My story… 

When I was growing up in Tokyo, my family stuck out.  My oldest sister had red hair and freckles, and would come home crying because the other kids kicked her out of the sandbox at the park.  It was easier for me and my brother – we could always fight, and we were often bigger than the other kids.  People would point at us on the street, and call us “gaijin” (foreigner), usually with bald curiosity, but sometimes with less innocent undertones.  Even now, well into my forties, a conscientious airport employee generally points me to the line for foreigners when I arrive “back home”.  Tired of this, I make a point of holding my passport out in plain view. 

Please don’t get me wrong.  My mix was the “good” kind – my mom is a WASP from a quaint New England town, and my Dad, while a commoner, studied at the Peers School, where his classmates were members of the Imperial family.  Our homes were featured in the Japanese version of Architectural Digest, my Dad was the first non-white person to head up a country for American Express, and my Mom was frequently on TV and in magazines and is now a pretty renowned expert on Japanese craft.  As far as “hafus” (half-bloods) go, we had it easy.  But it hurt a bit, too.  The incessant reminders of being different took a toll, and I developed a chip on my shoulder of not being Japanese enough, which still bothers me today.

Going to college in America wasn’t what I expected from esteemed sources like John Belushi.  First, there were no drunken parties with wet t-shirt contests, which I felt was a serious ripoff.  And while I was lucky enough to follow my father to Harvard, I was disappointed at how inward looking and elitist it felt to me.  Foreign students had to conform to the American way to fit in, which of course I had no interest in doing.  So I took every opportunity I had to point out the failings, the lies, and the hypocrisy of the “greatest country in the world”.  My poor roommates, who patiently tried to hear me out, simply couldn’t understand why I wasn’t happy I had “made it to America.”

The first time I went to Africa to live, I was taking my junior year off from college.  I had spent half a year studying Spanish and being the world’s worst waiter in Madrid.  For the second half, I’d set up a program to study abroad at the University of Cape Town.  For a political science major, there was no more interesting place to be than South Africa, which was facing either racial civil war, or the birth of the Rainbow Nation, with Nelson Mandela as its first black President. 

I was an angry young man and my goal was pretty dark.  I’d been disgusted to see the prevailing scourge of racism and injustice in the Land of the Free, and as a child of imbalance and privilege, I felt that I had an obligation to educate myself more deeply.  What better place to learn the horrors of racism than Apartheid South Africa? 

At first, it was a shock, and I had my share of panic attacks and fits of indignation.  But soon, I came to admire the people of this beautiful but pained country, who refused to give up their dignity and humanity in the face of the worst that we humans are capable of.  After going back to Boston for a year to secure my Harvard degree, I called my father and told him I was going back.  I explained that I had much more to learn from South Africans, that I did from staying in America or going home to Japan.  I went back to UCT for my final semester and to study under the Rev. Frank Chikane, a legendary anti-Apartheid activist and later Director General of the Presidency. 

And so, what was initially supposed to be six months turned into 7 formative years in South Africa.  They say once the African sun sets on you, you can never really leave.  I found this to be true, and my life was changed.

Libertad’s focus on Africa derives from this story, and is built on the shoulders of three giants that made me who I am today.