Tadashi Yanai gives $31 million to UCLA to support the Yanai Initiative and Japan Past & Present

I am delighted, and deeply humbled, to announce that Mr. Tadashi Yanai, the chair, president, and CEO of Fast Retailing and founder of Uniqlo, has generously donated $31 million to UCLA's Department of Asian Languages and Cultures to increase the endowment of the Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities, and in particular to support the activities of Japan Past & Present, a pathbreaking project that the Yanai Initiative launched in March 2024.

The Yanai Initiative, which exists as a collaboration between UCLA and Waseda University, was first created in 2014 with a $2.5 million gift to UCLA. In 2020, Mr. Yanai established a $25 million endowment at UCLA to ensure the Initiative's long-term continuation. At the time, this was the largest gift the UCLA College Division of Humanities had ever received; with this new donation, Mr. Yanai sets another record.

This happy news is a testament to the innovative, transformative nature of the Yanai Initiative’s activities over the past decade, and to the extraordinary potential Japan Past & Present has to help scholars of the Japanese humanities collectively realize a more equitable, inclusive, and globally connected future for our field.

It is also the consequence of a lot of hard work by a lot of people at UCLA, Waseda University, and beyond. There is no way I could possibly acknowledge everyone here, so I will content myself with the bare minimum: Shan Shan Chi-Au, Chief Administrative Officer of the UCLA Department of Asian Languages and Cultures; Elizabeth Leicester, Associate Director of the Yanai Initiative at UCLA; Paula R. Curtis, Operations Leader of Japan Past & Present; and Jōkō Yumi and Yamazaki Sanae, Program Managers for the Yanai Initiative at Waseda University.

You can read more about Mr. Yanai's extraordinary gift at the UCLA Newsroom, which has, for the first time, posted an announcement in three languages: English, Japanese, and Spanish.

If you haven’t yet had a chance to explore Japan Past & Present, I hope you will take a moment to do so, and to create a profile on Japan Scholar Search and sign up for updates.

Good things are coming.

Sincerely yours,
Michael Emmerich
Director, Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities
Director, Japan Past & Present