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Hello World!
A few years ago, I started a journey asking
the question of what makes a Japanese person Japanese?
Why would I, a Canadian, spend a couple years delving into Japanese Identity?
Well, my wife is Japanese, which makes our kids both Japanese and Canadian.
In Japanese they're known as hāfu, because one half of them is Japanese.
So that kind of implies that they're not fully Japanese.
In Canada, they can call themselves Japanese-Canadian,
half-Japanese / half-Canadian,
or simply Canadian.
Because as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau so eloquently put it,
"A Canadian, is a Canadian, is a Canadian
and the diversity of our country is actually one of our greatest strengths."
Take me for example.
I've always called myself Canadian,
but if you trace back my ancestry, I'm also lots of things.
My father is of Chinese descent,
but his family moved to Guyana over 100 years ago
when they came over as indentured labourers.
They'd been there so long that my father's sole language is English.
And can I pause on this picture for a second and say
that I've never thought of my father as a stylish guy,
but man, he's looking pretty slick,
along with the rest of my aunts and uncles.
But on to my mother, who is mostly British, but was born in Belize.
I say mostly, because recently
she found out she has some Indigenous Central American mixed in,
which means I do as well.
Anyways, she grew up all over the West Indies with her family,
and after marrying my father in Guyana,
promptly moved to Canada
and they became Canadians.
Despite their varied backgrounds,
and having moved to Canada
in their twenties,
they could easily call themselves Canadian.
I was born in Canada,
so that makes me a Canadian,
and no one has ever questioned if I'm Canadian or not,
despite having such an eclectic background.
My wife's story is much simpler.
She was born and raised in Tokyo,
and her family has lived in Japan
for as far back as they can remember,
with some claims to samurai lineage even.
And, like me in Canada,
no one in Japan has ever questioned if she's Japanese or not.
But our kids, they are both Japanese and Canadian.
So why is it in Canada,
if they call themselves Canadian,
people won't question them.
Whereas in Japan, if they call themselves Japanese,
it's not accepted so easily?
Perhaps it's because there are people like
the former Prime Minister of Japan, Asō Tarō,
who have proclaimed that Japan is
"One nation, one civilization,
one language, one culture,
and one race,
the like of which there is no other on this earth."
So that got me thinking,
what makes a Japanese person Japanese or not.
Is it the blood that runs through their veins?
A parent they were born to?
The country they grew up in?
Is it how they look?
How they act?
How they speak?
To seek answers, I went to the far north, Hokkaido,
to talk with the Ainu people
who have lived on the land for thousands of years.
I went to the far South, Okinawa,
who've had many influences,
from Chinese,
to American,
to Japanese.
I went all over Japan and met with Zainichi-Koreans,
whose families came to Japan from Korea generations ago.
Nikkei-Brazilians, who returned to Japan after generations away.
Hāfu, who have one Japanese parent and a strong connection to one another.
Kikokushijo, who grew up partly outside of Japan
and often feel like outsiders upon returning.
Refugees, who may have been born and raised in Japan
but can struggle to attain citizenship.
And I met with Naturalized Japanese,
who became Japanese later in life.
I met with all kinds of Japanese,
who are Japanese, but...
it's complicated.
So I went out asking the question,
"What is being Japanese?"
When I am asked if I am Japanese, I kind of feel weird.
I am Japanese and I'm also
Ainu, that's how I feel about myself.
I want people to introduce themselves naturally like,
I am Japanese but my grandpa was Ainu.
So I like Ainu language and culture.
And that's my roots.
My ideal society is that anyone can freely express their roots with pride
and can be accepted naturally.
So Maya is Ainu, and they are the indigenous people of northern Japan,
in the area now known as Hokkaido.
I am from Biratori in Nibutani, Hokkaido.
In Biratori, about 70-80% of the population have Ainu roots.
So the Ainu culture strongly remains in this area.
I was raised surrounded by all the culture and traditional arts.
The Ainu were there before the Yamato,
or as they were also called, Wajin,
who settled the mainland of Japan
and became the majority of modern day Japanese.
The Ainu had a different language, and a different way of life;
living in small villages, hunting and gathering.
Ainu's community is really small.
If you have 3 or 4 houses, you can say it's a Kotan, a village.
So with that kind of characterization with the number of rivers,
maybe the number of the Ainu are not so different from today,
maybe 25,000 or so.
While they didn't officially become Japanese before 1869,
they had been under the control
of the Japanese Matsumae clan for three hundred years.
So when the Meiji era began,
the Ainu had already lost their autonomy.
At the end of the Meiji era, it's a kind of slavery system.
Men had to go to the seashore to work for Japanese people every year.
So they had to do like the Japanese did.
Ainu customs were gradually forbidden.
Tattoos were banned and hunting deer or fishing salmon were restricted.
Even though some Ainu weren't farmers, they were forced
to farm anyways, and were given poor quality land on top of that.
Ainu didn’t lose their power when Hokkaido became part of Japan.
By that time, they had lost it already.
They had been exploited for so long.
So not teaching the Ainu language, not teaching Ainu culture,
is what parents did.
It seems that parents often told their children
not to marry Ainu so that the Ainu blood would be
I don't like this expression, “diluted”.
In a history textbook you'll find about two pages discussing Ainu.
Textbooks only have big historical events and numbers.
Maybe it's the things they don't write about that are culture.
I would like you to learn what's not in the textbooks.
To find out what wasn't in the textbooks,
I travelled to Hokkaido,
where Maya and her relatives were undertaking
an annual collection of tree bark
that'll be used to make traditional Ainu cloth.
Today we all came to peel off the tree bark.
And this work has to be taught to the next generation,
but can only be done once a year.
It won't tear.
So like this, Ainu people and non-Ainu people are doing this together.
This is not a ritual that only Ainu can do,
or only Ainu should do,
because Ainu sees people as humans,
this should be the way it is,
so we gather here together, enjoying, being merry, full of happiness.
While Maya proudly identifies as Ainu and Japanese now,
it wasn't so easy for her to do so back when she was young.
My parents are known and actively involved in the Ainu culture,
also my grandma and uncles
are proud of being Ainu and work as artisans.
They are known well enough to be easily found
on the internet or in many media.
So I was repeatedly asked by my parents
if I was ok to be on media
when in elementary school.
Not only was her family well known,
but her father was one of the only remaining teachers of the Ainu language.
Consequently…
I've done Ainu speech contests when I was small.
I got the best speech award so I think people
may have thought I had potential to carry on Ainu culture.
So people seem to expect me to be better and I wanted
to respond to them but I couldn't always do so.
タント ウポポ ヘネ Today I'd like to sing while I'm sitting down
ウパｼ クマヘネ and talk about
クイｴ ルスイクス our ancestors' stories.
ヌ ワ エンコレヤンアニー So please listen and enjoy.
I think I wanted to leave everything to do with Ainu,
so I actually left Nibutani
to go to middle school in a different area.
After leaving my town,
I realized how important Ainu is to me.
And my parents learned how much I love Ainu culture.
Now I look back and think it was a great idea to leave my town.
But...
When I was in middle and high school, I was torn
whether to live as a regular Japanese or an Ainu.
There was a time I was thinking about that.
On the opposite side of Hokkaido is Okinawa,
Japan's set of semi-tropical islands.
Like Hokkaido, it wasn't always a part of Japan.
It was the Ryukyu Kingdom,
and Ryukyuans, like the Ainu,
had their own languages, culture, and even a king.
To this day, if you visit the islands,
you can find remnants of the kingdom's many castles,
including the seat of the former king at Shuri Castle.
For a long period of time,
the Ryukyu Kingdom was a tributary state of China.
If you're like me, and don't know what a tributary state is,
in the Kingdom's case, they were allowed to remain independent,
but had to acknowledge China's superiority
and send a regular token of submission: a tribute.
In return, they received educational opportunities in China,
as well as granted access to Chinese markets.
They had the right to trade with China,
something Japan did not enjoy.
In 1609, the Japanese feudal lords of the Satsuma domain
invaded the Ryukyu Kingdom and made it into its vassal state.
Alright, so I know you're asking,
“What's the difference between a vassal state and a tributary state.”
A vassal state is like a puppet state,
where the rulers are allowed to stay in place,
but the real power controlling the show is the puppet master,
in this case, the Lord of Satsuma,
on behalf of the Shogun in Edo.
So as to avoid conflict with China,
as well as continue the ability to indirectly trade with it,
the Satsuma domain had the Ryukyu Kingdom remain a tributary to China.
This is all a long winded way of saying
that while Ryukyuans were able to retain
their languages and culture throughout this time,
they were also heavily influenced by China
and controlled by Japan.
This changed in 1879,
when the king was forced to abdicate his throne
and the kingdom officially annexed as the prefecture of Okinawa.
Over time, Ryukyuans, now called Okinawans,
were forced to learn Japanese and adopt Japanese ways of life.
The Okinawa language is called Uchināguchi.
It’s called Uchināguchi and is also called Shimakutuba.
That's the everyday language.
The Japanese language came later.
And by the time the war was about to start,
they were forced to speak Japanese
in order to make them feel they're Japanese.
"I spoke my dialect."
If you did that, you'd have to wear a plaque.
The person standing with the plaque is the one
who’ll find the next student and tell the teacher.
Because no one wants to get punishment,
I asked what they did to avoid it.
