Judy Ota, Presente' Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit JUDY OTA, PRESENTE By Jon Hillson An activist who built bridges between Cuba and the Japanese-American community is remembered. LOS ANGELES, March 29 (NY Transfer)--More than 600 friends, colleagues, and coworkers of Judy Ota joined her family, overflowing the Hompa Hongwanji Buddhist Temple in the Little Tokyo district March 21 as they celebrated the life of this respected Japanese-American community activist. Ota, who was 55, died on March 12 at her home at the conclusion of a valiant, five-year fight against cancer, the effects of which did not deter her from visiting Cuba in 2000, and subsequently launching an unprecedented effort to open doors of solidarity between Japanese-American communities in California and Cubans of Japanese origin on the island. Ota, an administrative law judge on unemployment matters, brought her then nine-year old daughter, Maria, to Cuba to meet the family of her Cuban father-they were divorced, but remained friends. Ota made the journey determined as well to learn about and make contact with Cubans who had emigrated from Japan, and their offspring, exchanging common and distinct experiences. On the last day of her tour, through a combination of chance encounters and personal initiatives, she met with Francisco Miyasaka, the head of the non-governmental Japanese Cuban Society. They had an hour together before her flight home. Miyasaka, a first-generation Cuban who supported the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the Batista dictatorship, served, as young man, the new government's first embassy staff in Tokyo in 1959. He went on to fulfill various ministerial, Asia solidarity, and state enterprise responsibilities, and currently works in Cuba's commercial relations with Japan. He fought in the country's militia against counter-revolutionary elements in 1960-61. His father, a Japanese immigrant, had long led efforts to keep the strands of that community together. More than 400 Japanese-Cuban males were incarcerated in a concentration camp on the Isle of Pines-now the Isle of Youth-for the duration of World War II, during Havana's war-time alliance with Washington. Hundreds more were seized throughout Latin America, dragooned to U.S. camps. More than 800 were used as barter for Japanese-held U.S. POWs. Despite the brevity of their Havana meeting, Ota convinced Miyaska to visit the United States and tour California. Upon her return, this became a consuming project, one that she carried out with tenacity and focus, learning all she could to ensure its success, and sharing what would be its many fruits with all who wanted to help. She was devoid of personal ambition in this undertaking, modest and demanding at the same time. Small in physical stature, the concentrated energy she deployed in this effort seemed to take on added resolve. Ota sought out the Los Angeles Coalition in Solidarity with Cuba to collaborate with her on securing State Department permission for Miyasaka to tour California. His packed, one-week visit in 2000, to Long Beach, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, attracted over 700 people. Miyasaka presented both the rich and unknown history of Japanese migration to Cuba and a powerful defense of the Cuban revolution, more so because of his quiet, understated delivery. "I am an ordinary Cuban," he repeatedly told audiences, explaining the achievements of the revolution, the World War II concentration camp experience-which included his father's imprisonment-and efforts to retain the cultural heritage of nearly 1,500 Cubans of Japanese descent. The first ever meeting in the Japanese American community on Cuba took place in the prestigious Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo, attracting a standing-room only crowd of 200. Judy Ota played a central role in the tour, hosting Miyasaka in the home she shared with her husband, Kaz, and Maria. Judy was a consummate organizer, professional, stickler for details, frank and unassuming in her approach to tasks. Each encounter with her, either in person on the phone, made one look forward to the next. The success of Miyasaka's tour produced a second initiative, a tour of Cuba organized by the Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress, which took place in 2001. Three generations of Japanese-Americans participated, including two who had been in the U.S. concentration camps. Activists from the Coalition in Solidarity with Cuba worked with the delegation to win a license for the travel from the U.S. Treasury Department, and sponsored a joint orientation meeting, along with a local May Day delegation it was sponsoring, in Little Tokyo. By this point, the cancer that would end Judy's life had made it impossible for to return to Cuba. But her presence was felt in all the activities of those organizing the delegation. There, the group of 22 met with Miyasaka, visited the Isle of Youth, celebrated the Obon, a Japanese cultural tribute to ancestors, visited historic sites, and marked the anniversary of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Public activities promoting the tour, and reports back by the delegation, in Los Angeles and San Francisco, again brought out hundreds of activists. These crowds were as diverse as Los Angeles itself, a testimony to the broad sense of outreach of the delegation's organizers. This was characteristic of Ota's approach to putting forward the truth about Cuba to her community. In a continuing process, these activists plan to bring to the United States two Japanese-Cubans later this year, and are considering another delegation to the island. Ota's interests were richly varied-she was a lawyer who in 1975 visited Wounded Knee in support of Native Americans, participated in activities seeking redress for Japanese-Americans sent to U.S. concentration camps, earned a purple belt in Tae Kwan Do, organized dance classes at the abundant social events she hosted. These and other concerns, projects, and avocations, including her devotion to Buddhism and Japanese cultural traditions were reflected in the big, varied crowd that paid tribute to her on March 21. Nearly 200 people attend her burial, a day later. Her unique and bold initiatives on Cuba were noted by several speakers at the memorial meeting. Franciso Miyasaka sent a message from Havana to the event. Strains of Silvio Rodríguez's plaintive voice floated in the air. The last years of Ota's life included making the cause of Cuba her own, a decision whose results leave a living and inspiring impact on hundreds of affected by it. "To honor Judy Ota," Rev. Jundo Gibbs, one of the speakers at the temple told the audience, "sign a petition to legalize trade with Cuba, do something to oppose injustice. Don't make paper cranes." [As a memorial fund for projects supported by Judy Ota, contributions can be made to the Little Tokyo Service Center, CDC, 213 E. 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013.] ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrc-03.31.02-14:03:11-18021