A Note from Naomi

July 2009

Meishi Magic Memory Museum

I recently learned that I have a museum in my house and it's small enough to rest in my hands.  It's a stack of meishi, or business cards, from my journalism days which I had stored in one of those plastic-sleeved notebook files.  I removed them a week or two ago to make room for some new ones, and other than a handful of contacts, the rest had moved on in terms of jobs, situations, or maybe even life.

Some folks had been and remain close friends, while in other cases, I don't remember how I had even received the card.  Still others have gone through several different incarnations and identity changes—perhaps I even fall into that category.

Three in this particular stack stand out to me: Kanshi Stanley Yamashita, "Lt. Col., U.S. Army, Ret.," with an address in San Pedro, California.  The Colonel, as I liked to refer to him, had received his Ph.D. in UC Irvine after his military stint, and had done a lot of research on Terminal Island, the pre-World War II Japanese colony on the tip of East San Pedro, not far from the apartment that he shared with his wife in retirement at the time that I met him.  The Colonel had been raised on Terminal Island and I had asked him to write a piece on that community for The Rafu Shimpo Japanese American newspaper.  The Colonel, perhaps due to his military training, had high expectations of me, perhaps even more than I had of him as a contributor.  I remember that when I hadn't responded to one of his letters, he marched into the newspaper, clearly expressing his disappointment. I didn't know what to make of it at the time and even wondered how this professional relationship would progress, but as it turned out as it usually does, the article and growing friendship developed beautifully.  And I did eventually learn the merits of being more communicative.

The second card is from Dennis Schatzman, a reporter from the Los Angeles Sentinel, "Largest Black-Owned Newspaper in the West."  Dennis and I had met in connection to the L.A. riots that had ensued after the Rodney King verdict as well as the O.J. Simpson murder trial.  I had started an inter-ethnic relations series, which took us to the Sentinel and the Korea Times.  Dennis was such an animated, bigger-than-life person—I still remember his sharp observations on community journalism that I still occasionally spout out today.  Dennis taught me to be passionate about what I write about, while not taking myself too seriously.

The last card is of Lillian Baker, an outspoken opponent of redress and reparations for Japanese Americans.  I never met Lillian Baker (although I did talk to her on the telephone), but her card was always enclosed in her many letters and articles maintaining that the U.S. detention centers that held Japanese Americans during World War II were justified due to military necessity.  This card has her home address in Gardena, California—ironically once the bastion of the Japanese American culture and community.

All three of these people who passed me their card, either in person or in correspondence are now gone.  They don't creep into my thoughts on a regular basis, yet my interaction with them did alter me in different ways.  That is indeed one of the merits of growing older, you wear many more layers of fingerprints of contact, and I'm glad that I have a stack of meishi memories wrapped together with a long rubber band.

Naomi

Archived Notes

Monthly Serials:

Mas Arai in Japan:

Gasa-Gasa Girl (left) Japanese edition Published by Shogakukan in February 2008 Snakeskin Shamisen (right) Japanese edition Published by Shogakukan in May 2008

Mas Arai Mysteries:

Snakeskin Shamisen is the winner of the 2007 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original Novel!

Short Stories:

Los Angeles Noir featuring "Number 19" by Naomi Hirahara Published April 2007	A Hell of a Woman featuring "The Chirashi Covenant" by Naomi Hirahara Published December 2007	The Darker Mask featuring "Tat Master" by Naomi Hirahara Published August 2008

Photo of Naomi by Mario G. Reyes

©2006-09 by Naomi Hirahara. Web site by interbridge.