Effects of Babel in the Church: a Study of Language Planning, Policy and Practice in Japanese Ethnic Churches

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2015-06-03 Effects of Babel in the Church: A Study of Language Planning, Policy and Practice in Japanese Ethnic Churches

Barrett, Tyler

Barrett, T. (2015). Effects of Babel in the Church: A Study of Language Planning, Policy and Practice in Japanese Ethnic Churches (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/25820 http://hdl.handle.net/11023/2286 doctoral thesis

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Effects of Babel1 in the Church:

A Study of Language Planning, Policy and Practice in Japanese Ethnic Churches

Tyler Andrew Barrett

A THESIS

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

CALGARY, ALBERTA

JUNE, 2015

1 Refers to the Tower of Babel story in the Bible, which is meant to explain why there are different languages in the world.

Abstract

In the globalizing world, it is difficult to understand the cultural, linguistic, religious and policy landscape of Japanese ethnic church communities. Japanese ethnic church communities in Western Canada consist of, and are impacted by, levels of language planning, policy, and practice as they are communities that operate within and without macro-levels of language policies (i.e., Official Language Act and the Canadian Multicultural Act), meso-levels of church policies (e.g., church websites and Facebook pages), and micro-levels that are often determined by perspectives of church members who are typically Japanese people from Japan. Japanese ethnic churches are also spaces that function to legitimize the language and cultural practices of Japanese people who come to Canada for various purposes and periods of time. Since little research has been done to understand the language and cultural practices of Japanese ethnic churches in Western Canada, it is important to ask the following question: What is a Japanese ethnic church community in terms of language and cultural practices? To answer this question, I use language planning and policy (Johnson, 2009) as a theoretical framework and conduct a multi-site case study (Thomas, 2011) that consists of data collected through interviews and observational experiences which are analyzed using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 2003; Gumperz, 1982; Onodera, 2004) to understand relationships of power and intertextuality in discourses and in social practices relevant to Japanese ethnic church communities in Western Canada. The analysis reveals that while Japanese ethnic churches are spaces of legitimization that are fueled by strong beliefs about one nation, one culture, and one language ideologies, and subsequently aimed at, and dependent upon facilitating the perceived Japanese language and cultural preferences/needs of first generation Japanese people who come to Canada as adults, church members also perceive themselves as becoming “mixed” to varying degrees as they are impacted by the dominant English language policies, practices, and culture in Western Canada. As a result, legitimization is often context dependent and experienced differently by church members within and without Japanese ethnic churches.

Acknowledgements

First, I would like to give thanks and praise to Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. I would like to express deep gratitude to my wife Yukiji and son Andrew for making great sacrifices and for unwavering support as we have traveled back and forth and between three countries to pursue this endeavor. I would like to thank my parents and my sister for their ongoing support and for listening to me “talk shop” even when it stopped making sense. I would like to thank Dr. Tom Ricento for inviting me into the program. I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Sylvie Roy for taking me as a student and for her patience and guidance throughout the project. I would like to thank my committee members: Dr. Yan Guo for her guidance, and Dr. Kimberley Lenters for reminding me early on to “Go where you are welcome.” I would like to thank Sean McCausland for being a great friend who was always willing to help in whatever way possible. I would like to thank Dr. Antoine Koury whose feedback was instrumental in helping me to understand how to approach the phenomenological positionings from which I gaze.

Finally, I would like to thank the Japanese ethnic church community whose participation and tremendous hospitality made this project possible and enjoyable. I hope the findings are deemed useful.

iii

Table of Contents

ABSTRACT ...... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... iii LIST OF TABLES ...... vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...... 1 PROBLEM ...... 6 PURPOSE AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS...... 10 RATIONALE AND SIGNIFICANCE ...... 12 ORGANIZATION OF THESIS ...... 14 CHAPTER 2: CONTEXTS ...... 16 ONE NATION, ONE IDENTITY, ONE LANGUAGE ...... 16 ENGLISH IN JAPAN AND JAPANESE IN CANADA ...... 21 ORIGINS OF JAPANESE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES AT HOME (IN JAPAN) AND ABROAD ...... 23 LEGITIMIZATION IN THE CONTEXT OF LANGUAGE PLANNING AND POLICY ...... 26 CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ...... 28 LANGUAGE PLANNING AND POLICY ...... 28 MACRO-LEVEL LANGUAGE POLICY (DE JURE) IN CANADA: OFFICIAL LANGUAGE ACT AND CANADIAN MULTICULTURAL ACT ...... 33 MESO-LEVELS OF LANGUAGE PLANNING AND POLICY ...... 35 MICRO-LEVELS OF LANGUAGE PLANNING AND POLICY ...... 35 FROM CULTURAL MOSAIC TO SOCIAL JUSTICE: IDEOLOGIES AND POLICY ...... 37 ETHNIC CHURCHES ...... 39 IMPLICATIONS OF ETHNIC CHURCH STUDIES AND FOR MY STUDY ...... 49 ON CULTURE ...... 52 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: LANGUAGE POLICY OF THE JAPANESE ETHNIC CHURCH ...... 55 CHAPTER 4: METHODOLOGY ...... 60 RATIONALE FOR RESEARCH METHODOLOGY/METHODS ...... 60 CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ...... 60 INTERTEXTUALITY ...... 62 CASE STUDY ...... 64 FINDING PARTICIPANTS ...... 64 PARTICIPANTS: WHO THEY ARE ...... 66 MOUNTAIN JAPANESE CHURCH ...... 68 CITY JAPANESE CHURCH ...... 70 RIVER JAPANESE CHURCH ...... 73 INTERVIEWS ...... 75 ANALYSES OF INTERVIEW TEXTS ...... 77 OBSERVATIONS ...... 80 LIMITATIONS AND DELIMITATIONS ...... 80 CHAPTER 5: REASONS FOR ORGANIZING JAPANESE ETHNIC CHURCHES...... 85 HOW DO JAPANESE CHURCH MEMBERS SEE THE JAPANESE GROUP? ...... 85 BELIEFS ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF MOTHER-TONGUE JAPANESE ...... 91

MOTHER TONGUE AND ENGLISH IN CANADA ...... 96 BELIEFS ABOUT BEING BILINGUAL ...... 100 CHAPTER 5 SUMMARY ...... 106 CHAPTER 6: DESCRIPTIONS OF LANGUAGE PLANNING AND POLICY IN JAPANESE ETHNIC CHURCHES ...... 108 LANGUAGE PLANNING: WHAT DO CHURCH MEMBERS THINK ABOUT IT? ...... 108 LANGUAGE POLICY GOALS OF THE CHURCH ...... 113 VIEWS ABOUT CHURCH POLICY ...... 122 OPEN DOOR POLICY? NOT REALLY...... 128 ENGLISH ACCOMMODATIONS IN THE JAPANESE ETHNIC CHURCH ...... 137 CHAPTER 6 SUMMARY ...... 144 CHAPTER 7: SUMMARY, DISCUSSIONS, AND CONCLUSION ...... 148 SUMMARY ...... 148 DISCUSSION ...... 153 CONCLUSION ...... 164 RECOMMENDATIONS AND QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION ...... 168 REFERENCES ...... 172 APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS ...... 185

List of Tables

Table 1: Mountain Japanese Church ...... 69

Table 2: City Japanese Church ...... 72

Table 3: River Japanese Church ...... 74

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

The globalizing world is characterized by mobility in terms of rapidly-paced migration where take-up and exchange processes result in language and culture collisions and appropriations that become transcultural2 realities that challenge former descriptions of ourselves and the communities we live in (Blommaert, 2010; Pennycook, 2007;

Fairclough, 2003). As a result, current descriptions of individuals and their respective communities, where multiple languages and cultures are exchanged and taken up, often appear to be incomplete or perhaps inadequate because they have multiple and conflicting identities; the Japanese community is no exception.

Japanese people in Canada and around the world are active participants in processes of mobility that are part of globalization as they move around the globe bringing their language and cultural practices with them. Their language and cultural practices often determine their community memberships, while also determining limitations and opportunities available to them in countries such as Canada, where

Japanese people are minorities and the Japanese language is not the language of the dominant culture group. For Japanese immigrants who stay in Canada long term, many of whom have children who were born in Canada or came at a young age, they and their children must often learn the language of their respective communities, which usually includes English. As a result, especially for children born to Japanese parents who grow up in Canada, Japanese people often wrestle with choices concerning language, membership, and identity and how to function dually as Japanese speakers and as English speakers, since both languages are often required at home and in daily life.

2 Instances when cultures and language have the potential to collide and influence one another and form hybridities usually as a result of globalization (Pennycook, 2007) 1

As Japanese people bring their languages with them, they also bring their religions, too. The religions of Japan are Shinto and Buddhism, although Christianity has made a subtle impact. Interestingly, Christianity in Japan in terms of practices can include elements of Japanese culture, particularly when the transcultural exchange of

Christianity with Japanese communities takes place and processes of take up, reconstitution, and reproduction result in Christian church practices with impressions of

Japanese language and culture. In Canada, Japanese immigrants tend to practice

Buddhism and Christianity, and subsequent Buddhist and Christian churches are places where Japanese language practices are organized and performed by Japanese immigrants

(CanadianNikkei, 2015). While Canada has a rich history of Christianity and churches are widespread, many ethnically Japanese Christians who speak Japanese as a first language tend to prefer attending Japanese ethnic churches in Canada because Japanese is the preferred language of the Japanese ethnic church communities.

Perhaps without knowing, Japanese immigrants participate in processes of language planning, policy, and practice, as they become members of different communities with different language practices within society. Japanese immigrants may

“naturally” organize church communities (i.e., people gathering because they share culture and language) that are aimed at facilitating the language and cultural needs or preferences of the Japanese community, which are not available in the dominant language and culture. By doing so, in the process of creating an organization that accommodates their language needs, they simultaneously create communities with membership requirements that are based upon language practices that include and exclude members of society. Members of Japanese ethnic churches in Canada often have multiple

2 memberships as they exist in a society of transcultural spaces where identities are often

“mixed.”

Few studies about Japanese ethnic churches have focused upon language policy and practices in transcultural spaces where people become “mixed” (Nakamaki, 2012;

Patterson, 2008; Mullins, 1984; 1987; 1988). This study is important for understanding transcultural spaces of “mixed” people in the midst of language planning, policy and practice, and because there are not many studies about Japanese communities as ‘strict’ communities in the sense that Japan still has a strong impact on people leaving Japan, and in terms of language practices in church communities because this is where connections between languages and faith occur.

Little research has been done to understand Japanese ethnic church communities

(Sison, 2013; Dowe, 2007; Mullins, 1984; 1987; 1988). The assumption may be that immigrant populations in Canada will become diverse because of mixed marriages, but there is little research about how this mixed population organizes and perceives itself in

Japanese ethnic churches in Canada. In transcultural spaces (Pennycook, 2007) such as

Canada, Japanese people, like any other ethnic group, cannot be understood in restrictive monistic ideological terms (i.e., generalizations made through language, that have an impact of covering several groups as part of one) (Piekalkiewicz & Wayne, 1995) such as

“Japanese” that attempt to describe diverse and complex groups of individuals and their communities. In terms of the transcultural exchange of dominant languages and cultures of Canada, and each respective Japanese ethnic church community and the language and cultural practices of church members, it is important to understand the views and intentions of the individuals who create and populate Japanese churches. While Buddhist

3 churches have been included in previous and more general studies about Japanese ethnic church communities in Canada and subsequent language and cultural practices (see

Mullins, 1984; 1987) — which is not surprising since Buddhism is often considered by

Japanese people as being a Japanese religion (Victoria, 2006) — this research focuses specifically upon Christian Japanese ethnic churches because ethnically Japanese

Christian communities operate differently than Japanese ethnic Buddhist churches according to Christian beliefs that are not part of traditional beliefs about Japanese cultural identity and are often influenced by English practices (e.g., many Christian songs have been written in English). As a result, this research is intended to provide a thick description of Christian Japanese ethnic church members concerning their views about language and cultural practices of Christian Japanese ethnic church communities that affect language planning, policy, and practice and vice versa.

Churches created and maintained by ethnically Japanese individuals often begin as churches where Japanese language is the language used for church practices. However, over time as second and third generations assimilate and begin to reflect the dominant cultural practices around them, the tendency has been that as churches develop, their language practices change also (Mullins, 1984; 1987). As with most things, there are exceptions. For example, Japanese ethnic churches in Canada include churches where

Japanese-only and both Japanese and English language practices are evident in churches at various stages of development. As a result, “divergence from expected patterns will point the [researcher] to search for other factors that explain those cases “that contradict our hypothesized common-sense assumptions”” (Wilson, 1982, p. 105 in Mullins, 1987, p. 331). Thus, this research is also intended to present Japanese ethnic church

4 communities as having divergent patterns that are different from expected norms of ethnic church development.

In order to shed light on actual language and cultural practices of Japanese ethnic church members and subsequent intentions and goals of churches, I will study three

Christian churches in Western Canada, which include (pseudonyms for purposes of anonymity): Mountain Japanese Church, City Japanese Church, and River Japanese

Church. I will examine the views and perceptions of church members by interviewing them. My active participation in one of the Japanese churches for about one year will also inform my study. In addition, I will analyze texts that are produced by the churches to understand the goals and perceived processes of each church community. Specifically, the views and perceptions of church leaders and church members will provide understanding about who Japanese churches are created for and the function of Japanese ethnic church communities as communities of legitimization (Mullins, 1988; Fairclough,

2003) for Japanese minorities, particularly in terms of the perceived language and cultural needs of first-generation Japanese immigrants in Canada and/or the subsequent second, third, and fourth generations whose language needs may or may not be perceived as being different. In order to reach my goal, I will use theoretical concepts from language planning and policy (e.g., planning, agents, processes and goals) (Johnson,

2009) to understand and analyze interview and policy texts of this multi-sited case study

(Thomas, 2011). The methods include interviews, observations, and Critical Discourse

Analysis of policy texts and interview texts (Fairclough, 2003) to understand multiple levels of language planning and policy discourses in social contexts. These will be detailed in subsequent chapters.

Problem

Japanese people have been immigrating to Canada since 1877 and subsequent

Japanese communities, such as Japanese ethnic churches, have developed as a minority population in Canada since that time (CanadianNikkei, 2015). In 2001 the Japanese population was the ninth largest non-European community in Canada. According to 2011

(Statistics Canada, 2014) census data, 109,740 people of Japanese ancestry were living in

Canada (compare this to about 98,905 in 2006) and more than forty percent identified themselves as “mixed.” “Mixed” is a problematic term where ‘mixed-ethnicity’ is often preferred over ‘mixed-race’ to describe individuals who are from “mixed” ethnic backgrounds (Banks, 1992, p. 37). According to these statistics, more than 90 percent of the Japanese population lived in only three provinces (i.e., British Columbia, Ontario, and

Alberta), and more than half of the population lived in Western Canada. Within this population, 24 percent identified as being Protestant Christian (16 percent identified as

Buddhist), which was more than any other religion for people of Japanese origin living in

Canada at that time. These statistics are important because they indicate: 1) the Japanese population in Canada is significant; 2) more than half live in Western Canada; 3)

Protestant Christianity is the most popular religion of the Japanese community in Canada; and 4) more than half of the population identifies themselves as being “mixed.”

These statistics also indicate important aspects needed for understanding

Japanese ethnic church communities in Canada where prototypical members are ethnically Japanese individuals who identify themselves as Christians and often speak

Japanese as a first language and English as an additional language, and are by default, carriers of East (Japanese), West (English), and Christian (cultural and linguistic) beliefs

6 and ideological concepts (among other things) as a result of, “the cross-cultural spread of religion,” which is a “complex process related to the interaction of several factors— ideological, environmental, and organizational” (Mullins, 1998, p. 4). These factors (and others) influence potential decisions that are made by church members in terms of language planning, policy, and practice of Japanese ethnic churches. Japanese ethnic churches in Canada must carefully consider the language and culture of their churches and their subsequent language policy and the community it is intended to serve, which is why this research is a study of language planning, policy, and practice, using language planning and policy theory as a theoretical framework and methodology.

To further contextualize the problem, I would like to use my family members; my wife and my son. My wife Yukiji was born in Japan, she speaks Japanese as her first language, and she speaks English fluently. She became a Christian in Japan and was a member of a Protestant Japanese church in Hiroshima. After we married and our son

Andrew was born, we moved to a predominantly English-speaking community of people with predominantly English speaking churches in Western Canada. After attending an

English speaking church in the area, certain language and cultural differences became evident to the degree that her experience as a potential member of the church was lacking because of feeling misunderstood and culturally underrepresented. For example, one of the elders of the English-speaking church, who had nothing but good intentions, after being told she was Japanese, told her that he would like to introduce her to another

“Asian” person from Hong Kong who attended the church. His good-intentions were received with discretion for various reasons and the importance of being part of a culturally familiar Japanese ethnic church community became evident. Additionally,

7 another member of the church whose daughter-in-law was Japanese recognized the value of being culturally familiar in a church and (without being asked) connected my wife with the wife of the pastor of a Japanese church in the city. Experiences such as these resulted in our family eventually becoming members of a Japanese ethnic church in the city: a culturally familiar church community. After becoming a part of the Japanese ethnic church in the city, we came to realize challenges shared by other church members, who like us, were often families that included spouses of “international marriages” with

“mixed” children (e.g., my son Andrew), from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who were the subject of many discussions concerning language and cultural needs. As we became familiar with members from other Japanese ethnic churches within the community, it became apparent that each person had particular language and cultural needs that were usually attributed to family dynamics, such as “nissei” and “sansei” children (i.e., second and third generations of ethnically Japanese-Canadians), spouses, and personal experiences. For example, first generation Japanese church members often had strong beliefs about being Japanese, while second and third generation Canadian-

Japanese church members had beliefs of their own. With differences between church members, it was difficult to understand the language and cultural preferences that dictated the policy and practice of Japanese ethnic churches since the term “Japanese ethnic church” was such a surface-level term based upon the assumption that Japanese communities speak Japanese and that Japanese ethnic churches were created for Japanese people. But, who are “Japanese people” in Canada? Furthermore, it was even difficult to distinguish the identity of church members in terms of who was “Japanese” or who was

“Canadian” and who identified as being someone else since these terms of identity are

8 often determined by the individual and based upon complex cultural, linguistic, religious and political contexts and experiences. As a result, it became relevant to ask, what is a

Japanese church community in terms of language, cultural practices, and identity? This is a problem. This is the cultural, linguistic, religious and policy landscape of Japanese ethnic churches in Canada that people must consider when organizing and subscribing to membership of Japanese ethnic churches.

As I began attending a Japanese church and participating in the Japanese church community in Western Canada, I became acquainted with individuals who identified themselves and other church members as being Japanese (often in contrast to Canadians and others who identified themselves as being Japanese) in addition to other language and identity markers. Also, I was occasionally asked to teach the “next generation” service in English in a separate room of the church during the main Japanese service. The

“next generation” service consisted of mostly young adults, including the pastor’s children, who were ‘issei’ and ‘nissei’ (i.e., first and second generation) Japanese and

Canadian people, some of whom who had been in Canada since they were children, and all of whom were expected to leave the main service and attend the “next generation” service because they could understand English. This meant that the “next generation” service members, many of whom identified themselves as being speakers of Japanese as a first language, and whose parents were often first generation immigrants to Canada, were expected to attend a Japanese ethnic church and learn in English. I wanted to know, why?

It became apparent that Japanese ethnic churches in Canada were perhaps not simply

“Japanese” church communities where Japanese language and culture is practiced. As previous research had demonstrated, they are community organizations characterized by

9 being distinctly culturally and linguistically Japanese, while also potentially being

“characterized by monolingual [English] language practices, goals of de-ethnicization, and transformation into a multiethnic organization” (Mullins, 1987, pp. 324-326). The monolingual language practices of Japanese ethnic churches, with monolingual accommodations of English (e.g., the “next generation” service I taught), demonstrates the potential tension between Japanese and dominant English language cultures (e.g.,

English and Canadian culture), which implies resistance from steps toward potential de- ethnization. De-ethnization may refer to the loss of cultural, religious, and linguistic identity markers that assist in the transformation of ethnic organizations into multiethnic organizations. In order to understand the reasons for these developmental changes that occur as a result of complexities concerning aspects of identity, culture, language and heritage for individual church members who contribute to decisions that lead to language planning, policy, and practice shifts within the Japanese ethnic church and the contexts they exist within, I wanted to conduct research to understand the views of the people who constitute the Japanese ethnic church and make the decisions that result in organizations known as Japanese ethnic churches. This research is aimed at understanding this problem.

Purpose and Research Questions

The purpose of this research is to understand complex views of church members who, in aggregate, work together to provide a comprehensive view of Japanese ethnic churches in terms of language and cultural practices. Framing the views of church members with my own observations and texts produced in terms of language planning, policy, and practice of the church is useful for providing a critical study of Japanese ethnic churches and understanding them in the midst of layers of beliefs and practices

10 that concern dominant language, culture, and political surroundings. Most language planning and policy studies have been aimed at understanding decisions made at the government level (macro-level). Few studies have focused on understanding religious contexts, such as ethnic churches, and the language planning and policy that occurs within such church communities (meso-level) (Hatoss, 2012). Even fewer (if any from my knowledge) have focused upon the language planning, policy, and practices of

Japanese ethnic Christian churches in Western Canada and what their members have to say about it (micro-level).

Accordingly, while there is doubt that language can actually be planned (Kaplan,

2005; Spolsky & Shohamy, 2000 in Hatoss, 2012, p. 94), influential policy is evident in terms of macro-, “meso- and micro-level language planning” (Baldauf, 2006; Liddicoat

& Baldauf, 2008 in Hatoss, 2012, p. 94). In particular, concerning Japanese ethnic church language policies, a less official ‘grassroots’ level of language policy (Hornberger, 1996) and ‘language management’ (Spolsky, 2009) are perhaps accurate descriptions of how language planning actually occurs (often at the meso-level). Language planning is a way that organizations such as Japanese ethnic churches attempt to influence or accommodate the language practices of church members whose interactions occur on the micro-level at the community level such as in conversations between church members (Hatoss, 2012;

Ager, 2001). However, as Tollefson (1991; 2013) states, language policy is also an instrument that has the potential to produce inequality at the state and church organization levels, because it is both inclusive and exclusive as a result of binary and structural limitations of language and definitions. For the purposes of this research, language policy is the deliberate attempt to plan or to change the language practices of an

11 individual or a community (Omoniyi, 2004). The aims and goals of language planning and policy are often aligned with the views of the agents and arbiters of policies that regulate language and language use (Johnson, 2009) (i.e., government officials at the government levels (macro) and church leaders at the church organization levels). As a result, understanding the views of Japanese ethnic church leaders and members who actively participate in language planning, policy, and practices of Japanese ethnic church communities (meso and micro) will ultimately be useful in attempting to answer the following general question:

What is a Japanese ethnic church community in terms of language and cultural practices? I have created two specific questions that will provide possible answers to this question:

Q1: What are the views of church members that assist in the construction of language policy de jure and de facto (i.e., in law and in practice)?

Q2: In terms of language planning and policy, how do members describe the concept and development of Japanese ethnic churches?

I will answer these questions in two different chapters (Chapters 5 and 6) in the presentation and analyses of my data. I chose to present my data this way because the questions were able to be categorically divided in terms of reasons for organizing

Japanese ethnic churches and descriptions of Japanese ethnic churches in terms of policy and practice.

Rationale and Significance

The significance of this research is based upon the global phenomenon that people move around and bring their languages and religious practices with them and that the subsequent Japanese ethnic churches created by Japanese immigrants in Canada might be

12 places where church members want monolingualism and monoculturalism to exist as they have in the past. Although church members may want their church communities to be monolingual and be monocultural realities, we will see that it is “not truly, not entirely” the case (Roy, 2010). In terms of developmental processes, previous studies (Mullins,

1984; 1987) have shown that by the third generation, churches are at risk of being ‘de- ethnicized’ as third-generation Japanese church members no longer identify strongly with their Japanese heritage languages and cultures. Rather, they tend to identify with their dominant languages and cultural surroundings. This suggests that Japanese ethnic churches tend to become multi-ethnic church communities, or communities that are not specifically identified by the ethnic identity of the people who attend. As we will see, contrary to Mullins’ assertions (1984; 1987), Japanese ethnic churches do not necessarily dissolve and become taken over by the dominant culture after the third generation. Rather,

Japanese ethnic churches in this study tend to remain ethnically Japanese with bilingual tendencies or accommodations as they rely upon continuous flows of first generation

Japanese immigrants to join their communities in the midst of transcultural flows

(Pennycook, 2007). Furthermore, concerning Language Policy and Practice (LPP) studies, most research has been concerned with language matters in government organizations and educational contexts (Johnson, 2009), while few studies have examined the grassroots-level contexts of LPP in Japanese ethnic churches. In sum, this research has the potential to shed light upon the complexities that develop as people move around in global contexts and bring their languages and religious practices with them and organize church communities. In addition, this research has the potential to inform perceived definitions of Japanese ethnic church communities and perceptions about identity in the

13 midst of developmental processes of churches, address questions concerning why

Japanese churches in Western Canada may vary in terms of language, and offer descriptions of Japanese ethnic churches in Canada in terms of language planning, policy, and practices.

Organization of Thesis

This thesis is organized in seven chapters. In Chapter 2, Context, I discuss

Japanese beliefs about culture and language and the historical and political contexts of

Japan that seem to have had a pervasive impact upon Japanese people and might still have an impact on how they see the language and culture. I discuss origins of Japanese

Christian churches at home and abroad to suggest that Japanese Christian church communities in Canada are characterized by Japanese cultural and linguistic practices, and the context of legitimization in language planning and policy.

In Chapter 3, the Literature Review and subsequent bodies of literature, I discuss the scholarship of language planning and policy, macro-level language policy in Canada

(i.e., Official Language Act and Canadian Multicultural Act), and meso-level church policies. I discuss ethnic church studies with particular interest in ideologies (Fairclough,

2003) (i.e., critical descriptions concerning representations of aspects concerning social relations of power, and descriptive views concerning positions, attitudes, and beliefs) that existed during the periods that the works were produced. I discuss important concepts that are part of the literature and aspects of Japanese ethnic church communities, which include a discussion on culture. To conclude this chapter, and using some of the work from my literature review, I will present the theoretical framework that will inform my study, its epistemology, and its methodology.

In Chapter 4, I discuss the rationale for my research methodology used in this multi-site case study (Thomas, 2011). The analysis of data will be done using Critical

Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 2003; Gumperz, 1982; Onodera, 2004), which means that I am interested in understanding relationships of power and intertextuality in discourse and in social practices. I will be using interviews as a method to collect data. I will explain how I proceed in collecting data from participants in terms of finding participants and descriptions of who they are. In addition, I describe my approach to observations and the limitations I encountered in this research.

In chapters 5 and 6 I present my findings in terms of analyses of the data I collected through interviews. This presentation of data demonstrates ‘perceptions’ (i.e., beliefs, opinions, and views according to their statements in interview texts) of Japanese ethnic church members that concern perceptions about reasons for organizing Japanese ethnic churches, and perceptions about the concept and development of Japanese ethnic churches. In Chapter 7, I discuss my analyses of data and make further connections to my framework and offer conclusions and suggest discussion points for further research of

Japanese ethnic churches.

CHAPTER 2: CONTEXTS

To set the context of how Japanese ethnic church communities have been impacted by Japanese culture and language, I discuss the historical and political contexts that have resulted in Japanese cultural and linguistic ideologies that have had a pervasive impact upon Japanese people, as we will see in my data. I discuss Japanese ideologies about language and religious practices. Also, I discuss English in Japan and Japanese in

Canada that reveal complexities concerning beliefs about culture, language, and legitimization. After, I discuss origins of Japanese Christian churches at home and abroad to demonstrate that Japanese Christian church communities in Canada are characterized by Japanese cultural and linguistic practices. Finally, I describe legitimization in the context of language planning and policy, which will bring us to the literature review.

One Nation, One Identity, One Language

Kokusaika and Nihonjinron are examples of modern discourses (i.e., what has been transmitted through language and texts) in Japanese culture and policies that suggest a disallowance of internal variation and homogenous views of Japanese people (Befu,

2009, pp. 24-27). Kokusaika (literally ‘internationalization’) promotes homogenous views of Japan even while Japanese individuals are becoming increasingly transcultural

(Pennycook, 2007) as a result of a globalizing world. It began as a discourse in government policy, which was aimed at promoting a Japan that could defend itself against foreign pressures and essentially control its own fate (Burgess 2012). For example, according to Yoneoka (2000) in 1987 The National Council of Educational

Reform (i.e. Rinkyoushin) created Kokusaika policies with the aim of increasing

16 internationalization through restructuring the Japanese higher education system.

Interestingly, the goal was to encourage Japanese people to become “kokusaijin” (i.e., international people), although the meaning is not exactly clear. Kubota (2002, p. 16) suggests that Kokusaika discourses are aimed at understanding people and cultures in international communities through social, cultural, and educational opportunities.

However, contrary to the implications of globalization discourse, Kokusaika policy discourses have promoted Japanese tradition, culture, and identity (Kubota, 2002, p. 28).

For example, Oliver (2009) stated that 1987 government reports about Japanese government policy focused upon “the internationalization of the lifestyle of the nation’s people” and “the internationalization of the consciousness of the nation’s people” (Keizai

Kikakucho Kokumin-seikatsu-kyoku, 1987a; 1987b). Interestingly, just as in other processes where Japan has followed the West, Kokusaika discourses within policies are shifting to include non-Japanese terms such as “globalization” and “multicultural existence” (Oliver, 2009).

Nihonjinron (i.e., “discussions about being Japanese”) discourse is another historical discourse in Japanese popular culture such as in newspapers, television, radio, magazines, and popular books (Manabe & Befu, 1987) that promotes homogenous views of Japanese identity, which, like religious freedom, began in the Meiji Restoration period

(1868) when discussions about Japanese identity emphasized the importance of contrasting Japan with the West (Pyle, 1969 in Burgess, 2012). Manabe & Befu (1987, p.

94) suggested four categories that represent Nihonjinron discourse: 1) the belief that

Japanese are homogenous; 2) the belief that Japanese “blood is essential for mutual communication”; 3) the belief that foreigners are incapable of fully understanding

Japanese culture and mastering Japanese language; and 4) the belief that “the sociocultural territory of Japan should be defended and foreigners should be excluded in the areas of marriage, employment, teaching, and political and artistic leadership.”

In recent times, ideologies represented in Nihonjinron discourse are being tested, and will continue to be as waves of immigrants continue to settle in Japan (Burgess,

2012), and as English is embraced more than other foreign languages as I will talk about later in this section.