Everyone tried not to speak.
When someone denies your own language,
I bet you it must feel so awful.
Like Japanese is correct, Shimakutuba is wrong...
It must have been really, really awful.
This island where I was born
Kind-hearted Okinawa
Bright like the sun
Cheerful people
Arigatou (thank you), on the main island of Okinawa, it’s
Nifedebiru, that's thank you.
On the island of Miyakojima, it's Tandigatandi.
On Ishigaki, it's Mifaiyu.
Haha, it's all the same arigatou, but the word is totally different.
In Okinawa,
the government makes commercials encouraging people to speak Shimakutuba.
Obaa-chan, are you ok?
I have back pain.
I want to walk but I can't.
What happened? Are you OK? (spoken in Shimakutuba)
When you know the language you can be kinder.
But it's not really catching on.
So Uchināguchi…
So do you.... understand it, do you know it, do you speak it?
Like, what's…
Ah... haha, I don't understand.
Not really.
Just a bit, phrases here and there.
I don't understand.
I don't really hear it.
They don't talk to me much.
Look at the blinking lights, look. Do you see it?
My obaa-chan's generation, they use the language.
But, when they talk with their grandkids, they use Japanese.
Interestingly, I met Luna completely by chance.
While meeting with a local professor at a cafe,
she happened to drop by and share a meal with us.
I thought she was one of the professor's students
who knew about my documentary
and so I asked if she would help find locals to interview.
Unbeknownst to me, she was only at the cafe looking for a job,
but nonetheless, she kindly helped me both interview people
and find interviewees, like her Grandma.
I guess that explains her favourite Okinawan phrase.
Ichariba chode.
Anybody who you meet once becomes your brother or sister.
I always have it in my heart.
Anyways, her grandma was incredible,
and when asked to introduce herself,
went on a direct-to-camera five minute monologue.
My name is Kazuko Oshiro
I'm 85 years old.
I'm from the northern part of Okinawa.
The northern part of Okinawa, the very north.
I was a teacher for 35 years.
The work was really rewarding.
So if I die now, I can say with confidence
that I had an extremely great life.
But when I was 10, I experienced the war.
Through the mountains,
the very dark mountains,
my newly born sister on my back,
I was frantically running away.
Running through the mountains of Yambaru.
Then, my sister, when she was turning 3,
died of starvation.
My grandpa got malaria and died.
That's why I'm really sensitive about war.
Because I'm sensitive about war,
when I was working as a teacher,
I always had classes about war and peace.
During ethics class, I always strongly
emphasized war and peace.
Telling students we must have peace.
This is very important for all teachers in Okinawa
to pass on and ensure we never stop teaching.
No war, only peace.
Because the bases are connected to war,
we hate them, we don't like them.
During World War II, Okinawa was the only inhabited Japanese territory
that the U.S. made landfall on.
It's estimated that a third of the civilian population of Okinawa
died during the war.
For 27 years after the end of the war in 1945,
Okinawa was administered by the U.S.
During that time, Okinawans needed a special travel permit to enter Japan,
as they were considered neither U.S. citizens nor Japanese citizens.
Yukihiro told me about his first experience traveling outside
of what was then called the Ryukyu Islands to visit Japan.
When I was a kindergartener, by boat,
my mother took me to Tokyo for the first time.
The currency was still U.S. dollars,
so in Okinawa we exchanged it to Japanese yen.
At the port in Kagoshima, we went to a cafeteria, and ate curry rice.
It was like 300 yen, 300 yen.
And my mother,
because she didn't know yen,
she took her purse and
emptied all her money on the table.
She said, "Because I don't know the currency, take the money."
As I was a little kid, my mom
said, "I don't know, take the money."
And the Kagoshima oba-chan's surprised face...
I'll never forget.
On May 15, 1972, Okinawa was reverted to Japan.
The currency changed from dollar to yen,
cars switched from driving on the right to the left,
yet the biggest change that Okinawans were hoping for,
the removal of military bases, never occurred.
Currently, U.S. military bases occupy 18% of Okinawa's total land.
There are some good American soldiers.
We Okinawans are not against Americans,
rather, we're against the military itself.
It's called 'Champuru' culture,
those many cultures are mixed together.
And we took the best parts.
And live happily together, that's what we do.
Of course I have the sense that I'm Japanese,
though I deeply feel more like I'm Okinawan.
That's naturally from the bottom of my heart,
as I was born and raised on the island. So I'm Okinawan.
At heart I'm Okinawan.
Okinawan.
I'm OK being Japanese, but...
Even though I have a Japanese passport,
if there's an Okinawan passport I will choose (it).
In 1910, Korea was annexed by Japan.
Under Japanese rule, many Koreans relocated to the main islands of Japan.
They had Japanese nationality
and children were compelled to receive Japanese education.
At the end of World War II, Korea's territories were reverted
and over a million Koreans were repatriated to Korea,
but over half a million remained in Japan.
When the Allied occupation of Japan ended in 1952,
Koreans formally lost their Japanese nationality.
In Japan, these people are called Zainichi-Kankoku-jin
or Zainichi-Korean.
So before I could finish filming and editing
this section on Zainichi-Koreans,
a strange thing happened.
One by one, three different people involved pulled out.
One was helping behind-the-scenes,
but two of them were people I was interviewing.
Out of the over fifty interviewees I talked with,
it's only Zainichi-Koreans,
who were initially on board with the project,
that decided it was best to not have their name or face attached.
Why is that?
I remember one day filming in Tokyo,
near a busy train station,
when I heard a little van with a loud speaker that said,
"We Japanese citizens
and this country Japan
will be gone one day."
Ultra right wing groups in Japan
are going all out with hate speech rallys targeting ethinic Koreans
Insults against Koreans fly across the streets of the Japanese capital, Tokyo.
“Let’s get rid of cockroach-like Koreans!”
So there's this small, vocal, number of Japanese
that will speak out against Zainichi-Koreans.
But perhaps more scary,
is the anonymous people online who attack Zainichi-Koreans.
I think it's this loud minority that my interviewees are hiding from.
Instead of cutting out their experiences completely,
and in order to keep their identities hidden,
I had someone voice what they had said.
To be clear, while the man I interviewed is indeed the real person,
the woman you hear is simply retelling the experiences
of Zainichi-Koreans I interviewed.
I am third generation Zainichi-Korean.
So my grandparents came to Japan during the war.
Because during that time, Japan and Korea were one country and they could come.
My grandparents came to Japan for work, and had kids here.
But when the war ended, my father's side went back
and found out that the living conditions were even worse in Korea.
It was a really poor country.
So they decided to come back to Japan.
But because it was already two separate countries by that time,
they had to secretly come by boat.
But the boat was really crappy.
And then they found out the boat had a hole and it started sinking.
And everyone was like, "Come on!" and scooping the water out.
My aunt saw this old man who was just sitting still, not helping.
And she said, "You too!
Help us!
What are you doing?"
But he just sat still.
The boat continued to sink,
but then a Japanese fishing boat came by.
And everyone was saying, "Help us! Help us!"
But the Japanese fisherman saw that and must have thought,
"A bunch of Koreans!”
But then the old man suddenly stood up
and pulled out a big bundle of money out of his pocket.
And the fisherman said, "OK, everyone get on."
And that was how I was born, my father was born, everyone survived.
My name is Motonori Kan, that's my Japanese name
and I also have a Korean name, Wonduk Han.
I'm a third generation Korean-Japanese.
When a lot of Koreans migrated to Japan,
we had to come up with a Japanese name
to live like Japanese.
And so we came up with Nishihara.
Nishi is west, hara is a field.
You can say that the name represents Korea.
Korea is geographically on the Western part of Japan.
For early Zainichi-Koreans,
assimilating into Japan was often a necessity
in order to avoid discrimination
and to be able to access jobs.
This would entail taking on Japanese names,
speaking Japanese, and acting Japanese.
This would mean, that at some point in their lives,
their children would find out that they're not Japanese,
at least nationality-wise.
The first time my parents told me I wasn't Japanese,
I was Korean,
was when my mother and I were taking a bath together.
My mother said,
"If you go to kindergarten, you'll meet a lot of Japanese kids.
You are not Japanese."
And I remember thinking, "What is Japanese?"
"I'm not them?
We're not the same?"
She said, "No."
She said, "They're Japanese.
You're not.
You're Korean."
I didn't understand,
because what's the difference between us.
We looked exactly the same.
I put up my finger like this and said, "Not this much?
Maybe this much I'm the same?"
And she said, "No, no you're not."
My father and my mother know very little Korean.
My grandparents decided to not teach them Korean.
Their intent was so that they can localize faster into the society.
Being Korean back sixty, seventy years ago was a tough time for them in Japan.
So they probably didn't want my parents
to experience the same kind of situation.
The first time I met so many Zainichi-Koreans like me
was when I was seventeen.
For summer vacation, my father sent me to this program
for Zainichi-Korean kids to visit Seoul for 10 days.
At the end of the trip one of the girls came up to me and said,
"Do you tell your friends that you're Korean?
And I'm like, "Yeah sure! I never hide.
I say it all the time."
And she's like, "Really?
And what do they say?"
She was really worried.
"I never tell anyone that I'm Korean,
and I'm so worried everyday that someone might find out.
So I want to change my nationality to Japanese,
but my parents won't let me.
