Interviews

1. Little contact with Asians growing up on the east coast

2. Spending summers in Los Angeles

3. Japanese Americans brought up to deny their roots

4. Being multicultural before it was “in”

5. Moving to and living in Japan

6. The reason to stay in Japan after his third year

7. Being a Japanese American in Japan

8. Never being Japanese

9. Japan as my home

10. Different tension between East Coast and Los Angeles

11. A stereotype of Japanese Americans

12. Main differences between Japanese and Japanese Americans

Vince Ota

Japanese American Creative designer living in Japan

The reason to stay in Japan after his third year

Now, the reason I decided to stay after my third year is because, like you said, it was cumulative. I had been out here for a while, but there was work opportunities out here. I found that I wasn’t very attracted to the idea of going back to the States and trying to jump back into my career again. It’s easier to start something new out here. At that time, there were a lot of opportunities for foreign expats. So that was part of it. The other part of it is that I’ve grown kind of a distaste of America at this point. It had started a long time ago, even before I had left—just being in Los Angeles and seeing a lot of political hypocrisy and stuff. Having been in Japan and being able to see the first Iraq war, the first Gulf war, from an outside perspective, that just sold me on that fact that it’s not a place that I want to be anymore.

Finding Home (film) immigration Japan migration

Date: September 12, 2003

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Interviewer: Art Nomura

Contributed by: Art Nomura, Finding Home.

Interviewee Bio

Vince Ota, (Sansei on his mother’s side, Yonsei on his father’s), was born in New Hampshire. From there, he and his family lived in several cities throughout the United States and also lived in London before finally settling in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Growing up in a small town in Maryland, Vince did not have much contact with other Asian Americans, except during the summers he spent in Los Angeles with relatives. He describes his upbringing as “pretty White American.” Vince eventually moved to southern California where he attended community college and the California Institute of the Arts. He worked as a creative designer and lived in Los Angeles for seven years until moving to Japan. Vince has lived in Japan since 1996 and plans to stay. At the time of the interview, he was working as a creative designer. (September 12, 2003)