mimi, miyeko, bachan, mom

I made this book in 1997, in honor of my maternal grandmother, Miyeko Okamura Kebo, who celebrated her 80th birthday that year (she is still alive, although extremely frail and feeble, living in Fresno with my Aunt Janis. But give her a break! She's 91 years old.) I am named after this grandmother, and this book was one of the very first I ever assembled, designed, printed and bound. In it is a collection of letters and truly extraordinary photographs of my Bachan that I solicited from family friends and relatives in her honor, and since I only made five copies at the time, I finally got down and scanned the book for wider distribution. You may note that my piece (the final letter in the book) is abnormally historical in nature. See? I was buck-toothed and hopelessly covered in archival dust eleven years ago.

One errata: the title poem is written by Kathy Kebo. Her name was accidentally left off the page in my original design (which was done with tremendous support from Bruce Smith of the Arts & Crafts Press). 

**RATS! Stupid stupid Blogger is acting jinky and for some reason, most of the images are lying on their sides. Sigh. Bear with me while I try to remedy this malfunctioning post.