Cultural Week and San Jose Mid-Session Retreat

Cultural Week involved a lot of planning for Mid-Session Retreat in San Jose. This year, the retreat coincides not only with San Jose Obon, but also the JACL Convention, which is in San Jose this year. This included going with Andrew Knaack to Costco to get some food supplies for all the NCI interns coming to San Jose from LA and San Francisco. I also helped to plan some of the activities and finalized parts of the schedule, which I will talk about in a bit.

On Wednesday, I volunteered at a JACL play reading. The play being read was "Valley of the Heart" by Luis Valdez. It was a love story set during World War II between a Mexican American family and a Japanese American family. During this event, I helped get food for the cast and crew, usher in the JACL delegates, and help the play reading go smoothly. I also got to watch the play reading, which was a moving tale about the two families dealing with the war and incarceration.

Before I knew it, I had to go to pick up some of the LA interns at San Jose Mineta Airport on Friday morning. We commenced to go do some morning workshops at the JACL Convention at the Doubletree Hotel. We had a choice of several workshops, including talks about the model minority myth, diversity in Japanese American culture, genealogy, and Japanese nationals in America. For lunch, we drove to Yu-Ai Kai, and ate with some of the seniors there. I also got a sneak peak of my workplace for next week with Sophie!

After lunch, it was back to the Doubletree so we could attend a Youth Plenary session. For this, they showed some comedy pieces dealing with race in the media, and asked us whether or not we felt it offensive or not. Personally, I saw it as an eye-opening experience for us to be more aware of things that we say or do that could be harmful to others. There is a fine line between an acceptable joke that involves race, and having a racist joke.

We then went to Japantown, where the interns received a tour of the Japanese American Museum of San Jose led by Rich Saito, Joe Yasutake, and Jimi Yamaichi. As always, it was enlightening to visit JAMsj, and I even got to see a picture of my grandfather, Sumito Horio (top right), as he was on the San Jose Asahi baseball team. We drove to the hotel we would stay at, the San Jose Airport Hotel next to 4th Street Bowl.

For dinner, we were invited to the taiko potluck, hosted by San Jose Taiko. The collegiate taiko groups from UC Berkeley, UCSD, UC Davis, and UC Irvine also went. We got to socialize with each other, eat good food, and at the end we all joined in on learning Ei Ja Nai Ka, an Obon odori dance that San Jose Taiko performs the song for.

On Sunday, first we went to the Issei Memorial Building for breakfast. I then proceeded to teach the Obon odori dance for Jan Ken Ondo. This is probably the hardest dance at San Jose Obon, so hopefully people who stayed the whole time were able to perform it better. Erika Tamura, the San Francisco NCI supervisor, then came in and talked to us a little about the closing retreat that will take place in SF. We then visited the Nikkei New Generation Fund, an organization to encourage youth to donate to the community since the Nisei currently donate the most, and they are getting older.

Finally, we were free to go have fun at San Jose Obon! This included lots of good food, games, but sadly, no bingo this year. After a couple taiko performances, it was time to say goodbye to the LA people and several of the SF people. However, a few other people did stay and dance!

I know that last year there was no mid-season retreat in San Jose, but I am so glad they managed to have it again this year. Going to the JACL Convention and San Jose Obon with a bunch of friends made this weekend one to remember.