About a century ago, my grandfather departed economically depressed Kumamoto Prefecture on the island of Kyushu for Hawaii, followed by my grandmother. Then came the birth of two sons, the younger my father, on the island of Maui.

My grandfather believed that his children's futures would benefit from a schooling in Japan in that open-minded Taisho Era (1912-26), so at age 4 my father and his older brother were sent back across the Pacific to live in Kumamoto.

Fast-forward a century, and on a fall day in New York City last year, my wife and I accompanied our daughter as she moved into a college dormitory with 550 other women. When we left her that day, it was with mixed and tearful emotions that we returned on a 13-hour flight to Tokyo.