My name is Reid Yokoyama and I am a Junior at Stanford majoring in History (with a focus on US history) and Asian American Studies. I was born in Iowa and grew up in St. Louis, MO. All of my extended family lives in Hawaii, however, and going to Stanford in California has really exposed me to other Asian Americans and has recently given me a lot of perspective and thoughts about being Japanese American and Asian American.
I was recently a participant in a directed reading course at Stanford concerned with producing content for this website. On March 31, 2006 my professor and another student went to JANM to present our work, which I felt was really helpful for me to get a better feel for this website as well as to see the museum since I have never been there before. Plus, after speaking with some of the administrators, I am no longer intimidated about posting here!
I hope other students read this post and are inspired to write a little about themselves. I myself am a fourth-generation Japanese American and do not know Japanese. My first trip to Japan was last September and when I went, I felt strangely foreign even though the people I saw looked more familiar to me than anything I had experienced growing up in America. I guess I haven't really thought about what it means to be Japanese American until coming to college and being surrounded by a lot of Asian Americans and studying it in courses. As a history major, I am working towards completing an Honors thesis concerning Japanese Americans in the 1950s and will spent the next summer doing research to narrow this topic. I also enjoy playing Scrabble and mountain biking.
Welcome to the Community Forum! I hope this is the first of many posts from you. =)
You might want to check out the Real People video archives. There's some interesting clips in particular that might be of interest to you of JAs living in Japan.
As for Community Forum areas that might be of interest, try checking out 'Nikkei Diaspora: Voices and Histories of Global Nikkei'. There's some really interesting articles about Nikkei living in other countries, plus one about called "Growing Up Asian in Louisiana."
Bulletin Board topics of interest to check out...Within the Nikkei Community & Culture section are posts about the Sawtelle area of Los Angeles during the 1950s that had (and still has) a lot of Japanese businesses.