Ricky and Bobby Okamura, the current owners of the Benkyodo mochi shop, established in 1906, make a difficult decision to close their family business. The 115-year-old Japanese pastry shop, a landmark for Japanese/Asian Americans in the Bay Area, is one of two mochi shops currently open in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The unsurmountable economic pressure, coupled with the two brothers’ desire to preserve their Japanese heritage, family business, and community space, create an age-old conflict many children of diaspora face— between the laborious preservation of culture or the submission to the economic forces of racial capitalism.