Culture Notes

By LIONELLE HAMANAKA

Collectively Created Video at Annual Day of Remembrance

On Saturday March 2, the hallways of the Japanese American United Church in Chelsea buzzed excitedly as hundreds of community members attended the Annual Day of Remembrance to memorialize the incarceration at Japanese internment camps and prevent its recurrence.

“The reason I wanted desperately to be part of the redress movement [was]…to know more about our collective past,” said Julie Azuma, a leader of the New York Oral History Project. Her mother fought to move the family out of the concentration camp in 1943 to Chicago’s South Side so that she wouldn’t be “scarred by birth in shame.” Like tens of thousands of other Japanese American parents, hers never mentioned their experience in ‘camp.’ In 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Ex. Order 9066, putting 120,000 Japanese Americans in concentration camps, deporting community leaders from as far as Ellis Island in New York.

Since 1979, Azuma has been in the national campaign for redress and reparations for camp survivors. Along with Bill and Yuri Kochiyama, Leslie Inaba Wong, Sasha Hohri and Lani Sanjek, they met at the Japanese American United Church (founded in 1893).

A video of Japanese Americans on the East Coast was filmed, organized and produced collectively by dozens of volunteers and community groups. This video was brilliantly edited by Stan Nakazono. It showed how Japanese Americans started living in New York in 1876. After World War II thousands of Japanese Americans from the concentration camps moved to New York to rebuild their lives. The New York Oral History Project was funded by the National Parks Department through a Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant. “Little was known about east coast Japanese Americans and they were getting older,” said Stan Honda. The grant enabled scores of family members from this area to be interviewed.

In 1988 President Ronald Reagan granted redress of $20,000 per person reimbursement to Japanese American camp internees. Mike Iishi, a leader for Tsuru for Solidarity, a political group of Japanese Americans, cited national demonstrations against immigrant mistreatment, supporting the Black movement for redress and remuneration, and ceasefire calls in the Gaza war. As the ceremony ended, survivors walked onstage with candles, naming their incarcerated families and bearing signs with the names of their camps.

Two Visions Concert at Tenri

Modern sounds wafted through the Tenri Cultural Center on March 10 at Two Visions, a free concert of composers Max Lifchitz and Daniel Kessner (US), and Alejandro Cardona (Costa Rica).

Lifchitz’s piece, Eulogy for Tyre, had three parts: I. Resplendent, a melodic section, II. Abomination, a more percussive orientation with agitated string and flute parts, and cascading and dissonant piano parts; and III. Amazing, a section of consolation with light chords from piano and resonant tones of clarinet, echoed by violin and cello, that quoted Amazing Grace (composers like Beethoven and Bach quoted popular songs).

Kessner commented on Two Visions: “The first movement, Lost Carillon, seeks to capture the vision of an unexpected discovery of an old carillon, covered with webs and dust, whose bells are somewhat rusty. The sonorities, particularly of the initial thematic idea and its returns, should be bell-like and resonant, with sharp attacks. The finale, Imaginary Flight, is a melodic flight. The opening melody revolves…around A-flat, gradually adding melodic materials between this central tone, and then quickly, removing them. Throughout the subsequent variations of the theme, its initial design was clearly brought out through orchestration, dynamics, and articulations.”

The unforgettable resonance of a carillon fills cathedrals. The Lost Carillon section has a searching quality. The Imaginary Flight section seems to pose questions to the universe, its urgent pacing extending to long tone figures ending on a quarter note stop, with multiple time signatures, atonal clusters embodying the sounds of nature, from wind, to rustling leaves, echoed in stirring movements.

The ensemble played Costa Rican composer Cardona’s ten-part piece, Anancy featuring Trickster, a multifaceted character prevalent in indigenous culture. Some parts adapted dances like the mambo; a sad melodic lamento depicted a fierce, predatory leopard, or paid tribute to Willie Pacheco in a dramatic, soulful, percussive style rooted in his own angst and cultural offshoots.

Lifchitz’s North/South Consonance Ensemble featured Lisa Hansen (flute), Matthew Goodman (clarinets), Mioi Takeda (violin), Rob LaRue (cello) and Helen Lin (piano), with Max Lifchitz conducting, all virtuosic musicians.

The concert was funded by the New York State Council on the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, BMI Foundation, Zethus Fund and Music Performance Trust Fund.