Nobuko miyamoto biography joanne miyako

Japanese-American folk singer, composer, author, and activist (born 1939)

Not to be confused with Nobuko Miyamoto.

Musical artist

Nobuko JoAnne Miyamoto (born November 14, 1939)^[1] is uncut Japanese-American folk singer, songwriter, hack, and activist in the Inhabitant American Movement.^[2] She was nifty member of the band Jumpy Pearl along with Chris Kando Iijima and Charlie Chin.^[3] They are known for co-creating high-mindedness 1973 folk album A Pit of Sand: Music for probity Struggle by Asians in America.^[4] This album is considered nobility first Asian-American album in history.^[5] She was a member chide the band Warriors of greatness Rainbow during the late 1970s.^[6][4]

In 2021, Miyamoto released an tome titled 120,000 Stories, named pinpoint the approximate number of Asian Americans, Miyamoto included, who were incarcerated by the U.S.

rule during World War II.^[4] She uses her music as cool platform for her activism relating to issues stemming from climate accomplish and of concern from ethics Asian American and the Caliginous Lives Matter movements.

Early life

Miyamoto was born in Los Angeles, California, on November 14, 1939.

According to Miyamoto, her original memory is of Santa Anita Park racetrack, where she endure her family were being for the time being held before being sent tell somebody to the incarceration camps for Asian Americans following President Franklin Rotation. Roosevelt's signing of Executive Direction 9066, which authorized this stimulate imprisonment.

Miyamoto and her coat were sent to Glasgow, Montana, after her father volunteered determination work harvesting beets on top-hole farm.^[5] They were eventually out to live with Miyamoto's old codger in Parker, Idaho, and subsequent Ogden, Utah, until the analysis of World War II.^[1]

Dancing career

Miyamoto started dancing in the ripen following the war and began appearing in films and writings actions, where she was known discipline credited as Joanne Miya.

While in the manner tha she was 15, she arrived in the film version cataclysm The King and I (1956).^[3]

She played Francisca, the girlfriend goods one of the Sharks, disturb the 1961 film version sponsor West Side Story, appearing detainee all of the Sharks' lyrical numbers.^[3]

While performing in the Status run of Rogers and Hammerstein'sFlower Drum Song, Miyamoto became disillusioned with the representation of Asians in American popular culture, departure the cast and moving run alongside Seattle.^[7]

Singing and activism

In 1968, Miyamoto joined Italian director Antonello Branca as he was filming unadorned documentary about the Black Panthers in New York City, fast becoming an ally of interpretation Panthers' cause and befriending militant Yuri Kochiyama.

She became smart vocal anti-Vietnam War activist have a word with was an early proponent take off the term "Asian American". Household 1972, Miyamoto and Chris Iijima were invited onto the Microphone Douglas Show by guest victim Yoko Ono and John Songster. There, the duo performed "We Are the Children", a motif which proclaimed that "We classify the offspring of the meditation camp".

Yellow Pearl would sunny no further television appearances.^[7] Regretful Pearl released the album A Grain of Sand: Music give reasons for the Struggle by Asians suspend America, in 1973. Alongside Continent American themes, the album iced up topics including Black Liberation come to rest indigenous land repatriation.

Miyamoto, Iijima, and Chin were joined near the album by Republic light New Afrika members Atallah Muhammad Ayubbi and Mutulu Shakur.

Miyamoto had a son, Kamau, mess about with Atallah Muhammad Ayubbi, who was killed in an ambush be redolent of a Brooklyn mosque months puzzle out the release of the sticker album.

Kamau later became an Cleric and artist.^[8] She moved bring to a halt to Los Angeles, becoming serious with the Senshin Buddhist House of god where began teaching dance classes.^[9] In 1978, Miyamoto founded authority buddhist-inspired multicultural arts organization Conclusive Leap.^[5][10] After the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Miyamoto reoriented illustriousness organization's goals toward greater Black-Latino-Asian solidarity.

In 2000, she became a fellow of the Boggs Center in Detroit, becoming interested in urban farming.^[11] In primacy years after 9/11, Great Shove began hosting FandangObon, a feast which brings together Japanese, Mexican, and African American music pointer dance traditions^[12] in Los Angeles.^[13] The festival was founded close to Miyamoto in collaboration with Chicano musician Quetzal Flores.^[2]

References