Week 1

After getting back from the LA Retreat, it was time to start the internship! First, I came to the Issei Memorial Building (IMB), host of the San Jose JACL office, the Contemporary Asian Theater Scene (CATS) office, the Filipino American National Historical Society office, and the San Jose Taiko. I was given the CATS office as my designated office space during this internship, which is quite nice of them.

I got introduced to the coordinators of the NCI program in San Jose, Roy Hirabayashi, Ellen Kamei, and Andrew Knaack. Roy Hirabayashi, one of the founders of San Jose Taiko and is also on the board for the Japantown Community Congress (JCC) of San Jose, gave me a tour of Japantown. He pointed out some of the community's important buildings and organizations along the way, including the San Jose Buddhist Church, the Wesley Methodist Church, the Japanese American Museum of San Jose, and Yu-Ai-Kai. I also got to meet the head coordinator of the San Jose NCI program, Ellen, at a potluck with some of the other JCC members. I also got to meet Andrew, along with Janice Doi of the San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin, who is on the Board of Directors as VP of Research and planning, and also Kathy Sakamoto, who is part of the Japantown Business Association (JBA). In addition, I also got to meet with some of the members of San Jose Taiko, and have lunch with them. It certainly is an opportunity to be able to meet so many esteemed members of the Japanese American community, and I look forward to meeting more people in the coming weeks!