Policy and practice in terms of Kokusaika and Nihonjinron promotes ‘The essential Japan’ where homogeneity in terms of uniformity is believed to be ideal (Lee,

2010). Interestingly, concerning a homogenous and monolingual Japan, while historically,

‘subjects of the emperor’ (i.e. Japanese nationals/citizens) have been expected to learn to speak ‘Kokugo’ (i.e., the language of the Japanese people), compared to ‘Ninhongo’ (the language of Japan), which is the orientation of Japanese language that non-Japanese people are expected to learn, there is, in terms of policy, nothing that states Japanese is the ‘official’ language, which is to say Japanese language in Japan is de facto rather than de jure. As Gottlieb (2012, p. 8) explains, it is de facto because: 1) the majority speaks the Japanese language, since 2) policy documents are written Japanese, and because of 3) the existing belief that it is a determinant of Japanese identity. For example, in a speech at the opening of the Kyushu National Museum, the Minister for Internal Affairs and

Communications, who would later become Prime Minister in 2008, said that Japan is the only country in the world having “one nation, one civilization, one language, one culture and one race” (Japan Times, 2005 in Gottlieb, 2012, p. 10). Also, in 2007, Education

Minister Ibuki described Japan as, “an extremely homogenous nation,” which resulted in

18 criticism from the United Nations. Doudou Diene, the United Nations special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia responded

(Johnstone, 2007 in Gottlieb, 2012, p. 11):

There is no such thing as pure blooded or a pure race. Where do the Ainu fit in to Japanese society? Or the Chinese and Koreans? I am absolutely shocked at his remark. Here is the education minister, the person who is in charge of educating Japan's children about their history, saying something that is so outdated.

With particular interest in how the orthographical component of the Japanese language has been a vehicle for promoting a homogenous beliefs about Japan by

Japanese people, Japanese ‘Kanji’ or ‘kun’yomi’ (i.e. Japanese reading), which is the predominant logographic form of the three Japanese writing systems, while it was originally carried over to Japan from China before the Asuka Period (592-710), Kanji in

Japan are, “symbols that carry historical, cultural, and political meanings” (Woolard and

Schieffelin, 1994, p. 65 in Gottlieb, 2012, p. 11), which have been, “modified forms as the integral core of the Japanese language” which is an integral component of Japanese identity (Otake, 2007 in Gottlieb, 2012, p. 11).

The perceptions about identity that most Japanese people bring with them and work to legitimize are characterized by Japanese concepts of culture that are learned and taken from Japan, and perpetuated and reconstructed as Japanese people organize themselves in communities away from Japan. Fundamentally, Japanese communities at home and abroad are based upon the preservation of “wa” or “harmony,” which is an important element in beliefs about “group culture” that is demonstrated by an old

Japanese proverb that states, “A nail in the board that sticks out gets hammered down,”

(McFarlin & Sweeney, 2012, p. 332). In light of this proverb, while group culture is a positive phenomenon that often results in perceived “harmony” and solidarity within

Japanese communities, Hirata and Warschauer (2014, p. 213) suggest in their deftly titled book, “Japan: The Paradox of Harmony,” group culture also has negative effects particularly in school communities (i.e., where Japanese people learn to be Japanese), in the form of bullying or “ijime,” which is often a group effort (i.e., nearly 80 percent of the time in some studies), “because it follows the group-cohesion emphasis of the

Japanese education system.” For Japanese communities group-oriented lifestyles are expected to the degree that, “any rejection of, or failure to conform to the family raises for the Japanese the most serious questions about his role in society as a whole,” (Varley,

1984, p. 283). Disharmony and subsequent rejection may also occur as a result of expectations of Japanese language practices, where speaking Japanese is considered to be an essential element of Japanese identity (Befu, 1993; Tai, 1999; McVeigh, 2006, p. 197).

While Kokugo (the national language) is often considered to be the standard language of

Japan, other varieties of Japanese include the Ryukyuan languages of the Ryukyu Islands, most notably Okinawan Japanese, and Ainu languages, of which only the Hokkaido variety is still spoken today because other varieties of Ainu have become extinct.

Interestingly, while these languages constitute the Japonic language family, they also demonstrate the high and low varieties of the Japanese diglossia (i.e., dialects in a community that tend to become distinguished as high and low varieties as a result of dominant and subdominant usage) (see Fishman, 1967). The high and low varieties of

Japanese are important to recognize particularly because high and low varieties indicate the challenges experienced by the peripheral language communities in Japan, (e.g., native speakers of Ryukyuan languages who are expected to function in daily life using standard

Japanese), who are often challenged by the group pressure of conforming to Japanese group culture in terms of speaking standard Japanese.

In summary, these policies, practices, and reports (Keizai Kikakucho Kokumin- seikatsu-kyoku, 1987a; 1987b) and examples of popular culture (e.g., newspapers, television, radio, magazines, and popular books) (Manabe & Befu, 1987) demonstrate views of what it may mean to be ‘Japanese,’ which are views that ethnically Japanese individuals may or may not carry to varying degrees.

English in Japan and Japanese in Canada

Whether inside or outside of Japan, English as transcultural flows has potentially impacted views about identity for ethnically and culturally Japanese people in terms of cultural collisions, take-up, and appropriation. For example, Kubota (1998, p. 296) suggests that post WWII Japan was strongly influenced by American English. Shortly after WWII learning English conversation (i.e. ‘eikawa’) became popular (and has remained popular today) and resulted in a continuing and emerging bilingual community of Japanese citizens who are able to speak both Japanese and English languages.

Interestingly, even for those in Japan who remain monolingual and speak only Japanese, the impact of English as ‘an imposition of new mental structures’ (Phillipson 1992), has, to varying degrees, influenced the Japanese culture and language as a result of what

Pennycook (2007) calls ‘transcultural flows’ such as in the form of ‘gairaigo’ or loan word cognates in the Japanese language. Such words are taken up into Japanese language and refashioned to fit the phonetic and orthographic features of the Japanese language.

For example, ‘home helper’, ‘short stay’, ‘day service’, and ‘hospital’ are all English words that have become part of the Japanese language in terms of having Japanese

21 equivalents (Kubota 1998:297). As a result, the concept of ‘nation building’ (Phillipson

1992), or perhaps I would suggest, ‘re-building’ with strong Western influence, remains in post WWII Japan to varying degrees. As Kubota (1998, pp. 297-298) states, “Critics argue that by learning English, the Japanese have adopted native English speakers’ view of the world.” Canagarajah (2004, p.117) adds, we have begun to “understand [bilingual] identities as multiple, conflictual, negotiated, and evolving.” However, the natural occurrences of shift and loss of the Japanese language have not resulted in more English in Japan, rather, like Buddhism and Shinto which were once foreign religions of Japan and became reinterpreted and adapted to fit (Mullins, 1998), English has become a part of

Japanese language and culture on Japanese terms, although Japanese reflects the culmination of historical influences of other languages and cultures such as English.

Somehow, the belief in Japan and being ‘Japanese’ in terms of one nation, one language, and culture remains and is evident within the Japanese communities of Japanese ethnic churches in Canada.

Similarly, first generation Japanese parents in Canada who have grown up speaking standard Japanese often bring similar beliefs about conforming to standard

Japanese expectations that affect their children. However, for Japanese parents in Canada who grew up speaking peripheral languages, such as Ryukyuan and Ainu languages in

Japan, their experiences and beliefs about conforming to group culture and speaking standard Japanese demonstrate a potential greater complexity in terms of their choices about passing on heritage languages and membership to standard Japanese communities.

Furthermore, first generation Japanese parents in Canada are often challenged when their children choose to speak to speak English or languages other than Japanese, because it

22 often means their children are rejecting their Japanese culture and heritage, which is an action that has severe consequences in Japan. Preserving group culture also includes expectations about religious practices of Buddhism and Shinto religions, which are considered to be the religions of Japanese people in terms of being cultural and state- driven religious practices (Rots, 2015, p. 131; Abraham, 2010). For example, dating back to pre-modern Japan and still relevant today, participation in religious events and rituals have been, and continue to be, “motivated by a sense of duty and obligation that accompanie[s] membership in a household and community, not by clearly defined beliefs or exclusive creeds” (Mullins, 1998, p. 8).

In sum, these examples of cultural collision take-up and appropriation such as acquiring English in Japan, conforming to standard Japanese, bringing varieties of

Japanese to Canada and situating oneself in a new home away from home, and making choices about what cultural heritages to pass on to one’s children, are all issues that confront questions about legitimization and decisions about language planning and policy.

Origins of Japanese Christian Churches at Home (in Japan) and Abroad

Transcultural flows of Christianity in Japan have meant that church practices in

Japan have been influenced by churches outside of Japan and more recently, influence

Japanese ethnic church practices abroad. While there is speculation that Syrian Nestorian

Christians arrived in Japan as early as 70 AD (nestoroian.org, 2015), the common narrative3 is that Francis Xavier and the Portuguese Catholics arrived in Kyushu in 1549 and established the first known Christian Church (Kim, 2004, p. 80). At first, the

Christian church was welcomed by locals and by the magistrate of shoguns and daimos,

3 most historians dispute the interpretations of history from Christians in Japan 23 which allowed for conversion of many Japanese individuals, some of whom would take

Portuguese Christian names and began practicing, “Western culture” (Duiker &

Spielvogel, 2011, p. 494). However, a few decades later as a result of concerns from

Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the succeeding Tokugawa shogunate, Christianity and Christian converts began to experience persecution and even death by martyrdom. The most famous of these are the twenty-six martyrs who were tortured and crucified just outside of Nagasaki in 1597. With some respite concerning persecution of Christians, as shogun leaders (e.g. Tokugawa Ieyasu) did not strictly enforce the ban upon Christianity, it was not until after the Meiji Restoration period began in 1873 that freedom of religion was mandated and Christians were given the legal right to practice their faith (Daniels &

Tsuzuki, 2002, p. 63). Just before this time in 1859, James Curtis Hepburn, the first known Protestant Missionary, arrived in Kanagawa, which resulted in the founding of the first Protestant church of Japan in Kanagawa and Protestant Christian converts of

Japanese locals (Whitney, 1885, p. 381).

Concerning Christians in Japan today, it is commonly believed that Christians account only for roughly 1 percent of the population (Kato, 2009). This brief history of

Christianity in Japan indicates that the Christian tradition has impacted the people of

Japan in terms of identity and association, and in terms of politics, where legislation concerning religious rights and ‘freedom of religion’ affected Japanese people to the degree that individual lives were taken because of subscribed beliefs in Christianity (i.e., martyrs) in a country where it has been said that all individuals are born Shinto (Abraham,

2010).

Concerning Christianity in Japan, it may be important to understand that while

Christianity is a foreign religion in Japan with a fairly short history Mullins (1998) suggests:

Buddhism and Confucianism were initially “foreign” (Chinese) elements, but over the course of many centuries were adapted and reinterpreted so that they became part of the native cultural tradition. Through the process of indigenization, Japanese have similarly transformed Christianity into a religion of their own. For the members of indigenous movements, Christianity is not perceived as a Japanese religion. (p. 9)

As Mullins (1998) states, Japanese communities have transformed Christianity into a religion of their own in terms of practice, which has meant that Japanese Christian church communities have been characterized by Japanese cultural and linguistic practices since they were first established in Canada. Japanese ethnic Christian churches in Canada were first established in the late 1800s wherein between 1892 and 1921 eight Japanese churches were established in British Columbia. As a result of WWII, which led to the relocation of thousands of Japanese Canadians, many Japanese churches in Western

Canada were closed and then established in resettled locations throughout Canada.

Efforts by non-Japanese Canadians who helped in the establishment of Japanese

Christian churches during WWII included Margaret Ridgway, who helped organize

Japanese Christian fellowships that would become churches, beginning when she moved to the settlement location of Kaslo (Canadian Japanese Ministries [CJM], 2010). By 1946, she, with the help of others, had established the Canadian Japanese Mission in British

Columbia and Alberta. In 1979, in response to the need for support and assistance to

Japanese independent churches, the Japanese Canadian Evangelical Christian Society

(JCECS) was formed (later to become Canadian Japanese Ministries (CJM) in 2002).

CJM is “an evangelical, non- denominational, non-profit, charitable, para-church

25 organization,” with fifteen affiliated Japanese churches across Canada (CJM, 2010).

Among these churches are the churches that will be included in this research, which have been given the following pseudonyms for the purposes of anonymity: River Japanese

Church, Mountain Japanese Church, and City Japanese Church.

Overall, the focus of these churches is “to encourage, promote, and actively engage in endeavors deemed to further the cause of the Gospel of Jesus Christ among the

Nikkei (Japanese) population of Canada,” (CJM, 2010), which means that these churches are places where Japanese individuals subscribing to the Christian faith are able to experience and participate in Christian church communities with Japanese language and culture practices that work to legitimize their minority identities.

Legitimization in the Context of Language Planning and Policy

While Japanese people are becoming increasingly transcultural as a result of globalization, Japanese people in Canada often carry ideological views about Japanese language and culture that have been produced and supported by discourses in Japan.

Christian church practices that began and were developed in Japan, were carried over to

Canada and reproduced in Canadian contexts resulting in Japanese ethnic churches. The phenomenon of group culture in Japanese communities has been important in the reproduction process and in terms of maintaining solidarity. English in Japan and

Japanese in Canada have resulted in cultural collisions, take-up and appropriations amidst transcultural flows that have meant that decisions about language planning and policy in

Japanese churches in Canada, must accommodate individuals who are linguistically and cultural complex.

In order to have a better view of the perceptions of church members who assist in the construction of language policy in law and practice, it is important to understand how they describe the concept and development of Japanese ethnic churches, and consider how Japanese ethnic church members describe themselves in transcultural and religious contexts. I would like to look at language policy and the impact of different levels

(macro-meso-micro) concerning the Japanese ethnic church community. I introduce different studies in the next chapter that will help support my research questions.

CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This is a study about the languages and organization of Japanese ethnic church communities in Canada which means it falls within two main bodies of literature: language planning, policy, and practice, and ethnic church studies. In the following literature review, I discuss language, planning, and policy scholarship in terms of the methodological shift that occurred mostly in the 1990s when the focus went from descriptive studies and into theoretical studies aimed at understanding language policy as part of, and in response to, complex societal contexts and their respective ideologies and issues of inequality. I describe macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of language policy as a way of understanding top-down and bottom-up interactive relationships between levels of policy at the (macro) government level and at the (meso, micro) local and community levels. Since this research concerns ethnic churches I discuss ethnic church studies with particular interest in the ideologies that existed during the periods that the works were produced. I also present works on culture that help to describe the communities and individuals of the ethnic church. Finally, I discuss Language Policy as my theoretical framework to describe Japanese ethnic churches as communities that organize themselves as spaces of legitimization in terms of language planning and policy.

Language Planning and Policy

Ethnic church communities in North America are often less official and

‘grassroots,’ in terms of language planning and policy (Hornberger, 1996), and ‘language management’ practices (Spolsky, 2009) are evident as churches are organized “naturally” when people who share culture and language choose to gather because they share culture

28 and language particularly when they do not perceive themselves as being part of or represented in dominant populations of society. Traditionally, language planning and policy studies have been concerned with government efforts to create frameworks about the role of language in a society (Fishman 1979; Haugen 1983). Based upon Haugen’s model (1983), Hornberger (1994) described three types of language planning, and essentially the historical development of language planning and policy up until the 1990s.

The model presented “status planning” (i.e., developing policy that gives languages official statuses and to promote nationalism and standardization); “acquisition planning”

(i.e., developing policy that determines particular languages instead of others to be used in education, religious, and workplace contexts); and “corpus planning” (i.e., developing policy that determines particular forms of a language as being standard).

These three types of language planning demonstrate that the body of literature of language planning and policy had focused upon problem solving in terms of “language- as-problem” and “language-as-right” orientations and less about “language-as-resource”

(Ruiz, 1984). Viewing “language-as-problem” has meant that non-dominant languages have been treated as subordinate to dominant languages (e.g., when English is given dominant status in contexts of linguistically diverse communities), while “language-as- right” has emphasized the importance of recognizing the non-dominant languages (e.g., viewing language rights as human rights).

When it became more evident in the 1990s, which was a time when LPP studies became less descriptive and more theoretical to address the complexities of language communities and issues of dominance in society (Hornberger 2010, p. 33), “language-as- resource” as an orientation suggested an ideological shift from historical “melting pot”

29 ideologies and assimilation goals aimed at standardization through language education practices, and toward recognition and accommodation of “diversity” and multilingualism in terms of bilingual and multilingual education programs. Fishman (1991, p. 33) suggested that up until the 1990s, language policy played a role that concerned the loss of community languages, and as a result, language policy studies had really been about achieving cultural democracy and linguistic human rights and overcoming language-as- problem orientations and embracing language-as-resource, particularly in terms of status planning levels of minority languages that impact non-dominant language education

(Skutnabb-Kangas & Phillipson, 1994; Wodak & Corson 1997).

Tollefson (1991; 2006; 2013), through a historical-structural approach, critiques language planning and policy scholarship with the premise that policies that have been implemented serve the needs of dominant language users, suggesting that language policies ultimately create social inequality, and that language policy scholarship should reflect this reality. Since the mid-1980s and more so since the 1990s, language planning and policy studies, on these terms, have been aimed at promoting “equality” through recognition and equal opportunity usually aimed at helping minority and non-dominant groups (e.g., Ricento, 1998; Tollefson, 1991). As language policy studies began to focus upon language rights and issues concerning inequalities in the 1990s (Ricento &

Hornberger, 1996), scholars began speaking out in favor of language rights particularly in contexts where English is seen as a dominant language (Phillipson, 1992; Kachru, 1987).

Through critical language policies studies, the most recent language policy scholarship has been aimed at addressing issues concerning language education policy in contexts of migration, language shift, and language loss, and issues concerning

30 membership and identity within language communities (Tollefson, 2013; Johnson,

2013b; Ricento, 2010). For example, Tollefson’s (2013) work has focused upon recognizing global injustices that concern language rights, social policies, and power relationships among groups that dictate the mobility and opportunities of people based upon the languages they speak or do not speak. Injustices that concern power relationships bring up issues that concern the pursuit of social justice.

Johnson (2013a) focused upon social justice in terms of drawing attention to the problem with standardized English education policies and practices in United States schools, which often fail to account for the language rights of United States citizens who have a right to be educated, although they often do not speak the standardized English variety that is expected and necessary for academic societal achievement. Ricento (2010) suggests that the belief in standardized English practices and the policies that support them are often based upon beliefs and views about identity and membership to nation states, such as in the United States where it is commonly believed by many Americans that English is the language that Americans speak.

The scholarship of language planning, policy, and practice is useful to consider as a lens to recognize the interactive and reciprocal levels of language regulation and language practices of communities in a nation. Language planning and policy at the

‘grassroots’ level is often associated with language planning that communities believe as happening ‘naturally’. Language planning and policy scholarship has suggested the importance of understanding language as a “right” and as a “resource” as diversity is increasingly recognized in nations and communities (Ruiz, 1984; Hornberger, 2010). As a result, LPP scholarship has shifted from understanding policy in “historical structural”

31 approaches (Tollefson, 1991), where the focus has been upon looking at how government policies create structures of inequality, and into viewing LPP aimed at understanding bottom-up micro-level language planning and policy at the community level, and critiquing macro- and meso-levels of policy in terms of the potential for “governmentality”

(Ricento, 2010; Tollefson, 2013; Johnson, 2013a).

Pennycook (2002, 2006) has also brought a critical view of language policy by suggesting “disinventing” language concepts that dictate the limited nature of language based policies themselves, and by incorporating Foucault’s (1991) governmentality (i.e., the way the State exercises often perceived excessive or unwanted control over its people) into language policy theoretical studies to suggest that within the macro, meso-, and micro- layers of language policy (Ricento & Hornberger, 1996), the power of language policy is not monolithically in the hands of the state, but also in the hands of arbiters (Johnson, 2009; 2013a). On these terms, similar to language policy at any level when it is the deliberate attempt to plan or change the language practices of an individual or a community (Omoniyi, 2004), governmentality is evident when governance results in

“any attempt to directly or indirectly control or manage any known object” (Hunt &

Wickham, 1994, p. 78) because “government is an activity that shapes the field of action and thus, in this sense, attempts to shape freedom. The governed are free in that they are actors, i.e., it is possible for them to act and to think in a variety of ways, and sometimes in ways not forseen by authorities” (Dean, 2010, p. 21). At the macro-level, governmentality means that governments produce discursive regimes that demonstrate direct control (e.g., the Official Language Act and Canadian Multicultural Act as they identify official languages and assert degrees of control and permission of the languages

32 of immigrants), and indirect control (e.g., through encouraging individuals to become like a Canadian) (Dean, 2010; Guo, 2009; Foucault, 1991). Similarly, at the meso- and micro- levels, governmentality is evident through direct control when organizations and individuals explicitly define the terms for membership (e.g., controlling the language of membership in Japanese ethnic churches), and indirectly or “invisibly” in terms of encouraging individuals to speak Japanese or to become Canadian (Dean, 2010; Guo,

2009; Foucault, 1991).

Macro-level Language Policy (de jure) in Canada: Official Language Act and Canadian Multicultural Act

Macro-level policy occurs at the government-level and demonstrates the goals of the government that are interpreted and put into practice at the meso-, and micro-levels within society (Johnson & Ricento, 2014). Considering Ricento and Hornberger’s (1996) layers of LPP—national, institutional, and interpersonal—macro-level language planning and policy occurs at the national level and is generally considered to be top-down and influential upon (meso) institutional levels of policy, and interpersonal (micro) levels of policy de facto. The Official Languages Act and Canadian Multicultural Act, are examples of macro-level policies that impact language users throughout Canada.

The Official Languages Act (1966- revised 1988) of Canada has three purposes aimed at directly ensuring the language rights of individuals and usage of English and

French in Canada. The first purpose of the Act is, “to ensure respect for English and

French as the official languages of Canada and ensure equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all federal institutions” (p. 2). The second purpose of the

Act is to, “support the development of English and French linguistic minority

33 communities and generally advance the equality status and use of the English and French languages within Canadian society” (p. 3). The third purpose is to, “set out the powers, duties and functions of federal institutions with respect to the official languages of

Canada” (p. 3). By default, languages other than English and French (e.g., Japanese) do not “officially” have the “status and equal rights privileges” in Canadian society and in the functions of federal institutions in Canada. As a result, mother-tongue or first language speakers of Japanese are a linguistic minority group whose language is not recognized as “official” in Canada and is not given the same statuses and privileges as

English and French speakers in Canada.

The Canadian Multicultural Act (1971, 1988) functions to, “recognize and promote the understanding that multiculturalism reflects the cultural and racial diversity of Canadian society, and acknowledges the freedom of all members of Canadian society to preserve, enhance, and share their cultural heritage” (p. 3), which includes Japanese communities. The policy recognizes, “that multiculturalism is a fundamental characteristic of the Canadian heritage and identity…” (p. 3). The policy functions to promote, “full and equitable participation of individuals and communities of all origins…”

(p. 3). The policy functions to, “ensure that all individuals receive equal treatment and equal protect ion under the law, while respecting their diversity” (p. 4). The policy also functions to, “preserve and enhance the use of languages other than English and French, while strengthening the status and use of the official languages of Canada…” (p. 4). For the Japanese minority whose mother tongue or first language is Japanese, the

“strengthening of status and use of official language of Canada,” works to position the

Japanese speaker as a minority language user. The policy also suggests a, “national

34 commitment to the official languages of Canada” (p. 4), which emphasizes the minority status of the language of Japanese speakers, although “full equitable participation” for

“communities of all origins,” is previously stated. These policies, Official Language Act and Canadian Multicultural Act, mean that Japanese in Canada must find alternative ways of legitimization.

Meso-levels of Language Planning and Policy

Meso-levels of language planning and policy refer to planning and policy implemented by local government institutions and education organizations (Baldauf &

Kaplan, 1997), “voluntary language societies” (Sallabank, 2013), and church organizations (Hatoss, 2013). Considering again Ricento and Hornberger’s (1996) layers of LPP—national, institutional, and interpersonal—meso-level language planning and policy occurs at the institutional level and is interactive within top-down (macro) national-levels of policy and bottom-up interpersonal (micro) levels of policy de facto.

Meso-level policies can be policy de jure (i.e., in law), or ‘language management’

(Spolsky, 2009), determined by leaders of a community or group who act as agents to create policy that suggests the structure of expected language practices at the community

(micro) level, and as such, meso-level policies operate on a much more limited scope for a specific group of people compared to macro-level planning and policy usually aimed at a nation (Bauldauf and Kaplan, 1997).

Micro-levels of Language Planning and Policy

Finally, micro-levels of language planning and policy are characterized as being less official ‘grassroots’ levels of language policy (Hornberger, 1996), as levels of

“interpersonal communication” (Ricento, 2006), or as language-in-use, in terms of interactions and conversations between people in communities (Hatoss, 2012; Ager,

2001). Johnson (2013a, p. 191) states, “Micro-level language policies are language policies created within the context in which they are interpreted and appropriated.”

Returning again to Ricento and Hornberger’s (1996) layers of LPP—national, institutional, and interpersonal—micro-levels of language planning and policy occur at the interpersonal-level and are interactive within institutional-levels of policy. Micro- levels of language planning and policy are often levels where participants are agents and produce the actual language policy de facto (i.e., in practice) (Ricento & Hornberger,

1996). For Japanese ethnic church communities, this is the level where church members interact and collectively act as agents in determining the ‘actual’ language policy in practice.

In summary, for my own study, language policy in ethnic church organizations is often ‘grassroots’ policy where language is organized ‘naturally’ as Japanese people, who share language and culture, come together to create meso-level organizational policies that support their language practices in micro-level community contexts. While there is doubt that language can actually be planned (Kaplan, 2005; Spolsky & Shohamy, 2000 in

Hatoss, 2012, p. 94), influential policy is evident in terms of macro-, “meso- and micro- level language planning” (Baldauf, 2006; Liddicoat & Baldauf, 2008 in Hatoss, 2012, p.

94) which dictate the expectations and realities of language practices at each level. At the macro-level, top-down language planning will dictate government-level policies that suggest official languages and language practices at the federal-level. At the meso-level, top-down planning will dictate the language practices that are expected in communities.

At the micro-level, the language planning that occurs is less-formal and a ‘grassroots’ type of planning, where the language practices that occur ‘naturally’ and result in a bottom-up type of planning affect future macro-, and meso-level planning and policy, as such levels of planning and policy are aimed at meeting the language needs of the people.

In the next section, I look at studies of ethnic churches and ideologies that will inform my study.

From Cultural Mosaic to Social Justice: Ideologies and Policy

Studies about and within ethnic church communities have focused upon understanding ethnic church communities in terms of language ideologies, policies, and practices (Hatoss, 2012; Woods, 2004), identity, race, ethnicity and heritage (Tatchell,

2011; Han, 2011; Garces-Foley, 2008; Marti, 2008; Nagata, 2005; Dougherty, 2003;

Battle, 2006; Mullins, 1984; 1987; 1988; Anderson and Friederes, 1981; Shimpo 1981;

Mol 1976; Millett 1975; Berger 1969; Simms 1962), multiculturalism and multilingualism related to churches (Park, 2011; Nagata, 2005; Nolt, 2001; Bankston &

Zhou, 1996; Nemeth & Luidens, 1995). The body of literature is linked to the ideologies that existed during the historical periods when the works were produced. As I defined earlier, ideologies are critical descriptions concerning representations of aspects concerning social relations of power, and descriptive views concerning positions, attitudes, and beliefs (Fairclough, 2003).

For example, in the United States pre-1960s and pre-Civil Rights movement views about assimilation have shifted from “melting pot” ideologies into

“multiculturalism,” “diversity,” and “social justice” ideologies, and more recently into

“transcultural flows,” which may suggest “the ordinariness of diversity” (Pennycook,

2007). As for the Canadian context, pre-1960s views about assimilation in Canada have shifted toward viewing Canada as a “cultural mosaic” and in terms of “multiculturalism,”

“diversity,” and “social justice” ideologies (Ricento, 2013; Richter, 2011; Lund, 2006).

All of these ideological positions appear to have subsequently affected the literature produced at different times. For example, the Canadian “cultural mosaic,” which was popularized as a result of the Multiculturalism Act (or vice versa) (1971; 1988), is viewed by some as a policy of ostracism aimed against “cultural fusion” (Mukherjee, 1996 p. 31;

Schneider, 2008). Similarly, these days assimilation or “melting pot” ideologies, which were popularized around 1910-1920 and began to be contested around 1963 (see Glazer

& Moynihan, 1963) are now believed to be problematic views (Richard & Nee, 2003;

Anderson, 2000; Kasinetz, 2000), and recognizing “multiculturalism” and “diversity” have become more acceptable and normative views of our present time, and are supported by the governments through bilingual education programs and affirmative action programs and actions against “racism” in pursuit of “social justice” in Canada (and also in the United States). Interestingly, while currently concepts about multilingualism about diversity have coined much of the recent literature, there are some who suggest the

“ordinariness of diversity” because difference and diversity and multilingualism and hybridity have become common in our everyday life and are not so significant these days

(Pennycook, 2007, p. 95). In light of this, as we will see there are issues that suggest gaps in the literature: an absence of research that views immigrant and ethnic church communities in terms of transcultural realities, and extensive research about the church communities of the past (often pre-1960s) from the current and often implicit “white guilt”

(Steele, 2007) perspectives, and current ideological lenses of diversity, multiculturalism,

38 and social justice, that attempt to correct the wrongs and injustices of the past (Sison,

2013; Dowe, 2007; Battle, 2006; Gatwa, 2005). As a result, these perspectives are often fueled by the current ideological views of “diversity” “multiculturalism” and do not often represent the current transcultural realities of immigrant communities, as an example from this thesis, ethnic church communities (Pennycook, 2007). For example, Mullins

(1988), the only author that worked with Japanese churches in Canada as I will describe later, demonstrated the impact of emerging diversity ideology (from his perspective in the late 1980s) by suggesting that the “cultural mosaic” of Canada and “melting pot” in the

United States did not necessarily capture the diversity of ethnicity and assimilation in ethnic churches.

Ethnic Churches

Ethnic churches are organizations where ethnically diverse individuals organize themselves in communities that practice language and culture often for purposes of legitimization. For Japanese ethnic churches, this means they practice Japanese language and culture in the midst of dominant languages and cultures in Canada for purposes of legitimization. The body of literature of ethnic church studies has been written from many perspectives and can be interpreted from different points of view (as shown in the previous section). In this section I describe the body of literature of ethnic churches concerning: 1. injustices (Tatchell, 2011; Canadian Japanese Ministries, 2010; Dowe,

2007); 2. mother tongue, heritage languages (Park, 2011; Wang 2002; Woods 2004), 3. language planning and policy (Han 2011a; Hatoss 2012); and 4. various aspects concerning the role of ethnic churches in processes of legitimization (Bankston & Zhou,

1996; Garces-Foley, 2008; Han’s 2011b; Marti, 2008; Mullins, 1984, 1987; Trépanier,

1986). In the following, I am presenting the studies of ethnic churches, according to their subject matter, in an almost chronological order of the years in which they were written.

