ABSTRACT
Every time I tell people that I study African-American literature, they say that the fact I am studying it is great, interesting, and wonderful. I agree with them. Yet what exactly is “great, interesting, and wonderful” about my studying African-American literature is rather ambiguous. I am a Japanese woman living in Japan, and my native tongue is Japanese. I teach at a college in Japan, and, therefore, my students are mostly Japanese, and my classes are often conducted in Japanese. I write and publish both in Japanese and English. I write in Japanese because as a Japanese scholar and teacher, it is necessary for me to be able to conduct research and teach in my native tongue. I write in English because I need to prove that I am intellectually articulate enough in the original language of my research subject. Proof of fluency in English is nowadays mandatory, as it also shows that you have caught up with global academia. Of course, the original intention of writing and publishing in English is that you want to communicate your idea to a wider global audience. But writing in your second language while you are required to teach and write in Japanese could easily be overwhelming. Moreover, in Japan, teaching and conducting research in Japanese tends to be prioritized over doing so in English, to prove your scholarly status. Given these contradictory factors, my scholarly contribution to academia is very difficult to judge because of my status as a Japanese scholar of an American subject, living and working outside of the United States.
