The year 2024 is a milestone year for Kawasaki City as the city celebrates its 100th anniversary. Mayor Norihiko Fukuda kindly shared the following comment about the Stanford e-Kawasaki Program on this special occasion. (Photo below: 100th Anniversary Commemorative Ceremony at MUZA Kawasaki Symphony Hall on July 1, 2024; photo courtesy City of Kawasaki.)

Stanford e-Kawasaki, jointly offered by Kawasaki City and the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) at Stanford University, aims to empower the youth in Kawasaki City to take on a new challenge towards their dreams and goals. Given that Kawasaki City’s remarkable growth has been driven by diversity and entrepreneurship, students in this course learn about these two important topics in depth. July 1, 2024, marks Kawasaki’s 100th anniversary, and I believe that diversity and entrepreneurship will continue to be the key to Kawasaki City’s further progress. It is my hope that Stanford e-Kawasaki will continue to equip students with knowledge and skills, and help them grow to become agents of change. I look forward to our continued cooperation with SPICE to achieve this goal.

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As reflected in Mayor Fukuda’s comment, Kawasaki City highly values diversity. The city’s logo uses the Chinese character for 川 or “kawa” (river) for 川崎 (Kawasaki), and it is colored in red, green, and blue, symbolizing the commitment of Kawasaki City to creating new values, opportunities, and possibilities by embracing diversity. 

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I have visited this vibrant city to see my relatives and friends who live there, but I never knew why Kawasaki places such an importance on diversity. This made me curious about the city’s history.

Kawasaki first became an important place in the 17th century as a station on the Tokaido route connecting Kyoto with Tokyo (then “Edo”) where people from near and far gathered. Later in 1924, Kawasaki City was born with a population of approximately 50,000. Although the city suffered extensive destruction during World War II due to heavy air raids by the U.S. military targeting industrial facilities, Kawasaki developed rapidly after the war as one of the major industrial cities in Japan, attracting people not only from across the country but also from overseas. Today, its population is over 1.55 million, making it Japan’s sixth most populous city. Its neighboring city, Tokyo, is the most populous. Kawasaki is also one of Japan’s most ethnically diverse cities. More than 50,000 foreign residents live in Kawasaki, making up 3.3 percent of the city’s population.

With people constantly coming from across and outside of Japan, it is not hard to imagine what Kawasaki has experienced in terms of both the benefits and challenges of diversity. I admire Mayor Fukuda’s commitment to valuing diversity as the city’s strength and his efforts to encourage young people in Kawasaki to learn about this core value. I feel honored to support this important mission through the Stanford e-Kawasaki Program. As I prepare for the sixth year of the program, I took another look at my students’ reflections from last year’s course. Two students noted the following:

When I wrote my thoughts on the discussion board, other students who had the same or opposite opinions gave me some comments. It was very rewarding for me because some comments had the power to change my opinion or make my thinking deeper.

I still remember the time we talked on the discussion board. We talked about many topics, and I can’t count how many times I was impressed and inspired by my friends. I enjoyed the moment every time.

Every year students surprise me with how willing they are to share their thoughts and listen to different opinions. Although conformity is often described as a central feature of Japanese society, I learned from e-Kawasaki students that they feel joy and excitement when they learn something new. As one of my colleagues, Mia Kimura, mentioned in her article on e-Hiroshima, students are hungry for diversity. Therefore, one of my goals in this program continues to be providing a space where students see each other as unique individuals and feel encouraged to express themselves. Like the logo of Kawasaki City, I look forward to what shades of color each student will bring to future courses, and how they will change as they influence and learn from each other.

Two other students described their feelings at the end of last year’s course as follows.

‘I feel in my heart / That it’s the start of something new.’ This is a line from the song ‘Start of Something New’ in High School Musical. I feel that I can unlock my potential thanks to this program!

Thanks to the Stanford e-Kawasaki program, I realized that the future is hopeful, and we are free to take on a challenge and achieve our dreams to make a better world!!!!!

I hope that Stanford e-Kawasaki will continue to help empower students who will build the next 100 years of Kawasaki City.

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