A good friend from Japan who’s been teaching me the language told me the hip greeting for konnichi-wa is simply “chi’zzz” (cheese) as in chi-wa as in nichi-wa as in konnichi-wa. Clever, huh?
Another Japanese national I recently met told me the hip
word to describe what was trending in Japan is “now-ee”. Japan has sure changed a lot since my Mom left it.
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| Asako Sakaguchi and Phillip Miller |
Speaking of, there’s lots of news to share about our ongoing
War Brides of Japan documentary project. For one, we've released a preproduction trailer
that shares a little history about Japanese war brides. Here it is:
Even though we haven’t officially launched our crowdfunding
campaign yet, we’ve already received our very first donation. Thank you, Global
Music Awards!
Further, our donor also donated a video camera complete with
accessories! So, now we’re in the process of scheduling interviews with both war
brides and/or their adult children. Stay tuned here for updates, or else at our
Facebook Fan page:
Our website should be up and running by next week.
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| Teruko Nishina and Roland Franklin Stead, Jr. |
Here’s our tag line:
…beautifully
brave Japanese women who married American military men after WWII were called
“war brides”—although contrary to that label, they didn’t marry a war but
instead expressed their unconditional love by marrying “the enemy”…
Every single Japanese war bride entered into an interracial
marriage. Following Japan’s surrender in WWII, it became occupied by American
armed forces made up of either black or white men. Since interracial marriage
was still banned in 16 states, some war brides took a big risk being with
their own mates.
Besides struggling with cultural and language barriers, brave war brides also had to endure the hostility of some Americans once
they moved to the U.S. with their husbands. Both black and white Americans
blamed them for starting WWII because Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor. No
matter that these women were innocent civilians and helpless to challenge their
own government about its war agenda.
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| Harue Abiru and Charles William Lahn |
Not only did war brides leave behind their families (some
who disowned them for "marrying the enemy"), but they also moved to a country they’d never seen before
with men that had only years earlier might have helped destroy theirs.
Each war bride from Japan has her own unique story, and we
hope to tell as many as we can in this documentary.
Here are links to slideshows we've created in the past,
including one that placed among the top three entries in the New Media Film
Festival in Los Angeles in 2012 (although it was later disqualified for using
the One True Media app):
Come along with us, Hip Hapa Homeez, on this amazing journey
to honor these beautiful, brave, bodacious, bad-ass War Brides of Japan!
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| Yasue Hayakawa and Rev. Williams with daughters |
And, remember, we still have our feature narrative,
Watermelon Sushi, to complete so please support our pages.
Yayoi Lena Winfrey fan page on Facebook (sorry, but Your Hip
Hapa can’t add any more friends to her regular profile page)
We also have our Hip Hapa Homeez group on Facebook where
members post articles about being bicultural, biracial, transracially adopted,
from a blended family or part of an interracial couple.
See you next bi-month for more about the War Brides of
Japan.
Your Hip Hapa,
Yayoi
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| Yuriko Naito and A.W. Winfrey with daughters |
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