In the context of Japanese ethnic church studies, literature about injustices has often been concerned with injustices that occurred during WWII. Dowe (2007) suggested a reinterpretation of the relationship between Japanese Canadians and Canadians during

World War II by discussing the church in terms of attendance and as a social function wherein the Japanese were able to maintain and strengthen their own communities. He suggested that Protestant churches of Canada were involved in resettlement and significant in terms of facilitating places of worship during that time, and that the

Japanese used their church services for their own benefit and legitimization.

Unfortunately, the relationship between Japanese Canadians and Canadians during and after WWII also included injustices that needed to be repaired, and the literature has been part of the processes. Tatchell’s (2011) research, which builds upon the history of

Japanese immigrants in Canada, as told by historian Patricia Roy (2008; 2011), was aimed at correcting injustices experienced by Japanese Canadian Anglicans and their families at the hands of the Anglican Church of Canada during and after World War II.

Through an investigation of interviews and examination of historical documents, he found that Anglican church leader Bishop and Executive Council of the Diocese of New

Westminster unjustly sold the church buildings of Japanese church members and blamed the sales on the Federal government when they returned from being in internment camps.

The study demonstrates the value of research of ethnic churches motivated by social justice pursuits since the family members of Japanese Canadian Anglicans were able to experience justice to varying degrees. Both Dowd’s (2007) and Tatchell’s (2011) work

40 demonstrate work that has been done to identify ethnic churches as places of legitimization and as places where injustices have needed to be addressed and corrected as much as is possible.

Recognizing ethnic churches as spaces of legitimization means valuing heritage languages and mother tongue perspectives and practices of ethnic church communities, which is why studies about ethnic churches have also been concerned with heritage languages and mother tongue use within church communities. Sociological studies have suggested ethnic churches help people with mother tongue retention (Wang, 2002;

Kalbach & Richard, 1980, 1990, 1991; Anderson & Driedger, 1980). Wang’s (2002) study was a retroactive study aimed at understanding language retention of Chinese members of Christian churches in Canada from 1931-1961. Citing Fishman, (1997, p. 31) who stated, “religion and ethnicity are often intimately related to and, indeed, penetrate one another,” Wang (2002) suggested that Christian affiliation with English dominant denominations meant loss of mother tongue. “With more official language use [English in Canada], the Chinese learned more about Christianity, resulting in more converts.

Linguistic assimilation facilitated shifts in religious identification, but this needs support from individual case studies, especially personal experience in religious conversion”

(Wang, 2002). As he states, more support is needed to connect linguistic assimilation with religious conversion in ethnic churches, which suggests the significance of this research, since it is a case study aimed at understanding the connections between cultural, linguistic, and religious perceptions of identities and the subsequent decisions they make about language in ethnic church communities.

In another study concerning mother tongue, heritage languages, and language planning and policy, Anya Woods (2004) described two separate case studies that included a Melbourne Latvian church and an Indonesian United Church, and compared them with data collected (i.e., interviews and questionnaires) from sixteen ethnic churches to understand developmental aspects of ethnic churches in the midst of dominant English cultural practices. The Latvian church was found to have strong language policy de jure and de facto aimed at preserving the cultural and linguistic practices of the church, while the Indonesian church did not appear to be protecting or maintaining Indonesian culture since English was used regularly in church services

(through a simultaneous interpretation available through headphones) and seen as a skill needed for employment opportunities. Woods (2004) suggested that the differences were a result of differences in cultural and linguistic ideology from the homelands, where

Latvia was found to be largely a monolingual country having a one culture, one language, one nation ideology (similar to Japan), while Indonesia was a multilingual country where monolingualism was not the standard. In addition, her research was concerned with how choices about language in church affect identity. She concluded that the medium

(language) should serve the message (of Christianity), which is to say that the languages used for church practices should be the languages that best suit the facilitation of the message, which is strongly correlated with mother tongue ideology (Blommaert, 1999).

Park’s (2011) ethnography also seemed to support beliefs about the importance of mother tongue ideology in ethnic churches in terms of the promotion of Korean heritage- language and culture among Korean-Canadian students. The study suggested that Korean churches played an important role in increasing Korean linguistic and cultural awareness

42 among students and that ethnic churches were heritage language resource communities where Korean-Canadians could participate in Korean language and culture.

As we have seen in Woods’ (2004) research, ethnic church studies are dynamic and often include findings from multiple fields of study, and have also been concerned with language planning and policy. For example, Han (2011a) discussed data collected from an ethnographic study aimed at understanding language ideologies, policies, and practices embraced by a Chinese church in English-dominant Canada and how the church became multilingual over time, which meant loss of mother tongue and heritage languages. Contrary to mother tongue ideology implications (Blommaert, 1999), where the use of mother tongue is perceived as necessary for deep comprehension and understanding, Chinese churches in Han’s (2011a) study were willing to accommodate the language needs of all church members, which resulted in the church community becoming multilingual with multilingual meso-level language polices. Similar to Woods’

(2004) study suggesting that the message (Christianity) is more important than the medium (language), Han (2011a) explained the ideological beliefs that have resulted in a multilingual church that was once monolingual Chinese: “Motivated by a strong commitment to Christian evangelism, they emphasize attracting and converting non- believers and serving both members and visitors. To serve this end, they see it as commonsense and are more than willing to adapt to the changing linguistic characteristics of different waves of newcomers and to meet their linguistic needs and desires.” On these terms, and in this study, language policy is clearly dictated by beliefs of community members in ethnic church studies, which is a significant point for this research. For

Hatoss (2012), in her historical ethnography study about Australian Lutheran churches,

43 decisions about language planning and policy within the ethnic church affected the multilingual and immigrant community of members. The study discussed immigrants in the Lutheran church in Australia between 1838-1921 with close attention to complex interrelationships between language, religion, and identity. She found that Lutheran churches in Australia were strongly linked to having German identities and that German language practices were perceived as “the right thing to do” to avoid complications and increased tensions in the church (Hatoss, 2012, p. 109), which is why she refers to

Fishman, 1991, p. 352), who states, “language planning efforts of various kinds must be oriented toward being problem solving and must guard against becoming […] problem creating.” Further, Hatoss (2012) found that “the desire to keep the Lutheran faith was stronger than that of keeping the German language,” to the degree that while German was the preferred language of sermons and liturgical practices, at the micro-level, language planning efforts that promoted English were made to ensure the membership of new generations who preferred English. In some ways, this meant that contrary to Woods

(2004), the medium (i.e., language) was more important than the message (i.e., of the church), although the reason for the medium change was to include future generations in the denomination, which meant that in the long run, actually, the message was more important as new generations continued to subscribe to the church because of English accommodations.

While studies about ethnic churches have been about understanding issues concerning injustices, mother tongue and heritage languages, and language planning and policy, and the complex relationship between the medium (languages) and message (of the church and Christianity), the majority of ethnic church studies have been concerned

44 with understanding the role of ethnic churches as communities of legitimization. For example, Trépanier (1986) discussed legitimization in terms of ethnicity concerning 35

French Louisiana communities and the relationship of the ‘out-of-touch’ Louisiana

Catholic Church and the surrounding population concerning the church’s role in French ethnic persistence, where again, the church community was a place that legitimized

French ethnic and linguistic identities as diversity ideology was emerging.

Bankston & Zhou (1996) discussed legitimization through ethnic church-based educational programs that have strong influence upon a positive adjustment experience into American society and into American schools as a result of developed support from peers. Data was collected from a survey concerning attendance to a Vietnamese ethnic church and the potential for ethnic identification and social adjustment as a result of attendance and church English education programs.

Similar to Woods’ (2004) study that concerned the importance of German in

Lutheran church settings in Australia and suggested that the message (of the church and

Christianity) was more important than the medium (languages), Nolt (2001) used religious historiography to discuss legitimacy in terms of the Americanization of ethnically German individuals in Pennsylvania who became “American” as a result of adopting American evangelical modes of revivalism and reformism during the period of

1819-1823. Since melting pot assimilation ideologies were evident during the period studied, assimilating was perhaps more acceptable and expected during that time, although it is less acceptable today since the ideological terrain of our current period is based upon concepts of promoting diversity and multiculturalism that suggest acceptance of language and cultural differences, and by contrast, that promoting assimilation

45 ideologies is parallel to promoting hegemony and illegitimacy. Similarly, Nemeth &

Luidens (1995) discussed the ethnically reformed Dutch Reformed Church in America

(RCA) and the increasing non-Dutch clergy among Dutch clergy suggesting a possible shift in ethnic association in the future concerning the RCA denomination. For Mullins

(1984; 1987; 1988) (see below) this is an example of the de-ethnization process.

Nagata’s (2005) study of Chinese ethnic churches was concerned with legitimacy in terms of sub-ethnicity, in terms of (sub)ethnic congregations and issues concerning linguistic and social assimilation to Anglo-Canadian or other local ethnicities in Canada.

The research discussed the formation of a pan-Chinese transnational organization for

World Evangelism aimed at reaching Chinese in various regions and efforts to resist local assimilation and pursue multiculturalism.

Battle’s (2006) research suggested that the Black church is a complex organism and that it is primarily aimed at legitimization through developing relationships in local communities. While African Americans may not have experienced the immigrant minority position of immigrants who migrated to the United States (e.g. Japanese immigrants), as a result of the Civil Rights movement and the history of racism and segregation, African Americans have had similar needs to create communities that legitimize their minority identities.

Garces-Foley (2008) discussed legitimacy in churches in the U.S. in terms of historical patterns of ethnic and racial separation. However, after creating spaces of legitimization, the study suggested that churches in the U.S. tend to promote diversity.

She stated, “Until the 1990’s the ethnic church model remained normative in evangelical

46 circles, though whites considered their churches “American” rather than ethnic” (Garces-

Foley, 2008, p. 23).

Marti (2008) discussed legitimization in terms of aspects of racial essentialism and the negotiated phenomenon of ethnic identity in ethnic churches. The study recognized that participation in a congregation stimulates and can potentially redefine individual racial and ethnic identity through legitimization.

Nakamaki (2012) discussed legitimization in terms of ethnic identity concerning

Japanese Christian churches in the USA. He suggested that identifying churches in terms of ethnicity started in the late 1960s when the sansei (third generation) began to have an

“ethnic consciousness,” which occurred as a result of the Civil Rights movement.

Interestingly, the sansei generation is described as being the most intermarried with non-

Japanese cultures, where one percent of issei (first generation) married non-Japanese, 10 percent of nissei (second generation) married non-Japanese, and 40 percent of sansei married non-Japanese. This is somewhat consistent with Mullins’ (1988; 1984) research

(below), which suggested that second and third generations intermarried to the degree that the result of intermarrying was a factor in the de-ethnization possibilities of Japanese ethnic churches.

Han’s (2011b) follow-up study, about Chinese ethnic church members who evangelize to other Chinese and develop meaning and purpose by living as racialized immigrants, depicted Chinese people against the dominant non-Chinese culture in

Canada demonstrating the perceived need for non-dominant ethnically-based communities to organize their own spaces where they can experience legitimization.

Mullins (1984; 1987) discussed legitimization in the context of the transitional nature and organizational processes of Japanese ethnic church organizations in various provinces across Canada in his sociology study. The multi-cited case study used interviews, surveys, and text analysis methods to research eleven congregations from the

Japanese Conference of the United Church of Canada (JUCC) and eighteen congregations from the Buddhist Churches of Canada (BCC). In most cases, his study suggested that churches assimilate into organizational dissolution or into multi-ethnic congregations. Mullins (1988; 1984) discussed the “tension” between first generation immigrants who often had desires for their nissei (i.e., second generation) children to maintain their cultural heritages and uphold diversity (prior the emergence of “diversity” ideologies), rather than the culture of the adopted host society (and towards assimilation) concerning the Japanese Buddhist church members. Since many first generation members during the time of Mullins’ research (1984) were still approximately within thirty years of the anti-Japanese relocation programs of WWII, first generation members who participated in the study brought recollections of the different purposes of the Japanese ethnic church, which began as a means to support Japanese language and cultural practices, although these intentions progressively changed over time. The church’s “chief reason for being” (i.e., to facilitate ethnically Japanese people and help maintain Japanese language and culture) was disappearing because WWII was over and original immigrants who began the churches had passed away (Nisbet, 1953, p. 61). In addition, nissei members had become competent in English and the third generation did not experience outside hostility like previous generations because they were born in Canada and were viewed, and viewed themselves, as being Canadian.

Additionally, Mullins’ (1988; 1984) research findings suggested that second and third generation church members tended to intermarry with non-Japanese speaking

Canadians and ultimately embrace the dominant Canadian culture as their own culture.

As a result, Mullins (1988; 1984) suggested serious doubts about the long-term survival of Japanese ethnic churches in Canada and the implication was that such practices were pushing towards assimilation and were a threat to maintaining diversity.

Implications of Ethnic Church Studies and for my study

The body of literature about ethnic churches emphasizes the importance of ethnic churches as potential communities that are organized for legitimization processes. Studies that emphasize social justice pursuits of injustices done to Japanese ethnic church communities (Tatchell, 2011; Dowe, 2007) are beneficial to surviving generations who can experience reconciliation to varying degrees on behalf of those to whom injustices were committed. Ethnic church studies have also emphasized the importance of recognizing the value of mother tongue and heritage languages (Park, 2011; Wang 2002;

Woods 2004) and have brought attention to the role that ethnic churches play in organizing communities and language planning and policy with respect to the complex relationship between the medium (languages) and the message (of churches and

Christianity). Ethnic church studies that concern language planning and policy (Woods,

2004; Han 2011a; Hatoss 2012) have suggested that the message is often more important that the medium, although as we have seen, changes in medium to include future generations in the denomination (Woods, 2004; Han 2011a) have indicated that perhaps the medium is more important to varying degrees, although, in the long run, actually, the message is more important as new generations continue as members of ethnic churches,

49 often with English accommodations, if not full-fledged English services. As Han (2011a) suggested, evangelism within the Chinese ethnic churches resulted in beliefs and goals that suggest church members believe it is commonsense to adapt to the linguistic needs and desires of anyone who chooses to visit the church. As we will see, compared to the goals of Chinese ethnic churches in terms of language and culture practices, Japanese ethnic churches are different since they are specifically aimed at accommodating the perceived language and culture needs of Japanese adults who speak Japanese as a first language.

Most ethnic church studies have dealt with various aspects concerning the church’s role in facilitating a community of legitimization and assisting immigrants with a positive adjustment experience (Bankston & Zhou, 1996; Garces-Foley, 2008; Han’s

2011b; Marti, 2008; Mullins, 1984, 1987; Trépanier, 1986). The literature is also linked to the ideological terrain of the periods of subjects studied, such as periods when assimilation was expected and acceptable, and periods during which the research was conducted and written up, such as the current period when diversity, multiculturalism, and multilingualism are promoted. Studies concerned with legitimization have suggested complex issues concerning the role of the church in welcoming non-ethnic members, since the result of membership of non-ethnic members is suggested to be de-ethnization

(Mullins, 1984; 1987) as church members intermarry in the midst of complex ideologically driven-beliefs concerned with the relationship between the medium and message in terms of preserving heritage languages, resisting assimilation, while also pursuing diversity and promoting spaces of multiculturalism. However, as we will see, ethnically Japanese Christian churches in this study tended to rely upon recruiting pastors

50 from Japan and steady flows of first generation Japanese people with perceived Japanese as-a-first-language needs to maintain Japanese ethnic churches. For churches in this study, diversity and multiculturalism as a result of assimilating toward dominant English and

Canadian cultures meant that second and third generations created churches to accommodate their English and Canadian cultural needs and not to maintain the Japanese churches of their parents. In terms of language and culture, this is because first generation

Japanese people in this study tended to create Japanese ethnic churches to function in part as bridges to maintain their Japanese languages, to experience emotional support, to network with other Japanese people, and to maintain connections with Japanese identity.

Wang (2002) suggests there is a gap in the literature and case studies are need to support claims about linguistic assimilation being linked to shifts in religious identification. There is also a gap in the research concerning the relationship between the medium and the message in terms of understanding ethnic church communities as places where transcultural flows tend to result in hybrid forms of language practices, faith, and culture identities. Furthermore, concerning retrospective studies, as time has passed, the perspectives of researchers and subjects have changed and do not often represent the perspectives of past immigrant communities, and as a result, there is a common problem with retrospective studies (which constitute a large portion of ethnic church scholarship) that look back at periods of church communities when assimilation ideologies were the norm and seen as positive to varying degrees. Retrospective studies may offer views about the past from the present, a place from which hindsight is 20/20. However, from any present perspective, although people look to history to avoid making the same mistakes, we can never have hindsight to correct the mistakes that will come when the

51 actual events or communities are being organized, which suggests that current studies about current ethnic church communities are needed to understand the language and cultural practices of ethnic church communities.

On Culture

Ethnic church communities are communities where people bring culture and develop subcultures as a result of transcultural flows where processes of exchange, take- up, and refashioning result in the cultural processes and hybridity that are ways of doing the ethnic church community (Pennycook, 2007). To demonstrate the interdisciplinary complexities of understanding the concept of “culture,” Walton (2012) outlines the historical development of cultural theory that has often been aimed at understanding

“culture” and cultural practices which includes the following fields of study and the respective scholars: Structuralism and Linguistics (Saussaure, 1915); Semiotics (Eco,

1976; 1984; Barthes, 1977; Hall, 1973); Ideology (Althusser, 1971); Poststructuralism

(Derrida, 1982); Psychoanalysis and identity (Lacan, 1992); and Discourse and Power

(Foucault, 1969; 1970; 1980). These fields and the respective scholarship work together to suggest interdiscursive views of “culture” which are informed by, and practiced through language and discourse, perceptions of structures and signs, and ideologically and psychologically in terms of identity, through subscriptions, and in terms of power.

Traditional views of culture have suggested that “culture” is understood as ways of doing

(Thornton, 1988). Street (1993) suggested that “culture is a verb” or a signifying process and the active construction of meaning. Culture is constructed from our perceptions and the way we see things and results in our ways of living and subsequently, the processes of communication (e.g., language practices) that result in sharing common meanings,

52 activities, and purposes, and the development of “new meanings” that occur as a result of tensions and achievements that lead to growth and change (Williams, 1961, p. 10; Hall,

1993, p. 350). On these terms, hybridity is normal and is a result of “transcultural flows” which are “fluid” and beyond the static of the global and local, particularly in the context of our globalizing world in which we are experiencing the largest forced and unforced mass migrations of recent times, which has resulted in becoming inextricably

“multicultural,” “mixed” ethnically, religiously, culturally, linguistically, etc.” (Hall,

1993, p. 356; Appadurai, 1996; Connell & Gibson, 2003; Pennycook, 2007).

Barkow, Cosmides, & Tooby (1992), in Triandis & Suh, (2002, p. 135), elaborates on perceptions of culture by distinguishing three aspects of culture: metaculture, evoked culture, and epidemiological culture, where “metaculture” refers to

“panhuman” mental contents and organization, which suggests that culture is psychological (Lacan, 1992), performed (Butler, 1990), and realized in communities as practice (Schein, 2010). Evoked culture refers to domain-specific mechanisms that act as meaningful signs (Eco, 1976; 1984; Barthes 1977; Hall, 1973) that are triggered by local circumstances, such as hot climates leading to light clothing. Epidemiological culture can be ideological (Althusser, 1971), influential toward concepts of identity (Lacan, 1992), transmitted through discourse and representative of power (Foucault, 1970; 1972; 1980), and described in terms of experiences of a society that have been deemed worthy of transmitting awareness to future generations, such as when an epidemic occurs and a society works to inform future generations to prevent future epidemics of the same or similar nature.

Schein (2010, p. 3) describes culture as something that is perceived as being

“stable” and “rigid” and something that we are able to reenact and create, and something that is both a “here and now” dynamic phenomenon, while also being a “coercive background structure” that influences us in various ways. Culture is also characterized by different interactive levels that include: macro-culture (i.e., nations, ethnic and religious groups, occupations around the globe); organizational cultures (i.e., private, public, nonprofit, government organizations); subcultures (i.e., occupational groups within organizations); and micro-cultures (i.e., microsystems within or outside organizations).

From Schein’s (2010, p. 3) point of view, the government of Canada, especially Statistics

Canada (2011), offers a general definition of culture that demonstrates the limitations of descriptions of culture and the interactivity between the “levels” of culture (Schein,

2010):

Broadly described, culture can include economic systems, political ideologies and processes, ways of life and social mores (i.e., customary), educational institutions, social programs, the environment, technological systems, recreational practices, customs and traditions, artistic and heritage activities, transportation and communication industries, and religious and spiritual activities. However, these notions of culture are too general to be useful in delineating the scope of culture for statistical purposes.

According to Blommaert (1998; 1991; 1995), this definition is a “traditional idealist notion of culture, consisting of (a) “core” values and norms related to (b) a complex of behavioral patterns derived from customs and expectations anchored into these core values and norms.” This definition, as described by Statistics Canada (2011) in terms of being “too general” for being useful for statistical studies that tend to present data about people in a static or one dimensional way, demonstrates that “culture” is often too complex to describe communities of people, and yet government policies (macro-

54 level) must use terms such as “culture” to identify rights of individuals (e.g., The

Multicultural Act, 1971; 1988). As Tollefson (1991) suggests (stated above), language polices are limited by the use of terms that concern language and “culture” because these terms function to include those who are represented by the terms and exclude those who are not. For this research, culture is important because it is concept we use to identify language practices in communities and it is the conceptual term used in policies (e.g.,

Canadian Multicultural Act), that functions to define individuals and groups and the rights given to diverse communities of people.

Theoretical Framework: Language policy of the Japanese ethnic church

The theoretical framework is composed of Fairclough’s (2003) theory of discourse in society in terms of “orders of discourse” to describe links between texts, discourses, and social contexts, and Johnson’s (2009) theory of language policy and planning to describe agency, process, and goals within the orders of discourse of language planning and policy. Fairclough (2003; 2001) borrows the term “orders of discourse” from Foucault (1970), to identify the dialectical relationship between texts and social practices. “In every society the productions of discourse is as once controlled, selected, organized and redistributed by a certain number of procedure who role it to ward off its powers and dangers, to gain mastery over its chance events, to evade its ponderous, formidable materiality” (Foucault, 1970, p. 52). This research is concerned with the production and redistribution of discourse in society at the government, organization, and community levels.

For Fairclough (2001) identifying “orders of discourse” is a way of linking texts and social practices in terms of “interdiscursivity.” Interdiscursivity means incorporating

55 elements of ‘context’ into the analysis of texts, to show the relationship of texts and discourses with social practices. Fairclough, Jessop, & Sayer (2004) suggest that texts are

“massively overdetermined” by other elements to the degree that linguistic analyses of texts result in the need to address connections between texts and social relations, identities, and institutions. For this research, interdiscursive connections are made with interview and policy texts, which are examples of dialectical relationships between discourses of society and social practices, which constitute “orders of discourse.” “Orders of discourse” refers to “a social structuring of semiotic difference,” which is “a particular social ordering of relationships amongst different ways of making meaning,” where ordering is often based upon identifying dominance and normative discourses in relationship with marginal, oppositional, or alternative discourses (Fairclough, 2001, p. 6).

For example, government policies are dominant discourses within a society, while organizations that represent communities and their subsequent policies are often seen as representative of the marginalized or illegitimate.

Discourses are evident in social practices in three ways (Fairclough, 2001): 1. as part of social activity within a practice (e.g., when using language in a particular way for a particular purpose); 2. in representations (e.g., when social actors produce representations of other practices and reflexive representations of their own practice, and when different social actors will represent and “recontextualize” socially constructed practices differently; and in ways of being (e.g., identities).

According to Fairclough (2003, p. 205), “social practices” are described as

“relatively stabilized forms of social activity” where “every practice is an articulation of diverse social elements within a relatively stable configuration, always including

56 discourse.” Every practice includes the following (which are dialectically related to one another): activities, subjects, and other social relations, instruments, objects, time and place, forms of consciousness, values, and discourses (Fairclough, 2001). Similarly,

Johnson (2009) describes the theory of language planning and policy in terms of Agents,

Goals, Processes, Discourses, Dynamic Social Contexts.

Johnson (2009, p. 144) describes the macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of context of language policy in community contexts as a means “to understand dynamic social, historical, and physical contexts wherein such policies are created, interpreted, and appropriated.” With the aim of pursuing objectivity, it is important to identify the following constituent terms—Agents, Goals, Processes, Discourses, Dynamic Social

Contexts—which culminate as a conceptual framework for identification purposes for data collection (Johnson, 2009). The terms are understood as such: (1) Agents: Referring to those who create policy in addition to those who are responsible for its interpretation and appropriation. (2) Goals: The intention of the policy as stated in the policy text. (3)

Processes: The processes of creation, interpretation, and appropriation. (4) Discourses that engender and perpetuate the policy: Referring to discourses both implicit and explicit existing within the policy text in addition to intertextual connections to other policies, and the discursive power of a particular policy. (5) The dynamic social and historical contexts in which the policy exists, keeping in mind that these categories are neither static nor mutually exclusive: wherein the study of community contexts concerning language policies is aimed at understanding dynamic social, historical, and physical contexts in which such policies are created, interpreted, and appropriated. Tollefson (1991; 2013) views language policy as an instrument that is incapable of promoting equality because it

57 denies access equal access to everyone (Johnson, 2013b). In light of this, contexts where policy is created, interpreted, and appropriated appear to be contexts where inequality exists and subsequent discourses within policy affect the ‘voice’ of individuals in terms of participation that is determined by mobility and opportunity, particularly in the cases of those whose voices determine or are pre-determined by the language contexts and social practices of language planning, policy, and practice which are discursively “orders of discourse” (Fairclough, 2003; 2001).

Language planning, policy, and practice as social practices and “orders of discourse” constitute a particular social order, e.g., macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of language planning, policy, and practice in a particular society at a particular time. To understand “orders of discourse” CDA (methodological approach) is used to analyze “the dialectical relationships between discourse and other elements of social practices” that result in language planning, policy, and practice.

Three forms of discourse critique (Fairclough, 2005) are relevant to Critical

Discourse Analysis: ideological, rhetorical, and strategic critique, where ideological critique is focused upon the effects of semiosis on social relations of power, rhetorical critique concerned with persuasion or manipulation in texts and talk, and strategic critique as being focused upon strategies of groups of social agents that are aimed at changing society. Although agents are identified and their agency is described, this research is primarily an ideological critique that is focused upon understanding relationships of discourse and power in contexts of language planning, policy, and practice.

In order to uncover discourse and power concerning Japanese ethnic churches in

Canadian society, I use a case study using interviews and observations of churches. In addition, I examined websites of the churches to understand a meso-level of discourses while talking to people to develop a micro level of understanding of how churches are organized and who has the power to define them. It is with the theoretical framework of

Fairclough’s (2001, 2003, 2005) theory of discourse in society in terms of “orders of discourse” and Johnson’s (2009) theory of language planning and policy to understand discourses and power in language planning, policy, and practice contexts that concern

Japanese ethnic churches.

CHAPTER 4: METHODOLOGY

Rationale for Research Methodology/Methods

This research is aimed at understanding individuals who participate within macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of language planning, policy, and practice in Japanese ethnic churches in Canada, and has to do with understanding relationships of power and relationships between discourses at the different levels of policy and in society.

Critical Discourse Analysis

This research is a multi-site case study utilizing cross-case analyses, in terms of a methodology, and data collected (e.g. interviews and various texts and policy documents) using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 2003). The use of Critical

Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a methodology in this research indicates that I am interested in ‘language as social practice’ (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997) and the way that language is used in particular contexts (Wodak, 2000; Fairclough 2003). As Halliday

(1978, p. 10) states regarding the ‘social man’, “It might seem that one could hardly begin to consider language at all without taking account of social man, since language is the means whereby people interact. How else can one look at language except in a social context?” Discourse contexts (Fairclough, 2003) include: governance (e.g., language policy), hegemonic struggles for status in dominant cultural communities (e.g., in society and in organizations), shifts in time and space associated with globalization that often lead to hybridity (e.g., religious beliefs, pursuits of “social justice”), and legitimation (or as Mulllins 1988 calls it “legitimization”) of social action and social orders (e.g., minority and immigrants negotiating in dominant normative societies). As a result, this research

60 uses CDA as an approach to understand the views of individuals within the Japanese ethnic church as demonstrated through their use of language where language is seen as

“the larger discursive unit of text to be the basic unit of communication” (Wodak, 2001).

Fairclough (2003) and Wodak (2001) point out that while CDA has its origins in

‘critical linguistics’, which can be traced back to the Frankfurt school and to Habermas

(1984), today it is used in a broader sense to link ‘social and political engagement’ with the ‘sociologically informed construction of society’ (Krings, 1973, p. 808 in Wodak,

2001). This is important because, as Fairclough (1985, p. 747) points out, concerning human interactions, certain interconnectedness and causal links are perhaps unseen, resulting in CDA being a means to make what is ‘unseen’ seen. As Wodak (2001, 2) continues to point out, what is ‘unseen’ is often the structures of “dominance, discrimination, power and control” suggesting that language is a medium of domination, a social force, and ideological. In this sense, there are three key concepts that CDA is concerned with: 1) power 2) history and 3) ideology. As such, CDA is concerned with the context of such texts where using CDA methodology is ‘critical’ in terms of 1) theory and description of structures and social processes that produce texts as a result of positions of power, and 2) individuals or groups who are historical subjects that interact with texts to create meanings which are often ideologies (Fairclough 2003; Wodak, 2001).

Texts are social events that have relationships with social practices and social structures and concern agency in various contexts (Fairclough, 2003). Concerning social contexts, for example, if we look at the concept of “language,” social structures are languages, social practices are the orders of discourse, and social events are texts. “Orders of discourse” are the network of social practices that include elements of discourses, where

“these elements select the possibilities defined by language and exclude others”

(Fairclough, 2003, p. 23). In keeping with the intention of CDA as a method to disclose what is ‘unseen’ or perhaps obvious to some, CDA is an approach that considers the: 1) dominance of discourse, 2) the historical production and interpretation of discourse and

3) the temporal nature of discourse, which is also to say, CDA considers the context of discourse in terms of space and time and the dominant structures that work together to legitimize ideologies of power groups (Wodak 2001, p. 3). This approach of CDA suggests that discourses are ideological and that there is no arbitrariness of signs (Wodak,

2001, 3).

