The year is 1995. Fresh out of a long-term relationship, twenty-two-year-old MariNaomi finds herself amidst a flurry of major lifechanges. Newly immersed in the pan-Asian diaspora of San Jose, California, half-Japanese Mari searches for connections to a culture that has so far eluded her.

It doesn't take long for Mari to find new love and a new job--at a hostess bar for Japanese expats--in a bid to learn the language and culture.Turning Japanesefollows Mari from Northern California to Tokyo, Japan, as she tries to get by in an unfamiliar city with rudimentary language skills--all in the hopes of finally connecting with her Japanese relatives without theuse of her mother as a translator.

Turning Japanese: Expanded Edition includes new story pages that bring fresh insight and a new resolution to this classic comics memoir of our times.