The 4th HOKU (Honolulu Office of Kobe University) Symposium

Advanced Interdisciplinary
Research Collaboration between
Kobe University and University of Hawai’i
Organized by the Institute for Promoting International Partnerships, Kobe University
Date: February 4, 2020

The 4th HOKU (Honolulu Office of Kobe University) Symposium

Advanced Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration
between Kobe University and University of Hawai’i
Organized by the Institute for Promoting International Partnerships, Kobe University

Date and Time : Tuesday 4 February 2020 9:15AM-5:00PM
Venue : Hawaii Imin International Conference Center at Jefferson Hall
East-West Center, Pacific Room
1777 East-West Road, Honolulu, HI 96848 USA

Opening Remarks

9:15AM - 9:20AM

Chair :
Prof. Yasuhito Shirai, Deputy Director, the Office of the Americas of Kobe University
Opening remarks :Prof. Hideyuki Yamamoto, Director, the Office of the Americas & Honolulu
Office of Kobe University

Session 1 9:20AM - 12:30PM
History and Literature of Japanese Americans in Hawaii

Session 2 2:00PM - 4:55PM
Economics for Sustainable Society in Hawaii and Japan

Closing Remarks

4:55PM - 5:00PM

Prof. Denise E. Konan, University of Hawai’i* Co-sponsored by JSPS Grant-in-aid for Science Research (B), 2019-2021 (19H01240, Hideyuki Yamamoto)2

Opening Remarks
9:15AM - 9:20AM

Chair :

Prof. Yasuhito Shirai
Kobe University

Opening remarks: Prof. Hideyuki Yamamoto
kobe University

Closing Remarks
4:55PM - 5:00PM

Prof. Denise E. Konan
University of Hawai’i

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Session 1
9:20AM - 12:30PM

History and Literature ofJapanese Americans in Hawaii
Chair :

Prof. Hideyuki Yamamoto
Kobe University

Guest Speaker : Prof. Rie Makino
Nihon University
Speakers :Associate Prof. Alina E. Anton
Kobe University
Prof. Ruth Y. Hsu
University of Hawai’iProf. Shizue Osa
Kobe University

Commentator : Prof. Miriam Sharma
University of Hawai’i

Rie Makino
Professor
College of Commerce
Nihon University

Rie Makino is professor of English at Nihon University, College ofCommerce. Her research interests include Asian American literatureand transnational studies. She is the recipient of a Grant-in-aid for
Scientific Research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science (2017–20). Her major publication is “Japanese Santa Claus:
Levi-Strauss’ Perspective of Non-Assimilation and the Spirit of Charity
in Karen Tei Yamashita’s Through the Arc of the Rain Forest” in The
American Review: The Japanese Association for American Studies(2012).
Her essay on teaching Yamashita’s works, “Brazil-Maru and Racial
Identities in Japanese Classrooms” will be published from MLA Books
in 2020.
Juliet Kono and Her Local Hawaii: Glocalism in Tsunami Years
Abstract: The term “transbordering,” within the current context ofAsian–American studies, illustrates a variety of meanings with regard
to writers and their works: the physical mobility of a writer between
his/her nation and host country; the writer’s psychologicalalienation, being unable to assimilate into his/her circumstance; andthe writer’s privilege of intentionally rejecting a sense of belonging
to one location. To understand “Asian American” realities, focus must
shift from domestic issues within the United States. JapaneseAmerican writer and poet Juliet Kono’s works clearly depict some of
the aspects of transbordering.
Last year, I received permission from Kono to translate her work
Tsunami Years (1995) into Japanese. This paper is based on myexperience of introducing her works to Japanese audiences byfocusing on the abovementioned global and local issues. Kono, an
editor of Bamboo Ridge, is generally known as a local writer in Hawaii,
while at the same time, her being “local” implies an oxymoronic
refrain of “globalism.”
Tsunami Years begins with Kono’s quotation of American poet
Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “At the Fishhouses” from the collection titled
A Cold Spring. “The Elizabeth Poems” is dedicated to hermother-in-law, Elizabeth Lee, who died after suffering from
Alzheimer’s disease. In this poem, themes related to Kono’s whitemother-in-law overlap with those related to Bishop, who was acanonical American writer who crossed racial and national borders. A
tsunami stands as a symbol of the disruption of postcolonial politics
between her and the two white Elizabeths as well as the disastrous
experiences in life.
This paper, by focusing on the glocal elements in Kono’s works,
explores her psychological transbordering as a significant element in
her localism.

