Meet the Speakers of Mixed Multitudes: A Discussion about Identity in the US-Japan Community

We are excited to highlight the speakers of Mixed Multitudes: A Discussion about Identity in the US-Japan Community! This is the second webinar in our 2021 series, J-Talks: Strengthening Ties Through Dialogue, which is centered around the themes of identity, cultural understanding and leadership, as experienced by JET alumni and individuals with meaningful connections to Japan.

Mixed Multitudes (Thursday, February 18th from 7pm-8:45pm CST) will aim to cultivate connections between the U.S. and Japan by bringing together multiracial Japanese American/Nikkei speakers to explore their different experiences and help the attendees understand and navigate the concept of mixed race identity in both the U.S. and Japan.

RSVP required via Guestlist: Sign up here

Space is limited, register today!

SPEAKERS

Dr. Mitzi Uehara Carter (she/her)

Mitzi (she/her) is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Anthropology and East Asian Studies and is the Director of Global Indigenous Forum at Florida International University in Miami, FL. She served as a Fellow with the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in Okinawa Japan (2011-12) at the University of the Ryukyus. She researches ethnographic methodology of militarization in Okinawa and transnational understandings of Blackness and race in Japan.

She is working on her first book which will trace her mother’s journey from war torn Okinawa to a racially segregated US South as a lens for capturing Black Okinawan life (and afterlives) in the “Black Pacific." Carter received her B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Duke University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from UC Berkeley.

Joan Ambo (she/her)

Joan (she/her) is the Manager of Programs & Special Events who works to build community through programs and events at JASC (Japanese American Service Committee).

Joan believes in the importance of coming together, and that a community is sustained through its ability to be flexible and open. Joan holds a BFA from UIC and is an American Montessori Society certified Montessori Teacher.

Cori Nakamura Lin (she/her)

Cori (she/her) is a Midwest-based Taiwanese/Japanese illustrator who specializes in portraiture, food illustration, and culture-centered storytelling. In 2018 In 2018 she illustrated the first Midwestern Lao-American children's book, When Everything Was Everything, by poet Saymoukda Vongsay. Her work has been featured in the LA Times, Eater Chicago, WBEZ Chicago, and in numerous grassroots campaigns in Chicago and Minneapolis.

She is a member of Nikkei Uprising in Chicago with whom she organizes for the collective liberation of all people. She is the recipient of the Minnesota State Arts Board 2019 Cultural Community Partnership Grant, the Minnesota Regional Arts Council 2019 Community Arts Grant, 2018 Jerome Emerging Artist Tofte Lake Residency, and the CURA Artist Neighborhood Partnership Grant 2017-2018.

Jason Mattox (he/him)

Jason (he/him) is a Sansei Afro-Asian community person, waterfront Chicago native, tutor, first responder, and technician.

Jason is active in advocacy work as a Core Leader of the group A JUST CHI in Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Chicago. He is known for leading justice reform and action towards police accountability with organizations including Black Lives Matter Chicago. Jason has organized educational community defense programming, and also does work around Afro-Asian relations, and Asian anti-blackness in Chicago. Jason’s interests include international political economy, Afro-Asian relations, cultural studies, and the Black eastern diaspora.

Vinicius Taguchi (he/him)

Vinicius (he/him) is a shin-sansei with respect to when his grandfather moved from Sapporo, Japan to Brazil, but he is a shin-issei with respect to when he and his parents immigrated to North Carolina in 1996. Vinicius participated in the Kakehashi Project in 2015 and now serves on the executive board of the Twin Cities Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) chapter in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Recently, he organized and facilitated a series of virtual workshops challenging anti-Blackness in Japanese American communities, and is now broadening his chapter's collaborations with other community groups. Vinicius is also currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at the University of Minnesota where he studies Stormwater Management and Green Infrastructure. Through his research, Vinicius is working to ensure that environmentally-friendly cities are also socially sustainable by partnering with community organizations to prevent green gentrification.

