Japan comes once a year

Burqueños have a chance to immerse themselves in Japanese culture on Sunday at the Japanese-American Citizens League’s Aki Matsuri (Fall Festival).

The annual festival, which is anime-themed this year in recognition of the art’s growing popularity in and out of Japan, gives attendees a taste of different Japanese art forms such as origami, calligraphy, martial arts and, of course, cos-play for anime enthusiasts.
Esther Churchwell, a board member and Okinawa dancer, said people should get to know the culture to better understand it.

“The reason we have Aki Matsuri is for cultural sharing,” she said. “Because we’re a multicultural city, we can see that not all Asian communities are alike. We’re trying to show that each culture is different.”

The festival also serves as a fundraiser to make the league’s vision of building a Japanese Cultural Center a reality. To this end, the league hopes to sell all 600 tickets for a raffle with prizes valued at $100 and a grand prize of $10,000.

Steve Togami, the league’s director, said the center would offer a niche for people to explore all things Japanese.
“Our perfect cultural center would have a Japanese grocery store, restaurants, shops and space for meetings or classes, maybe cooking or martial art classes and a library,” he said.

Educational and cultural preservation was established around WWII when Japanese-American citizens faced discrimination that led many of them to abandon their culture and assimilate.

Calvin Kobayashi, the league’s treasurer and Taiko drummer, said his parents discouraged him from learning the Japanese language.
“When I was younger, I remember going to restaurants and hearing a lot of ‘hush-hush,’ people talking about me behind my back, that sort of thing,” he said. “Early on I wanted to be like everyone else. Nowadays being bilingual or multilingual is thought of as being great, but growing up, if you had an accent, you were kind of a dummy.”

Togami said his early involvement with the League gave him a sense of belonging.
“When I was younger, almost all the Japanese families in New Mexico knew each other,” he said. “Any JACL event was like bringing family and friends together. It was great. Now that the NMJACL is growing, I do get to meet more people and learn more about the Japanese culture.”

As the effects of the war faded, Churchwell said the animosity has lessened, but that’s not to say there are no longer issues that arise.
“There are hate crimes — against race, religion, sexual orientation, and so on, and because we’re a civil rights organization we’ve gone to battle for some of these people, gone to court to support these people,” she said.

Kobayashi said gaining an understanding of the various ways people live is key to harmonious relationships.

“If you share your culture, they have a better understanding that’s not based off hearsay,” he said. “Everybody is a human being, not just a Japanese-American or Mexican-American or anything that has to do with kind of stereotyping. By sharing our culture at a festival like this, we’re able to break down some barriers of people misunderstandings and what they think the culture is about.”