Funkerstation » gling photographer for the Los Angeles

RIO DE JANEIRO -- With Olympic medals starting to roll in, Brazilians looking to toast their success might try a sakerinha. Yes, thats a real drink -- a fusion of Japanese sake and the national cocktail, the caipirinha, that is as thoroughly Brazilian as samba and sun.Though few visitors flooding into the country for the Summer Games might know: Brazil is home to the largest Japanese community outside of Japan, with some 2 million Brazilians tracing their ancestry back to the Asian nation.Many came early in the 20th century as poorly paid agricultural workers who labored on coffee plantations in southern Brazil. The population then was overwhelmingly black or brown, and the Japanese were recruited, along with European immigrants and others, as part of a government policy to whiten the country. Brazil was the last country in the Americas to ban slavery, in 1888.Japanese roots have long been found up and down the roster of Brazils Olympic teams, past and present.Charles Koshiro Chibana, a second-generation Japanese-Brazilian, is one of the countrys best judo athletes and has trained in Japan, where the sport was born. Ive made many friendships in Japan, he said, and I always feel at home there.Chibana, who lost in his first match Sunday to the eventual bronze medal winner, Japans Masashi Ebinuma, claims Portuguese as his first language but speaks Japanese at home with his parents. I always learn from Japan, he said.Mahau Camargo Suguimati, set to compete Monday, is a Brazilian-born hurdler who trained and studied for much of his life in Japan, mostly in Saitama prefecture not far from Tokyo. Paula Harumi Ishibashi, captain of Brazils womens rugby sevens team, was born in Sao Paulo but traces her roots to Japan.Six-time Olympic table tennis player Hugo Hoyama is a third-generation Japanese-Brazilian; hes coaching the Brazilian womens team in Rio. And Japanese-Brazilian Chiaki Ishii won Brazils first Olympic medal in judo at the 1972 games. He was born in Japan but immigrated to Brazil after he failed to make the team in his homeland.Many of those not competing also have a foot in both countries.Geraldo Omachi, a mining engineer, is working as a Japanese-Portuguese translator for the Rio organizing committee. Omachi said his parents left Japan in the 1960s looking for more space and what he called a more open way to live. He calls his own life combined. He loves to eat rice -- but only Japanese rice -- with his Brazilian black beans.I suppose I am more Brazilian, but I have a lot of me that is very Japanese, said Omachi, whose speaks Portuguese at home with his children and wife, whom he described as Brazilian-Brazilian -- part native and the descendant of slaves.Three decades ago, amid a booming economy in Japan, many Japanese-Brazilians made the move there to work in car plants or high technology industries, taking advantage of passport and residency rights.Oizumi, a few hours northwest of Tokyo, boasts one of Japans largest Brazilian communities. Brazilian restaurants and supermarkets abound, while convenience stores stock foods like farofa (toasted cassava), black beans and the beloved Brazilian peanut confection Pacoquita. Malls there often have signs written in Japanese and Portuguese telling shoppers where to return their carts.Shizuka Luiza Ameku was born in Brazil, has a Japanese passport, and has split her life between the two countries. She often feels torn between cultures, as well.Sometimes I feel lost, she said. Sometimes Im told I look like a Japanese, but in some places they say Im not Japanese, Im a Brazilian.Ameku is working at the Olympics helping the Japanese television network NHK find rooms, make reservations and order food. Her mother and father emigrated from Japans southern island of Okinawa to Bolivia, and then to Brazil.Four languages reverberate in her parents home: Japanese, Okinawan, Portuguese and Spanish.Its a very crazy language we speak, a bit like our background, she said. We start with one, and end with another.