“The Seoul of Black Folks”

“THE SEOUL OF BLACK FOLKS”

AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES WITH THE “GAZE” IN KOREA AND JAPAN

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MANOA IN FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS

SOCIOLOGY

MAY 2014

Asia Inez Bento Thesis Committee Lisa Uperesa Chairperson Patricia Steinhoff Petrice Flowers

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to everyone who supported me throughout this process. First I would like to express my greatest appreciation to my Chair Lisa Uperesa, I had an amazing experience working with you these past two years. I have truly learned a lot from working with you. Your feedback and unique perspective have been invaluable throughout this process, and have helped push my thinking about my topic immensely. Working closely alongside you these past few years showed me how insanely busy professors are. So, I appreciate the time you have dedicated to helping me along the road to completion.

Patricia Steinhoff, you have been incredibly supportive throughout this process and your commitment to helping me draft the best possible thesis often left you assisting me in ways that far exceeded your duties. I am beyond thankful for all of the time and effort you have spent helping me along the way. Your patience, perseverance, and dedication to helping me succeed have been invaluable throughout this process and I am truly thankful.

Petrice Flowers thank you for not only taking time out to assist me, but your words of encouragement have been immensely helpful. Your support helped me persevere through the exhaustion, exasperation, and confusion that crept in during the final weeks of writing. So, I am greatly appreciative.

I would finally like to thank the Sociology Department for all of its support along the way.

iii

ABSTRACT

In this study the concept of the gaze will be used to analyze the travel experiences of

African-American women in Korea and Japan. Gazing is worth exploring in this context because the complex identities African-American women possess of Western and black simultaneously affords and denies them access to political and social power abroad. Historically, gazing is considered a unilateral act, however, critical analyses of the gaze demonstrate that gazing is a multilateral process, with both actors simultaneously constructing their subject, while creating a self-identity that transgresses their gazer’s attempts to position them as an inferior other. Thus, recent studies on the gaze challenge the notion of fixed positions of dominance and claim that power moves freely between the porous lines of subject and gazer, positions that are also difficult to define as fixed and unchanging. Thus, this study explores how racializing the Western traveler as black deepens our understanding of the gaze. To examine how the dynamics of the gaze operate for African-American women in Japan and Korea, a content analysis was conducted on seven travel blogs written by six different women living in Japan and Korea for at least one year.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………….…...iii ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………....v TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………………………vi LIST OF TABLES ……………………………………………………………………………..viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………1

INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………..1 LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………………………………...... 3 The Gaze…………………………………………………………………………3 Japan, the West, and Shifting Power Dynamics………………………………..10 Korea’s Economic Success and Growing Anti-American Sentiment …………15 Defining the Other in Japan and South Korea...……………………………….20 Women as Foreign Residents in Japan and Korea…………………………… 39 Racism and the Construction of the Other…………………………………….44 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………...48

CHAPTER 2: METHODS AND FINDINGS………………………………………………….51

METHODS...……………………………….……………………………………………51 Data Collection……………………………………………………………….....53 Data Coding……………………………………………………………………..56 FINDINGS………………………………………………………………………………60 Descriptions of Interaction Events in the Blogs………………………………..60 Positive and Negative Reactions to Events……………………………………..61 Types of Gazers………………………………………………………………….62 Feelings of Discomfort, Marginalization, and Resistance to Events ……………62 Description of People, in the Blogs ………………..…………………………..63 OVERVIEW OF CHAPTERS………………………………………………………….64

CHAPTER 3: A MIDDLE-CLASS AFRICAN-AMERICAN IDENTITY ABROAD…………67 African-Americans Jockey for Social Position and Police Nationality………..68 African-Americans Maintain Middle-Class Identities in Public Spaces……….74 The Blogger’s Assert American Middle-Class Identities Abroad……………….81 RAC(ISM) REMAINS SAILENT FOR AFRICANS AND AFRICAN-AMERICANS……………………………………………………………....89 WHY DO THE BLOGGERS DISTANCE THEMSELVES FROM AMERICANS……92 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………..97

CHAPTER4: THE BLOGGERS RESIST THE LOCAL GAZE TO MAINTAIN SELF- CONFIDENCE…………………………………………………………………………………100

THE OPPOSITIONAL GAZE…………………………………………………………100 DISCOMFORT WITH THE REVERSE GAZE……………………………………….103 Looking Back and Disrupting the Local Gaze………………………………..106

NAVIGATING THE DISCOMFORT RACIAL DIFFERENCE CREATES………………………………………………………………………………109 THE BLOGGERS RESIST THE GAZE TO LIMIT FEELING MARGINALIZED …118 Language Barrier……………………………………………………………….119 Overcoming Adversity through Self-Reliance and Independence……………122 Comparing U.S. and E. Asian Racism…………………………………………124 Shifting Perceptions of African-Americans Abroad…………………………..127 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………133

