Opening a Japanese Saturday school in a small town in the United States: Community collaboration to teach Japanese as a heritage language

Bilingual Research Journal, Fall 2000 by Shibata, Setsue

His worried and frustrated parents visited a Japanese woman to whom they were introduced by one of Mr. Tanaka's co-workers when they moved to the town. The Japanese woman, Mrs. Oda, had lived in the town for nearly 30 years and owned a small oriental grocery shop, which sold oriental food, crafts, china, and so forth. Mrs. Oda also taught Japanese crafts in the shop such as origami and doll-making. The shop was literally a salon for Japanese and Japanese American people in the community. Foreign students from Japan even dropped by the shop to seek communication with other Japanesespeaking people. Therefore, Mrs. Oda knew almost every Japanese and Japanese American in the town and in nearby towns. She was also very close to the officials of the General Consulate of Japan in New York City. An official from the General Consulate of Japan in New York flew semi-annually to the town in order to deal with passport renewal and other governmental services for Japanese people. The Tanakas' purpose of visiting Mrs. Oda was to find other Japanese families who were in a similar situation, and who were interested in teaching Japanese to their children. The Tanaka's visit turned the situation in the right direction. Mrs. Oda was very excited to hear the idea of teaching Japanese to their Japanese descendent children, since she herself had always thought about teaching Japanese to her daughters when they were schoolaged. She had not been successful due to lack of information and professional advice at that time. Listening to the Tanakas' situation and enthusiasm for teaching Japanese, Mrs. Oda suggested having a small meeting with other Japanese families to discuss teaching Japanese to their children together. There were four major Japanese companies in the proximity of the town. On Mrs. Oda's list, there were about 200 Japanese-speaking people in the area, including U.S. citizens, permanent U.S. residents, and people with temporary visas (i.e., exchange professors and scholars, businessmen, students, etc.). Mrs. Oda contacted all of the Japanese and Japanese American families that she knew had school-aged children. In response to her call, 15 families who were interested in teaching Japanese gathered together. Of these 15 families, six were Japanese families with temporary visas and nine were either permanent residents or U.S. citizens. Mrs. Oda and several elder Japanese who had lived in the town for years also attended to give advice. The families' backgrounds and situations varied, but an enthusiasm for teaching Japanese to their children was common to all. They all agreed to open a school to teach Japanese on Saturday mornings.

Opening of the Japanese Saturday School

The school could only be opened if there were students, teachers, and a place to teach. However, it was not easy to find a place that was appropriate for teaching. Eventually, a church that one of the Japanese families belonged to offered its facilities on Saturday mornings. Since Mrs. Oda knew several Japanese college students, finding teachers was not a major problem. Donations came from local Japanese companies, which helped in the initial preparation, including the purchase of a copy machine and teaching materials. All parents were assigned specific responsibilities. Mrs. Tanaka, who had graduated from: college in Japan with a teaching credential in math, was assigned as a coordinator, and took care of the curriculum and selection of textbooks, and served-as a mediator between parents and teachers. All of the parents were inexperienced in developing an organization, but they had to solve the problems that they encountered one by one. Almost every important decision was made by a vote from every family.