>> 2012. 5.10
Dear Everyone -
We are here again on May 10th, after 8 years of Mino's passing. We had a book launch of "Gurindji Journey: A Japanese Historian in the Outback" on May 10th last year. Many college libraries in Australia and the US now have a copy in their bookshelves. We all hope that it will be used as a textbook in many college courses all over the world, just like it has been in Japan. Please keep in mind that all the royalty goes directly to the Minoru Hokari Memorial Scholarship Fund at ANU to support young scholars like Mino.
1. I am pleased to announce Ms Shannyn Palmer (a doctoral student in the Australian Centre for Indigeous History at the ANU), as ANU's 2012 Minoru Hokari Memorial Scholarship winner. The $3000 award will support fieldwork for her project, titled 'Thinking History Through People and Place: Mobile and stituated historican narratives in Southwest Central Australia'
Ms Palmer is involved in collaborative cross-cultural research with Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people. Her case study is the cattle station Angus Downs, a site rich in historical memories for Aboriginal workers and their descendants. In 1962 Angus Downs was the site of intensive research by the Marxist anthropologist Frederick Rose. Ms Palmer’s project involves close study of Rose’s fieldbooks and photographs in the Mitchell Library, Sydney. Material from the Rose collection is being made available to Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people on community-based computers, where it will provide stimulus for documentation of memories and stories. In conceptualising her project, Ms Palmer drew inspiration from the example of Minoru Hokari, who ‘urged historians to go beyond writing histories of cross-cultural agents…and seek to cross-culturalise history itself.’ Her project seeks ‘to engage with Aboriginal modes of historical practice using digital media to explore the visual, spatial and experiential nature of Aboriginal historical knowledge.’ In making the award to Ms Palmer, the judges were impressed by her thoroughness in scoping the project, her awareness of the ethical challenges, the genuineness of her desire to work collaboratively and the innovative methodology that she brings to the project.
2. My “Knit to Fundraise” project has been up and running. I started selling the patterns at the world biggest online knitters community called Ravelry.com. Most of my pattern names are Australian or Mino related such as “Platypus Neckerchief” “Japarta Journey” “A Long Loop for Mino” etc. (Are you a knitter? My Ravelry ID is yukihs. Please find me there and shoot me a message!) My patterns contain info about Mino, this “Knit to Fundraise” project and encourage knitters to visit hokariminoru.org to meet Mino.
Also an owner at a local knitting store, supports this project and agreed to display my creation and sell patterns for me. Although I am such an inexperienced knitter and designer, so I hesitate to charge much, she told me to raise the price since it is a good cause. Customers at this store know me personally and encouraged me to design more. One lady enjoyed knitting “Japarta Journey Shawl” and told me that she would read “Gurindji Journey”!
The “Knit to Fundraise” website is coming soon and I am aware that Australia is heading to winter!! Please reply to this mail or visit Facebook.com/NimaraJaparta if you are interested in purchasing my knits. Some are custom order, you may choose your color(s) and others are “only one item available for sale at times” Think of Christmas presents for your loved ones, a small gift to your children’s teachers or a nice treat for yourself. Please spread the words for me and Mino.
3. My friend and the only translator that I allow to work on Mino’s work, Kyoko Uchida, recently published a poetry collection “Elsewhere” (Texas Tech University Press, 2012) This publication was a result of winning the 2011 Walter McDonald First-Book Competition in Poetry.
“In Elsewhere, Kyoko Uchida unravels the landscapes of childhood migrations and later passages across oceans and continents, seasons and languages―spoken or otherwise―mapping the geographies of longing, loss, grief, and conflict. These poems are preoccupied with itineraries and distance, while at the same time negotiating space at the intersection of shared fragilities and efforts to communicate. Imbued with an outsider’s need for precise definitions, they attempt to pare down to the essential core each place, each yearning and absence.” (Introduction by Robert A. Fink)
Lastly, from next year, before May 10, I will have another anniversary at my house. On May 8, 2012, for the first time since I had Kyle 11 years ago, kids did not bother me when I was on the phone! They were quietly eating snack when my friend, Hiro, on West Coast called me! I never knew the day would actually come.
I will write to you next on Mino’s birthday July 8th. Until then, please take care.
Yuki Hokari
