Kristen Sadakane, a fourth-generation Japanese American, does not celebrate many Japanese traditions or speak Japanese with her family. She said she has been Americanized – and people have pointed it out to her since she was a child.
It started in the second grade when her classmate, a second-generation Japanese American, told her, “You’re not Japanese.”
The words marked the first of many times Sadakane, a fourth-year Design | Media Arts student, realized there was a difference between “yonsei” – fourth-generation Japanese Americans – and “shin-nisei” – second-generation Japanese Americans.
The Nikkei Student Union’s 28th annual Cultural Night called “Mending the Chains” addressed disparities in culture and identity experienced by different generations of Japanese Americans. The event, held Monday evening in Royce Hall, commemorated the incarceration of about 110,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II.
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