I teach in the Departments of Ethnic Studies and International and Area Studies (IAS) at the University of California, Berkeley. In Ethnic Studies, I have taught gender and generation issues among Asian American populations. In IAS, I have taught Introduction to Asian Studies and Special Topic Courses such as Immigration and Citizenship in Asia.
In my research, I have studied international labor migration in Asia. Most of my work has focused on immigrant communities in Japan, my native country, including those of Japanese-Brazilians, Nepalese and more recently Filipinas. I have also investigated feminization of labor migration and compared immigration policies and civil activism in Japan and South Korea. My latest publications include a co-edited book, Wind Over Water : Rethinking Migration in an East Asian Setting (2012: Berghahn Books).
During the last two summers (2014, 2015), in collaboration with Akita International University (AIU), I taught a special course, “Transnational Community and Immigrant Incorporation in Japan and the U.S.” It integrates Project-based Learning (PBL) method into teaching, enabling a class of ten selected AIU and Berkeley students to engage in the field studies in the Bay Area and Japan including Tokyo, Hamamatsu and Akita. The AIU-UCB PBL Course will be repeated this summer (2016).
This website also includes my Japanese Writings and my photographs. They are from my academic work, filed studies and recent photography workshops.
Thank you for your attention!