ARTIST'S BOOK BY DOUG MENUEZ.
Internationally acclaimed artists PJ and Roy Hirabayashi championed taiko drumming as an art form and helped create a new genre of Asian American music. They are part of a handful of Japanese American musicians whose efforts established taiko’s popularity across the US and around the world. And over their 50 years of marriage and musical partnership, taiko became a powerful platform for PJ and Roy to foster Japanese American identity and community, advance social change and to fight racism.
I took these photographs while directing “Because of You, I Am,” a short film about PJ and Roy that brings viewers into their lives as musicians, teachers, and activists.
