Coming to America tells the stories of local residents who left their native country to make a new home in the United States. Watch for a new story each issue. To nominate someone for this series, send a brief description to: edit@thriveswla.com
by Erin K. Cormier
“I’d driven through going from Houston to New Orleans, but I never stopped,” she said. “As soon as I came here, I noticed that the people were very warm and helpful from the beginning, and that the food is excellent. Lake Charles has a nice atmosphere and I love being able to work in music.” Morita, an assistant professor of music, began playing piano around age five, when she overheard her older brother playing and decided to pluck at the keys herself. Although she comes from a non-musical family, they discovered that she was able to play piano by ear at an early age. She polished her talent over the years before following the music to the Jacobs School. Morita has performed in various solo and chamber music venues across the U.S. and abroad. Select performances include the Church of Epiphany Concert Series in Washington, the Washington Square Concert Series in New York, the Académie Internationale Musicale d’Été de Nice in France, Sala Xochipilli in Mexico, and Bertramka Hall in the Czech Republic.
Lina Morita
“Music is such a powerful entity. Even those who are not regular listeners of classical music can relate to the sound of it. It’s cliché to say that music is a universal language, but it’s really true. It means so many different things to so many people,” Morita said. There are a few other things that she appreciates almost as much as the piano – a good Brazilian steak, for example.
Following the Music
“The first thing I want to do when I go home is go to a Brazilian steakhouse. When it comes to food, Brazil is mostly known for steaks, and for a good reason. The cuts are amazing,” Morita said.
The Journey of Lina Morita America was subsidized by the Brazilian government. In 1902, however, Italy enacted a prohibition on government-funded emigration. As Italian labor dwindled, the arrival of Japanese laborers rose. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, there are now more than 1.4 million people of Japanese descent living in the country.
São Paulo is one of the world’s most populous cities, with more than 11 million people living across 500 miles. Brazil is the world’s fifth largest country and the biggest in South America, where it shares a border with every country except Ecuador and Chile. Because of its size, the topography of Brazil, which includes mountains, plains, scrubs, and lowlands, is just as diverse as its people.
“I grew up experiencing two very different cultures,” said Morita, who speaks Japanese in addition to Portuguese, the national language of Brazil. She says one of the best aspects of living with dual culture was the food. “I could stay home and eat my mother’s amazing Japanese food, or eat at any of the restaurants in São Paulo. Because of the cultural diversity, they have every type of food you can imagine. Food was definitely one of the things I missed when I moved to Bloomington. Dorm food doesn’t quite compare.”
Morita is the daughter of Japanese immigrants from Nagasaki and Tokyo. There is an impressive number of Japanese in Brazil – so much so that it is now home to the largest Japanese population in the world outside of Japan.
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Morita, a classical pianist, left the hustle of São Paulo for the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. Outside of visits to New York and Los Angeles, this was her first American experience.
Sao Paulo, Brazil / Photo by Rodrigo Soldon
“It was a shock. The first time I saw a squirrel was in Bloomington. The weather was hard, too. I’d seen snow during visits to Japan, but I’d never had to live in it before. It was crazy. I remembering buying coats and asking people, ‘Do you think this is warm enough?’” Morita said. “But the cold in Bloomington is nothing like in Rochester. I think Rochester might be
the coldest place on Earth.”
The first wave of Japanese immigrants arrived around the turn of the 20th century, when the country was desperate for laborers to work on coffee plantations once maintained by now-freed African slaves. After slaves were emancipated in 1850, the plantations were worked mostly by Italian immigrants, whose passage to South
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In Bloomington, Indiana, 70,000 people – mostly college students – are squeezed inside 20 square miles. The city is rich with trees and limestone, and the winters are cold and snowy. There isn’t much about Bloomington that resembles São Paulo, so when native Brazilian Lina Morita became an Indiana resident in 1995 in 1995, it took some adjustment.
“When I tell people I’m from Brazil, they give me a funny look that says, ‘You don’t look Brazilian.’ But there are so many cultural ethnicities throughout the country, especially in São Paulo. The city is like a melting pot similar to what you’d find in New York,” Morita said.
Journey
Morita moved to Rochester, N.Y., to earn her doctorate after she was accepted into the prestigious Eastman School of Music. Between graduating from Indiana University and enrolling at the Eastman School, she also earned a master’s degree in music from Rice University in Houston, so when she was offered a teaching job at McNeese, she was vaguely familiar with Lake Charles.
Thrive Magazine for Better Living
October 2010
October 2010
Thrive Magazine for Better Living
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