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Alina-Elena Anton
Associate Professor
Graduate School of Humanities
and Faculty of Letters
Kobe University

Alina-Elena Anton specialises in American and Canadian cultural
studies, with a particular focus on Japanese American and Japanese
Canadian identity. Her research interests also include issues ofotherness, transborderness and transculturality, contemporary
Japanese literature in an international context, myth, memory andremembering, and more recently mystery and detective fiction. Afterobtaining her PhD in 2014, she came to Japan on a MEXT scholarshipto conduct postdoctoral research on returnee Japanese Americans
and Japanese Canadians at Kyoto University’s Institute for
Humanities. She is the author of several academic papers on Asian
American topics, such as “The loved one is always the other”(Romanian Journal of Artistic Creativity, 2013) and “‘The country I had
thought was my home’: David Mura’s Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a
Sansei” (Zinbun: Annals of the Institute for Research in Humanities,
2016).
At the End of the Rainbow: Nikkei Endeavors in Hawai’i
Abstract: On the island of Kauai, in 1835, a young man from Boston,William Hooper, visited a small sugar mill. Determined to advance the“progress of civilization,” Hooper had been sent to the tropical islandby a Honolulu mercantile firm financed by New Englandbusinessmen, with the mission of establishing the first sugar
plantation in Hawaii. Very much a man of his time, Hooper was also intrue alignment with Euro-American efforts to colonize the islands
and bring the modern industrial order of productivity to the Pacificfrontier. Fueled by an impulse to progress enshrined as necessity,
expansionist America was decided not to let the land “lie in waste.”
Crucial in this exploitation was the entry of “strangers from a different
shore”—from China, Japan, as well as Korea, the Philippines andIndia. Encouraged by word of mouth stories about opportunities in
Hawaii, immigrants from Japan ventured to the islands most often as
contract laborers and “picture brides,” chasing hopes of economic
betterment and the promise of “sweet” success. The presentation
traces the historical efforts of Japanese Issei immigrants and their
Nisei descendants to make a home and embed themselves in the
Hawai’ian milieu as presented in Kazuo Miyamoto’s book Hawaii, Endof the Rainbow (1964). Using the concepts of necessity andextravagance, the discussion analyzes the way in which Miyamoto, a
Hawaiian-born Nisei doctor and author, depicts “from the inside”
important historical experiences of Japanese immigrants, from thedifficulty of hole hole field work and grueling labor in plantation mills,
to the dream of returning home and the challenge of rebuilding
shattered lives after the conclusion of World War II. The relevance ofMiyamoto’s book lies in its bridging the story of Japanese Americans
before and during the war, to encompass the “whole unhappy story.”

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Ruth Y. Hsu
Professor
University of Hawai’i

Professor Ruth Y. Hsu’s research interests include Asian American
literary and cultural studies, contemporary United States studies, thediscursive intersections of nationalism, gender, racial and ethnic
identity formations, and cultural transnationalism. She is co-editor
with Professor Pamela Thoma (Washington State University) on aModern Language Association volume titled, Approaches to Teaching
the Works of Karen Tei Yamashita (forthcoming 2020); recent
publications include chapters on the Netflix series, Orange is the New
Black, Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange and Brazil Maru. An essay on Witi
Ihimaera’s The Whale Rider is under consideration for a special issue of
Atlantic Studies: Global Currents. Hsu received her doctorate in English
from the University of Southern California, whereupon she received
her appointment to the faculty of the University of Hawai'i as an
Asian American specialist. She has lived in Singapore, Hong Kong,and Los Angeles. Currently, she resides in Honolulu.
On Not Turning Japanese American in Hawai'i: Literary Representationsof National and Cultural Identities
Abstract: According to the US national Census in 2000, descendantsof Japanese alone (not combined through intermarriage with otherethnic groups) constituted 16.7% of the total population of Hawai’i.
Today, Japanese Americans are the second largest Asian group in the50th State of the United States. This talk will focus on literature, plays,
and films produced by Americans of Japanese descent who consider
themselves local Japanese; the word, “local,” refers to persons who
have lived in Hawai’i their whole lives or for generations. The texts
that I will analyze in this talk represent crucial events in the formationof local Japanese culture, which many local Japanese writers argue is
unique from Japanese American culture in the continental US, andnot to be conflated, that is, local Japanese have distinctive histories,
culture, and literature from Japanese Americans in the US. This talkwill analyze novels and a movie about the plantation experience, thearrest and internment of many Issei, and the origins anddevelopment of anti-Japanese sentiment and educational policies,
including the Americanization program aimed at schoolchildren
prior to the outbreak of World War II and the more recent concept ofAsian settler colonialism aimed against all Asians in Hawai’i. In thefirst group, on plantations, I shall analyze Milton Murayama’s All I
Asking For Is My Body, and the 1994 film, Picture Bride; in the second
group, on the incarceration of Issei, Life Behind Barbed Wire: The
World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawai’i Issei by Yasutaro Soga;and then this talk will examine the work of Lois-Ann Yamanaka,
Richard Hamasaki, Lee Tonouchi’s writing in Hawai’i Creole English,
and the ongoing contribution of Bamboo Ridge journal to the
distinctive oeuvre of local Japanese literature.

