By DARCY FUKUNAGA
I am the living extension of history.
Now, you may be thinking, “Huh? Darcy… isn’t your teenage mind getting just a liiiiittle bit ahead of yourself?” Totally.
What I mean by this is that I see myself as a Nikkei who has been shaped by the traditions, culture and beliefs of those who came before me.
Summer is a time when we gather with others, travel and explore new things. But I also view it as a time to revisit where I’ve come from and carry on the legacy of those who have come before me.
When I think about my family’s summer traditions, it includes the JEMS Mt. Hermon church camps, Nisei Week and The Rafu Shimpo. Each one of these has a long and storied history in my family, and perhaps in yours as well.
In the years following the war, a group of Nisei pastors gathered in NorCal at the Mt. Hermon camp grounds. Out of that came the Japanese Evangelical Missionary Society (JEMS) Mt. Hermon church camps that meet to this day. My grandmother, Tucky Fukunaga, attended one of the first camps in the early 1950s as a teenager.
Last month during the week of the Fourth of July, I served as a cabin leader for 8th-grade girls at the JEMS Inter High church camp. There we were under the same redwoods singing worship songs to God by the campfire and waddling in the same creek as my grandmother and others did over 70 years ago!
Many Christians in the Japanese American community have fond memories of Mt. Hermon from renewing their faith to reconnecting with long-distance friends to hanging out at the fountain ice cream shop. For many, it feels like a spiritual homecoming. It has become that for me too.
I’ve also grown up attending and participating in the Nisei Week Festival every August. My grandfather, Bob Fukunaga, was involved through his Optimist Club. He organized a chess tournament for Nisei Week in the 1970s. My grandmother was a fashion model for Iris Teragawa at the 1960 Nisei Week Fashion Show. She was also active in various baby shows going back to the 1980s through her women’s club, Les Dames.
Last year, I attended the Queen Coronation and Awards Celebration at the Aratani Theatre with my father, Chris Fukunaga. It was fun getting dressed up and being a part of this tradition. The following week I served at my church’s booth at the Noguchi Plaza during the festival.
This cultural celebration has a special place in my heart! In prior years, I’ve danced on stage with my youth group in front of thousands of people. Our church has a prayer Polaroid station and free Japanese-inspired DIY crafts like koi fish decorations. I helped melt Shrinky Dinks keychains (albeit it was a very hot day and I was trying not to melt in the sun myself). We also have a collaborative “Save Little Tokyo” game.
Little Tokyo’s culture and legacy businesses need to be preserved, and my church shares that belief. If you are in the area during this year’s festival, come and visit our booth and say hello!
My brothers and I also worked at our relatives’ confectionery store, Fugetsu-Do, during the festival last year with my cousin, Korey. We packaged the Shohei Ohtani-inspired blueberry and white chocolate mochi as we talked about our hopes for the Little Tokyo community. It was a full-circle moment, knowing that over 120 years prior to this our great-grandparents were doing the same in starting the store.
Mochi may be sugary, but living out the past and planning for the future with those you love is all the more sweet!
Lastly, I remember visiting my grandparents during the summer at their home in La Palma. They had copies of The Rafu on top of their mail by the front door. Every time they got a copy, the first thing they would do is look at the obituary section to see if one of their friends had died. I once saw a shoebox of theirs that contained over 90 different funeral programs of their friends who had passed away.
When both my grandfather and grandmother passed away, we placed an announcement about their deaths in The Rafu as well. Many, many people saw it and attended their memorial services. I am so glad I have a voice now through this column in a newspaper that meant so much to my grandparents.
A man named Solomon in the Bible once said that there is no remembrance of the former things among those who come after. I think he was right in that one day all of us will be forgotten. But at the same time, I do think that history matters — especially our personal history and the history of those who came before us.
As for me, I want to hold on to that and live it out for as long as I can!
Darcy T. Fukunaga will begin her studies at the University of Southern California next spring, focusing on journalism and global health. She currently writes from Long Beach. Opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Rafu Shimpo.