Nicole Ruby

After working on this project for four weeks, I am extremely grateful to be part of this project and this team. We got to hear many perspectives and hear from many different people. I am also grateful to the people who took their time to come visit us or helped us when we visited Chicago, as they shared their organizations’ resources and history with us. In these past four weeks, we got to learn not just about Japanese American history, but also American history and politics and how this affected Japanese American history. As someone who is interested in Asian American activism and Asian American history and cultural studies, it was informative and useful to my career and goals to be more involved in Asian American activism and I hope to continue to be part of projects like this.

When I first joined this project, I was expecting to learn more about Japanese American history, but as I continued on, I become more interested in learning about the Japanese American community after WWII. I got to explore more about how these Japanese American communities in Chicago grew and moved around Chicago, even as they eventually moved out. Some other organizations from the post WWII era were still around, such as the Christian churches and Buddhist temples, and still had an active Japanese American community despite many of them no longer living in the area. Religion also played a huge part in Japanese American communities, and how they were formed. For example, a lot of Japanese Americans were able to find communities through the church. It was sad to see how many businesses were pushed out due to gentrification or simply from families moving out of Chicago, but it was also important to know the history that was there in Chicago to make sure it doesn’t disappear. I am honored to have learned more about the history of Japanese Americans and about how they created a community in Chicago. It was especially interesting to hear and learn about the cultural differences between West Coast Japanese Americans and Chicago Japanese Americans with how they chose to live in their communities. For example, West Coast Japanese Americans chose to assimilate, but Chicago Japanese Americans chose to create a community, even though they didn’t officially have a “Japan Town.” Something that also stood out to me was the label “third culture kid” — specifically how many Japanese Americans, specifically the nisei and younger generations, may identify as one because of their history and the way they grew up, especially if they or their parents experienced WWII.

As an Asian American myself, it inspired me to take even more action and record more of my own history to share this. Especially with Asian American history and stories of people of color in America, it is a lot more different than what is written in the history books taught in schools. But with resources like this project and the TEAACH act that was passed in Illinois recently, we can continue to teach and learn about Asian American history and make sure that it continues to be taught as a part of American history.

Nicole Yang Ruby - Class of 2026
Asian Studies and Secondary Education Double Major
From Resettlement to Community Page

Nicole (she/her) is a student passionate in Asian American activism. She identifies as Asian American and Chinese Indonesian. She plans on teaching East Asian languages or English as a high school teacher, and a more advanced career plan in historical Asian architectural preservation and Asian American/AANHPI and Education activism.