Highlight: Atsuko Suda

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Judy Wolf
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Beyond Assumptions: One Woman's Experience
of Living Abroad in the U.S.A.
by Judy Wolf

For our interview, Atsuko Suda directs me to a restaurant I might never have discovered on my own: a small, family-run establishment serving fresh and tasty Vietnamese food. We order bowls of a delicious cold noodle dish topped with vegetables, chopped egg roll, and a thin sweet-and-sour sauce. The notepad beside me soon becomes merely an excuse to ask questions of this observant and insightful woman as she shares her experience as a foreigner in my country.

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It wasn't until she was in university that she even thought of going abroad. According to Atsuko, it was, until that time, unusual for Japanese students to study overseas. "In my case, I was lucky," says Atsuko. "I went to a university that tried to send students overseas. It had lots of exchange programs."

Still she might never have considered travel were it not for the fact that the university had a strict mandatory English requirement in order to graduate. "My freshman year, I didn't speak English at all. I didn't like English very much," she recalls. That first semester, she couldn't understand anything spoken in her English class, not even the homework instructions.

In an attempt to improve her language skills, she joined a summer seminar in England that also included a tour through Europe. She and ten other Japanese students found themselves in an international group, all of them required to communicate in English. "We had to study. But even outside of class, we were practicing English just to hang out with people. It was exhausting, trying to communicate in a new language. Of course, if I got really tired, I could speak to the other Japanese students."

Her sophomore year, she went abroad again, this time to join a volunteer program near Munich, Germany. There she had her first experience with being excluded by language. Many of the participants spoke German together, despite a requirement that everyone speak English. "Because of that experience, I realized that to speak another language in front of people who don't speak it leaves them out completely. I was very lonely, very sad. My only friend on that trip was a two-year-old German girl. Our hearts went out to each other. She was shy at first, but then we found we could play all kinds of games together without speaking the same language. I learned from her that it's not a matter of language if you want to be friends with someone."

Having now traveled all over Europe and acquired some basic English, Atsuko decided to study in Illinois during her junior year. "It was so different than my image of the U.S.," she recalls. "At that time, I was very interested in sociology and women's studies. I had the impression that the U.S. was strongly into feminism and civil rights, so I assumed they wouldn't have any prejudice. But that was just my illusion. When I got here, people were talking about the same issues we were discussing in Japan."

While she didn't experience much direct prejudice during that first visit, when she later returned to the U.S. for graduate school in Tucson, followed by a language fellowship and then a visiting Japanese lecturer post at small liberal arts colleges in New England, she encountered individuals and events that made her wonder about the assumptions people make regarding one another.

One of her most blatant brushes with racism occurred when she called the Copper Queen Mine in Bisbee, Arizona to learn about taking a sightseeing tour. The man on the other end of the phone heard her pronunciation and said, "We're not open for you, Jap."

She thought at first she must have misunderstood. "The first thing I felt was scared, not angry. Just shocked. It wasn't until I talked with other Japanese people that I felt wronged. They were so angry, it gave me the right to be angry."

Over the course of her stay in the U.S., she would find that she was not alone in these experiences. A colleague in the Japanese department, a woman with two Masters degrees and excellent English, told Atsuko about the time she'd walked into a Dunkin' Donuts and asked for a bagel with cream cheese: the person behind the counter had taken one look at her face and refused to understand her. Atsuko's Costa Rican neighbor in a college-provided apartment building was afraid to call the police one night to tell them a drunk male was trying to break into her room. When Atsuko asked her why, she shared the fact that she was treated differently after people heard her speak and had been afraid that when the police heard her accent, they might give her trouble.

In her daily life, Atsuko developed an appreciation for subtle miscommunications and assumptions. With housemates and new friends, language barriers and cultural differences seemed easily confused with personality traits. Sometimes it was hard to untangle people's motivations and misunderstandings. Other times, communication itself was just plain frustrating.

She had a housemate whose mother was Puerto Rican, but who himself had grown up in New York City and never been outside the country. "Our idea of what was 'common sense' was different, but he believed that American common sense was everywhere in the world. 'Why don't you understand this?' he would say. 'Everyone knows this!' What made it worse was that he was an MBA student, so he was very good at arguing and of course was a native English speaker. Maybe I could have argued with him in Japanese, but not in English. He would treat me like I was a fool, so I lost all the power. "

Perhaps not surprisingly, she soon discovered that travel experience made a big difference in the outlooks of the Americans she met. "All the American people I met in Japan were very nice, but I realize now they're different by default because they've been elsewhere. Here, I find some people can't enjoy the differences between us. I have very many American friends, but most of them are ones who have been to different countries, or whose families come from abroad. They make the effort to understand me. They are free to appreciate and understand different cultures."