I chose CDA because it is particularly useful for understanding the historical dominance of Christianity in Canada and the unequal relationships between English and

Japanese in Canada because these are contexts where the political power and religious ideology of Canada have affected the development of Japanese ethnic churches in terms of the right to construct and practice church in a country whose politics, constitution, and religious ideology has been historically tied to The Church of England and The French

Catholic Church, and in terms of the potential for de-ethnization of Japanese immigrants and Japanese Canadians as a result of unequal relationships between English and

Japanese at various levels of policy in Canada.

Intertextuality

Intertextuality is an important aspect of Critical Discourse Analysis and in this research since intertextual connections are expected to be evident across the multiple discourses and texts of this study. Fairclough (2003) suggests that there are internal and external relationships between texts that give significance to intertextuality; texts within

62 texts and texts within worlds of texts. Discourses, which contain texts, are abstract levels of social practices that are durable and often exist within other social practices and have long term orientations (such as in the discourses of ethnic churches in relationship to the

Bible, or the discourses that shape beliefs about identity) that must be considered in

Critical Discourse Analyses. Allen (2011, p. 9) states, “all acts of communication stem from choices made within a system which pre-exists any speaker.” This understanding of signs linked to social contexts comes as a result of traditions that began with Bakhtin’s

(1935/1981, p. 276-277) “dialogicalization” (Fairclough, 2003, p. 42), which suggests that the meaning of an utterance is dependent upon socio-ideological consciousness among thousands of dialogical threads in the spaces of communication (Gumperz and

Hymes, 1972). In terms of interpretations, intertextuality is perhaps demonstrated in social settings of communities where according to Bakhtin (1986):

Each utterance is a link in the chain of speech communication…our speech is filled with others’ words, varying degrees of otherness and detachment. These words of others carry with them their own expression, their own evaluative tone, which we assimilate, rework, and reaccentuate. (p. 89)

For the purposes of this research, intertextuality (e.g. the interrelationship of discursive features in a text, such as structure, form, or genre) is expected to contextualize texts with larger texts (e.g., the Bible and perceptions stated in interview texts) in terms of interdiscursivity. For this research, there are two significant ways

Fairclough (2003, p. 49) that interlocutors participate in intertextuality: 1. Direct reporting, such as by citing a quotation or actual words used; 2. Indirect reporting, such as giving a summary of the content or what was said. These descriptions, offer a contextualized view of language in interactive and intertextual contexts between individuals who participate in church activities and the tradition of (ethnic) church

63 practices. This given, intertextuality has long been associated (before its association with literary theory) with texts of the Bible. For example, as mentioned above, intertextual relationships are apparent between the Old Testament and New Testament texts (Porter,

2006, p. 1).

Case Study

As I mentioned earlier, this research is a multiple-site case study where the churches are the ‘cases’ being studied. The significance of a multiple-site case study is based upon the idea that findings from multiple sites will yield more robust findings

(Shofield, 2000, p. 80). While there are several descriptions of case study methodology, for this research, case study is a method committed to, “studying the complexity that is involved in [perceptions of] real situations [as shown in relevant discourses and interview texts],” in terms of being, “analyses of persons, events, decisions, periods, projects, policies, institutions, or other systems that are studied holistically by one or more method.

The case that is the subject of the inquiry will be an instance of a class of phenomena that provides an analytical frame — an object — within which the study is conducted and which the case illuminates and explicates” (Thomas, 2011, p. 512; Kohlbacher, 2006).

The basic idea of a case study in social sciences is to study a particular case or group of cases in detail with the objective of developing the fullest possible understanding of that case or group of cases (Punch, 2005). For this research, it is to develop the fullest possible understanding of the Japanese ethnic churches that participated in this study according to the research questions that are aimed at addressing the problem.

Finding Participants

My selection of the three churches of this study came as a result of my participation in City Japanese Church, which is part of the Japanese Christian community in local areas of Western Canada. The other two churches in this study are also a part of this community and so it made sense to include them in the study together. The first thing

I did was participate in the services of the three churches that I have chosen to observe because I wanted to better understand the contexts in which I was beginning my study.

While I participated in one service at Mountain Japanese Church, one service at River

Japanese church, and two services at City Japanese Church (although I had participated in several over the course of a year previous to my visit to observe the service and conduct interviews after the service), and in order to find participants, I was given a time during each of the services to invite pastors and church members who were interested in participating. Most pastors were intrigued by my research, which is why all of them welcomed me with great hospitality and allowed me to conduct interviews in rooms in the church buildings and at Pastor Joshua’s home, and Pastor Jim stated, “Research about

Japanese churches is important.” After inviting participants during the announcement time of the church services and asking them to see me after the service if they were interested, which is just before the teaching, following the service each pastor allowed me to use a room in the church building or the sanctuary (at River Japanese Church) to conduct the interviews. While waiting their turn, participants ate lunch or mingled in the common area of the church as usual on a given Sunday. Before each interview I presented the consent form to each of the participants and they signed the copy to give consent and were given a copy to take with them. This process meant that the situation was defined for the participants and that they were informed about the purpose of the

65 study (Kvale, 1996, in Keyton, 2011, p. 288). Participants were asked if they had any questions and were given contact information in case they had questions after the interview. After the interview, the recordings were transcribed into scripts and participants were identified with code names/pseudonyms to ensure confidentiality

(Williams, 2003). To ensure confidentiality the churches were referred to in terms of pseudonyms rather than their established names.

Participants: Who They Are

In total there were 25 participants from three churches. From smallest to largest, the sample sizes per church were: 4, 7, and 14. Since each church community was relatively small consisting of about ten to thirty people per church, participation response and sample sizes of interview data were small. The backgrounds of the target population consisted of mostly first generation Japanese immigrants to Canada, their children and grandchildren, in addition to non-Japanese individuals who had interests in the Japanese church community as a result of being a spouse, associate, or friend (among other things) with Japanese individuals. Individuals who identified as being other than Japanese referred to themselves as being from Hong Kong; being Canadian; and being Japanese-

Canadian. The study participants included the researcher, pastors, church community members, and spouses of church community members ranging in age from 18 years and older. Each participant had a potential for agency since the communication of members at the micro-level creates the ‘actual’ language policy of the church, and since leaders often desire to accommodate the needs of community members.

“Agency” in the context of Japanese ethnic churches concerns power and influence of arbiters whose decisions affect others (Johnson, 2009) and is related to the

66 cultural hierarchy that is demonstrated by the word “sensei,” which is literally defined as,

“person before another” (Denshi Jisho, 2015) and is used to distinguish pastors, teachers, and doctors. Concerning agency in the church, this sensei concept is relevant since the pastor and/or teachers are seen as authority figures holding great influence. In this sense, agency is contingent upon the role of participation where there are types of agency:

Pastors, Teachers, Board Members, Worship Leaders, and Facilitators. In the church community Pastors are “very influential” and are arbiters of policy (Johnson, 2009), which is to say they are the most influential of all agents, followed by teachers who are also “very influential” as their agency is particular to the curriculum they develop and their instruction in the church service. Board members are “influential” during board meetings as they can influence the decisions being made that affect the church. Worship

Leaders are also “influential” because they often choose and perform the songs and Bible readings that are designated during the worship portion of the service. Facilitators are also “influential” since they prepare and manage administrative duties which include managing the church website and Facebook page and creating and managing the

PowerPoint that is used during the service. Church members who attend the service and do not participate in the liturgical duties have “standard” participation levels of agency since they do not participate in the meso-level planning and strategically create and implement the framework of policies of the church like very influential and influential members do. Rather, as they communicate with one another, such as during fellowship time, although this is after the church services, their choices about what languages they choose to use often defines the church community language practices and policies de facto. As we will see, since most members have indicated that they attend Japanese

67 churches because they prefer Japanese language, ‘standard’ participation is expected to be in Japanese, although as we will see, English is used at times by members to speak with others whom church members may perceive as being English-as-a-first language speakers, particularly during the fellowship time after the service, if church members are able to speak English. However, unlike church leaders who plan, decide, and implement the language policy and practices of the church, they do not have an influential agency role that demonstrates power and influence over others, especially during the church services.

Mountain Japanese Church

Situated in a small town, Mountain Japanese Church 4is a small church community consisting of about 10-15 Japanese women (some of whom have Canadian

English speaking spouses) and their children (some of whom are ‘mixed’) who meet in the main sanctuary of a borrowed church building before the English speaking church meets for their service. During the interview, Pastor Beth informed me that the church community began as a Bible study for Japanese speaking people and has been gathering for more than twenty years. At the time of this research, there had been three pastors who had pastored the church.

When I visited the church service (once during the time I collected interviews, although I also attended their Bible study the following Tuesday to conduct more interviews), there were about ten women and three children. The pastor (i.e., the main leader and Bible teacher of the church, especially during Sunday services) and the leadership (i.e., church members who assist the pastor in the many duties of the church,

4 As with all churches in this study, the exact name and location is not disclosed for the purpose of anonymity. 68 such as Board Members, and Worship Leaders who organize and deliver the music and singing segment of the church service), conducted the service entirely in Japanese. They began the service by singing worship songs, which were all in Japanese and the Japanese lyrics were provided on PowerPoint. Mountain Japanese Church does not publish a website like the other churches in this study, rather they have a “closed group” Facebook page to keep the church informed that only members are capable of viewing. In the following (Table 1) I present the participants from Mountain Japanese Church in alphabetical order in terms of name, birth year, birthplace, first languages, languages spoken at home, role in the church, and agency in terms of influence. This table will give an idea of the participants (all pseudonyms).

Table 1: Mountain Japanese Church

Name Birth Place of birth First Role Agency Year / Year Language/Language(s) Entered Spoken at Home Canada Beth 1953 Japan/2000 Japanese/Japanese Pastor; Very Board Influential Member Kim 1968 Japan/1998 Japanese/Japanese Board Influential Member; Worship Leader Mary 1950 Japan/1982 Japanese/Japanese Pastor’s Influential Assistant Michel 1981 Japan/2002 Japanese/Japanese and Church Standard English Member Nancy 1971 Japan/1999 Japanese/Japanese and Church Standard English Member Patty 1966 Japan/1998 Japanese/Japanese and Board Influential English Member; Website/FB Creator and Manager; Interpreter;

Translator Sophia 1976 Japan/1996 Japanese/Japanese and Church Standard English Member

City Japanese Church

The church is located in the suburbs of the city and consists of about 30 adults, young adults, and children. The adults are predominantly Japanese men and women

(some of whom are married to English speaking Canadians), although 2 English speaking

Caucasian Canadian females attend intermittently, a male from Hong Kong, and a female from Taiwan. They meet in a section of a large church building that is normally designated for the youth group of the host church. City Japanese Church began as a small bible study in 2008 and developed into a church community within a couple years. Pastor

Joshua is the founding pastor of the church and he leads the congregation with the help of his wife Melanie, and his two daughters Amy and Amanda.

When I visited (twice during the time I conducted interviews, although I had participated as a member for more than one year) the majority of City Japanese Church service was conducted in Japanese language and used Japanese texts. They began the service with announcements presented in Japanese, which was followed by a time of worship through songs with lyrics that were mostly in Japanese and presented on a

PowerPoint presentation. Around the room, since it is a borrowed space from West

English Church, English texts such as, “Serving the Lord is the noblest thing,” and

“Offering,” were posted on the walls. The first song was a Japanese hymn in Japanese; the second song was an English gospel song “Seek Ye First” and members sung it first in

English and then in Japanese; the third song “To the River,” was sung in Japanese and

70 then in English. After singing the children and the young adults left to attend their classes.

The sermon segment began with Bible reading from Romans 8:31-39 in English and then in Japanese. Following the Bible reading Pastor Joshua (agent) gave the sermon in

Japanese references to Mark 1:16-17 with the English text “Casting a net into the lake,” and Luke 5:5-6 with English texts “Let down the nets for a catch” were presented on

PowerPoint. The sermon included spoken English references that were used to add to the concepts, references, and phrases in Japan. The pastor used English to explain by saying

“eigo de “seal”” [trans: In English “seal”]. Other English words, phrases, and references that demonstrated tolerance of English were mentioned to clarify points that were made in Japanese included:

Predestined, adopt, beloved, holy, I commit, blameless, challenger, God’s will/way, In the beginning God created heaven and earth before the earth was created,” I commit myself to Jesus, Song of songs, love song, longing for her beloved, metaphor, convince, love is fire, Acts chapter 2 verse 3, baptism of fire, desu ne, Nigeria kidnapping abduction, because our God is emotional, Jesus wept, Jesus thirst, feeling, political, money, declaring war on Bokoharam, battling, Seek ye first kingdom of God, The city of the living God, Casting a net, fisherman, let down the nets, fishers of men, “suffering” no hi [trans: the day of suffering].

On its website (i.e., the meso-level language policy of the church), City Japanese

Church states that the intention of the church is to spread the Words of God in Japanese language and to tell the people the Good News. Additionally, the church’s website states that worship is in Japanese language and that there are Sunday school classes for kids, youth, and adults. The website states they welcome people who are not Japanese, young and old, Christian and non-Christian. These meso-level policy statements on the church’s website indicate the church’s apparent ‘open door’ policy, which is to say that it appears that all are welcome. This apparent ‘open door’ policy’ is also evident by the church’s bilingual Japanese and English website. In the following (Table 2) I present the

71 participants from City Japanese Church in alphabetical order in terms of name, birth year, birthplace, first languages, languages spoken at home, role in the church, and agency in terms of influence. This table will give an idea of the participants (all pseudonyms).

Table 2: City Japanese Church

Name Birth Birthplace/ First Role Agency Year Year Entered Language/Langua Canada ge(s) Spoken at Home Amanda 1996 Japan/2006 Japanese/Japanese Pastor’s Influential Daughter; Creator/Ma nager of Church FB/Website ; Creator and Co- Manager of PowerPoint during church services

Amy 1990 Japan/2006 Japanese/Japanese Pastor’s Influential Daughter; Church Member; Co- Manager of PowerPoint during church services Anne 1976 Japan/2002 Japanese/Japanese Church Standard and English Member John 1988 Japan/2011 Japanese/Japanese Church Standard and English Member Joshua 1950 Japan/2006 Japanese/Japanese Pastor; Very Board influential Member Jun 1972 Japan/2006 Japanese/Japanese Board Influential and English Member;

Sunday School Teacher Koko 1964 Japan/1991 Japanese/Japanese Church Standard and English Member Mark 1948 Japan/1994 Japanese/Japanese Board Influential Member Marvin 1969 Canada/NA English/English Spouse of Standard Nana Melanie 1957 Japan/2006 Japanese/Japanese Pastor’s Very and English Wife; Influential Board Member; Sunday School Teacher Michael 1980 Hong Cantonese/English Church Standard Kong/2006 Member Nana 1974 Japan/1997 Japanese/Japanese Board Influential and English Member; Worship Leader Paul 1977 Canada/NA Japanese/English Church Standard Member Ted 1975 Canada (raised Japanese/Japanese Church Standard in Japan)/2002 and English Member

River Japanese Church

River Japanese Church is a community of about 30 Japanese Christian adults who meet in an old building in the city, most of whom are first generation Japanese people whose ages range from about 20 and up, in addition to a member “Bob” whose mother is

Japanese and father is from Taiwan. There are no children in the service, although the

(adult) children of some of the members attended the English service. The church community began as a Bible study for Japanese people and has been meeting for nearly

50 years. After the children of the initial congregation grew up, an English service was started to accommodate the nissei and sansei English preferences. Presently, the Japanese

73 congregation meets upstairs while the English congregation meets in the main sanctuary area, although there is a joint worship service before the two congregations separate.

At River Japanese Church, the church’s website (i.e., the meso-level of the church’s language policy) is written in Japanese. However, there is an English link directing users to the English congregation, Sunrise English Fellowship, which is the

English congregation of the same church that operates simultaneously during the

Japanese service. As stated on the website, the English congregation grew out of the

Japanese congregation as second and third generations preferred doing church in English.

While these congregations support one another, judging by their separate websites, it seems that they are in fact two separate church groups who share the same building.

Interestingly, according to the River Japanese Church website, it states that they worship in both Japanese and English wherein they first meet for singing and reporting and then separately for liturgy. Similar to City Japanese Church, River Japanese Church also invites non-Japanese and non-Christian individuals to attend. However, as the separated services seem to suggest, the church’s open door policy appears to be only “slightly open” since English-speaking members, usually family members of Japanese church members, are expected to attend the English service with the “other” congregation. In the following

(Table 3) I present the participants of River Japanese Church in alphabetical order in terms of name, birth year, birthplace, first languages, languages spoken at home, role in the church, and agency in terms of influence. This table will give an idea of the participants (all pseudonyms).

Table 3: River Japanese Church

Name Birth Birthplace/ First Role Agency

Year Year Entered Language/Langu Canada ages Spoken at Home Bob 1978 Taiwan (although Japanese/ Church Standard educated in Japanese and Member Japanese) /2001 English Jim 1948 Japan/2011 Japanese/ Pastor; Very Japanese Board influential Member Lisa 1987 Japan/2011 Japanese/ Church Influential Japanese and Member English Mia 1974 Japan/2011 Japanese/ Church Standard Japanese and Member English

Interviews

Interviews were viewed as a narrative unit and as an independent literary work, a text or a group of texts (Elkad-Lehman & Greensfeld, 2011; Polkinghorne, 1988, 1991;

Rosenthal, 2006; Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach & Zilber, 1998). Biographical questions were asked during the interviews so as to understand the contextual nature of the interaction in the community (McCracken, 1998). These types of questions were useful for developing rapport between researcher and participant, and in terms of providing clues useful during the interpretation process. My questions (see Appendix A) were aimed at the language experiences of the church members in the contexts of their daily lives and within the

Japanese ethnic church community. I wanted to know their backgrounds, their perceptions of Canada, of Japan, of being Japanese; their views about Japanese culture, diversity, being bilingual; the language practices of their Japanese ethnic church communities; and their beliefs about being Christian in relationship to being ethnically, linguistically, and culturally Japanese.

I approached interviewing as a “digging tool” as I attempted to ask questions in an effective, non-threatening way in the process of facilitating conversations in hope of having cross-cultural encounters to potentially uncover hidden realities (Lindlof & Taylor,

2002, pp. 183-184). For Crang & Cook (2007, p. 60). It was of utmost importance that the participant be allowed to tell his or her story. In light of this, I attempted to be a good listener by paying attention and looking at the participant while displaying pleasant non- verbal cues and continuously asking myself questions such as, “What am I learning now?

What else should I learn? What can I do to help participants express themselves?”

(Lindlof & Taylor, 2002, p. 193; Keyton, 2011, p. 291). Interviews were performed in comfortable settings (e.g., churches and homes of participants), which allowed for interviews to occur as conversations because interviews are neither neutral nor anonymous (Keyton, 2011, p. 288; Butler & Modaff, 2008; Braithwaite & Eckstein,

2003). Overall, before, during, and after the interviews it was important to ask repeatedly during the course of analyses, “Who is telling the story and to whom? Who are the covert addressees? What are the relationships between narrator and addressees? How do they affect the story? What bearing does context have on the story? Does telling his or her story fulfill a need or motive, perhaps concealed, of the interviewee?” (Elkad-Lehman &

Greensfeld, 2011). These questions are the beginning of discourse analyses where the intention for this research is to understand the statements made by participants with consideration of the contexts and discourses that define their experiences. Their statements are communicative events that, when analyzed, provide us with bridges that link the micro-local experiences with macro-patterns of discourse within the globalizing community of participants and relative discourses (Blommaert, 2010; Fairclough, 2003).

The interviews were semi-structured (in contrast to ‘highly structured’ or

‘relatively unstructured’) and conducted face-to-face (Crang & Cook 2007, p. 60), and most were in English, although one interview and portions of others were conducted in

Japanese. Interviews were recorded with a voice recorder and written notes about processes and observations were taken during the visit to the church locations.

Biographical questions were asked during the interviews to understand the contextual nature of the interaction in the community (McCracken, 1998). These types of questions were useful for developing rapport between researcher and participant, and in terms of providing clues useful during the interpretation process.

Analyses of Interview Texts

In terms of data analyses concerning multiple-site case study, this research is also a cross-case analysis where cross-case analysis is used to cross-examine the data collected from the Japanese ethnic churches to form an in aggregate group of data, which is preferred over a single study in light of complexities that are evident in social situations (Yin, 1994). To analyze the interview data I transcribed the texts individually and categorically annotated texts using colors and different fonts to recognize repetition and linguistic patterns that seemed to be potentially helpful for determining functions and status in the story (e.g., rhetoric repetitions, motifs, symbols, among other things) (Elkad-

Lehman & Greensfeld, 2011). I utilized processes of re-reading and parallel reading particular sub-texts to discover aspects of intertextuality, such as links between ‘the upper text’ (i.e. the interview text) and other texts through architextuality (i.e., abstract connections between texts, e.g. texts written or spoken during a certain time period)

(Elkad-Lehman & Greensfeld, 2011). Essentially, these architextual references (e.g.,

Biblical references and Church website texts) and structural elements such as genre, were useful for examining architetxual cohesion (Genette, 1997) between interview texts and church community texts (e.g., policy, worship songs, the Bible), “which leads the interpreter to the association, as well as to additional literary elements, with the purpose of establishing their function in the deeper meaning of the text” and discourse (Elkad-

Lehman & Greensfeld, 2011).

In terms of how I analyzed the discourses of participants, I began with little chunks with the intention of making intertextual connections based upon common themes and references. I took cues from the cultural, historical, political and religious discourses demonstrated in my literature review. The intention was to demonstrate that intertextual connections between church members meant that ideological beliefs had successfully been perpetuated, believed, and realized by church members and that these beliefs were what positioned church members within the larger policy discourses of Canada and

Japanese ethnic churches. After identifying common thematic and ideological connections I worked rigorously on placing these texts into groups with each other within their specific church communities, the broader church communities, and then with the larger cultural, historical, political and religious discourses in the writing-up process. I repeated this initial writing-up process several times as I evaluated and re-evaluated participants’ responses.

Evaluation of participants’ responses/discourses began with culture-specific assumptions and judgment of adequate responses relative to the stylistic expectations, content, revelation of relevant underlying patterns, and effective interpretation of the questions that trigger the response resulting in going beyond what was said, to examine

78 how it is said...” (Gumperz, 1982, p. 127). This was achieved through using the literary criticism tool “close-reading” (Rimmon-Kenan, 1989) where interviews were analyzed as a text and were not viewed as being a ‘non-literary’ unit (Elkad-Lehman & Greensfeld,

2011; Culler, 1997). Close-reading of interview texts was used as an interpretive tool to emphasize individual words, syntax, among other things, in the development of an exegesis of the text. Close-reading processes for this research included transcribing, annotating, identifying patterns such as repetitions, contradictions, similarities, and asking questions about such patterns. To this extent, in terms of discourse analysis, the processes of annotating, identifying patterns of repetitions, contradictions, and similarities resulted in identifying the way that participant views combined through intertextual connections to form a larger discourse, while identifying differences was also important since differences indicated variety within the discourses. Key characteristics of each interview/story were identified as a result of identifying particular focal points for various categories and descriptive narrative passages. Focal points of repetition included

(lexical) word choices with attention to changes such as, “increasing intensity in the use of verbs or adjectives (Elkad-Lehman & Greensfeld, 2011). For example, the absence of the proper adjective “Japanese” when saying, “people” referring to Japanese people; the use of coordinating conjunctions “but”, “demo”, and “desukedo” (Onodera 2004, p. 57), and the variations of “we” vs. “you” discourse (Gumperz 1982). Secondary characters

(e.g. other church members and attendees) and the relationship between them and the participants were identified and explained as was necessary (Elkad-Lehman & Greensfeld,

2011). General linguistic parallelisms, parallelisms between primary and secondary stories told by the interviewees as intertextual focal points useful for interpretation were

79 also identified and explained as was necessary. Table 4 (Appendix B) is a summary of these discourse analysis approaches in the context of Critical Discourse Analysis

(Fairclough, 2003).

Observations

Observations of church services conducted during the data collection period, although only once at Mountain Japanese Church and River Japanese Church, and twice at City Japanese Church, were aimed at understanding the relationship between interview texts and social processes, with the intention of acquiring insight that was not available through interviews (Moriarty, 2011; Silverman, 2006). My role in observations was experienced in terms of “complete participation” in the City Japanese Church population for about 1 year previous to the period of this study, and in terms of “passive participation” at Mountain and River Japanese Churches since I only visited and observed each of these services once (DeWalt, DeWalt, & Wayland, 1998). I incorporate descriptions of my observational experiences in my presentation of data.

Limitations and Delimitations

As I became a researcher of the Japanese ethnic church community in Western

Canada I found myself challenged by inside/outsider binary categories because, like any person, I brought long-held beliefs, stances, and positionings to the research table. In other words, my views did not come from nowhere, and I did not gaze from places that are not positioned (Irvine & Gal 2000, p. 36). Concerning positions and positionings, it was important that I understood my role as an insider, as I had (arguably) been a member of City Japanese Church (from May 2012-April 2013) and a member of a Japanese

80 family since 2010, when I married an ethnically Japanese individual. However, I was also an outsider because I did not share the Japanese ethnic identity and Japanese as a first language with many of the church members/subjects of this study, and as we will see, church members suggested that non-Japanese are not members of Japanese churches to the fullest degree.

In particular, I noticed my assumptions were somewhat based on my previous experiences and beliefs. For example, I expected to find Japanese church communities facilitating Japanese language and culture experiences for children of church members and non-Japanese people, and I found that Japanese parents were usually the people who attempted to “pass on” their language and culture (with mixed results) and that the

Japanese church services were not intended or perceived as being classrooms where non-

Japanese people could “learn” Japanese, although some non-Japanese came and “learned” to varying degrees. I expected to find views of church members that were concerned with de-ethnization, but this was not necessarily the case as I began speaking to church members and I found that they positioned themselves in stark contrast to the Canadian dominant English culture, and that the inclusion of English language practices meant a separation (to varying degrees) from the Japanese “core community”. I found myself wrestling with understanding “ideological views” and the need to attempt to maintain some sort of objectivity when considering the positions of Japanese church members. For example, at face value, “multiculturalism” and “diversity” seem like inclusive terms.

However, for Japanese church members who did not perceive themselves as English or

French speakers, they were “not truly, not entirely” (Roy, 2010) perceiving themselves as being included in the “multicultural” and “diverse” nation of Canada because they could

81 not participate in English or French (the “official” languages of Canada). No wonder some stated that their church community was their “oasis” in a foreign land. As I conducted interviews, I felt that if I stuck to the questions and did not deviate, I could facilitate a somewhat neutral environment where members would disclose information to me. However, as I continued interviewing church members, not only did I improve on my delivery of questions while becoming a better interviewer, I found that I needed to probe deeper into their responses, which felt risky because I had brought perceptions with me about cultural boundaries and the need to be “sensitive” because my participants were

Japanese. I also later realized that my biases could be useful as comparative lenses and ways of expressing from a particular point of view. I began to understand that my investigation was not necessarily objective, but that their iterated texts were somehow able to represent them and that it was up to me to attempt to position the texts in a particular way that would result in meaning, and that demonstrating this dialogical question and answer process was, in the end, an attempt at being as objective as I could be. This meant balancing between my biases and continuously wrestling with deciding the best way to present the data.

These factors count since they establish my position from which I do research

(Kelemen & Rumens, 2008, p.165). As a result, there were degrees of reflexivity that I needed to recognize and continue recognizing since the reflexive introspection of the self is a continuous and pervasive process in the form of self-interrogation (Giddens, 1991, p.

76 in Adams, 2007, p. 121). Thus, the object of self-interrogation is to make biases explicit so that they can be more fully understood as factors that contribute to the overall research process (Hirabayashi, 1995, p. 113). As described by Walsh (2006), terms that

82 result in ‘difference’ also had the potential to result in conflict for me, the researcher, whose English-as-a first language, male gender, “white” ethnicity, “privileged” class in

Canada as a result of my higher education status, my age, my Christian religious views, and my political persuasion, such as being a holder of a United States passport, may have been a cause for distance from the positions of the subjects, resulting in the potential of being ‘politically at odds’ with a subject or conversely, resulting in an allegiance or empathy developed during the ‘collection of data’ and ‘writing up’ stages in the research

(Leonard, 2010). As a result, it is inevitable to be limited as a researcher to the degree that my ability to be a legitimate knowledge producer is essentially, “embedded in the enterprise” (Heller, 2011, pp. 11-12). Alexander (2004) states that such challenges may in fact be a necessary part of the process for the researcher because it results in careful consideration about the way in which we interview to ‘collect data’ and approach

‘writing up.’ As the researcher, I was perhaps subject to challenges in terms of developing a sense of ‘emotional, psychological, and political neutrality’ as a result of the processes and procedures of research, which therefore required me to engage in a difficult and continuous balancing act as an insider/outsider with a Christian world view who was married into the Japanese community, in order to establish a sort of ‘ethical ambivalence’

(Back, 2002, p. 57).

In addition to my position as an insider/outsider, translation during the transcribing processes of interviews presented limitations particularly because of my inability to completely understand the cultural nuances of statements made in Japanese by native Japanese speakers. While I speak Japanese as a second language and was able to conduct interviews in Japanese when it was necessary (such as with Pastor Beth), my L1

83 framework of English naturally determined my interpretation of choices in terms of how I understood statements made in Japanese and in terms of the way in which I responded to statements in Japanese. As a result, there is no doubt that as I transcribed there were cultural nuances in statements made by participants that were ‘lost in translation’ although my wife, who is a native speaker of Japanese, checked my transcriptions to make sure they were accurately translated.

Also, concerning the research, I invited other churches to participate and I received no response. It is not clear why they declined to participate because they did not respond to my email requests. However, it is clear that this project was limited because these churches did not participate. Also, I was not able to interview each church member from each church because they did not agree to participate. Again, their participation would have been helpful. In addition to the participation of church members, my participation was also limited because I needed to visit the city and nearby areas for an extended period of time which required time and money. As a result, I was not able to observe as much as I would have liked to observe, however, fortunately I had spent more than one year as a participating member of one of the church communities.

CHAPTER 5: REASONS FOR ORGANIZING JAPANESE ETHNIC CHURCHES

Question 1: What are the views of church members that assist in the construction of language policy de jure and de facto? (In other words, why do Japanese believe they need Japanese churches in Canada?)

Introduction

In this chapter I attempt to answer Question 1 with responses from my interviews and with church members and some observations of church services.

How do Japanese church members see the Japanese group?

In order to understand how participants see the Japanese group that is part of the churches, I am looking at discourses of Japanese culture and how people define being

Japanese and Japanese culture. Some church members described their culture as being half Japanese and half Canadian, especially the younger church members, such as first generation issei who came from Japan and have been in Canada for a while. When first asked, most members gave a quick answer to the question, “what is your culture,” and simply distinguished their culture as “Japanese culture.” However, as I asked more questions about culture, some participants, especially younger church members, suggested that “their” culture was more than just Japanese culture.