MODERATOR

Lara (Zara) Espinoza (she/they)

Zara (she/they) is celebrating over a decade of active leadership and service to the Japan Exchange & Teaching (JET) Program community, which includes eight years working with the Consulate-General of Japan as an Officer in the JETAA Chicago. Zara spearheads strategic people initiatives in US-Japan space and has partnered with JETAA USA, Black Lives Matter Kansai, Tsuru for Solidarity, and is active in the nikkei LGBTQ+ community, Okaeri.

As a multicultural Wonder Woman, 'Japorexican', and JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion) Strategist, Zara is a known thought leader with her/their holistic approach to human resources that specializes in equitable design to guide systemic change in a variety of organizations, including Black Tech Jobs, Latinas in Tech, Built In, General Assembly, Ladies Get Paid, Blacks Excelling in Sales & Tech (BEST), LGBT Chamber of Commerce, Design Week PDX, Flatiron School, and University of Michigan. Zara has been recognized as a changemaker in the LGBTQ+ tech community as she/they were the first female non-binary person in the Chicago Leadership Team of the global LGBTQ+ technology non-profit Out in Tech.

RSVP required via Guestlist: Sign up here!

Follow our social media channels - Facebook & Instagram @jetaachicago for updates

This event is open to the public, including our fellow JET Alumni and our Friends of JET (FOJ). Thank you to the generous support of USJETAA and the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA for sponsoring the first two webinars of the 2021 J-Talks: Strengthening Ties Through Dialogue, centered around the themes of identity, cultural understanding and leadership, as experienced by JET alumni and individuals with meaningful connections to Japan.

Questions? Contact us at info@jetaachicago.com

J-Talks: Mixed Multitudes Webinar - Official Poster Release

We are proud to debut our official poster of Mixed Multitudes: A Discussion about Identity in the US-Japan Community! This is the second webinar in our 2021 series, J-Talks: Strengthening Ties Through Dialogue, which is centered around the themes of identity, cultural understanding and leadership, as experienced by JET alumni and individuals with meaningful connections to Japan.

RSVP Required via Guestlist

Mixed Multitudes (Thursday, February 18th from 7pm-8:45pm CST) will aim to cultivate connections between the U.S. and Japan by bringing together multiracial Japanese American/Nikkei speakers to explore their different experiences and help the attendees understand and navigate the concept of mixed race identity in both the U.S. and Japan.

The webinar will have into two distinct parts, a presentation by Dr. Mitzi Uehara Carter that contextualize the discussion of multiracial identities. Using intersectionality as a framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social categorizations enable different modes of discrimination and privilege, concepts foundational to the discussion will be introduced, including an overview of hafu in Japan and nikkei in the U.S. Then there will be a panel discussion that will cover topics such as how the multicultural identities in the speakers' backgrounds affected their experiences in Japan and inform their relationships with the U.S.-Japan community, along with how different aspects of their identities impact cross-cultural relationships and understanding between Japan and the U.S.

The speakers are leaders, activists and educators with deep connections to Japan who have worked with and are advocating for justice, equity, diversity and inclusion in organizations like Global Indigenous Forum, Twin Cities Japanese American Citizens League, Nikkei Uprising Chicago, Japanese American Service Committee, Out in Tech, Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Chicago and Black Lives Matter Chicago.

RSVP required via Guestlist: Sign up here!

Please keep checking this Guestlist event page and follow our social media channels (Facebook & Instagram @jetaachicago) for updates and speaker bios to come!

This event is open to the public, including our fellow JET Alumni and our Friends of JET (FOJ). Thank you to the generous support of USJETAA and the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA for sponsoring the first two webinars of the 2021 J-Talks: Strengthening Ties Through Dialogue, centered around the themes of identity, cultural understanding and leadership, as experienced by JET alumni and individuals with meaningful connections to Japan.

Questions? Contact us at info@jetaachicago.com

Get to Know Our Officers - Featuring Our Activities Coordinator, Cassie Conrad!