CHAPTER5: HOW THE BLOGGERS CONSTRUCT PEOPLE IN EAST ASIA……………136

ENGLISH PROFICIENCY AS A MARKER OF DIFFERENCE……………………..138 PRIVILEGE PROVIDES A SENSE OF COMFORT………………………………….143 DEPICTING A LACK OF DIVERSITY IN KOREA AND JAPAN………………….147 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………150

CHAPTER6: CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………….154

APPENDIX 1: WEBLOGS AS TEXT…………………………………………………………163

REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………168

LIST OF TABLES

1. Posts per country, number of events, and rate of events per 100 posts………………….61

2. Negative or positive responses to events, by country……………………………………61

3. Total gazers per country.………………………………………………………………...62

4. Response of discomfort, feelings of marginalization, or resistance, by country ………62

5. Country Descriptions and rate of descriptions per 100 posts…………………………..63

6. Reaction to staring and touching by country…………………………………………..104

7. Mentions of race by gazer………………………………………………………………111

8. Reaction to race by country……………………………………………………………112

9. Positive encounters by country based on gazer……………………………………….114

10. Resistance by gazer……………………………………………………………………..118

11. Essentialized and intrinsic difference descriptions of host country people, by country .137

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Chapter 1

Introduction and Literature Review

INTRODUCTION

Out of the corner of my eye though, I noticed her glancing at me out of the corner of HER eye! (The Seoul of Black Folks)

This is one excerpt from the blog the Seoul of Black Folks written by an African-American woman teaching English in Korea. The passage above is one of many detailing her interactions with Koreans, and it demonstrates her experience with the “gaze.”

The “gaze” is an abstract political concept that describes power relationships, and is used by the dominant group to reinforce their supremacy. The dominant group ultimately uses the gaze to brand its opposition as inferior and abnormal in order to legitimate their superiority. For the purposes of this study the gaze will be examined within the context of the West/non-West binary, and will explore the power the West has over non-Western cultures.1 The West/non-West gaze is Western centered and consists predominately of white Western males gazing upon non-

Western cultures. The power of the gaze lies in the gazer’s ability to use it to create a normalized and essentialized image of non-Western communities that positions them as inferior. Ultimately the gaze represents the “subtle way in which power manifests itself” and is based on the unequal

1 Throughout this study the West, will be used (as Edward Said did) to refer to the physical places of Europe and the United States, and the non-West or East will encompass all non-European and non-U.S. countries. However, the concept of the West implies more than just physical space and embedded within the term are power dynamics that clearly define the West and East as distinct groups with separate political, cultural, racial, and intellectual attributes. Said (1978), argues that homogenizing these two groups created a binary, or us (Europe/America) and them (non- Europe non-America) Moreover, clarifying these distinctions also allowed the West to define its identity as culturally, racially, politically and intellectually superior in comparison. Therefore, throughout this study when the “West” is used it does not refer solely to distinct physical spaces, although it does imply specific countries, it refers to the ideas “created” “developed” and “nurtured” through colonial projects in the 19th and 20th century that distinguished the Western identity that emerged, in superior opposition to the non-West.

relationships of power that are steeped in oppression and exploitation (Pitman 2009:376).

Moreover, “the power play of the gaze…is related to the inequalities that arose between different

‘races’ as a result of the history of European colonialism” (Pitman 2009: 377).

For the purposes of this study the concept of the gaze will be used to analyze travelogues, that take the form of weblogs, written by African-American women about their experiences living in Japan and Korea. Gazing is worth exploring in this context because the complex identity African-American women possess of being black-Americans, and women abroad in patriarchal countries with which the United States has dominant political and economic relationships. Historically, gazing is considered a unilateral act with each actor possessing a distinct position of either inferior or superior (Pitman 2009). However, critical analyses of the gaze that consider gender, race, class, nationality, and so on demonstrate that gazing is not a unilateral process. Instead, the subjects of the gaze often purposefully disrupt it to maintain or reclaim the power to define themselves in opposition to the identity imposed upon them. Thus, subjects impede the gaze to delegitimize the power of the gazer (hooks1992 and Sweet 1989).

Therefore when we consider the multiple identities of African-American women, the dynamics of the gaze become more complex.

Traditional understandings of the Western and male-centered gaze assume that the

West’s political and economic dominance on the international stage is reflected in the interpersonal interactions between Westerners and their “others.” This narrow view of the gaze further implies that all Americans traveling and constructing images of the non-West are male and white. Thus, it raises some interesting questions: what happens when American travelers are non-male and non-white, and when we consider the stratification of foreigners in Japan and

South Korea?

African-American women are assumed beneficiaries of the “asymmetrical international power relationship” between the U.S. and East Asia (Okada 2011: 185). Thus, their American nationality should grant African-American women the power to gaze upon Japanese and Koreans as inferior others. However, in Japan and Korea the Eurocentric view of racial hierarchies that positions people of African descent at the bottom pervades (Kim 2006 and Okada 2011). Japan and Korea are also patriarchal societies. As a result, African-American women moving within these countries arguably will be subjected to a male-gaze that aims to define women as inferior.

