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Interviews

Vince Ota

Japanese American Creative designer living in Japan
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Never being Japanese

You’re never in, in Japan, because if you’re a foreigner… I know guys that their Japanese is flawless. They’ve gone to Japanese school at Waseda. One of my friends has been a professor there for 20 years, and his Japanese is impeccable. His written Japanese is better than most top businessmen. But, he’s still treated like a foreigner.

It’s just something that you realize and you get to know. Maybe some people don’t, and that’s why they get frustrated and that’s why they leave. But if you understand that about Japan, it’s very kind of a homogenous culture. The way that they deal with other people is they have system, and they have their ways of doing it. It’s changing a little bit, but you’re never going to be Japanese. You can never be Japanese. So I don’t even try.

Finding Home (film) foreigners gaijin Japan noncitizens

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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