The Yon-Say Podcast Network

For these past 8 weeks, the Yon-Say Podcast team has had the chance to talk to various guests from different walks of life. That being said, for this final episode of the Yon-Say, we thought it would be fun if your favorite five (五) hosts were to come together for this last episode to explore the topics of identity & reconciliation together. We hope you enjoy our discussion as we dive into what it was like for each of us to get involved in the community, what it's like being bi/multi-racial, and what we envision for the future of the Nikkei community. Thank you for tuning in every week and we can't wait for what's in store for the future!

In our society at large, women’s histories are too often erased, forgotten, or misremembered in ways in ways which strip women of their agency, complexity and intelligence. Nikkei history is no exception. In this episode Michelle and Yoko are joined by guests Nina Wallace and Miya Sommers to learn about the vital, but often overlooked, contributions of women in the redress movement, share stories about our Nikkei foremothers, and talk about the Nikkei women who inspire us from Yuri Kochiyama to our extraordinary grandmothers.

The story of incarceration doesn’t only follow Japanese Americans. Japanese Canadians and Japanese Latin Americans were also subjected to the cruel practice of incarceration during World War II. In today’s episode, Matthew and Jonnie sit down with Kayla Isomura and Marisa Nakada, descendent of Nikkei outside the US, to learn more about the stories of incarceration even we as Japanese Americans rarely hear. With some similarities to the Japanese American experience, and even more surprising differences, the story of Nikkei incarceration across the Americas is one that everyone should learn.

What happens when the war is over? In the sixth episode of the Yon-Say Podcast, Matt and Michelle talk to Rob Buscher of Philadelphia and Celeste Goedert of Detroit to discuss what their families did when the war finally came to an end. The Army gave every incarceree a bus ticket and $25 and told them to return to their non-existent homes as if nothing happened. From where their families went, what choices they had to make after four years of incarceration, and how that’s impacted them today, this episode explores a history that isn’t as well known within the stories of Japanese American history.

What is citizenship? In the fifth episode of the Yon-Say Podcast Yoko and Hiro are joined by guests Leidy and Nat to interrogate the complicated and often dehumanizing notion of citizenship which pervades our country and its systems. Is citizenship a legitimate mode of belonging in a country that put its own citizens in concentration camps, barred others from naturalization on the basis of race, and continues to subjugate residents who do not have documentation? From the treatment of Issei in the 1900s to the experiences of undocumented people today, we delve into how citizenship operates as an institution of oppression, what it means to be part such an institution, and what it means to be excluded from it.

What would you do if your loyalty to your country was questioned? Matthew and Jonnie are joined by guests Andie Kimura, with Go for Broke National Education Center, and Bethany Narita, Jonnie’s sister, to discuss the infamous loyalty questionnaire and how it affected our families.Some volunteered to fight in the army, some answered “No,No”, others were draft resistors, and still others found themselves stuck in the middle. This episode looks at how the army asked for loyalty after it put our families in concentration camp, and how that created a divide between friends and families that remains to this day.

What does it mean to be a descendant of the incarceration? Jonnie and Yoko are joined by guests Lauren Matsumoto and Jason Fujii to discuss our families’ camp experiences and explore how those experiences inform our yonsei identities. From the importance of pilgrimages to all the little stories passed down from our grandparents, this episode dissects why who we are is so deeply entangled with these desolate sites of WWII incarceration.

In this second episode of the Yon-Say Podcast, Michelle and Hiro reflect on our ancestors' lives leading up to Executive Order 9066 and the forced removal with guests Nina Nakao and Kendal Takeshita. Listen as they dive into how these stories have affected the newest generations of Nikkei and what it means to them as descendants.

In this premiere episode of the Yon-Say Podcast, Matt and Yoko reflect on our ancestors' immigration stories with guests Jonnie Narita and Saiyare Refaei. Listen as they dive into how these stories have affected the newest generations of Nikkei, and explore the intersectionality between the immigrations of our ancestors and the communities of today.