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The Mochi Makers, written and illustrated by Sharon Fujimoto-Johnson, portrays the author’s family mochi-making tradition.

What I liked:

• I really love it when I come across another nikkei author whose work feels so familiar. I felt this the most in the small details in Fujimoto-Johnson’s illustrations that were echoes of home to me, like the way the characters dress or how the kitchen looks.
• There was a lot of pink in this book! Does Fujimoto-Johnson like pink? I like pink. I don’t usually think of sakura mochi when I think of mochitsuki, but I definitely felt a quasi-hanami vibe from Fujimoto-Johnson’s palette. I also like ohagi, so yay for that reference!

What I learned:

• I’ve only ever made mochi with a machine (and I’ve seen it pounded by hand), so I hadn’t really thought about the logistics of making it in a rice cooker. It makes sense, though I wonder if a large batch can be made in a rice cooker. That said, maybe a smaller batch is better if there are only two people in the kitchen. We have a lot more people at our family mochitsuki – we need all the hands to roll the mochi before it gets hard. Come to think of it, I’ve never asked our family friends, who are nikkei (including multiracial nikkei), if they feel any sort of connection to Japanese culture from participating in mochitsuki every year. Same with some of my cousins (they are multiethnic nikkei and, I think, probably more familiar with their Chinese heritage) – I’ve never asked if they come to mochitsuki to retain a connection to their Japanese heritage.

Questions I had:

• Did Fujimoto-Johnson envision a particular audience for this book? It felt a bit like how a nikkei kid and their parent might explain mochitsuki to a classroom full of predominantly non-nikkei students. At the same time, I enjoyed the story as a nikkei reader who was already familiar with the content. I actually think this book would flow well in Japanese – has Fujimoto-Johnson considered writing a Japanese version?

Follow-up:

• I believe Fujimoto-Johnson has another picture book coming out, so I’ll be on the lookout!

To learn more about Book Spotlight, read this.

Navigating With(out) Instruments is a series of poems and notes in which traci kato-kiriyama reflects on how past and present nikkei experiences, both individual and collective, have the potential to influence our community’s future in different ways.

What I liked:

• As someone who has never lived among the nikkei communities of SoCal, I spent a lot of time wondering how this book might have turned out if kato-kiriyama’s primary experience of being nikkei had occurred somewhere else. It seems, at least in part, that kato-kiriyama is at times writing to a specific nikkei audience, but I wasn’t always sure if that audience included nikkei outside of the community that seems to have shaped much of kato-kiriyama’s thoughts about nikkei-ness. This is not to say that I didn’t recognize some of the nikkei personas that kato-kiriyama calls out, but even so I often found myself wondering if a particular nikkei persona situated in the geospatial(?) context of nikkei communities in SoCal (only nikkei in the Little Tokyo area?) would look or act or feel the same as a nikkei persona by the same name in another location. (And also, of course, understanding that location is not by any means the only characteristic that differentiates nikkei communities from one another.) Anyway, while I haven’t yet sorted out how I feel about this aspect of the book, I appreciate kato-kiriyama for intentionally (or not?) drawing my attention to it. (Speaking of location, I happened to see an advertisement in the supermarket about a nikkei family-run strawberry farm in the Monterey area, and 1) it reminded me of that manga I read a while back about running a strawberry farm and 2) it made me think about the small nikkei communities in the less urban areas of California – and, really, in general, throughout this country – and reminded me to check my nikkei TBR to see if I’ve got any books about rural nikkei communities in the US.)
• The feeling I got from reading Navigating With(out Instruments reminded me of the feeling I get when reading the poet Chen Chen’s work. (Side note: I don’t usually use these posts to promo non-nikkei creators, but I’ve learned a lot from Chen’s work (and, maybe more importantly, it was an enjoyable kind of learning) and if you haven’t read him before, I encourage you to go forth and do so.)

What I learned:

• Prior to reading Navigating With(out) Instruments, I didn’t know much about kato-kiriyama other than that they are a poet. I wonder if kato-kiriyama, in choosing to include so many personal details in this book, anticipated and/or preferred readers coming to this book with or without prior knowledge of kato-kiriyama’s life?

Questions I had:

• When I read kato-kiriyama, much like when I read Brandon Shimoda, or Mine Okubo, or Tamiko Nimura, I find myself circling back to a question that, at least for me, is still a work in progress. The question takes many forms, including, what is the way forward for us, as a community (communities, but I also say ‘community’ to recognize the connection that I feel, even if faint, whenever I meet other nikkei), if we believe in working toward a better existence, not only for ourselves, but also for anyone who is working toward the same?

Follow-up:

• I’ll be keeping an eye out for kato-kiriyama’s next book!
• If you’re able to do so, consider visiting the online book shop, Open Books: A Poem Emporium, which hosts the online bookstore for Workshops 4 Gaza – all book proceeds support the people of Gaza.

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The Star Festival, written by Moni Ritchie Hadley and illustrated by Mizuho Fujisawa, tells the story of Tanabata through the eyes of a child, Keiko.

What I liked:

• Mizuho Fujisawa’s warm, bright colors were probably my favorite part of this book. To be perfectly honest, I did not find the story all that interesting (in the sense that it wasn’t a particularly new or unique perspective on Tanabata for me), but I like to think it’s a nice introduction to Tanabata for nikkei kids who might not know about it.

