Seiji Yamashita ’20, ’20E

Alumni Gazette

Seiji Yamashita ’20, ’20E took to the piano quickly at age 5. At age 14, he discovered his passion for jazz. The son of first-generation Americans from Japan, Yamashita says that the musical art form with roots in Black America resonates with him.

“Jazz is full of feeling, emotion, and purpose—it speaks a language that represents a community and resonates with so many people in that community and beyond it,” he says. “It’s given me an ideology and a lens through which to view the world.”

These days he finds “journalism does that, too.”

At Rochester, Yamashita earned a degree in international relations through Arts, Sciences & Engineering and a degree in jazz piano performance from the Eastman School of Music. Then he headed to New York City to study at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He earned a master’s degree from the school last spring.

Since arriving in New York, he’s taken in the Big Apple’s prolific jazz scene while crafting multimedia stories about race and class; about artists, musicians, and working-class people; and about the governmental institutions and other large systems that all too often leave people behind.

“The number of hate crimes and protests held since the onset of the pandemic illustrates the need for more stories—and more compassion for—those who look and live differently,” Yamashita says.

In a little over a year, he’s established himself with an impressive body of work. A focus of his has been Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, he covered the quest of AAPI activists to unify their diverse communities into a powerful political bloc. When eight spa workers—six of whom were women of Asian descent—were shot and killed in Atlanta last March, he documented the reactions of New Yorkers in the context of growing awareness outside the AAPI communities of anti-Asian hate crimes. And in one video profile, he tells the story of a medical student of Thai descent who strives to overcome trauma after she was verbally and physically assaulted on a New York City street.

Yamashita immersed himself in the local community when he was at Rochester as well. He became an AmeriCorps Urban Fellow; performed every Sunday at Destiny Preparation Church, a nondenominational, multicultural place of worship in downtown Rochester; was the keyboard player in the church’s gospel band; and wrote for the Campus Times.

“All of these experiences helped me get to know the Rochester community—often parts of it that I wouldn’t have known without making the effort to get out there,” he says, noting that the importance of community engagement and service was instilled in him at a young age, through his parents and at his San Jose, California, high school.

And while the communities he covers may be complex, his mission as a journalist is clear cut.

“I want my stories to help readers see that there are so many people out there who need to be treated better,” he says. “It’s really as simple as that.”