Japanese Peruvians in San Francisco Introduced by Mary Jo McConahay

Tina Martin

20 mins · 

Journalist Mary Jo McConahay gave a reading and talk at Bookshop West Portal last night on her new book The Tango War: The Struggle for the Hearts, Minds and Riches of Latin America during World War II, a fascinating history I knew very little about. .I hadn't known, for example, that the United States went to Peru to bring ethnic Japanese to internment camps with the complicity of the Peruvian government. I met a member of the Naganuma family, who had been among those taken--and turned out to be neighbors of the author--just a block away in Noe Valley!

https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/book/japanese-peruvians

Sheila Malkind and the Legacy Film Festival

Leslie Simon and I attended the 8th annual Legacy Film Festival on Aging on Sunday, September 16, and saw the short "Wendy's Shabbat" and the full-length feature "Abe & Phil's Last Poker Game."  We were impressed by the quality of the films and by how well-organized the film festival is.  Here's the incredible woman who founded it, Sheila Malkind!

I learned about the festival  from Sheila, who's a member of OWL, the group of women I met at the SF Public Library last October, when I was so impressed by them that I joined the group and haven't missed a meeting since.

Wendy's Shabbat was made by Rachel Myers,  the granddaughter of the woman it "stars," leading  her community to Wendy's, where they were welcomed to have their shabbat dinner.

I'll be back later with a description of the full-length film we saw.

The Russians Are Coming!...Or Are They Here?

With all the fear of the Russians these days--fear of their infiltrating, planting false news on Facebook and other such places--I thought it was funny when I went online to get directions and had my very own address translated into Russian!