A Black-Japanese Amerasian reflects on life in the present, with the traces of wars and their aftermaths. 2Leaf Press is pleased to announce the publication of Fredrick D. Kakinami Cloyd’s first book, DREAM OF THE WATER CHILDREN, MEMORY AND MOURNING IN THE BLACK PACIFIC, in June 2016. In Dream of the Water Children, Fredrick Kakinami Cloyd delineates the ways imperialism and war are experienced across and between generations and leave lasting and often excruciating legacies in the mind, body, and relationships.
My Book will be released this Fall 2014, by 2Leaf Press!!
Introduction by Gerald Horne
Foreword by Velina Hasu Houston
Cover Art by Kenji Chienshu Liu
Here are just a few preview comments about the book:
Fredrick Douglas Kakinami Cloyd has written a profoundly moving and thought-provoking book. He courageously challenges our neat categories of identity, going beyond broadening our understanding of mixed race to touch what is human in all of us. This book will shift readers’ perceptions and assumptions and may change many lives. Above all, Cloyd is a master story-teller who honors and respects memory.
–Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, historian and writer
This is a mature book that moves fluidly, as the mind moves, untroubled by traditional distinctions between writing considered to be academic vs. creative, memoir vs. personal essay, sure-footed in unexpected ways. This genre-bending book is not “experimental writing.” The author knows what he wants to say and he knows how he wants to say it, seeking, in his own words, “restoration and reclamation” for silenced voices and histories never erased because they have not yet been written. Dream of the Water Children demands that its reader rigorously consider the constructed nature of memory, identities, and historical narrative. And it is also an enormously kind and passionate chronicle of a son’’s long journey with his mother. To read it is to marvel, to learn, and to discover anew what surrealist poet Paul Éluard said: “There is another world, but it is in this one.”
–Patricia Mushim Ikeda Buddhist teacher / activist Oakland, California
Can be read as a ghost story, a meditation on how to disassemble the heartbreak machines; a catalog of copious tears and small comforts. This is a challenging example of personal bravery and filial love. It puts the “more” in memory.
–Leonard Rifas, Ph.D Communications, University of Washington
Black-Japanese singer Judith Hill has wowed the judges on the US television show: The Voice on her first night. I am not a particular fan of these kinds of shows, but I always appreciate a Blackanese artist of success in the public limelight! She is truly a great singer!
Some folks have noticed that I am not posting as intensely as I was a year ago. This is because I am focusing increasingly on my presentations and work on my multimedia project and book:Dream of the Water Children.
I will continue to work here, on my ainoko blog but I will be posting on my Water Children blog, which means I will be on this ainoko site a tiny bit less frequently. Please continue to follow me. If you’re interested in following progress on my book and to hear the underpinnings of the project, the historical and cultural legacies and thoughts that will continue to form this multi-layered project, please visit both my website on the book, and the blog.
Jake Shimabukuro and his incredible ukulele playing!!
He first attracted attention in his homelands of Hawaii, in 1998. From then, he has progressed to one of the world’s foremost “global” ukulele players. His playing ranges from Hawaiian traditional ukulele tunes, to American folk music, jazz, blues, bluegrass, and rock. Truly wonderful. He is a fifth-generation Japanese-American.
“For My Sister” – a collaboration between Black-Japanese singer Judith Hill and Japanese/Italian-American Asian sensation AI.
AI is a huge R&B sensation in many Asian countries including Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, etc. Judith Hill, as said in my earlier post of her music videos, is a sensation who was a former back-up singer for Michael Jackson.
The Song TEGAMI 手紙 (the Letter) was a huge sensation in Japan in 2007.
It was sung by Hapa White-Japanese singer Angela Aki, who sings in fluent Japanese and English in many of her recordings. The song Tegami, thrust Angela Aki into the limelight for its poignant and almost all-encompassing power to bring school children of junior and senior high schools across Japan in communicating its all-too-familiar message to encourage strength through alienation, loneliness, bullying, and the compulsory examination systems through which tremendous pressures are thrusted into the lives of the Japanese youth for its capitalist machinery. This song touched millions. It was also a social change, social consciousness project connected to money-making as well, let us not be mistakenly naive or purist.