As her time as a foreigner in the U.S. lengthened, she began to see underlying similarities between what she and other foreigners experienced, and the slights and snubs she observed among her students. In one instance, a young woman who, along with her boyfriend, had a style of dress that made her stand out on campus as "punk" began taking Atsuko's Japanese class. "I had seen them on campus," says Atsuko. "I remember thinking 'Oh, they are expressing themselves very strongly.' Maybe I had a stereotype of them because of their appearance. I may have assumed she would be difficult to get to talk in class. But the opposite was true. She was very friendly and motivated, always wanting to involve other people in her activities. She was a very caring, the only person who asked me what I did for my spring break."

During a student comedy show that semester, participants made fun of the visible young punk couple, creating skits that showed them as an unfeeling stereotype. "It didn't reflect the truth at all," says Atsuko. "That 'comedy' wasn't comedy to them. They were shocked and hurt. But if they said anything, people would just respond, 'Oh, it's just comedy, you don't understand comedy.' I think that's exactly what people do around race: 'Oh, it's not serious.' But to us, it's not funny, it's not jokes. Why do you have to hurt people with jokes? Hurting weaker people, women, people of different races -- it's exactly the same thing as what those students did. It doesn't reflect the truth, but it's public and powerful."

Living in the U.S. has also raised her awareness of similar issues back home in Japan. "People everywhere make assumptions that are not so generous. If you came to Japan, they would treat you the same way. When you come to visit, when you are a guest, it is one thing, but if you tried to become part of the culture, people would not accept it. For instance, one American professor I know at a Japanese university finds that some people treat him too well, which is a power dynamic."

While Atsuko notes that it's getting better, the most visible prejudice in Japan is still against Korean and Chinese nationals who were living in Japan after World War II. They found themselves stuck in limbo when Japan returned the territories it had taken during the war. While they-and now their children-are seeking Japanese citizenship, Korean and Chinese nationals have no civil rights. Referring to the U.S.'s Civil Rights Movement, Atsuko says, "Black people here are American. Korean and Chinese people in Japan are afraid to participate in activities to demand civil rights because they are not even protected as citizens. Another difference," she observes, "is that in Japan, it is hard to tell. Especially the kids who have grown up in Japan. They wear the same clothes, the same make-up. If they've changed their surnames, there's no way to tell."

Her words echo the experiences of black people "passing" in the U.S. to get around the de facto discrimination still present in the culture, and point to a disturbing reality of efforts to define people based on race: "Once people know, though, then they change their attitudes."

Interestingly enough, Atsuko herself has now changed due to her time abroad. Her willingness to integrate new cultural experiences has created a few shifts in her perspective and self-expression that bring her occasional tinges of sadness. "In Japan, we don't hug. When I go home, that is one of the hardest things. Your hand reaches out...then turns into a wave. For me, the hardest thing I realized is I can never give a hug to my parents, my grandparents. I can think about it, but I can't express it."

She finds that she must shift between cultural expectations in areas as subtle as language and phrasing. "My way of speaking has changed," she says. "I'm more direct. In Japan, you're not supposed to express your opinion, especially rejection. After living in this country long enough, you get used to saying 'No, I don't think so.' If I slip and say that at home, everyone freezes."

When asked if it had been difficult to get used to this candor, she thinks for a moment. "My personality is very direct anyway, not very 'Japanese.' Especially when I'm speaking English, it's too difficult to speak indirectly, to talk around things like I would in Japan. But even so, sometimes it gets people frustrated here. For example, if I have to tell someone that I like them romantically, I become much more shy and indirect and use examples that would be obvious in Japan, but are vague and meaningless here!"

While Atsuko hasn't decided whether she'll be returning home to teach Japanese to study abroad students in her own country or pursuing opportunities to teach university students in the U.S., one thing is certain: her teaching will be complemented by her personal experience. "It's good to have compassion for what it means to be a foreigner, regardless of what country you're in," she says. "That's an important part of what I can share with my students." Regardless of which country she teaches in, she will undoubtedly impart not only what she has learned of other cultures, but also the example of her courage in exploring and integrating the significance of her experiences.

Do you have an interesting story to tell? Or know of an adventurous or inspiring tale lived by someone else? Let me know!

Copyright (c) 2002 Judy Wolf

About the Author:
Judy Wolf (www.judywolf.com) is a world traveler, freelance writer, speaker, and whitewater kayak instructor. She's taken numerous, extended solo journeys around the world, traveling by foot, bus, jeep, camel, truck, boat, train, plane, elephant, and bicycle to over 30 countries on five continents. She currently lives in upstate New York with her husband and border collie, where she's working on a book-length travel narrative about her most recent adventures…that is, when she's not plunging off waterfalls or entertaining the dog.

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