Memories of Iku

I first met Iku in 1992, the year of the 50th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, which led to the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans during WW2. The community was planning a “Future of the Nikkei Community” Conference and needed co-chairs to manage the large-scale conference to culminate a year-long series of events. Iku, (her husband George was her driver, as she didn’t drive the freeways), Neal Noborio, Ken Kato and I agreed to co-chair the conference, working with over 50 organizations and individuals.

I knew nothing about the Japanese American community at that time, but I was eager to learn. Iku and George quickly took me under their wing, mentored and taught me the basics of organizing events, and working with the vast JA community. I was hanging out with them so much that people would ask if Iku and George were my parents, and I sometimes referred to Iku as my “community mom.”

For Iku, her love language and organizing tool was food, persuasion, and her newsletter. She invited me to join the Japanese American Historical Society of Southern California, where every month she cooked a full spread of delicious JA foods for the Board meetings. My favorites were her miso salmon and somen salad. 

Funny side story about Iku’s baked miso salmon recipe. I followed that recipe exactly, but it was not the same. I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t as good as hers. Turns out, she had neglected to tell me that it was a marinade, and needed to be marinated in the fridge overnight. She assumed I would have known not to just throw all the ingredients onto the salmon, and pop it in the oven.

Back to my story… Iku was a force, with her monthly Historical Society newsletter highlighting just about everything good that was going on in the community. Talk about the queen of JA chisme, if you were doing anything, she put it in that newsletter, and mailed it out every month. These connections helped me learn about the JA who was who, and also brought me to the Manzanar Committee, Great Leap, and Little Tokyo Service Center, the three organizations nearest and dearest to my heart to this day. 

In the Historical Society, I was given full reign and support to organize Community Forums with Japanese Latin Americans who were kidnapped from their homes, and used for hostage exchange, and then put into DOJ camps such as Crystal City, Texas. Other forums were on Nisei Progressives, a group of radicals who formed in 1948 and disbanded in 1950, and “Rapping with JA Activists of the 70s and 90s.” And yes, the 1990s included young people, who are now, not so young.

From 1998 to 2010, I worked closely with Iku on the 4-volume series of “Nanka Nikkei Voices” books. Iku insisted that these be first-person stories, written mostly by first-time writers in their own voices. It wasn’t easy, but she was tenacious, and made it happen. Also were the 10 years of Historical Society Community Heritage Award dinners, which she organized from 1991-2000. The Historical Society took nominations from the community, and she organized the selection committee that honored amazing artists, activists and community folks .

Getting to know Iku meant becoming part of her family, with husband George, traci, and their son, George Jr. In traci and George, I see so much of her spirit in everything they do, and how they are so successful in organizing and mentoring others, especially through the arts, TNC, and the media. And George’s election to the LAUSD school board in 1995, would literally not have been possible without Iku as his campaign manager, using her incredible organizing skills, insight, and sheer determination. 

I want to thank George for taking such good care of her the past few years, I know how hard caregiving can be. And to thank traci, my community sister, for asking the community Aunties for support for Iku, allowing many of Iku’s friends to take her out to eat, picking her up, or meeting her after dialysis, and then later bringing her her favorite, udon noodles for dinner. I enjoyed sitting with her, “talking story,” and sharing fun memories.

Everything I’ve done in the past 34 years, and just about everyone I know who is JA, has been because of Iku. She would have never allowed this, but she is the one person who probably deserved that Historical Society award the most. I’m so grateful to Iku, my community mom, for everything she so generously taught me.

RIPower, Iku.

6-29-26 (updated for TNC 7/21/26)

Happy New Year 2026

West Covina & San Fernando Obons, Dodger game, 
Maiya 2023 grad, puppies and Asayake Taiko performance in San Diego

Dear Friends & Family:  

It's been 4 years since our last holiday card... so here's a quick update:

2023: Maiya graduated from high school and we went on a family trip to Japan & Hawai'i before sending Maiya off to UCSD for college.

2024: We adopted a new puppy, Nijiyuki, a Husky/Pit mix, who quickly became BFF with Max, our Chihuahua. Shohei Otani joined the Dodgers and we got to go to 4 games! Tony's mom Fran moved in with us, then Jenni & Maiya went to Japan with the Yoh-Park family. 

