This is a photo of Aunt Ryo, my mother Kazue, Grandma Uyeno, and Aunt Suki (left to right) on the morning in 1942 when the U.S. military came to take them from their home in Visalia, California to board the train to the Poston Relocation Center. Built on the Colorado[…]

The first time I witnessed an American president trying to destroy American democracy was when I was living in Minneapolis in the early 1970s. I ended up in Minneapolis as a result of what I viewed as my failed attempt to become a musician. I grew up in Sioux Falls,[…]

When I was in junior high, my mother would occasionally confide in me about memories that must have bothered her. One day, she told me that when we lived in Kansas City and I was four years old, Steve and Carol, my little brother and sister, and I were all[…]

I was walking down a tree-lined country road at dusk with an attractive young woman. She had a backpack and appeared to be in her twenties. Strangely enough, even though we’d just met and she was young and beautiful, I wasn’t nervous being with her, as normally I would be.[…]

It’s like the Lewis Hine photograph of the construction worker in the 1930s clinging to a cable and ascending high in the sky to where he’s working on a skyscraper in Manhattan. Only there’s no steel cable. Just a thick rope, about as thick as a man’s wrist, with a[…]

I found myself sitting on a bed next to a young woman with a dark complexion who was wearing just underwear. Despite her skimpy attire, I felt no sexual attraction to her, although she was gorgeous and she had the most beautiful brown feet. She said, “Sammy, I think you[…]

The native peoples have a legend that in ancient times it rained for so long that the entire world was flooded. Everyone was swept away and drowned except for one beautiful young woman. When the rains finally stopped, she climbed up on the cliffs in this place and realized she[…]

I have a recurring dream in which I’m young and I’m totally alone. I can’t imagine how I will ever make friends or how I will ever meet a girl who might like me. In this dream I’m in San Francisco. I’m walking alone through the city. I start going[…]