An essay by a Houston Community College-Southwest student that compares the lives and expectations of women in the United States and Japan has won a grand prize by Houghton Mifflin publishers and will be featured in an upcoming textbook.

Nanae Itagaki’s essay, titled “Innocent Marionettes,” received one of the top prizes in Houghton Mifflin’s ESL Essay Contest. Itagaki, a former student in the Intensive English program at HCC-SW’s Gulfton campus, will receive $100 in prize money. Houghton Mifflin will include her essay in a future textbook.

Itagaki, who came to the United States from Niigata, Japan last July, wrote a searing essay in which she examined the roles of American and Japanese women. In Itagaki’s view, American women have more ability to speak their minds and live their own lives than women in Japan.

By contrast, Itagaki believes Japanese women are inclined to control their emotions and hide what they really think in an effort to help men achieve their goals. She suggests that many Japanese women – including herself – are “Innocent Marionettes,” string-controlled dolls whose lives are being operated by someone else.

“In my culture,” Itagaki writes in her essay, “there is an invisible rule that the will of the man should be regarded more seriously than that of a woman even if both have the same aim and the same ability. Some women unconsciously keep this belief and never doubt it.”

Itagaki is currently attending classes at HCC-Central. After graduation from HCC she plans to obtain a degree in drama at the University of St. Thomas.