News!

I'm very excited to announce that the Red Lacquer Bridge Childrens Choir will be performing at the Doyo LA event on August 11th. Visit my Events page for more information.

"Doyo is children's song in Japan. It is everybody's music."

The Red Lacquer Bridge

There was once a school built on the sand flats of Terminal Island -- a tiny island minutes and countries away from the town of Los Angeles. For 23 years the educators of this school worked to bridge the gap between the island's community of Japanese immigrants, their American children, and the mainland's community of suspicious and fearful people. The immigrants, lacking English, worked to bridge the gap between themselves and the school by presenting it with gifts. One such gift was a tiny garden, situated between the principal's office and the second-grade bungalow. In that garden, spanning the width of a pond of fish, they built for the school a Red Lacquer Bridge.

The Book in the Box

This project started when I inherited "the book in the box" -- a work of love written by my great-aunt Lucile Regan over 80 years ago. Her teaching career began in 1924 at the East San Pedro School (later known as the Mildred O. Walizer School) - the little school built on the Terminal Island sand flats. It was there that the children of the Japanese fishermen enchanted her as they struggled to learn English and become Americans while still holding on to their cultural traditions and identity.

One of the customs that captivated Lucile was Doll Day, where the girls dress in kimonos and perform traditional songs and dances. Inspired by this, she carefully documented the music and the dance steps to preserve this knowledge and to share it with children across America. She wrote:

"No matter what words they sing or say, all children love the same things. The moonlight is silver, the sunlight is bright, the rain is welcome and the flowers are lovely in Japan, as in America."

As I started reviewing my Aunt's work, with the intention of publishing it, I realized that there was much more that needed to be said. I have added histories of the school and the island, partly to give context to Aunt Lucile's work, but mostly because it is a story worth the telling.

--Maggie Shelton