Wasilla gets new ‘sister city,’ exchange students arrive

WASILLA — Palmer is no longer the only Mat-Su community with a “sister city” in Japan.

As of May 1, Wasilla is paired with the town of Uchiko in Ehime prefecture, Japan, on Shikoku, the smallest of the country’s four main islands.

“This friendship city opportunity between Uchiko and Wasilla will bring many cultural exchanges for our students and citizens in the future,” wrote Mayor Bert Cottle in a letter to Uchiko Mayor Takatoshi Inamoto, April 30.

Inspired by Iditarod Trail pioneer Jujiro Wada — who claimed Uchiko as his hometown before moving to Alaska — Cottle and Uchiko Town Councilman Toshio Saino shook on the deal at the Dorothy Page Museum during the May ceremony. University of Alaska professor Hiroyuki Matsuura, City of Wasilla Deputy Administrator Lyn Carden and Wasilla High School Japanese teacher Carla Swick and her students also were present.

But Wasilla High School has had a sister school for 19 years. Students from Takefu Higashi High School in the city of Echizen in Fukui prefecture, Japan, last visited Alaska in 2013, and last hosted Wasilla students in 2014.

Tonight, 21 students and two teachers from Takefu Higashi will arrive in Alaska. Students will visit Seward, Talkeetna and downtown Wasilla during their 10-day stay in Southcentral Alaska.

Wasilla graduate Jeremy Grice, soon to be a senior at the University of Alaska Anchorage, studied Japanese under Swick and is now majoring in math and Japanese. He also will host a student this week before spending his last year of college at Hokkaido University on an exchange.

Grice visited Takefu Higashi in 2010 and hosted a student from there in 2011. He said he thinks the exchange with the Japanese students will be more meaningful for him this time around.

“Now my Japanese ability’s really good, but back then, the language barrier was really hard to get across,” he said.

However, cultural understanding may take more time and experience, especially as new host families get involved in the sister school and sister city programs. Grice remembered one instance where Alaskan parents were concerned about their Japanese host students during meals.

“They thought (the Japanese students) were homesick or something because they didn’t eat as much as their own kids, but I think they just weren’t used to how rich our food was,” he said.

Although not all areas of Japan have exactly the same food and culture — Echizen and Uchiko, for example, are about as far apart as Wasilla and Fairbanks, and on separate islands, which can be very different — Grice said he thinks the connection with Uchiko may garner more interest in Japanese studies among students at Wasilla High.

“I think that’ll get more people interested in the Japanese program, knowing we have the sister city,” he said.

And perhaps it will encourage those who already have an interest, like incoming Wasilla freshman Sami Hettrick.

“I just really wanna learn the language and culture of Japan,” she said.

Sami and her older brother Kory who graduated from Wasilla this year, also will be host a Japanese student this week.

Although Sami hasn’t taken any Japanese yet, her brother called his exchange experience in Japan “the best experience I’ve had.”

“It changed our perspective on how world travel works,” he said, and was “a whole lot more submersive” than the family vacation the Kettricks took to Ecuador two months prior.

“It was kinda one of those life-changing deals,” Kory said.

And to make sure the Takefu Higashi students don’t forget their experience in Alaska, Wasilla High senior Kristina Cloud is designing commemorative T-shirts and sweatshirts with her new screen-printing skills. She will hand-make about 50 shirts.

To learn more about the Wasilla High School Japanese program, contact Carla Swick at carla.swick@matsuk12.us.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.