University Daily Kansan / Monday, 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
Kansan staff writer
Akira Yamamoto came to the United States to study English. He originally planned to stay one year, but his extensions 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 and went on 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 class, and Yamamoto was attracted to 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
Akira Yamamoto
Indian languages, she said.
Brown has been working with Yamatto to develop teaching materials of Kickapoo, one of the dialects in Indian languages common in Oklahoma.
"He is well-accepted among Indian people," she said. "Kickapoo Indians just loved him. They jokingly call him 'The Big Bad.' We feel like he is a part of their family."
Yamamoto 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 right to preserve the truth and to protect their use." Brown said.
Vamamoto said he would stay in the United States because of his interest in American Indian languages.
expanded to include Japanese culture in general.
"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 you come to Japan after a while you begin to appreciate you have, your own heritage."
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.
"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 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."
Yamamoto becomes uncomfortable when Japanese companies become too aggressive to do their jobs. But the Japanese critics汀太 much he said.
"We don't know each other very well," he said.
Yamamoto hopes that he can foster mutual understanding between the United States and Japan by teaching them about knows both countries, he said.
Another thing that keeps Yamamoto in the United States is the atmosphere at U.S. universities, he said. Compared with Japanese universities, it is less common for students between professors and administrators of the United States, Yamamoto said.
Mary Howe, Lawrence graduate
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FALL FINALE
Students get credit during break with internships
weeks to earn two hours of credit.
More than 100 students from the School of Journalism will be interning in 17 states over the winter vacation, said Dana Leibengood, associate dean of journalism. Students from the news, magazine, public relations, advertising, radio/TV/film and photography sequences in the school have been awarded internships.
or most students, winter break means forgetting about school, credits and work. But some University of Kansas students will be working two 40-hour hours of credit.
Mindy Morris, Overland Park senior and advertising major, said she was looking forward to her internship with the company of Hickerson, Phelps, Kirtley and Associates in Kansas City. She will be working in the account services department for the company, whose accounts include Kansas City Power and Light, Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Bandag, a tire retread company.
Morris said that the internship came about after she contacted the company for an internship for last summer.
"In March, I sent out resumes and got turned down," she said. "Then on the last day of classes, I got this call, and it was
from them. They said that they had received my resume about a million years ago and asked if I had anything set up for the summer."
'They have a choice of working 40 hours for two hours of academic credit or working 40 hours for minimum wage.'
"I've had so much experience here," Morris said of KU. "I'm used to 60 hours a week."
By that time, Morris had an internship, but told the company she would be available over winter break. She said the prospect of working for a professional company did not frighten her.
by Jonathan Plummer
an internship, a student had to be in the School of Journalism, have at least a 2.5
Tom Hedrick, a journalism instructor in the radio/TV/film sequence, said that to qualify for
grade point average and have taken one course in the curriculum of his or her internship. The students have the option of working for academic credit or a salary, but Hedrick estimated that 99 percent of the students chose credit.
"They have a choice of working 40 hours for two hours of academic credit or working 40 hours for minimum wage," he said. "So frankly, I think they do it for academic credit."
Students who participate in internships for academic credit are required to write a brief paper summarizing their experience and what they learned.
Leibengood said that because of the slumping economy, it was harder for students to find internships.
"When the economy is bad, it even hurts the ones looking for academic credit," he said. "Because their staffs are smaller, they don't have somebody who can supervise an intern."
Leibengood said students would be working in Kansas, Missouri, Colorado,
Illinois, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, Hawaii,
Pennsylvania, California, Florida, Iowa ,
Michigan, Connecticut, Mississippi, New
New York and Massachusetts.
FALL FINALE
December 10, 1990
14