So I'm waiting until I'm 20."
Because if you're 20, you can change your nationality by yourself.
But if you're under 20, you need your parents’ permission."
So she said, "When I'm 20, I'll become Japanese."
And I'm like, "Why?"
Because I never experienced any discrimination
in my life up until that point.
So I really didn't understand why
you have to keep it a secret.
I don't know how but word gets around and people find out.
My school friends find out that I'm actually not Japanese, I'm Korean.
And there was a stereotype bullying phrase
and name calling back then to Koreans,
that we smelled like kimchi and garlic.
When I was a child, that did hurt.
But then again, I had lots of good friends as well
so it kept my spirits up.
In 1908, the first Japanese started emigrating to Brazil.
There was a shortage of labour on coffee plantations
and so Japanese farmers moved to work there,
many to the state of São (Saon) Paulo.
Currently, Brazil is the country with the largest
community of Japanese descendants,
who number 1.4 million.
Starting in the 1980's, during the peak of Japan's Bubble economy,
reverse migration occurred.
Brazilians of Japanese descent, Nikkei-Brazilians,
started returning to Japan.
To find out more about Nikkei-Brazilians,
I visited with Professor Oka,
who teaches at the Tokyo Gakugei University.
He was about to take his students on a trip to a Japanese city
where many Nikkei- Brazilians work and live.
Japanese-Brazilians get priority because they are the descendants
of Japanese immigrants and get Teijyusha (Long-term Resident) visas.
Some work in car factories or electronics factories.
Oizumi town in Ota city, Gunma where we are going to visit next
is where a lot of Brazilians live because there are electronics companies.
Japanese-Brazilians are here for Dekasegi.
They are here for some years to work and save and go back to Brazil.
Working in a factory, they live close to each other.
They don't really speak Japanese there.
They don't need to speak it in the community. So they work there.
I worked from 2016 until last year (2017).
I worked at a factory for like twelve hours a day.
But the work itself is not the hardest part.
It's like you're in a different culture.
Because even though I grew up with a Japanese father,
I grew up in a different environment.
So, you kind of think you're Japanese, until you get there.
Because, it's really strange.
Here in Brazil people used to call me, "Oh look, it's that Japanese guy."
And then in Japan we have this problem
because we Brazilians refer to the Japanese as Japanese.
Then who we are?
It's really strange.
Hello, my name is Erica
and I'm from Brazil.
My mom is Japanese, she doesn't have a Brazilian citizenship.
She was in Brazil since she was eight years old,
and also my father, he’s Japanese.
They don't have Brazilian citizenships so they both have Japanese passports.
So Erica came to Japan to work,
but unlike Tetsuo,
who found factory work through a temporary employment agency,
she has a white collar job
and transferred within her company.
I interviewed her via video a month before she arrived in Japan.
Why is it you're going to Japan?
Actually, my husband received a job offer to work there as an engineer.
So we thought it would be good for his career
and actually, he really likes Japan.
You are nisei right?
Yes.
Oh right, nisei means second generation.
So issei would be first generation,
nisei second generation,
sansei third generation,
and yonsei, you guessed it, fourth generation.
Ok, and so how is your Japanese?
Nonexisting,
because my parents came to Brazil when they were children.
But my mom just learned Portugese when she was an adult,
when she was twenty four.
So she actually makes some mistakes.
I think my father was afraid that we
might learn something incorrectly in Portugese.
I don't know, mix up letters?
So he said that she shouldn't talk in Japanese.
So that’s why we didn't learn.
When I was a teenager, I told my father, "So now I think it's time to learn.
I am not really keen on Japanese, but I think I should."
And he said, "No, just study more English,
because Japanese is useless,
and it's too difficult and etcetera."
He said it's just a waste of time.
But it happened, that now I need Japanese.
Like I'm very nervous because
everything will be new, like I don't have any friends there,
and I don't speak Japanese and
my friend in Tokyo, she said just come here
and say that you're a foreigner,
don't say that you're learning.
Don't say that...
Like it's not important for them that your parents are Japanese,
because then you should speak Japanese.
So they will get confused, like you do a lot of odd things.
So that's my main concern,
like being accepted, because like it's very different.
It's very different.
In my first month in Japan,
I tried to find community Japanese language classes,
where Japanese volunteers, mostly seniors, would teach us Japanese.
And they were really kind towards me,
every time they would bring snacks,
Most of the time, Japanese were really kind towards me
and accepted me.
I don't know how they perceived me.
If I was like someone who can grow as a Japanese.
Or maybe just a Brazilian
who's really working hard to adapt to their culture.
If people came to me and spoke
like, "You're not Japanese."
I would say, "Yeah, I'm a half Brazilian, half Japanese,
I have both cultures so...
deal with it.
It often seems that being Japanese is a yes or no thing.
You're Japanese, or you're not.
However, there's a term for those that have one Japanese parent.
Hāfu, as in half-Japanese.
Some hāfu don't like this term,
as it can make them feel like they're half a person,
so there are those that would rather be called daburu, as in double.
But of course, some don't like that term either,
since it can be taken as they're twice as good as someone else.
More practically, many Japanese don't know the term daburu,
so the term hāfu is what most use by default.
They marked it wrong.
So, I was born in the U.S. and raised there
so all my banking information
at the time was U.S. bank.
So I remember having a little bit of embarrassment
when I would go to, like an ATM for example at 7-Eleven,
put my bank card in.
You have to select the English option.
The voice over is like, "WELCOME!"
And everyone in the area, I was afraid like,
oh they can hear this and they'll know that I'm not actually Japanese.
It's so silly to think about it now,
but I wanted to just be Japanese
or what my mind thought a regular Japanese person was, so
I didn't like the fact that everyone could hear that.
It's so silly when I think about it now because
I do speak Japanese and I do speak English.
I am from America, I don't really have to be embarrassed about any of this.
So I don't really worry about it now because I am both.
My name is...
Naomi!
I'm Naomi Iwazawa. I'm half Japanese and Czech.
I help people understand and appreciate diversity.
My name is Naomi,
I'm Japanese.
My mom is from Czech Republic and I grew up in Japan,
Germany, and Hungary.
I'm here in Japan working on embracing diversity.
I want to eat sushi.
I realized I was Japanese
when I first went to Hungary when I was like 6 or 7.
I was living in Japan like any other Japanese child,
I was never told I was different.
So I'd never thought differences existed.
When I went to an international school in Hungary,
everyone said where they came from.
So everyone shared their own culture with each other there.
I said I was Japanese, but wait, my mother is Czech, so
I am also Czech.
That's how I started to think about myself.
After I came back to Japan,
my classmates said,
"You are not Japanese so go back to your country."
I thought I was Japanese,
but I found mud in my shoe locker.
I also found my gym clothes in a garbage bin,
some pulled my hair saying,
"You shouldn't have brown hair (it's against the rules)."
Some pulled my earrings.
I told them the reason why I had earrings and brown hair.
I don't know if they thought it's unfair,
they were jealous, or hostile;
but that's what I experienced.
My junior high was in Germany,
so I felt so much better getting out of that society.
I was in an international school, so it was a different atmosphere,
where I could say my identity freely.
But something happened when Naomi returned back to Japan for high school.
She reunited with friends and teachers from elementary school
and was surprised to learn
that many of the students were interested in studying abroad
or learning about overseas.
You see, back in elementary school,
her parents had offered workshops about cultures around the world.
And of course Naomi talked about herself as well.
She felt that the exposure to different cultures at a young age
helped shape the views of her fellow students in a positive way.
She then started an organization called Culmony,
combining the words culture and harmony,
wishing to build a society where many cultures harmonize with each other.
She went on to tell me about one of her experiences,
inviting international guest students,
to give a workshop in a school.
There were guest students from Haiti, Israel, and Korea.
We all went to this elementary school
to learn about different cultures.
It must have been something like
they have never interacted with black people.
There was one child that ran away crying or some other things happened.
So we did a quiz game.
We never imagined this would have happened.
"Is that true that chopsticks are only used in Japan, yes or no? "
The children went to the person who had a board with 'Yes'.
We realised the board for 'No' was being held by the black student.
It seemed like the children were scared to go near the student.
Some students who thought the answer was no,
stayed in the 'No' area where it's almost in the 'Yes' area.
I was very curious about this.
We all knew the children didn't intend to dislike
or even discriminate against the black student.
Then that student was very good with kids.
So after an hour and a half,
the kids already became good friends with him
and some even climbed up on his back.
Some said your hair is nice and super curly
and enjoyed playing with him.
So this kind of experience,
if there are young children like grade 1, 2, or 3,
they can get over it soon even though they initially cried or ran away.
It can be accepted because they are still young children.
The more you have those experiences when young,
the less you feel fear of differences or different cultures.
I really learned from that event.
Mei, where is Japan?
Yes.
And Kota, where is Canada?
I know!
Yes.
My name is Tetsuro Miyazaki.
I am a Belgian-Japanese photographer.
Internet connection here sucks.
Meri-san?
I'm Meri.
- Hello! - Hello!
I'm Tetsuro.
I'm Meri.
- Nice to meet you! - Nice to meet you!
I'm the photographer of a photo project called Hāfu2Hāfu,
which is about mixed race Japanese identity worldwide.
And as a matter of coincidence,
Naomi was pictured as part of Tetsuro's project.