2025: Honestly, it started out pretty rough, with wildfires, a horrible change in administration, ICE, and losing Dad/Grandpa/Walt in July. Fran adopted Sassy, a 14 year old German Shepherd mix, and we started construction of an ADU for Fran & home office that will be completed in 2026. Maiya is in her 3rd year in SD, playing collegiate taiko, active with NSU & interned with JACL this summer. Fran has enjoyed getting active with Temple Isaiah. Jenni & Tony celebrated 30 years together by going to 14 Dodger games, including Shohei's NLCS game with 3 HRs and 10 strikeouts, winning back-to-back World Series. 

Best to you in 2026. ICE Out of LA. Peace. Out.

Goodbye to Dad

Today is two weeks since we took Dad to Oxnard Obon and one week since he passed away. It’s been a couple of difficult years as our family maneuvered through the challenges of Alzheimer’s, memory care, and aging. Dad loved golf, gambling, going to Obons and Nisei Week with us. He used to go fishing up in the Sierras every April and went to many Manzanar Pilgrimages over the years.

A second generation Japanese American Nisei, Dad was born on a cantaloupe farm in the San Fernando Valley and was incarcerated with his family at Gila River, Arizona as an 11 year old. At 16, he was a live-in “school boy” for the director/producer of the Ozzie & Harriett radio show. He was a gardener while he went to Woodbury College and worked in finance and aerospace until he retired.

He and Mom were married 62 years and he lived 94 years and 5 months. He was really proud of his kids and grandkids. 2/14/1931 ~ 7/19/2025.

Rest in Peace, Dad. F-A-M-I-L-Y.

Love, Jenni

Loving Lola

Lola Kuida-Osumi turned me into a dog lover. We met Lola in June 2018 when we dogsat for her. My friends Ernie Yoshikawa and Nayon Kang were her foster familia who trusted and encouraged us to take her into our family. I was allergic to dogs and not fond of them at all but Maiya always wanted a dog. We watched her - couple more times before adopting her as a senior dog in September 2018. She was sweet, quirky, stubborn, and silly. She didn’t ever bark or complain and was always happy and content. We have so many funny stories of how she ripped up our curtains while a guest in our house and we adopted her anyways. A few days after we got her, she tore into Maiya’s lunch box on the floor and ate half a burrito and not knowing any better, I took the day off from work and sat with her outside all day working on the porch waiting for her to barf it up (she didn’t). Or the time she pulled a new bag of $17 Dashi off the shelf and I thought she would die of sodium intake. She graciously and patiently accepted Max into our lives in 2021 as he ran circles around her.

The past year has been tough on her as her legs got weaker, she had problems hearing and seeing, and she forgot that you’re supposed to potty outside. Finally, about a month ago, her legs stopped working, she spent a lot of time sleeping, then slowly stopped eating and barely drinking. On Thursday she barely woke up at all and so we had Serenity Pet Care come to the house and help us gently say goodbye. We are so lucky that she allowed us to be her family. We will love her forever. 

❤️ Peace, sweet Lola. ❤️ 

Happy (Lunar) New Year 2022!

Happy (Lunar) New Year! 11 more months of 2022!  Maiya is now 17 years old, not quite sure how that happened so fast. 

Clockwise from top right: Lola ❤️ Max (adopted in April). Jenni’s contribution to Auntie Sewing Squad book. Xmas 2021. Jenni/Tony’s 26th 1st date Anniversary. Maiya & Jenni @ BTS concert. K-O Fam on Thanksgiving.

Farewell to the Auntie Sewing Squad

It has been an honor to be a minion of the Auntie Sewing Squad from 3/31/2020 just a few weeks after the COVID-19 shutdown until 8/15/2021. I can’t put into words what being part of this lovely group of “Aunties,” who gave each other sewing tips, shared supplies, cheered each other on, exercised together, shared in Auntie Care and swag. We had the best logo, branding, and press coverage, all the stickers and buttons and gifts and goodies from banana bread, homemade salve, expired coffee, to ASS honey, while carrying on our lives from behind our sewing machines.

We were so incredibly productive with over 800 of us (likely closer to 1,000) volunteers sewing over 350,000 masks—1,100+ from my little corner (plus another 900 sewn by my friends coordinated out of my short-lived Culver City satellite of the Westside hub), being delivered or shipped all over the country.

