Terry Watada

Terry Watada

Word Play – Part One

2013’s Word of the Year was the decidedly inelegant “selfie.” President Barack Obama made it famous and controversial at the same time when he had one with Denmark’s Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt during Mandela’s memorial service.

My Last Word on Redress

Born in a time of prosperity, I never saw my father cry but my brother did, just once. Thus that sense of betrayal, of confusion and of the absolute lack of self-esteem was planted in the ten-year-old’s mind until the day he died some 69 years later. That is the true meaning of redress: a gesture of compensation for a lifetime of hurt and shame.

A Nikkei Christmas

I do find it strange then that family photographs show decorated trees in various living rooms (of friends) during the 1930s and even in the self-supporting camp where my mom was sent under special dispensation. My brother claimed the trees were only in the houses of the rich Japanese they knew because of the expense.

A Son of Makaha Passes

By Terry Watada For those in the Greater Toronto Area who were treated to the extravaganzas provided by the Hawaiian musical group the Makaha Sons back in 2009 and 2011, sadly, I have to announce the passing of John Koko.…