Student Journalists Use 'Restorative Narrative to Report on Fukushima

NICHI BEI WEEKLY -- San Francisco State University’s Dilena Takeyama Center for the Study of Japan and Japanese Culture presented April 4 on the state of Fukushima, Japan, at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California. The presentation, featuring the works of San Francisco State University students who visited Fukushima last year, included a series of stories on life after the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and ongoing nuclear disaster. Professor Sachi Cunningham presented on behalf of students Gavin McIntyre and Deborah Svoboda. She showed a series of portraits McIntyre took of people in Fukushima. They included a man who quit his job in Tokyo to help revitalize his hometown, a woman who faced stigma from people in Tokyo for being from Fukushima and photos from Namie, a hastily evacuated city following the nuclear meltdown. “It was a lot to take in … just trying to make sense of how people are dealing with all this tragedy,” Cunningham said.