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She earned her Ph.D in Japanese History from Ritsumeikan
University. Her specialized areas include modern Japanese history,
especially, cultural history and gender history. She has taught at
Kobe University since 2010. She published edited several books on
Japanese gender history and war memory and two monographs inJapanese: Modern Japan and Linguistic Nationalism, and Time, Space,and War Memory of US-Occupied Japan.

Shizue Osa
Professor
Graduate School of Intercultural Studies
Kobe University

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Where were Nisei soldiers? - an examination of war memories from agender perspective
Abstract: A typical example of categorizing people according to theattributes of their group, rather than treating them as individuals, canbe found during periods of external war. It is important to examine
people’s recollections to discover where these groups were, what
they did and how they were perceived. In particular, how is thecollective identity of being “nationals of a country,” the image ofsoldiers, and the strong gender role segregation among soldiers
associated with war memory? Today, I will focus on how the war
against Japan has been remembered and is recalled regarding
Japanese-American soldiers, by covering three key topics.
The first topic is “what does the topic of Japanese-Americans during
World War II remind people of?” Studies in the Japanese language on
Japanese-American soldiers in the war against Japan have been
accumulated from the perspective of intelligence media activities by
the U.S during World War II, in particular, Nisei=Kibei.
The second topic is the memories and records pertaining toJapanese American soldiers in occupied Japan. In Japan, there aremany compilations of people’s testimonies on war memory, except
for those about the occupation period, which are very scarce.
In addition, the occupation period, as defined by political history, isfrom September 1945 to April 1952. However, U.S. troops were still
stationed at various places on the Japanese mainland in the
mid-1950’s.
Third topic is “Records and Memories on nisei female recruits”. In thestage of total war, the boundaries between the frontline and thehome front become blurred. During World War I, many colonial
soldiers were mobilized to the battlefields. In World War II, military
mobilization of women became a reality, though there werediscussions as to whether women should be allowed to wear militaryuniforms and how differences in races or ethnic groups should be
dealt with. Recent history studies have a keen interest in arguments
regarding female recruits, not limited to socialist countries. Scholarsof feminism, which is sounding an alarm on emphasizing either
equality or difference, are also interested in this topic.
I believe that examining the occupation era in Japan, which directly
followed experiences of warfare, allows interesting and profoundobservations.

Miriam Sharma is an Emerita Professor of Asian Studies at the
University of Hawai'I where she has also taught in the Ethnic Studies
and Sociology departments and the Honors Program, in addition toholding administrative positions.

Commentator

Miriam Sharma
Professor
Asian Studies
University of Hawai'i

She received a B.A. and M.A. in History; a Ph.D. in Anthropology fromthe University of Hawai'i as well as engaging in postdoctoral work in
Political Economy at the New School (New York). Her teachinginterests are in contemporary Asian culture and society, Gender,
Agrarian Relations, Migration, and Culture and Colonialism. Researchand publications focus specifically on South Asia (especially North
India). She has also taught "Gender Issues in Japan" and"Multicultural Japan" at Obirin University, Machida (fall 2017, Spring2019).

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Session 2
2:00PM - 4:55PM

Economics for Sustainable Society
in Hawaii and Japan
Chair :

Prof. Tomoko Kinugasa
Kobe University

Keynote speech: Prof. Denise E. Konan
University of Hawai’i
Speakers :Prof. Tomoko Kinugasa
Kobe University
Dr. Kimberly Burnett
University of Hawai’iKeynote speech

Denise Eby Konan
Dean of the College of Social Sciences
Professor of the Department of Economics
University of Hawaii at Manoa