In listening to the lyrics and the melody and emotion, it is clear that this song is moving and touches upon something deeply engrained, resisted, endured, and made to become something the youth of Japan (and other countries) must fight against with body and mind, in order to become something our global system of dominance deems “adult.”
It was written to encourage young teenagers in Japan, suffering from the pressures of society in those school years.
Masami Goto, of Japan National Public Broadcasting System — NHK, has this to say about this song (in 2007):
This year is the 75th anniversary of the NHK Schools Chorus Contest. We asked a popular singer-song-writer, Angela Aki, to write a compulsory song called Tegami (Letter) for the junior high school division. The song is based on a letter Angela Aki wrote as a senior high school student to her future self. A related project called Tegami starts in May, in which we ask junior high school students to send in their thoughts on this song and related personal anecdotes. Angela Aki visits junior high schools and interviews the pupils for a documentary feature that will be shown on General TV at 10:00 p.m. on May 9 and again in September. We have asked Naoki Award winning non-fiction writer Eto Mori to write lyrics for the compulsory song in the elementary school division, and an another author, Hiroyuki Itsuki, to do the same for the senior high school division.
Dear you,
Who’s reading this letter
Where are you and what are you doing now?
For me who’s 15 years old
There are seeds of worries I can’t tell anyone
If it’s a letter addressed to my future self,
Surely I can confide truly to myself
Now, it seems that I’m about to be defeated and cry
For someone who’s seemingly about to disappear
Whose words should I believe in?
This one-and-only heart has been broken so many times
In the midst of this pain, I live the present
Dear you,
Thank you
I have something to tell the 15-year-old you
If you continue asking what and where you should be going
You’ll be able to see the answer
The rough seas of youth may be tough
But row your boat of dreams on
Towards the shores of tomorrow
Now, please don’t be defeated and please don’t shed a tear
During these times when you’re seemingly about to disappear
Just believe in your own voice
For me as an adult, there are sleepless nights when I’m hurt
But I’m living the bittersweet present
There’s meaning to everything in life
So build your dreams without fear
Keep on believing
Seems like I’m about to be defeated and cry
For someone who’s seemingly about to disappear
Whose words should I believe in?
Please don’t be defeated and please don’t shed a tear
During these times when you’re seemingly about to disappear
Just believe in your own voice
No matter era we’re in
There’s no running away from sorrow
So show your smile, and go on living the present
Go on living the present
Dear you,
Who’s reading this letter
I wish you happiness
***********************************************
Romaji Lyrics TEGAMI
Haikei kono tegami yondeiru anata wa
Doko de nani wo shiteiru no darou
Juugo no boku ni wa dare ni mo hanasenai
Nayami no kanae ga aru no desu
Mirai no jibun ni atete kaku tegami nara
Kitto sunao ni uchiake rareru darou
Ima makesou de nakisou de
Kieteshimaisou na boku wa
Dare no kotoba wo
Shinji arukeba ii no?
Hitotsu shika nai kono mune ga nando mo barabara ni warete
Kurushii naka de ima wo ikiteiru
Ima wo ikiteiru
Haikei arigatou juugo no anata ni
Tsutaetai koto ga aru no desu
Jibun to wa nani de doko e mukau beki ka
Toitsu dzukereeba mietekuru
Areta seishun no umi wa kibishii keredo
Asu no kishibe e to yume no fune yo susume
Ima makenai de nakanai de
Kieteshimaisou na toki wa
Jibun no koe wo shinjiaru keba ii no?
Otona no boku mo kizutsuite
Nemurenai yoru wa aru kedo
Nigakute amai ima ikiteiru
Jinsei no subete ni imi ga aru kara
Osorezu ni anata no yume wo sodatete
La la la, la la la
Keep on believing
La la la, la la la,
Keep on believing, keep on believing, keep on believing
Makesou de nakisou de
Kieteshimaisou boku wa
Dare no kotoba wo shinji arukeba ii no?
Aa Makenaii de nakanai de
Kieteshimaisou na toki wa
Jibun no koe wo shinjiarukeba ii no
Itsu no jidai mo kanashimi mo
Sakete wa torenai keredo
Egao wo misete ima wo ikite yukou
Ima wo ikite yukou
Haikei kono tegami yondeiru anata ga
Shiawase na koto wo negaimasu
..............
AI NO KO 