The prestigious Westchester Arts Council's Tradition Bearers Award last week at the Rye Town Hilton was quite an honor for longtime Scarsdale resident Kuniko Katz. But Katz felt she didn't do anything that special. "For me, it's not a big deal. It's just a natural extension of my life," she told the Inquirer in her typical honest and low-key style.

The award, presented by Kitty Carlisle Hart, recognized Katz's significant contributions to the arts and for her dedication to sharing traditions of her homeland with community and school groups.

Katz is the founder of Japan .America Community Outreach, a non-profit organization that helps Japanese families living in Westchester navigate the sometimes bumpy roads of suburban American life. JACO helps create opportunities for them to share their traditions with their American neighbors and finds new venues for Japanese artists.

Headquartered in a shoe box-sized office in White Plains, JACO has seven directors, three Japanese, four American. Katz coordinates the 20- to 30-volunteer staff.  "Some people believe 1 do everything by myself. It's not true. 1 have the skill to put people together who have the skills to share with people." said Katz. "My asset, because of my experience living in this country so long (30 years) is that I'm comfortable with both cultures. 1 can introduce people to both cultures."

Katz's shy demeanor is deceiving. She is a woman of action and has , learned how to get things done in her own quiet way.Her involvement in Japanese-American life started with the PTA. "It was then that I first saw the problems that the Japanese women were having." she said. Katz assumed the role of unofficial envoy between the Japanese and American communities. "I thought by writing about these things, they could change, and they did," she said. Soon Katz was recruiting other Japanese women into the PTAs. trying to help them assimilate. Back in the early '90s when the Japanese population was at its peak ? over 20.000 in Westchester. Katz made her business to teach the Scarsdale police and the librarians some basic Japanese.

She was executive director of the 1993 Scarsdale Japan Festival, a yearlong event that promoted better understanding between Japanese and American cultures through lectures, seminars, films, exhibits and social events. She wrote articles for Japanese newspapers and magazines, describing the strain between the two cultures.

Her campaign paid off. A Japanese community relations director in Greenwich contacted Katz to help improve relations between older residents and a new Japanese population that had relocated from Queens.

Katz created "Japan on Wheels." a mobile culture show that visited nursing homes. Volunteers demonstrated traditional Japanese arts, like the tea ceremony, flower arranging, origami and kimono-tying, and played the koto, violin and piano. Channel 4 News covered "Japan on Wheels" for a day. following it around on all its stops. "They were amazed at how much we did." said Katz.

The center flourished, but as the Japanese population declined, the budget was cut. "We fell this kind of grassroots program was just the beginning, so we established our own nonprofit organization -JACO - two years ago." Katz said.

"I believe the government and the Japanese companies have some responsibility to the kids on how they are being educated here and their well being, to have some kind of a center." Katz said. "And for the mothers to have someone to consult with if they need someone to talk to. because they don't speak the language." She also thinks the government should be promoting better understanding to help families.

"The Japanese are willing to help, which makes them feel very good. Volunteerism is American. In Japan, everything is done for them  and volunteering is a new concept for them." said Katz. "They appreciate what they can do to help. I always tell them 'what they need is good will, not necessarily fluent English.' They feel a kind of happiness, it's wonderful for them."

Her organization gives workshops for Japanese families who want to gel involved in the community and their children's schools. Katz built on the success of other programs, and JACO visits nursing homes, schools, museums and other institutions. Its library loans kimonos, books, videos, calligraphy sets. Japanese artifacts and other items to Japanese volunteers for school and community projects.

Born Kuniko Koga in Kumamoto, Japan. Katz's first career was as an ophthalmologist's assistant working with people with strabismus and amblyopia. She was studying at the New York live and Ear Hospital where a friend introduced her to her future husband Jeffrey. Katz returned to Japan after her studies, but a year later returned to New York and married him. She and Jeffrey and their two children, Debby and Danny. have lived in Scarsdale for 17 years.

Katz. a graduate of Antioch College in Ohio, will enter Sarah Lawrence this fall for a master's program in creative non-fiction. When asked about running JACO and going to school, Katz said she doesn't see a problem. "I hope someday to write a memoir." Katz said. She laughed, then smiled, and spoke very softly: "Maybe it will be a bestseller."

