Sierra Schlag finds deep snow in the dreamy trees of Hakuba Cortina after a 30-plus-inch storm. Photo: Bianca Germain

Straight Line

Finding Clarity in Hakuba

The sound of small giggles and awkward fidgeting echoed around the room of my grandmother’s nursing home. Silence had never felt so loud as my obaachan (Japanese for grandma) and I sat down for lunch with the other octa- and nonagenarians in Kobe, Japan. I had just taken a series of bullet trains from Nagano after spending the last 10 days skiing powder, soaking in onsens and showing my film crew how special Japan is. The enormous weight of being unable to communicate with my own grandmother felt heavy on my shoulders.

Iz La Motte, Bianca Germain and I were in Japan to film for NISEI, the Japanese word for children born in North America from Japanese immigrant parents. The ethos of our short film was to better understand my biracial identity and explore the confusion I feel when it comes to being fully accepted by both Japanese and American cultures. The question remained: How do I showcase the beauty of being biracial, when I don’t quite see or understand that beauty myself?


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