Mark Takano: “Next month marks 80 years since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These were the only times nuclear weapons…”

“Next month marks 80 years since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These were the only times nuclear weapons have ever been used in war. I have to say that this memorial, this memory, this 80th anniversary milestone is not just historical, it is somewhat personal and unexpectedly so, say, beginning in 2001, 2002 when at the age of 40, 41 I made my first visit to Japan. I grew up as an American, a Japanese American. One of my grandparents, my only grandparent, my grandfather, Isao Takano, immigrated to the United States around 1916. He was born in 1898 in Japan, and he came from the environs of Hiroshima. Growing up, we would go to his niece, my second cousin or I don't know how to kind of appropriate the right sort of familial designation of who is a cousin, a second cousin, but Kikue Takagi was my grandfather's niece who married an American and lived in Anaheim and worked at Disneyland. We knew some facts, but we never in our times when we would get together for our family gatherings would we ever discuss what happened in Hiroshima.”