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

A stereotype of Japanese Americans

There’s a stereotype of the super-achiever. We just call them super-Japs. And in that way, Japanese Americans are very Japanese. I mean they’re very goal-oriented. They’re very achievement-oriented. They’re very society-oriented.

But, I always saw Japanese Americans as selling themselves out, especially Nikkei Sanseis. They sold themselves out to be white, to assimilate. That’s a very Japanese thing.

When I came to Japan—I wasn’t looking for it, but—that was the most striking thing is now I see genetically where some of my behavior patterns come from. The way I defer or the way I feel or the way I approach a situation—some of that stuff is very Japanese, and I couldn’t have grown up farther from being Japanese. Japanese Americans on the west coast at least have that association. But on the east coast, there was none of that association.

But, I guess I reacted as a kid because there was always the expectation that I would be the over-achiever. So actively pursued being an under-achiever, I suppose. I’ve thought about that a little bit, especially when I came out here and I started seeing some of my personality traits and some of the way I see things and seeing the similarities and the parallels. I’ve thought about that a lot.

Finding Home (film) Japanese Americans stereotypes

Date: September 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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