Interviews

1. Little contact with Asians growing up on the east coast

2. Spending summers in Los Angeles

3. Japanese Americans brought up to deny their roots

4. Being multicultural before it was “in”

5. Moving to and living in Japan

6. The reason to stay in Japan after his third year

7. Being a Japanese American in Japan

8. Never being Japanese

9. Japan as my home

10. Different tension between East Coast and Los Angeles

11. A stereotype of Japanese Americans

12. Main differences between Japanese and Japanese Americans

Vince Ota

Japanese American Creative designer living in Japan

Japanese Americans brought up to deny their roots

I have this kind of underline riff that I believe almost all Japanese Americans are brought up to deny their roots, their Japanese roots. It became very, very clear for me. That became very, very clear to me when I came out here. We would celebrate Oshogatsu, but we would still just call it New Year’s. My mom would just put out a big spread. My uncle, her older brother, was actually in D.C. at the time as well. So in terms of Japanese traditions, we got together with the family and we had sushi there. That’s about as Japanese as it gets there.

Finding Home (film) identity New Year Oshogatsu

Date: Sep 12, 2003

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Interviewer: Art Nomura

Contributed by: Art Nomura, Finding Home.

Interviewee Bio

Vince Ota, (Sansei on his mother’s side, Yonsei on his father’s), was born in New Hampshire. From there, he and his family lived in several cities throughout the United States and also lived in London before finally settling in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Growing up in a small town in Maryland, Vince did not have much contact with other Asian Americans, except during the summers he spent in Los Angeles with relatives. He describes his upbringing as “pretty White American.” Vince eventually moved to southern California where he attended community college and the California Institute of the Arts. He worked as a creative designer and lived in Los Angeles for seven years until moving to Japan. Vince has lived in Japan since 1996 and plans to stay. At the time of the interview, he was working as a creative designer. (September 12, 2003)

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