-curated the traveling exhibits Art of Survival: Enduring the Turmoil of Tule Lake and Wherever There’s a Fight: A History of Civil Liberties in California. He is a Co-Chair of Okaeri, a group of LGBTQ+-identified Japanese Americans.
