Q finds her groove in NY
`Issei,' or Japanese immigrants, are cultural refugees drawn to New York's creative clamor and in search of freedom for their spirits
By Jiro Adachi
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , New York
Monday, Jan 31, 2005,Page 16
Her arm locks like a robot's, then pops from the shoulder, sending a wave through her body. Michael Jackson's Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough blares from a boombox in the Times Square subway station as a crowd of onlookers, heads bobbing, cheer on the performer.
The break dancer is female, which is unusual enough. Even more eye-opening is the fact that she is a 26-year-old Japanese woman with cornrows in Float Committee, the crew of young black men with whom she is performing on this day.
Her solo builds as she glides around the concrete floor, limbs electric, torso fluttering as if from some subterranean wind. In another instant, she is back in line with her crew, grinning and rocking to and fro as sweat pours down her face.
To her family in the city of Nagoya, she is Kumi Naito. In her New York life and in the break-dance world, she is simply Q, and a wild departure from the stereotype of the Japanese immigrant, or issei, that New Yorkers have known in the past: the salaryman from a Japanese corporation with a wife in tow.
Q also typifies how the Japanese immigrant of today -- young, artistically inclined, open to risks and twice as likely to be female than male -- differs from the bulk of immigrants to New York, who come to take advantage of the city's economic opportunities.
These Big Apple issei, as they could be called, are cultural refugees, drawn to New York's creative clamor and in search of freedom for their spirits.
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