Yujin Yaguchi is professor in Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of the University of Tokyo, where he has been teaching since 1998. He has published and lectured on the issues of U.S.- Japan cultural relations, with particular attention to indigeneity, immigration, historical memories, tourism and colonialism in Hawai‘i. His book on the construction of Hawaiian imaginary in Japan in the twentieth century received the Joseph Roggendorf Award (2012). His writings in English include discussions of historical memories in Pearl Harbor and Japanese image of Hawai‘i’s Japanese Americans in post-WWII period. He has appeared widely in the media, including the New York Times and BBC as well as Yomiuri Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun and the NHK.
Yaguchi has also been active in efforts to globalize higher education in Japan. He was a founding member of the first-ever English-medium undergraduate degree program (PEAK) at the University of Tokyo and served as the director of its admissions office. He is currently the Director of International Education Support Office of the university.
Yaguchi was born in 1966 in Sapporo, Hokkaido, to a Japanese Mennonite family. (The Mennonites are anabaptists and are known historically for its strong commitment to pacifism.) After entering Hokkaido University, he transferred and finished his B.A. at Goshen College, a Mennonite school located in Goshen, IN. He then worked for a Japanese company in Columbus, IN, and moved to Williamsburg, VA, where he completed his M.A. and Ph.D. in American Studies at the College of William and Mary.