What I learned:

• I believe I read that Fujisawa is based in France. It would be interesting to learn how she landed a contract for a children’s book in US publishing – not in the sense that there is anything wrong, but rather to determine if there are additional ways to open up illustration opportunities in the US and other North American or European markets for nihonjin artists looking to make the move. More broadly, I think about all the Asian names, including Japanese names, in the credits of animated films and shows produced in the US, and I wonder about the breakdown amongst the Japanese creators between nihonjin and nikkeijin. Are there opportunities to build stronger connections between Japanese people in Japan and Japanese people outside Japan, through careers in the arts (or art/tech), not just in terms of enabling folks to find work, but also to support cultural exchange and improved mutual understanding as the basis for a more cohesive global Japanese community?

Questions I had:

• Did any other nikkei readers feel that Keiko is presented as very white in her behavior and mannerisms? (The only especially Japanese feeling I got from her is her use of the word Oba, but in the context of the rest of her behavior, it came across as somewhat disjointed.) To be fair, I wonder if this is partly the result of writing a Japanese story in English, but we know from the work of authors like Mina Ikemoto Ghosh that it’s entirely possible to write a very Japanese-feeling story in English. I also felt this book overall was very ‘white American’ in tone and style, as if Japanese culture was ‘being presented’ specifically to white kids or to kids for whom whiteness is normalized, rather than speaking directly to nikkei kids with varying degrees of familiarity with their culture. I’m not sure if Hadley made this choice intentionally or perhaps was encouraged to do so by her publishing team, but if she did make the choice intentionally, it would be interesting to learn more about her reasons for doing so.

Follow-up:

• I wonder if Hadley has considered writing a middle grade novel – I could see her doing well at a story similar to Debbi Michiko Florence’s middle grade novels.

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Wat Kept Playing, by Emily Inouye Huey, tells the story of Wataru Misaka, the first person of color to play in the NBA.

What I liked:

• The more I read ‘designed to inspire kids of color’ books by authors of color, the more I wonder how these books are shaping the experiences of today’s kids. I don’t remember all that many books in English, featuring Japanese Americans, from my own childhood, but since I was surrounded by so much media direct from Japan, I don’t know if I ever really registered the lack of representation of people who looked like me in US media. I’m glad that, for today’s nikkei kids, this will probably not be an issue, as there are so many nikkei authors working in the US children’s market right now (and more to come, I’m sure!).
• Is there a Japanese edition of this book, or any plans to publish one? I feel like this story might be interesting to kids in Japan – though, as I say this, I wonder if a story about Japanese Americans (or nikkei of other backgrounds) playing MLB would do even better (and I wouldn’t be surprised if books like this already exist in the Japanese market – conversely, I can only imagine the sheer number of books about players like Ohtani). It would be interesting to do some sort of analysis around sports-themed literature in the Japanese children’s market by both nihonjin and nikkei authors, including picture books, manga, graphic novels, and children’s novels. I feel like sports manga is going strong right now and it would be interesting to try to identify the underlying reasons for this trend.

What I learned:

• I’m no sports aficionado, but I really enjoyed learning about Misaka’s life and experiences. It never occurred to me to think about who the first person of color to play in the NBA might be and it’s pretty awesome to know they were Japanese.

Questions I had:

• I feel like I saw ads for another picture about Misaka, by a non-Japanese author, around the same time as I was seeing publicity for Huey’s book. I suppose it must be a coincidence, but it was nevertheless odd. I also sometimes see YA novels by white authors with eerily similar covers and/or plots to YA novels by authors of color and I assume this is not always totally coincidental, but I also don’t know if this is simply a wider phenomenon of authors writing to trends (or being encouraged to write to trends?) or yet another example of white authors trying to profit off things that authors of color accomplished first. To be clear, I don’t know the race of the author who wrote the other book about Misaka, but I’m fairly certain they are not Japanese.

Follow-up:

• I have Huey’s YA novel on my TBR list…or possibly already in my physical TBR…

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Shima is a book of poetry by Sho Yamagushiku.

What I liked:

• One of my favorite parts of reading poetry, especially poetry by poets of color, is the sense that I’m catching a glimpse of how they experience the world through their words. (The poet Chen Chen is exceedingly good at this – he brings to the forefront things that I also constantly notice, but didn’t really notice I noticed until he said it, which is one of my favorite feelings ever.) I got this same feeling from Yamagushiku’s work, though I also think we experience the world very differently – not in a bad way, but in a this-nikkei-experience-is-very-different-from-my-nikkei-experience kind of way. On a related note, I’m not sure how Yamagushiku would identify relative to any ‘nikkei’ experience – my Okinawan/Uchinaanchu diaspora friends also identify as Japanese, nikkei, Japanese American, etc., but I recognize this will not necessarily be the case for everyone in this group.
• I really enjoyed the cover of Shima. I feel there are so many possible interpretations to the seemingly simple image – three figures carrying what appears to be a boat, for anyone who is not familiar with the cover – and it’s interesting to consider how each interpretation might tie in to a different aspect of Yamagushiku’s poems.
• I’m still not entirely sure of the meaning of the phrase ‘contains multitudes’ but I feel that my own current understanding of this phrase was embodied in this book, particularly in how Yamagushiku appears to embrace expansive, fluid, but also at times pointedly specific (and also pointed) understandings of (Okinawan? Uchinaanchu? Japanese? Nikkei?) identity.

What I learned:

• I hope a nikkei scholar writes an analysis of Yamagushiku’s work in relation to contemporary works by other nikkei poets. I don’t know what the findings would be, but that’s why I hope someone writes one.

Questions I had:

• What is Yamagushiku working on next? What are his main objectives as a poet? What does he hope readers will experience through his work?

Follow-up:

• I’ll have to check if Yamagushiku has written any essays or articles along the lines of the content of Shima – I’d like to know how his longform writing reads.