CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Asian-American community is expanding in Corpus Christi with several businesses and activities popping up across the city.
Hitomi Sakakibara works at the Texas State Museum of Asian Cultures Museum as a Japan outreach initiative coordinator. She enjoys sharing her Japanese culture through several workshops she created such as Japanese Taiko Drum class, calligraphy, and more.
"I feel very very happy to see people enjoy Japanese culture but also making their own work. Fans are very important to Japanese people," Sakakibara said.
Kumiko Fujita registered her three sons to the class, so they can learn about their Japanese Heritage.
"I really want to teach my kids the Japanese, the culture, language, food and how to behave in the public...what I learned from my ancestors that's what I want to share with my kids," Fujita said.
Two years ago, when Sakakibara moved to the city, she didn't see a big presence of the Asian community but she said slowly but surely that is changing.
"Before there were only two Asian markets here and then we had another one...V-Mart," Sakakibara said. "We are very happy to know the local people, have more interest in our culture and Asian culture especially in food is very important."
A quick and fun way to learn about a new culture is through food. V-Mart sells a range of products from across different regions of Asia. Managers Zoe and Justin Tran said they get a lot of people wanting to try something new on a daily basis.
"We carry a lot of unique products that many don't carry here," Justin said.
Over the past 12 years, Zoe said she has seen first hand how her community has changed.
"The Asian community has been small but now it's growing and growing," Zoe said. "A lot of older and newer generation is coming here as well so makes the Asian community bigger and bigger."
Zoe hopes in the future the community will continue to celebrate every culture and not just during Heritage Months.
"All the cultures matters and people come here and bring their culture and then people want to share their culture, share their food, their dishes," Zoe said. "I think to have a collection of all the culture of the food is very important."
For more information about events at the Texas State Museum of Asian Cultures, click here.