Hi everyone and Happy Year of the Ox!
Well, it seems like it’s only been a few weeks since I wrote my last message and so it has been. We’ve already gone through a lot weather wise, and while I am writing this there is a forecast for more snow. To be truthful, I really think we’ve had enough of this weather—bring on the warmth and sunshine! This year will be the Year of the Ox. Oxen people are said to be patient, speak little, and inspire confidence in others. As …

So glad the snow storm we had in later December and early January is in the past.
At our January Ikebana meeting one of the members, Yvonne Yole, brought a plate of her Christmas baking since she was unable to entertain as usual due to the snow condition. One square caught my eye with the red cherries and thought it would be very appropriate for Valentine’s Day. I remember making this recipe four decades ago.
MARASCHINO SQUARES
This is a very pretty, delicious square.
3/4 cup margarine
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
Mix together …

Rear-Admiral Tyrone Pile, Commander Maritime Forces Pacific, recently presented Mr. Dick Nakamura with a framed letter of thanks on behalf of the Canadian Navy for more than 30 years of liaison assistance in support of the visits of Japan Maritime Self Defence Force ships to British Columbia.  Mr. Nakamura had a career as a federal civil servant and also served in the Canadian Forces Reserve as an airman, a soldier and lastly as a sailor retiring with the rank of Lieutenant-Commander.

When he turned to research and writing, our family was loaded into the car on a long road trip across the country. We stopped in small towns with names like Slocan and New Denver, which were steeped in memory for him. But for us kids — we just shrugged our shoulders with impatience . . . not able to see the import or history.

By Alex Ross
My grandpa, Roy Ito, passed away in 1999 when I was just ten. So I knew him as a kid knew a grandpa. Some of my memories include swimming in my grandparents’ backyard pool—when grandpa went swimming he had a distinctively splashy kick. Also, Sunday night dinners at my grandparents’ place. After dinner, my cousins and I knew to avoid the front living room in their house, as my grandpa would surely be snoring loudly in his worn blue recliner. And of course when my grandpa gave me …

The Ito family donated their father’s archive with an award for someone to do research and to create a public presentation of Roy Ito’s work. I was the recipient of this award proposing an online interactive project that would house three new works in response to an item within his archive.

First of all let me say that what surprised me most about Roy Ito’s diary was its candor and contemporariness. It is full of emotion and humor. At the same time it feels as though it was written for posterity, though not in the sense that it is overly sanitized. (In fact, the diary is full of half-articulated thoughts, impulsive tangents, and illegible script—giving it an ad-hoc, unplotted feel.) What I meant is that Roy seemed to have had a good handle on who he was and how he was …

knowing, not knowing
1.
I arrive at the archives wondering
but not knowing
what I would discover
or create in response to Roy’s diary
only knowing
I wanted to be open to the experience
of being
there
with the others
with his work, his words
his diary
there is an immediate sense
of intimacy
as I hold the diary in my gloved hands
which grows as I lift the front cover
and read the salutation
“Just,”
I begin to read passages
slowly
allowing them to take their time
and for me to take my time
with them
at this initial stage however
it’s not just the words themselves
that I take in
but the diary’s physical presence
its …

War clouds loomed ominously over the Pacific in November 1941 as the Japanese Canadian Citizens League held its fifth annual conference in Victoria. Obata wrote to the editor of The New Canadian urging the Nisei to move to Ontario, where “war industries are crying out for help . . . Spend the dollars involved in conferences in train fare for ambitious Nisei. Let’s have some action for a change before it’s too late!”
On Sunday morning, December 7, when Obata came down for breakfast in his boarding house on Brunswick Avenue, …

part of a crowd
(two of three poems written on January 20, 2009)
1.
as we wait in the cold air
with excitement evident on our faces
the woman behind me offers
a lemon cough drop
and I accept
there is something moving about her gesture
on this day
of such huge proportions
and import
3.
projected on the JumboTron
is a live image of the waving flags
and cheering arms of the crowd
looking like a field of sakura trees
in bloom
on this cold morning
we appear on the huge screen
looking like spring
Baco Ohama, Washington, DC