Nisei Week will hold a unique Book Fair during the festival’s first weekend, Aug. 15 and 16, the James Irvine Japanese Garden and Plaza of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC), 244 S. San Pedro St. in Little Tokyo.
There will be a total of 25 presentations in the garden during the event, between the hours of 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. by the following authors:
• Traise Yamamoto, “Desert Exile,” and Leonard Chan, “Uncle Kanda’s Black Cat”
• Kathryn Otoshi, “Two”
• Margaret Dilloway, “Sisters of Heart and Snow”
• Debbie Yamada, “Echoes from Gold Mountain”
• Takiko Morimoto, “The Haiku Master”
• Naomi Hirahara, “Grave on Grand Avenue”
• Todd and Linda Shimoda, “Creating Visually Rich Books”
• Gil Garcetti, “Japan: A Reverence for Beauty”
• Marsha Aizumi and Aiden Aizumi, “Two Spirits, One Heart”
• Marinaomi, “Dragon’s Breath and Other True Stories”
• Yumi Sakugawa, “Your Illustrated Guide to Becoming One With the Universe”
• Shig Yabu and Willie Ito, “A Boy of Heart Mountain”
• Kerry Yo Nakagawa, “Japanese American Baseball in California”
• Hiroshi Kashiwagi: Starting From Loomis and Other Stories”
• Patricia Takayama, “Writer of Melancholy”
• Amy Uyematsu, “The Yellow Door”
• Genie Nakano, “Storyteller”
• Sunny Seki, “The Little Kokeshi Doll from Fukushima”
• Valerie Matsumoto, “City Girls: The Nisei Social World in Los Angeles, 1920-1950”
• Richard Reeves, “Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japanese American Internment in WWII”
• Steven Doi and Naomi Hirahara, “Collecting Our Stories: Launching Them Out Into the World”
Vendors on the plaza include Asian American Curriculum Project, Chin Music Press, Heritage Source, Steven G. Doi Books, and Yabitoon Books.
The Nisei Week Book Fair is being organized with the support of Victor Wong of the JACCC, along with Iku Kiriyama, traci kato-kiriyama, Sherry Kanzer (formerly of Kinokuniya), and Carolyn Sanwo of Heritage Source.