Tadaima 2025 Schedule
November 1 - November 9
Welcome to Tadaima 2025! All of the zoom sessions require individual registration, so be sure to click on the corresponding “REGISTER HERE” button. We will be recording all of the zoom sessions except for the Nikkei Community Hangouts and the generational meet ups. The recordings will be uploaded to our YouTube channel at a future date.
Sessions marked “YOUTUBE” will be streamed live on our YouTube channel and do not require any registration.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1
The History and Legacy of the Redman-Hirahara House
Far more than the weathered Victorian visible from Highway 1, the Redman-Hirahara House stands as a testament to over a century of California's agricultural heritage, community resilience, and cultural transformation. Join us for a conversation exploring the rich history of this Watsonville landmark and the challenges facing its preservation today.
A Glimpse into Nikkei Grassroots Activism & Print Media: Civil rights leader Sei Fujii’s Pre-WWII Advocacy to Post-War Legacy
Live-reading from the 2nd Edition award-winning A Rebel's Outcry: Biography of Issei Civil Rights Leader Sei Fujii (1882-1954), author Jeffrey Gee Chin spotlights civil rights leader Sei Fujii's pivotal role as Kashu Mainichi publisher and community leader, rallying the Nikkei amidst injustice and corruption in the years leading to WWII, and his continued legacy through the overturn of the California Alien Land Law. Program will include live-reading by Academy Award-Winner Chris Tashima, and discuss the ongoing preservation efforts and upcoming projects by the Little Tokyo Historical Society to uplift Fujii’s life’s work that laid the groundwork for a better future for all immigrants across California.
There will be a Q&A Session to discuss the tools Fujii utilized including print media, town halls, and legal approaches that led to his sustained impact, and the struggles he faced despite his passionate dedication to his work.
Watch this related session from a past Tadaima.
Nikkei Community Hangout
Nikkei Rising invites you to join us for meaningful discussions and shared experiences at our Nikkei Community Hangouts.
Feel free to drop by either session (or both) during Tadaima on November 1st and 8th at 4pm PT!
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2
Minidoka Survivor: Rodger Nogaki
Join host Rob Buscher as he talks with Minidoka survivor, Rodger Nogaki. This is your opportunity to ask a camp survivor about their experiences!
Gosei Meet Up
The topic for this meeting is, 2042: 100 years from EO 9066. What do we see for the future of the JA community? How do we pass our stories to the younger generations? What do we need from the older generations to be successful?
Literary Futures
Playwright Philip Kan Gotanda and graphic novelist Kiku Hughes will discuss their work and the possible futures of literary remembrance of the Japanese American incarceration, thinking about stories that still need to be told, audiences, and different genres. Literary scholar Heidi Kim will introduce and moderate the conversation.
Our Future Depends on Remembering:
Uplifting Youth Voices
Learn about the Japanese American Museum of Oregon's (JAMO) manga project with rokusei Kira Sato and peer mentor, Marie Okuma Johnston.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3
Sansei Meet Up
The topic for this meeting is, 2042: 100 years from EO 9066. What do we see for the future of the JA community? How do we pass our stories to the younger generations?
Community, Connection, Commitment: The New NikkeiWest
Join best friends Denise Matsuzaki Hayashi and June Oka Yasuhara, the new owners of NikkeiWest newspaper, for an intimate conversation about their passion project to preserve Northern California's Japanese American community voice. In this discussion, they'll share their journey of transforming the 32-year-old publication into a nonprofit through the NikkeiWest Foundation, their commitment to keeping subscription prices accessible despite operating costs, and their evolving vision for the paper's future.
What began as an effort to maintain the paper for legacy subscribers has expanded into an exciting intergenerational initiative, with younger Japanese Americans eager to contribute and collaborate. Denise and June will discuss their plans for community-driven journalism, scholarship programs, and how they're working to highlight unique stories often overlooked by mainstream media. Discover how this all-volunteer effort is fostering meaningful connections across generations and what it means for the future of Japanese American community journalism in Northern California.
Manzanar Baseball Project
Join project director Dan Kwong for an illuminating discussion of the Manzanar Baseball Project, a compelling sport-meets-art initiative that restores the historic baseball field at the former Manzanar internment camp in California's high desert. Kwong, whose mother and family were incarcerated at Manzanar from 1942 to 1945, brings together his work as an award-winning artist and his 50+ year career in Japanese American baseball leagues to explore how baseball became a powerful symbol of resilience for the 10,000 Japanese Americans held there under Executive Order 9066. Through archival research, oral histories, and partnerships with descendants and the National Park Service, the seminar illuminates how incarcerees maintained dignity and hope through America's pastime—with one survivor noting that "putting on a baseball uniform was like wearing the American flag"—while fostering broader dialogue about civil liberties, social justice, and the enduring human spirit.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4
National Parks and Japanese American Incarceration
2:00PM PST / 5:00PM EST ON ZOOM
The importance of elevating undertold stories in an era of revisionist history.
Yonsei Meet Up
4:00PM PST / 7:00PM EST ON ZOOM
The topic for this meeting is, 2042: 100 years from EO 9066. What do we see for the future of the JA community? How do we pass our stories to the younger generations? What do we need from the older generations to be successful?