He's taken 120 photos from Hāfu
from almost 100 different countries combined with Japan.
So I meet people,
we have a one hour discussion, its a very open talk about
who we are, where we come from, what issues we face.
What we have in common is what we discuss
and what separates us, what makes us different from each other.
At the end of this conversation, we try to distill, if you want,
one single question,
that kind of summarizes the whole conversation
or the main topic of the conversation.
What do you think ‘a hāfu’ looks like?
And that's what I put in the book.
Most commonly, when we talk about hāfu in Japan,
we talk about white, Japanese,
bicultural people,
who speak two languages, maybe three or four.
That's the common image we have.
Some people who are half black and half Japanese
do not identify as hāfu,
because the rest of the world does not see them like that.
I want to redefine the image
that we have of what is
a half Japanese person and what does he or she look like.
Hi, I'm Monique, I was born and raised in Japan.
My dad's African-American from Tennessee,
and my mom is from Tochigi in Japan.
So my high school is right over there
and then that area, that building there is the food court
everybody can eat there.
That tower over there is the nanaban tower,
I was there until, I was like, maybe, ten?
I was born off-base here in Yokosuka
and I was able to get my American citizenship through my father,
since he was already American,
and then my Japanese citizenship through my mom.
You know looking back
I guess it was a very unique sort of experience,
I didn't know because it was all I knew during the time.
Constant, like, literal transition from one community to the other,
one language, one culture to the other.
Generally, needing to be ready to bridge
connections between people or
whether it be incidents, or just kind of opportunities,
that was kind of my role.
So I always found myself being the translator
like even for field trips in third grade.
The Yokosuka community is very used to having the military around.
It's been around since World War II,
so when they see someone who looks like me speaking Japanese,
they assume it's because my mom’s probably Japanese.
You know being here was kind of like being in a bubble,
people are used to people like me.
And I imagined when I moved to New York,
that perhaps I would just get to be myself,
whatever that meant,
but it turned out that wasn't
necessarily so, it became a little bit more complicated I guess.
And when I first moved to New York when I was eighteen,
my hair was stick straight, and at that time,
I was very attached to that.
and I felt like, if I didn't have that hair,
people wouldn't imagine that I was Japanese,
like they wouldn't think that I was
and that was very important to me at the time.
People though I was Polynesian,
people thought I was Indian,
and then some people who were also half Asian and half black
would find me on the street and we would look at each other.
We would be like, "Oh, are you half black and half Asian?”
we would get really excited.
Monique had so many interesting stories about her interactions in the U.S.,
but this one with a visiting Japanese student
at an education conference, was surprising to hear.
When I started speaking to him in Japanese,
he was honestly creeped out.
And he literally used the word gurotesuku.
Yeah, poor choice of words
but that was really, like woah.
But watching Japanese television, I could see how
I'm Atsugiri Jason!
I came to Japan from the U.S. 4 years ago.
Japanese people might be led to sort of
imagine people who don't look Japanese,
who speak Japanese to be curious creatures.
Or just kind of like
something fun to look at, sort of.
Why Japanese people?
Why?
Are you doing this on purpose?
Kanji are so hard!
Next!
So I really hope that more Japanese people
can become familiar with, you know,
Japanese speakers can look very different,
whether or not they have Japanese blood in them or not.
My name is Joe Oliver.
My father is American.
He was in the military and my mother was Japanese.
I was raised in Japan for 37 years.
If I had to categorize myself,
I would be an earthling.
In Japan, no one thinks I am Japanese.
Other people, especially Western people,
think I'm Japanese.
So others determine who I am,
so I can only say I am an earthling.
So you go ahead and decide who I am.
I say I am an earthling.
Joe was incredibly fascinating to speak with,
as he grew up in Yokosuka,
the same area as Monique,
although she lived on base while he lived off.
Their experiences,
while only separated by a few years and a number of blocks,
were drastically different.
By the time I was born, they were separated.
So I was raised by my mother since I was young.
I was happy until I went to elementary school.
I went to a Japanese daycare where there was no discrimination.
So happiness until 6 years old.
Hell started from age 7 until grade 12.
That very long 12 years.
From grade 1 to grade 3,
I was intermittently abused quite badly by some random adults.
They punched me, even peed on me.
I had a very rough time then.
Not only me but my mother was hurt by others.
She was almost physically abused.
They told her, "You like black penis?"
or something much worse than that.
Even elementary school kids said, "Your mom likes black guys."
When I was in grade 2, grade 6 kids attacked me in public.
Someone put his arms around me
and held my back while a few people punched me.
They peed on me, spilt milk on me.
Some coloured me with chalk all over my body.
I wonder if the teachers really understood
mixed raced kids like me back then.
I kind of doubt they did.
I actually went to talk to the police with my mother.
Then what they told us was that,
you are a child of an American guy, so live with it.
You gave birth to a child of an American guy.
We were only helped by American soldiers.
Only them.
When I was being punched by adults
and those soldiers happened to be passing by,
they were just there by chance but they rescued me.
They were sometimes caucasian or black soldiers.
Some caucasian soldiers cried for me.
It was only soldiers who helped me.
If I was living in Tokyo where there were lots of foreigners,
I may not have experienced the racism I did in Yokosuka.
I think I would have had a different life here.
The reason why I think that, is I have been working here since I was 17.
I have never experienced any racism at all in Tokyo.
I have told my story to people from other prefectures.
Everyone said they couldn't believe it.
I was relieved when I heard it.
What I have been through was very rare I'd say.
Every Japanese who heard it said it’s crazy.
So I was extremely unlucky.
So for model shots,
do you always have to be serious?
Or do you like...
I don't think so.
Haha, okay.
Right, so at the age of 17,
Joe became a model.
He started working in Tokyo,
found a more international scene,
and his life changed for the better.
The next group of Japanese I'll introduce is Kikokushijo,
or in English, returnees.
These are Japanese that spent part of their childhood outside of Japan.
In many ways they have a lot of similarities
to the hāfu I interviewed,
as they too are living between cultures.
While they have two Japanese parents and look typically Japanese,
they often have difficulty feeling completely Japanese.
I'm Minoru Kiuchi.
I'm a Japanese Diet Member,
and currently the Deputy Chairperson of the Diet Affairs Committee.
I'm fifty four years old.
I lived in West Germany from 1971 to 1975.
So when I came back to Japan at the age of ten,
I had trouble with Japanese writing at elementary school,
and I also had trouble fitting in because
five years in Germany made me more assertive than
my classmates.
I felt I am half Japanese and half German.
But now I am 88% Japanese
and 12% German.
So I think naturalized Japanese citizens
are really Japanese just like me.
I'm fairly sure that the 88% Japanese
12% German bit was a joke
about the precision of both Germans and Japanese,
but who knows?
This record was made in the 1930s.
Oh!
In Japan.
Really?
Before World War II.
Did you know that at that time
many Japanese people loved
American movies and jazz.
Western style.
This is my friend who's a jazz pianist.
Hi everyone, my name is Kiyoto Tsuji.
I am currently a third term Diet member
of the Japanese House of Representatives.
Tsuji-san, was of particular interest to me,
as he grew up for most of his childhood in Vancouver,
where my family and I used to live.
We're actually both the same age,
and his English name in Canada, Andrew,
is in fact my middle name.
At the age of four our family emigrated to
Canada because my father, who was a Japanese Canadian,
wanted the kids to grow up elsewhere, not Japan.
From junior high, a lot of my friends became
non-native Canadians who immigrated from Hong Kong and elsewhere
to Canada to study and eventually go on to good universities.
And these kids taught me that I was Asian and Japanese.
They're good friends but
these colleagues, students,
would expose me to Japanese comic books,
Japanese movies that I didn't know.
And they would say, "Hey, you're Japanese!"
"Why do you act Canadian?"
"You're Asian."
We're Chinese and we know
your culture better than you and you should be ashamed of yourself.
So that's when I
entered a very, very big
identity crisis, a dilemma.
Some of these Asian kids would call me 'banana'.
In case you never heard it before,
'banana' is a term used to describe someone who's yellow on the outside,
but white on the inside...
like a banana.
I started thinking to myself, "Hey, how about Japan?"
Maybe that's an option that I never thought of.
And I consulted my mother,
and she never thought I would ever return to Japan.
So she said,
"You probably won't make it
because they'll probably alienate you,
because you look Japanese but you're not Japanese.
If you look different, maybe they would treat you better but
I don't want you to go through hell."
That was literally what my mother told me.
And I told her, hey
you'll see what I can do
because I never wanted to give up on something.
I didn't even initially think of climbing that mountain but
if they told me I cannot do it
then I was like, hey I'll do it.
So Tsuji-san returned to Japan for college
and said it was his first exposure to Japanese culture.
His main difficulty was that:
Other Japanese people
didn't realize my differences.
I was like a
English book with a Japanese cover.
So many people judged the book by its cover.
And initially they would say, "Oh, he's interesting!" but
after a few weeks they realized
this person doesn't... has not
read the same things,
has not spent the childhood that these people can relate to.
So gradually, your
phone stops ringing.
No one would bully me.
No one would treat me in that way but they would just, you know,
Every time I smile, they smile
that's it, I couldn't relate deeper.
It was very modest,
but you see, you feel that difference.
In a way, it's very racist.
Very racist.
