Week 8: Government and Retreat

Sam Liccardo

Our NCI experience finally ends with week 8.  Helen Hayashi took Kelly and Michelle on a tour of downtown San Jose.  She drove us around St James Park to check out the homeless population.  In the afternoon, we went to city hall to meet San Jose City Councilmember Sam Liccardo.  He was very kind and charismatic when answering our questions.  Following our meeting with Sam Liccardo, we met with Ed Shikada, San Jose's Assistant City Manager.  He told us about his background and explained to us his position.  He was nice enough to show us some Japanese exchange programs and organizations which we very much appreciated.

Ed Shikada

Tuesday we called Ky Le, the director of Santa Clara County Homeless Systems.  He explained to us some of the programs and issues he is working on to help the homeless.  The next stop was with Julia Dawson, the Director of Georgia Travis Center.  She gave us a tour of the Georgia Travis Center; a spacious building for women and children.  It provides many programs during the day and helps to get peoples' lives back on track.  In the afternoon, we had lunch with Yosh Uchida and his assistant Jan Cougill.  Mr. Uchida (and Mrs. Cougill) told us about his life and how judo has been a huge part of it.  Mr. Uchida brought the weight class system and judo to the olympics.  He coaches for the San Jose State judo team and the USA olympic team.  He showed us his office and a portion of his awards he has received.  He brought out picture albums of sumo and judo from back in the day.  We ended the day with Ray Bramson, Director of the Homelessness Response team for the city of San Jose.  He gave us a realistic picture of homelessness in San Jose and the numbers in the city.

Sophie Horiuchi-Forrester

Wednesday started off with meeting Michelle Covert, the Manager of the Bill Wilson Center.  The provide programs and housing for teens and young adults.  It was a great location with many facilities accommodated for teens.  Wednesday was also the first day of our three day NoCal retreat.  The afternoon started off with a reunion with the SoCal interns.  We ate lunch at Yu-Ai Kai with the seniors and members of the Japantown Community Congress.  After lucnh, JAMsj gave us both a museum and walking tour.  The day in San Jose ended with a great workshop with San Jose Taiko.  They instructed us on their four principles and let us warm up before hitting the taiko drums.  

Day two of retreat started in San Francisco where all the interns debriefed about the internship as a whole.  Next, we divided into our regions and debriefed on our separate experiences.  In the afternoon, we were given a walking tour of San Francisco's Japantown by JohnDavid.  The day ended with a small NorCal NCI alumni dinner.

Taiko Workshop with San Jose Taiko

Friday was the last day of retreat.  We set up for the closing luncheon and welcomed family and previous supervisors and workshop leaders.  The luncheon consisted of intern testimonials, a slideshow, and gifts followed by many pictures.  If you would like to see more pictures from our last week, check out our Google+ page!  https://plus.google.com/u/0/  The closing luncheon was a great was to end the NCI program. 

Overall, we really enjoyed the NCI experience.  It gave us many opportunities and introduced us to amazing people who do great things for the community.

Week 7: History

Walking tour with Mr. Yamaichi

History week started off with Mr. Jimi Yamaichi, the museum director/curator of JAMsj. He has lived in San Jose most of his life and was born in Japantown.  With his knowledge, he gave us a thorough walking tour of Japantown and its history. We discovered that the benches in Japantown even have some of Mr. Yamaichi's quotes about previous landmarks!  After lunch, Mr. Yamaichi gave us a tour of the museum and the archive building next door.  Mr. Yamaichi possesses an excellent memory and is a valuable source to Japantown.

JAMsj tour with Mr. Yamaichi 

Tuesday, we met with Steve Fugita again to discuss grant writing.  Mr. Fugita told us about the choosing process that JAMsj uses to determine which grants to apply for.  He brought previous grants with him for us to see what a grant application looks like. Kelly even volunteered to do some grant writing for the museum.  In the afternoon we met with Mrs. Idemoto where she gave us a perceiver test.  The test is designed to pinpoint people's strengths and was originally designed for teachers.

Wednesday we met with Mrs. Leslie Kim and Mrs. May Matsuzaki.  We helped Mrs. Kim edit the volunteer application and the museum's policies.   Mrs. Matsuzaki showed us her crafts for the museum's winter boutique.  They make handmade cards, kusudama balls, and flowers to fundraise for the museum.  For lunch, we met with Barbara Kawamoto to discuss communications in JAMsj.  She told us about her background in communications at HP and Cisco.  She gave us a lot of helpful advice to help with our future career goals.  After lunch we met with two San Jose State students who presented their "Creatifying Japantown" project to us.  They researched different aspects and needs of the community for their geography class. Their results concluded that Roy's Station is the heart of Japantown and what the community needs is a community center where different people can congregate and share the space.  It was very interesting to get an outsiders view of Japantown and to see actual research done that can help benefit the community. Finally, we attended the Bay Area Asian Pacific American Legislative Staffers 5th Anniversary Intern Mixer.  We got to meet local interns and politicians like Mayor Evan Low and Assemblyman Fong.  It was a great opportunity to network and meet our local government.

One of many awards given to Nancy Pelosi

Thursday was our last San Francisco intern day.  The day started off with a bus ride to Nancy Pelosi's office to meet with Harriet Ishimoto.  We met in a conference room filled with awards given to Congresswoman Pelosi.  After lunch we met with Brandt Fuse, the Graphic Designer and owner of SumoFish.  He told us about his background and how he runs his business.  It was interesting to learn how he became an entrepreneur and where the unusual name "Sumo Fish" originated from.  The next speaker was Jon Osaki's second visit where he asked each of us how we were going to get involved in the Japanese community after we completed the internship.  It was fascinating to hear everyone's different responses and visions of what the future of the Japanese community would be.  Our final speaker was Donald Woodson from UCSF.  He gave a fantastic presentation about graduate school while explaining his background in education.  The information he gave us was valuable, practical, and a great way to end the last intern day.

Donald Woodson from UCSF on Graduate School

Handmade cards

Friday, we met with Mrs. Idemoto.  She gave us our results for the perceiver test we previously took on Tuesday and explained the results.  Each of us was given a private mock interview with Mrs. Idemoto.  She discussed how we did and gave us great feedback.  We debriefed on history and education week and we both loved our time with Mrs. Idemoto!  After lunch, we went to JAMsj to make cards with Mrs. Matsuzaki.  It was so much fun making cards for the boutique!  It fun to be able to be creative and help a good cause.