“On a beautiful spring Sunday during cherry blossom season, the new president of Kyoto Seika University welcomed students for the start of the Japanese school year. ‘You have left your home,’ he told the 770 first-year and graduate students gathered in a gym on the hilly campus. ‘But this is also your home.’ In Bamanankan — the lingua franca of his native Mali…Dr. Sacko, who is believed to be the first African-born president of a Japanese university, segued elegantly into fluent Japanese, invoking Hannah Arendt, Edward Said, Eleanor Roosevelt and the Malian writer Amadou Hampâté Bâ.” M. Rich, The New York Times

ESL Voices Lesson Plan for this post with Answer Key

Excerpt: In Homogeneous Japan, an African-Born University President, By Motoko Rich, The New York Times

“In this island country that is sometimes less than welcoming to immigrants, Mr. Sacko is an outlier. A resident for 27 years, he obtained Japanese citizenship 16 years ago and worked his way up through the ranks of a Japanese institution.

With a declining population, Japan is being forced to confront its traditional resistance to taking in foreigners…Obtaining Japanese citizenship is extremely difficult. Since 1952, just over 550,000 people have managed to naturalize as Japanese citizens, most of them ethnic Koreans whose families have lived in Japan for several generations since the colonial occupation of Korea. Dr. Sacko says he believes Japan needs to allow in more outsiders, simply as an act of self-preservation.

‘Japanese people think they have to protect something,’ he said during an interview in English before a reception recently to celebrate his appointment. But, ‘someone who has a broad view from outside on your culture can maybe help you objectively improve your goals,’ he said, occasionally interrupting the interview to greet his guests, switching effortlessly between English, French and Japanese.

Dr. Sacko, the eldest son of a customs officer and homemaker, grew up in Bamako, the capital city of Mali. A strong student, he won a scholarship from the Malian government to attend college abroad.

He had never been anywhere other than the neighboring country of Senegal. With 13 other students from Mali, he was assigned to study in China and landed in Beijing in 1985 to study Mandarin before embarking on a degree in engineering and architecture at Southeast University in Nanjing.

On a vacation to Japan after obtaining his undergraduate degree in 1990, Dr. Sacko found himself enchanted by what he observed as strong community ties and the hospitality toward guests. Although he had begun graduate studies in China, he was frustrated that a government minder always shadowed him when he conducted field research in local villages.

Dr. Sacko moved to Osaka, Japan, for six months of language lessons before enrolling in a master’s degree program at Kyoto University… Dr. Sacko said he had hoped to return to Mali someday, but after a military coup in 1991, his employment options were limited. As he pursued a doctorate in Japan, he worked to understand a culture where people can say the exact opposite of what they mean. ‘You don’t always catch things from the meanings of the words,’ he said. ‘You have to go deeper.’

Along the way, there were some misunderstandings. After hosting a few parties at his apartment, his neighbors remarked that he and his friends always seemed happy and that they were envious. Dr. Sacko urged them to join his next party. Instead, they called the police. ‘The police said, ‘You are too noisy,’ Dr. Sacko recalled. ‘And I said ‘But my neighbors like that!’

‘He deeply understands Japanese culture and the way of thinking,’ said Emiko Yoshioka, a professor of art theory whom Dr. Sacko appointed as vice president at Kyoto Seika. ‘But he also is able to poke fun at the fact that he is a foreigner.’

In a practical sense, Dr. Sacko’s appointment could help Kyoto Seika appeal to more foreign students at a time when many universities across Japan are struggling to maintain enrollment.

Already, 20 percent of its student body comes from abroad, much higher than the 4 percent overall ratio of foreign students in Japanese higher education. Dr. Sacko said he hoped to raise Kyoto Seika’s level to 40 percent within a decade…Dr. Sacko said he had not experienced racism in Japan but said he was treated differently simply because he does not look Japanese. Despite his Japanese citizenship, for example, he says he is automatically routed to lines for foreigners at the airport when he returns from trips abroad. ‘It’s not because you’re black,’ he said. ‘It’s because you’re different.’

He said he considered it his mission to foster differences beyond race. When recruiting Ms. Yoshioka as vice president, he told her he wanted her for the job because she was a woman and a single mother.”