Word: nisei
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...Lower House elections are children of Diet members. These elections will determine whether the ruling party, now in jeopardy after losing its majority in the Upper House last July, can hold on to control of the government it has dominated for 35 years. But the prevalence of the nisei giin, or second- ^ generation politicians, has raised fears that Japanese politics is increasingly being restricted to an elite kinship network...
Under Japan's constituency system, members of the same party often run against each other in the same district. Unable to campaign on different platforms, the candidates stump on their ability to bring special benefits like new roads and factories to their towns. Nisei have a distinct advantage because they inherit the so-called three bans: jiban (constituency), kanban (name or recognition) and kaban (suitcase or campaign chest); they don't have to spend their early careers building these...
...West Coast after Pearl Harbor set the stage for some kind of drastic action. No rumor about Japanese Americans was too wild to be believed. Treasonous farmers were said to be growing tomatoes in arrow-shaped patches that pointed the way for enemy pilots to California defense plants. Nisei students were reported to be pouring into German- language classes at UCLA, presumably to help the Nazis. One story said wily Japanese saboteurs had quietly bought up land around West Coast military installations...
ASIANS. The "ABCs" (American-born Chinese) tend to be contemptuous of the "FOBs" ("fresh off the boat"). L.A. Filipinos have their own snickering Tagalog-language acronym?"TNTs"?for their new and often illegal arrivals. Nisei, or U.S.-born Japanese, are embarrassed by Japanese nationals who speak no English; newly arrived Japanese, in turn, are wary of L.A.'s native sansei (third generation) and yonsei (fourth). But all the Japanese seem to agree that they are superior to other Asians. And everybody picks on the Koreans. Says U.C.L.A. Sociologist Harry Kitona: "They regard the Koreans as the Mortimer Snerds...
...week run, demands the same attention. Blink and you will miss the Tower of Pisa looming outside a window in "a neighborhood called Little Italy." Glance at the evening paper and you will not see a young couple walk through a "Japanese garden" filled with blank-faced nisei standing in planters. Raid the fridge and you will miss the visit Sergeant-Lieut. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) pays to a shoeshine wizard who knows everything about the Underworld-and about life after death, open-heart surgery and the fate of the Dodgers' pitching staff...