On September 20, 2022, Peter and Wendy Horikoshi and keyboard player Kyle Kashima commemorated ACC’s 50th Anniversary with a livestreamed concert. They performed Asian American “movement songs” from the ’60s and ‘70s. Some of the songs were from the album Yokohama, California, produced in 1977.
The Asian American movement was largely concentrated in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York City, and Honolulu. The significance of this movement translates through art, poetry and music to raise a new sense of self-determination and racial consciousness of Asian Americans during the mid-century. Reaching Sacramento in the late ’60s, it gave rise to the activist group Asian Community Services, the precursor to ACC Senior Services.
Peter grew up in the Greater Sacramento region of Florin in the 1950s and 60s, when many Japanese Americans learned the struggles of what it is like to be an Asian American during the civil rights movement. His college major at UC Berkeley was in Asian American studies. Peter considers himself a beneficiary of the struggles and endeavors of this third-world strike, which centered on a few campuses like Berkeley.
The songs that Peter and Wendy performed tell the story of the stigmas, challenges, and expectations of being an Asian American from over 50 years ago. Peter pointed out that he originally met ACC’s Glenn Watanabe when Glenn was performing with his group, The Others – a folk and protest singing group (1964-1967) – at a Bay Area event.
In his introductory comments before singing Asian American Dream, Peter describes what is Asian American Music and how it differs from other Asian music, pop. soul or rock. Throughout the concert, he and Wendy artfully narrate and share the impetus behind the musical writings.
Their exceptional performance shows how music and musicians translate emotions and how music honors what exists in the human spirit, thus keeping culture and people alive.
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