Hello Koichi and Fellow Japanese Learners,

My name is Weston. I am a senior at Portland State University in Oregon, although this is my first term in Portland. Previously, I attended Sarah Lawrence College in New York and Bennington College in Vermont. Both of my parents are of Japanese ancestry though sadly the Japanese language has been lost for over two generations. I don’t speak it (yet), my parents don’t speak it, and my grandparents don’t speak it either. The last people in my family to speak Japanese were my great grandparents who immigrated from Kyoto in the nineteen-teens (roughly a hundred years ago).

I think part of the reason why I am out of touch with my cultural and ethnic heritage is due to the fact that I never had a permanent home growing up. Although I was born in Oakland, CA, my family moved when I was young to Ohio. Since then I’ve lived in Wyoming, Connecticut, New York, Vermont, Hawaii, Southern California, and I went to high school in Bend, OR. Many of these places did not have Japanese people and those places that did have Japanese people we lived in for a very short time. Consequently, I am very Americanized and I feel awkward and somewhat out of place amongst Japanese people in Portland.

While I know firmly that I learn best in a classroom environment, this is currently not possible because I enrolled at Portland State in the spring term. Japanese 101 isn’t offered until the fall term. Additionally, because I am a senior, I am not supposed to take lower level courses because they won’t count toward the 45 upper-division courses I need to graduate. This leaves self-study as the best option for me to learn Japanese. My hope is that I can become proficient in Japanese at the 200-level or 300-level classes. This will allow me to continue my language studies in a classroom environment. In the meantime, I am taking a U.S.-Japanese culture course, a Chinese history course, and an upper-level psychology course. I am new to the Portland area but actively seeking friends through the Japanese Student Society and other groups on campus.

All of this begs the question as to why I am so committed to taking Japanese. I think the answer to that question is two fold. The first part of that answer has to do with owning my cultural identity. For too long my sense of self has been informed by other peoples’ perceptions and stereotypes about Japan, and not by my own knowledge. I want to reconnect with that essential part of my cultural heritage that is the Japanese language. Right now I feel I am at a critical point in the histories of my ancestors in that I have the luxury of time and money to afford an education that will allow me to truly discover who I am and what I want to do with my life. My immediate goal in this self-discovery process is to visit Tokyo for the 2020 Olympic Games. The second part of this answer is a professional one. With a strong background in mental health support for young adults, I am interested in finding solutions to help young people reach their full potential. I believe that Japan and the U.S. can learn from each other to find common solutions to common problems in the field of mental health.

Thank you for reading my introduction! I look forward to learning with you!

Sincerely,

Weston