And every culture has its own racism, I feel.
I don't want my kids to experience what I did,
you know, it's just too tough.
But...
No pain, no gain, kind of, you know.
Hi! My name is Honomi Ijima,
I'm Japanese.
I was born in Kanagawa Prefecture
and I basically grew up in the same area,
until I was thirteen.
So, I have to cut in and say that I filmed Honomi
next to a busy train line, and it was noisy.
So I'll tell part of her story.
Like happened to many Japanese kikokushijo,
her father got transferred out of country for work,
and her family ended up in the bay area of California.
She attended local schools,
and said she got the complete American experience.
Part of that, was having to introduce herself,
to which she always said,
"I'm so and so and I'm from Japan."
It drilled into her that, yeah, she was a Japanese person.
So it's in America where she realized
that being Japanese was part of her identity.
After 3 years at the age of 16,
she returned to Japan, and went to a regular high school.
And in a way, that was a bigger culture shock for me.
Because, here I was, coming back to Japan,
feeling more like a Japanese person.
Like more aware of that kind of cultural and ethnic identity.
And then here I was back in the usual
old stomping grounds and then feeling so...
like isolated in a way and feeling so disconnected.
And it's like what is this feeling?
Like I feel like I'm here, I'm back "home",
but I don't feel like I'm back home.
And that's when I started to think about
what does it mean to be a Japanese person?
Like what makes me Japanese?
Is it because I'm born here and I grew up here for a certain time?
Is it because my parents are Japanese?
But then how do I feel so out of place?
Like Honomi, I think everyone I interviewed asked that same question,
"Who am I? What is being Japanese?"
My first real memory of not knowing
who I am came with football.
The World Cup, when I was a kid, football.
They asked me, "Who are you for?"
Belgium, right?
He said, "Nah, yeah, but, you know, you're Japanese, no?"
Yeah, but, you know, Japan doesn't even participate back then.
Japan was not a football nation.
So I'm like, "No, I'm Belgium, of course not!"
And then the kid said, "No, you cannot be Belgium.
You have to be Japan.
And then with other people, the next person asked me,
"Who are you for?" I said, "Japan."
Because I thought that's the right answer.
And they said, "No, but aren't you Belgian?"
So whatever answer I gave to that question,
it was always questioned again, and again, and again.
So I always had to argue.
And I realized that this type of question
is a question that people from mixed origin get all the time.
And it's because we get these questions
that we doubt where we come from.
It's not because deeply rooted in me there's
there's a soul search, or a search for identity.
It's because the rest of the world wants to know who I cheer for,
what kind of food I want to eat,
that I doubt what the correct answer is.
And throughout the years, I learned to answer.
And that answer's a mix between
how I feel,
and what I think people want to know from me
What do people expect to be the correct answer.
Hi, I am Yamato Saito. Call me Bobby.
I was born in Japan, raised in the U.S., and am living in Japan.
I think
in terms of Japanese identity
people want a yes or no, black and white answer.
I remember back when I was a, you know,
God, like a snot nosed brat and thinking like,
really judging other Japanese-Americans
because they couldn't speak Japanese.
But they would still call themselves Japanese
and I would be like, "You're not Japanese. You don't even speak Japanese."
And I really cringe
at my past self because
that kind of mentality is really dangerous, and I think
when you get to that level, you're like,
"Well, my family is from samurai lineage.
And like, you know, "my family is," you know, ladidadida.
And it's like,
that doesn't matter.
This question is...
super simple.
What is being Japanese?
That is a very difficult question to answer,
although Japan is an island nation,
it has always had a lot of interaction
with the Asian mainland and beyond.
As a result, Japanese people
have a lot of different ancestries.
And Japanese people from Hokkaido
are different from that
from Honshu or Okinawa.
But they are all Japanese.
If I wanted to give a definition
it would be something like this.
People who live in Japan,
speak Japanese to some extent,
and think of Japan as their home,
are Japanese.
It's easy to determine what's not Japanese,
but it's harder to determine what's really...
what is Japanese, so what's left?
And the more I talk about this,
and the more I think about this question...
the simpler my answer gets.
And that is...
it's what's on your passport.
And it could be as simple as that.
Do you have a Japanese passport?
Then you're Japanese.
You can compete in the Olympics for Japan,
you can play tennis for Japan,
then you're Japanese.
After talking with so many Japanese people,
they started to suggest a lot of similar ways
to determine one's Japaneseness.
Are your parents Japanese?
Do you have Japanese nationality?
Can you speak Japanese?
Where did you grow up?
And then I came across an academic
framework that listed it out:
It proposed seven aspects of Japaneseness:
Nationality or citizenship
'Pure Japanese genes'
Language competence
Place of birth
Current residence
Level of cultural literacy
Subjective identity
In this framework, my wife would fall under 'most Japanese',
because she ticks off all the boxes.
On the other hand, my kids,
who are half Canadian, differ in a couple ways.
They don't have ‘pure Japanese genes’,
sorry about that.
They also weren't born in Japan.
But otherwise, they'd be able to claim all other aspects of Japaneseness.
In Japan, people who don't fit the framework for being Japanese,
even though you've been living as Japanese,
can be a target of discrimination.
Second generation Japanese can be considered weird Japanese.
Returnees can also be a target.
So, people who aren't in the framework,
as well as people who are in but have something else,
can be targeted in Japan.
People say, "They're a bit weird!"
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There is often this hate speech like there are no more pure Ainu.
I am extremely tired of hearing it.
There are no such things as pure people.
So at which point were they 100% pure?
Are there any pure Wajin?
Can you prove it?
As it so happens,
some people have started taking DNA tests
to see how much Japanese they have in them,
like Max Capo,
who recorded his real-time reaction to his test results on YouTube.
Woah! Hehe.
I'm 48%! I'm actually less half Japanese than I thought.
I'm 48% Northern Japan.
What is Northern Japan, it's circled.
Uh! Oh! Ah!
I'm a little bit surprised because my mom
is Japanese but she actually has been told
she looks a lot more like an Inca-Indian,
which is like South American I think.
That's more related to the
Ainu people in Northern Japan.
So the fact that...
I'm 48%...
does that mean my mom is Ainu?
If you go back to that academic framework,
you'll see that ‘Pure Japanese genes’ is in quotation marks.
Even though it was published before
DNA ancestry tests were available to the public,
it's been clear for a while
that using genetics to determine whether you belong or not is,
‘problematic’ to say the least.
Other criteria can also be dicey to judge.
Take cultural literacy.
Is the naturalized Japanese who visits a Shinto shrine every day
more culturally literate than the born and raised Japanese
who visits once a year for hatsumōde?
Does practicing budō, martial arts,
like karate make you more Japanese?
The Pew Research Center did a global study,
and of the 14 countries they polled,
they concluded that language was
the cornerstone of national identity.
Interestingly enough,
both the U.S. and Japan
had 70% of its citizens answering that
"Being able to speak our national language
is very important for being
truly American or truly Japanese."
If you throw in the additional 22% in both countries
that I think it's somewhat important,
it's clearly seen as the most important trait
for belonging to each respective country.
For Japan, If you go back in time,
in the mid-19th century before the Meiji Restoration,
people of different feudal domains could communicate with each other
only by writing in Chinese characters.
Even nowadays, language competency can vary so greatly,
from local dialects to the ability to speak
the formal style of Japanese called keigo.
Nice to meet you, I’m Eimy.
I'm from Mexico.
My full name is Eimy Sofia Castañeda Kato.
Yes, I have both, in Mexico we use
the dad's last name and the mom's last name.
She was in born in Mexico
and attended a bi-cultural Japanese-Mexican school there,
but she recently moved to Japan for university.
Did you learn Japanese growing up or in school?
Yes, my mom taught me a little bit when I was a little kid.
But it was really basic stuff.
In school I had Japanese classes for one hour everyday.
And Japanese was more like a class, kind of like maths.
You know it's a class you have to take and you have to pass.
So you end up not liking that class.
They're divided into levels
so very basic and
number five, level five, which was the highest one,
and I was always in the highest one.
But coming here to Japan I realized it was not enough.
I love living in Japan,
I love their culture, I love being here.
I love being Japanese.
But I don't like the language.
I don't like the language,
I hate studying it, I don't like talking with it.
I don't like using Japanese.
Hello, my name is Eido Inoue.
I am an American born Japanese citizen.
What is the one thing that Japanese in Japan
have in common, that is common to like 99.9% of the population?
I would argue that it's probably
speaking the Japanese language morning to night.
Like it or not,
Japanese is not my first language
so I speak it with an accent,
and I say things that are grammatically incorrect.
I've passed JLPT 1.
For those of you that don't know,
JLPT stands for Japanese Language Proficiency Test,
and JLPT N1 is the highest level you can achieve.
In English, the equivalent test might be TOEIC,
or Test of English for
International Communication.
To achieve JLPT N1 status,
online estimates vary from 2,000 to 5,000 hours of study required.
But anybody that has passed
will tell you that once you've passed it, they'll say
"Congratulations, you've hit the starting point."
And that's where it begins,
it doesn't mean you're fluent,
it doesn't mean you're native.
It's far, far, far, far from that.
I realize that the Japanese language,
because I can't speak it perfectly,
is a career handicap
and it's something that I will always have to overcome.
