Jane H. Yamashiro

Jane H. Yamashiro is an independent scholar based in Berkeley, California, specializing in sociology, Asian American studies, and Asian studies. She is a graduate of UC San Diego (B.A.) and the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa (M.A., Ph.D.) and has previously been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Tokyo, Sophia University, USC, and UCLA. She is the author of Redefining Japaneseness: Japanese Americans in the Ancestral Homeland, forthcoming January 2017 with Rutgers University Press.

Updated October 2016

Stories from This Author

Nikkei Heritage

The Evolving Japanese American Identity - Part 2

Oct. 19, 2016 • Jane H. Yamashiro

Read Part 1 >> Connected to Japanese Society and Culture Many Shin-Nisei (children of post war Japanese immigrants) on the U.S. continent do not identify with being Japanese American because to them it suggests a history of incarceration and cultural distance from Japan. For those whose parents came from Japan after World War II, their family history of the war was from the Japan side, not the U.S. side. Rather than experiencing incarceration, close relatives may have experienced the atomic …

communities diversity hapa identity Japanese Americans migration race racially mixed people

Nikkei Heritage

The Evolving Japanese American Identity - Part 1

Oct. 18, 2016 • Jane H. Yamashiro

Slideshow above: The few remaining urban enclaves of Japanese American culture and identity. Have you ever thought about what it means to identify as Japanese American? Why do some people use the term ”Nikkei American” instead of “Japanese American”? Over the past 60 years, Nikkei American demographics have been changing significantly. These changes include low immigration rates from Japan (leading to a decreasing Nikkei American population relative to the rest of the Asian American population), an aging population, an increase …