Interviews

1. Grandmother's influence on decision to go to Japan

2. Band-Aid realization

3. Japanese influence growing up

4. Looking at your country from the outside

5. Buddhism in America and Japan

6. Wife's family in Japan

Robert (Bob) Kiyoshi Okasaki

(b.1942) Japanese American ceramist, who has lived in Japan for over 30 years.

Wife's family in Japan

Because I have no family here—I’m here by myself—I have more interaction with her family because they’re the closest relatives. And so most of my time, family time, is spent with them. What surprised, I think, everyone is that the grandparents, the grandmother especially—you would think being old Japan and they would be very against marrying a foreigner—but the grandmother was probably the most supportive. Even though they're her family, I feel like they’re my family here also because I’m the only one here. I don’t feel like I’m isolated or a foreigner here. I don’t know if I’ll be here forever in Japan even though I built this place. But like I say, you make your life where you are, and you make it the best as possible.

families Finding Home (film) identity Japan

Date: Nov 28, 2003

Location: Saga, Japan

Interviewer: Art Nomura

Contributed by: Art Nomura, Finding Home.

Interviewee Bio

Robert Kiyoshi Okasaki, 61-year-old Yonsei (on his mother’s side) was born in French Camp, California, in 1942, just before his family was incarcerated during World War II at the Rowher concentration camp in Arkansas. After the war, Bob’s family lived in Stockton and later in Lodi, California, where his family had a vineyard.

Bob attended San Jose State College, eventually concentrating on pottery. Through the Study Abroad program, Bob became an apprentice to a potter, a Living National Treasure, in Japan where tableware is considered an art.

When Bob journeyed to Japan, he felt American, but now when comes home to the U.S., he does not feel American. He’s been married since 1975 to a Japanese woman and their first child was born in 1985. When he first arrived in Japan, recalls Bob, Japanese nationals treated him sometimes like “he was not all there” because of his lack of Japanese language. His relationship with his wife’s family has changed from an original relationship of caution to one of comfort, to the point where he now feels that her family is his family.(November 28, 2003)

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