---Stephen Wade on Twitter: http://twitter.com/StephenWadeAP . His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/stephen-wade San Francisco 49ers Shirts . But Bourque, who has missed three games with a lower-body injury, wont be in the lineup when the Habs travel to Buffalo to take on the Sabres on Wednesday. San Francisco 49ers Store . Aaron Harrison scored a 22 points for Kentucky (6-1), which has won four in a row following a Nov. 12 loss to current No. 1 Michigan State. Julius Randle overcame a scoreless first half and added his sixth double-double in as many games with 14 points and 10 rebounds. https://www.49ersjerseysale.com/ . Ibaka equaled a career high with 20 rebounds, adding four blocked shots and 15 points as the Thunder smothered the Milwaukee Bucks offence in a 92-79 victory Saturday night. San Francisco 49ers Pro Shop . The team also announced Tuesday that the Braves will wear a commemorative patch on the right sleeve during the season. The patch, shaped like home plate, carries the number 715, Aarons autograph and a "40th Anniversary" banner. Fake 49ers Jerseys . Jeff Green scored 13 points and Kris Humphries 12 for the Celtics, who nearly blew an 18-point, second-half lead. Sullingers 20-20 was the first by a Celtics player since Kevin Garnetts first game in Boston in 2007. Garnett was dealt -- along with Paul Pierce -- to Brooklyn during the off-season. LOS ANGELES -- Howard Bingham, longtime personal photographer, confidant and perhaps the closest friend of boxing great Muhammad Ali, has died at age 77.Harlan Werner, Binghams agent and longtime friend, told The Associated Press that the photographer died Thursday.No cause of death was given, but another friend, sportswriter Mohammed Mubarak, said Bingham had been in failing health in recent months after undergoing two surgeries.During a friendship that spanned more than half a century, Bingham took literally hundreds of thousands of photos of Ali that ranged from the three-time world heavyweight champions many ring triumphs to quiet day-to-day moments with his family.He captured the young, handsome champion preparing for his first heavyweight championship fight against Sonny Liston in 1964 and, years later, the aging Ali, hands shaking from Parkinsons disease, preparing to light the flame and open the 1996 Summer Olympics.He photographed Ali greeting everyone from former President Bill Clinton to South African President Nelson Mandela to black Muslim leader Malcolm X. And he was there with his camera when throngs of awestruck fans surrounded the champ on the street.Although known largely as Alis photographer, Bingham also had a distinguished career as a freelancer.He photographed the 1967 race riots in Detroit and was at Chicagos Democratic National Convention in 1968, when violence exploded between protesters and police.In the 1960s, he developed enough trust with the fledgling Black Panther Party that its members gave him free reign to photograph them -- and their weapons stash -- for a feature Life magazine had planned.After the story was not published -- They got scared, he later told the Los Angeles Times -- he included the photos in his 2009 book, Howard L. Binghams Black Panthers 1968.He was one of the greatest storytelleers of our time, said Werner.ddddddddddddYou look at the history in his photos. And the photos themselves, theyre just amazing.The public has never seen some of the best photos of Ali, Werner added, because the unfailingly modest Bingham never wanted people to think he was cashing in on their friendship. But he did publish a book including some of them in the acclaimed 1993 photo memoir, Muhammad Ali: A Thirty-Year Journey.Bingham started off his career in 1962 as a fledgling photographer for the Los Angeles Sentinel, a small African-American newspaper, and was assigned to cover a fight by an up-and-coming young boxer then known as Cassius Clay.He would tell Ali years later that he had no idea whom he had been sent to photograph, but when he saw Ali and his brother wandering around downtown after the fight, he offered to show them around. Later, he invited them to his mothers house for dinner.It was the beginning of a friendship that would endure until Alis death in June.The eldest of seven siblings, Bingham was born in Mississippi on May 29, 1939, and moved to Los Angeles as a child.He eventually enrolled in Compton Community College, where he failed a photography class. He blamed it on spending too much time having fun and not enough studying.But he applied to be a photographer at the Sentinel a few years later and, after repeated inquiries, he was finally hired.I went off on jobs, came back with underexposed film, blurred film, no film -- and I always had an excuse for what went wrong, he told the Los Angeles Times.Eventually, he learned enough about photography on the job to land the Ali assignment.Bingham is survived by his wife, Carolyn, and son, Dustin. Another son, Damon, preceded him in death. ' ' '