She's also a woman used to juggling, giving her long list of accomplishments. She is immersed in village activities as well. She, is on the board of directors of Scarsdale/Edgemont Family Counseling and the Scarsdale Historical Society; the advisory boards of the Scarsdale Transfer Education Plan and the Advisory Council on Seniors and a member of the Scarsdale Campaign for Peace. In her spare time, she sells real estate. When asked how she manages to get it all done, she quipped, "It sounds like I'm busy. I don't think I'm working that hard. I think I've occupied my time well."

Add to that list of accomplishments Katz's bat mitzvah last June at Scarsdale Synagogue. Jeffrey and the children are Jewish. "My children feel very strongly about Judaism. I followed what they did and because they felt so strongly, I didn't want to be left out. Now the whole family shares one God. It took me 26 .years to convert to Judaism," said Katz. Katz said that she didn't feel any conflict about the conversion. "I was raised as a Buddhist, and because you worship many gods, it's more of a philosophy. If I had been Christian it would have been difficult. It was very natural for me, accepting Judaism."

She is now studying for confirmation, along with most of the 13 women with whom she shared her group bat mitzvah. "I feel like I should get the tradition bearers award for Judaism," she said. Katz is actively involved in the temple's sisterhood.

"I am writing about how the Jews were persecuted in English and in Japanese newspapers in New York," Katz said. "My goal is to help erase prejudice against the Jews and the Japanese. Some people think the Holocaust didn't happen, especially some Japanese,"

Katz returns to Japan each year to visit her family. "I prefer to go by myself, I like it better that way," she said. She's been honored there, as well.

In '1996, Katz was recognized by the Nippon Kenshokai Foundation, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Japanese government, for promoting understanding between the U.S. and Japan. The emperor's brother and his wife presided over the ceremonies in Tokyo.

Katz made a presentation to the directors, staff and invited guests of Japan Overseas Educational Services, an organization which assists Japanese families temporarily relocated around the world. She was also honored at a reception given by many former Scarsdalians who had returned to Japan.

When asked how she felt about getting the Tradition Bearers Award, she answered: "It's nice. My 15 minutes of fame. I told the people I work with the award is for all of us. I cannot take credit for it by myself. I felt good that someone took notice of what we are doing."

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Only those who have lived and worked abroad can truly identify with the anxieties experienced by transplanted families. Negotiating one's way in a strange city with limited language skills is highly stressful. However, Japanese families moving to Scarsdale may have a distinct advantage over other internationals; they come here knowing a name: Kuniko Katz.

A tiny woman with enormous compassion, Kuniko Katz has walked that path. She's felt their loneliness and frustration, and she knows first-hand the exultation that comes with understanding ? with breakthrough. Every international can tell dial story. But through her own experience, she says she has learned something else: "The more you do and the quicker you become involved, the better you feel."

Since arriving in Scarsdale 10 years ago with her husband and their two children, she has hammered home that theme ? with remarkable results. As a result of her efforts, many Japanese women, who might otherwise have sought out only other compatriots, arc contributing members of school, civic and cultural organizations ? offering helpful hands and opportunities to share facets of their native culture.

A superb envoy on behalf of both cultures, Kuniko Katz served the village well as executive director of the 1993 Scarsdale Japan Festival. During that year-long event, she brought Americans and Japanese together and promoted understanding between the cultures through lectures, seminars, films, exhibits and social events.

Nevertheless, what she had been able to accomplish working independently revealed to her how much is truly needed to help assimilate families jolted out of familiar surroundings into totally foreign environments.

She points out that most adults who come here from Japan are college educated, having studied the English language for 10 years. Yet, she says, "nothing in their own country adequately prepares them for the culture shock they are about to experience."

Through her writings in magazines and newspapers.

she lobbied the Japanese government for help. Her campaign paid off. The Japanese Education Center in Greenwich, established a year ago, offers a reciprocal program of books and materials, workshops and seminars to familiarize internationals with American customs and, by the same token, to provide Americans with insights into the Japanese way.

