'Three dot': Two Japanee Bruddahs style
Nichi Bei Times - June 2004
The Two Japanee Bruddahs this month share little bits of Nikkei-related news from Hawai'i…
The big news in the Aloha State is the sudden firing this week of University of Hawai'i president Evan Dobelle. The university's board of regents emerged from a marathon meeting Tuesday evening to announce that Dobelle was booted.
Although many people expressed surprise at his sudden firing, at least one elected official, Hawai'i state Rep. Mark Takai, expressed grave doubts about the president for more than a year. It was last summer that Takai, state Sen. Donna Kim, university administrator Amy Agbayani and former faculty member Dr. Ralph Moberly had their critical essay, "Dangerous Equations," published in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. They put it up on the Web too, at dangerousequations.com…
Totally unrelated to the previous item, except for the fact that they work on the same campus together, UH law professor Eric Yamamoto was in town briefly last weekend, on his way to deliver a speech in Portland.
Yamamoto got together for dinner at Zuni Café on Market Street with attorneys Eva Paterson, executive director of the Equal Justice Society, Dale Minami, Minal Shah and Susan Kiyomi Serrano, also with EJS. Yamamoto, who is on the board of EJS, has been trying for years to teach Minami pidgin … with limited success.
Minami didn't have to use any pidgin this past Sunday, when he emceed an event in Chinatown to kick off Washington Gov. Gary Locke's and Congressman Mike Honda's national Asian Pacific American organization supporting John Kerry's bid for the White House. Also in the crowd were Mr. and Mrs. Fred Korematsu…
Serrano, a former student of Yamamoto, told us that her hula halau, the Academy of Hawaiian Arts, led by kumu hula Mark Keali'i Ho'omalu, will perform Ke Ao Hou, or "new beginnings," on September 25 in Hayward. Also headlining the event is legendary Hawaiian music group HAPA. Check out academyofhawaiianarts.org for more information…
You might not know Ho'omalu by name, but you've probably heard his music … in the theater. Oakland-based Ho'omalu is the only kumu hula to have been involved in an Academy Award-nominated film. Two songs in the Disney film "Lilo and Stitch" were done by Ho'omalu and the Kamehameha Schools Children's Chorus.
HAPA's 1993 debut CD swept the 1994 Na Hoku Hanohano Awards (Hawai'i's equivalent of the GRAMMY awards), becoming the biggest selling CD by a group or duo in the history of recorded Hawaiian music.
And if you haven't heard, for the first time in GRAMMY history, Hawaiian music will have its own category. Hawaiian music has been recognized before as entries in other categories, but the Recording Academy announced earlier this month that Best Hawaiian Music Album will now be an official category of its own…
One Nikkei crooner in Hawaii is running for Congress. The same day that the Recording Academy announced the new Hawaiian music GRAMMY, Dalton Tanonaka, former senior anchor at CNN International in Hong Kong, announced his bid for the U.S. House of Representatives district encompassing urban Honolulu. (We called him a crooner because Tanonaka is one of the best karaoke singers around, in the same class as Japanee Bruddah Kyle.)
Tanonaka was president of the Pacific Basin Economic Council, the Asia-Pacific's oldest private sector organization comprised of chairmen and CEOs of the region's major companies, and also executive director of economic development for the City and County of Honolulu.
Tanonaka will run as a Republican against incumbent Democrat Neil Abercrombie. In February 2003, Tanonaka was one of the very few Republicans who spoke out against Congressman Howard Coble's pro-internment remarks. "Wrong is wrong, no matter which party label you wear," he said. "And the North Carolina congressman's public uttering that the World War II internment of Japanese-Americans was the right decision is dead wrong."
Former Congresswoman Pat Saiki came out of political retirement to chair Tanonaka's campaign…
Concentrating on his own election this fall is Hawaii state Rep. Glenn Wakai. Like Tanonaka, Wakai is a former television journalist turned public servant. Wakai, who represents the Moanalua Valley, Moanalua and Salt Lake communities recently took some time out of this busy schedule to join GlobalPauHana.org, an online community of people of, from or who love Hawai'i.
Wakai was the first public official to join GlobalPauHana.org, which was created by Dave Kozuki, a local boy now living in San Jose, in order to bring the worldwide community of Hawai'i "expats" together on the Web. Not too long afterwards, former Milpitas mayor Henry Manayan (also a local boy) joined the site.
Wakai, while dead serious in his work in Hawai'i's legislature, is otherwise one of the funniest guys around. He can't sing like Tanonaka … but he sure tells good jokes.
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Keith Kamisugi and Kyle Tatsumoto are da Two Japanee Bruddahs. Visit them on the Web at www.twojapaneebruddahs.com. Or e-mail them at wot@twojapaneebruddahs.com.
