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Umeko Tsuda: Philly's First Japanese Student |
The first Japanese to study abroad came to the US with the Iwakura Mission in 1872, when the new Meiji government of Japan opened official relationships with foreign nations. Five young girls were sent along with that envoy to study in the US for a period of ten years. Umeko Tsuda, at the age of seven, was youngest of these girls. She stayed with a host family in Washington, DC, and remained the US one year onger than she had originally planned. She returned to Japan at the age of eighteen.
After returning to Japan, however, Umeko was unable to find employment. She was overcome with culture shock, particularly at Japanese society's prejudice against women. The low position of women in Japan made Umeko determined to devote her life to giving Japanese women the opportunity for higher education. In 1889, at the age of twenty-five, she returned once again to America; this time to Philadelphia. She attended Bryn Mawr College, where she studied biology and excelled at literature and other scientific areas of study. Umeko studied hard and earned excellent grades, and was invited to stay at Bryn Mawr as a researcher. She was determined to work for women's education in Japan, though, and she returned there three years later.
After returning to Japan, Umeko opened up a women's secondary education school in Tokyo, which opened its doors in 1900 as the Women's English School. Her school had ten students in its first year. Now the school she founded is known as Tsuda College.
Umeko Tsuda died in 1929 at the age of sixty-five. Her grave is located on the grounds of Tsuda College in Tokyo. To this day, the sister college relationship she established between Bryn Mawr and Tsuda College continues.
Interested in learning more about Umeko Tsuda and Philadelphia's unique relationship with Japan? Phila-Nipponica: An Historic Guide to Philadelphia & Japan, a bi-lingual collection of articles on the Japan-Philly connection published by the JASGP, is available for purchase in our online store!
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