WASHINGTON, April 18,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Arfiya Eri, a member of
Japan's House of Representatives,
has joined the United States-Japan Foundation Board of
Trustees.
Eri's historic candidacy in the April
2023 parliamentary election drew worldwide attention. A
Japanese national of Uyghur and Uzbek descent, she is the first
Uyghur woman to be elected to any legislature in any nation,
according to the World Uyghur Congress. At 35 years old, she is
currently the youngest woman in Japan's parliament, where the average age is
55 and only 10% of the House of Representatives is female.
In 2023, Time magazine named Eri one of its 100 next-generation
global leaders.
Before entering Japanese politics, Eri spent extensive time in
the U.S., working at the United Nations in New York after earning her bachelor's and
master's degrees at Georgetown
University's Walsh School of
Foreign Service in Washington, DC.
She is fluent in Japanese, English, and Uyghur, and speaks four
other languages in varying degrees of fluency: Chinese, Uzbek,
Turkish, and Arabic.
Eri is a fellow in the Foundation's US-Japan Leadership Program,
joining the network in 2018.
"Arfiya is an inspiring symbol, a pioneer, for a new generation
of Japanese leadership," said USJF board Chair Lawrence K. Fish. "More than that, she is an
energetic, creative thinker about the future of Japanese society,
about U.S.-Japan relations, and
the role that organizations such as ours can play in helping shape
a better future for both countries. We look forward to working with
her as we chart our new path for greater impact on both sides of
the Pacific."
"I am truly honored and humbled to join the USJF Board, and look
forward to learning from all colleagues, as well as contributing to
its ever more important work in strengthening US-Japan relations
across sectors and industries," said Eri. "The alliance of
our two countries — two of the strongest democratic economies in
the world — has never been more vital against the backdrop of
shrinking space globally for human rights, civil rights, and
democracy, as well as evident and pressing threats to rule-based
international order. I also look forward to working with the Board
to further enhance its efforts on diversity, inclusion, and
representation across its programs on both sides of the
Pacific."
Born in Kitakyushu,
Fukuoka Prefecture, Eri became a
Japanese citizen at the age of 10, in 1999. Her family temporarily
moved to China for her father's
work, and she graduated from the American school in Guangzhou.
After earning her MA in Eurasian, Russian, and East European
Studies, Eri joined the Bank of Japan, where she worked from 2012-2016. She
served at the UN from 2016 through 2022, before returning to
Japan to run for political
office.
Eri represents the 5th District of Chiba Prefecture, which includes the cities of
Urayasu and Ichikawa, just outside
Tokyo.
In addition to Chair Fish, Eri joins on the USJF board: Vice
Chair Tak Niinami, Wendy Cutler, Richard E.
Dyck, Colleen Hanabusa,
James M. Kondo, Craig M. Mullaney, Richard J. Samuels, Keiko Tashiro, Donna
Tanoue, and Takeshi
Ueshima.
The United States-Japan Foundation was started in 1980 with a
mission of improving relations between the two countries. It has
since given out more than $100
million in grants and oversees the US-Japan Leadership
Program with a network of 500 fellows from the two countries.
Contact: info@us-jf.org
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SOURCE United States-Japan Foundation