A noted international trade economist, Dr. Denise Eby Konan has
worked extensively in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. She has
been a consultant to the World Bank, the Council of Foreign
Relations, the Arab League, and governments of Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi
Arabia, UAE, and Hawai’i and publishes on issues of regional
economic integration, trade in services, intellectual property rights,
foreign direct investment and energy. Dr. Konan is a Research Fellow
at the University of Hawai’i Economic Research Organization(UHERO) and founding Director of the Center for Sustainable Coastal
Tourism at the University of Hawai’i Sea Grant College Program. Dr.
Konan served for two years as the Interim Chancellor and for three
years as the Assistant Vice Chancellor of UHM. She received herundergraduate degree from Goshen College and her doctorate fromthe University of Colorado.
Impact of solar penetration on net electricity load profiles on Oahu,
Hawaii
Abstract: This paper uses data provided by Hawaiian ElectricCompany (HECO) for the period from September 2010 to May 2014.
The study explores the effect of customer mix of each distributed
transformer on the shape of load profiles along with their variability.
Results suggest that in a more residential-concentrated area, net
load generally has two peaks — morning and night, while a morecommercial-or industrial-concentrated area exhibits one midday
peak. The shape of a given areas’ load profile is mostly influenced byits customer-mix and the time-of-day, while its load volatility islargely the result of weather patterns and the level of PV penetration.
Since solar power typically exhibits different generation
characteristics from power produced by other conventional sources,more precise solar forecasts enable electric system operators tobetter manage electricity generation with fluctuating solar output.

Keywords: Net electricity load, Customer mix, transformer, shape ofload profile, load volatility, and PV penetration
JEL Classification: Q4, Q42

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ChairTomoko Kinugasa
Professor
Graduate School of Economics
Kobe University

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Tomoko KINUGASA is a Professor of Economics at Kobe University inJapan. She received her Ph.D. from University of Hawaii at Manoa. Her
research interests include the effects of demographic change on
saving and economic development, determinants of technicalchange and efficiency of agriculture, and regional development bypromoting agriculture. She was a Visiting Scholar in the East-WestCenter in 2013-2014. She received the Murao Educational
Foundation, Academic Award in 2017, the Association for Regional
Agricultural and Forestry Economics Award in 2016 and the Abe
Fellowship in 2012.
Challenges facing Japan under a Declining Population
Abstract: The population of Japan has been declining since 2008. In
this lecture, I will talk about the effect of population on economy,
how depopulation influences the Japanese economy in particular,
and what necessary measures Japan should take in the face of
population decline. Population can have both positive and negative
effects on economy. Above all, the contribution of population as asource of technological progress through accumulation ofknowledge and competition is important in Japan.
In a depopulated society, Japan is likely to suffer from a decline inlabor force, and population aging will have a serious impact on social
security such as medical and nursing care. Japan needs to try toincrease fertility as much as possible to mitigate the negative effects
of depopulation. In order to increase fertility, it is important toincrease the marriage rate among younger generations. It is also
important to create a society in which women can work while taking
care of children. More women and more seniors will need to work inorder to increase the labor force. In addition, accepting more foreign
workers is important.
On the other hand, population aging and depopulation might havesome benefits for Japan. In Japan, life expectancy is quite high and iscontinuing to slowly increase. People tend to save more because
they expect to live longer after retirement. If the older generation’ssavings increase, capital accumulation will be promoted, and this will
stimulate economic growth. In addition, less children could increase
education expenditure per child, and this can contribute toeconomic growth. Japan will need to take advantage of thesebenefits by educating older people on how to save efficiently and byimproving the education of the younger generation.
Furthermore, we should note that increased population could be
harmful for the environment and that a declining population might
be better in this respect. Rapid population aging will certainly cause
many serious problems and taking steps to avoid these issues isimportant. However, Japan would need to place more emphasis onenvironmental issues and aim for sustainable growth.

