Aso Takashi (Professor, Ph.D.)
Seminar on Culture:
Prof. Aso's Seminar (SILS)
Office: Waseda Campus Bldg #11
Learning Race and Ethnicity
Do you know when interracial marriages were finally allowed in the state of Alabama? It was the year 2000, with two fifth of the Alabama voters still against intermarriages. Until then, people in Alabama had to go to another state in order to outmarry someone. We usually believe that the Civil Rights Movement liberated minority people and that America is a most ideal place where people of different races and ethnicities would meet. But, actually, race problems are deeply rooted in American society even today.
This seminar focuses on problems of race and ethnicity in American society, especially those of interracial marriages in Spring 2010. In the class, students read and make presentations on assigned texts---articles, essays, and books written mostly in English. After presentations, we continue with hot debates and lively discussions. What characterizes the Studies of International Liberal Studies (SILS) is that classes are conducted in English.
Prof. Aso: "Our students are very good at English when entering the school; English helps us in so many ways in our globalized society. Since we have a number of international students and returnees at SILS, I am sure that you will experience intercultural interactions on campus if you join us."
Presentation: Social norms for interracial marriages in America from 1800s to early 1900s.
All Japanese students at SILS are asked to take an overseas program for one year-usually starting in the fall in the second year. After coming home, students would join advanced seminars. Shogo Masuda, seminar facilitator and senior, had come to be interested in racial problems when he was in the United States: he happened to know that an African American professor at Harvard University had been arrested on false charges. Back in Japan, while our society is very different from America, he finds that we may have similar problems in Japan where most people believe that we are mono-racial and, therefore, that we do not have race problems. As members of society, we should always think about people of different races and people of different ethnic groups.
Cross-cultural Communication and Intercultural Understanding
Sang-yeon Park is an international student from Korea: she was strongly recommended by her mother--who had previously been in Japan--to enter SILS: "I find other students are very friendly, and I feel relaxed on campus. Prof. Aso gives us good feedbacks on our presentations, through which I have learned so much."
Hung Goo Guk, also from Korea, had studied Japanese as a second language before coming to Japan. While he wished to master the language upon entering SILS, he found that Prof. Aso's seminar would be an ideal place for him to learn American race problems. Scheduled to finish SILS soon, Guk is now looking forward to going to a graduate school in France this coming fall.
In SILS, students are offered a variety of courses, and they are expected to create their own curriculum, as they take those courses freely. They can choose an area of their study with an eye on their own future. "University is where you can be, or actually should be, independent. Otherwise you will never learn anything," says Yuri Hasegawa, whose experiences in SILS have helped her broaden her views.
Having taken advantage of their international experiences respectively, students in this seminar will work for international corporations or step up to graduate schools. In both cases, they are ready to explore the world further and try to construct human networks globally.
Sang-yeon Park (Korean)
Hung Goo Guk (Korean)
Prof. Aso loves to play the guitar. He has just started learning the ukulele recently. In our interview, he took out his precious ukulele from the locker. His favorite genre, however, is hard rock. Wow! He wishes to play Van Halen songs for SILS teachers and students someday.
About the Seminar
In our seminar, we are working on problems of race and ethnicity in American society. We are very interested in the way in which American society has been constructed as a place where people of different races and different ethnicities meet.
For high school students seeking further education, I would recommend that they learn another language or two---not only English, but French, German, Spanish, Chinese, or whatever. Learning another language would not only widen our perspective but also help us communicate with people with different cultural backgrounds. This would certainly lead us to a number of experiences.
Aso Takashi (Professor, Ph.D.)
There is a number of international students in SILS. It's appealing to get to know students with very different backgrounds. Also, you can take advanced English classes, if you still wish to develop your English skills. Students can help each other in so many ways at SILS. Join us!
Shogo Masuda, a senior
I had never been abroad before. So I came to SILS where English is a common language. I have made every possible effort to be successful. So I believe that you can also make it!!
Yuri Hasegawa, a senior
Book
Lan Cao, Monkey Bridge. Trans. Takashi Aso. Tokyo: Sairyusha, 2009.
Lan Cao's Monkey Bridge is a story of a Vietnamese girl who moved to America with her mother because of the Vietnam war. I happened to read this book about ten years ago, and I was pretty impressed with the ways in which Cao describes the young Vietnamese immigrant's hardships and positive attitudes in American society. You will learn that Vietnamese Americans are still strongly influenced by the Vietnam War.
Films
Steven Spielberg, Amistad
Scott Hicks, Snow Falling on Cedars
Spielberg's Amistad is a story of African Slaves wrongly brought to the United States in the early nineteenth century. Though slavery was an accepted system in America at that time,many people including a prominent politician John Adams worked hard to abolish slavery. The film is a good example of how America faced and handled the problem of slavery.
Snow Falling on Cedars describes Japanese Americans' hardships even after World War II. During the war, the American government ordered all the Japanese Americans to move to what they called "relocation centers," which were actually "concentration camps." Even after the war, people of Japanese descent were discriminated in American society in one way or another. The film dramatizes both sufferings and hard struggles of Japanese Americans in the 1950s.