For example, when I asked 24 year-old Amy (agent), the daughter of Pastor

Joshua (agent) of City Japanese Church, who emigrated from Japan to Canada ten years ago, she gave the typical response.

Interviewer: What is your culture? A: Japanese culture.

According to her response, she believes her culture is “Japanese culture” which seemed to suggest that she doesn’t see herself as “having” other cultures. However, when

I asked her to define culture, she stated “I’m not too Japanese…” and “I have half

Canadian culture and half Japanese culture.”

T: Can you define Japanese culture? A: Define Japanese culture (whispers) I’m not too Japanese cause I live in Canada for almost 10 years or 11 years, so I think I have half Canadian culture and half Japanese culture, but mhmm.

For her, she believes that living in Canada (before she became an adult, which meant she attended high school in Canada) has resulted in having both Japanese and

Canadian culture. In contrast to most of the other members that mentioned being half

Canadian and half Japanese, Ted, who is 39 years old and born in Toronto and raised in

Japan, went a step further and suggested that everyone had their own idea of Japanese culture.

“Every Japanese people have their own idea of their culture and they always preserve it by their own. And uh, that’s gonna stay, that’s, uh that’s usually preserved uh in their uh, in themselves, so.”

Ted’s comment demonstrates that beliefs about culture are also personal since he states that Japanese people have their own idea of culture (Hall, 1993, p. 356; Appadurai,

1996; Connell & Gibson, 2003; Pennycook, 2007). Other members offered descriptions that described Japanese culture as being “carried” by church members from Japan.

For example, one member, Mary, who came to Canada as an adult in 1982, whose husband is Japanese and speaks Japanese at home, described Japanese people as

“carrying” Japanese culture in Canada.

Interviewer: Ok, um how do the church members value culture here at church? M: I think people Japanese living in still in Canada, still they have their own, like they are carrying everything from Japan. So, it’s very hard to evangelize, no god, they are saying no religion because religion in Japanese lots of bad things happen like a cult, so in the news, so no no religion.”

She stated, Japanese people living in Canada “still they have their own,” and that they are carrying “everything” from Japan. While Japanese are connected simply because of sharing Japanese culture and language, as she indicated, some Japanese don’t want to talk about religion because it is viewed as being something bad in Japan. So, as she states,

Japanese people arrive in Canada with “everything” from Japan, even the bad, and as a result, she sees them as being hard to evangelize.

Sophia also described “carrying culture.”

Interviewer: So, can you define Japanese culture? S: Like, Japanese culture is like the old time things, and then we still carry on until now things. Like uh, beautiful things, like kimono, or those old time, and still everybody loves it, and then they follow the way they…demo, I don’t know…

For Sophia “carrying” culture means carrying beautiful things, like kimono, and the things that ‘still everybody loves it.” So far, Amy and Ted have told us that they are half Canadian and half Japanese and that they have their own ways, while Sophia has brought in the stereotype of being Japanese with clothing. These are personal points of view that describe their experiences. Also, Japanese church members believe that their

Japanese culture is from Japan because they are bringing “everything” from Japan, although it is not clear what “everything” means. Additionally, Mary identifies “Japanese living in Canada” as “they” (Gumperz, 1982), which seems to indicate that for her, while

Japanese church members are Japanese, as Christians they perceive themselves as being different than non-Christian Japanese, as we will see in the sections to come. To describe the place from which they “carry” Japanese culture, Mountain Japanese Church, Kim, who is 46 years old, came to Canada as an adult, and has been in Canada for 17 years stated:

Japan is very strong culture, and also its ocean, only the island, Japanese is an island. I know north to south it’s a big difference, but still ocean protect the culture I think. That’s why I think Japanese is much different [from other cultures] and also not much open, [not] easy to get another country’s culture, I feel.

This is a very direct statement that positions Japan as being different than the rest of the world in many ways. For example, from her perspective, Japan has “strong culture” and because Japan is an island, she believes the culture is “protected,” although she does not state from what. She also describes Japan as being “different” and “not much open” and “[not] easy to get another country’s culture.” On these terms Kim perceives that it has been easier for Japan to remain different, or at least for Japanese people, to have reasons to believe it is “different” and “not much open”. Just in terms of these stated beliefs about geography, this also demonstrates the impact of “island culture,” which is a common phenomenon that demonstrates the role that geography can play in cultural beliefs and practices (Schein, 2010; Triandis & Suh, 2002). Essentially, geographical location is used to describe Japan as being separated from the rest of the world, which has meant that because it is an island, historically it has been harder to be influenced by other cultures.

I asked Lisa, who is 27, a university student, and arrived in Canada in 2011 after living in Seattle as a young adult for a year with a host family. She represents the younger generation who experienced English speaking language and culture before she was an adult and that experience has impacted her beliefs about being Japanese. She is a member of River Japanese Church, and when I asked her what her culture is, she explained differences by positioning Japanese as “we” against “Canada or U.S.” as “they” and she gave the example of politeness and referenced the history of the samurai, which is a

88 historical context and part of the discourses that influence the language policy of the church (Johnson, 2009), as something that distinguished Japanese from others to which she stated, “We still kind of follow those beliefs”. For example:

Interviewer: What is your culture? L: Culture? Yeah. L: Japanese culture. They always say…we always say thank you, sorry, like we mostly say sorry, yeah we say sorry a lot. I noticed that people, like here in Canada or U.S., they usually say excuse me, like when they go somewhere, like excuse can I go through? But Japanese people say always sorry, I’m sorry, (laughs) like yeah, I think its politeness. That is culture too? L: I think so. Like maybe samurai thing. A samurai thing? L: Mhhm. Like what is a samurai thing? L: They, like there were samurai a long time ago, and they, they’re um, faith, faith, like something they have in their mind, heart, soul, we still kind of follow those beliefs. Is this Japanese culture? L: I think so.

Lisa positions herself as being part of the Japanese culture with ‘we’ even though she started with ‘they’ (Gumperz, 1982), which means that she still thinks that she is part of the Japanese community but could also be part of the Canadian culture (as she believes her identity is changing). While Lisa sees herself as changing, the ‘we’ that Lisa is a part of is described by Pastor Jim who speaks about Japan in terms of nation(al), culture, and language.

Interviewer: Is language and culture related? J: Language and culture. Uh, Japanese language and culture. Yeah, Japanese has a Japanese culture related, yeah I think. Interviewer: Do you have any examples? J: Examples? Uh, Japanese culture. So, Japanese [people] and its [their] uh its national [nation], and uh how can I say, its Japanese people and culture how related each other, it’s just like uh um family, how families goes daily life, and that's really, Japan has a special culture. Japanese has a special, maybe another country also, Japanese has a special culture.

Interviewer: And the language is used for this? Important for this? J: Uh, I think beyond languages Japanese culture. Japanese has Japanese culture, so it comes from languages also. But, Japanese only Japanese related to the culture, so and along with that, alongside, language also, is connected.

Pastor Jim spent 12 years as an adult pastoring a church in the United States before he returned to Japan. After being in Japan for “a while” and pastoring a church during that time, he came to Canada in 2011 to be pastor of River Japanese Church.

In the text above, he begins by stating “national” to refer to the nation of Japan, but he realizes he needs to rephrase (Urban, 1996, p. 21), so he thinks of a way to say it without using “national”, but his rephrasing appears to define “how can I say” in reference national (of “nation”). He explains what he means by saying (the nation of)

Japanese people is related to culture and uses an analogy to describe Japan as a "family" and then he states three times, Japan “has a special culture,” and he states that other countries are special, which suggests they are different. He verifies this apparent difference when he links Japanese language with Japanese culture as “the only language related to Japanese culture.”

Similarly, City Japanese Church member, Jun (agent), who was educated in Japan and came to Japan as an adult in 2006 with her Canadian English-speaking husband, whom she believes speaks Japanese fluently (as a second language), described the link between language and culture:

Yeah, so language is really important part of the culture I think. Yeah. So some people wants to experience and understand in the other language but I think kind of little bit impossible. So, if you want to understand Japanese culture the people has to learn Japanese. I think so. Deeply.

This perception demonstrates the beliefs that both Japanese and non-Japanese people have little chance of understanding Japanese culture unless they learn Japanese

“deeply,” which means that they have to learn Japanese (the language of the Japanese community that is connected to culture), while Japanese people believe they are the only ones who are able to make others understand the culture. However, she does say that, if there is a chance of understanding Japanese culture at all, learning Japanese language is the way to understand Japanese culture and Japanese people. However, as we will see in the next section, pastors and church members demonstrated beliefs about Japanese as a mother-tongue, (this is the term used by Pastor Jim instead of “first language”) that suggest that Japanese culture is perceived as being only for Japanese people.

True to the discourses of kokusaika and nihonjinron, which are examples of discourses that engender and perpetuate the language policy of the church (Johnson,

2009) and suggest a disallowance of internal variation and homogenous views of

Japanese people (Befu, 2009, pp. 24-27), many pastors and members distinguished their culture as being different than Canadians and the rest of the world. However, some

Japanese church members demonstrated complex views about believing they were half

Japanese and half Canadian, while others suggested that culture was personal and defined by each person (Canagarajah, 2004). Yet, as Pastor Jim stated, they also seemed to believe that Japanese culture is “special” in terms of one nation, one language, and one culture, and saw themselves as sharing history and beliefs (e.g., “samurai” mind, heart, and soul) that are part of the discourses that engender and perpetuate the language policy of the church (Johnson, 2009).

Beliefs About the Importance of Mother-tongue Japanese

Many Japanese church members share strong beliefs about Japanese as a mother- tongue language. Consistent with beliefs that suggest Japanese are a homogenous people

91 group, Pastor Jim stated that Japanese language is very important for members of the church “to communicate and to share the experience and understand the meaning of things.” For example:

Japanese culture. Um, members of our church, they value Japanese culture, that’s why they have separate services. Yeah, they respect Japanese style and Japanese languages. And it’s like a life, it's a life to them. Also, language is very important to communicate and to share the experience and to understand the meaning of things. So, even though they speak bilingual languages they have to know the original idea. Not, second idea. Just first idea, yeah, they have to make sure of the meaning.

Pastor Jim really emphasizes that his members value Japanese culture. He begins by talking about the members of the church, which he defined later in the interview as

“one church, and two congregations,” which includes both Japanese congregation members and English congregation members. As he states, he believes members of the church (from both congregations) value Japanese culture. Pastor Jim’s view is that those who are not Japanese, cannot understand “original idea,” which seems to mean from his perspective, that the first-language concept or the idea that a “mother-tongue” speaker would have more meaning to a person than an L2 concept. This belief presupposes that languages are pure and homogenous and subsequently more meaningful to L1 speakers than to L2 speakers, and as a result, this view appears to be ideological (Blommaert,

1999) or learned since it is contrary to observable characteristics of language practices that demonstrate that languages are not pure to begin with. However, for Japanese, even though who see themselves as becoming Canadian to varying degrees, this ideology of pure language is very strong. Interestingly, this view is also consistent with the belief that

“many Japanese people believe that there are characteristics of the Japanese race which are not shared by any other racial group, and this belief is an important element of their

92 cultural identity” (Yamada-Yamamoto & Richards, 1999, p. 53), because only native

Japanese speakers understand “the original idea” stated in Japanese. Similarly, Sophia also stated that Japanese is important for Japanese church members to understand “a lot”.

Interviewer: Do the members affect the language used in the church? S: Like? Interviewer:[Do]Members choose the language of the church? S: Oh, Japanese I think, they choose Japanese to speak, and then they wanna use Japanese to make them understand a lot, people who come to church tabun.

Sophia stated Japanese church members choose Japanese language (their mother tongue) so they can understand a lot and be a part of a culturally familiar group. Similarly,

Pastor Jim stated that the language reaches the people “precisely.”

Interviewer: Is there an idea in mind you can think of just for and example? J: Japanese culture? Interviewer: For the Christian, where they need to understand this original idea in the church in Japanese? J: For example, Bible. When we talk about the Bible. They understand Japanese better than English. And it’s clear, and it’s precise, and it’s understanding to their heart. So, that’s reaching people precisely.

As the excerpt demonstrates, Pastor Jim referred to the importance of mother tongue when talking about the Bible. For him, for Japanese people who speak Japanese as a mother tongue, are challenged in English and less able to be “clear” and “precise” and able to gain understanding “to their heart.” For Pastor Jim, Japanese is first and English is second and the impact of each language for the Japanese as mother-tongue speakers follows the same order. Pastor Jim continued and described the church as a learning environment where in addition to understanding, it is important that Japanese as mother tongue speakers learn in Japanese language because it means they can “be themselves” and “understand clearly and deeply,” and because Japanese are unable to relax and become tense when learning in a language other than Japanese in Canada. For example,

J: Mmm, our Japanese, it’s Japanese school, uh Japanese um church, so I think it’s very important for them to be themselves and to understand clearly and deeply in Japanese. Interviewer: Understand what? J: Understand Bible, a message. Interviewer: And you said they can be themselves in that place, that means other places they cannot be themselves? J: Maybe. Interviewer: How so? J: Maybe they are not relaxed because they are tense to understand different language. Interviewer: In Canada, or? J: In Canada.

Similarly, Patty from Mountain Japanese Church, suggested that facilitating

Japanese for Japanese church members allows them to “feel at ease.’

Interviewer: How do the members affect the language of the church? P: I think they will. uh, Because we have a Japanese service, I think they feel at ease when they come to church and listen to the message in Japanese.

Feeling at ease in this sense seems to be a result of being a part of a familiar ethno-linguistic community. In contrast, the importance of Japanese as a mother tongue needed for understanding seemed to be different depending upon the age of the church members. For example, Mark, who came to Canada as an adult 20 years ago demonstrated the following views:

Interview: So do the members here, do they decide the language? Or does uh… M: That’s why you know, Pastor Joshua say, everybody young people young guy speaking perfect Canadian English speaking. Hearing no problem. That’s why ok young people move to the English room. Old people can live in the Japanese language room. Separate that’s ok. That’s good (laughs).

Mark stated, “Pastor Joshua say, everybody young people” are speaking “perfect”

English and that they have “no problem” with English in terms of “hearing”. However,

Mark stated that “old people can live in the Japanese language room” presumably because, contrary to the younger generation, especially those who began living in Canada

94 before they were adults, Japanese church members who began living in Canada as adults are more comfortable with Japanese than English. In this sense, older people seem be the

“real” Japanese and the ones who carry the real Japanese tradition, while the younger generations, particularly after living in Canada for a while, seem to be more conflicted in terms of being half Canadian and half Japanese (as stated). Interestingly, Pastor Joshua’s statements concurred with Mark’s statement as he does see the younger generation as able to speak English to varying degrees. Amanda, pastor Joshua’s daughter, who began living in Canada when she was only 8 years old and was educated in English in Canadian schools, whose first language is Japanese shares Mark’s view.

Interviewer: Um how do the members affect the language of the church? A: Mmm. I guess I could say younger people are likely to speak English whereas older people would be speaking in Japanese, I guess.

Amanda and Mark represent both young and older generations and for both of them, their first language is Japanese. Although they have an age difference, i.e. a generational difference, they seem to agree that the younger generation at City Japanese

Church is “likely to speak English.”

Overall, we see that while Pastor Jim and other church members believe mother tongue Japanese allows Japanese church members, typically those who came to Canada as adults, to feel “at ease” as they believe it is “sweet” and important for “them” (people who speak Japanese as a first language) to “clearly” and deeply” understand in Japanese because they believe that mother tongue language is more clear and more precise. This is what Blommaert (1999, p. 28) found in the “theory of the natural” ideology, which is the belief that humans were divided into “natural linguistic groups,” such as in the Bible story about Babel, and that a person’s first language is “natural” for them and is, as a

95 result, superior for them when comparted to additional languages in terms of comprehension and understanding. However, we also see from Amanda, Mark, and

Pastor Joshua, a belief that younger generations are more likely to speak English and that older generations prefer Japanese while at church.

So, concerning the future of Japanese churches, this means that younger generations, particularly those who came before they were adults, will acquire English and, as Mullins (1984) points out, they will often intermarry with non-Japanese, typically

English speaking Canadians and less able to lead Japanese ethnic church because they become more Canadian. As a result, as we will see, Japanese churches in this study are aimed at legitimizing first generation Japanese people living in Canada who first came as adults and who feel strongly tied to their mother tongue and about carrying their Japanese language and culture. In addition, Japanese ethnic churches in this study are also aimed at evangelizing Japanese people who are in Canada temporarily because as Melanie suggested, it is easier to reach them when they are away from Japan. In either case, there is an emphasis upon being a facility for the first generation Japanese people who arrived as adults, which means, as we will see, that Japanese ethnic churches must continue to be led by first generation Japanese leaders, which is why both Mountain Japanese Church and River Japanese Church have consistently recruited their pastors from Japan, and why

Pastor Joshua, who came to Canada as an adult and started a Japanese ethnic church, is able to facilitate a space for first generation Japanese people.

Mother Tongue and English in Canada

While beliefs about mother tongue are important to Japanese ethnic church members, many church members suggested that most of daily life in Canada must be

96 done in English. However, there were some who stated that they were able to continue speaking mostly Japanese in most contexts of their daily lives, such as for the Mountain

Japanese Church community who, because of their tightly knit small-town community of

Japanese people, were able to support one another to the degree that some church members had little contact outside of the Japanese community for long periods of time, as we will see.

Members stated that daily life in Canada includes: going shopping, going to the hospital, and talking with neighbors, which indicates “orders of discourse” (i.e., a social structuring of semiotic difference in terms of social ordering of relationships amongst different ways of making meaning) (Fairclough, 2003) in terms of languages, such as when English is preferred in different contexts. Except for Pastor Beth, who was able to use Japanese as an employee of the Mountain Japanese Church since other church members assisted her with her English needs in terms of speaking to the leaders of the host church and other churches, for many church members, English was perceived as necessary for survival because nearly all church members stated that they used English in the workplace and in university classrooms in Canada, although John, Jun, Kim, Koko, and Nana, stated that sometimes they used Japanese at work with Japanese co-workers, while working at a sushi restaurant, and teaching Japanese. Mark stated he used English at work, but he felt it was “no good.”

Interviewer: So, what language do you use for work? M: That’s English. English is the language I’m speaking, but still no good (laughs).

In this statement, Mark means that he does not possess a good competency in

English.

However, in the town where Mountain Japanese Church is situated, Japanese members seemed to have the option to remain isolated because the population is large enough, which meant some members were able maintain predominantly Japanese language practices. One Mountain Japanese Church member, Mary, stated, when she came to Canada she was eight months pregnant and had a baby just after arriving, so she stayed at home and used Japanese almost exclusively.

Similar to the isolated experiences of Mountain Japanese Church members where

English was not a tool for survival, the pastor of Mountain Japanese Church, Beth, stated she still speaks almost all Japanese and very little English, which is why a large portion of our interview was conducted in Japanese, (more than any other participant I interviewed). For her, Japanese as a mother tongue was not optional, it was essential which was intriguing to me since somehow, during her nearly twenty years of living in the town where the Mountain Japanese Church is situated, she was able to avoid or resist acquiring English even though she also admitted English was necessary for daily life. For example, Pastor Beth stated she uses English in public spaces where normative language practices are required, “when shopping, at the hospital, and when speaking to people in her neighborhood,” [translated from: Shoppingu, hospitaru, and uh, Kinjo no hito to o hanashiteru suru toki ni desu ne…] and then she says, “but I can’t speak English…so when I answer the phone, I say moshi-moshi” (translated from: Demo, kono toki shaberanai, sore to denwa de ne, moshi moshi]. The coordinating conjunction “demo” best translated as “but” (Onodera, 2004, p. 57) is used to negate her previous statement that she can use English, and it reinforces her belief about herself that she is minority

Japanese speaker in an English dominant society in Canada. The dominance of English in

Canadian society in terms of “orders of discourse” (i.e., “a social structuring of semiotic difference” in terms of social ordering of relationships amongst different ways of making meaning) (Fairclough, 2003; 2001, p. 6) was typically expressed with regard to the workplace, which is perhaps the most crucial place that requires subscription to normative language and culture since performance results in earning income. Similarly,

Sophia stated, for the first five years:

“I was just living in the Japanese culture in Canada. So, which is no good. It takes five years to start to close to English…I didn’t speak English because I always hung out with Japanese people, and Japanese people helped me.”

Interestingly, her comments suggested that delayed acquisition of English was

“no good,” which demonstrated an “integrationist” view (Yamada-Yamamoto &

Richards, 1999, p. 53), because she believed it is good to acquire English, although since she had come to Canada, she still preferred being a part of a Japanese ethnic church community rather than an English church community.

Interestingly, Mary from Mountain Japanese Church, stated that there were reasons why she did not speak Japanese in public, because, as she stated, “some people” don’t like to hear foreign languages. For example:

M: Some people, they don't like to hear other languages. My work, I was told by my boss, there are two Japanese, me and Noriko is working in the same work place, and we are told, because she thinks, maybe she’s only she works only this hospital, never been to any other place, so her character too, maybe, you know, her parents never been abroad or something, so she told us when at work, when break time you can speak in Japanese. But seems like bother her we speak Japanese.

Mary’s experience in the workplace seems to be indicator of why members of the

Japanese ethnic church community described the church as “sweet,” and as we will see

99 later, as an “oasis,” since it facilitates both Japanese language and culture and encouragement through Christian religious practices and experiences.

Overall, church members suggested that, particularly in the workplace and in university classrooms, most of daily life in Canada must be done in English. Church members stated they did not see their English as being very good, but they still had to use it, although some were able to use both Japanese and English in workplaces that included sushi restaurants and Japanese language teaching. Interestingly, there were some who were able to avoid using English in most cases, such as Pastor Beth, Mary, and Sophia, as a result of being within the Japanese community.

Beliefs About Being Bilingual

Concerning the use of both English and Japanese languages, most Japanese church members who were born in Japan, young and old, stated that they believe being bilingual in Canada means being able to speak two or three languages and they perceived that Canadian bilinguals usually speak English and French in Canada. According to

Budach, Roy, & Heller (2003), bilingual researchers in sociolinguistics suggest that

Canadians tend to regard bilingualism “as the ability to speak English and French as two distinct linguistic systems,” which is not what bilingualism means (Roy, 2010, p. 545).

Michel, from Mountain Japanese Church, who came to Canada as an adult 12 years ago when she was 21, suggested that bilingual means “people who understand two language,” and interestingly, members who were born in Japan and are raising their children in

Canada see their children as being bilingual because, as Sophia from Mountain Japanese

Church stated, “they can switch in head, in their heads, to when you use that language.”

For these children who have grown up in two or more “worlds”, their bilingual identity is

100 often a natural and stable phenomenon and it does not mean rejecting the minority language and culture although some mothers did suggest that for their children the rejection of Japanese did occur (Gérin-Lajoie, 2011, p. 7; Grosjean 1982; Heller, 1988;

Myers-Scotton, 1993; Poplack, 1980). While most members with whom I spoke were ethnically Japanese who immigrated to Canada when they were adults stated they were not bilingual, most members were able to participate in a long conversation with me in

English, which included moments of code-switching as they seemed to gather their thoughts in their first language, and stated that they use English to work in Canada, perhaps proving they could at least coexist and renegotiate in both or more worlds (Heller,

1999). Interestingly, and beyond the practice of bilingual language communities in daily life, Japanese church members who are from Japan and speak Japanese are minorities who “have no official status, their languages are not recognized as national languages, and members of these groups must learn the majority language in order to interact with the majority linguistic group” (Grosjean, 1982, p. 24). Perhaps this minority status plays a role in the view that they have of themselves in Canada because as stated above, most members who were born in Japan and who came to Canada as adults, did not see themselves as being bilingual. Descriptions about what it means to be “bilingual” demonstrated the way they felt positioned as minorities.

For example, members from City Japanese Church stated that, if they were bilingual (which most stated they did not believe they were), being bilingual means

“choosing”, “useful”, and “no problem” when living in Canada. Members from Mountain

Japanese Church stated they are “not quite”, “kind of” or “not really” bilingual because “I can’t talk like Canadian…only like simple sentence, simple English.” This is the

101 monolingualism view, or the two separate system views that exist in Canada and in the world where code switching, or not being able to speak like a native speaker, means that they are not bilinguals. Mark, stated:

“Yeah, everything’s you know, I think everything no problem [for] bilingual people.”

Since members like Mark do not see themselves as being Canadian, their language practices and beliefs about themselves are connected to the way they see themselves, which is as Japanese minorities in Canadian society (Roy, 2010; Gajo, 2000).

Many believe they are not bilingual because they didn’t speak English “naturally” or “perfectly.” For example, John, from City Japanese Church who arrived in Canada as an adult when he was 23, after living for a year in Seattle, stated:

“Bilingual is, well I don’t feel like I am bilingual, but I use English and Japanese, so I think bilingual is like the person who can speak the language, two languages in fluency, naturally, I guess.”

John states, “I don’t feel like I am bilingual,” but he acknowledges he is able to use English. He also uses the term “fluency” and “naturally” which refers to being able to speak with a high competency. This “feeling” is consistent with the Grosjean (1982, p.

269) who suggested that bilinguals often feel that they do not know one or the other language, when in fact, Grosjean mentions that being bilingual is to being able to use any language, in different contexts, for different purposes. In the case of the Japanese community in this study, it is also because of the way they see Japanese as being a “pure” and standard language, which means they probably see English as “pure” and standard language, which demonstrates that they do not understand the complexity of being bilingual, or at least they have very high expectations that result of in seeing themselves as not bilingual. City Japanese Church member Nana (agent), who came to Canada when

102 she was as an adult 17 years ago when she was 23, who seemed to speak English very well, and who is married to an English speaking Canadian, gave an interesting response.

Interviewer: Are you bilingual? N: No. Interviewer: Why not? N: Because I don’t understand English perfectly. Interviewer: Do you understand Japanese perfectly? N: Um, I think, I don't know perfectly, but yeah, almost 100 percent.

I felt compelled to understand what Nana meant by “perfectly” because clearly, as

I had talked with her several times over the course of a couple of years, it was my opinion that she was a very fluent English speaker. As demonstrated, I wanted to understand her view of “perfectly,” particularly because even as native speakers, we constantly break the rules of speaking perfectly, in terms of grammar, and we are always learning “our” language because languages, by nature, are constantly shifting and incurring loss

(Ricento, 2006), which means we never actually speak perfectly. So, where did this idea of needing to speak “perfectly” come from? While it has many origins, it also comes from the notion of one nation, one language, one culture as demonstrated in kokusaika and nihonjinron and in other discourses that engender and perpetuate the language policy of the church (Johnson, 2009), as stated in previous sections of this research, where the belief is that, in order to be Japanese, one has to be perfect in Japanese, or in terms of being an English speaker, one has to speak English perfectly, so if I have to speak

Japanese perfectly to be Japanese, I probably have to speak English perfectly to be called

Canadian. Also, Grosjean (1989) suggests that it is impossible to have native-like competence in two or more languages because they expect themselves to have native-like competency in two languages. Interestingly, Nana stated that she did not speak Japanese

“perfectly”, but stated confidently that she spoke Japanese with almost one hundred

103 percent accuracy. In particular, the word “perfectly” and the apparent need to speak perfectly or else, is part of the Japanese cultural ideology that is embedded in Japanese education and carried out by Japanese people, which is an example of what Blommaert

(2010) suggests as being ideologies produced as a result of historic decisions with normative intentions, which in this case, come from Japan’s language and education policies.

For example, when I asked members to describe Japanese culture, Paul, who was born and raised in Canada to two first generation Japanese parents, mentioned the typical stereotype associated with Japanese culture, which is, “the pursuit of excellence and efficiency and perfection.” While, these stereotypes are typical responses, there are elements of truth to them, which is why they have become stereotypes, as demonstrated by Nana’s belief in “perfectly” that stems of Japanese language and education policy. As a result, when it comes to speaking another language, for the Japanese person who was educated in Japan, the bar is set pretty high in terms of determining fluency. Even apart from the Japanese normative cultural ideology, bilinguals are often critical of their language competencies and often have negative self-judgments about themselves (Roy,

2010, p. 546). As Grosjean (1996) states, “some criticize their mastery of language skills, others strive their hardest to reach monolingual norms, others hide their knowledge of their “weaker” language, and most simply do not perceive themselves as being bilingual even though they use two (or more) languages in their everyday lives.”

Patty from Mountain Japanese Church suggested that the meaning of “bilingual” is different in Canada than in Japan. She stated, “So in Canada, when you say you have to be bilingual that means you have to be able to speak English and French, not English and

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Japanese in Canada.” So, while she sees herself as being fluent in English, she does not see herself as a bilingual person in Canada even though she says she speaks English and

Japanese fluently. When I asked if she is bilingual she stated, “In Canadian standards, no, but in Japanese standard, yes.” She views herself as not being bilingual by “Canadian standards” to say that she is bilingual by Japanese standards. Her view is interesting because she is the interpreter and translator for her Japanese church community, where church members told me that they view her as being bilingual. In addition, to her credit although contrary to her view of herself, Grosjean (1996) suggests that few bilinguals are proficient enough to be interpreters and translators.

In terms of opportunity, for church members being bilingual means “easy to get a job,” “more communication the people,” because “this town is an English town.” By default, if bilingual means these things, then church members, who believe they are not bilingual, do not often view themselves as having these opportunities, which is a major disadvantage in a country where diversity and multiculturalism is promoted through policies, although not necessarily experienced to the fullest degrees. As a result, their view of not being bilingual suggests that the Japanese ethnic church is where members feel “at ease” as they prefer their own Japanese language and culture and are legitimized through language planning and policy (Johnson, 2009) processes in terms of recognition of their cultural and linguistic identity, as “mother-tongue” speakers in the Japanese church community.

In contrast to Mountain Japanese Church and City Japanese Church members’ beliefs that they are not bilingual, River Japanese Church members stated that they perceive themselves as being bilingual and that being bilingual means being able to speak

105 two or more languages and having more “flexibility.” “Flexibility” means switching back and forth between congregations and/or having opportunities while in another country (as a visitor or immigrant), because one is able to speak the language of the people and have

“more options for finding a job.” For example, I had the following dialogue with Bob, a

River Japanese Church member who speaks both Japanese and English and whose parents are from Taiwan and Japan and who claims to be bilingual, speaking both English and Japanese.

Interviewer: What does it mean to be bilingual? B: That’s a good question. Uh, I guess it’s more flexible in a way. So someone who is bilingual, what does that mean? B: It means, uh, they have more flexibility when they go to some other country, or there’s more option for finding a job.

