Interviews

1. Lack of language skills

2. Having patience in Japan, being both

3. Acculturation

4. Preserving traditional Japanese culture

5. New Year's food

6. Japanese are more accustomed to foreigners

Jane Aiko Yamano

(b.1964) California-born business woman in Japan. A successor of her late grandmother, who started a beauty business in Japan.

New Year's food

And I think that the Japanese Americans eat more Japanese food than the Japanese people do themselves. I think back to New Year’s and I remember in Los Angeles, we have the whole osechi ryori thing—the lobster, the soup, the kamaboko, everything all set up. In Japan, my grandparents did that, too, but once they passed away, we kind of stopped doing that. And we live in Japan and we really don’t do it. Yet in America, whenever we’re over there for New Year’s, my aunt’s doing it every year. She has the whole Japanese food laid out.

families Finding Home (film) food racially mixed people traditions

Date: September 3, 2003

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Interviewer: Art Nomura

Contributed by: Art Nomura, Finding Home.

Interviewee Bio

Jane Aiko Yamano, 38-year-old Nisei-Yonsei, was born in Los Angeles and moved to Japan at age 12 with her Japanese father and Sansei mother. At the time that her family moved to Japan, Jane’s Japanese was minimal, even though she attended Saturday Japanese school in Los Angeles. She was enrolled in the American School in Tokyo, which was largely English-speaking. She then graduated from Sophia University and went to beauty college, after which she went into business.

Ms. Yamano is now fluent in speaking, but limited in reading and writing Japanese. She recognizes the restrictions placed upon women in Japan, but her position as head of a beauty college gives her more authority than usual for a woman. She is a Japanese citizen, having been registered by her father, and is also a U.S. citizen, holding passports from both countries. She has now lived in Japan for over 25 years. (September 3, 2003)