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Shizuyo Yoshitomi started a radio station to help immigrants</h1>
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<p>Ethnic minorities in Japan didn't have a reliable source of news in
their own languages – such as what to do if an earthquake strikes.</p></h2>
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<span id="authors" class="">
<span class="">By</span>
<span class=""><span itemprop="author">Takehiko Kambayashi</span>, Correspondent</span>
</span>
April 9, 2015 </h3>
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<div id="photo_credit-0" class="" itemprop="author"> <span class="">Takehiko Kambayashi</span></div> <div id="view_caption-0" class="">View Caption</div> </div>
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KOBE, JAPAN — </span>When Shizuyo Yoshitomi and her fellow volunteers
launched a community radio station in the western port city of Kobe, in
the aftermath of the devastation triggered by a major earthquake in
Japan 20 years ago, their key priority was to give a voice to the
voiceless.</p><p>The low-power FM station was established in one of the
hardest-hit areas two months after a magnitude-7.3 temblor. Both
volunteers and disaster victims lacked much-needed information following
the quake, which killed more than 6,400 people, Ms. Yoshitomi recalls.</p><p>Many immigrants and ethnic minorities, who had difficulty understanding Japanese, were especially worried.</p><div class="">
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</div><p>“We could only recognize the term ‘tsunami’ among the words
blaring out from a police car,” recalls Roxana Oshiro, who came to Japan
with her husband in 1991 from Peru. “We were shellshocked because we
did not understand Japanese and did not understand whether a tsunami
would hit the city or not. We wanted information in our language.”</p><div id="story-embed-column" class=""><div id="story-inset-0" class=""><div class="">
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</div></div></div><p>The new station broadcast in five
languages, including Vietnamese and Tagalog, a language widely spoken in
the Philippines, from a makeshift studio in the city’s Nagata district.</p><p>Yoshitomi, who’s fluent in Spanish, took charge of programs in that language.</p><p>Nagata
was home to a growing community of immigrants and ethnic minorities,
many of whom were working at shoe or rubber factories there.</p><p>Yoshitomi,
who then lived in another part of Kobe, arrived in Nagata two days
after the quake. She was shocked to see “completely burned-out ruins,”
she says.</p><div class="">
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</div><p>Her friend’s church had burned to ashes, and the site had
already been turned into a relief camp where injured residents were
receiving medical treatment. Volunteers were busily providing other aid
to those displaced by the quake.</p><p>Yoshitomi eagerly joined the other volunteers, mainly giving assistance to the non-Japanese residents.</p><p>Japanese
citizens such as Yoshitomi flocked to Kobe neighborhoods to engage in
volunteer activities at the same time as the government’s slow and
inefficient response began to irritate many.</p><p>Most Japanese then
were unfamiliar with the term “volunteer.” The concept of voluntarism
had rarely been promoted in the country before the quake.</p><p>“It
seems the meaning of the word ‘volunteer’ has changed ... since,”
Yoshitomi says. Instead of meaning that people were working for no pay
the word began to mean simply “voluntary behavior.”</p><p>Voluntarism is
now woven into the fabric of daily life in Japan. Today about 200
volunteers are involved in the radio station, known as FMYY, which
operates as a nonprofit organization and broadcasts in 10 languages. (YY
or “wai-wai” in Japanese means “buzz-buzz.”)</p><p>The work of FMYY is
valuable, Yoshitomi says. Vital information should be available in many
languages so that those who don’t speak Japanese can become more
involved in Japanese society. Their participation can provide fresh
perspectives that most Japanese may not be aware of, she says.</p><p>Her
argument comes at a time when some here are calling for Japan to accept
more immigrants as it confronts a declining birthrate and a rapidly
aging population.</p><p>A graduate of Kyoto University of Foreign
Studies, Yoshitomi had had few opportunities to speak Spanish outside of
work. However, big changes came after the Japanese government decided
in 1990 to grant special visas to Latin Americans of Japanese descent to
help address labor shortages. That prompted an influx of immigrants
from South American countries such as Brazil and Peru.</p><p>Yoshitomi,
then a staff member at the Honorary Consulate-General of Bolivia in
Kobe, was providing support to newly arrived immigrants, and she came to
appreciate the different values and perspectives they offered.</p><p>In
1995 the earthquake made the predicament of minority groups who don’t
speak Japanese more visible, leading many people in Kobe to finally
recognize the city’s ethnic diversity, Yoshitomi recalls.</p><p>“I
