Professor David Tobaru Obermiller of the Gustavus Department of History , winner of the College’s Edgar M. Carlson Award for Distinguished Teaching, on COVID-19’s impact on teaching and learning, the response of East Asian countries to the pandemic, his bicultural Okinawan and American background and how it has shaped him, his mother’s challenging life in Japan, Okinawa, and the U.S., his bumpy first-generation path to a college degree, studying abroad in Japan and deciding to pursue graduate study in Asian history, the development of Okinawan “ethnic nationalism,” China’s relations with the U.S. and Russia at the present historical moment, and the rewards of getting to know students well at Gustavus.