Translator: Daniela Oliverio Reviewer: Riaki Poništ
What do you think when you see me?
"Is she a foreigner?"
"Is she biracial?"
"Where is she from?"
"Is she eating properly?"
"Is she a student?"
I guess, for you,
it'll be one of those that sprung to mind, more or less.
Now, if I said that I was involved in founding Hamamatsu International School
and that I was the first principal there,
how would your impression change?
I was born in the Philippines where I spent my childhood.
As you all know,
the Philippines is a country
where big economic inequalities still exist.
The place where I was born and raised
is called Malate District.
It's an undeveloped and underdeveloped neighbourhood
which pretty much looks like a slum.
Although murders are rare,
crimes like robbery and drug-dealing occur on a daily basis,
and as far back as I can remember, I witnessed such scenes over and over.
In the same district, there were particularly poor households
with children of my age
whose parents could not afford to send them to elementary school.
Simply because they were hungry,
children would start getting involved in crimes
such as pick-pocketing, robbery, and drug-dealing,
and it would only get worse.
That's the environment I grew up in.
Separated from my parents,
I was raised by my aunt.
My mother married my Japanese father
while she was staying in Japan as a migrant worker.
Even though my parents were living there, I couldn't bring myself to join them
because this place called Japan was too foreign to me.
However,
I was lucky because my aunt and people around me
would protect me and look after me really well,
so I grew up safe and secure in my otherwise dodgy hometown.
My aunt would always tell me this:
"Knowledge is your only asset."
With a wide gap between rich and poor in my country, it was a survival wisdom.
"If you aim high and work hard to acquire knowledge,
you will succeed no matter what environment you find yourself in."
I treasured these words in my heart, studied hard everyday,
and finished elementary school in five years.
Then, when I became a teenager, my life took a big turn.
My parents living in Japan pleaded, and persuaded me to move over there,
and I decided to join them.
I remember reading farewell letters from my friends and relatives
on the plane, brimming with excitement.
Because I only spoke English and Tagalog until the age of 13,
I had to learn Japanese from scratch.
Not yet qualified to attend school immediately after moving to Japan,
I would visit the City Hall and the Board of Education with my parents
to find out how to continue my education.
At that time, obviously, I didn't understand what they were saying.
Now, let me ask you a question.
How many foreigners do you think there are in the city of Hamamatsu, where we live?
Among 800,000 residents in total,
approximately 21,000 are foreign nationals.
Surprisingly, they come from 81 different countries.
Furthermore,
51% of the said foreigners have permanent residency.
In terms of number of foreign residents,
that is: foreign people who have settled in Japan,
Hamamatsu has the greatest number of them in Japan.
It is also home to many globally renowned companies
and is teeming with people of truly diverse nationalities.
The thing was,
in the Hamamatsu city or neighboring municipalities,
there were no international schools where the official language is English.
Any international schools we could find would cost you a fortune
and only accept students from super-elite background.
These were very exclusive schools.
Under that circumstance,
Going to Japanese public junior high school was the only option for me.
Because grade-skipping wasn't allowed in Japan,
I had to start at grade seven,
which I had already completed in the Philippines.
My classmates and the class teacher were really kind to me,
but the language barrier got in my way.
In the early days I couldn't understand a word they were saying,
so I felt like they were all angry at me, saying bad things about me,
which was quite excruciating.
What's more, I got a zero mark on my first term test
because I couldn't read any of the questions on the papers.
Remembering what my aunt had taught me about the importance of knowledge,
I was really embarrassed and cried, hiding from my parents.
Nevertheless, I didn't give up there.
I studied really hard to improve my Japanese
cramming on weekends and school holidays.
My Japanese improved drastically
to the point I spoke better Japanese than my mom,
who had been in Japan longer.
However, I then faced another problem.
After frantically studying nothing but Japanese,
immersed in Japanese all the time,
and trying to practice speaking Japanese whenever I could,
I was gradually losing English and even Tagalog, my native language.
At that time,
I didn't have a perfect command in any of English or Tagalog or Japanese -
I was stuck in the middle of the three.
I was no longer able to switch between languages easily.
"Who am I?" "Where do I belong?" I would ask myself.
I had lost sight of my own identity and kept brooding over it.