Passing Down Our Stories: Yonsei Mom to Gosei Sons
Filmmaker, Claudia Katayanagi, joins her gosei sons, Danny and Kaz Firpo, for a discussion about identity and community.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5
Self-Healing Through Deep Listening and Music Composition
3:00PM PST / 6:00PM EST ON ZOOM
In this session, bassoonist and social worker Midori Samson with yonsei ethnomusicologist and composer Ian Martyn preview and discuss Samson’s in-progress audio-visual album, "Conversations with the Ancestors I Never Got to Meet." Drawing from Samson’s Japanese and Filipino American heritage, the project uses sound art and visual media to explore collective trauma, diasporic longing, and intergenerational memory. Through autoethnography, pilgrimage, speculative fiction, and deep listening, Samson creates “altars” of music and image as spaces for remembrance. She will share four of these altars, which are composed from field recordings gathered during pilgrimages to Hiroshima, Okayama, Tule Lake, and the Pacific Ocean, all places she knows her ancestors stood. Together, Samson and Martyn will explore how sound and music can serve as sources for identity exploration and self-healing.
Watch this related session from a past Tadaima.
Legacies of Incarceration: The Power of Place and Memory
5:00PM PST / 8:00PM EST ON ZOOM
Our presentation examines the legacies of incarceration in the Islands and contemporary understandings of the World War II experience of Hawai‘i’s Japanese. We hope to raise critical questions that examine our shared histories, past experiences, and understandings of incarceration in Hawai‘i and beyond. While historian Kelli Nakamura highlights lesser-known experiences of incarceration in Hawai‘i, scholar Kyle Kajihiro examines how the commemoration of Japanese American incarceration can foster solidarity and activism in the current moment.
Nisei Week Queen & Court Program (NWQCP) Short Film
7:00PM PST / 10:00PM EST ON ZOOM
This film project is part of Aiko Dzikowski's graduate research and Kara Chu's undergraduate studies at UCLA. We hope to showcase the history and significance of Nisei Week and its Queen and Court Program, and we have been working in collaboration with the Nisei Week Foundation and the Court Program Queen's Committee. Sara Kubo is a contributor to the short film and met Aiko and Kara through the 2023-2024 Nisei Week Court Program.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6
Evolution of the Nikkei Press
2:00PM PST / 5:00PM EST ON YOUTUBE
Shin Nikkei Meet Up
4:00PM PST / 7:00PM EST ON ZOOM
The topic for this meeting is, what do we see for the future of the Japanese American community? As Shin-Nikkei—those of us who are more recent arrivals from Japan, or the children of newer immigrants—how do our experiences fit into the broader Japanese American narrative? Where do we belong in a community often centered around the multigenerational legacy of pre-WWII immigration and incarceration? Led by Amanda Roper.
Watch this related session from a past Tadaima.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7
Topaz & Tule Lake Survivor, Michiko Mukai
12:00PM PST / 3:00PM EST ON ZOOM
Art of the Descendants: World War II Afterlives
4:00PM PST / 7:00PM EST ON ZOOM
Throughout the WWII American concentration camps, art played a major role in documenting the incarceration experience, bringing beauty to bleak barracks, and occupying the time gained as jobs and normal activities were lost. Hear from two descendants of camp survivors as they discuss drawing inspiration from their ancestors, translating generational trauma into art, and the ways in which artists can show up to the struggle for justice.
Rock of Ages: A Town Hall on the Wakasa Public Letter
6:30PM PST / 9:30PM EST ON ZOOM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8
Nikkei Community Hangout
4:00PM PST / 7:00PM EST ON ZOOM
Nikkei Rising invites you to join us for meaningful discussions and shared experiences at our Nikkei Community Hangouts.
Feel free to drop by either session (or both) during Tadaima on November 1st and 8th at 4pm PT!
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9
Healing Through Shared Histories: Amache x Sand Creek Youth Ambassador Program
12:00PM PST / 3:00PM EST ON ZOOM
In 2023, the Sand Creek Massacre Foundation and Amache Alliance launched a Youth Ambassador Program connecting youth descendants of communities memorialized at Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site and Amache National Historic Site in eastern Colorado. Less than an hour drive from each other, the two sites share themes of government atrocities and forced displacement of Cheyenne and Arapaho and Japanese American communities, respectively. Over the past year and a half, Youth Ambassadors have participated in multiple site-based engaged learning opportunities to facilitate cross-cultural solidarity, healing, and community organizing, including the annual Amache Pilgrimage and Sand Creek Massacre Healing Run. Join the first Youth Ambassadors to learn about their journey together, including their background and what drew them to the program, impact of their shared experiences, and hopes for the future.
Temporary Detention: A Guide to the Forced “Assembly Centers”
2:00PM PST / 5:00PM EST ON ZOOM
Temporary Detention: A Guide to the Forced “Assembly Centers” is a presentation featuring the new multimedia website, www.forcedassemblycenters.com, that provides a past-and-present look at the little-documented 15 so-called “Assembly Centers” and the Owens Valley “Reception Center” operated by the U.S. Army’s Western Civil Control Administration directly after Executive Order 9066 was issued in 1942. These temporary centers provided immediate, hasty, and particularly harsh detention for approximately 92,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry as the 10 permanent camps were being built. The program features website content creators Sharon Yamato and NY photographer Stan Honda, as well as Densho content director Brian Niiya.
Watch these related sessions from past Tadaima’s.
Gila River Survivor: Masaru Yoshimoto
6:00PM PST / 9:00PM EST ON ZOOM
