Terry Watada

Terry Watada

To Niqab or not to Niqab?

What happened to the party’s “solemn commitment and undertaking to Canadians of every origin that such violations will never again in this country be countenanced or repeated”? Covered with its own symbolic neqab, I suppose.

Stale Off the Boat

Fresh off the Boat, ABC’s anything-but-fresh sitcom about an Asian American family going through culture shock in Orlando, Florida, during the mid-1990s suffers from bad writing and stereotypical portrayals. The show centres on a Taiwanese-American family moving from Washington DC…

Racism is Over?

In the recent film festival favourite Dear White People, written and directed by James Williams and Teyonah Parris, the president of a fictitious Ivy League School, Winchester University, in the US declares that racism is over in America – especially…

Yuri Kochiyama: a Hero amongst Heroes

Rev up your search engine and type in “Yuri Kochiyama.” You’re bound to learn about the Nisei Japanese American woman who fought for the rights of the dispossessed, the freedom of political prisoners and redress for interned Japanese Americans. You’ll…

What Started it All

The lads are much more interesting to look at than listen to. Their r’n’r sound is ordinary and hardly approaches the excitement generated by Presley or Bill Haley’s ‘Rock Around the Clock’ Comets … Their hairdos, their ultrahip clothes and…

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Japanese baseball players have certainly had an impact on Major League Baseball.  From the idiosyncratic style of Hideo Nomo to the hitting prowess of Hideki Matsui (Godzilla), Japan has contributed a great deal to the old ball game.  Ichiro Suzuki,…

Word Play – Part Two

Many of the words listed have not survived or will in time, but then that’s the nature of language. They are an indicator of the culture at that moment. Whatever happened to the “beat or boom box” for example? Who would’ve predicted the geek would last until today, especially with a positive connotation given its initial meaning?