��������

From Little Tokyo to Tokyo, Professor Linus Yamane and Pomona College Professor Sharon Goto have taken students on an immersive, cross-cultural journey this spring. Yamane and Goto’s class participated in the Tomodachi Inouye Scholars Program (TISP), a 10-day youth exchange program between American and Japanese university students.

Yamane and Goto are co-directors of TISP at The Claremont Colleges. They collaborated with Loyola Marymount University (LMU) to send 28 students as TISP participants to Sophia University in Japan in March. Then Sophia students visited Claremont to share about their culture with LMU students and 5C students in Yamane and Goto’s class, Trans-Pacific Japan: Love & Money.

According to the course catalogue, Trans-Pacific Japan: Love & Money is an “introduction to contemporary Japanese economy and culture and its diaspora, focused on the themes of love (interpersonal relationships) and money (economy), using the interdisciplinary lenses of Asian American studies, economics, and psychology.”

Yamane, Goto, and the TISP students saw these concepts in real time during their trip to Japan.

“We visited Minamisanriku, a seaside village devastated by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami,” said Yamane. “We learned about the resilience of this community and the construction of their new seawall.”

Students had a brief homestay with Japanese families in the Minamisanriku region. Then students met Japan’s Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Arfiya Eri, who spoke about how women and minorities contribute to Japan’s development and democracy. Sophia University students also showed Claremont Colleges and LMU students around Shibuya, a commercial center in Tokyo.

Marley Thomson ’27, a dual major in economics-finance and political science, was one of the students to visit Japan. The most formative experience for her was staying with her host family and seeing an unexpected aspect of the country.  

“When thinking of Japan, many people think of large cities such as Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto,” said Thomson. “Seeing the Japanese countryside was eye opening, especially since the area we were in was devastated by the 2011 tsunami.”

When Sophia students visited Claremont, they toured Pomona College’s Benton Museum of Art and enjoyed a trip to Dockweiler Beach. They also visited the site of Manzanar, one of ten camps where the U.S. incarcerated 120,000 Japanese Americans during WWII. 

Yamane expressed gratitude to LMU’s Professor Curtiss Rooks, Director of Asian Pacific Student Services Min-Jung Kim, and Tomodachi Inouye Scholars for their leadership and guidance through the program.

TISP is part of the Kakehashi Project organized by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and facilitated by the Japan International Cooperation Center, the U.S.-Japan Council, and the Laurasian Institution. The Kakehashi Project seeks to promote deeper mutual understanding among the people of Japan and the United States.

“All these organizations are working tirelessly to increase international education, international exchange, and international understanding,” said Yamane. “Given all the conflict in the world today, nothing could be more important.”