Week 3: Education

For our topic of education we had a nice short week due to the 4^th of July holiday and our midsession retreat on Friday. First we met with Professor Stephen Fugita, a retired Asian American and Ethnic Studies professor at Santa Clara University. Born in Chicago, Professor Fugita didn’t really have the same experience as someone growing up involved in San Jose Japantown. However, as a teacher here in the Silicon Valley he did come to face some of the same issues that many of us see in the educational atmosphere. We talked about how in most history textbooks there is very limited material on Asian American history. This may be due to the fact that Japanese Americans have a collectivist culture and strong community where they tend to be group-oriented trying to assimilate into the larger American culture. However, I feel that as a student we are missing out on learning about this subject and nowadays this topic has been given more academic credibility. At Santa Clara University there is a very small Asian student population, however Professor Fugita found diversity in many of his classes. One of the things that he would like to see is a better integration of Ethnic Studies and Asian American classes into the mainstream courses at the collegiate level. I believe that this has been improved upon because there are certain requirements such as to take a cultural diversity course at many colleges. Hopefully the subjects of Ethnic Studies and Asian American History will continue to grow in interest so students of all backgrounds can become education on different aspects of culture.

The second person we met with this week was Yuri Oda, the board president of Suzume no Gakko. Suzume is a 3 week long, half-day summer camp created so that elementary school-aged children can learn about the culture of Japan. Founded by three mothers 34 years ago, they used arts and crafts to teach the kids in an attempt to keep the Japanese culture alive. The curriculum focuses on more of the Japanese, rather than Japanese American culture, with topics ranging from internment to how rice is grown. Suzume no Gakko also remains active in the community by helping out with the Nikkei Matsuri and Spirit of Japantown festivals, as well as putting on a performance for the seniors at Yu-Ai Kai. One of the major barriers that the Suzume faces however is the popularity of the program without the available space and resources to provide for that many students. The board of directors are all volunteers so to ensure that her children get a spot Yuri felt that she should volunteer to be on the board. The program is able to somewhat adapt to the growing amount of students by having three double classes this year. However, Yuri tells us that every year there is always a waitlist and some families get turned away. I think that it is a good sign that programs such as these are so popular and it is a great way to teach the younger generations about the Japanese culture. Other programs such as Medaka no Gakko in Palo Alto and Nakayoshi Gakko in Mountain View have been created as a result of the growing popularity. I actually had the opportunity to attend Nakayoshi as a child and then also remain involved in their Sempai program, as well as teach the Undokai class last summer. Programs like these are important because from Nakayoshi I not only had fun but it was also my only source of education about Japanese culture. This is a prime example of how important it is to educate the youth so that they can continue to remain involved in the community as they grow older.