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Wayne Shigeto Yokoyama was born in Hawaii in 1948. His parents were both Kibei Nisei, but they never insisted that he learn Japanese. He moved to East Los Angeles, CA at the age of seven. He graduated from Roosevelt High School, then started at the University of California at Berkeley. After a year, however, he returned to Southern California and attended California State College in Los Angeles.
Mr. Yokoyama never thought about going to Japan until he was 31 years old. At the time, the Vietnam War was still going on. He did not want to go into the U.S. Army, so he decided to study Buddhism in Japan. After he earned his master’s degree, he worked for an English Buddhist magazine called Eastern Buddhist for over 20 years until the magazine was absorbed into the University system. Since then, he has been conducting research and trying to publish his work. He married a Japanese woman and has one daughter and one son. He lives in Kyoto. (November 13, 2003)