Following the Thread, Substack
My newsletter of short essays about writing, identity, and working through anxiety and depression.
​
What My Name Says About Who I Am, Zora
On adding Nakaji into my byline, plus stories from other mixed-race and second-generation writers about how their names reflect their identities.

Kokoro Yasume, Exposition Review
On death anxiety, religion (Shinto, Unitarian Universalism), antidepressants, and ritual. 
Longreads Editors' Pick, Pushcart Prize 2021 Nominee

Comfort Food, Shondaland
On seeking comfort amid anxiety after a racist incident with an old friend. 
Included in the 2020 anthology "Accolades," by L.A. writing group Women Who Submit

Crazy Rich Asians made me want to open up to my Asian American community, The Blend
On Crazy Rich Asians, reporting in a close community, and the Japanese American redress movement.

How a Japanese Reality TV Show About Nothing Became a Global Hit, BuzzFeed
On looking for my motherland in reality TV.

As a Biracial Woman, It's Powerful to See 'The Mindy Project' Explore Identity, Bitch Media 
On "coconuts," "bananas," and narrow ideas about how to express your ethnic identity.

MFA's Kimono Controversy Should Spark Deeper Conversation, The Boston Globe
On cultural appropriation and wearing a kimono while mixed-race.

What Meeting My Long-Lost Uncle Taught Me About Family, HelloGiggles
On estrangement, ancestral guilt, and finding family across barriers.

This handmade skirt helps me find the joy in imperfection, HelloGiggles
On moving, feeling like an awkward new kid, and learning how to make clothes by hand.

