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)
“If the accumulated wealth of the past generations is thus tainted,—no matter how much of it is offered to us,—we must begin to consider if it were not the nobler part to renounce it, and to put ourselves in primary relations with the soil and nature, and abstaining from whatever is dishonest and unclean, to take each of us bravely his part, with his own hands, in the manual labor of the world.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“These are the voices of the pastors calling
And calling like the long echoes in long sleep,
Generations of shepherds to generations of sheep.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)