Nerd data tracking: I can share that 28% of masks I made for ASS were donated to farm/agricultural workers, 24% to immigrants/low income, 15% to First Nations, 11% APIs, 11% African Americans, 5% Medical workers, 5% day laborers, and 4% unhoused. Geographically, 32% went locally to LA/So. Cal, 27% South, 16% Nor Cal, 11% East Coast, 8% Midwest, 4% unknown, and 3% Northwest. Size wise, 26% Extra Small (younger kids), 16% Small (older kids/teens), 45% Medium and 13% Large/XL (adults).

What I will remember is how much I loved making every single mask, designing and adapting different mask styles and my signature multi-colored reversible split masks, cutting fabric like Tangrams or Tetris to maximize every inch of every scrap of material which is very satisfying, feeding my need for orderliness, the sense of accomplishment with each stack completed, inspiring creativity; and how each piece of colorful or Mom’s vintage fabric brought joy and/or childhood memories to me. I truly received so much fulfillment during the most stressful and isolating time ever in many of our lives as news of the Coronavirus cases and deaths filled my newsfeed, social injustice/unrest/protest, idiocracy/election, and endless hours of Netflix binging played in the background while I sewed. I want to think that hopefully we saved some lives by giving free masks to vulnerable people, essential workers and immunocompromised folks who could not afford or find needed facemasks, especially in the earliest days of the pandemic.

I want to thank organizer/activist/performance artist/writer/politician/influencer/media sensation friend Overlord Kristina Wong who I have known for decades when she was in college, for creating this national effort with amazing intention, responding to every post and insane question via Facebook, running in and out of her home in Koreatown to collect masks and throw supplies into Auntie car windows a gazillion times. Of course I also need to thank and my dear sister friend/API badass arts organizer/Pokemon comrade who I have known since my Great Leap days as an arts administrator Leilani Chan who got me started with, “You want to me to bring you some fabric and elastic?” How many do you want?”

But first I had to find my sewing machine and foot pedal deep in the junk room closet, and it took me hours to sew the first one, and a week to sew the first 8 masks. Things got better, at the peak I was churning out about 30-40 masks every weekend, and cutting fabric during webinar trainings, and sewing from Friday night through Sunday night, then packing up and shopping or delivering to Leilani’s Westside Hub on Mondays often during lunchtime, where I would stock up on more fabric, nose pieces, thread and Auntie care goodies of the week.

While the Aunties are now officially in retirement, we still have things to look forward to—the long awaited upcoming farewell gatherings (I’ll be the middle aged Asian lady in a mask and ASS-branded tshirt), an Auntie-created book "The Auntie Sewing Squad Guide to Mask Making, Radical Care, and Racial Justice,” (edited by academic superheroines to which I contributed a short piece about my mom and seamstress/immigrant grandmas), a short film, and Kristina’s Off-Broadway show still to come.

As for my sewing future, I still have plenty of leftover fabric and supplies and will continue to sew on my own, albeit at a much slower pace—there’s Tony’s 3rd graders I want to sew for, friends and family who need replacement masks, and vulnerable folks who still need free masks.

Love, Auntie Jenni

Memories with Auntie

Auntie Keiko Kuida passed away at the age of 82. She has been present my whole life. From middle school when I was the only person in the family to fit her shoes, I became the happy recipient of her love of shopping, and her generosity, especially shoes, clothes, purses and jewelry.  

When I started working in Inglewood in the 1980s, we would meet for pizza on Fridays. She was an avid bowler, golfer and gambler, who loved the race tracks and Vegas, lover of cats, and was an enthusiastic Tweety Bird, Peanuts, and Beanie Babies collector. When we started carpooling to family gatherings and driving her to doctors appts, at night or long distances, she would show up at our house an hour or two early, sometimes we’d still be sleeping.  

She was a breast cancer survivor, and a fighter. A Nisei, she was born on a canteloupe farm in Canoga Park, incarcerated as a child in Gila River, Arizona during WW2, before moving with her family to the Seinan/Crenshaw area in LA. She attended 6th Avenue School, Foshay Jr High and Dorsey High School. After she retired from the Gas Company where she worked over 30 years, she worked at Eddie Bauer folding clothes and spending way more money than she earned, and also worked for her dear friend Mary at Tak’s Coffee Shop in Crenshaw Square. 

Until the pandemic, she would play cards with her friends Katsu and Fujio every Friday night, and have breakfast with other friends in The Breakfast Club on Saturdays and Sundays, and regular lunches with her friend (over 50 years) Kayko from the Lunch Bunch. Maiya has grown up with her in our lives, with Auntie picking her up from school and afterschool programs, attending her basketball games, Nihon Buyo, karate, taiko and flute performances, and for that I am really happy and grateful.

