Seattle artist Erin Shigaki’s Nihonmachi Alley mural defaced by vandals.
By Sharon Yamato
I don’t remember a worse month in my 75 years on this earth than the January we’ve just experienced. There were the colossal L.A. fires followed by the reinauguration of Der Fuhrer, or as a friend likes to call him, “the tangerine-colored snatch grabber.” (Yes, it’s true, I still can’t say his name.) And still more made the start to 2025 the most challenging ever.
Even though we didn’t lose our westside house while watching both my former neighborhoods in Pasadena and Pacific Palisades blow up in smoke, I know way too many people who are now homeless. Listening to their agonizing stories of leaving their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs, standing in day-long lines to fill out massive amounts of paperwork, and wondering whether to rebuild in now-blighted neighborhoods, I feel strangely like I’m going through their struggles with them. Yet I can’t even imagine.
I recently read that with age comes the realization that there are things beyond our control. Having spent a lifetime trying to control everything, I’m not sure if I’ve learned that yet. The adage that “nothing is certain except death and taxes” only makes a control freak like me think that maybe I can forestall death by eating more kale and oranges and running 20 miles a week. As for taxes, I continue to search in vain for the perfect accountant who can somehow lower my net income.
What I’m trying to say is that since there are so many things out of our control, maybe there are little things we can do to mitigate the seemingly uncontrollable. It gets me back to why this past month has been so hard and what, if anything, we can do to make it a little bit better.
I’ll start with the out-of-control stuff that has been happening close to home with my friends who have been stricken with both home losses and health issues. Take my dear Pasadena High School friend Ken Okuno, who was in the hospital when he found out that his home, his precious guitars, and the artwork lovingly made by his wife Sue Chorpenning, another PHS alumna/friend, had burned to the ground.
Then there’s the work colleague who ended up in the hospital last week after doctors found a strange lump near his bladder, adding his name to the list of so many I know undergoing chemotherapy (including a much-loved JA historian and many close relatives) for the deadly disease. That’s not even counting the person I know who’s sitting and waiting for a life-saving heart transplant.
By far the worst personal news of all came when I heard that our dear Rafuphotographer Mario Reyes finally left us.
This first ugly first month of the year raged on with other kinds of losses. A beloved artist friend, Erin Shigaki, returned from a trip to Japan only to find out her poignant and strong mural in Seattle’s Nihonmachi’s Alley depicting Dorothea Lange’s WWII photo of a mother and child was horribly defaced, the mother’s face covered in black ink. This is undoubtedly another act of overt racism that has permeated this country with the rise of Der Fuhrer. Ironically, the quasi-violent act was discovered on Martin Luther King Day.
It was also in January that we got to watch the newly elected president targeting racial minorities by attempting to end birthright citizenship, putting a stop to refugee admissions at the border, and cracking down on immigrants by allowing for arrests at churches and schools. He also ended all DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) administrative programs, paving the way for fewer programs for all those underrepresented by race, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.
Right after the wannabe dictator vowed to protect American citizens in his unwatchable inaugural address, he set free 1,200 Capitol rioters, including members of the Proud Boys, a violent, neo-Nazi, anti-semitic organization whose leader has vowed retribution.
Like many of us, I’m trying to make sense out of things spinning out of control. I wish I could believe in impermanence like my friends Ken and Sue, who are able to weather life’s storms and the loss of their home by practicing meditation and Buddhism. If you happen to be Christian, perhaps you can use your faith and belief in God’s will to help quell your fears.
As a practicing agnostic who still hopes there’s room for purposeful change now, I’d like to acknowledge the Episcopal priest who took on the Fuhrer himself as she looked directly into his eyes at a church service and asked for his mercy to help those in fear. Her courageous speech bears repeating:
“There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives. And the people, the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals — they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals, they pay taxes and are good neighbors.”?
It’s clear that the narcissistic president didn’t understand a word when he later demanded an apology, but her brave action on that frigid Washington day should be a lesson for all of us who want to do something to create a better 2025.
Writer Annie Lamott offered her wise suggestion that we learn to focus on “kind, simple, and practical.” We may not have the platform that the courageous priest had, but it’s up to all of us to look around, help out, stand up, and speak out.
I’m going to give all those things a lot of thought while on my next walk in the blue-skied mornings when everything seems possible.
Sharon Yamato writes from Playa del Rey and can be reached at [email protected] expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Rafu Shimpo.