S MOKE S IGNALS
APRIL 1, 2015
7
Tribal member heads to Japan
By Dean Rhodes
Smoke Signals editor
Tribal member PimNaniHiish
“Pim” Nelson is spending her spring
term in Osaka, Japan, as a recently
selected Chemeketa Community
College exchange ambassador at
Otemae University.
Nelson, 19, of Mt. Angel said
that one of her goals as ambas-
sador is to experience Japanese
culture and become more fluent
in the language. She is currently
a second-year Japanese language
student at Chemeketa.
“Japan is something I’ve always
been interested in since I was
little,” she says. “I have a strange
attraction to Japan.”
In addition, she is performing
outreach activities. She has met
with students at Faulconer-Chap-
man Middle School and the charter
Japanese School in Sheridan and
plans on writing a blog about her
trip so others can follow her ad-
Photo courtesy of Elaine LaBonte
Tribal member PimNaniHiish “Pim” Nelson is spending her spring term
in Osaka, Japan, as a recently selected Chemeketa Community College
exchange ambassador at Otemae University.
ventures.
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school experience in Silverton,
which included missing almost
a year with medical issues, she
enrolled in an alternative high
school-early college program
through Chemeketa. At the time
of her high school graduation on
Jan. 15, she had earned 50 college
credits with a 3.77 college grade
point average.
She left for Japan on March 22
with three other exchange am-
bassadors and will live in the Ote-
mae University dorms on campus
through July 31. This is the second
year that Chemeketa has offered
the exchange program, she said.
Nelson started representing the
Grand Ronde Tribe when the Lewis
& Clark bicentennial commemora-
tion events were occurring in the Pa-
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She gave presentations in the Tent
of Many Voices in Grand Ronde and
at Mount St. Helens in Washington
state, and she was in attendance
and an active participant at many
events, often dancing in traditional
regalia or demonstrating basket
weaving. She is the great-grand-
daughter of Esther LaBonte.
She and her mother, Chemeketa
biology professor Elaine LaBon-
te-Robertson, attended the March
11 Tribal Council meeting to re-
quest Tribal support with logo mer-
chandise and a Tribal logo blanket
to use as gifts in Japan.
“Grandma was trilingual, speak-
ing English, Chinuk Wawa and
French,” her mother said. “Pim is
also trilingual, speaking English,
Spanish and Japanese. I think that
is cool.” Q
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