nisei

IPA: nɪsˈeɪ

Root Word: Nisei

a person born outside of Japan of parents who were born in Japan
One whose parents were Japanese immigrants, especially to North or South America.

Examples of "nisei" in Sentences

Their two nisei translators had such flawed grammar and old-fashioned idioms that their efforts did not fool anyone, least of all the enemy.
At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, thirty-nine thousand nisei American-born children of Japanese immigrants in Hawaii and eighteen thousand in California were enrolled in Japanese-language schools.
She wove intercultural conflicts and bonds into "Seventeen Syllables" 1949, in which a nisei girl's blooming romance with a Mexican American classmate offers an achingly innocent counterpoint to her mother's arranged marriage.
In today's paper, Mr. Tanabe's grandson reflects on what the degree means to him and his generation: I am proud of the nisei — my grandfather's generation — who responded to the prejudice of internment with actions of strength and honor.
The MO staff included a nisei second-generation Japanese American named Tokie Slocum, who served as their resident expert, responsible for conjuring up the mind of the typical Japanese soldier and assessing what strategies would be most effective in playing on his emotions and superstitions and undermining his morale.
Often compared to short-story masters such as Katherine Mansfield, Flannery O'Connor and Grace Paley, Ms. Yamamoto concentrated her imagination on the issei and nisei, the first- and second-generation Japanese Americans who were targets of the public hysteria unleashed after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.