My research examines the race and identity formation of Japanese American multiracial people born following World War II during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s and coming of age during the 1960s and 1970s. Immediately following the war, many multiracial American Japanese sired by the U.S. military were left behind in Japan. Numerous hapas were adopted into American and European families, others were adopted into Japanese families. At the same time, many grew up with their biological families in the U.S. and in Japan observing interracial marriages and their interracial families firsthand. Quite a few came to the U.S. on their own as adults. My objective is to gather oral histories from the mixed race people of this generation and combine it with archival sources to provide a more complete social history about multiracial people during the post-war period. Stemming from this research include issues of race and ethnicity, identity, immigration, transnational adoption, and interracial marriage.
Current Position:
Curator of History at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles
"Advantage Through Crisis: Multiracial American Japanese in Post-World War II Japan, Okinawa, and the U.S. 1945-1972"Paul SpickardLuke Roberts
G. Reginald Daniel
Randy Bergstrom