People that can't speak Japanese very well,
they look at me and say, "Oh, but you speak it so fluently!"
and "you speak it perfectly!"
and I say, "Well if your Japanese was better you would know that it's not."
When they complimented my Japanese, I really appreciated it at first.
But when I understood the reason behind it.
Like it's not necessarily because they like or respect me.
It's more like "For a half, your Japanese is good.
For a foreigner, your Japanese is good."
Even for those born and raised in Japan,
the Japanese you speak may not be standard Japanese,
which is the kind of Japanese
that you would hear tv announcers speak.
For example, while this announcer is originally from Kumamoto in the south,
he doesn't use his local dialect.
"After studying for one year in Hiroshima,
students prayed at the atomic bomb memorial
in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park."
So if you didn't grow up in the Tokyo area,
you may appear uneducated or unsophisticated.
Hi, my name is Anne Kuninaka,
I'm from Okinawa, Japan.
I consider myself Okinawan and Japanese.
When I talk to people from Okinawa,
I talk like them like
Okinawan namari (accent).
But in Tokyo, I talk to a lot of people
who are not from Okinawa.
So, I try to speak like the "normal" people
not from Okinawa, you know what I'm saying?
So yeah that's...
kind of hard to like change, like time to time.
There are moments where I
have struggled a lot with
what I need to do to be Japanese enough.
Before I moved to the States,
I wanted to gear up and take all the exams I could,
so that I could prove paper how proficient I was in Japanese,
because I felt like
I would be challenged.
Because of how I looked,
how much Japanese I was able to speak, or read or write.
And so there are moments in time where I get frustrated
because I've been in the States for so long
where I lose my Japanese touch and I might do something
that I might not have otherwise if I had been here
the whole time, you know?
One last point I'd like to make on language,
is that many of the interviewees
chose to be interviewed in English rather than Japanese,
even though their Japanese was stronger.
The reason I was given by some
is that they felt they could speak more freely in English.
Now a group of people who often struggle with the Japanese language
are the Nikkei, which is the term for Japanese who emigrated from Japan
to live in a different country.
If you go to the Japanese Overseas Migration Museum,
it's fascinating to see where the majority of Nikkei originated from.
I actually went there with a couple members
of a group called Nikkei in Japan.
Hi everyone, I'm Elena.
So my story is, I'm half fourth generation Japanese-American.
Originally, it was started to make people like me,
who are of Japanese descent,
like give them a home in Japan.
Because a lot of us, we come here and we feel
like people don't really understand us.
'Cause we look kind of Japanese but...
kind of not
and we don't really speak Japanese often.
But as this group has evolved it's kind of become more
just anyone who is of Japanese descent
but doesn't really necessarily feel that
they are full Japanese
Like they fit in with the homogenous kind of culture here.
Hi, my name is Nina.
I was born in Japan
and lived here until I was eight and then I moved to the U.S.
My mom's Japanese and my dad's American.
Coming back here
to work as an adult has been
a lot more of a challenge with my identity.
Because I speak Japanese and
I know all the customs, or most of the customs,
and the way to get around, and speak keigo and everything.
Yes, keigo.
I mentioned this earlier,
but keigo is the formal version of Japanese,
and you can find it used in Japanese workplaces.
Carrying on...
But no matter how hard I try
to fit in situations where I should be Japanese,
people don't look at me as Japanese.
And I get very frustrated with how
people get really surprised by how I speak Japanese
or the fact that I can use keigo, and be like,
"Oh it's so embarrassing, I'm Japanese and I can't use keigo like you."
It's like, "Well I'm Japanese too but..."
It's never Japanese enough.
When you want to be Japanese, I think
others consider it to be very, very important that you actually speak it...
flawlessly.
I find that a lot of non-native,
often try to catch up
and learn Japanese
because they think that then, they will fit in better.
But it doesn't...
it doesn't help enough.
It's not enough to speak Japanese
to be considered,
to be as Japanese as you'd want to be.
I tried to join
our Nikkei student union as well at UCLA
and there was a large group of people who spoke Japanese.
And I got asked the question,
"Oh, so you're Japanese, right?" and I'm like, "Yeah!"
And then they're, "So you speak Japanese?"
And I'm like, "Umm. No."
And then they're like, "Oh, so you're not really Japanese."
So that was like the epitome of my college existence, I think.
My family only knows English.
I think it's because of our unique
experiences as Japanese-Americans going through World War II
and just having that
traumatic past.
My mom taught me about my history as a JA because I'm fourth gen.
So that means my family went through internment,
my grandparents went through internment,
that was really, really painful for them.
Especially my grandfather, he lost friends, people...
during the war he lost his best friend.
Wouldn't talk to him anymore just because he had a Japanese face.
They had things stolen from them,
they had bricks thrown at them.
You know, just really, really bad things and
my mom was always like, "You need to remember that."
All persons of Japanese descent were required to register.
The army provided fleets of vans to transport household belongings.
And buses to move the people to assembly centers.
Behind them they left shops and homes
they had occupied for many years.
We're setting a standard for the rest of the world
in the treatment of people who may have
loyalties to an enemy nation.
We are protecting ourselves
without violating the principles of Christian decency.
So that first video was made in 1942,
soon after relocation orders were put in place.
In their follow-up video, just two years later in 1944,
you can tell the change in tone.
Evacuation.
More than a hundred thousand men, women, and children,
all of Japanese ancestry,
removed from their homes in the Pacific coast states,
to wartime communities
established in out of the way places.
Two thirds of the evacuees are American citizens by right of birth.
The rest are their Japanese born parents and grandparents.
These people are not under suspicion,
they are not prisoners,
they are not internees.
They're merely dislocated people.
The unwounded casualties of war.
While they have many things in common with ordinary American communities,
in the really important things,
relocation centers are not normal
and probably never can be.
Homelife is disrupted,
eating, living, and working conditions are abnormal,
training of children is difficult.
Americanism,
taught in the schools and churches and on the playgrounds,
loses much of its meaning in the confines of a relocation center.
Yeah, when I was like 6 years old,
my mom told me like,
"You're Japanese-American.
You can't, you have to act a certain way.
You can't act out in public.
Because your family went through so much, you know?"
At the risk of over-explaining,
Nikkei in America and Canada,
who were forcibly detained during World War II
and taught how to be good Americans and Canadians at the camps,
naturally wanted to fit into society
and prove their worth when they got out.
This meant abandoning their native language and culture.
For their children, and the generations that followed,
many stopped being able to speak the language and understand the culture.
This created a group of people
who didn't quite fit into the country they were born in
or the country their ancestors were from.
I don't really see myself as Japanese.
And...
People, when I came here, they try to make me, "Oh, you're an American."
But I don't really see myself as just American.
I see like there's Japanese and all these different identities...
But I know,
I know I'm Japanese-American.
It hurts so much to not be seen for who you see yourself...
to be.
It's easy to see how looks can be so strongly tied to being Japanese,
as the vast, vast majority of Japanese look similar.
Where I'm from, Canada,
there is no way in the world
that you can look at someone on the street
and figure out if they're Canadian or not;
there's simply too much diversity.
But in Japan,
if you see someone who's visually different from the rest,
then there's a very good chance that they're not Japanese.
However, even when a ‘Japanese’ person
learns that a person is indeed Japanese,
their appearance can still colour their judgement.
On the other hand,
those that do look typically Japanese,
but don't have the same cultural or language proficiency,
can really stand out,
both in and outside of Japan.
I can't just say I'm Japanese because I don't look
typical Japanese.
Like I have to explain.
I can't just say,
I'm Japanese.
because most people would be like,
"You don't look Japanese though?"
Is what people usually tell me.
So,
Actually, my dad is American, my mom is Japanese,
so I'm hāfu.
I always need to say that kind of self-introduction.
When people
say mixed babies are cute, that really bothers me.
Like babies are cute.
Babies are cute. Maybe some babies are not as cute
as other babies but
it really bothers me
when people say that.
Because I feel like it "others"
people of mixed roots in a way that's unnecessary.
And it makes it about how they look.
Ethnically, we're very diverse
even as Asians.
We have Chinese, Korean, different roots,
to me Japanese ethnically,
it's difficult to define that.
You can look different,
you can be non-Asian and be Japanese.
Like the outside looks Japanese,
but I don't have a lot of connections...
like inside, it's really weird.
Because if you don't have the language,
if you don't do Japanese things,
but you look Japanese, like what...
what is, how, I don't know?
It's a lot of questions.
Max, had a funny story
about his Japanese mother's family
that he would visit regularly.
Basically every time I would go visit them
my own oji-chan, my mom's brother, would always be like,
"Oh Max, you're good at using chopsticks!"
"Oh, you like natto? Wow, you're like a Japanese!"
You do know I am the son
of your sister?
I never could say it to him,
but I always thought it was hilarious.
How he treated me so much like
not Japanese.
Even though it's like, it's your own sister's son.
It's a loaded question
if I say I'm
Japanese to, like, a
an Asian American because,
from my experience,
that will always
provoke an argument.
I remember meeting this bus driver,
who saw me and said, "You Asian?"
and I was like, "Yes."
He was like, "Are you black?"
and I was like, "Yes."
He was like, "Oh, that's cool."
And then proceeded to
tell me he was going to
find an 'Oriental' woman.
He was going to quit his job in New York
and find an Oriental woman,
and he was going to make children like me.
