The nature of the Nikkei population is changing. As of the 2000 U.S. census, there were 796,700 Nikkei whose parents are both ethnically Japanese; there were an additional 352,232 hafu people with one parent of another race. How mixed-race Nikkei see their identity varies with the individual. Some embrace their heritage, while others express no interest in the experience of their families during long-ago World War II. The many generations now include Gosei and Rokusei. While the Nikkei are still concentrated in western states, significant numbers live in New York, Chicago, and southern states. Celebrated Nikkei include Secretary of Veterans Affairs General Eric Shinseki, Olympic champion Kristi Yamaguchi, and actor Kane Kosugi. These three examples show the diversity of the group: Shinseki is a Sansei from Hawaii; Yamaguchi is a Yonsei whose mother was born in an incarceration camp; and Kosugi is a Shin-Nikkei whose father immigrated from Japan.
Tule Lake pilgrimage（1998）
Tule Lake incarceration camp, California
Courtesy of Densho, the Klimek Family Collection
Excerpt from Densho Archive
My family was very proud of their Japanese heritage and tried to teach us as much as they could about certain traditions, but they were also trying to fit into the American life style. In school we didn’t learn about the Japanese internment camps, and being Japanese, they didn’t talk about it a lot. So a lot of the grandkids, generations after that all happened, got interested and started to inquire more. It was hard, what Japanese Americans went through, their lives torn from them, their property taken or lost, and having to start over after the war was over. Now, the third and fourth generations, we need to get this story out there.
Olympic gold medal winning figure skater, told to Henry Louis Gates for Public Broadcasting System series Faces of America