Japanese Graduates: Where Are They Now? | Elece '20

See where life has taken Elece Smith since graduating in 2020.

Elece Smith ‘20, double major in anthropology and Japanese, graduated in 2020 and currently works as Program Admin Specialist in the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at UMD. She was previously the Director of the National Japan Bowl and Education Programs at the Japan-America Society of Washington DC (JASWDC). The Japan Bowl is the nation’s preeminent Japanese language and culture competition for American high-school students studying Japanese. Additionally, Elece oversaw JASWDC’s scholarships and other small education projects. She was accepted into the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET) in 2020, but due to the COVID pandemic, decided to work in the DMV area as a Library Assistant in the Anne Arundel County and Arlington County Public Library Systems. 

She kindly gave our students a shout-out sharing, “Even if you aren’t confident in your Japanese language skills, consider getting involved with local organizations related to Japan. You know a lot more about Japan than the average person and that level of cultural competence can go a long way. Volunteer to teach beginning Japanese at a local library, join a local language circle, attend movie nights or events at the Japan Information and Culture Center downtown, or consider volunteering for organizations like JASWDC and the US Embassy’s cultural outreach arm, JICC.”  

We asked Elece about her travels to Japan, and what she does in her free time. Elece’s life outside of her job also proves that just because you grow up doesn’t mean you must give up on having fun. Here’s what she has to share:

"When I started college, I thought a career path would emerge as a nicely paved walkway, but that never happened. My path to this career was a lot more like following a trail of sparkly something or others into the forest, and I think that worked out really well. I changed my major from international business to Japanese and anthropology and spent much of my early career trying to convince teenagers to come to UMD and answering questions. I worked recruiting for the Honors College as a social media intern for honor humanities and with honors ambassadors as a student coordinator, but my favorite job was at the desk and in the stacks of McKeldin Library. I learned very quickly that I enjoyed two things: 1) answering people’s weird questions and 2) working with teenagers.

In my senior year, I started interning with JASWDC as a Japan Bowl Assistant and continued as an intern until the winter of 2020. During my time with JASWDC as an intern and later a staff member, I worked on four Japan Bowls including the three virtual iterations developed during the pandemic (Digital Japan Bowls I-III). I appeared in the livestreams on the judging panel and even had the chance to join winning students on trips to Ishikawa Prefecture and Okayama Prefecutres in 2022 and 2023 respectively. I had participated in Japan Bowl as a high school student, and combining that with all of the experience answering teenagers’ questions at the libraries, my job at JASWDC turned out to be a wonderful fit for me and an incredibly rewarding experience.  

Of course, seasons change. Even though my current job is not directly connected to Japan, I still find plenty of ways to feed my love for cross-cultural engagement and language learning and now I even have a little bit of time to dedicate to my hobbies. 

These days, I still keep connections to Japan through my hobbies. In addition to my usual lineup of reading, I’ve been slowly working through Nana (Yazawa Ai) and amassing a few more volumes of xxxHolic everytime I go back to Japan. I catch Japanese movies at the Greenbelt Cinema whenever they’re around, I still cook all my favorite recipes from my time abroad at Waseda University and I’m working on a small personal translation of an interview with Satoko Shibata about her February 2024 album Your Favorite Things. Hopefully, in the near future I’ll have made it through her liner notes too."