K.A. Okagaki

Mentor a Teen Writer

kao — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 02:54:56 +0000

I’ve been working with a teen writer on her memoir. Her manuscript is impressive; her voice is the most authentic I’ve read all year. Her topic is tragic – growing up with a father in prison. Her hope is that her book will reach other kids like her.

She is a kid who reads a lot, but in her seventeen years, she’s never found a book about a kid with a parent in prison. Maybe she’s read one of those self-help type books, or one of those “it’s not your fault” kind of books, but nothing that hits to the core of how incarceration obliterates family relationships, or how it freezes in time the emotional state of the family. Her manuscript is unique in that way, and inspiring in a very real way.

I hope that her book is able to find a large audience. It will be hard to do since she plans to self-publish. But, I suppose, she will accomplish what she is setting out to do – put one of her books into every library in San Diego. Hopefully, kids like her will find her story.

Writers, if you ever have the opportunity to mentor a teen writer, take the leap and do it. You’ll learn a lot about how teens think and what they feel, and what kinds of topics are important to them. Most importantly, you’ll help them get their stories out there. It’s worth the time and the investment.

Wheat Bread Friday

kao — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:36:34 +0000

White whole wheat bread

I like bread. Especially homemade bread, but who has time to make bread from scratch? Turns out that with a bread machine, it is possible to have homemade bread without having to do much work at all. This is a one pound loaf of white whole wheat bread. The flour is whole wheat but resembles white flour and bakes up like a dream. The slabs of bread are thick and fluffy. The bread machine is a Zojirushi, which I think is the best brand on the market for bread machines, but your mileage may vary.

The one pound loaf yields about 6 big thick slices. I think it is more than possible to slice up 8 medium-thin slices, such as for sandwiches, but there is something to be said about giant, thick grilled cheese sandwiches, crusty with butter and dripping with smoked cheddar cheese. Mmm…wheat bread…mmm…Friday…mmm…cheeese…

When cds go bad…

kao — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 02:58:31 +0000

After weeks of waiting, the CD arrived. I played it just awhile ago and can’t quite decide where to go from here. The first track on the cd was side 1 of the cassette tape. The second track, side 2.

The problem with the first track is that it isn’t my aunt’s interview. It’s someone else entirely and goes on for a good 45 minutes. Took me a few minutes to figure out there was a track 2.

The problem with the second track is that while it is my aunt’s interview, it is also only about half of my aunt’s interview. It begins in mid-sentence and seems to pick up in some soft of undirected q&a about various race issues. My aunt is evasive, often turning the tables on the interviewer until it suddenly becomes the interviewee interviewing the interviewer, if that makes any sense. Maybe she didn’t want to be interviewed, maybe she didn’t understand the questions, or maybe it was some sort of tactic she liked to use in order to not divulge information. She doesn’t talk much at all about Larry and it doesn’t really cover their time in SF pre-war. I’m not sure it will be useful at all.

I suppose the first part of the interview simply was lost, or perhaps it rotted away, or the interviewer forgot to put in a tape or something. I suppose I expected too much from something that was recorded more than 40 years ago.

But it was nice of Bancroft to duplicate the material for me. I wish more people could/would donate their historic materials. I wish there were better ways of preserving them too.

Yay, Bancroft!

kao — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:40:38 +0000

The CD I requested is in the mail! With luck, I should get it Friday!

Snail Mail

kao — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 01:59:43 +0000

I sent a request for CD duplication services to Bancroft, but it got lost in the mail. Argh. I waited 5 weeks before sending an inquiry email, and discovered that my request never arrived. So, I resent, this time by email and hopefully, hopefully I will receive a CD in the mail soon. Fingers crossed.

1937 is missing!

kao — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 17:55:08 +0000

The library called. Turns out that the State library doesn’t have the 1937 editions of the New World Daily. At some point, the paper reorganized, maybe under bankruptcy, and emerged as the New World Sun. Somehow the microfilm reels from that year went missing and now there is nothing.

I’d hoped to get the 1937 paper to see if my aunt’s wedding announcement made it in the paper. It seems like it would, especially since her husband was kind of well known back then – still is today, in fact. I think he would have been 26 or 27 years old. She was probably still working for the New World Sun-Daily as well.

I’ll keep searching, maybe UCLA has something, or Chicago. Something, somewhere should exist, shouldn’t it?

My Aunt in 1934

kao — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 00:48:40 +0000

My aunt was 18 years old when she started working for Jimmie Omura at the New World Daily News in 1934. Her first assignment was to cover the JACL pre-convention dance on board the SS California in San Francisco. She wrote about what the men wore and the “dance frocks” of the women, and of the rush to the refreshment stands as soon as they opened. For my aunt, it was likely an exciting kick-start to her career in journalism. I wonder if she felt any disappointment when, in the next day’s issue of the paper, her first name was misspelled in a “greeting from staff members” notice. Maybe she didn’t care or maybe she did, there isn’t any way to know for sure. Though if I were an 18 year old assistant-to-the-editor who had recently published her first story, I think I’d be disappointed.

Giant Book Return

kao — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:34:28 +0000

We took the three giant books back to the library, hauling them past a row of homeless people sleeping against the walls of buildings downtown. These were the books that held copies of the newspaper that my aunt worked for back in 1935. I was nervous having the books in the house, nervous as I read the pages, and nervous returning them. Even for their massive size, the books were fragile. The pages nearly crumbled in my hands. The corners of the book were breaking down as well, and I imagine that they won’t be able to survive much longer.

It’s sad to see these ethic newspapers disappear, especially the ones pre WWII. They did an amazing job of capturing the sentiment of the time, of objectively reporting on the news, even when the subject of the news was about hostility directed towards their ethnic group.

With the return of the giant books, I’m now waiting on microfilm of more years from The New World Sun, and an audio recording of an interview my aunt gave in 1969, just a few years after her husband, Larry Tajiri, passed away. I haven’t heard my aunt’s voice in years. Will I recognize it?

Ouch, my back

kao — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 22:49:40 +0000

Somehow, I did something to my back. The pain runs from my hip to my right foot. I can’t put my socks on by myself. Doc thinks it is a fractured vertebrae, but I haven’t done anything that could possibly fracture anything. Now I have to wait for the insurance company to decide if I get physical therapy. Meanwhile, I can’t do much of anything except lie around the house.

Giant Library Books

kao — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 00:36:37 +0000

Just when I thought all was hopeless, our wonderful library came through for me. They managed to track down and get original bound copies of the New World Sun. This was the newspaper that my aunt wrote for, and that my grandfather managed in some way. He was a stockholder in the paper and lost his investment when the paper was shut down by the US government after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. My aunt was about 18-20 years old when she worked for the paper. She published a few short stories and likely wrote a few news articles as well, though probably uncredited.

Going through the big bound books is a delicate exercise. The newsprint is ancient and nearly crumbles when touched. I don’t know why the books haven’t been converted to microfilm, but perhaps they are not of interest to enough people. The “vernaculars” of the time are actually pretty fascinating. That my teenaged aunt could’ve worked there in the 1930s is amazing.