Hear the voices

Kira grew up in Oregon with a Japanese mother and an American father, who also holds Jewish heritage. She did not grow up learning or speaking Japanese — one of the few words she knew was “mikan,” meaning tangerine in Japanese, which she later learned was a Japanese word.

She started learning Japanese in college, wishing she could speak with her mother in Japanese. After she spent a year in Osaka, Japan for study abroad, which not only significantly improved her Japanese skills with a Western Japanese accent, but also further let her explore her Japanese part of culture and identity. 

Now, she speaks in Japanese with her mother, even with the dialect. She says that she feels she can understand her mother even better now in Japanese, even though her mother can speak English well. 

As she navigates her identity, she now views both Japanese and American, and in addition, Jewish, as something that collectively forms who she is. 

Tomoko came to the U.S. when she was two years old with her family. Her father was already in the U.S. for his Fulbright scholar program. It was just going to be one year of staying in the U.S. as a family, as he had one year left in school. Now, Tomoko is reaching her 70s and is still in the U.S.

Her father had a strong passion that he did not want to be where other Asians were, so he chose Oklahoma.

 Tomoko has visited Japan very few times; especially in recent years, she has not visited. 

Maybe, because of how her father was, to avoid other Asians and Japanese communities at first, Tomoko found herself not engaging heavily with the Japanese community when she moved to Eugene. 

Although she was amazed by the Asian celebrations that the Asian community hosted, she did not take the initiative to take action to be part of the community.