JETAA Chicago officer elections are coming up on March 1st! In light of this, we wanted to take the time to shine a spotlight on our current officers (election term from November 2019 - March 2021) in order to get to know the people behind the headshots, and to learn more about what they do in their roles as officers. This will be an 8 part "Get to Know Our Officers" series in which we will highlight each officer leading up to the elections and come to know their motivations, values and legacy.

Last week we introduced our Outreach Coordinator, Dylan Coffey. Next we would like to introduce our Activities Coordinator, Cassie Conrad (she/her), who was an ALT in Miyazaki Prefecture from 2013-2018!

Tell us more about your JET experience.

I never "went away" to college, and had not traveled much before going on JET, so for me my experience was full of so many things I had never done. Swimming in the ocean, climbing mountains, kayaking, ice skating... and ALL the traveling! I think the most important experiences for me were meeting people from all over the world, though. They're some of the best friends I've made.

When did you join/how long have you been on the JETAA Board? What positions have you held?

Activities Coordinator since November 2019

What inspired you to step up as a leader and join the JETAA Chicago Board?

While on JET I was a member of our local AJET board for four years, and was president for two of them. I really enjoyed planning events and other activities with my teammates. Miyazaki Prefecture is geographically long, taking 5 hours to get from one end to the other. But we were able to coordinate events and activities all over the prefecture so that everyone felt seen and connected.

When I returned to the US, I really missed that sense of community. I wanted to connect with people who could understand my life and experiences in Japan, so I turned to JETAA Chicago. However, there wasn't a lot going on events-wise, and most of those that did happen were often difficult for me to take part in due to location.

When I saw there was an opening for the Activities Coordinator, I volunteered to step in. I'd enjoyed planning events in Miyazaki AJET, and had been successful in bringing together people from all over so I hoped I could do the same thing for JETAA Chicago. It is a significantly larger geographical area, so it's been a bit of a challenge! But I think the virtual events have helped out a lot with that goal.

Describe your officer duties and what you have enjoyed about said duties.

As the Activities Coordinator, I don't necessarily plan every single event that happens. I oversee the planning process for each event and make sure it stays on track. I prepare the timelines and communications outlines for each event, and make sure that the various forms of communication and marketing are sent out on schedule.

While I've have a hand in most of the events and activities we've done this past year, the ones where I have also acted as planner and host for were the trivia and craft nights. As someone who has a hard time stepping in to other people's conversations and needs something to *do* at an event, I wanted to try something different from the virtual happy hours we started off with. The trivia events became a big hit, so I'm really glad I pushed for them!

What could be a healthy and/or needed culture add to JETAA Chicago?

While we have reached much more of our community this year through virtual events, I think we still need to work on specific subchapter engagement initiatives. At the moment, even though the main JETAA Chicago events have been promoted to the subchapters, we don't really know much of what the subchapters are doing at all. I'd love to see the subchapter leaders be more involved with the main Board, and vice-versa.

What is one highlight, accomplishment, and/or something you're proud to have been a part of during your time serving as an officer?

I think launching virtual events has really helped us inspire more activity from our community. I do eagerly wait for the time when we can do in-person events again, but I'm very happy with how much engagement we have gotten this year!

For you, what sparks joy?

- My cats (also any cats, but especially mine)

- When students *get it* for the first time

- Laying outside in a warm breeze (preferably by the ocean, but this *is* the Midwest)

- Hosting dinners and parties

- I guess Kyle (my fiancé) does, too XD

What is your favorite Japanese "thing" near where you live now (and/or in the Midwest)?

There is a small sushi restaurant which I have visited for many years now (since before JET). I visited there so much that the owner recognizes me and will often serve extra dishes. It's very omotenashi, and makes me remember all the times I experienced Japanese hospitality while I was in Japan. Also Mitsuwa and Tensuke!

Connect with Cassie via LinkedIn or Facebook!