June 22: How Japan Wrestles with Refugees, Immigration, and Identity ft. Saburo Takizawa

On Thursday, June 22, 2023 at 12 p.m. ET, Saburo Takizawa joined American Purpose via Zoom in a conversation with Peter Skerry on how Japan wrestles with refugees, immigration, and identity.  

Saburo Takizawa, professor emeritus of Toyo Eiwa University, is vice president of Care International Japan. Takizawa joined the United Nations in 1980 and worked at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization before becoming the director of finance at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2002, and the organization's representative in Japan from 2008 to 2009. Takizawa is currently an invited researcher at the Waseda University, Tokyo, focusing on Japan’s refugee policy.

Peter Skerry (moderator) is a professor of political science at Boston College, a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, and a contributing editor of American Purpose. He was previously a contributing editor of The American Interest. Skerry has been a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute as well as at the Brookings Institution. He served as co-chair of the Brookings-Duke Immigration Policy Roundtable and co-director of the Dialogue on Islam in America at the American Enterprise Institute. Skerry's research and writing focus on race, ethnicity, and religion in American society and politics.