Wow! That's new.
I didn't even know what to say.
When I was a high school student,
I worked at a sushi restaurant.
But I wasn’t asked to make sushi rolls there.
Apparently, the reason was my appearance wasn't appropriate
for a sushi maker as the customers could see it.
A customer said, “Did you come to study in Japan? That’s good.”
”You must like Japanese culture as you’re working in a sushi restaurant.”
Because of how I look, they tend to make up stories like that.
People like me who do something to do with Japanese things,
they tend to think, "Oh, this person loves Japan
and came all the way from home just to learn our culture!"
That's how I felt they were thinking about me.
Okay then, If something happens, just call 110.
Okay, we will. Thank you.
I always get stopped like this when filming!
I don't know the reason why.
I'm often stopped by the police.
But I never get physically abused.
I've probably been stopped more than 300 times in my life so far.
But when I'm wearing a suit I don't get stopped.
I never, ever, get stopped!
When I'm in a sweatshirt, or wearing a hoodie, then of course I get stopped.
A growing group of people
that don't get much attention in Japan are refugees.
while the number of refugees
coming to Japan
was quite low a couple decades ago,
easier access to travel visas
has caused a surge in recent years.
I’m Shankai.
I'm a born-in-Japan Burmese that lives in Japan.
But I don't have citizenship of any country.
When I was in elementary school,
I never thought of myself as a foreigner.
I wrote my name in katakana for the 6 years of my elementary school.
When other classmates wrote theirs in Chinese characters.
I felt it a bit funny but no big deal.
I never thought I was Burmese back then.
When I went to middle school, I was bullied.
I came to understand that I wasn't Japanese
when I was being bullied.
I also thought I couldn't ever become Japanese then.
So I thought I should be positive about it and accept that I'm Burmese.
When I applied for university,
studying abroad was a must at the faculty I wanted to enter.
I also wanted to go see foreign countries.
When I had to write the entrance application,
my parents told me how I was stateless.
I had no passport and it's actually risky to leave the country.
Then I realized I'm neither Burmese nor Japanese when I was about 17.
At this point, you might be wondering
how Shankai can be a citizen of no country
even though he was 17 years old.
In Japan, citizenship is passed through jus sanguinis
or right of blood.
Which is unlike much of the Americas,
which is jus soli,
or birthright citizenship.
So despite being born in Japan,
Shankai didn't automatically get Japanese citizenship.
Right now, honestly,
if I continue without citizenship,
I won't be able to go abroad easily,
or I won't even be able to get married.
There are many problems about this issue.
I can naturalize.
But then my problem is, do I want to
obtain a Burmese citizenship,
or a Japanese citizenship?
I'm still torn over this.
Japanese citizenship has a wider range of
benefits and is more useful,
so at this moment I am thinking to apply for the Japanese citizenship.
In Japanese, those who have naturalized are known as kikasha.
In comparison to other G7 countries,
the amount of people naturalizing
and becoming Japanese is quite low.
This leads many to think that
naturalizing is not easily possible.
However, the success rate of applicants
is incredibly high.
Unfortunately,
I have the impression
that a lot of foreign countries
see Japan as closed and unwelcoming.
This is really not true
and I would like to encourage
people to come
and see for themselves.
If you really like Japan and
want to live here,
that is good too.
You can become Japanese.
So Eido, who we met before,
not only naturalized,
but has a website
where he teaches the ins and outs of naturalizing,
as well as shares the stories of others
who have become Japanese.
I'd say the top question I get asked is,
"Was it hard?"
And I'd say, "Well, it's actually...
it's not easy, but...
it's not as hard or as impossible as you might think.
There are six conditions for naturalizing,
which I'll briefly summarize:
1 - You need to live in Japan for 5 years.
2 - Be over twenty years old.
3 - Not be a criminal.
4 - Be able to support yourself financially.
Which generally means you speak
elementary school level Japanese and have a job
or you have a family member supporting you
or just have lots of money.
5 - That you'll give up any citizenship in any other countries,
although there are some exceptions.
And 6 -
you've never tried to overthrow
the constitution of Japan.
Another common question Eido gets
is why he chose to become Japanese.
Having permanent residency,
that gives you
permission
to live and work here.
And the optimist would say,
"Oh, they would never, ever, ever take that away from me."
But the person that looks at it from a life insurance point of view,
says, "Well, I'd rather have
the right to live here,
and work here, unconditionally."
You know, they can
fine you,
they can jail you,
they can even execute you,
but they can't deport you.
And in 2020, a permanent resident's ability
to leave and re-enter Japan
was temporarily paused,
as the government tried to control the spread of coronavirus.
On the other hand,
Japanese citizens did continue to retain their right
to re-enter the country.
I'm David Chart, I'm Japanese,
but I was born in the U.K.
I came to Japan fifteen years ago,
when I was thirty-one and naturalized two years ago.
It's part of the reason why I feel
culturally Japanese in a lot of ways
because I do practice Shinto and that is
really Japanese.
I passed the exam that they set
for lay people who want to take an exam about Shinto.
I passed at the highest level.
None of the people I have encountered in Shinto,
have had any problem
with the fact that I was not born in Japan.
The question I asked all people who naturalized,
was if it was hard to do so
and why they chose to.
At the point I actually naturalized,
I was just switching between two jobs.
And so, my most recent income
was actually under three million yen.
That wasn't a problem.
So you don't have to be earning
a high amount of money, you just have to show that you are earning
and that you can probably continue earning.
I do know of people who are
Southeast Asian who work in factories
and who have naturalized.
When I'd made the decision, I'd been in Japan for 13 years.
By that time, Japan felt like my country.
You get...
some Youtubers saying they would never naturalize in Japan
because they always wanted to be absolutely sure
they could always go back to their own country.
That's why I naturalized.
I wanted to be sure I could always come back here.
So it's kind of funny that when David was returning to his former country,
the U.K., he encountered some issues.
I had to line up
in the Non-U.K., non-EU passport lane,
which had a much longer queue.
Got to the front, handed over my passport,
and the immigration official
looked at it,
looked at me,
"I didn't know they handed these out!"
First time I went to the U.S.,
because that's where my father lives,
the guy looks at my passport and says,
"Hmm... Japanese passport. Why do you have a British accent then?"
My accent.
My only theory is that he's had sensitivity training
and has been told you do not tell people
they do not look like their passport.
But hadn't been told
not to tell them they don't sound like their passport.
Another visit to the U.K.,
the guy told me,
"Well, you don't exactly look like a typical Japanese businessman, do you?"
Er... no, no.
"Have you been to the U.K. before?"
Yes! Yes, a bit.
"Wow, never seen this before.
Someone not of Japanese descent with a Japanese passport."
And the guy who was actually studying me says,
"Yes, but is this OK?"
Hang on a minute, you're actually thinking about
not allowing me to enter the U.K. because I'm
white on a Japanese passport,
that's interesting.
Japan has alway been
no reaction at all.
Just thank you sir.
Even when I had a someone who had kenshusei trainee
on her badge, so,
it's a virtual certainty that I was the first white person
with a Japanese passport she’d seen,
because there aren't that many of us.
No. Not even a flicker.
Even though he doesn't get any reactions at Japanese customs,
that's not necessarily the case in his everyday life.
I stand out visually
among the typical Japanese population.
Japanese doesn't really have
a word
for
Japanese people who don't look like most Japanese people.
Foreigner is just wrong.
Legally, I am not a foreigner
I am a Japanese citizen, this is my country.
I get to vote, I can run for Prime Minister.
You want a way to talk about
Zainichi-Koreans who have naturalized.
They're Japanese.
They were born in Japan, they were raised in Japan
their native language is Japanese,
their parents were born in Japan
thei grandparents were usually born in Japan these days.
How do you describe them?
They're not Zainichi-Koreans anymore.
Alright, they're now Japanese.
So
Japan
doesn't yet have language
for this.
How do you pronounce your name again
when you introduce yourself in Japanese?
Gurizudeiru Bari Jyoshua
It's always difficult to say. Whenever I get called everyone's always
"Guri, guri, guri, gurizu..."
So I always say, "Hai!"
I specifically asked Josh the question about his name,
because using Western names in Japan can have issues.
First, there's the length,
since Japanese only have two names,
a first and a last,
while other countries can have three, four or five.
The second issue is converting the name into katakana,
which will almost never sound like the original name
and makes the already long name even longer,
due to the way katakana is written vs. kanji.
Now if you look at David Chart's name in Japanese,
you'll notice that the last name is in katakana,
and the first name is in kanji.
I asked him why that was?
I did suggest that we could go for a kanji surname as well,
but my daughter strongly opposed that.
And because she is a half
and so she should have a name that is
half katakana and half kanji.
So
I wasn't allowed to change
the surname from what my wife had chosen
when we got married.
And I wanted kanji in the name
and so I found some kanji for David.
My name is Barry Joshua Grisdale, I'm originally from Canada,
but I became a Japanese citizen in 2016.
So in my mind I expected becoming a Japanese citizen
would be a very grueling procedure
and very difficult with maybe pushback
from the people at the ministry
but in fact everybody was very welcoming.
They were very encouraging
and they provided all the information I needed to take the first steps.
I also had a home visit.
So the person from the ministry came to my house.
It was only about five minutes, they sort of just checked
and did a quick look around.
