New Orleans My friend and colleague in Japan, Ken Yamazaki, is a researcher and scholar in addition to being an advocate for community organizing. Before, during, and after visiting Tokyo and speaking there at his invitation last fall, he often asked me if I had any information or proof that Saul Alinsky visited Japan. My …
Tag: Tokyo
Notes on Japan for My Father
Seoul The economic news from Japan is grim. Exports, the lifeblood of much of the country’s economy was down 10% in September to the lowest point in 30 years reflecting the continuing aftershock of the worldwide recession, aggravated by a currently unresolved land and trade dispute with China that led the downturn. One person I …
Challenges of the Young as Workers and Students in Japan and Korea
Seoul Before leaving Tokyo, Aki Okabe, a professor of business administration at Aichi Toho University specializing in nonprofit organizations, who had been my “guide” on Saturday, as one of his friends and I walked from the anti-nuclear squat to a park in the shadow of the giant Tokyo Tower to visit with a variety of groups …
The Japanese Anti-Nuclear Movement
Tokyo When the world watched the daily horror of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami and the tragedy it brought to eastern Japan, we also then read the daily headlines as several nuclear power plants hovered near meltdown. Gayle Soto, a professor of Asian-American literature, at Meiji University told me to write down the …
Advocating Alternative Models for Community & Labor Organizing in Japan
Tokyo Ken Yamazaki is the deputy senior research officer in the international affairs branch of the Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training, a Phd, just published author on community organizing, and a helluva guy in my book. Having visited New Orleans recently with his delegation as they tried to better understand labor and community organizing, …