TRANSCRIPT OF THE PODCAST ON JAPANESE-AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

My name is Mike Uyehara. I work in the U.S. Embassy's Political Section, and I am going to speak today about ethnic diversity in the United States and, in particular for Asian-American History Month, tell you a little bit about being Asian American since I am a Japanese American.

In 2002-2004, I worked in Washington as the Belarus desk officer, which means that I worked on shaping U.S. foreign policy towards the country of Belarus. In that job, I met with Belarusian Americans and the Belarusian Diaspora community to try and explain U.S. Government policy towards Belarus, as well as to gather their suggestions with regard to how they would think that U.S. foreign policy toward Belarus should be shaped.

When I met with them, I told them that while I was new to U.S. policy toward Belarus and was still learning about Belarus, that I could, in a sense, understand their position in the United States, because we, as representatives and members of ethnic communities in the United States, have a common issue in terms of establishing our place in the United States while at the same time celebrating our connection and the traditions that we've carried over from our countries of origin.

For instance, Belarusian Americans send their children to language schools on Saturdays to learn Belarusian; Japanese Americans send their children to language schools on Saturdays to learn Japanese. Belarusian Americans belong to a religion very often that is different from the mainstream, the Uniate Church or the Orthodox Church; Japanese Americans very often are Buddhists and so these churches often act as cultural centers and places where the Belarusian-American community or the Japanese-American community can gather.

This, to me, is a story of the United States' ethnic diversity, and how this ethnic diversity, whether it's from Eastern Europe or whether it's from Asia, enriches life in the United States.

And I think one of things that it's important to note is that if you watch American movies, you get a sense that the United States is a country populated by Americans of European descent or Americans of African descent. If you watch movies, the actors are white or they're black. There are a few exceptions, perhaps Jackie Chan in the movie "Rush Hour," but you don't have a real sense of the true ethnic diversity that is typical in the United States.

The fact is that the Immigration Act of 1965 eliminated country quotas and since that time, there has been a radical shift in the pattern of immigration to the United States, and that very many people now have started to come from the countries of Latin America and the countries of Asia, so that if the current trends continue, by 2050 Americans of European ancestry for the first time will be less than half the population of the United States.

According to the 2000 census, Asian Americans comprised 4.3% of the U.S. population. In this grouping, the Japanese and the Chinese Americans have been settled in the United States for the longest period. The Chinese Americans first immigrated to the United States in the 1850s to the 1880s. The Japanese started to immigrate to the United States between the 1880s to the 1910s. The Japanese and the Chinese Americans among the Asian-American communities in the United States at one time were the largest, but now, through this new pattern of immigration since 1965, the Japanese Americans rank sixth. The largest groups in the United States now, among the Asian-American communities are the Chinese, the Filipino, the Indians from the country of India, Koreans and Vietnamese, then followed by the Japanese Americans.

The Japanese Americans, however, having been settled in the United States, have a history that represents some of the changes that will occur as well with these new Asian-American groups. Japanese Americans have been in the United States for as long as five generations now. The Japanese-American population is 1,150,000 people according to the most recent census, or four-tenths of a percent (0.4%) of the U.S. population. Most of them are settled in the West Coast or in Hawaii, and in Hawaii they make up, actually, one fifth (1/5) of the population of the state.

Japanese Americans, having been settled in the States for so long, have been able to develop a record of achievement and make contributions to society. For example, KristiYamaguchi was the 1992 gold medal winner in figure skating. Japanese-Americans have an astronaut, Ellison Onizuka. The top general in the U.S. Army at one time, General Eric Shinseki, was a Japanese American. Norman Mineta was a cabinet secretary, Secretary of Labor and Secretary of Transportation. He, during World War II, was interned in an internment camp. Then, after that, became mayor of San Jose City before filling these cabinet-level positions. We also have a Japanese-American Ambassador, Will Ito, who is now retired and numerous politicians, particularly from the state of Hawaii.

Like other populations that have been settled in the United States for a number of generations, however, the Japanese-American population has a fairly low birthrate. It's a stable population, but Japanese Americans also at a very high rate tend to marry other non-Japanese Americans. And then at the same time, there are very few immigrants from Japan coming to the United States. Actually what we see is a shrinking population of Japanese Americans in the United States, so that perhaps in the next eighty years or so there won't be a distinct Japanese-American community. People will be recognized as Japanese Americans, perhaps, by having a last name that's distinctly Japanese, and like Italian or Irish Americans will continue to be proud of that particular heritage, but not maintain distinctive cultural traditions.

At the same time, however, I think that like the Italian Americans or the Irish Americans, Japanese Americans will continue to have a connection to the country of Japan. Japan itself will continue to be an important ally, an important partner of the United States and make contributions to U.S. culture and to the U.S. as a whole.

This movement back and forth between the United States and the country of your origin, for example, is reflected in my own personal history. My father was born in Hawaii, and he joined the U.S. Army. He spoke Japanese as a child, but while he was in the Army he learned to speak Japanese at a very high level. He served in Japan for two years, and then he went to school on the G.I. Bill in the United States, where he met my mother, who was from Japan, studying in the United States on a U.S. Army scholarship. And so they got married; he moved back to Japan and worked for the U.S. Army there, and I was born there, went to school and we moved to Hawaii. My uncle, my father's oldest brother, was a Buddhist priest, because my grandfather was also a Buddhist priest. And while he raised his children in Hawaii, he got a job in Japan, so he moved back to Japan, and my four cousins have now become Japanese citizens and are settled back in Japan. I have cousins that have studied in Japan or have worked in Japan for brief periods before returning to the United States. I'm married to somebody who is of European descent from Ohio, but my daughter, for example, is now studying Japanese in university, hopes to study abroad in Japan, and because she is majoring in Japanese, I think she'll continue to have a strong interest in Japanese culture and continue to maintain those ties to Japan.

In my own personal history, in terms of the ethnic community that I represent, we can see how U.S. culture, U.S. traditions are enriched by contributions of populations of people from various parts of the world. In this case, in my own personal case, Japan, but, for example, the same can be said about Ukrainian Americans, Belarusian Americans, all the various ethnic groups that form the United States and make it what it is today.