Northwest Asian Weekly "Nobuko Miyamoto’s ‘A Grain of Sand’ is a Rare Pearl" by Deni Yamauchi Luna

In her one woman show "A Grain of Sand," produced by the Northwest Asian American Theatre, Miyamoto displays all the facets of her considerable talent. The show incorporates film footage from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, together with music and live performance, to illustrate Miyatmoto’s varied career.

Miyamoto is a singer, actress, playwright, and dancer. As she describes in her show, she got her start in her hometown, Seattle, back in the sixties, singing in the lounge of a downtown hotel. She sang pop favorites like "The Look of Love" and Broadway show tunes to audiences that would have been content to just watch belly dancers, (the other act booked at the hotel lounge.)

Later, she appeared on Broadway in "The King and I," "Flower Drum Song," and numerous other plays.

Film and television appearances followed.

Then the sixties protest environment hit.

Fed up with playing stereotypical stage roles, Miyamoto wanted to be in the thick of the new Revolution.

It was a time of politics, of emerging consciousness of an Asian identity, and of a Renaissance in music and art. Miyamoto, with her political consciousness, spectacular looks and musical talents, fit right in.

She formed a folk rock group with two other Asians: Charlie Chin and Chris Kando Iijima. They were good enough to attract the notice of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who asked them to sing on national television. However, during show rehearsals, Lennon and producers of the Mike Douglas Show tried to censor the political content of her performance, which prompted her to walk off. She got her way.

During those heady, turbulent times, Miyamoto led an uncertain existence. Once chauffeuring an out-of-town speaker (Russell Means of the American Indian Movement), she was forced off the road by rows of police cars. With lights flashing and sirens blaring, they had blocked off all freeway and arterial accesses. She and Means were arrested, and she was booked into jail on unspecified charges. She was six months pregnant.

Soon released (after being detained without good cause), she returned home to find that her house had been thoroughly ransacked, in a search for incriminating political material.

Three months later, she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. When the child was 10 days old, she was on her way to meet her husband in New York, when she received word: Her husband, a political activist and a close friend of Malcolm X, had been killed by police. He had died without ever seeing his son.

Yet, out of tragedy, Miyamoto has found wisdom and a rare kind of beauty.

The title of her play "A Grain of Sand" is based upon this strength:

"A tiny grain of sand gets inside an oyster and the oyster tries to cover it until it finally becomes a pearl…Our people were called ‘the yellow peril’ when they first came to this country…We were like a tiny grain of sand, isolated and separated from our homeland…We are not powerless. We are going to make the ‘yellow peril’ into something beautiful," Miyamoto writes in an introduction to her haunting, powerful song "Yellow Pearl."

The lyrics of the song include:

"In the ocean oyster beds
Repose beneath the sea
Open one and you might find
Deep in one of a different mind
One who looks like me…
(chorus)
And I am a yellow pearl
And you are a yellow pearl
And we are the yellow pearl
And we are half the world."

Miyamoto may return to Seattle at some later date. Her show is a must-see.

Her one woman play "A Grain of Sand" takes the viewer into a world of the sixties and seventies. A time of hope. Of breakfast programs for kids in Harlem. Of occupying abandoned buildings for the homeless. Of music, harmony, and social support.

Outdated? Miyamoto’s message has never been more needed.

For in the eighties and nineties, we’ve never matched that kind of vision, or been driven by that kind of energy.

As Miyamoto writes, "The power of all struggles comes from a song."