Berkley Center

Soichiro Yamashita is a second year student in the Department of Hispanic Studies at Sophia University of Tokyo majoring in Spanish and History. He is especially interested in the myth-history of the Mayan peoples during Spanish colonization. Yamashita was born in Japan but lived in the United States for 15 years before moving back to Japan in 2009. His experiences in the United States and Japan have prompted him to examine the interesting relationship between cultural understanding from the perspective of human history and what it means to have multiple identities. Yamashita is also a part of the Berkley Center's Catholic Social Teaching and the Global Future of Development project.