Storyteller, Songwriter “No hate can stop my dance … freedom,” Nobuko Miyamoto sings in the title song to her new album, “120,000 Stories.” The activist-songwriter was joined at the Democracy Center in Little Tokyo on Saturday in conversation and song by Quetzal Flores to celebrate the debut of her album and her new memoir, “ Not Yo’ Butterfly: My Long Song of Relocation, Race, Love, and Revolution.” The virtual event was broadcast via Zoom.
Miyamoto and Flores performed some songs from “120,000 Stories.” The double album, recorded with Flores, speaks to issues of Asian American identity, racism and the Black Lives Matter movement. “120,000 Stories” also features music from Miyamoto’s “A Grain of Sand: Music for the Struggle by Asians in America,” first released in 1973, and a selection of Obon songs, written by Miyamoto, that have become popular at festivals throughout Southern California.