Parting Thoughts on SJA as It Enters Its Seventh Year

by John McLaughlin, SJA Board Co-Secretary, 2021-24

It may be unusual for a board Co-Secretary to share parting thoughts here as our blogs are usually written by youth. I became Co-Secretary in my fourth year on the board and the other “Co-Secretary” was a youth as we wanted to involve youth more in the management of our non-profit organization. Over the years we have expanded the board from two youth members to now four high school students and two college students out of our fifteen members. It’s been great to get beyond a “tipping point” to have their ideas and energy guide our decisions, yet we adults are also needed to pay the bills, apply for grants and drive others to events.

I want to thank our Presidents—Mine Sasaguri, Miki Terasawa, Jennifer Swanson and Emiko Todoroki--and other board members I have served with for all they have “shouldered” in their positions. I will continue volunteering, but with a child well beyond high school now and former academic, I plan to focus on some higher education projects involving Japan.

Study Japanese in Arlington has been full of possibilities since it started in 2018 and remains so in 2024. It has assembled a wide range of talented and dedicated individuals of all ages and many backgrounds who are interested in teaching or learning about Japanese language and culture. The board has done a good job fundraising, also by attracting and stewarding significant grants and donations over its six years. SJA can go in many different directions as opportunities to collaborate abound so it will still need an organized executive committee and board to guide our decisions strategically.

As many of you know, SJA had to try out different directions in its first few years out of necessity. We had the incredible Japan Day held in March 2019, but by March 2020, we suddenly had to move all of our language classes and cultural activities online. Language classes remain online for the most part and we’ve tried to hold in-person cultural events every quarter, increasingly in collaboration with other organizations. Monthly online youth exchanges helped the Setagaya committee as it continues to pursue a sister city agreement and hosts frequent networking happy hours. Over the years, we have increasingly hosted a range of events to appeal to people of all ages in order to engage volunteers, donors and attract and support students of Japanese in Arlington Public Schools (APS).

There are many groups in the Washington, DC area that support Japanese cultural exchange and SJA can complement them. During the pandemic there was an exciting boom in students taking Japanese in APS. We would like to see Japanese be available in middle schools, through Virtual Virginia, and in credit by exam or AP Japanese for heritage language speakers who’ve been attending Saturday School for years. It’s hard to know if we are a grassroots example, a model for other communities or an outlier, but I hope our growth and experiences will inspire other communities and groups to support their local world language programs.