CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE MIGRATION:
EDUCATIONAL STRATEGIES FOR TEACHING
JAPANESE
Spring Conference: Challenges and
Achievements in Community Language
Schools
-UCLAAki Yamada
New waves of Japanese Immigrants:
Shin –Issei, or “New-First Generation”
New Japanese began arriving during the post
WWII Japanese economic boom, and continue
to arrive today
Different types of Japanese immigrants come to the US for
varying purposes
It is not likely that they migrate to the West in search of
something “modern”
Examples of modern Japanese abroad: language and
academic study abroad, corporate sojourners,
international marriage, immigrant entrepreneurs, etc…
Living in a globalized era, what educational
strategies do new Japanese immigrant
parents utilize?
Do they raise their children transnationally and/or
bilingually?
What role do supplementary schools play for contemporary Japanese
parents?
How does globalization directly impact
education strategies?
Diversity of “Shin-Issei” sub-groups
Study
abroad,
Internation
al marriage
Different
educational
strategies
exist for each
subgroup
Private
busines
s
Profession
al workers,
sojourners
→Depending on their
status and purpose,
“Shin-Issei” immigrants
adjust their educational
strategies for their 2nd
generation children.
Definition of Japanese School
How do the
supplementary schools
differ?
Examples of Japanese
schools in LA (Diverse!!!)
• Different type (Curriculum/Purpose)
of Japanerse schools.
Large, centralized communities
are able to support special
educational institutions for both
sojourners and non-sojourners.
On-site
observation
of Japanese
language
schools
Oral-historical
interviews of
Japanese
parents
raising
children in the
United States
Conduct
survey
questionnaire
Interviews
with
Americanborn 2nd
generation
college
students
Two major education strategies
Sojourners (Kikoku gumi
帰国組)
• Japanese school on the
weekend
• Supplementary school
• Schools designed to
prepare students for the
Japanese education
system
• Japanese cram school
(Jyuku)
Non-sojourners (Eijyu
Gumi 永住組）
• Japanese school on
weekend (specific
campus)
• Standard American
public school
• Learn Japanese at
home
• Might not attend any
heritage language/
supplementary school
Japanese Parents’ expectations for
supplementary schools
• To serve as a center for fostering and sharing ethnic
•
•
•
•
•
values and identity
Acquiring language through the process of sociocultural
knowledge
Parents networking, information resources
Offer opportunity for Japanese ethnic group membership
Multi-dimensional role, not limited to language
Supplementary school has organized support and advice
regarding education (educational path, next stage of
education)
Outside supplementary school
-voices from Japanese parents• Not only sending their children to Japanese supplementary school,
but Japanese mothers played an extra role in teaching Japanese to
their children (ex: Japanese writing, mathematic solving questions,
essays)
• Watching Japanese children cartoons, movie in order to improve
listening skills
• Large amount of homework assignments
• Engaging their children with Japanese pop-culture, anime, cartoon,
comics book
• Some return to Japan during the summer in order to let their children
attend school in Japan
• Formal Japanese was hard for children to learn
• The majority of Shin-Issei immigrants want their children to
study Japanese in the supplementary school, regardless of
their status as sojourners or non-sojourners
• Language schools are not the only place to learn Japanese
language
• Japanese parents, regardless of their plans to return, see
transnationality as a valuable asset in the new global
economy
• Through interviews with Japanese mothers, expectations and
definitions of being bilingual were quite different