For the members of the bilingual “two congregation” River Japanese Church, their views of perceiving themselves as bilingual may be a reflection of their positive bilingual experience because all three of them came to Canada as young adults, and

Pastor Jim had spent 12 years in the United States prior to coming to Canada. In any case, they preferred regularly attending the Japanese congregation service even when the

English option is very convenient, as in right down stairs. Perhaps the bilingual language planning and policy of the church has helped them to feel more comfortable when calling themselves bilingual, although, they were still committed to their Japanese congregation and service because, consistent with Pastor Jim’s strong beliefs about mother tongue, they stated that they were more comfortable using their mother tongue Japanese language.

Chapter 5 Summary

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In this chapter I have presented data to answer the question “What are the views of church members that assist in the construction of language policy de jure and de facto?” or “why do Japanese church members believe they need a Japanese ethnic church? The views that demonstrate why Japanese church members believe they need Japanese ethnic churches are complex and yet they demonstrate solidarity of the Japanese community to varying degrees. Pastors and members distinguished Japanese as being “special” and one nation, one language, and one culture. While pastors and church members also suggested that they share history and beliefs about being Japanese (e.g., spirit of the samurai), they also demonstrated complex views about themselves, such as believing that they were

“mixed” or half Japanese and half Canadian and that culture was personal and defined by each person (Canagarajah, 2004). However, since they have strong ties to their first language, it seemed to suggest that beliefs of being or feeling Canadian were possible for them, albeit from a Japanese language perspective.

Members who began living in Canada as adults tended to value Japanese language and culture more than younger generations who had come as children and grown up acquiring and being educated in English. Pastors and church members, who had come when they were adults, demonstrated beliefs that mother tongue is “sweet” and able to be understood “clearly,” “deeply,” and “precisely” in contrast to English as a second language, and these beliefs appear to be ideological (Blommaert, 1999). With the exception of Pastor Jim, who stated he was bilingual (although he stated strong beliefs in the importance of understanding in one’s mother tongue), perhaps because had spent 12 years in the United States and functioned as one of the leaders of a bilingual church of two congregations where board meetings were conducted in English, and Patty who

107 worked as a translator and interpreter at Mountain Japanese Church and still did not see herself as being bilingual in Canada, most pastors and church members, young and old, believed that they were not as proficient in English compared to Japanese, to the degree that they did not see themselves as being bilingual. This lack of perceived proficiency in

English, and preference for Japanese seems to indicate the need for churches that facilitate a Japanese language community because these churches are aimed at serving the language needs of first generation Japanese people who arrived in Canada as adults and live for various periods of time.

CHAPTER 6: DESCRIPTIONS OF LANGUAGE PLANNING AND POLICY IN JAPANESE ETHNIC CHURCHES

Question 2: In terms of language planning and policy, how do members describe the concept and development of Japanese ethnic churches? (In other words, what is the language planning and policy of a Japanese church?)

Introduction

In the following sections I address Question 2 by discussing views about: language planning, the goals of the church, Japanese ethnic church policy, open door policy, and English accommodations in Japanese ethnic churches.

Language Planning: What Do Church Members Think About It?

When asked if a language could be planned, some did not understand the question or the concept of language planning. For example, Patty from Mountain Japanese Church, and Anne from City Japanese Church did not understand the question:

Interviewer: Can the language of the church be planned? P: Can you, I’m not following your question.

Interviewer: And um, can language be planned? Anne: What’s that means?

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When I asked Pastor Joshua of City Japanese Church, if language could be planned (in the church) he stated:

Interviewer: Can language be planned [in the church]? PJ: Can language be planned? We need an interpreter.

Pastor Joshua repeated the question to consider it, perhaps because he struggles with English (as he and his family members stated), and then he referred to times when they would need an interpreter. City Japanese Church member Nana described her experience as a board member with Pastor Joshua, Melanie, Mark, and Jun, who meet regularly to discuss the planning and organization of City Japanese Church:

Interviewer: So, are you a board member? N: Yes. Interviewer: Ok. So what do you guys do for that? N: We talk about our plan. And we talk about problems in the church. And we try to solve what’s God’s will. Interviewer: So, what are plans that you talk about? N: Plans, talk about, making our church better? Interviewer: Any examples of plans? N: We just talk about, sometimes we just talk about what’s gonna happen next few weeks or this month, and what we need to do or prepare and pray.

She mentioned talking about general plans and problems in the church, and how they “try to solve what’s God’s will,” which means they pray together and use the Bible as a guide to solve problems in the church. Since she had described the types of planning that take place during board meetings, I wanted to know about language planning, so I asked if they discussed English and Japanese or if they plan for language in any way:

Interviewer: Is language, like English and Japanese ever discussed? Uh, do you have to plan for language in any way? N: When we have big event, we think about if we need translator or not.

Her comments were consistent with the Pastor Joshua’s and members of the other churches (since all three churches have needed interpreters at different times, although

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Mountain church member Mary, suggested they prefer not to invite non-Japanese people so they avoid the need of having an interpreter), as she referred to thinking about whether or not they “need a translator or not” for big events.

Nana continued talking about other (language) planning for the “next generation” program at City Japanese Church that I taught.

N: And, yeah, yeah, for youth we need to try to find somebody who is English speaker. It’s very difficult, but. Interviewer: Why, why would you need English? N: Because “next generation” kids they understand English better than Japanese. Most of them. Interviewer: Oh, your kids too? N: Yes. Interviewer: How do you know? N: Um, because they don’t understand well in Japanese. Interviewer: Oh, when you speak to them, or? N: Yeah, especially like Bible story, its more complicated in Japanese for them. So for them it’s easy to understand in English.

Nana described the reason why she believes it is important to include English instruction for the next generation group, which her teenage son attends, because as she stated, it is easier for the teenagers and young adults of the next generation to understand

Bible stories in English than Japanese.

While the younger generations may understand English more than Japanese (as stated by Nana), as we have seen in Chapter 5, first generation Japanese adults who came to Canada as adults prefer Japanese language.

Similarly, at River Japanese Church, as Pastor Jim stated in reference to the first generation Japanese adult members:

When we talk about the Bible. They understand Japanese better than English. And it’s clear, and it’s precise, and it’s understanding to their heart. So, that’s reaching people precisely

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This belief in the importance of mother tongue is interesting in the context of

River Japanese Church because it is part of an English congregation.5 According to pastor

Jim, the two linguistically different congregations have one group of board members from both congregations who conduct board meetings in English, which is later translated into Japanese, as Pastor Jim stated:

J: Uh, in board we just use English. If someway just it uh didn't get through, the meaning, they can be translated.

According to his statement, English is the predominant language used for planning in board meetings, and a translated Japanese text is created afterward and used to answer questions, which suggests that at the board-level (i.e., the meso-level of language planning and policy) the two congregations rely on English for language planning and working together. However, as Pastor Jim stated, other than the “joint service,” the church services are divided and monolingual.

J: Uh, yeah, joint service we could use both. And after the separate services, they use English only, and also Japanese side is Japanese only.

From my observations, when visiting (once during the time I collected interviews), the service began with a “joint service” in the downstairs area of the church where the

“two congregations” (as stated by Pastor Jim) gathered to worship by singing songs such as “As the deer,” which was presented on PowerPoint in both English and Japanese.

When the joint (worship) service was finished, the two congregations separated and I went with the Japanese congregation to their upstairs location in the church building. The

English speakers stayed downstairs where the joint service had just taken place. The

5 The church began as a Japanese church about 50 years ago. Over time, as a result of nissei, sansei, and yonsei (i.e., 2nd, 3rd, 4th) generations, an additional congregation emerged, which became its own church called Sanctuary English Fellowship. Both River Japanese Church and Sanctuary English Fellowship use the same church building, have a “joint service” before they separate for their own services, and are organized under one Board of directors. As I suggest, although Pastor Jim calls them two congregations, they appear to be two separate churches divided by different languages that share the same building. 111

Japanese service was conducted entirely in Japanese and began with singing Japanese worship songs with Japanese lyrics presented on PowerPoint. Following the Japanese worship service, the assistant pastor read the announcements. After the announcements, the sermon began. When the sermon was finished the congregation sung hymn 402 and a

Japanese song “God Bless You” which included English. The service as a “process” of language policy de facto (Johnson, 2009) was particularly interesting because it seemed as if they started an entirely new service without any cohesion to the joint (worship) service and singing service almost everyone (who showed up on time) had attended. I began to wonder about the function of the “joint” service. It seemed that it was simply a gesture of togetherness without any bearing on the actual processes and goals of the

Japanese service to the extent that I probably could have missed the joint service and attended the Japanese service without ever feeling like I missed something.

Pastor Jim described one of the processes (Johnson, 2009) of creating policy de facto at River Japanese Church and stated:

J: When we have mixed congregation, mixed English speaking and Japanese speaking, so in that case, we use bilingual for both. Interviewer: Oh, simultaneous? J: No, not simultaneous, translating, and uh, so we use both and then it's a for the majority, we just focus on the majority, and then minority I can just pull up later what they spoke.

In this case, according to his statement, when there is a mixed congregation

(event), they will accommodate the language needs of the majority. Perhaps, if a Japanese speaker would come, then the Japanese congregation would likely be the majority. If an

English would come, then the English congregation would likely be the majority. Pastor

Jim gave another example of language planning as he stated that events at the church included both English and Japanese guest speakers for different events. He stated:

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J: Oh, so we usually give flyers and tell what languages will be spoken, so we put website or put flyers in English and Japanese, we both, and put and so, put introduction information, so when we speak up, when we invite guests, so whose, who speaker is, and who and what languages he speaks and we mentioned about it.

This stage in language planning that Pastor Jim is referring to (e.g., websites and flyers in English and Japanese) is a small example of “the mass mobilization and enlightened stage” when the “planned” event is advertised and the public is familiarized

(Bauldauf & Kaplan, 2007, p. 216).

Summary

While some members did not understand what language planning meant, pastors and members suggested that planning in Japanese ethnic churches was primarily concerned with providing interpretation and translation when English speakers came to visit. While the Japanese congregation is the focus of City Japanese Church board members, Nana stated that they needed to find someone (like me) who was an English speaker to teach the “next generation” group (usually children in their teens and twenties of Japanese church members) because they understood Bible teaching better in English.

At River Japanese Church planning for both congregations at the meso-level occurred in

English. However, while the two congregations operated together at the board level (i.e., meso-level), as I observed, the Japanese congregation was separated and lacked cohesion after the “joint service” as they separated into two monolingual church services at the micro-level of policy de facto.

Language Policy Goals6 of the Church

6 The term “goals” refers to the intentions and purposes of the church. 113

All three pastors stated that the main goal of the Japanese ethnic churches, i.e., the intention of the church language policy de facto (Johnson, 2009), is to use Japanese language to reach out to Japanese people in the community in order to share the Good

News of the Bible, or the Gospel in Japanese. Along with this main goal, for each church there were additional goals that reflected the members of the church.

Goals of River Japanese Church

At River Japanese Church, a church that Pastor Jim described as “two congregations, one church” because it consists of two linguistic groups, suggested that it is important to use Japanese language practices to facilitate a Japanese Christian community. For example, I asked Pastor Jim stated:

Interviewer: What is the goal of this church? J: Goal of this church is reaching out this community for Good News. And uh, reaching out people in need, that is our goal, to tell Gospel. Interviewer: Is language important to achieve that goal? J: I think Canadians, they need English, and Japanese people, they need Japanese, to reach out. Yeah, and so that's important.

As shown in chapter 5, again we see Pastor Jim’s strong beliefs about mother tongue (Blommaert 1999), and this time he describes his philosophy behind the language policy of the church, which is that Canadians need English and Japanese people need

Japanese. However, Pastor Jim also spoke about the church as demonstrating solidarity as two congregations “reaching out” together in both English and Japanese, as being a goal of the church:

J: Yeah, challenging is reaching out to people, um by Gospel and that's our goal, so and uh, English also and Japanese also. Interviewer: For the people who attend the church? J: Uh huh. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Interviewer: That’s the biggest challenge, how to reach them, or? J: Reaching them, also the congregation could also reach people. Interviewer: Oh, ok, equipping them?

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J: Yeah, yeah, to reaching out. That’s our goal.

Certainly, reaching out in both English and Japanese means that the English service reaches out in English and the Japanese service reaches out in Japanese as I mentioned earlier when I participated in the service.

River Japanese Church member Bob stated, the goal of the church is, “to invite

Japanese people to Christ, especially Japanese people because we have a Japanese pastor.”

Bob also stated, “the reason for having this church is to invite Japanese people…” By

Japanese people he means first generation Japanese people who came to Canada as adults, in addition to Japanese exchange students and workers from Japan whose mother tongue is Japanese and who often cannot speak English very well.

Goals of City Japanese Church

At City Japanese Church, a church where only the “next generation” service is in

English (as mentioned in the previous section), Pastor Joshua’s wife, Melanie, who partners with her husband in leading the church, shared a similar view that Japanese language is important for achieving the church’s primary goal of introducing Jesus Christ as Savior to Japanese people. Melanie’s statement demonstrates intertextuality (i.e., connections between texts and talk) (Fairclough, 2003) with the Bible by referencing

“Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.”

Interviewer: What is the goal of the church? M: You mean our church? To introduce Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. So to invite lots of Japanese, mainly Japanese people to our church and share our faith with them so they can know Jesus, too. Interviewer: So, to do that, how important is language? T: I think it’s very important because, uh, Japanese is our first language so it’s more easier to understand spiritual things than to understand in English, so I believe language is important.

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After stating the primary goal (i.e., to introduce Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord),

Melanie states the church’s philosophy about using Japanese language to achieve that goal. I asked Pastor Joshua if the goal of the church promoted Japanese culture at all, particularly because I was curious if language and culture could be seen as being potentially blurred with faith and Christianity. He stated Japanese culture has nothing to do with the goal:

Interviewer: Does it [the goal] express Japanese culture? does it show the necessity of promoting Japanese or English culture?. PJ: Sore wa, amari kankennai, kamo shiranai [trans. : that probably has nothing to do with it]. Interviewer: Nothing to do [with it]? PJ: Yeah.

However, like Pastor Jim, Pastor Joshua reiterated the belief in the importance of mother-tongue for deep and precise understanding, or ideology (Blommaert, 1999), and he stated that at City Japanese Church, language was very important for achieving the goal, because Japanese people need to understand the language to understand the Gospel.

For example, Pastor Joshua stated:

Interviewer: If the goal is to share the gospel, then how important is language? PJ: If people who listen the gospel, don’t understand the language, they cannot get the Gospel, so language is very important.

Here, the medium is stated as being an important element of delivering the message (Woods, 2004). Similarly, the majority of church members suggested that the goal of the church is to facilitate an environment where Japanese people with Christian faith can worship God together using Japanese language and invite Japanese people to church in hope that they will subscribe to faith in Christ. While the message, i.e., sharing about Christ is the main goal as expressed by pastors and members, subscribing to faith

Christ is not a requirement for attendance, although it is hoped for. On these terms, the

116 goal of the church supports a dual function, which is the implementation of policy that supports the message (i.e., Christianity), as Bible texts inform their church policy, and the implementation of policy that supports the medium (i.e., Japanese language). This means that through language planning, policy, and practice (Johnson, 2009), the Japanese ethnic church community has two functions, which are: to legitimize Japanese Christians, and to legitimize Japanese minorities in the dominant Canada population through facilitating a

Japanese church community.

The importance of Japanese language to achieve the goal of the church is demonstrated by the comments from a City Japanese Church member, John, who is in his twenties, although he came to Canada (and the U.S. prior) as an adult.

Interviewer: Oh, ok. Um, what is the goal of this church? J: Goal? Um, well the pastor said this year, let’s, we, uh know about Jesus more. Interviewer: That is the goal? J: Yes. For this year. Interviewer: So, if that is the goal, is language important to achieve that goal? J: Mmm, yes. I I used going to church, Canadian church, the pastor was Canadian, and he speak in English, I understand like 60 percent 50 percent. Right now [in the Japanese church], I can understand mostly, like 90 percent, 100 percent.

This statement again demonstrates the importance of the medium (Japanese language) used to promote the message (Christianity), and the belief in the importance of learning in Japanese when Japanese is a mother-tongue, in addition to the way mother tongue is an integral part of achieving the goal of the church.

Another aspect of the goal of the church is to reach out to people who are “living in the city” and will eventually go back to Japan. For example, in the following statement,

Melanie suggested that in Japan Japanese people are less open than when they are in

“foreign countries:

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Our church is a Japanese church, and especially we plant the church for the Japanese people who live in the city. We want to help them, we want to share Jesus to them. Because we believe that uh, [Japanese] people become more open when they are in a foreign countries than when they are in Japan because spirituality in Japan, but here [Japanese] people become more open to new things.

As Melanie stated, the goal of the church is to provide a place where Japanese people in the city can hear about Jesus (the message) in Japanese language (the medium), particularly because Japanese people “become more open to new things” in foreign countries. While the implication of her statement suggests that she believes that Japanese people become more open in foreign country, when I asked her, “How important is language [to achieve the goal (the message)], she echoed Pastor Jim’s mother-tongue comments (mentioned in the previous sections above) and stated that Japanese language was “very important” as a first language needed to understand “spiritual things”. For example, Melanie stated:

Interviewer: So, to do that [i.e., to achieve the goal of the church: “To introduce Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.”], how important is language? M: I think it’s very important because, uh, Japanese is our first language so its more easier to understand spiritual things than to understand in English, so I believe language is important.

Like other pastors and church members, Melanie echoes their views by suggesting that the dual nature of the primary goal of the church, which is the use of Japanese language as the medium needed for Japanese people to understand the message of

Christianity in terms of “spiritual things,” and that, along with others in the church, she believes Japanese people are more open the message (Christianity) when outside of Japan in a foreign country.

Goals of Mountain Japanese Church

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At Mountain Japanese Church, when I asked Sophia about the goal of the church, she stated, “I don’t know about the goal. But, maybe they are trying to get more

[Japanese] people to listen about Bible and then about Jesus, and then it’s good to get together at church for to, yeah, to share Jesus I think.” While there is some uncertainty, like other members of the church, Sophia suggested that the goal is to “get [Japanese] people” to come to church and learn about Jesus and the Bible. Mountain Japanese

Church member, Kim, who is the worship leader and works closely with the pastor, described the goal linked to the Bible (John 13:34-35) as being to love each other. She also described the church as being an “oasis”; a small community where members help one another. For example, Kim stated:

Goal for church…that’s uh, we are very small community, our not so big goal, but it’s just we love each other at the church, and we uh like spend time also uh, nan te iu na [trans. how do I say], we help each other and then just show love in the other [Japanese] people, hmm very small, but uh yeah, its uh yeah, and also easy to [invite Japanese] people [to] come in…: Yeah, I feel, more like uh oasis.

Kim described the church as a place where “we love each other,” and as a “small community” with a “not so big goal.” She emphasized the goal of loving one another (as seen in John 13:34-35), and also stated that goal is “also easy to [invite Japanese] people

[to] come in,” and she refers to the church as an “oasis,” which, is a metaphor that implies that the Japanese ethnic church members potentially see themselves as being in a

“big Canadian desert” taking refuge where is “sweet” (as she referred to the Japanese language in Chapter 5) at Japanese ethnic church communities. Kim went on to explain the primary goal of the church, which is to emphasize the message through the medium of Japanese. She describes the view of Pastor Beth and suggested that, in a spiritual sense,

119 there is also more to the church goal than simply gathering and caring for one another.

For example, Kim stated:

And uh, yes, uh, she feel [Japanese] people need uh uh she, [Japanese] people come to church, to we just want to worship, to we need uh water fall from God, but this is a kind of goal, but its uh [Japanese] people usually just fun to come to see the friends, this is not goal. Yeah, just [Japanese] people worship and to more uh need uh Jesus and God, it’s our everybody, but its uh, she she she always tell about the [Japanese] people, each [Japanese] people more need need not pastor Beth not the church friends.

In this statement, Kim used words and concepts to make intertextual connections

(i.e., connections between texts and talk) to the Bible, stating that Pastor Beth wants people to come to church to “worship” and to experience “water fall from God” (water is a symbol of the Holy Spirit of God, see John 3:5); this spiritual experience, that begins with the medium (Japanese language), and is part of the interaction with the message

(Christianity), is the actual goal. However, she stated, “…people usually just fun to come to see the friends, this is not the goal.” She acknowledges the potential for the medium to be more important than the message for some members. Similar to previous statements by Pastor Jim about the church as a place where church members use the medium

(Japanese) to learn the message (Christianity), which is a lifestyle that is aimed at learning how to practice Christian culture, where Jesus Christ is the “head of the church”

(see Colossians 1:18 and Ephesians 5:23), Kim suggested that the church is a place with the primary purpose of allowing people to worship God and have an spiritual experiences and that the church is not intended to be primarily a social gathering where Japanese people can meet and speak with other Japanese speaking people. Another interesting aspect of this statement is that the goal of Japanese ethnic churches applies specifically to

Japanese people, although when members such as Kim talk about the goal, they don’t

120 always explicitly say “Japanese people,” which is part of the “we” vs. “you” discourse

(Gumperz, 1982), which implies they are looking at Canadian society from an insider, as

Pastor Jim demonstrated and Koko of City Japanese Church stated in Chapter 5, “I’m in there,” which is a Japanese-centric perspective even while being “inside” of Canada, and potentially having “mixed” or half Canadian culture (Canagarajah, 2004). Members are on the “inside” of the Japanese community (e.g., members of the “closed group”

Facebook page), which, in terms of a being a space, “the inside” has been described by

Mountain Japanese Church members as an “oasis,” where members are looking outside at the “others” in Canada. This “insider” view is also demonstrated in the following dialogue I had with Mary concerning the goal of the church, a Mountain Japanese Church member, where she answered my question without specifying who. When I asked again, because I wanted to make sure, since her first response was nearly inaudible, she changed her answer. In her second answer she specified to whom she was referring, which was

“Japanese” people, Mary stated:

Interiewer: Ok. Um, what is the goal of the church? M: That maybe you can ask Beth sensei. Interviewer: Yeah. M: Um, well spread the Gospel (softly spoken). Interviewer: Sorry, what is the goal of the church? You said? I didn’t hear you. M: Because, well, Japanese our Japanese church is only one in a – cuz we spread the good news to Japanese.

Mary’s statement demonstrated an intertextual connection to the Bible

(Fairclough, 2003) by referencing “good news,” (see Mark 16:15) which demonstrated the emphasis message (Christianity) while also indicating Japanese as the medium or instrument used to present the message.

Summary

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Overall, the Japanese ethnic churches in this study had the same primary goal, which was to use Japanese language as the medium to reach out to Japanese people and share the message Good News of the Bible, or the Gospel in Japanese (Woods, 2004).

Mountain Japanese Church member Kim also stated that the church was like an “oasis” where the goal was to worship God using Japanese language and to love on another. At

River Japanese Church, while River Japanese Church was connected to an English congregation, as Pastor Jim demonstrated, the goals of the church were influenced by strong beliefs in the importance of understanding in mother tongue Japanese.

Views About Church Policy

For River and City Japanese Churches their websites are the meso-level spaces where they set the terms of policy for the goals and practices of the church (Johnson,

2009). As stated, Mountain Japanese Church only uses a Facebook page to communicate with its members, and the page is a “closed” group page that requires an invitation from a member to view the page.

Pastor Jim of River Japanese Church described the church’s webpage as, “Uh,

English and Japanese both. Bilingual.” However, after observing the webpage, it is mostly in Japanese with a link to the English congregation webpage, so it is actually two websites to represent two congregations. He also stated that the church had a policy, which was “reaching out to people.” Policy in this sense is de facto (in practice). For example:

Interviewer: Is there a church policy or like a bylaw to promote Japanese or English here? J: Of course they have, yeah. Interviewer: Ok, so this, uh, what is the policy at this church for language? J: Language. Still reaching out to people. Yeah, the same thing.

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Interviewer: In Japanese? J: In Japanese. English English. Interviewer: So, that is clearly written in the church policy? J: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pastor Jim’s response that begins with the discourse marker “of course,” suggests that reaching out to people is obvious to him and understood in terms of de facto policy.

Then, he re-confirms his belief in the importance of learning in the mother-tongue by stating “Japanese. English (for) English (speakers).” It is similar to the “everybody knows” or “covert” characteristics of language policy de facto as suggested by Schiffman (2012, p. 15). The policy of the Japanese church is not written and publically displayed (other than on the website and church program) as a policy document. Rather, the de jure (in law) policy is only recognizable when reading about the church on its website (if you can read in Japanese) or when attending the Japanese service (if you can understand

Japanese). Pastor Jim did not offer to show me an official document even though I asked if there was one (implying that I was interested in it), because to him it was “obvious.”

Interestingly, he stated there was “clearly written policy,” although the only available policy type of text was on the church websites of the two congregations and reiterated in his belief in monolingual ideology by saying “English [for] English [speakers].

Considering that the church websites (at River Japanese Church and Sunrise

English Fellowship) actually demonstrated the separation of both congregations, since they have two separate websites that are divided as a result of language differences, although they appear to share the same beliefs in church doctrine (one in English and one in Japanese) and be under the same church policy, it was interesting to consider this two- congregation one-church policy, because unlike other churches, where languages differences have resulted in schisms and divided churches (Shin & Park, 1988), the

123 division between River Japanese Church and Sunrise English Fellowship (i.e. the English congregation, which has its own name), was a result of necessity in terms of accommodating the Japanese and English language needs of church members. This belief in a bond between congregations who share the same policy where bilingual processes

(Johnson, 2009) result in a church of two congregations, was demonstrated in the comments of Pastor Jim, who stated that the website was “bilingual” (as stated above).

In contrast to the explicit statements on church websites that demonstrate meso- level church policies of River Japanese Church and City Japanese Church, policy at

Mountain Japanese Church was much less explicit because in terms of public documents and texts, Mountain Japanese Church only had a Facebook page which was not accessible unless a member of the page invited someone to join the “closed group.” Observing this page, as I have access as an invited guest, for the most part, the page is written in

Japanese and intended for Japanese readers. Although the page is a “closed group” and access is exclusively for members and invited guests, the policy de facto of the church (as stated by members in the Goals section above) is to facilitate a place of Christian worship for Japanese workers and tourists, and while non-Japanese people are welcome, language accommodations are not guaranteed. Pastor Beth stated:

B: Because I am a foreigner, I cannot speak English well. During the church service and fellowship time it is better to speak Japanese, because it is easier to understand. For meetings and counseling, Japanese is better because it is easier to understand.

[Translated from: Ano watashi gai no hito wa, eigo yoku dekimasen kara. Demo kono no naka hukaibubun o hanashi suru toki jibun no kangai o hanasu toki, yappari nihongo no hou ga, wakari yasui. Soudan, sore kara counseling o puru toki, demo yappari nihon no hou ga wari yasui te iu no arimasu ne.]

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Concerning policy at City Japanese Church, Pastor Joshua stated that City

Japanese Church has a website and a Facebook page where the meso-level policy and intentions of the church are written in both Japanese and English. However, in contrast to the dual websites of River Japanese Church and Sunrise English Fellowship, where each site is in either English or Japanese, and in contrast to the “closed group” Facebook page of the Mountain Japanese Church, the website at City Japanese Church has both Japanese and English versions, created and updated by Amanda (who describes herself as being bilingual), and the Facebook page (maintained my Melanie) is an open public page for anyone to view where the church provides updates concerning church activities and events. On these terms, at the meso-level of language policy of churches in this study,

City Japanese Church is the most bilingual because it has a bilingual website and the other churches do not. River Japanese Church may say they have a bilingual policy at the meso-level because they have two congregations (with the English congregation called

Sunrise English Fellowship), however, at the meso-level of language policy, since they have their own website and church service, they present themselves as being monolingual.

While City Japanese Church provides an English version of their website, which is aimed at accommodating English speaking family members of the church, since one of the goals of the church, as we will see, is to accommodate English for English speaking spouses of Japanese church members, in a separate service, similar to River Japanese

Church. While I was a participant, intermittently I participated as a teacher of this English service, which was held during the Japanese service in an adjacent room. Essentially, it was a completely different service with a different message, since I was given full control

125 to choose the lesson and Bible texts for each English service. After the service, we would join the Japanese service members and enjoy snacks and fellowship.

While Pastor Joshua admittedly struggles with English, his wife Melanie and daughters Amy and Amanda, who are bilingual in Japanese and English (although, as shown in Chapter 5, only Amanda stated she perceives herself as being bilingual), assist him with the English needs of the church. As a result, City Japanese Church is different than River and Mountain Japanese Churches, since it seems slightly more capable of accommodating an English policy and practice (presupposing that River Church is interpreted as operating as a homogenous church that is separate from Sunshine English

Fellowship) because it is able to accommodate (as my experience demonstrates) because there are English spouses that participate from time to time, and because there is a perceived need to accommodate the English speaking family members of the church.

However, while this may be, Melanie (agent) stated, “especially we plant the church for the Japanese people who live in the city,” and that “We don’t restrict. But, maybe somehow that’s not our expectation.”

Since most members attended as a result of the Japanese accommodations of the churches, members of all three churches seemed to be aware of the basic meso-level language policies of the churches and the goals of the church. River Japanese Church member, Bob, confirmed his awareness and the de facto nature of the policy. For example:

Interviewer: And um, is there a policy in this church to promote Japanese or English, do you know? B: Uh, well they used to have one, but I don't remember in detail now. Interviewer: Written? B: Well, it’s not written but it’s just, well because before it was one church and uh the reason for having this church is to invite Japanese people as many as possible

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to Christ, but since we have a lot of second generation Japanese, so we kind of naturally divided to English and Japanese and I guess that was unavoidable.

As Bob stated, second generation Japanese are the reason for division between

Japanese and English speaking congregations. Second generation or “nissei” tend to be born in Canada or grow up in Canada to the degree that English is their dominant language. As I have stated, this division between first and second generations, i.e., between Japanese and English speakers, is very similar to the division at City Japanese

Church where the second generation is facilitated with an English “next generation” service. However, the differences between City Japanese Church and River Japanese

Church are that City’s English service is just a section of the City Japanese Church in the form of a “next generation” service in English given as an alternative to the main

Japanese service, and at River Japanese Church, the English service is actually a separate congregation or church called Sunrise English Fellowship, although as I have stated

Pastor Jim described it as part of River Japanese Church, and collectively as “one church and two congregations.”

In his statement, Bob also suggested that the policy is “not written,” which means it is believed to be de facto and ultimately understood. The division between congregations is also suggested to be an understood aspect of the church’s language policy where the goal (Johnson, 2009) is to provide for the language needs of both

Japanese and English speakers, which happened “naturally” and was “unavoidable” in a grassroots fashion (Hornberger, 1994). On these terms, the divided congregations and the policy de facto of the church is also suggestive about the reality of the “open door” policy of the church, which is that they are not really open to non-Japanese language practices.