believe more people in Kobe became aware of the importance of diversity
and minorities’ views after the quake,” she says. “This is very valuable
to the city.”</p><p>Yoshitomi, who used to be a full-time homemaker, is
involved in a number of mission-driven organizations in addition to her
work at the FM radio station. She has established the nonprofit
Multilanguage Center FACIL, which provides translation services, and the
nonprofit World Kids Community, which supports education for minority
children.</p><p>“Ms. Yoshitomi was the only Spanish-speaker whenever I
came here to seek advice. So, I offered some help,” recalls Ms. Oshiro,
who has been in charge of the Spanish language program at FMYY since
2000. “She put trust in me and encouraged me to work for the radio”
project, says the mother of two children.</p><p>Oshiro also serves as
the editor of Latin-a, a Spanish language magazine. Working with
Yoshitomi “has been greatly beneficial to my child-rearing and our
children’s education,” says Oshiro, whose older son now goes to a
Japanese university.</p><p>Yoshitomi felt her groups’ activities weren’t
being properly recognized by Japan’s academic community. So she decided
to study for a PhD to provide a solid theoretical underpinning for her
work.</p><p>“I also thought I would be able to learn what I had been unaware of” after 10 years working in the nonprofit sector, she says.</p><p>Today
Yoshitomi, the mother of two grown children, has earned a doctoral
degree at Kyoto University, one of Japan’s top schools, and is an
associate professor at the Global Collaboration Center at Osaka
University.</p><p>“My life has changed tremendously since the quake [in 1995]. I had never imagined I would earn a PhD,” she says.</p><p>“It
was very difficult for her to complete her dissertation in only three
years with a long commute while doing her job,” says Yukio Adachi, a
professor emeritus at Kyoto University. “She inspired me as well as her
fellow graduate students.</p><p>“She already had a wealth of hands-on
experience, but she wanted to study theory. We then had very few
students like her. She presented a new model,” says Dr. Adachi, who now
teaches public policy at Kyoto Sangyo University.</p><p>In 2013,
Yoshitomi received an award from Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs for
her contribution to international cultural exchanges and the
introduction of Japanese culture to the world.</p><p>In 2011, after an
earthquake and tsunami struck northeastern Japan, Yoshitomi flew to the
region to support community radio stations there with help from the
international charity Oxfam.</p><p>She also helped establish Bayanihan
Kesennuma Radio in the city of Kesennuma, large parts of which were
destroyed in the 2011 quake. (Bayanihan means “mutual assistance” in
Tagalog.)</p><p>The radio program played a key role in helping the Filipino community after the disaster, she says.</p><p>To
those who don’t speak Japanese, “just listening to their native
language brings a sense of reassurance,” especially in a time of crisis,
Yoshitomi says. The station has contributed to strengthening the
Filipino community in the region and made it more visible, including
attracting the attention of national news media.</p><p>While some
Japanese still frown on the growing presence of other ethnic groups,
“Uplifting a minority community is very important,” Yoshitomi says. It
can “help make the entire society more resilient.”</p><a name="eztoc20057201_2" id="eztoc20057201_2"></a><h2>How to take action</h2><p><a href="http://www.universalgiving.org" target="_blank"><b>Universal Giving</b></a>
helps people give to and volunteer for top-performing charitable
organizations around the world. All the projects are vetted by Universal
Giving; 100 percent of each donation goes directly to the listed cause.</p><p>Below are links to three organizations that aid people in need:</p><p><b>• <a href="http://bit.ly/Yspaniola" target="_blank">Yspaniola Incorporated</a></b> supports high-quality education in marginalized communities. Take action: <a href="http://bit.ly/PurchaseBooks" target="_blank">Purchase three books for a learning center library.</a></p><p><b>• <a href="http://bit.ly/CongoDonate" target="_blank">Eastern Congo Initiative</a></b>
supports local groups that offer girls and women academic opportunities
that increase independence and employability. Take action: <a href="http://bit.ly/EasternCongo" target="_blank">Support access to education for girls in eastern Congo</a>.</p><p><b>• <a href="http://bit.ly/GlobeAware" target="_blank">Globe Aware</a></b> promotes cultural awareness and sustainability. Take action: <a href="http://bit.ly/SlumKids" target="_blank">Volunteer to fight poverty in India by working with children living in slums.</a><span id="end-of-story" class="" title="-30-"></span></p>
<br></div><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/2015/0409/Shizuyo-Yoshitomi-started-a-radio-station-to-help-immigrants">http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/2015/0409/Shizuyo-Yoshitomi-started-a-radio-station-to-help-immigrants</a><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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