East Asian Studies welcomed Harvard expert in linguistics and JSL, Dr. Nozomi Tomita, to the Brown campus. Dr. Tomita and her interpreters offered two separate events to the Brown community; a Japanese Sign Language workshop and a lecture titled Deaf as a Linguistic & Cultural Minority. 

During the JSL workshop students, faculty and staff were shown how to introduce oneself, and adjectives used to describe a person's character. Later that afternoon Dr. Tomita presented a lecture on linguistic diversity in Japan.

These events were part of Japan Week 2025, and were organized by the Japanese Language Program and the EAS Diversity Committee.