Why Sakura Kokumai Wants to 'Represent This Country' at Tokyo Olympics After Being Targeted in Racist Rant
Photo: Harry How/Getty Sakura Kokumai isn’t letting a recent incident stop her from achieving her Olympic dreams. “It wasn’t until later when I realized what happened — at the time you don’t think much and just try to process what was happening, that maybe I was targeted because of how I look,” she recounts to PEOPLE. Kokumai, a first-generation American who was born to Japanese parents in Hawaii and lived in Japan as a child, was “minding my own business” at the local park where she usually goes to once a week when a man approached her and yelled at her....