California Humanities A State of Open Mind
Join us as we take a closer look at the connection between the humanities and California’s rich food traditions. We will be featuring Nikiko Masumoto of Masumoto Family Farm, and highlighting some of our past grantees whose work nourishes the people of California. The evening’s program will include remarks from California Foodways‘ Lisa Morehouse and from Steven Wong of LA Heat. Chef Reem Assil, of Reem’s Catering will be providing traditional Arab street food made with California love.
Join us for this special fundraising event supporting California Humanities.
Thursday, September 12, 2019
6–8 pm
One Kearny Club
San Francisco, California
Tickets are $100 ($50 tax deductible) and
support California Humanities’ work throughout the state.
About the featured guests:
Nikiko Masumoto (she/her) can be described as an organic farmer, memory keeper, community worker, and artist. She is a fourth generation farmer in California where she grows organic nectarines, apricots, peaches and grapes for raisins with her family (Masumoto Family Farm). Her work with in agriculture is often her springboard to working in place, storytelling, and community. You might find her on a stage, performing her one-woman show about Japanese American memory or speaking at a gathering about equity, story, and connection to food and the land. You could find Masumoto in community meetings, planning and designing intergenerational programming or with rural artists and creative placemakers imagining what resilient futures could be. Nikiko has co-authored two books: a cookbook called The Perfect Peach and Changing Season. She is the co-founder and co-director of Yonsei Memory Project, a movement to give power and life to Japanese American memory keeping. Masumoto serves on the board of the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, Western States Arts Federation, and Art of the Rural.
Lisa Morehouse is an award-winning public radio reporter and editor focusing on food, agriculture, and the people who make both possible. She produces California Foodways, a county-by-county exploration of stories at the intersection of food, culture, history, economics, labor and the environment. The stories air on KQED’s The California Report Magazine, and national shows like All Things Considered, The World, and Here and Now. The series received a national Edward R. Murrow Award and two James Beard nominations. An editor at KALW’s Crosscurrents, Morehouse also teaches audio production to high school and college students.
Steven Wong is a curator at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Art Park. Previously he was the Interim Executive Director and the senior staff curator at the Chinese American Museum where he developed and implemented both contemporary art and history exhibitions. As part of the Getty’s 2017 Pacific Standard Time LA/LA, he conceived of and co-curated an exhibition examining the historic circuits of migrations, cross-connections, and flows of artists and Chinese diasporic communities influenced artistic production within the larger development of Caribbean art. In 2014, Wong curated LA Heat: Taste Changing Condiments, an exhibit that brought together over 30 LA-based artists from disparate art worlds to explore the sociocultural plurality and hybridity of LA via the city’s culinary innovation. Wong is also a visual art and has exhibited in museums and galleries in LA and New York.
Reem Assil founded Reem’s with a passion for the flavors of Arab street-corner bakeries and the vibrant communities where they’re located. Growing up in a Palestinian-Syrian household, Assil was surrounded by the aromas and tastes of food from the homeland and the connections they evoked of her heritage, family, and community. Before dedicating herself to a culinary career, Assil worked for a decade as a community and labor organizer, and brings the warmth of community to all her events. She was a 2018 James Beard Semi-Finalist for Best Chef West, San Francisco Magazine’s 2018 Chef of the Year and San Francisco Chronicle’s 2017 Rising Star Chef.
Composer, producer and bandleader Mark Izu fuses the traditional music of Asia with African American improvisation. Izu plays acoustic bass as well as traditional Asian instruments such as the sheng (Chinese multi-reed instrument) and sho (Japanese multi-reed instrument). Izu has been Artistic Director of the Asian American Jazz Festival for 15 years. He was inducted into the Grove Dictionary of Music as a composer and founder of Asian American Jazz. In 2009 Izu won an Emmy® Award for Outstanding Music. He was a founding faculty member of Stanford’s Institute of Diversity for the Arts. He has received the US/Japan Creative Arts Fellowship to Japan sponsored by the NEA and the Bunkacho. Izu is the artistic director for First Voice.
Shoko Hikage began playing koto at the age of three, taught koto at the Sawai Koto Kai Hawaii and at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, has played at the National Orchestra of Traditional Instruments in Seoul, Korea, and for the Korean Traditional Orchestra, and now lives in San Francisco where she continues her concert and teaching activities.
George Yamasaki Jr. has been playing swing music since it was created. He has emceed the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival for almost 50 years, and has served as Vice President and President for the San Francisco Human Services Commission for 40 years. He has practiced Immigration and Nationality Law since 1960.
Accessibility & Venue Information
One Kearny Club is conveniently located one block from the Montgomery Street BART station, at the intersection of Market, Kearny, and Geary Streets. Metered street parking and multiple San Francisco Muni transit lines are located within the surrounding blocks. An elevator is available to the floor where the event will take place, and restrooms are wheelchair accessible. For other access needs, please contact info@calhum.org well in advance of your visit. To learn more about the event space, contact One Kearny Club at (415) 788-1177 or by email at events@onekearnyclub.com. One Kearny Club, 23 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.