The Lifespan of a Promise, The Rafu Shimpo
On law versus ethics, and the auction of artwork from the Japanese American concentration camps.
A local's guide to Los Angeles, The Washington Post
One Square Mile: Atwater Village
One Square Mile: Little Tokyo
One Square Mile: Los Feliz
Kokoro Yasume, Exposition Review
On death anxiety, religion (Shinto, Unitarian Universalism), antidepressants, and ritual. (Longreads Editors' Pick)
The Trader Joe's-heavy beauty routine of one of The Blend's co-editors, HelloGiggles
All the Trader Joe's products I put on my face.
'I march for all women': Thousands gather for third Women's March after year of controversy, The Washington Post
Contributed Los Angeles report to article about marches around the country.
Crazy Rich Asians made me want to open up to my Asian American community, The Blend
On Crazy Rich Asians, reporting in a tiny community (LA's Little Tokyo), mixed-race imposter syndrome, anxiety, and the Japanese American redress movement.
This Handmade Skirt Helps Me Find the Joy in Imperfection, HelloGiggles
An essay about moving, feeling like an awkward new kid, and learning how to make clothes by hand.
Comfort Food, Shondaland
​​"I’ve been chasing Japanese flavors lately: the sweetness of a matcha parfait shared with my mom, the mustard heat of hiyashi chuka, the clean nuttiness of mugicha, as Japanese as cypress wood. On days when I need comfort, nothing delivers it like this food, the food of my culture — the infinite combinations of soy and seaweed and rice..."
We Took a DNA Ancestry Test—and the Results Kind of Surprised Us, The Blend
On DNA, family stories, and how much the gap between the two really matters.
Questions from Two Mixed-Race Daughters About Our Strong Immigrant Mothers, The Blend
"​Although our mothers come from very different parts of the world, one from Jamaica and one from Japan, our relationships with them have some striking similarities: the way we admire them, the way they sometimes wrap their love in prickly language, the way we strive to understand them knowing we never completely will."
How a Japanese Reality TV Show About Nothing Became a Global Hit, BuzzFeed
"But apart from my lack of experience with reality TV, there was another reason why I hesitated to watch Terrace House: I was afraid to immerse myself in a world of Japanese people roughly my own age... I worried that my desire to understand might completely dwarf my actual ability to do it."
Getting to the Moon or Just the Fuck Out of the House, Electric Literature
A review of Randa Jarrar's short story collection Him, Me, Muhammad Ali.
As a Biracial Woman, It's Powerful to See 'The Mindy Project' Explore Identity, Bitch Media 
"Every racial group has an equivalent of the coconut—the Oreo, the banana. These terms convey that there’s a 'right' way to express your cultural identity and that people of color 'act white' in various ways. When I was a freshman in college, a white friend told me, 'You act a lot more Asian than you are'..."
'What Is Obscenity?' Is a Portrait of an Artist and Her Vagina, Electric Literature
​A review of Rokudenashiko's graphic memoir What Is Obscenity? The Story of a Good for Nothing Artist and Her Pussy.
What Meeting My Long-Lost Uncle Taught Me About Family, HelloGiggles
"​Until I went to Japan, I’d talked to my uncle only twice: once when my Japanese grandmother died, and again when my grandfather did."
In This Japanese Children's TV Show, All the Superheroes Are Bread, Mental Floss
"Japanese folklore is full of stories like this, from Kaguyahime (which was made into a Ghibli film in 2013), the baby girl found in a bamboo stalk by an old man, to Momotaro, the baby boy found by an old woman as he floated down the river in a peach. As fluffy a show as Anpanman is, it’s also full of these small moments that capture important intangibles about Japanese culture."
Kitchen Behind the Tangled Garden, The Rafu Shimpo
"​Yuko Kitchen is a whimsical place, but not in any manicured or trendy way. The paint on the walls is imperfect; the pastries look homemade and irregular. Above the main, unisex bathroom, a ladder leads to a men’s bathroom floating floorless on the second story. Does anyone use it? This is what I wonder as I eat my dinner."
The Lifespan of a Promise, The Rafu Shimpo
A reported essay about the controversial auction of artwork from the Japanese American concentration camps. Legally and ethically, who owns the artifacts of oppression?
L.A. by Car, The Rafu Shimpo
"A few years ago, when I was working in Beverly Hills, it took me an hour, sometimes up to ninety minutes, to drive only nine miles each way. I spent that time locked between cars on Santa Monica, watching people do their shopping in the morning and dig through dumpsters at night. I came home feeling crushed, straight down like an aluminum can, by the weight of my wasted time."
Cleaning Up, The Rafu Shimpo
"As time went by, I learned that dust builds differently when you stay still. It gathers in the cracks where the carpet meets the wall and it settles on top of the mouldings. Clutter gathers too, in a way that it didn’t when I moved. And with it, so does guilt."
Watching My Brother Graduate, The Rafu Shimpo
"I remembered the landmarks well enough—the courtyard where my friends and I ate lunch, the knee-high ledge where I ripped my pants climbing out of campus at the end of one day, the spot outside the music room where my friend waited with flowers in a Trader Joe’s bag to ask me to prom—but the memories didn’t seem to live there anymore, in the spots where they happened... This was my brother's school now, not mine, and I didn’t feel particularly sad realizing it."
Full Disclosure: How My Ambiguous Looks Mean I'm Constantly Coming Out as Biracial, Discover Nikkei
"My father is white, my mother is Japanese, and I have brown hair, light eyes, and freckles. In a given week, I probably come out as biracial at least once."
Remember Who Loves You, Thought Catalog
"We have countless opportunities to feel bad about ourselves... But remember who loves you and you bring some much-needed context to it all."
Read This If You're 25 and Not Sure You're an Adult Yet, Thought Catalog
"The adult skills I didn’t have in college, I still didn’t have after graduation... I had to learn them—sometimes painfully and almost always haltingly, the process often involving a fetal-position or shower-crying stage."
Maybe Our Younger Selves Had It Right, Thought Catalog
"At eighteen, did I know how to present myself to my best advantage? Do I know now?"
Jewels of the Emerald City, The Rafu Shimpo
How to spend two days in Seattle.
One Beautiful, Unbearable Year in Japan, The Rafu Shimpo
"​My secret shame was that I wanted to go home."
A Tiny Collection of Words, The Rafu Shimpo
A day with American haiku enthusiasts.
What's Wrong with a Guilty Pleasure? Hyphen Magazine
​A review of Witches of East End by Melissa de la Cruz.
Crazy, Deadly Love, Hyphen Magazine
A review of I Am an Executioner: Love Stories by Rajesh Parameswaran.
Between Figueroa and James Taylor, originally for Open Salon
"​I love those parts that seem incompatible but that, in a person, come together."
Funeral, originally for Open Salon
"Life at 21, 22 feels mostly about possibility. There are almost no ways to go wrong, at least compared to the overwhelming number of potential rights."
Part Asian, Not Hapa, originally for Open Salon
"In the end, I’m undeniably American and proud of my Japanese roots, but I’m happy to have escaped a permanent, imposed definition."

More:
​https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/67688/13-photos-californias-devastating-drought 
​https://www.ecowatch.com/shark-strandings-california-2417824121.html

美亜・中地・モニエ