I dare say, any young foreigner who settles in Japan
will inevitably face the same issue at some point.
I'd imagine this can also happen to young Japanese individuals
who have moved abroad with their parents
because of job relocation overseas or other circumstances.
They learn the languages spoken in their new home country
as well as the local culture and customs,
get carried away in assimilation processes
turning them from the minority into the majority
and lose their individuality.
I am not a native speaker of English,
but I speak good English because I studied hard.
Here in Japan, a good command of English gives you a big advantage.
So, I think my English helped me remain somewhat confident despite my struggles.
But what about Latin Americans or Japanese who don't speak English?
What if they had to move to a country where they don't understand the language?
As you all know,
knowing and being able to use the English language as lingua franca
is invaluable.
I've been saved by my English over and over again,
and it even enabled me to find a new identity.
To be able to establish your worth
in a place different from where you were born and raised
greatly contributes to your self-esteem.
And I think it becomes the foundation of your existence.
During a course at university, I had an opportunity to reflect
on population issues in Shizuoka Prefecture.
Due to the fact it's fairly close to the capital city,
the out-migration rate in Shizuoka Prefecture
is second worst in the nation.
It's not alone in its struggle with a population decline.
Japan's population is set to keep shrinking.
Seeking a solution to this problem,
I turned my attention to the foreign workforce.
Actually, I got to interview a man from India
who is working in Hamamatsu.
I asked him about his life in Japan and his work environment.
He said that Japan is a safe country to live in,
and that it's a great country.
There was just only thing he was not happy about, though.
He said that even though studying in Japan is fairly expensive,
the level of English education is not as high as in India.
After speaking to him,
I looked back on my own experience, a light bulb went off in my head:
"That's it!
Why don't I provide children
who move into Hamamatsu from overseas like I did
with a place where they can learn English to reinforce their self-worth?"
I sought advice from Professor Tsumura, who is a multicultural studies specialist
and is the Head of Department at the university I am attending.
He immediately expressed his support
and even helped me find five students.
That's how the Hamamatsu International School started.
Enrollment is free.
We are borrowing a classroom from my university, free of charge.
We receive municipal subsidy and donations from private companies.
We fund most of our operating expenses with the monthly material fee we collect,
which is around 2,500 yen per student.
That's how we generate income to pay teachers' salaries.
In the near future we're hoping to secure more staff
such as teachers, volunteers, and student managers
so that we can offer classes on weekdays as well
and an increased number of subjects, now limited to maths and arts,
adding science, social studies, and more.
The school management staff including myself and three peers at my university
do all the admin work.
We wrote the school rules from scratch.
We create the monthly school calendar, keep grade books,
and issue letters of acceptance.
We manage communications with the parents and organize teachers' meetings -
all done by four of us.
Of course, everything is conducted in English.
The only compensation we receive is transportation expenses.
Nevertheless, the skills that we pick up doing this
have great value that goes beyond money.
It's important to master Japanese as your mother tongue,
but knowing one language isn't enough in the age of globalization.
In the coming years, it will become crucial for us
to embrace diversity and get education beyond borders.
There is no question
that a high proficiency in English is the key to competing on a global stage.
But not everyone has the option to study in English-speaking countries.
So what we need in today's Japan
is an equal opportunity for children to receive global education
without having to move abroad.
I still hold on to what my aunt said:
Knowledge is your biggest asset.
Nobody can steal it nor damage it.
So it's the ultimate, only asset one can accumulate.
It doesn't matter if you are rich or not, or if you live with both your parents,
or if you are from Japan or a different country.
It's a treasure we all possess since childhood.
Even if one day you lost everything,
in the end, you would be left with nothing but knowledge.
The knowledge that you acquire is safely stored deep down in your mind,
in your heart.
And now, let me ask you the same question again:
What do you think when you look at me?
I came to Japan at the age of 13.
I was an ordinary girl who didn't know a single word in Japanese.
Thanks to the knowledge I've gained since then
I was able to take a step forward.
You might not be able to make a huge impact on the world,
but if you keep learning, a bright future will await you,
much brighter than if you didn't.
What helps you overcome hardships
and to continue pursuing knowledge in life?
For me, it's what I was told growing up
that knowledge is the only asset in life.
So never stop learning.
(Applause)