Kimberly Burnett
Specialist
University of Hawaii
Economic Research Organization

Kimberly Burnett is faculty member with the University of Hawaii
Economic Research Organization. Her primary research interests
include environmental and natural resource economics, invasive
species management, and watershed management, particularly for
Hawaii and the Pacific. Kimberly's publications and extramural grants
have focused on invasive species and watershed management,
groundwater management and the value of watershed
conservation.
Linked natural resource management: Examples from Hawaii andJapan
Abstract: Natural systems in Hawaii and Japan share similar linkages
regarding the relationship between management of land and sea.
For example, in Hawaii the abundance of economically and culturally
significant marine species has been shown to be related to nearshore
water quality, which is often directly related to groundwater levels
and corresponding management actions such as groundwater
withdrawals and the protection of upland forests (Burnett et al. 2017,
Wada et al. 2020). In Japan, withdrawal of groundwater may haveimportant implications for economically and environmentallysignificant coastal fisheries (Burnett et al. 2018). Using a case study
from both Hawaii and Japan, in this lecture I will discuss theimportance of explicitly recognizing how natural systems are related,and jointly managing these resources in order to maximize
economic, environmental, and social benefit.
In the first set of case studies, data from the Kiholo aquifer on the
Kona Coast of Hawaii Island are used to numerically illustrate optimal
joint management strategies and test the sensitivity of thosestrategies to variations in physical and behavioral parameter values.
The main result is that protection of a culturally important algae
species reduces net present value by $12 million, but optimal
investment in watershed conservation may offset that potential
reduction by $8 million.
In Japan, groundwater is used for a variety of activities, including
household consumption, agriculture, and manufacturing. In Obama
City, Japan for example, groundwater is used to melt snow (~13% of
total groundwater use) during the winter, the remainder being used
for mostly domestic purposes, such as drinking water. In this lecture I
will discuss benefits and costs of this practice, given concern about
the impacts of this snow-melting practice on nearshore marine
resources. We find that the net benefit of continuing to use
groundwater for snow-melting becomes negative only if the impact
on fishery productivity is substantial.
Improving the understanding of connections spanning frommountain to sea and integrating those connections into decisionmodels have been increasingly recognized as key to effective coastal
resource management.

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Burnett, K., C.A. Wada, M. Taniguchi, R. Sugimoto, and D. Tahara. 2018.
Evaluating the Tradeoffs between Groundwater Pumping for
Snow-Melting and Nearshore Fishery Productivity in Obama City,
Japan. Water, 10, doi:10.3390/w10111556.
Burnett, K., C.A. Wada, A. Endo, and M. Taniguchi. 2017. The Economic
Value of Groundwater in Obama. Journal of Hydrology: Regional
Studies, 11: 44-52. doi:10.1016/j.ejrh.2015.10.002
Wada, C. A., S. Pongkijvorasin, and K. Burnett. 2020. Mountain-to-sea
ecological-resource management: forested watersheds, coastal
aquifers, and groundwater dependent ecosystems. Resource andEnergy Economics, forthcoming.

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Organizer

Hideyuki Yamamoto
Director, the Office of the Americas &Honolulu Office of Kobe University
Professor, Graduate School of Humanities
Kobe University

Yasuhito Shirai
Deputy Director, the Office of
the Americas of Kobe University
Professor, Department of Agrobioscience,
Graduate School of Agricultural Science
Kobe University

Hideyuki YAMAMOTO is Professor of American Literature in the
Graduate School of Humanities, and Faculty of Letters at Kobe
University, Japan. He received his M.A. in English from Sophia
University, Tokyo, Japan in 1989. He has taught at Kobe University
since 1996. Awarded with Monbusho (Japan’s Ministry of Education)
research fellowship, he did research on Asian American literature anddrama/theater as a Visiting Scholar in Asian American Studies Center
at UCLA in 1998-99. Funded by the JSPS (Japan Society for Promotionof Science), he has done short-term research in the States numerous
times and have published papers and books on Asian American
literature and drama/theater for the past two decades, He has served
as president of AALA (Asian American Literature Association) inJapan since 2017.

He obtained a Ph.D. in 1994 from Graduate school of agriculturalscience and then got the position as Assistant Professor at Graduate
School of Science and Technology of Kobe University. During an
assistant professor, he also worked as a visiting scholar at Zoology,
University of Cambridge in 1995 and moved to Biosignal ResearchCenter (BSRC) of Kobe University in 1997. After an experience as avisiting scholar in University California, San Diego from 2000-2001,
he was promoted to an Associate Professor in the BSRC. He got asecond Ph.D from school of medicine of Kobe University in 2005.
Finally, in 2010, he was promoted to a Professor in Laboratory ofChemistry and Utilization of Animal Production Resources,
Department of Agrobioscience, Graduate School of Agricultural
Science. His major is a signal transduction research to developfunctional food, medical food and medicine for diabetic
dysfunctions, allergy and cancer etc, focusing diacylglycerol kinaseand protein kinase C. He was awarded the prize of “Young Scientist
Award of the Japanese Pharmacological Society in 2004.

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Edited by

Institute for Promoting International Partnerships

Kobe University
1-1 Rokkodai-cho, Nada-ku, Kobe 657-8501, Japan
E-mail: intl-relations@office.kobe-u. ac.jp