{"id":307230,"date":"2019-09-04T06:00:18","date_gmt":"2019-09-03T20:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=307230"},"modified":"2019-09-04T06:00:18","modified_gmt":"2019-09-03T20:00:18","slug":"coming-to-saipan-is-coming-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/coming-to-saipan-is-coming-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Coming to Saipan is coming home"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_307231\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-307231\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Kamiunten-pix-200x300.jpg\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-307231\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kensei Kamiunten, 87, has moved on from the ravages of war but not from Saipan, which is the place he calls his first home. (Bea Cabrera)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Japanese national Kensei Kamiunten was born in San Roque in 1932 before World War II broke out. This is why he considers Saipan home and comes back to the CNMI as often as possible.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have always felt that Saipan is my first home and Okinawa second. \u2026That is why the desire to come home every year is strong,\u201d said the 87-year-old.<\/p>\n<p>Kamiunten is a member of the Micronesia Repatriation Association from Okinawa. Every year, he and several members that have close ties to Saipan come here to perform \u201cireisai\u201d or memorial service to the many Japanese families that died on Saipan and Tinian during the war. <\/p>\n<p>For Kamiunten, though, the annual trip to the CNMI is more personal. \u201cI come back because my heart belongs here. \u2026Whenever I am here, I go back to San Roque and walk on the same streets that I walked on as a child. A lot has changed but not the glimpses of memories that I have of the past,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Over the years, he has maintained his relationship with his childhood friends. \u201cThere was Gregorio Camacho, Joe Tudela and Santiago Camacho. They have all passed away but I stay close to Gregorio\u2019s son and his family,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>The Marianas was occupied by the Japanese after World War I. When U.S. forces came to Saipan on June 15,1944, to claim the islands, Kamiunten\u2019s life changed. \u201cWhen war broke out, I was more scared of the Japanese soldiers,\u201d he said. \u201cI saw people lost and displaced, people jumped from cliffs and my paradise was slowly getting destroyed. \u2026I lost my father and siblings and, at 12 years old, we were told to return to Okinawa.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This year is the last official visit of the MRA to Saipan but Kamintuen hopes that the younger generation will continue the tradition of visiting the CNMI. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf I am still in good health, I would love to come back next year, the following year and for as long as I can. &#8230;I hope the younger generation would continue trying to create an island without a war, a world with no war and continue to pray for peace,\u201d Kamiunten said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Japanese national Kensei Kamiunten was born in San Roque in 1932 before World War II&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":307231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-307230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}