*This article is one year old but still relevant none the less*

"There is a strong ambition to go abroad," said Karen Kelsky, head of the department of East Asian languages and cultures at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "They simply don't believe they can accomplish their goals in Japan."

Female artists, especially, face obstacles in the elitist conservative Japanese art world, said Midori Yoshimoto, author of "Into Performance: Japanese Women Artists in New York," which profiles Japanese artists living in the United States in the 1960s.