Our January Photo of the Month comes from Annabel Baker-Sullivan (Hokkaido 2018-2020).

A 15-year-old Carlo Capua wasn’t thrilled when his mother suggested he try a program one summer that was mentioned in a certain pamphlet that arrived at their house. “I said, ‘Mom, that sounds terrible. I wanna go play sports — baseball or soccer.’” Capua, a native of Fort Worth, Texas, stated. “And she said, ‘Just give it a shot. It’s just two weeks over the summer. I think you’ll enjoy it.’”

USJETAA is excited to welcome Eigo Ganbare as our newest JET Alum-Owned Business Sponsor!

Join us on January 9 at 7:00 PM ET for our first reading of 2026! We will be reading Diary of a Boy’s New Year by Ogawa Mimei, a well known writer of children’s stories and fairy tales.

Our newest professional development program!

Boost Your Nihongo for 2026!

Join us for a special holiday session of Ouchigohan on Sunday, December 21 at 5:00 PM ET.

Samantha Sodetz (Kagoshima, 2018-2019)

Rural communities in both Japan and the United States have much to learn from one another as they seek to address rural depopulation. In a globalized world where many people, especially young people, are driven to metropolitan areas in pursuit of economic advancement—think, Osaka, Tokyo, and Fukuoka in Japan and coastal cities like New York and Los Angeles in the United States—often-neglected rural communities in both countries are facing cascading problems.

JETs on Japan: December, 2025