Checked my closet and then that was it kind of thing.
There's always these stories that they check your refrigerator
to see if you're eating natto and stuff like that.
Unfortunately, I had put all that natto in there for nothing.
In Japan,
you get a case worker who goes through all of your documents with you,
tells you what you need,
makes sure you got the right things.
Tells you if you haven't got the right things
and what you need to do to fix it.
And
sticks with you for as long as it takes to get your application fixed.
And that's free.
Now, the reason for that is not
necessarily because Japan loves immigrants.
It's because Japanese law says that central government bodies
have to provide full help
to enable you to fill in applications
What I've experienced
as a pleasant shock was that when I naturalized
to Japanese citizenship
about eight years ago
the Foreign Ministry (*Ministry of Justice) personnel was very friendly,
they gave me a lot of hope.
I was alway a little hesitant and concerned
that my disability would affect my application process.
I've heard horror stories on the news from other countries.
Stories of people who want to immigrate from
the U.K. to Canada even,
that they have a family member who's disabled,
and being rejected, because their family member
would be a strain on the welfare system.
So I was trying to be as proactive as possible
to say, you know, that yes I'm...
I do have a disability but
here's my
contribution back to society,
the things I'm doing.
Well, I was called by the government of Tottori
actually to come and check out
the accessibility features of their tourist attractions.
So it's great that they even
just in the public area have an accessible toilet.
It's well kept and quite nice.
Are you not nervous about this?
It's only been a few hours since I've arrived in Tottori,
but I've been super impressed.
Everyone's really kind-hearted and
also they explained the "i-support" system to me...
That was the biggest thing that surprised me
is that it didn't have any effect.
They were mostly concerned about my stability as a Japanese citizen.
Whether I had employment,
how long I've been here,
how many times I've left the country, whether I was actually
being part of Japanese society was more
of an issue to the people
in the ministry than
whether I had a disability or not,
or whether I'd have some sort of an effect on the welfare system.
Then I first saw that I became a Japanese citizen
in Kanpō, which is the government gazette.
So everyday in the morning
I'd constantly be refreshing the website
and checking all the names.
So it was a stressful couple of months for me but
when I saw my name in there, I got so ecstatic.
I actually have it printed out, it's on my wall at work
with my name highlighted on it.
I became a citizen on
August 29th in 2016
so I consider it my Japanese birthday.
So I'm four years old in Japan.
How does it feel to be Japanese?
I still wake up sometimes
and smile to myself, "Hey, I'm Japanese."
- If you slipped here, it would be really bad! - Definitely!
Remember how the nationality law
basically doesn't allow for dual citizenship?
While it's true in general,
there are exceptions to this,
and thus there are Japanese
with dual nationality,
like the children who
have one Japanese parent
and one non-Japanese parent,
like my children.
A more famous example was the tennis star, Naomi Osaka.
I say was, because before she turned twenty two,
she decided to keep only her Japanese nationality.
But for those who aren't in the limelight,
the majority have actually never chosen,
and thus still possess dual nationality.
Japan
revised their nationality laws in 1985 to say that
the big big big change back then was
you could inherit
Japanese nationality
by birth, not just from your father
but from your mother as well.
They created the Choice of Nationality Law
which says, once you become an adult
you then have two years to make up your mind
and formally declare that you choose Japanese nationality.
Now, it's on the books
but it's never been enforced.
But just because it's on the books and never been enforced
doesn't mean they can't decide to enforce it in the future.
I only have a Belgian passport.
I gave up my Japanese nationality
when I was about eighteen or so
because I was told I had to choose at twenty-two so I thought,
why wait until I'm twenty-two.
I might as well choose now because I live in Belgium.
Living in Belgium or the Netherlands,
where I live now within the EU,
is much easier on a European passport
than on a Japanese one.
So for me, the choice was
not only because I identify
as Belgian much more
but also it's just easier.
When you have both an American and a Japanese family,
and you're asked to choose one family,
no one can choose.
Because you love both...
It's not an easy choice.
It's choosing sometimes between your parents,
so which one do you love most,
which country do you love more.
It can be
a practical choice,
Japanese passport is really strong.
But often it's also a choice of the heart.
It's how you feel you like most
and a lot of
half Japanese people would prefer to have
dual nationality
dual citizenship, allowed.
One main thing
against dual nationality in my perspective
is military service.
What if there's war?
What do you do?
Who do you choose for?
One unique story I came across
was that of Jason's,
a fellow Canadian.
He always thought he was only Canadian,
but when he applied for a student visa
to study Japanese in Japan,
he found out otherwise.
Actually when I applied for my visa
when I got the news back they rejected it.
And I didn't know why
and they told me that,
they had, my name was on the family registry.
Something my dad never bothered to tell me about.
And so they made me go through this whole stressful
process of getting my family registry from Japan and everything.
By the time it was over and
when they handed me a Japanese passport
it was kind of...
a weird feeling in a sense.
In that like I know that
I'm not Japanese like,
like everyone else who holds this passport
because I grew up in Canada.
But in some ways it kind of felt like
I was validated in a sense
when I was handed it.
The embassy or consulate
was very persistent on me getting the passport actually.
They were saying even though
you're above twenty-two
because you were born in Canada
they said that because you
got your Canadian passport when you were born
through birthright,
that the Japanese government cannot take that away, technically,
and so you
are okay with keeping both.
Which does not agree with any of the laws
which are written on paper, I will admit.
Upon applying for passport renewal,
many dual citizens will be handed a pamphlet
saying that,
"You must make a choice of nationality!"
So the fact that Jason was told to get a Japanese passport
and not make a choice of nationality was surprising.
Yeah, in terms of Japan's laws
on passports and stuff and dual nationality,
I don't know, I think they are outdated.
Because Japan's a country, where from the beginning,
people from various countries and cultures have mixed,
let different people live in Japan.
And if they succeed,
they could save Japan's future.
A question that came up
over and over throughout all the interviews,
was how does someone actually be Japanese.
What does one have to do,
have to be,
to be considered fully Japanese?
Talking with Japanese-Americans,
I learned the terms jun japa and jun sui,
which translate into pure Japanese and pure.
Another common term is Nihonjinron
which is the theory of Japaneseness.
More broadly, it's the idea that Japanese are unique.
Believing in these kinds of ideas,
consequently means
that there are only certain individuals
that can be Japanese.
I always felt like it was an
insider outsider type deal.
So it's like, either you're Japanese or you're not Japanese.
And it wasn't
all that relevant what exactly you were,
besides the fact that you were not Japanese.
The best way
to come to terms with who you are
is just to accept
that you will
maybe never be
considered to be fully Japanese.
Which for me is easy
because I wasn't born and raised here
and I don't have
the ambition to live in Japan for the rest of my life.
But if that's the case,
then there might not be an answer that
you know, you'd be happy with.
Saying, ah you know, you'll never be Japanese.
Be fine with it.
So it's something that
needs to be discussed
and what is Japanese is something that needs to be
rethought over and over.
I think my identity is
Zainichi-Kankoku-jin for sure, yes.
That is
where it originated and
and I think it's going to remain that way, firmly.
But you're also Nihonjin (Japanese) as well, are you not?
Well, by nationality.
But I don't think I'm Japanese.
I would like to
to be
close to the Japanese
society as much as possible.
But I probably will never be pure Japanese.
I can never be, I don't think.
I struggled with that for a long time, what it is to be Japanese.
Actually, when I say it now,
I don't necessarily say I'm Japanese, I say I'm a Japanese citizen.
Because I don't have Japanese pass... Japanese citizenship
but I grew up in Japan.
Yeah!
Yeah, you know...
for Western people
I'm Japanese.
I know what they mean but...
But for Japanese people,
I'm not Japanese.
So...
People choose my identity without asking me.
What should I say...
I think if the person thinks they're Japanese,
then they're Japanese.
Trying so hard to be accepted in Japan,
to be accepted as Japanese has not
become an issue to me anymore.
It was in the past but
I'm so many things.
And...
That's something I hope other people who
maybe feel like
they have an identity struggle
is to realize they are not just
their own ethnic background.
Like...
your identity is who you make it out to be.
And, you know,
not everyone is going to accept
maybe the fact that
I'm Japanese.
Or maybe I'm not as Japanese
as somebody who is born and raised here.
But to me that's just
it matters a lot less now because
I know who I am and I know
where I came from and I know my background so
I'm...
I'm completely fine with
that as it is.
It is what it is.
That by the way,
was reference to Naomi Osaka's
one-time Twitter status,
where I'm guessing she was getting tired
of the same questions.
In fact, she even made an ad with Nike where she, ah,
"answered" the constant questions she gets.
It's very unfortunate that
some people still
do not feel comfortable
saying you are Japanese.
You know,
from the bottom of their hearts.
Because there's kind of like a
a small needle
stuck somewhere in your stomach.
Saying, "Uh, maybe you're not...
Are you sure you're Japanese?"
But...
I don't mean to be kind of Socrates or anything
but Japanese...
being Japanese is just being Japanese.
Either you
have it or you don't, you know.
If you think you're Japanese, you're Japanese.
I think.
You can go on about being legally Japanese,
being blood Japanese, being half Japanese,
being quarter Japanese but...
Japan is
a nation state.
And it's a nationality.
It's a culture
But...
if you're comfortable with being Japanese,
you're Japanese.