When Eiji Daniel Akaboshi came to California two decades ago to venture into winemaking, he thought he was the first in his family to explore a career in America¡¯s vineyards. But someone had already beaten him to it ¡ª by 130 years.
¡°(When I was young) my dad had mentioned in passing that we had a distant relative in California but he didn¡¯t know who he was,¡± says Akaboshi, 46, a Brazil-born Nikkei raised in Chile and Ecuador, and now a winemaker at the renowned Freeman Vineyard & Winery in Sonoma County. ¡°After I arrived in California, I looked up (my family history) and learned about his story.¡±
That relative was a great-great-granduncle by the name of Kanae Nagasawa.
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