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While members from all three churches told me that the each church welcomes anybody, and that events such as “udon Sunday” and “bar-b-q parties” are held as a means to welcome all, the reality seems to be that the Japanese congregation at River

Japanese Church, and the other Japanese churches in this study, have an “open door” policy for Japanese speaking individuals and English speakers are expected to join the

English speaking congregation at River Japanese church (i.e., Sunrise English

Fellowship), the “next generation” service at City Japanese Church, and ultimately other

English-speaking churches. This means that the policies at River Japanese Church and

Mountain Japanese Church are based upon the views that Japanese churches are created to accommodate Japanese-speaking people and that English speakers, even if they are family members of Japanese church members, it is believed that they will be accommodated at English speaking churches such as Sunrise English Fellowship Church, as stated by Pastor Jim. As we will see in the next chapter, all three churches do not really have an open door policy that is aimed at accommodating non-Japanese speakers.

Open Door Policy? Not Really.

As stated, people who do not speak Japanese are not expected to become members of the Japanese churches in this study. While this may appear obvious, since social practices and participation in church communities requires an ability to communicate in a common language, the lack of a true open door policy appears to be a result of strong beliefs in Japaneseness (Befu; Kubota), where for some members of the church, “true” members are expected to be ethnically Japanese in addition to being native speakers of Japanese language. As a result, Japanese churches tend to have trouble

128 maintaining actual ‘open door’ policies and they create their own normative culture expectations (Fairclough, 2003).

As stated in previous sections, Pastors and members from churches in this study believe that an ability to communicate using language is an essential part of reaching their target audience (i.e., Japanese people). As pastor Jim and other pastors have emphasized in previous sections of this study, they believe that English speakers need

English and Japanese need Japanese to understand spiritual things “deeply” and

“precisely”. As a result, as others have stated in this study, Japanese ethnic churches are believed to be for first generation immigrants and students and workers visiting or working in Canada who speak Japanese as a mother tongue or at least with high-levels of competency. Second generation Japanese (nissei) in Canada who speak English as a first language and are less competent in Japanese in terms of fluency are often expected to attend an English speaking service, which was the case when I taught the English service at City Japanese Church where my students were mostly second generation nissei, which is why Pastor Jim stated that Sunrise English Fellowship was created so that second generation nissei and other English speakers could be accommodated in English in the same church building while their first generation Japanese adults attended the Japanese service.

While the pastors and members suggest that their churches have an “open door” policy, they also stated that Japanese was “our language” as part of the “we” vs. “you” discourse (Gumperz, 1982), although church members, such as Michael from City

Japanese Church, whose first language is Cantonese although he was educated in English in Hong Kong, who are seen as fluent speakers of Japanese and are accepted to varying

129 degrees. One Mountain Japanese Church member, Mary, stated explicitly, “we don’t invite (English speakers)” because, “we have problem interpreting,” because they do not believe they need to, since they see themselves as a Japanese speaking church and expect

English speakers to attend English speaking church services. Other church members, such as Melanie, did not directly state, “we don’t invite,” exclusionary practices were implied. For example, Melanie suggested that non-Japanese speakers might feel

“uncomfortable” because they can’t understand Japanese language when attending a

Japanese church service.

River Japanese Church members also demonstrated this “less-than-open door policy,” simply by having two congregations that were divided by languages. These beliefs and practices demonstrate that Japanese language is a pre-requisite for Japanese church community membership and participation. As stated in previous sections, the isolation of Mountain Japanese Church is an interesting example of a church that is not pressured into being truly open. As a result, they do not have a public website and instead, they have a “closed group” Facebook page which is consistent with statements from

Mary who stated they do not invite non-Japanese speakers because it is difficult to provide an interpreter. While it may seem that as the town community of Japanese people who are potential church members shrinks, Mountain Japanese Church would need to open their doors to second generations and accommodate the second generation English speakers. However, given that Japanese people continue to come to Canada, Mountain

Japanese Church leadership sees this as an ongoing need to accommodate Japanese first language speakers staying long term and short term.

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As a result, Mountain Japanese Church recruits their pastors from Japan.

Concerning Pastor Beth, the Mountain Japanese Church pastor, she was the third pastor from Japan who led the church. Interestingly, a few months after our interview, Pastor

Beth, who had been pastoring and waiting nearly five years for the proper time to step down and return to Japan since the death of her husband who was the previous pastor, stepped down from her role as pastor and returned to Japan after successfully recruiting a new pastor.

However, in spite of exclusionary language policy and practices, all three pastors agreed that an “open door” policy for the churches mean that all people, non-Japanese included, are welcome to attend the service. Although, in practice if you don’t speak

Japanese, you are not expected to be part of the community. All churches welcomed me, a non-Japanese person, without reservation and I have witnessed their exceptional hospitality to other non-Japanese people during the years that I have participated in the church communities. Truly, their hearts are upon serving others, although they are not always linguistically capable of achieving their heart’s desires and accommodating

English speakers. As a result, since the goal of the church is to reach Japanese-speaking people, “open door” does not necessarily mean that the churches are accommodating people who speak languages other than Japanese, although as I have stated, they might like to.

Part of the reason they do not completely accommodate English is because they see their church community as being different in terms of one church, one culture, one language ‘mother-tongue’ ideology (Blommaert, 1999) that is capable of fulfilling the need to reach Japanese speaking people while English speaking church communities

131 cannot. Often, English-speaking churches will work in partnership with Japanese ethnic churches in terms of referring Japanese people to Japanese ethnic churches. Contrary to

Mary’s statements from the Mountain Japanese Church member who stated they do not invite non-Japanese speakers because it is challenging to accommodate an interpreter,

Pastor Joshua’s wife Melanie stated:

M: We invite. Everybody is welcome, the people from different cultures and languages. Everybody is welcome. Interviewer: So, what does open door mean for your church? M: We don’t restrict. But, maybe somehow that’s not our expectation. We want everybody to come but since our church is mainly, our language is in Japanese, or some people they, I am afraid they feel uncomfortable because mainly we speak Japanese. We try not to, we want to be friendly to the people who don’t speak Japanese, but the reality may be some people feel uncomfortable, I don’t know.”

Her statement suggests that the church is an open door community open to people who speak Japanese, because “our language is in Japanese”, and by default, a closed-door policy de facto to non-Japanese speakers is implied. Her concern is demonstrated by her comment, “we want to be friendly to the people who don’t speak Japanese, but the reality may be some people feel uncomfortable” is an identifiable part of Japanese culture. The perceived “uncomfortable” state is part of Japanese cultural hospitality known as “ishin deshin” (i.e., trying to know other people’s feelings without asking) and is demonstrated in her comments as she shows her concern about whether or not people feel uncomfortable. As a result, she suggests that “the reality” is speaking Japanese is the pre- requisite for membership.

As a speaker of Japanese as a second language I experienced this pre-requisite of speaking Japanese in order to attain access and participate in the Japanese church community. In addition to me, a church member Michael from Hong Kong also

132 experienced entry into the community as a result of being able to speak Japanese. This view of needing to speak Japanese to gain entry is consistent with the other churches in this study that seem to welcome non-Japanese people who speak Japanese. However, the reality may be that actually, the bar may be set higher (as previously stated) and membership or expectations may require being ethnically Japanese by blood (Yoshino,

2004), as implied by the church goals of reaching out to first generation people from

Japan, and by City Japanese Church member and leadership board member Nana who stated that others who were not “Japanese” were not ‘real’ members of the church.

However, if non-Japanese members are members to varying degrees, Michael is a prime example. Concerning Michael, Pastor Joshua stated:

PJ: Yeah, recently, I’ve got uh, young people, he’s a from Hong Kong, Hong Konganese, he’s bilingual, he’s now learning Japanese, yeah, the [inaudible] develop is very good, we, mainly I talk to him with Japanese.

I was interested to see if Pastor Joshua perceived the church as a place where

Michale is learning Japanese, so I asked:

Interviewer: So, he’s learning Japanese at the church? PJ: Uh huhm. Or just with you on the side, uh at other times? PJ: He’s learning his own, the place he’s learning not in our church. Interviewer: Is it a school? T: I don’t know where he is learning.

According to Pastor Joshua’s comments he believes Michael is proficient enough that he mainly talks to him in Japanese, and interestingly, he does not see the church as a place where Michael is learning Japanese. As a result, regardless of views, such as from members like Nana who seem to have steep requirements for ‘real’ membership that exclude ethnically non-Japanese members, from Michael’s point of view the church truly does have an open door policy, although he concedes that “understanding” Japanese

133 language may be the pre-requisite for participation and that for people who cannot understand, “it might be difficult or a challenge for people to stay here.” For example,

Michael said:

Well, I would say, although they are welcome to anyone who comes, people who don’t understand Japanese language, they cannot fully understand here. Unless they really just want to come and hear Japanese, right. Otherwise it might be difficult or a challenge for people to stay here and have a productive day.

Michael’s comments confirm the belief that Japanese is a prerequisite for any type of membership. Interestingly, while Michael is perceived by Pastor Joshua and other church members as being nearly fluent in Japanese, because he is able to understand and speak Japanese in a way that is similar to a native speaker, Michael stated that other church members still speak to him in English as a non-Japanese English speaker, so in practice he is not completely accepted as a Japanese speaker because members whose native language is Japanese, choose to speak to him in English. This was my experience also. Some members were more willing to speak to me using Japanese, and others would reply to me in English even when I began conversations in English. In contrast to Pastor

Joshua’s statement, Michael suggested that church members believe he is not fluent yet, so they speak to him in English. For example:

They would try to speak English with me, because they know that my Japanese is not fluent yet, though it’s getting better, um, yeah, and uh, of course, if they were born here or they grew up here, English is their first language, and they, yep, just no questions, just communicate in English with them.

As Michael states, he believes that since his Japanese “not fluent yet,” church members would try to speak to him in Japanese. He also mentions those born in Canada and those who grew up in Canada as being church members with whom he speaks

English at the church. Contrary to Pastor Joshua’s view that the Japanese church is not

134 where Michael is learning Japanese, perhaps because Pastor Joshua sees the church as a place for worshipping God (i.e., similar to the statements made by the Mountain Japanese

Church members) and not as a Japanese language school, Michael explained that one of the primary reasons he attends is because he would like to be “immersed” in Japanese, and since he has continued to come, he is apparently getting the immersion experience he had hoped for. For example, he stated:

First, I would like to be immersed in a more Japanese, more immersed in a Japanese language environment. I have personal connections with the pastor’s family. And then, the size of the church matters, too. It’s small, but then, um I can connect with almost everyone. No problem, when you go to a bigger church, sometimes your just don't know if they are new or not, right, if they have come for ten years or not. And pastors, don't even know me after I’ve attended for a year or so.

As Michael stated, Pastor Joshua’s belief that he is fluent in Japanese may be a result of what Michael describes as “personal connections with the pastor’s family” which is why Pastor Joshua speaks about Michael as being “fluent,” which is another way of saying he is included. While one of the reasons Michael attends is to be immersed in Japanese language, he also suggests that the church should incorporate “more English in their meetings,” which he thinks they are doing. For example:

Interviewer: What is the future of a Japanese church in a multicultural country? M: Now, I would say they should still hold on to their identity as Japanese. Still use Japanese language, but, uh, they can incorporate some more English language in their meetings. Which I think I‘ve seen this church doing more now, when they sing songs it’s not just Japanese songs, there’s some Japanese some English songs, so.

Michael suggested that a dual Japanese-English identity is possible and preferred

(at least by him), perhaps because he is multilingual as is not hindered by monolingual ideological beliefs about mother tongue (Blommaert, 1999). As Michael stated, contrary to mother tongue ideological perceptions, since City Japanese Church is incorporating

135 more English songs, it seems that from his perspective, in practice the church is changing.

The belief in the importance of Japanese language as a pre-requisite for community membership is also demonstrated by City Japanese Church member Jun who is a member of the church and member of the leadership board, whose comments about a non-

Japanese speaking person named “Feni-san” attending the church suggests her view, which is that at the Japanese church “We worship God in Japanese,” which is the “main point,” and that non-Japanese speakers who cannot participate, such as Feni-san,

“sometimes missed the main point of the message, so that’s uh, chotto komaru desho

[you can’t do that].” For example:

Interviewer: Has language been a reason for problems, like communication problems, has there been…? J: In this church? Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. J: Yeah. Interviewer: Any examples? J: daka hora, Feni-san ni kita desho [trans.: Umm, Feni-san came]. Do you know Feni? Interviewer: Yes. J: So, Feni-san only can use English and so I think she can’t understand the preaching, Uh ne, message in Japanese, so I just wandering she can’t understand the message meaning, and yeah, but almost people can use English. And after message, they can talk to her but, our mission is to worship God, ne, we worship God in Japanese so that means the main point, she has to, she sometimes missed the main point of the message, so that’s uh chotto komaru desho [trans.: “you can’t do that”].

Jun’s statement demonstrates the mother-tongue ideology (Blommaert, 1999) beliefs that Pastor Jim and other church members have demonstrated in her statements, which result in a lack of tolerance for English speakers, since she (along with other church members) believes that the goal of the Japanese church is to facilitate a place for

Japanese-speaking members to worship God. On these terms, if a person cannot

136 understand the Japanese language that is used during the service for worship through songs, then the person is not experiencing the worship of God that is the premise of the church. While the church may be described as having an ‘open door’ policy, since

Japanese language is the pre-requisite for membership, according to leadership and other church members, the reality is as described by church members that the church has a less- than-open door policy de-facto.

English Accommodations in the Japanese Ethnic Church

The pastors, leadership, and church members at River Japanese Church and City

Japanese Church often spoke positively about accommodating the English language needs of international families and demonstrated an interest in accommodating the

English language needs of spouses and children of church members, which is why I was asked to teach the “next generation” service at City Japanese Church. For example, at

City Japanese Church I asked Melanie, “Is your church bilingual?” Melanie answered,

“We hope, but it’s not yet.” Pastor Joshua echoed her response when I asked, “Do you have a bilingual approach in church, for church members?” Pastor Joshua answered, “I’d like to.”

On these terms, English is a “tool” to accommodate English-speaking spouses of members of Japanese churches in this study (Baldauf & Kaplan, 2007, p. 203). However, at Mountain Japanese Church, which is a more isolated church community (as stated in

Chapter 5), while anyone may be welcome to attend (stated above), one member, Mary, who assists Pastor Beth stated that accommodating English speakers is not the usual practice or desire of the church members. For example, Mary stated, “We sometimes have like you, English speakers coming, and then until Patty is here, we have problem

137 interpreting. So we don’t invite.” Her reference to me was based upon that fact that when

I visited, I was asked to briefly share about my experience as a Christian, and since I had not prepared a speech in Japanese, I shared in English and my wife interpreted. While I am able to speak, read, and translate basic Japanese, my proficiency is limited to the extent that I would have needed to create a script in order to talk about Bible texts and my perceptions of the Christian experience, especially in the formal setting of a church service. As a result, she referred to me as an English speaker of whom she would not invite because of the problem of interpretation. Certainly, this also supports the “slightly- open-door policy” since English speakers are not turned away when they come. She also stated that she believes there are plenty of churches in Canada (one of which is the church that lends the use of its facility to Mountain Japanese Church on Sunday mornings and during the week) to suit to the English language needs of English speakers. For Japanese

Mountain Church, since there are enough Japanese Christians to maintain Mountain

Japanese Church, and a population of Japanese speakers in the town who are viewed as potential church members, Mountain Japanese Church does not have to suit the needs of

English speakers.

In contrast, Pastor Jim stated that accommodating the English needs of spouses and children of Japanese church members is actually how their two monolingual congregations church system began. He stated it is a positive experience for all members, although families are potentially divided into two congregations according to their first languages. For example:

Interviewer: “How do the members affect the language of the church? J: Ok, uh that’s uh a good for congregation because of bilingual languages. So, their family could come over, our international marriage, husband is English and wife is Japanese. Or, husband is Japanese and wife is Canadian. So, they can

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come one church and then children school here. So, that’s affect a lot for the international marriage.

According to his comments, Pastor Jim believes that “international” families have dual language needs, which are accommodated by the two monolingual services of the two congregations that constitute one church because they meet in the same building although they hold two separate services simultaneously. Since Pastor Jim’s church is part of a “two-congregation” church that seemed to be separated by languages, I was curious if there were any language or communication problems in the church. As stated in Chapter 5, Pastor Jim and other pastors and church members strongly believe that a person must learn in one’s mother tongue, so I was curious if differences in mother tongue had caused communication problems such as possible misunderstandings that have occurred as a result of language differences, or if the two-congregation was perceived as being successful. Pastor Jim stated that there were no communication problems because that the second-generation-Japanese Canadians were able to understand Japanese, although they are not fluent, implying that he believes accommodating English needs has been a positive experience for church members. For example:

Interviewer: Has language been a problem for anything in the church at any time, do you know? J: Oh, language. Interviewer: Communication? J: Communication. Yeah, we have English board member they, some, they understand bilingual they are second generation Japanese, so they knew Japanese, even they cannot speak fluently but they understand Japanese from childhood. So, there is no barrier I think for the English congregation. Interviewer: And uh, the board members are all Japanese or second generation, or? J: Yeah, second generation. Uh, not all of them. So, some of them, so they can translate each other. Interviewer: So, are the board members bilingual?

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J: Uh, in board we just use English. If someway just it uh didn't get through, the meaning, they can be translated.

This comment, “in board we just use English” shows that English is the language used for a part of the “process” (Johnson, 2009) of the language planning and policy of the church and that accommodating English has had dominant affects upon the church.

On these terms, as English is the dominant language used by the board members, and board meetings are conducted in English, this potentially means that English is the language used to vote on and implement church policy, which suggests that between the two congregations, English is the dominant language of the church perhaps because it is practical since church members and leaders tend to speak English. It reflects the influence of the dominant society of city and it also demonstrates why the Japanese church needs a bilingual Japanese and English speaking (and not a monolingual Japanese speaking pastor) to lead the Japanese congregation, and that bilingualism is an important aspect of

River Japanese Church, although strong beliefs about mother tongue Japanese remain as described in Chapter 5.

Interestingly, Pastor Joshua of City Japanese Church was the former pastor of

River Japanese Church. Bob of River Japanese Church stated that Pastor Joshua left as a result of his limited ability to speak English, which is why Pastor Joshua relies on his

English speaking family members for the English needs of City Japanese Church (as stated above). Yet, River Japanese Church requires a bilingual pastor, since it has developed into two separate congregations and there different language oriented

“processes” that are required to maintain and organize the two congregations (Johnson,

2009), which implies that as much as the church community may have attempted to be bilingual, the reality is that the church is actually two monolingual communities,

140 organized differently according to the language needs of the church members, albeit within the same building where contact between the two language communities is inevitable and the dominant language and culture will often prevail. Perhaps this is why

Bob stated that Pastor Joshua experienced communication problems while acting as the pastor of River Japanese Church, because he was not bilingual and could not straddle the lines between monolingual English and Japanese realities (Grosjean, 1982 p. 37; Mackey,

1968). Aware of his limited English abilities, I asked Pastor Joshua if City Japanese

Church had a bilingual approach. For example:

Interviewer: Do you have a bilingual approach in church, for church members? PJ: I’d like to. Interviewer: How has a bilingual approach been reveived by church members? PJ: Ima nani mo shitamasen [trans.: no we do not]. When we uh, had uh, some special event I am looking for someone who can translate my talk, talking. Yeah. If I could speak bilingual I can use two languages, but now, special no toki dake [trans.: only during special occasions].

Pastor Joshua stated that he is looking for someone who can translate his talk and that if he were bilingual he could use two languages, but since he can’t, only on special occasions do they accommodate a bilingual language environment, such as having a person interpret a message of a non-Japanese speaker. However, as I have participated in several church-community “special occasions” the tendency that I have observed is that when interpretation is required, it is provided impromptu by church members who are capable. As stated in previous sections, the desire to accommodate English is often aimed at reaching the English speaking younger people and spouses of Japanese church members. Pastor Joshua suggested that the absence of non-Japanese spouses who generally do not attend occurs because they cannot understand Japanese language. For example,

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“We have three couples right now they are mixed marriages. But their husbands do not come, don't join because they can’t understand. That's a, that’s a problem. One of them.”

“Problem” in this case is a reference to church member spouses not coming to church because they don’t speak Japanese. Pastor Joshua believes that if he accommodated an English service for the English-speaking spouses of church members, the English-speaking spouses may come more often. As a result, as stated, even if Pastor

Joshua’s desire to accommodate English became a normal practice of the church, the result would probably be a similar two-congregation church service similar to River

Japanese Church that he formerly pastored (stated above). However, as previously stated, both Pastor Joshua and Melanie believe that the goal of the church is to reach Japanese speaking individuals. For example:

M: We want to educate young people but we our language is Japanese, but young people’s first language is English. So it’s very hard for us to educate them. Probably for them, if we can speak uh, fluent English, for them it’s easier to understand, easier to learn the Bible in English. But, we cannot provide those deep things, information in English. Interviewer: Has been a reason for problems in the church? Just language.”

Melanie’s comments echo Pastor Jim’s comments about the belief in the importance of learning in one’s mother tongue. Unlike Pastor Joshua’s comments in which he stated that City Japanese Church is not aimed at teaching Matthew Japanese,

Melanie suggested that City Japanese Church is a place where “we want to educate young people but our language is Japanese.” Melanie is referring to the high school and college aged “young people” of the church whose parents are first generation Japanese, who are often second generation (nissei) in the “next generation” group, and who are often more fluent in English than they are in Japanese, although most of them consider themselves as

142 being bilingual because Japanese is often the language spoken at home. The desire of church members, as Melanie stated, is to “educate” the “next generation” group with knowledge of the Bible, although the Bible is often perceived as being difficult to read in

Japanese and easier to understand in English, especially for second generation nissei individuals.

Similar to previous comments, as Amanda the daughter of the pastor Joshua stated, as much as they are a Japanese church, language problems occur perhaps because they are in an English dominant country, which forces them to interact in English with

English speakers for survival purposes. As minorities with no official status, it is important that they, the people of the Japanese community, learn the majority language in order to interact with the majority linguistic group (Grosjean, 1982, p. 24). The implication of the dominance of English affecting Japanese church communities is that non-dominant Japanese language churches are at risk of ceasing to exist if first generation

“mother-tongue” Japanese speakers do not continue to emigrate to Canada. For first generation Japanese adults who come to Canada for long or short periods of time, since the goal of the church is to facilitate a Japanese language church specially for them which also works to be a space for their legitimization as Japanese minorities, the expectation of

Japanese church leaders and members is that Japanese is the standard language and the language of the majority in Japanese churches, otherwise there is no need to create and maintain Japanese ethnic churches. This is how the churches are legitimized. When non-

Japanese speakers attempt to become part of the community it is perceived by some

Japanese members as a “kind of trouble for us,” note the “us” vs. “them” discourse that

143 emphasizes the distance between the groups in the following statement (Gumperz, 1982).

For example, Amanda stated:

Interviewer: Ok. Do you know if language has been a reason for, or a factor, for any problems at the church, challenges? A: Uh, yes. Uh, because my dad doesn’t really know how to speak English, uh, church work has been really hard on my mom because she has to do everything, she has to translate everything uh, when writing church reports. And um, uh, for worship, when we’re singing in Japanese, English speakers, they can’t sing along, and when we’re singing in English, it’s harder for some Japanese people to sing along. So, that’s kind of the trouble for us.

Amanda’s role is to help her father accommodate English in the church. As stated, she created and maintains the churches website and Facebook page in addition to operating the PowerPoint slides during the church service. She expresses the difficulty her mother experiences when writing church reports in English (to the Eastern Canada

Baptist denomination that operates), and the challenges of accommodating English for non-Japanese speaking people during the Japanese service, which as she says results in problems for Japanese speakers who find it difficult to sing in English, which is why they have chosen to attend a Japanese service in the first place.

Chapter 6 Summary

In this chapter I have presented data to answer the question, In terms of language planning and policy, how do members describe the concept and development of Japanese ethnic churches? (In other words, what is the language planning and policy a Japanese church?)

144 naturally, pastors and members described planning in terms of when they needed to translate or provide an interpreter in English. At City Japanese Church board members,

Nana stated that they needed to find an English speaker to teach the “next generation” group because they understood Bible teaching better in English.

At River Japanese Church language planning was more complex because it had to accommodate both Japanese and English languages. At River Japanese Church, language planning occurs during board meetings that are conducted in English with Japanese translations, which means decisions are made in English concerning the language needs of the two monolingual (Grosjean, 2008) congregations. The subsequent policy de facto of the two congregations that I observed when I visited appeared to result in two separate churches and not just two congregations because the Japanese service seemed to begin all over again without any cohesion with the so-called “joint service.”

As a result of monolingual church practices, whether or not churches included

English services in peripheral spaces, the goal that results in subsequent policies of

Japanese ethnic churches is to use the medium of Japanese language to deliver the message of the Bible and Christianity (Woods, 2004) to first generation Japanese adults who believe that they have Japanese language needs, and such people usually do not see themselves as being bilingual.

While meso-level policies on church websites explicitly stated that Japanese churches facilitated Japanese language, pastors and church members also believed that such language policies were understood, in terms of “everybody knows” or “covert” characteristics of language policy de facto as suggested by Schiffman (2012, p. 15).

These characteristics were consistent with the strong beliefs about mother tongue

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(Blommaert, 1999) as stated by Pastor Jim and others to the degree that at River Japanese

Church, even though Pastor Jim described the church as “two congregations” and as

“bilingual” the micro-level policy de facto reality was two separate churches that, as Bob stated, “naturally” divided, because they were aimed at reaching two separate communities with two separate service practices.

The same was true in my participation experience at City Japanese Church when I taught the English services as I was given the power to determine the content of the sermons of the English service. The Japanese service operated according to the goals of the church aimed at facilitating the language needs of Japanese people and according to the sermon Pastor Joshua had prepared, while the English service existed on the peripheral and operated according to the sermon I had prepared, which is to say, similar to River Japanese Church, there were two monolingual congregations that had strong potential to become separate churches.

As a result, since the language planning and policy and subsequent goals are aimed at facilitating the perceived mother tongue language needs of first generation

Japanese adults in Canada, there is not really an “open door” policy, although all churches would welcome anyone, albeit on their terms as set by the church’s language policy de jure and de facto, and English speakers would be expected to join the English congregations. As Tollefson suggests (1991), this is an example of how language policies tend to include one group and exclude another.

While Mountain Japanese Church did not believe they needed to accommodate

English, because as Mary suggested, English speakers can go to an English speaking church, English accommodations, such as the “two congregations” of River Japanese

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Church and City Japanese Church, were perceived as being positive additions to the church because they believed it was important to accommodate English for the family members of Japanese ethnic church members (Mullins, 1984; 1987; 1988). However, as I have stated, two congregations seemed more like two separate churches with different ethnolinguistic community oriented goals, (albeit unified as Christian churches with the same main goal, like many other Christian churches). From the perspective of trying create an actual bilingual service that would solve the divisions that could lead to schisms

(Nolt, 2001), Amanda suggested that even the bilingual music and singing portion of the service was an example of how difficult a bilingual service can become for Japanese members who come to the Japanese church for Japanese language, and for English speakers who cannot not speak Japanese.

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CHAPTER 7: SUMMARY, DISCUSSIONS, AND CONCLUSION

Summary

I have presented data to answer the question “What are the views of church members that assist in the construction of language policy de jure and de facto?” or “why do Japanese church members believe they need a Japanese ethnic church? Using a discourse analysis of intertextuality, I looked at data collected from interviews with church members to understand their views and beliefs that concern their Japanese ethnic church communities in Western Canada. The views that demonstrate why Japanese church members believe they need Japanese ethnic churches are complex and yet they demonstrate solidarity of the Japanese community to varying degrees. Pastors and members distinguished Japanese as being “special” and one nation, one language, and one culture. While pastors and church members also suggested that they share history and beliefs about being Japanese (e.g., spirit of the samurai), they also demonstrated complex views about themselves such as believing that they were “mixed” or half Japanese and half Canadian and that culture was personal and defined by each person. As Canagarajah

(2004) stated, we have begun to “understand [bilingual] identities as multiple, conflictual, negotiated, and evolving.” However, since they have strong ties to their first language, it seemed to suggest that beliefs of being or feeling Canadian were possible for them and demonstrative of governmentality in terms of indirect or “invisible” control or encouragement to become like the dominant culture around them (Dean, 2010; Guo,

2009; Foucault, 1991), albeit from a Japanese language perspective.

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Members who began living in Canada as adults tended to value Japanese language and culture more than younger generations who had come as children and grown up acquiring and being educated in English, which suggested they brought more Japanese ways and beliefs with them. Pastors and church members, who had come when they were adults, demonstrated beliefs that Japanese as a mother tongue is “sweet” and able to be understood “clearly,” “deeply,” and “precisely” in contrast to English as a second language. These beliefs appear to be ideological, which is to say that they were learned and part of Japanese cultural beliefs about one language (Blommaert, 1999). Most pastors and church members, young and old, believed that they were not as proficient in English compared to Japanese, to the degree that they did not see themselves as being bilingual.

While Pastor Jim was an exception, who stated he was bilingual (although he stated strong beliefs in the importance of understanding in one’s mother tongue), perhaps because had spent 12 years in the United States and functioned as one of the leaders of a bilingual church of two congregations where board meetings were conducted in English,

Patty worked as a translator and interpreter at Mountain Japanese Church and still did not see herself as being bilingual in Canada. This lack of perceived proficiency in English, and preference for Japanese seems to indicate the need for churches that facilitate a

Japanese language community because, while the message (of Christianity) was perceived as being more important than the medium (Japanese language) (Woods, 2004), these churches are aimed at serving the language needs of first generation Japanese people who live in Canada as adults for various periods of time. Additionally, Japanese ethnic church communities functioned as a space where church members could reproduce what they know and believe about themselves in terms of language and culture. In sum,

149 they need Japanese churches to be able to gather and meet other Japanese people, to speak their languages, and to practice their faith with members of their own ethnolinguistic community group to reproduce what they had before in Japan.

Some pastors and church members did not understand the term “planning” while others perceived language planning at the church-level as happening naturally, which is what Hornberger (1994) called “grassroots” planning. Since they perceived planning as happening naturally, which means that people will naturally use the languages they know, such as Japanese for Japanese people, pastors and members described planning in terms of when they needed to translate or provide an interpreter in English because they often do not have the choice or desire to include English as an additional language. At City

Japanese Church board members, Nana stated that they needed to find an English speaker to teach the “next generation” group because they understood Bible teaching better in

English. This demonstrates how some members in the ethnolinguistic community group who wish to reproduce their Japanese language and culture are changing and becoming less homogenous.

