Week 7

(Alex gazing off into the distance)

Monday July 25th marked the start of week 7 of our internship which had the topic of Government and Advocacy with Helen Hayashi. To start the week we meet with Helen at the IMB and discussed Japantown issues as well as different levels of government. After our lunch break we made a trip down to YWCA in downtown on 3rd street where Helen spent many years of her career. We were greeted by Adriana Caldera, the Chief Program Officer. She gave us a tour of the second floor of the building and explained the services and programs the YWCA offers. She sat down with us and we discussed these services further. After this meeting we were down for the day.

On Tuesday Helen had personal agenda items and could not meet with us so we had the day off until the JCCsj meeting. However, before the meeting Roy wanted to meet with us to discuss the closing session of NCI in San Jose. During the meeting we got to display our work on our final project and get reactions and feedback from the congress. They seemed to like our work.

(Raul Peralez, Helen and us)

(Scott Green, Helen and us)

On Wednesday we had many meeting set up throughout the day. We started our day with an interview with Steve Doi which, is my former boss at Jimbos ice cream and an Asian American Studies teacher at SJSU. He explained his background to us and why Asian
American studies interested him. We later asked an on going question of ours which is, "how do we preserve Japantown?" He answered us honestly with, "It is unavoidable to change and do not let government get their hands on property." We had lunch after this interview and waited for our meeting with Duane Kubo another former Asian American studies professor. He explained the changing diversity in Japantown and how Japantown might change in the future. After these two meetings we headed down to city hall for two more meeting with Raul Peralez and Scott Green. Raul is a city council member who had an extreme career path. Starting as first from his family to graduate college. He graduated with a math degree and substitute taught high school. He decided he did not want to teach for the rest of his life so he became a San Jose police officer. After receiving a pink slip and almost being laid off during the recession he was curios why and was interested in politics. He was his office spot and became the youngest councilmen and is only one of two latinos in office. Scott Green was the policy advisor for the mayor. He also had a interesting career path. He gave us college/career advice which was helpful. What i learned through these two people was that it was rare to stick with one job your whole career and the job you will have for the rest of your career is unexpected. After our 4 interviews from the day we finally got to go home.

(Interns with Kenji Taguma)

Thursday was our final intern day in San Francisco before our closing retreat next week. In the morning, we met with the interns in SF and went over the program for the closing retreat. After going over numerous options, we decided that the final theme was going to be "Ichi go ichi e," which translates into "one opportunity, one encounter" or "an opportunity of a lifetime." NCI was an incredible opportunity that allowed all of the interns to deepen our knowledge and understanding of the Japanese American community, and we thought that this phrase was fitting in describing our experiences. (It is also perfect because ichi-go, or 1-5, represents the 15 year anniversary of the NCI program). We also organized speakers, intern reflections for the program, and the decorations for the event. In the afternoon, we meet with Aya Ino, the Director of Development and Communications at the JCCCNC. She led us through a personality test where we learned about our workplace personalities and ways to work alongside people with different personalities. Indeed, each of the categories have pros and cons, but all personalities are needed to have a harmonious workplace. All of the Norcal interns have very different workplace personalities, and I think that contributes to how we are all able to get along. Afterwards, we met with Kenji Taguma, the Editor in Chief of the Nichi Bei Foundation. We went through a general overview of the organization, and we watched several videos about the organization and other Japantown events. It was great to learn about how the newspaper is able to preserve Japanese American culture by featuring organizations and events from all around San Francisco and San Jose Japantown, as well as the greater Nikkei community. All in all, although the drives to SF were always long, I appreciate getting to learn about the history and community organizations in SF Japantown and spending time with the SF interns every week.

On Friday we had our weekly check in with Ellen at Roy's station and Ryan was there also. We expressed how busy we were feeling because of our final brochure/project and the closing retreat luncheon. She understood where we were coming from and told us we could postpone our brochure and focus on closing. She offered to take time out of her schedule to meet with us again on Monday. Ellen and Ryan both are trying to contribute as much as they can to us for closing and we acknowledge that. After our meeting we met with Roy to catch up and discuss closing. We explained we felt lost about instructions and after our hour long discussion we felt we had everyone on the same page and a clear understanding of what to do. For the rest of the day we had two meeting/interviews set up with Scott Strickland and Jim Beall. Scott met with us at IMB and he explained his career path. Later we drove to the Jim Beall's office off of Bascom Ave. He was exciting to know he took time out of his busy schedule to meet with us. He told us that he went to school with Rich Saito and Roy Hirabayashi. Unfortunately he did not have much time to talk to us due to his busy schedule. After this meeting it was the end of our Government and Advocacy week.

(Alec, Lina, Helen, Jim, Alex)

(Scott Strickland and us)