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Christine Yano on "Singing Black Tears: An African American Prodigal Son in Japan" (Nov. 14)

Event Start: 
Mon, 11/14/2011 - 2:00pm - 4:00pm
Location: 
701C Dodge Hall, Center for Ethnomusicology

The Fall 2011 Ethnomusicology Colloquium Series presents:

Christine Yano (Professor of Anthropology, University of Hawai'i at Manoa)
Singing Black Tears: An African American Prodigal Son in Japan

Monday, November 14, 2011
2:00 – 4:00 pm
Center for Ethnomusicology
701C Dodge Hall
Columbia University Morningside Campus

Jerome Charles White (“Jero”), a 28-year old African American from Pittsburgh, debuted in February 2008 as Japan’s first black singer of enka,  the “song of Japan” whose tear-jerker ballads express “the heart-soul of Japanese.” Armed with song, tears, and mixed-blood pedigree, Jero performs national inscriptions of displacement that position him critically as prodigal son. The question remains, can he return? Or more to the point, what are the conditions of his return?

Christine Yano is Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology, University of Hawai'i at Manoa.  She is the author of many articles and three books, including (2011) Airborne Dreams: Nisei Stewardesses and Pan American World Airways  (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011); Crowning the Nice Girl: Gender, Ethnicity, and Culture in Hawai'i’s Cherry Blossom Festival (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006); and Tears of Longing: Nostalgia and the Nation in Japanese Popular Song. (Cambridge: Harvard East Asia Center. Harvard University Press, 2002).

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