Shizuko Suenaga, PhD

Dr. Shizuko Suenaga was born and grew up in Saga, Japan.  Out of her curiosity, she came to the U.S. in 1983 and studied Women’s Studies (BA), American Civilization (MA) at University of Massachusetts at Boston, and Sociology (PhD) at Boston College.

For her dissertation, Dr. Suenaga interviewed about thirty Japanese war brides, the women who married American servicemen after World War Two, and wrote about these women focusing on their assimilation patterns in the U.S. Japanese American women including the Japanese war brides have been her research interest. She published a book, Japanese War brides in America: An Oral History, with two co-authors in 2010.  She has been an associate in research at Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University since 1998.

Dr. Suenaga has been teaching Japanese language and culture at Seattle University since 2002, and heads the Japanese Program. She also takes care of the Exchange Program with Sophia University in Tokyo.