During the pandemic, I became her shopper both online and in person, and in January she started needing help more and more. On February 3rd, she had another eye surgery, but her troubles breathing quickly took over as she was diagnosed with lung cancer, and I moved my remote work space from my living room to her kitchen, helping her to adapt to make her home safe for walker and wheelchair, dealing with a host of home maintenance issues, and started staying at her home daily for longer and longer hours. We brought in her friend Linda in the afternoons to help with meals and housekeeping as it became too much for me working full time plus. 

After almost a week in the hospital for procedures, I moved in with her March 1st as her primary caregiver and started staying with her weekdays and weeknights about 20 hours a day, with Tony and my siblings Darin and Gayle rotating 24 hour shifts on weekends. A few weeks ago we also brought in our young friend Joanna to help in the mornings as well. UCLA Home Health came in and became our lifeline of support sending nurses Pam, Hannah, Addie, Rebecca, Dr. C, Lillian and Claudia, social worker Luis, and physical therapists Audra and Alecsee who came, called or texted almost daily, who trained me on draining her chest catheter, and taught us about patient care as things progressed and her needs changed. 

Last week I went camping for a couple days of r&r with help from my whole family. The night I came back I called 911 for the 4th and last time since January. Hospice came on Wednesday morning and she passed later that night, at home as she wanted, having talked to and had visits from several close friends and family in her last few weeks.  Grateful to her and my friends, coworkers, family, her doctors, and her neighbors Argentina and Kent for so much support over these last few months. 

Love ❤️ to Auntie.  She will be missed.

Happy New Year - Masking Up for 2021

Mask Up 4 the 2021 New Year.

Jenni (56), Tony (53), Maiya (almost 16), Lola (~11)

Left Center: Tony & Maiya co-emcees for LA Day of Remembrance in Little Tokyo, Feb 2020; Bottom Left at Culver City 4 Black Lives March, June 2020; Top Right at Protect the Results March with Nikkei Progressives in DTLA on Nov 7th. Bottom: Artwork by Tony, 1000 Facemasks by Jenni.

First Time Baking Pumpkin Pies | Episode 3

Episode 3  of “Building Immunity and Community” with me and Maiya attempting pumpkin pie and bad puns with guest food critic Tony, edited by Maiya on Tony’s iPad Pro. 

Happy New Year 2020

Happy New Year 2020: (top left counter clockwise)

UTLA Teachers Strike
Kuida-Osumi Anniversary dinner at Roy’s
Never Again is Now: Protesting Fort Sill (former and proposed concentration camp)
Manzanar Pilgrimage 2019
Lola camping
Maiya 8th grade graduation, one of 17 valedictorians

K-Os in Christmas PJs

Happy New Year 2019

Happy New Year 2019:

Photos from 2018:
Top left: Jenni and Tony’s 20th anniversary picnic (August)
Top right: Adopted Lola Kuida-Osumi (September)
Bottom right: Women’s March starting from Little Tokyo (January)
Bottom center: LA Teachers March and Rally DTLA (Nov/Dec?)
Bottom left: Picking up Maiya from Tech Trek girls Science camp at UCSD, Mecha Mural)

Happy New Year 2018

Happy New Year 2017!

Happy New Year 2016!

Memories of Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015)

Tuesday Night Café, Little Tokyo, Los Angeles

Jenni Kuida with Tony Osumi & Maiya Kuida-Osumi

10/6/15

Thank you to Sean Miura for inviting us to share at tonight’s Tuesday Night Cafe.  Our deep condolences to Grace’s family and friends in Detroit and around the country, and our thanks to friends like Shea Howell at the Boggs Center who have taken care of her, especially in the last years.

My husband Tony and I met Grace Lee Boggs in 1998, the year her autobiography “Living for Change” was published.  Grace stayed at our house when she came for the “Serve the People” conference at UCLA organized by Scott Kurashige.  I had never heard of Grace, but Tony had read Grace and Jimmy Boggs’ 1974 groundbreaking book, “Revolution and Evolution in the 20th Century.”

I remember Grace, then 83 years old, so full of life and interest in everything; sleeping on our futon couch, rummaging through the bookshelves in our den, showing us VHS tape of her husband Jimmy speaking, reconnecting with Nobuko Miyamoto after 30 years (and who will dedicate her performance to Grace later tonight), and having dinner with Grace and Yuri Kochiyama.  Yes.

