BY UTSHAA BASU ’25
Nozomi Hashimoto, the 2023-24 Japanese Cultural Program Coordinator (CPC) was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. Before coming to CC, she earned her bachelor’s degree in language education with a minor in psychology, and specialized in education for her master’s degree at International Christian University. Her supervisor at the university suggested the CPC position when Nozomi was looking for a job teaching Japanese language abroad. Interestingly, Nozomi shares that International Christian University boasts a famous CC alumnus, William Merrell Vories (Hitotsuyanagi), who designed the aforementioned university campus!
This job is her first time in the United States, but Nozomi has been adjusting smoothly. She wants to use her longer breaks to explore places in the US, including Florida and Chicago. She is also extremely outdoorsy, and excited to try all the opportunities available to her in Colorado!
In the past two months as the Japanese CPC, Nozomi has organized a host of events. She organizes the blockly “Language Tables” that the Japanese program hosts to teaching Japanese culture through food, while engaging in language practice. In Block 1, Nozomi organized a hand-rolled sushi event: a participatory event in which students can learn how to make a connection with Japanese culture, as opposed to just eating the food. In Block 2 she held an event for the Japanese Moon Festival, which she wanted to distinguish from and emphasize as a tradition different from the Chinese Moon festival. For the event, Nozomi made some Japanese style- parfaits.
Her recent concern is the name of the student residence where she lives on campus. Officially called Elf House, the residence is more commonly referred to as the “Asian Languages House.” The house accomodates students interested in Chinese and Japanese languages and cultures, for which CC has respective langauge programs. Nozomi finds the designation “Asian Languages House” to be inaccurate since the name seems to suggest all of Asia as a single “collective” culture despite the variety of cultures present in such a large region, and the house is represented primarily by Japanese and Chinese languages. . She is curious as to how the larger student population in the college views this issue, considering the small number of minority cultures present at CC.
Nozomi teaches her Japanese adjunct classes, for all levels, on Monday and Thursday each week, throughout the year (from 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM). She looks forward to learning more about the culture here from the students. Although she is here to teach Japanese, Nozomi often feels like the students are teaching her more.
