Generations
The term Nikkei (日系) was coined by sociologists and encompasses all of the world's Japanese immigrants across generations. Japanese-Canadians (and Japanese Americans) have special names for each of their generations in North America. These are formed by combining one of the Japanese numerals with the Japanese word for generation (sei 世):
- Issei (一世) - The first generation of immigrants, born in Japan before moving to Canada.
- Nisei (二世) - The second generation, born in Canada to Issei parents not born in Canada.
- Sansei (三世) - The third generation, born in Canada to Nisei parents born in Canada.
- Yonsei (四世) - The fourth generation, born in Canada to Sansei parents born in Canada.
- Gosei (五世) - The fifth generation, born in Canada to Yonsei parents born in Canada.
Read more about this topic: Japanese Canadians
Famous quotes containing the word generations:
“What really distinguishes this generation in all countries from earlier generations ... is its determination to act, its joy in action, the assurance of being able to change things by one’s own efforts.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“The mode of founding a college is, commonly, to get up a subscription of dollars and cents, and then, following blindly the principles of a division of labor to its extreme,—a principle which should never be followed but with circumspection,—to call in a contractor who makes this a subject of speculation,... and for these oversights successive generations have to pay.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)