University Daliv Kansan / Mondav. December 10, 1990
9
Professor stretches stay in U.S.
One year turns to 20 to study languages of American Indians
By Tatsuya Shimizu
Kansan staff writer
Akira Yamamoto came to the United States to study English. He originally planned to stay one year, but his extended for more than 20 years.
Yamamoto, professor of anthropology and linguistics, taught English in a Japanese high school for three years before he came to the United States.
Yamamoto first studied at California State University in Long Beach, Calif., in spring 1966.
He decided to extend his stay to study more linguistics after he took an English class at the university.
"That opened up my eyes to not just English, but more about the relationships between languages, cultures and societies." Yamamoto said.
He transferred to Indiana University in Bloomington and pursued his interest in languages and cultures. He graduated to go back to Japan to teach English.
In his third year at Indiana, he took a linguistics course taught by an American Indian language specialist. The instructor used American Indian languages as examples in his course. He later retired by the languages, in which he found similarities with his native Japanese language.
"It was a kind of beginning of getting into American Indian languages." Yamamoto said.
Since then, his interest in American Indian languages has kept him in the United States for more than 20 years.
For about 10 years, Yamamoto has worked with other linguists and American Indians, such as Huaipai, Papago and Pima, to record their languages and develop teaching materials to teach those languages to American Indian youths. He said that American Indian language education had been discouraged and that many of the languages were diving.
Shirley Brown, Yamamoto's fellow trustee of Native American Language Issues Institute in Choctaw, Okla., said Yamamoto had endeared herself to preserve American Indian languages and them to Indian American youth.
The institute is the only organization available for American Indians and linguists to discuss American
Akira Yamamoto
Indian languages, she said.
Brown has been working with Yamamoto to develop teaching materials of Kickapo, one of the languages common in Oklahoma.
"He is well-accepted among Indian people." He said. "Kickapoo Indians just loved him. They jokingly call him a 'spiritual leader.' We feel like he is a part of their family."
Yamatoa has been active in trying to protect American Indian languages with legislation, she said. He was one of the trustees of the language institute who drafted the resolution that supported the legislation of the Native American Languages Act, which became law Oct. 30.
"It gives us rights for the first time in the history to use our own languages; to exercise rights to preserve the law and to protect their use." Brown said.
Yamamoto said he would stay in the United States because of his interest in American Indian languages.
Although Yamamoto has been in the United States for more than 20 years, he still retains Japanese citizenship.
"That's really exciting," he said. "I will not have that kind of excitement if I go back."
expanded to include Japanese culture in general.
He said he had discussed the matter with his wife, Fumiko Yamamoto, associate professor of East Asia at the University, and decided not to change citizenship.
"We have two worlds to live rather than one." he said.
"Until I came to the United States, I didn't pay too much attention to who I was and what Japanese culture might be." Yamamoto said. "When I started teaching us, we a while you begin to appreciate what you have, your own heritage."
Maintaining his Japanese citizenship will allow him to return to Japan someday. Yamamoto said.
Besides linguistics and anthropology, his interests have been
Yamamoto has been observing Japanese economic success from the United States. He is glad about its recent aggressiveness, he said
"In general, Japanese people still work with concentrating energy toward one goal," he said. "I think they are too aggressive."
Stephen Addiss, professor of art history, worked with Yamamoto to prepare exhibitions of Japanese art in 1980 and 1985. Next semester, he and Addiss will prepare for another Japanese art exhibition, "Humor in Japanese Arts," which they plan to display in 1993.
Yamamato hopes that he can foster mutual understanding between the United States and Japan by teaching him how to know about both countries, he said.
"He has a wide knowledge of different cultures around the world." Addiss said of Yamamoto. "He is able to combine the best parts of Japanese culture and the best parts of Western culture together."
Yamamoto becomes uncomfortable when Japanese companies become too aggressive to do their business. Japan criticizes Japan too much, he said.
"We don't know each other very well," he said.
Another thing that keeps Yamamoto in the United States is the atmosphere at U.S. universities, he said. Compared with Japanese universities, American professors and students in the United States, Yamamoto said.
Mary Howe, Lawrence graduate student, said that Yamamoto was good at making his classes interest-encouraging students to do something.
Yamamoto said, "I think it's very important for any students to be exposed to something new. We need to present it in an exciting way so that we don't kill the interest of students."
Howe took Yamamoto's linguistics class her junior year at KU, and now she is finishing her doctoral degree in linguistics.
"It was because of him that I went on to graduate school," she said. "He helped me to get something that I had not have tried to do without his help."
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