Since I came to this county in 1978, I learned a lot about the protection of equal rights, affirmative action, and civil rights. In Japan, I had participated in student movements in late 60’s and early 70’s and raised my voice against the Vietnam War, unequal treatment of ethnic Koreans and other minority people in Japan, environmental pollution, and corrupt Japanese government systems and big corporations.
However, I was always part of the majority there and had never been treated differently because of my skin color, accent, or ethnicity. Since I immigrated to this country, I have been exposed to overt, as well as covert, discriminations against me because I am an Asian immigrant.
My repeated experience of being treated differently and disrespectfully, and excluded and ignored because of my Asian background was not pleasant and often triggered anger and frustration, but the experiences have certainly helped affirm my choice of lifework as a community-based research scientist for health promotion for underserved and stigmatized people, such as Asian drug users, Asian female sex workers, API gay men, and transgender people.
I advocate through my work that we have to respect differences, learn from diversity, and fight together for human rights. I hope that my story as an Asian immigrant in the U.S. helps someone who is struggling to find a meaningful life and fulfill his or her life goals as an Asian immigrant in this country.
First, I would like to illustrate cultural differences between the work and academic environments, in Japan and the U.S., though I have limited experience in Japanese academic environments. I went to Tohoku University in 1969.
It was the first time that Tokyo University did not have an entrance exam. No student was admitted because of the fierce student movements at Tokyo University and almost all other universities in Japan. I learned a lot from studying with other students and being involved in street demonstrations and political confrontations with the Japanese government, the university, and the suppressive Japanese social system. I graduated from the Mechanical Engineering Department and began working for a large manufacturing company in 1974. Without much commitment to being a “salary man” and with a consistent feeling of being estranged from my colleagues and society, I quit the job after 4 and a half years. Nowadays, many newly employed college graduates in Japan quit their jobs within 3 years. At that time, it was very unusual. I hated most that I had to stay after hours working with my colleagues or for supervisors, even though I did not have much work to do. You have to blindly follow coworkers or other company men—or else.
Conformity is key in maintaining “Wa” or harmony in companies, groups, friends, family members, community, and the larger society in Japan. I think that these social norms and the pressure to keep “Wa” still strongly exist in Japanese society and have contributed to increasing work ethics in Japanese way and producing high quality of products and reasonable economic benefits to a certain level. However, it has also drawbacks, such as suppressing creativity, disrespect differences and diversities, stagnation in a closed system or society. “Wa” can be beneficial if it incorporates the ideas about cultural relativity, and respecting differences and learning from diversities. Also, “Wa” can be achieved when people fight for equal rights for all. “Wa” does not necessarily conflict with Western individualism, but consolidation of “Wa” and “individualism” takes time and lots of effort.
I left Japan because I did not fit in the society and looked for some opportunity to search for myself and life goals in the U.S. I happened to enroll in a small state college in Pennsylvania and to start learning psychology simply because I was interested in Freud. Four years studying in an American university changed me a lot. I had never read a text book written in English and I took extra time to complete exams and essays. I worked hard to get a good grade like while I was a high school student. I earned a Bachelor’s in psychology and M.A. in community psychology, which taught me that psychological theories and research could change the world or at least change social and health policies and improve people’s lives. I learned that we can fight for promoting health and well-being for underserved and stigmatized populations with scientific evidence and data.
Certainly, American society and academia promotes pragmatic scientific inquiries and accumulates scientific “evidence” with positivist views. Compared with Japan, American society is basically practical and tries to be fair, though blindly embraces power and money with capitalist ideas. Therefore, for example, quitting a job by my own will in the U.S. is often considered as a good step for better pay, work place, and my own development. In Japan, it is often considered as a disturbance toward maintaining “Wa”. I still remember that when I informed my boss about my resignation from a company in Japan, I was totally excluded and treated as a failure. When I quit a job at a methadone clinic in New York City, I received a plaque and still have contact with my former boss about possible collaboration in research. Japanese salary men treated me as a traitor. As of now, Japanese society may have changed a bit and may not treat those who change jobs as bad as I was treated 30 years ago. But “Wa” or loyalty to a company, university, or the government is still strongly enforced in Japanese society. So, the individualistic society may fit me or other non-mainstream Japanese who may feel free and enjoy greater autonomy in American society. But in an individualistic society, we have to assert ourselves all the time, compete against each other, prove ourselves at the expense of others, and overpower other people or companies to have more power and money. Of course, this is extreme and we don’t need to lose ourselves and conform to the Machiavellian capitalist norms of this society.
I have lived in this country for more than the half of my life and have tried to keep the good parts of Japanese/Asian culture and ethics as well as “Western” ones. I often tell myself; if others take advantage of me, let them do it. I think some of them, at least 5%, would learn from the interaction with me.
After decades of work however, I was dismissed from UCSF. This made me rethink my life creed, because directors and other researchers at UCSF treated me as a benign and under-class Asian immigrant and discriminated against me because I am a Japanese citizen and Asian immigrant. I think that many of them attributed my success in receiving research grants to luck or to my having a racial minority background. They had never thought that I got the grants because I worked hard and put extra effort into it. Most of all, they had never thought that I would fight back.
People at UCSF blatantly told me: “Leave gracefully and transfer your transgender projects to a post-doctoral fellow.”
“I will write a letter to the funding agency for you to relinquish your PI status of the projects. You just sign it.”
“We will help you for smooth transition.”
“We do not intend to kick you out.”
I felt “why do I have to work in an environment at UCSF where the Deputy Director of CAPS ridicules my English accent in front of a job candidate and project staff?”
Right now, I am fighting back. Since last November, I began working at a non-profit research institution and have been trying to get funding to reestablish my project team to work for health promotion among stigmatized and neglected populations in the U.S. and elsewhere. Last year at this time, I had to inform more than 20 staff of my projects at UCSF about the lay-off process despite the fact that I had not received any reliable or valid accounting information for my projects. I was so tired mentally and physically because I had to deal with harassment and severe stress every day.
However, during this most tumultuous time in my life, I met many people and researchers who tried to help me to look for a job, provided me with sincere advice for my future directions, and encouraged me to continue my work for the communities. Many of these people are sharing with my views and understand how to apply the good part of “Wa” and self-assertion to deal with current and future lives of all.
* This article was originally published in Nikkei Heritage Vol. XIX, Number 2 (Summer 2008), a journal of the National Japanese American Historical Society.
© 2008 National Japanese American Historical Society
