2017LA研修 1月31日 大石美穂

研修の初日、私たちはUCLAに行きました。UCLAはNikkei Student Unionという日系人生徒の団体がある大学です。私たちは、プレゼンテーションをNSUの生徒の前でしました。2グループに分かれ、2つのトピックについてプレゼンテーションをし、アメリカと日本両サイドからの意見交換はとても有意義で価値のあるものでした。
私が彼らに受けた印象は、Japanese-Japaneseであり、日本に住んでいる私たちよりも、日本とのコネクションを大切にし、それに向けて様々なイベントや取り組みを行っているなと感じました。そして、私たちよりも遥かに日本を大切にし、敬っているという印象を受けました。
「彼らがなぜ日本について学ぼうとするのか?」
彼らはアメリカに住み、英語を話し、日々生活を送っています。3世、4世と世代が代わるにつれて、日本とのコネクションが薄くなるのはごく自然のことであると思います。しかしながら、彼らは日本とのコネクションを大切にし、日本について自ら学ぶことや、情報交換をすることをとても大切にしています。彼らの中には、日本に交換留学に行く生徒もいるので、今後日本国内においても日系アメリカ人について正しい理解を持つ人が増えることや、興味関心を持ち、学ぶ人が増えることを願います。


Hi! I’m Miho, a senior at Toyo RDS (Regional Development Studies). I belong to Professor Ashizawa’s seminar. The main focus of our research is on immigration, education, and multi-cultural societies.

Seven students from our seminar visited L.A. from the 31th of January to the 5th of February. Our six-day schedule is listed below. As you can see, we visited so many places in order to explore Japanese-American society and understand deeply about their culture and heritage.

Through this study tour, we deeply appreciated all the people who we met during this trip, especially Bryan-san. Thank you so much again.

The history and cultural heritage of Japanese-Americans is closely related to Japanese society. However, most Japanese people do not have the opportunity to learn about this in detail. We learn about the historical aspects in junior high school based on just a few sentences from a thick textbook. We, all the seminar members, would like to present a report of what we learned through this web page. Hopefully, we will be able to continue disseminating information to Japanese people, about the historical and contemporary issues related to Japanese-Americans.

<Schedule>
Day1 UCLA
Day2 Go for Broke National Education Center/
Japanese American National Museum/
Rafu Shimpo
Day3 Little Tokyo Service Center/
Kizuna/
Japan House
Day4 Gardena Valley Japanese Cultural Institute/ Keiro Intermediate Care
Day5 Mirai Nihongo Gakuin
Day6 Free day with Host families


-PRESENTATION
-Campus tour
-meet NSU students
-dinner with NSU students

On the first day of the seminar tour, we visited UCLA, which has Nikkei Student Union (NSU) in the school. We had a presentation to NSU students. Our seminar members were divided to two groups before going to US and prepare for the presentation. Our theme was about “Comparison University between Japan and US” and the other group presented about “Globalization in Japan”. Sharing the information of the both sides (US and Japan) and got some opinions toward Japanese university was not only spending worthy time but also so productive.
I found that NSU students are trying to know about Japan more and more and also Japanese culture to have a connection to Japan. Some people care and admire Japan further than Japanese- Japanese people.
Time passes by, and now the generation is on Sansei, Yonsei… It is normal that the connection to Japan is getting smaller and smaller. However, they are trying to make a connection strongly bonded. I was so astonished that some of them will go to university in Japan as exchange students for a year. Thus, I hope more Japanese people have a concern about Japanese Americans and they need to learn about this more to have deep understandings.