Join Japan Society for a special book talk and signing of By the Shore of Lake Michigan, a newly translated tanka poetry collection by Japanese American WWII incarcerees Tomiko and Ryokuyō Matsumoto. Discover firsthand Issei perspectives on displacement, resilience, and postwar life. Free tickets with promo code TANKAFRIEND.

By the Shore of Lake Michigan: Recovering WWII Prison Camp & Resettlement Stories through Poetry

Monday, April 7 at 7:00 p.m.

Japan Society – 333 E. 47th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues)

Admission: $15 | $12 Seniors & Students | Free for Japan Society members

Japan Society presents a book talk and signing in honor of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, featuring By the Shore of Lake Michigan, a newly translated collection of tanka poetry by Tomiko and Ryokuyō Matsumoto. As first-generation Japanese Americans, the Matsumotos were among the 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans incarcerated in U.S. wartime prison camps.

Our friends at Japan Society are offering complimentary tickets to JapanCultureNYC readers! Go to Japan Society’s website to select the number of tickets you’d like and use promo code TANKAFRIEND at checkout.

About the Book

The Matsumotos’ poetry, written in tanka—the oldest form of Japanese poetry—captures their experiences of displacement, resilience, and rebuilding life after the war. Published by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press, By the Shore of Lake Michigan spans 17 years, tracing the Matsumotos’ forced relocation from Los Angeles to Wyoming’s Heart Mountain prison camp in 1942 and their postwar resettlement in Chicago. While many accounts of wartime incarceration have come from second- and third-generation Japanese Americans through fiction, theater, and film, Japanese-language writings from the Issei generation remain largely untranslated. This collection is a rare, firsthand poetic chronicle of a pivotal moment in history, nearly 15 years in the making.

Originally in Japanese, these poems are now available to English-language readers for the first time, thanks to the efforts of editor Nancy Matsumoto, the poets’ granddaughter, along with translators Mariko Aratani and Kyoko Miyabe.

Event Highlights

The evening includes a discussion with:

Nancy Matsumoto — editor and granddaughter of the poets
Mariko Aratani — translator
Kyoko Miyabe — translator
Eri F. Yasuhara — scholar and panelist

They’ll offer insights into the power of tanka and its role in documenting history.

Book Signing

Books will be available for purchase at the event. Guests are also welcome to bring their own copies for signing following the talk.

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Susan McCormac 3/21/25 Susan McCormac 3/21/25

Local Hero to Be Featured in NHK Documentary

Takeshi “Tak” Furumoto is the subject of the NHK documentary RAISED IN HIROSHIMA, FOUGHT IN VIETNAM

Takeshi “Tak” Furumoto is a Japanese American who was born in an incarceration camp, raised in Hiroshima, and fought in the Vietnam War. In the NHK documentary Raised in Hiroshima, Fought in Vietnam, Furumoto travels in search of closure to his complicated past.

About Tak Furumoto

Born in 1944 in Tule Lake War Relocation Center, one of the ten Japanese American incarceration camps established for the mass incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals living on the West Coast, during World War II, Tak Furumoto is the youngest of Sam Kiyoto and Yoshi Furumoto’s five children. Raised in his father’s war-torn hometown in Hiroshima after the atomic bombing, Furumoto’s family returned to the U.S. in 1956, settling in Los Angeles. After Furumoto graduated from UCLA in 1967, he volunteered to enter the Army. Despite the injustices his family endured in the U.S. during WWII, Furumoto valiantly served our country in the Vietnam War, earning a Bronze Star.

A New Jersey resident since 1971, Furumoto and his wife, Carolyn, have run Furumoto Realty in New Jersey, New York City, and Westchester for more than 50 years. They have dedicated their lives to the betterment of the Japanese American community in both New Jersey and New York. They were instrumental in New Jersey’s adoption of Fred T. Korematsu Day in 2023, relentlessly advocating for the state of New Jersey to recognize January 30 as the Fred T. Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution, a day that honors civil rights hero Fred Korematsu, a California native who refused to enter the incarceration camps in 1942.

To learn more about Furumoto and his contributions to our community, please read Karen Kawaguchi’s in-depth article in Discover Nikkei.

On-Air Schedule

NHK World will broadcast Raised in Hiroshima, Fought in Vietnam on the following days:
Friday, March 21 from 8:10 p.m. until 9:00 p.m.
Saturday, March 22 from 2:10 a.m. until 3:00 a.m. | 8:10 a.m. until 9:00 a.m. | 2:10 p.m. until 3:00 p.m.

NHK World is available in New York at these channels: Spectrum 1279, Optimum 142, FiOS 482, Xfinity 265 and 1157, and OTA channel 58.2 To find the full details of where you can watch the documentary in your area, please visit the NHK World Channel List on NHK’s website.

Susan McCormac 2/17/25 Susan McCormac 2/17/25

Charlie Chaplin’s Confidante in spotlight off-broadway

Off-Broadway play about Toraichi Kono, Charlie Chaplin’s majordomo and confidante who was arrested for espionage during World War II

My Man Kono

Now through Sunday, March 9

A.R.T./New York Mezzanine Theatre – 502 W. 53rd Street (between 10th and 11th Avenues)

Admission: $77 | $66 Seniors | $39 Students (prices include fees)

Pan Asian Repertory Theatre presents the world premiere of My Man Kono, a play by LA-based writer and producer Philip W. Chung directed by Jeff Liu, an Artistic Producer for the Ojai Playwrights Conference.

In the heyday of silent films, Japanese émigré Toraichi Kono, in pursuit of the American Dream, becomes a loyal confidante of film star Charlie Chaplin. But at the dawn of WWII, he is swept up in anti-Japanese hysteria and accused of espionage. Conlan Ledwith portrays the silent screen star with Brian Lee Huynh as his man Kono.

“It’s a fascinating and distinctively American story about a figure from our cultural history we should know better,” writes Zachary Stewart in his review of the biographical off-Broadway production on theatermania.com.

Remembering Executive Order 9066

This Wednesday, February 19 Pan Asian Rep is celebrating the AANHPI community on AANHPI Affinity Night/Day of Remembrance. The evening is in recognition of the 83rd anniversary of Executive Order 9066, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s directive issued February 19, 1942, authorizing the forced relocation and incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens, in remote internment camps. Pan Asian Rep is offering a special discount to theatergoers on February 19. Enter code AANHPI at checkout for $55 tickets.

To purchase tickets, please visit panasianrep.org.

Conlan Ledwith (left) as Charlie Chaplin and Brian Lee Huynh as Toraichi Kono in *My Man Kono*. Photo: ©Russ Rowland

Performance Schedule

Tuesdays through Saturdays at 7:00 p.m.
Saturdays and Sundays at 2:30 p.m.

The run time is approximately two hours including an intermission.

Incarceration & Resettlement Told Through Tanka