At River Japanese Church language planning was more complex because it had to accommodate both Japanese and English languages since the population of the other congregation (i.e., Sunrise English Fellowship) had more English speaking members, maybe because the church was much older than City Japanese Church (i.e., the church with “next generation” English service) and had developed a more diverse English speaking population as a result of “international marriages.” At River Japanese Church,

150 language planning occurs during board meetings that are conducted in English with

Japanese translations, which means decisions are made in English concerning the language needs of the two monolingual (Grosjean, 2008) congregations, which is not

“wrong” per se, but beliefs in the importance of monolingual divisions does not represent the transcultural realities that seem to be increasing in the present age of globalization

(Pennycook, 2007). The subsequent policy de facto of the two congregations that I observed when I visited appeared to result in two separate churches and not just two congregations because the Japanese service seemed to begin all over again without any cohesion with the so-called “joint service.”

As a result of monolingual church practices, whether or not churches included

English services in peripheral spaces, the goal that results in subsequent policies of

While meso-level policies on church websites explicitly stated that Japanese churches facilitated Japanese language (i.e., governmentality through direct control of language as stated in policy), pastors and church members also believed that such language policies were understood or “encouraged” (i.e. governmentality through indirect control of language at the micro-level) (Dean, 2010; Guo, 2009; Foucault, 1991), in terms of “everybody knows” or “covert” characteristics of language policy de facto as suggested by Schiffman (2012, p. 15). These characteristics were consistent with strong

151 beliefs about mother tongue, as stated in my literature review (Blommaert, 1999), as demonstrated by statements from pastor Jim and others to the degree that at River

Japanese Church, even though Pastor Jim described the church as “two congregations” and as “bilingual,” the micro-level policy de facto reality was two separate churches that, as Bob stated, “naturally” divided because they were aimed at reaching two separate communities with two separate service practices.

As a result, since the language planning and policy and subsequent goals are aimed at facilitating the perceived mother tongue language needs of first generation

Japanese adults in Canada, there is not really an “open door” policy, although they would welcome anyone, albeit on their terms as set by the church’s language policy de jure and de facto, and English speakers would be expected to join the English congregations. As

Tollefson suggests (1991), this is an example of how language policies tend to include one group and exclude another.

While Mountain Japanese Church did not believe they needed to accommodate

English, because as Mary suggested, English speakers can go to English speaking

152 churches, English accommodations, such as the “two congregations” of River Japanese

1984; 1987; 1988). However, as I have stated, two congregations seemed more like two separate churches with different ethnolinguistic community oriented goals, (albeit unified as Christian churches with the same main goal, like many other Christian churches).

From the perspective of trying to create an actual bilingual service that would solve the divisions that could lead to schisms (Nolt, 2001), Amanda suggested that even the bilingual music and singing portion of the service was an example of how difficult a bilingual service can become for Japanese members who come to a Japanese church for

Japanese language, and for English speakers who cannot not speak Japanese.

Discussion

The globalizing world has meant that the perceptions of the Japanese ethnic church community, in terms of beliefs and practices of language, culture, religion, and policy, have been shaped by collisions, take-up, and appropriations in the midst of transcultural flows (Pennycook, 2007). With my two questions, I have examined the views of Japanese ethnic church members concerning their perceptions about language and culture in Japanese church practices and the way these views are negotiated and conflict with one another to influence the planning and processes of the language policy of three Japanese church communities in Western Canada.

At the macro-level of language policy in Canada, the Official Language Act is aimed at directly ensuring the equal rights and privileges for English and French

153 languages in federal institutions and in Canadian society, which means that Japanese language does not have “official” status and that speakers of Japanese as a first language are linguistic minorities. However, the Canadian Multicultural Act (1971, 1988) does promote equality in the context of multiculturalism concerning cultural and racial diversity, which includes Japanese communities, which means that all ethnolinguistic groups in Canada can speak their languages, practice their religions, and live their culture.

Yet, Japanese people and their languages are not represented to the same degrees of other more dominant English-speaking groups in Canada because they are a small ethnolinguistic group, and members demonstrate being affected by English dominance.

For example, Mary suggested that she felt unaccepted as a Japanese speaker because she believed that some people did not like hearing other languages and she gave the example that her boss told her not to use Japanese in the work place. Also, Mark suggested he felt his English was not “good” which suggested his awareness of the dominant standard of

English, even though he has been a business owner in Western Canada for 20 years. His business, which operates in English, and his power as an employer to hire and maintain his typically English speaking staff (I remember interacting with them in English during the times I visited), did not seem to overcome the presence of the domination of English and result in legitimization of his English ability to the degree that he perceived it as being “good.” Rather, for members such as Mark, the church becomes a space to legitimize the use of Japanese and the subsequent Japanese language identities of

Japanese speakers. Mary and Mark’s experiences demonstrate instances of governmentality in terms of perceiving their native Japanese language from a “deficit perspective” as a result of experiencing the dominance of English and the perceived need

154 to become socialized as English speaking Canadians (Guo, 2009, p. 41). On these terms, the church as a space of legitimization of Japanese also means that the church serves as a space for emotional support and as a network for the Japanese community. As Kim suggested, the legitimization through emotional support also occurs as members “love each other,” which is why members, particularly at Mountain Japanese Church, see the church as an “oasis,” which by contrast, implies that outside of the church some church members experience Western Canada as a “desert” because of the domination of English.

In addition, inequality also occurs within the Japanese ethnic church community at the meso- and micro-levels in terms of exclusionary policies and practices that tend to promote degrees of disallowance of non-Japanese speakers.

At the meso-levels the Japanese ethnic church is a “voluntary language society”

(Sallabank, 2013; Hatoss, 2013) where meso-level language polices are de jure because they define the expected and permissible language practices of the church. At this level pastors and leaders of Japanese ethnic churches act as agents in terms of ‘language management’ (Spolsky, 2009) to create policy, official and unofficial, such as on church websites and Facebook pages, which directly define the structure of what is expected at the community (micro) level and the often implied stipulations or indirect or “invisible” control as described in governmentality (Dean, 2010; Guo, 2009; Foucault, 1991) concerning access for potential members. Japanese language becomes the language needed for membership access into the church as suggested by members such as Mary, who is influential as an assistant of the pastor. Mary suggests that non-Japanese speakers are not invited as speakers to the church because interpretation can be problematic and difficult to facilitate. Also, as suggested by Melanie, who is influential as the wife of

155 pastor Joshua, Japanese church members believe that non-Japanese speaking people will feel “uncomfortable” if they come to Japanese speaking churches. These examples demonstrate that Japanese church members define access in terms of their preferences to not invite and to not provide interpreters regularly, and by assuming the “uncomfortable” experiences of non-Japanese speakers as a result of “ishin deshin” which is the Japanese cultural practice of trying to know people’s feelings without asking. On these terms, as

Japanese church members bring their culture with them, cultural practices such as ishin deshin influence the conditions for membership access. This is significant because most church members would never explicitly turn away a visitor to their church, even though they might prefer it if non-Japanese visitors do not attend which indicates governmentality in terms of indirect or “invisible” control of membership access into

Japanese ethnic churches (Dean, 2010; Guo, 2009; Foucault, 1991). In addition, as Nana

(board member) suggested, and as demonstrated in the discourses of nihonjinron (i.e., academic discussions about being Japanese) where blood is often the determiner of ethnically Japanese people (Yohsino, 2004), Japanese as a first language (which often includes having “Japanese blood to varying degrees) often determines the access requirements of “real” members of the church. However, “members” such as Michael, who are not ethnically Japanese and speak Japanese as an additional language, demonstrate degrees of membership based upon having access if they are capable of speaking Japanese in practice. Michael’s ability to speak Japanese enables him to participate as a member to varying degrees, although, as Nana stated, not as a fully “real” member. Also, by his own omission, as he stated, some church members will not speak to him in Japanese, which means that through English, they accommodate him, but they do

156 not always give him full access even though he attempts to speak Japanese and continues learning Japanese as a means to gain access. Also, Michael sees the church as a learning environment, although, Pastor Joshua explicitly stated that it is not a place for learning

Japanese. As Pastor Joshua stated, he did not know where Michael is learning Japanese.

On these terms, the pastor cannot control the function or the policy de facto of the church because Michael is learning Japanese at the church even though that is not the intention of the church language policy de jure. At the meso-level, members such as Michael do not appear to be capable of gaining meso-level access into the board as a board member because the board members are all ethnically and linguistically Japanese, particularly in settings such as Mountain Japanese Church and even at City Japanese Church, unless such churches expand into a two congregation model as we have seen at River Japanese

Church. A member like Michael could possibly gain access into the board at City

Japanese Church as an agent (Johnson, 2009) as a representative of an English congregation if and when the board consists of the “two congregation” bilingual model.

Although, the likelihood for this to occur is uncertain because Michael does not attend the Japanese ethnic church to speak English, although he also suggested that the church might benefit from incorporating more English. Overall, for Michael, he wants access as a Japanese speaker, as much as he can get. Although he recognizes that he does not speak

Japanese as a mother tongue, it is because church members are “mother tongue” speakers that he attends the Japanese ethnic church. The meso level of church policy defines the perimeters of access and promotes Japanese in Japanese ethnic churches, while daily life of church members in Canada (e.g., the workplace) is in English and Japanese (at the

157 micro-level), although English is planned to varying degrees for English speaking family members, (Bauldauf and Kaplan, 1997) as we have seen in this dissertation.

As I mentioned in the literature review with authors such as Hornberger (1996);

Ricento (2006); Hatoss (2012); Ager, (2001) and Johnson, (2013a), the micro-level of language planning and policy in the Japanese ethnic church is characterized as being less official and ‘grassroots,’ and as a result of interpersonal communication between church members that is sometimes in contrast to the meso-level decisions about planning and policy that are sometimes made in English. At the micro-level, church members act as agents who produce the actual language policy de facto and demonstrate governmentality through “invisible” or indirect control (Dean, 2010; Guo, 2009; Foucault, 1991), as stated in my literature review by Ricento & Hornberger (1996) concerning the levels of language policy, and by Johnson (2009) concerning ‘actual’ language policy de facto at the micro level, such as in the case of worship leaders who choose Japanese songs

(although some songs were in English because in some cases, they were not available in

Japanese), church members who choose the language of the PowerPoint presentations used in the services, and pastors who choose the context and texts of the sermons and the language used to deliver such content in Japanese.

While these three levels of language policy are important for recognizing cultural and linguistic communities, as Tollefson (1991; 2013) suggests, language policy is an instrument that produces inequality because it is both inclusive and exclusive as a result of binary and structural limitations, while also reflecting the views and interests of agents and arbiters (Johnson, 2009).

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While official language policy demonstrates governmentality in terms of direct control of language (Dean, 2010; Guo, 2009; Foucault, 1991) as it does not recognize languages other than English and French, which has meant other languages are not recognized, the most evident inequality occurs on the inside of the church, not outside. In this sense, inequality occurs because the church community wants the church to stay

Japanese which results in marginalization of those who are not able to speak the language in terms of providing English services in the peripheral and by suggesting that non-

Japanese speakers should go to other churches. While members mentioned that anyone is welcome, only Japanese speakers are able to become real members, which is an example of governmentality in terms of indirectly controlling access (Dean, 2010; Guo, 2009;

Foucault, 1991), and first generation adults are generally the expected community of people that the churches intend to serve. On these terms, members’ ideological beliefs in

Japanese as a “pure” language and the belief in fluency as being based upon speaking a language “perfectly” seem to contribute to these exclusive expectations. Beliefs in being capable of speaking Japanese “perfectly” suggest that perfect Japanese is required to be

Japanese (and that perfect English is required to be Canadian) (Grosjean, 1989), which is a belief that positions Japanese against non-Japanese especially in the dominant English speaking Canadian culture of Canada. Yamada-Yamamoto & Richards (1999) suggest that there are deep beliefs about being “perfectly” Japanese that are “not shared by others,” and that these beliefs are perpetuated throughout society through political discourse and the discourses from church members such as Pastor Jim who suggests that Japan is perceived as one nation, one culture, and having one language (Gottlieb, 2012). However, as I asked Nana if she spoke Japanese “perfectly” even she could not state that she did

159 affirmatively, which seemed to suggest that these ideological beliefs about speaking perfect Japanese were not her own, but beliefs that she had acquired along the way.

If Japanese church members continue to learn and bring such ideological beliefs, future Japanese churches will rely upon first generation Japanese immigrants to continue coming to Canada, and Japanese churches will need to continue to recruit pastors from

Japan. If not, then Japanese ethnic churches will probably represent a different ethnolinguistic community.

As demonstrated by the summaries of my two questions, the views of Japanese ethnic church members who actively participate in language planning, policy, and practice at various levels in the Japanese ethnic church community have been useful for answering the question: What is a Japanese ethnic church community in terms of language and cultural practices? However, when I began this research the answer to this question was not clear when I began my research and I had a problem understanding what a Japanese church actually was, and I wanted to learn something from the perspective of the participants’ voices, which demonstrated strong beliefs about Japanese language and culture, in addition to transcultural experiences (Pennycook, 2007). From the participant’s perspective it was evident that church members reproduced traditional idealist discourses from Japan (e.g., spirit of the samurai; kimonos) and believed in “core” values (e.g., issin-deshin (hospitality); the importance of mother tongue) to varying degrees, and projected norms about Japanese culture (i.e., Buddhism; Shintoism), while also demonstrating a complex beliefs derived from customs and expectations (i.e., going to the Buddhist temples; going to the shrine) in the midst of transcultural flows (e.g.,

Christianity) (Pennycook, 2007), which were in turn anchored into core values and norms

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(Blommaert, 1998). Also, while there were certainly “complexities” concerning identity, acceptance, and the influence of the normative Canadian language and culture, contrary to Mullins (1984, 1987, 1988), the churches in this research did not demonstrate the potential for “organizational dissolution” into a multi-ethnic church because: 1. they recruit Japanese leadership from Japan (Mountain Japanese Church has recruited from

Japan three times; River Japanese Church has recruited from Japan three times; and City

Japanese Church is led by a Japanese pastor (the first and only so far)); 2. their target audience is first generation (issei) Japanese adult workers, students, and residents in

Canada. If the first generation Japanese population is not there, the Japanese church is not there either. If second generation English speaking “nissei” take over, they often create a new church or congregation that may become a new church, with a new pastor (as demonstrated by Sunrise English Fellowship and by the “next generation” English congregation at City Japanese Church). If the church is aimed at serving second, third, and fourth generations of ethnically Japanese people, then it often becomes an English speaking church because the members tend to identify themselves as Canadian or

Canadian-Japanese and their preferred language is English. This is consistent with Han’s

(2011) study that suggests the importance of ethnic church “minority” identities as first generation immigrants position themselves against the dominant culture and legitimize the minority identities of ethnic church members. In contrast, it is difficult to know if in this age of globalization Japanese ethnic church communities and church members will continue on in this way. As with most cultures, and as demonstrated in the typical shift and loss occurrences of language (Ricento, 2006), it is expected that future Japanese communities will gradually redefine themselves or carry different beliefs about Japanese

161 culture and language as a result of discursive exchanges and interdiscursive influences

(Fairclough, 2003).

This research has been concerned with the production and redistribution of discourse and society at the government, organization, and community levels in terms of

“orders of discourse” which is defined as “a particular social ordering of relationships amongst different ways of making meaning,” where ordering is often based upon identifying dominance and normative discourses in relationship with marginal, oppositional, and alternative discourses (Fairclough, 2001, p. 6) that result in governmentality or direct and indirect control of language and knowledge (Foucault,

1991). The discourses of language policy demonstrate the power structures evident in the

“orders of discourse” because, at all levels (i.e., macro, meso, and micro), language policy is an instrument incapable of promoting equality because it denies equal access to everyone.

Philosophically, concerning legitimization within the Japanese ethnic church community, while church members believe in the importance of Japanese as a mother tongue as a determinant of church membership, they also believe that they should welcome everyone, although not as members, because they are informed by the inclusionary discourses of the Bible and discourses of Christianity (see Galatians 3:28), there seems to be deeper philosophical implications at work concerning multicultural and diversity ideological positions that are perpetuated in multicultural and diversity policies in Canada which affect all immigrants and justify exclusionary organization of Japanese ethnic church communities that aim to legitimize themselves and disallow legitimacy of most ‘others’ who do not share a common language and culture.

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Similar to Tollefson (2013) who stated language policy is an instrument that produces inequality, Guttman (1994) suggests governments and policy will always yield particular institutional and cultural ideology, which will be, by default, in contrast to the content of various valued cultures. So, if this is the case, then certain questions, particularly at the meso-level are important to consider. Guttman (1994, p. 5) asks,

“Should a liberal democratic society respect those cultures whose attitudes of ethnic or racial superiority, for example, are antagonistic to other cultures? If so, how can respect for a culture of ethnic or racial superiority be reconciled with the commitment to treating all people as equals?” In particular, at the meso level, pastors of Japanese churches wrestle with these questions to varying degrees, as they believe mother tongue is necessary for deep understanding of the Bible and spiritual things, while also desiring to keep families together who have different Japanese and English language needs. If mother tongue is necessary, as they believe it is for deep and precise understanding of the

Bible and spiritual things, and if bilingual services are perceived as being difficult for both Japanese and English as a first language speakers, then perhaps these questions will be very difficult to answer. Other questions in consideration of the pursuit of legitimization are necessary to consider, such as, “If a liberal democracy need not or should not respect such “supremacist” cultures, even if those cultures are highly valued by many among the disadvantaged, what precisely are the moral limits on the legitimate demand for political recognition of particular cultures?” (Guttman 1994, p. 5). In an attempt to consider answers to these questions, Taylor (1994, p. 29) draws upon

Rousseau. He suggests a paradigm of differences necessary for true recognition of individuals based upon 1. social differentiation (i.e., ‘diversity) and 2. homogenization

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(i.e., the common good). On these terms, after the paradigm has been “socially and politically disciplined” through policy (Guttman 1994, p. 6), idealized and legitimate multicultural realities are possible since equality is contingent upon recognition of individuals in terms of their language, culture, and political identity. However, once recognition of diversity and the common good is given to individuals, the tendency, as demonstrated by the history of politics in democratic nations, has been that people begin to pride themselves over others as a result of being publically recognized (Guttman 1994, p. 6).

Conclusion

My main question was, “What is a Japanese church in terms of culture and language?” and my two sub questions were aimed at understanding the views of church members that result in ethnic church communities, and views of church members about their Japanese ethnic church communities. I found that Japanese ethnic churches are communities organized to facilitate first generation Japanese adults who believe that

Japanese as a mother tongue is important for understanding the Bible and spiritual things.

The church as a community experienced and perpetuated marginalization in Canadian society, as described in governmentality (Foucault, 1991) in terms of direct (meso-level) and indirect (micro-level) control (Dean, 2010; Guo, 2009), since Japanese language was not recognized in macro-level language policies (e.g., Official Languages Act) and meso-

(e.g., church policy) and micro-level (e.g., church community) dominant and normative

Canadian culture. The church, as a community (micro-level), also perpetuated inequality on the inside as it was aimed at facilitating first generation Japanese adults who spoke

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Japanese as a first language, which meant the exclusion of other ethnolinguistic groups, particularly family members who were expected to participate in English in the periphery.

Exclusionary practices are evident at all levels of policy (Tollefson, 1991).

Macro-level governments and meso-level Japanese ethnic churches share similar challenges in pursuing their macro-level and meso-level intentions, usually aimed at the good of the group, while also needing to accommodate and acknowledge the needs and preferences of the people they intend to represent at the micro-level. Historical and political discourses such as kokusaika (i.e., literally ‘internationalization’ of Japanese people as a nation and in terms of promoting global ‘consciousness’ in Japanese society)

(keizai kikakucho kokumin-seikatsu-kyouku, 1987a; 1987b), and nihonjinron (literally discussions about being Japanese, usually in academic discourse) (Manabe & Befu, 1987), that engender perceptions about legitimization are perpetuated by policies and officials at the macro-levels and meso-levels (top-down) and at the micro-levels (bottom-up), such as when Japanese ethnic church members carry learned Japanese cultural and linguistic ideologies from Japan. These beliefs tend to have a pervasive impact upon Japanese people and subsequent church communities in Western Canada, as we have seen in the discourses of Japanese ethnic church members. These beliefs also affect the potential interaction and legitimization experiences of church members and the explicit and implicit access requirements of the churches as community members negotiate the terms of legitimization in dominant English speaking Canadian society. Each member potentially interprets legitimization differently, and legitimization is experienced at many levels, such as in terms of feeling emotionally and spiritually supported (e.g., when the church is perceived as an ‘oasis’) and being culturally and linguistically represented in a

165 nation and/or a church community, among other things. Interpretations of legitimization are context dependent and generally concern inclusionary and exclusionary practices within and without the church. As we have seen, members within River Japanese Church perceived themselves as being legitimately bilingual because they were members of a bilingual church of two congregations. In contrast, members within Mountain Japanese

Church, a tight-knit Japanese community, predominantly stated that they did not perceive themselves as being bilingual as they found ways to support one another and maintain solidarity as a Japanese ‘oasis’ community. At City Japanese Church, even Michael perceived legitimacy as a church member, and was perceived by other church members as being legitimate as a result of being connected with Pastor Joshua and his family. Yet, some members did not perceive him as a member. Whether or not church members perceived themselves as being legitimately bilingual, as we have seen, there are high degrees of solidarity in terms of beliefs about being and speaking Japanese, even by

Japanese ethnic church members who perceived themselves as being bilingual (such as

Pastor Jim), which result in the exclusion of outsiders such as Michael for some members, and result in placing English speakers in the periphery. As a result, language policy is reciprocal (top-down and bottom-up) at the macro- meso- and micro-levels as members are informed and inform one another at the different levels of language policy. On these terms within and without the Japanese ethnic church, language policy is “every public influence on the communication radius of languages, the sum of those “top-down” and

“bottom-up” political initiatives through which a particular language of languages is/are supported in their public validity, their functionality, and their dissemination” (Wodak,

2005, p. 170). In sum, English in Japan and Japanese in Canada is experienced differently,

166 and (in terms of language and cultural practices) while the primary function of Japanese ethnic churches is to legitimize and facilitate the language and cultural needs of first generation Japanese people who come to Canada as adults, as permitted by the Canadian

Multicultural Act, legitimacy is perceived and experienced differently and relative to each individual. Yet, Japanese Christian church communities in Canada are distinctly characterized by Japanese cultural and linguistic practices, which are perceived by church members as being the medium (e.g., Japanese language) that assists the church in achieving its primary goal, which is evangelizing the message of Christianity to first generation Japanese adults who are visiting or have emigrated to Canada (Woods, 2004).

As a result, as Mullins (1988; 1984) suggested, within the Japanese Christian church community there were tensions between first generation Japanese immigrants and their children, as first generation Japanese parents desired their children to maintain their heritage Japanese language. For Mullins (1987, pp. 324-326), such tensions are

“characterized by monolingual [English] language practices, goals of de-ethnization, and transformation into a multiethnic organization.” However, for the Japanese Christian churches in this study, their goals of reaching first generation Japanese adults with perceived Japanese language needs meant that they were not at risk of developmental de- ethnization because they were dependent upon recruiting first generation Japanese pastors from Japan and continuous flows of Japanese adults visiting and living in Canada for various periods of time. Hence, if the recruitment of Japanese pastors and the flows

Japanese people ceased to exist, then so did the churches and “de-ethnization” in the churches did not occur because second and third generation children of members were not perceived as continuing to maintain the Japanese churches their parents had built.

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Rather, they simply created new churches (as demonstrated by Sunrise English

Fellowship, which developed from River Japanese Church) that reflected their often

English language and Canadian culture preferences.

Recommendations and Questions for Discussion

Given the fundamental role that language plays in daily life and in education, understanding Japanese ethnic church communities, which are communities where authentic language is practiced, more research needs to be done to understand learners who are part of these type of communities where homogenous beliefs are carried out in the midst of complex and often seemingly paradoxical beliefs about identity. On these terms, education is broader than what occurs in the classroom, particularly since there is reciprocity between school communities that are designed to prepare society members to become capable of functioning in society. For language education this means preparing students with the language tools they need to function in society, while also drawing from authentic communities to identify the needs and experiences of language learners to support processes of legitimization. More research needs to be done with other Japanese ethnic churches in Canada to further understand the developmental processes of the

Japanese ethnic church organization and the member identities that shape these processes that result in legitimization both inside and outside of the church, and in terms how learners from Japanese ethnic communities can experience legitimization as society members in Canada. Perceptions concerning bilingualism are particularly important if legitimization within and without the Japanese ethnic churches in Western Canada is even possible. As members suggest, being bilingual is desirable and it means

‘opportunity’ in terms of employment and the ability to communicate with the

168 surrounding English speaking communities. However, becoming a bilingual church in practice would change the ‘oasis’ function of the Mountain Japanese Church, and the general aim of Japanese ethnic churches as communities that facilitate the language and cultural needs of first generation Japanese adults arriving in Canada from Japan. As

Amanda suggested a bilingual service is perceived as being problematic since the church would result in becoming less about Japanese language practices and accommodating the perceived “mother tongue” needs of Japanese individuals (as stated by Pastor Jim). Yet, a bilingual church could be more capable of evangelizing a larger (bilingual) community, especially since all three church communities perceive evangelism and worship of God as the paramount goal. On these terms, church members are challenged between culture and linguistic preferences or needs, and spiritual beliefs about identity as the Bible informs them that as Christians, “our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20), and that “there is no Jew or Greek [or Japanese]” (see Galatians 3:28), and that Christians are to

“become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some (1

Corinthians 9:22). While the Bible informs Christians within Japanese ethnic church communities to accommodate ‘others’ (Gumperz, 1982), it is also true that the Biblical view of language communities is that they began as a result of a curse where people were

‘scattered’ (Genesis 11:9) and that language and culture related divisions in the world and within and without Japanese ethnic churches are effects of ‘Babel’ (literally means ‘to confuse’). Haugen (1973) suggests that this premise is actually false and that people became linguistically diversified because they were scattered (and not that God ‘confused’ their tongues). From the perspective of being informed by the Bible, on these terms, a bilingual church community would be the ideal and philosophical desire of a Biblically

169 informed Japanese ethnic church community. However, when challenges with communication become evident, such as stated by Amanda, perhaps the two congregations model of River Japanese Church is a reasonable compromise, because after all, even from a Biblical point of view, the divisions are perceived as being ontological and language communities often lack cohesion as demonstrated by the inclusion and exclusion practices of language planning and policy. Practically speaking, bilingual services have the potential to lack as much curricular content when compared to a monolingual service, and may be a challenging learning environments as members who are not bilingual will have perceived challenges understanding in both languages. In addition, a pastor will also need to determine the delivery of the content in both languages, and whether it is delivered by the pastor or through the accompaniment of an interpreter, although, as we have seen, interpreters are usually reserved for special events, which suggests they are effective, although perhaps in moderation. The following questions for discussion may be instrumental in helping to gain further understanding of

Japanese ethnic church community.

1. What are the perspectives of other Japanese ethnic members in Canada? In the United States?

2. As Japanese church members are churches that attempt to construct a Japanese community in the midst of a dominant non-Japanese society, how do the views of Japanese church members about their churches outside of Japan compare to the views of Japanese church members of churches inside of Japan? Are they more or less “Japanese” as they are inside or outside of Japan? Are Japanese churches perceived as being “Japanese” as they may be perceived as communities facilitating a “Western” Christian religion?

3. While this study demonstrated that Japanese churches are typically homogenous communities that do not have completely “open door” policies that include non-Japanese speakers, and maintain homogeneity by recruiting pastors from Japan, how long are Japanese churches able to sustain their homogenous identities in the midst of dominant culture? What are the views

170

about Japanese ethnic churches of non-Japanese family members and what degree are they able to participate or experience membership??

4. If ethnically Japanese church members who have children that acquire Japanese and English to varying degrees, to what degree do these bilingual “nissei” children see themselves as being Japanese, particularly when they are old enough to choose to attend church on their own, and if so, do they choose to pass on the Japanese culture of their parents and attend Japanese churches?

5. Furthermore, for the bilingual child who grew up in a Japanese ethnic church community, what role did the church play in helping to establish or maintain the child’s Japanese, Canadian, Christian, and/or other identities

171

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Appendix A: Interview Questions Background

 Birthplace  Education  Training  Work

Language practices

 At home  At work  With children  At church

Language

 Since coming to Canada, has your view concerning language use changed? Why?  Are there instances when English or Japanese must be used? Examples?  What portions of church practices are in Japanese and in English?  How do members affect the language of the church? (e.g., meetings, etc.)

Bilingual

 What is it to be bilingual?  Are you bilingual?

Culture

 What is your culture?  How are language and culture related?  Is language a ‘stumbling block’?  Can you define Japanese culture?  How are fellow church members valuing culture?  Is there an effort to maintain some type of cultural maintenance? How?  How do you ‘pass on’ culture?  Has Japanese culture become a ‘golden calf’ of the people?

Policy of Church

 Do you have a website? Facebook page?  If the goal is to share the Gospel then how important is language?

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 Do church bylaws express necessity of promoting Japanese or English culture?  Is the church an ‘open door’ or ‘closed door’ setting? How? In what way?  What does ‘open door’ mean for your church?

Church Stuff

 Why did you choose to come to this church?  Describe your church.  How often do you go to church?  Bible do you read at home? At church? In which languages?

For Pastors and leadership

 Has language been a factor in problems concerning the church? How?  How has a bilingual approach been received by church members?  If the goal is to share the Gospel then how important is language?  Are there a growing or decreasing number of mixed marriages?  Are there mixed marriages in your church? Which ones? How are they affected?

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Appendix B: (Table 4) Approaches to Discourse Analysis

We-you-discourse (Gumperz, 1982) Variations of “we” vs. “you” discourse:  Absence of proper adjectives (e.g., absence of “Japanese” when referring to “Japanese people”)

Intertextuality (Fairclough, 2003) Text within texts and within worlds of texts:

 Direct reporting, such as by citing a quotation or actual words used  Indirect reporting, such as giving a summary of the content or what was said.

Cohesive elements to make connections to larger discourses:

 Repetitions (e.g., references to the same text and lexical items)  Similarities (e.g., descriptions of the same contexts from different perspectives)  Contradictions (e.g., the use of coordinating conjunctions “but”, “demo”, and “desukedo” (Onodera 2004, p. 57)

Language Policy Discourse Markers (Johnson, 2009)

 Agents: those who create policy in addition to those who are responsible for its interpretation and appropriation.  Goals: The intention of the policy as stated in the policy text.  Processes: The processes of creation, interpretation, and appropriation.  Discourses that engender and perpetuate the policy: Referring to discourses both implicit and explicit existing within the policy text in addition to intertextual connections to other policies, and the discursive power of a particular policy.  The dynamic social and historical contexts in which the policy exists, keeping in mind that these categories are neither static nor mutually exclusive.

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