People are People

Abstract

“I was born and raised at a time when I was taught that Japan was my enemy. My first contact with the Japanese was you.”

These were the first two lines of an autograph written by my social studies teacher, Mr. Ed, at a small U.S. public high school in rural Oregon. I was an international exchange student through a nonprofit organization exchange program in the 1980s. In this essay, I would like to share what I learned from my study-abroad experience.