Bon Odori: Buddhist summer festival of the dead, which honors ancestors.

Issei: First-generation Japanese immigrant in America.

ken: A prefecture.

kenjinkai: Association of people who came from the same prefecture.

Nihonjin: Japanese person(s).

Nisei: American-born children of Japanese immigrants; second-generation Japanese Americans.

Oneesan: Older sister.

sake: Japanese liquor; rice wine.