From the Desk of Consul General Osumi

　San Francisco has been Japan’s gateway to the world throughout its modern history. The first modern Japanese mission to the United States, aboard the Kanrin Maru, docked in San Francisco in 1860, after which Japan’s first overseas mission—our Consulate—was established in San Francisco in 1870. As Japanese immigration to the United States increased, Japantowns formed around the state, including in San Francisco, which stands today as one of only three remaining Japantowns in the country. The Treaty of San Francisco and the original version of the Security Treaty between the United States and Japan, which defined Japan’s postwar era, were signed here. JAL’s first international flight was from Haneda to San Francisco, a history reflected in the flight numbers 001 and 002, which JAL still uses for those flights to this day.


Kenichi Horie’s Story
　In 1962, only 17 years after the war, a young man named Kenichi Horie, who by his own account “smuggled” himself out of Japan with “no passport, no English, and no money,” successfully crossed the Pacific Ocean in 94 days, traveling solo in a yacht only six meters in length. When his boat passed beneath the Golden Gate, San Francisco’s then-Mayor George Christopher, after consulting President Eisenhower, welcomed the exhausted “smuggler” as an honorary citizen. Looking back, my own love for the sea may be due to the fact that I read Horie’s account of his journey, Alone on the Pacific, when I was a child. Perhaps there is some connection between my own name (Yo, or 洋, which is written with the character meaning “ocean”), my family history (my ancestors were probably pirates in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea), and my previous postings in the former maritime empires of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
　Since his first voyage, Horie has since set several Guinness World Records, and in 2022, at the age of 83, he completed another solo journey across the Pacific, from San Francisco to Japan. When I met with members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors who welcomed Horie last year, they marveled at his accomplishments.
　Horie’s account of his travel is full of human details. It was moving to read how Horie offered a silent prayer for the fallen soldiers as he passed near Midway during his first voyage. I will admit that I recoil a bit at the part where he describes waking up one morning to find his boat surrounded by sharks...
　Horie’s story leads in two directions: the history of Japanese Americans in San Francisco and the Bay Area, and entrepreneurship.


Japanese American History: A Living History in Culture and Education
　I feel that history is somewhat forgotten in Japan, but for the Japanese American community, it is alive and well. Even topics that seem strictly “cultural” at first glance, such as taiko or Japanese language education, are infused with history. On October 14th, I attended a gala celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Program (JBBP) at Rosa Parks Elementary School. The school, where former Prime Minister Abe’s wife visited in 2015, is one of only two in the city with a Japanese language program. Located in the Fillmore, it has students from a wide variety of backgrounds, and the seven-piece taiko group that performed at the opening of the gala was rich in diversity. Students study Japanese for an hour each day, and do classic Japanese school activities such as morning exercises. Nearly half of the school’s students participate in the JBBP – it seemed to me that the program is more “Japanese” than those you might find in Japan.
　At the end of the gala, the program’s MC told a story from her family, saying, “My grandfather was Nisei, and was interned during the war. Whenever he caught me speaking Japanese, he would tell me to hush. I grew up in an environment with that stigma, so I am proud to have been able to participate in this program when I was in elementary school.” Here, Japanese language education is not just linguistic education; it is a history of lived experience. Hearing her speak about reviving Japanese language education, taking it on and passing it down to the next generation left an impression on the all of us in the audience.。
　On November 4th, I visited San Jose’s Japantown, which, along with San Francisco’s Japantown and Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo, is one of three remaining Japantowns in the United States. I was there, at a Japantown in the heart of Silicon Valley, to see San Jose Taiko, the largest taiko group in North America. The theme of the group’s 50th anniversary performance was “Race for Free Spirit: 50 Years of Uprising.” The group’s founder, Roy Hirabayashi, who leads the group along with his wife PJ, was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by the Japanese government. The anniversary performance was exquisite, with interviews with Roy and PJ interspersed throughout the taiko and flute pieces. Above all, the performance was suffused with the theme of fighting injustice in solidarity with other Asian Americans here in the United States—the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement—while also pursuing a Japanese American identity. For Japanese people, taiko is music and, more specifically, a ritual that arose out of Shinto tradition. But I felt that for San Jose Taiko, it is something closer to a cry of declaration, a way to proclaim their heritage through tradition.
　While there exist many such efforts to maintain ties between Nikkei and Japanese communities, I have also heard that as generations pass, the Nikkei identity as a whole begins to fade. For Japan, Nikkei communities have special historical ties that should be cherished, and for us at the Consulate, they are first and foremost. I strongly feel that we should maintain and strengthen our relationship with them, while taking care not to take their presence and activities for granted.