Nikkei Stories 4 | Nikkei Australia

Pearl Hamaguchi’s Oral History from Broome

11 September 2020 | Australian Nikkei Stories, Nikkei Stories | 6 comments

By Pearl Hamaguchi My name is Pearl Hamaguchi. I was born in Broome in 1940. I live in Broome. I’ve lived nowhere else. My grandmother on my father’s side, Yae Yamamoto, was Japanese. Yae was from Ichoda-mura (now part of Amakusa city), a village on Shimoshima Island,...

The first recorded Japanese in Australia: Steve Dawson’s family story

29 August 2020 | Australian Nikkei Stories, Diaspora, Nikkei Stories | 40 comments

By Steve Dawson It is a privilege to be able to write about my family’s ancestral Japanese roots, especially given the significance of Sakuragawa Rikinosuke, who is recorded as the first Japanese to settle in Australia. Technically, this pioneer was my...

After Tatura – Unrealised film by Solrun Hoas

29 August 2020 | Audio Visual, Australian Nikkei Stories, Resources | 0 comments

In July 2012, the four founding members of Nikkei Australia, Keiko Tamura, Yuriko Nagata, Lorna Kaino, and Mayu Kanamori viewed archival footage of late film director Solrun Hoaas’ unfinished film After Tatura. The footage consists of interviews with former World War...

Akane Kanai’s Nikkei family

28 August 2020 | Australian Nikkei Stories, Diaspora, Nikkei Stories | 2 comments

By Akane Kanai My mother Yumiko, and my father Masakazu, met in Sydney in the early 1980s. My dad had dreams of trying something different, separate from his large family in Nagoya. My mother had previously moved to Australia from Tokyo, with her first husband, a...

Jim McFarlane’s Nikkei Australian family history

22 April 2020 | Australian Nikkei Stories, Diaspora, Japanese War Bride, Nikkei Stories | 13 comments

Coral, Jack, and Setsuko in Caulfield, Melbourne, 1954 All individuals featured in this article have been approached for permission to be named. By Jim McFarlane My name is Jim McFarlane. My sister Coral and I come from a Japanese mother and an Australian...

Finding a balance between the two: Interview with artist Mariko Konno

12 December 2017 | Nikkei Stories | 0 comments

By Timothy Kazuo Steains I recently interviewed the 27-seven-year-old Nikkei artist Mariko Konno. We went to the same primary school, all those years ago: SJS or the Sydney Japanese School in Terrey Hills. It’s a Japanese international school in Sydney, and Mariko and...