As program coordinator of the center, she directs the activities of 30 volunteer mothers, who help her administer the Japan on Wheels project that brings Japanese information and culture into local communities. Of her accomplishment, she says, "It is a beginning."

Scarsdale Woman Helps Ease the Strain When Cultures Clash

THOSE who fret about the strains between Japanese and Americans should meet Kuniko Katz. She is a living bridge over those troubled waters.

She is a Japanese woman married to Jeffrey Katz, a Bronx social studies teacher. Her two children, Danny, 15 years old, and Debbie, 13, attend Japanese weekend schools but they were also bar and bas mitzvahed. And she has located herself in a town where there have been some awkward misunderstandings between long-rooted Americans and the arriviste Japanese.

Two years ago, a magazine article spoke ominously of "The Japanning of Scarsdale" and it was illustrated by a photograph of a station platform dominated by somber-faced Japanese businessmen. Your time is over, the story seemed to say to non-Japanese residents of Scarsdale.

Many people here feel the article overstated whatever discord there was, that there was something essentially absurd about talking about "Japanning" when most Japanese families are here for three- or four-year tours of business duty. Still, the article struck a raw nerve because it came amid a national petulance over the Japanese economic invasion and because many of its vignettes hit the mark.

It is true that Westchester County's 20,000 Japanese have not made much of an effort to plunge into community activities, a feature of suburban life that some locales have practically elevated into a residential requirement. It is also true that Japanese youngsters sometimes feel ignored by their American classmates while American teen-agers see the Japanese as standoffish.

The article wounded Mrs. Katz, a slight, soft-spoken woman who can appear fragile to the uninitiated. She has had to raise children to meet the lifelong challenge of navigating two cultures. While she has made it her business to teach some basic Japanese to the town's police officers and librarians and has recruited Japanese women into the P.T.A.'s, those efforts were evidently not enough.

So recently Mrs. Katz resorted to a venerable folk remedy. She helped organize a get-to-know-your-neighbor festival. For the last four Tuesdays, Americans who live in Scarsdale have been attending lectures on the history, religion and mores of the Japanese at the Hitchcock Presbyterian Church, itself long a bridge between the two communities. "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Japanese but Were Afraid to Ask," her fliers trumpet. And on Wednesdays, Japanese have attended lectures on America's mysteries.

"I don't have a crusade kind of attitude," Mrs. Katz says. "I want my children to grow up to be decent human beings who understand different cultures, who don't develop any prejudices."

Still, the tensions are for her more than an academic exercise. Mrs. Katz was born Kuniko Koga in Kumamoto, Japan. She came here in 1969 to study physical therapy at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, and, when a roommate introduced her to Jeffrey, her life took an irrevocable turn.

She has come to know both cultures from her special vantage. Japanese standoffishness, she says, is really a tribal shyness. Unlike glad-handing, compulsively confessional Americans, Japanese are expected to grasp the delicacies of a situation without conversation.

"In Japan, silence is encouraged," Mrs. Katz points out. "Once you open your mouth, you show how ignorant you are."

In Japan there is no tradition of volunteerism, and women find the idea of leaving children with baby sitters to volunteer a sin verging on child abuse.

"Their entire existence is to make children get into a good college," says Mrs. Katz, her dark eyes twinkling wryly.

Such cultural incongruities have often been wrenching for Mrs. Katz, particularly in using her acquired American manners with her more traditional Japanese acquaintances.

"Sometimes I want to express my feelings," she said. "But if I express myself too strong then I get into trouble because they tend to be very polite. To harmonize, they don't want to say outright what they think. But talking to Americans you have to say what you think."

In such incongruities Mrs. Katz has also come to see opportunities. In their mad devotion to education, Japanese mothers, Mrs. Katz has found, are not all that different from Jewish mothers, who make up a sizable portion of Scarsdale's women.

"The mothers would do anything. They would stay up late while kids are studying for exams and make them snacks."

Yet as she tries to exploit such commonalities to narrow the cultural gulf, Mrs. Katz knows she is also chafing the bruises of her own paradox.

"I feel I belong here," she says, "but from an American point of view I'm an outsider. In Japan, also, you are in your own country but you still feel somewhere an outsider. I belong in both places. On the other hand I don't belong in either place."

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