After seeing the Aloha Grocery mural that Tony and I collaborated on in the Venice Culver community in LA, Grace invited Tony and I to Detroit to help envision a mural with Detroit Summer, whose passion it was to rebuild and re-spirit Detroit, from the ground up.  That’s what she does, she offers invitations, and challenges.  We had no funding, and no agenda; we just went, and it changed our lives.

We found ourselves baling hay from an abandoned crack house into the trunk of our rental car with Farmer Paul, sweating and hauling logs down city streets with Detroit Summer teenagers for a new community garden, and a crash course in Detroit’s history.  Since I had never been to Detroit, I knew nothing of its post-industrial decay, 10,000 empty houses or 60,000 abandoned lots.  

At the time, I was working for Nobuko at Great Leap, and we had been engaging communities in performance residences in Watts, Boyle Heights and Phoenix, so with Grace’s invitation to explore ideas for Great Leap, we went back to Detroit.

Grace introduced us to Gerald Hairston, who created over 200 urban gardens on vacant lots with youth and elders. In 2001, Gerald passed away unexpectedly, and Nobuko was inspired to write “I Dream a Garden,” a Japanese American Obon circle dance, Detroit-style, incorporating multi-ethnic rhythms and movements.  The Fandango Obon, which will take place at the JACCC on October 25^th, was born out of the “I Dream a Garden” project.

On our many visits, we stayed at the Boggs Center, upstairs from Grace’s home.  Each morning and night, we would stop in to see her, and she would ask us how our day was, and give us more names of people in the community to meet and connect with.  

Tony and I went back to do another mural in Detroit’s Chinatown Association building in 2003.  The success of these projects would not have been dreamable without Grace’s guidance, the spark, energy and soul behind everything.

Grace continued to be part of our life after our daughter Maiya Grace was born in 2005.  Named after Grace, we continued visiting Grace every year or two. In the last 5 years, filmmaker Grace Lee’s documentary “American Revolutionary” and Grace’s book with Scott Kurashige, “The Next American Revolution” brought her more attention from the API and film communities, progressive, ethnic and mainstream media, and although she slowed down a bit, she seemed to gain energy from the good vibes of everyone she came in contact with.

Grace encouraged us all to think deeper, more creatively and more critically, thinking of ways to meet new demands and consider new approaches.  Grace’s circle of positive change is filled with murals, urban gardens, renovating vacant buildings, intergenerational book clubs, freedom schooling, teens and elders, neighbor to neighbor, with “visions for what Detroit can be and what America ought to be,” as she would say.

For all of you tonight, as activists, creators and producers of community arts, spoken word, music, and comedy, we should draw from Grace’s influence by listening, watching, and interacting with each other.

Grace lived 100 years.  You can read all of the amazing quotes that were trending all over Facebook, Instagram and Twitter yesterday, and even what Obama said about her.

I know that if she were here, and she is, with rockets on her wheelchair soaring high, she would love what happens in this space, on this stage in Little Tokyo on the 1^st and 3^rd Tuesday from Spring to Fall, and she would challenge us to continue to struggle and keep the conversations going.  We love you Grace.

Goodbye to Nancy

Sharing some of my FB photos here.

 Ms. J-town, the fabulous Nancy Kikuchi at the Taiko Gathering during Nisei Week 2013.  I called her the real Nansei Week Queen and the Mayor of Little Tokyo.

The two girls holding this sign, Olivia and Maiya were born during the making of this mural in 2004 and 2005. Maiya helped by placing her finger on the flame of a candle lit.. Olivia's actual image is in the mural, the baby sitting next to the Little Tokyo sign, under Nancy's image as a Bombu taiko player. Nancy loved babies and children, and this picture was taken for her last month in August 2014.

Today we said goodbye to Nancy Kikuchi along with 600 or more of her friends and family.   It was touching,agonizing, sweet and comforting to be among so many friends and coworkers who were so blessed to know Nancy. She loved Little Tokyo and we all loved her right back. After the emotional service at Higashi, was a lovely meal for us all to meet together and smile and relax a bit, and we were invited to walk the streets of J-town and take flowers over to the "Home is Little Tokyo" mural that is her legacy and her gift to us all.

Everyone loved Nancy... and Jtown just won't be the same without her spark and enthusiasm.