My name is Jace and I am a Japanese-American. I was born in California, where I was raised for 9 years. After that, I moved a few times, and with every move I have experienced trouble with cultural differences. In my younger innocence, I thought a lot of things would go how I would wanted them to. In moving to different countries, even "my own" countries, I was presented with some social troubles.

After living in California, I moved to Japan to pursue my gymnastics journey and because of my parents' situation. Although I am Japanese-American and speak Japanese, the kids in Japan had a very different culture and I wasn’t able to fit in well with the students. They saw me as different and then I was bullied for it. I struggled to build relationships with friends. Since I was going to gymnastics almost everyday, I had no free time to hang out with anyone. I did well academically, except for Japanese grammar. I struggled to even get close to a 10% in Japanese grammar. The Japanese grading system for elementary school is different and only grades standards as: not met, almost met, met, and exceeded, for expectations for each subject, so younger students really don't experience “failing” like there is in America. It still stressed me out to struggle in Japanese grammar.

The greatest stressor in my life, however, was gymnastics. It was once my passion, but soon I started losing motivation and thinking the sport just wasn’t for me. I didn’t want to go to practice any more. My gymnastics coaches were really strict and forced us into strength training and flexibility which caused me a lot of pain to get the gains. I started to stress a lot and even cry. I was so unhappy with my life at that time, and my mom wanted me to live a happy life, so we tried to quit gymnastics.

Maybe because of the culture, the coaches didn’t let us quit. They argued that we had come so far through the pain and hard work, but they most likely experienced it a lot themselves and deep down knew our feelings. Eventually, we got them to let us go. I did have one bright spot that I would miss - my one friend in gymnastics, who ironically wasn’t Japanese. He had come from America to visit Japan and attended our practices. He was able to speak English with me, and we were able to get along even though he was 3-4 years older than me. I felt a cultural connection to him even though we were both abroad. He was a fit, strong boy and got a lot of attention in gymnastics. I remember some coaches used to compare us to each other and they said that he was more handsome and mature than me. He was a mix of Japanese and White, which to them, made him extra good looking. Sometimes I am introduced to others as an Japanese-American and the kids don’t understand what it means. They think that I’m White and expect to see a White boy but I am actually just a normal Japanese kid that can speak English. This caused a bit of bullying and hate for being different, both by what people correctly and incorrectly expected about me and I’m still not sure why they did it.

Two years after quitting gymnastics, I graduated from elementary school and I planned to move to Honolulu where my dad and family are. This was really good news for me and I was really happy to move. It felt good living in Hawaii, where I felt a lot more accepted. I made new friends on the first day of middle school and the culture matched me a lot more. It was easy going for me. Now I’m in 8th grade happy with where I’m at right now.

© Jace. All rights reserved. If you are interested in quoting this story, contact the national team and we can put you in touch with the author’s teacher.