Moreover, the myth of homogeneity present in both countries marginalizes non-Japanese and non-Korean residents. Therefore the inferior status of an African-American woman’s race, gender and foreignness arguably allows the gaze she imparts upon non-Westerners to be returned.

Thus, being non-Japanese or non-Korean, and female complicates the Western centered understanding of the gaze, challenges the positions of power codified in the act of gazing, and forces us to reevaluate the idea of a unilateral gaze. By racializing and gendering the Western gazer (as black and female), and reimaging the workings of the gaze outside of a Western- centered framework, this study reevaluates the idea of the gaze as unilateral, and examines how the dynamics of the gaze work when both gazer and subject are from non-white and non-Western groups

LITERATURE REVIEW

The Gaze

To begin our discussion on the concept of the gaze within the context of the West and non-West, we must explore the gaze’s connection to colonialism. Modern colonialists subjugated the colonized people to maintain a level of control that expanded beyond physical occupation. As a result, the system of colonialism engendered a set of complex and interrelated practices

3 through which Western nations established Western political, military, and cultural dominance

(Prasad 2003: 5). Prior to scholars critically examining the gaze as a system of power within colonialism, there was a sense that looking was more consequential than just the biological act of seeing. The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan developed the idea of visuality to define the complexity of seeing. He argues that when we look we instinctually apply cultural constructs, ideas, and stereotypes to what we see to make sense of the world around us (Lacan 1977). It was through a critical analysis of colonialism that the concept of the colonial gaze emerged.

As Western colonialists expanded and ventured more into the “unknown,” Westerners sought ways to make sense of their surroundings. Consequently, tools such as ethnography, documentary film and photography, and travel writing emerged to document, categorize, and define the new cultures the West encountered (Rony 1996 and Pratt 1992). All of these tools served as a way to produce knowledge about the colony for Western audiences (Ghose 1998).

Moreover, the information relayed allowed the West to carefully construct an image of the non-

West that stood in opposition to Western morality, culture, and intellect (Prasad 2003:12). It was through defining itself as superior, while possessing economic and military prowess, that the

West asserted its superiority and dominance over the non-West (Said 1978).

Early studies on the gaze rendered subjects as passive objects dominated and constructed by their gazers. According to Laura Mulvey’s (1989) work on the male gaze, women are positioned as passive objects to be owned, exoticized, and placed in contradistinction to maleness. Moreover, a woman’s passive standing, within the dynamics of the gaze, leads to assumptions that women idly let men project a male constructed fantasy of femaleness onto them.

Scholars who analyze the gaze within the context of tourism also argue that the host country and culture are positioned as passive subjects of the tourist’s gaze. John Urry (1990) reexamines

4 gazing in a post-colonial setting by exploring the dynamics of the “tourist gaze.” His study finds that even today Western tourists take a Western centered approach to viewing other cultures, and in doing so reconstruct the image of an inferior non-West that colonialism produced (Hyndman

2001). Western tourists do this by traveling with the intent of consuming a version of non-

Western culture that was constructed by the West, and as a result the local culture is transformed for Western consumption (Trask 1999). Therefore, the Western travelers’ unilateral gaze reinforces the unequal power relationships with the non-West that decolonization struggles worked to abolish.

Most studies on the effects of the gaze take Urry’s stance that the majority group (the

West) constructs the minority group (non-West). Despite the assumption that the power to gaze is limited to the West, some scholars have argued that the other still actively and freely constructed images of the West in comparison to itself (hooks 1992, Spurr 1993, and Evans-

Pritchard 1989). Foucault (1995) argues that power is diffused and can manifest in different locations. This means that power is not stationary or possessed by one person or group.

Therefore, positions of dominance can shift as the context changes. Lacan (1977) reinforces this idea of porous lines between dominant gazer and inferior subject, by claiming that no one is exempt from being gazed upon. Thus, despite believing that gazing is a unilateral act that shields the gazer from being shaped by their subject, Lacan suggests that no “institution however ideological or economically privileged can regard the [world] from a completely external view point” (Lacan 1977 and Hsu 2003: 120). Thus, we are all equally capable of being subjects and gazers. Despite the West’s dominance, it is not exempt from being constructed through the eyes of another.

The need to find meaning and make sense of the other extends beyond the West, and many cultures represent and construct outsiders in relation to themselves (Sweet 1989). This act is considered the “local” or “reverse” gaze. The concept of the local or reverse gaze negates the assumption of powerless local people, and builds on Foucault’s argument that power is everywhere, even subaltern groups possess some sense of power. Local residents return the viewer’s gaze and are no longer passive subjects (Gillespie 2006 and Durham 2001).

Similar to the gaze, the “reverse gaze” also serves as a way to solidify the identity of local people, because the locals construct an image of the tourist that is oppositional. In the

Southwestern United States Pueblo Native Americans use the practice of burlesquing or imitating American tourists to comically juxtapose Native American and mainstream American culture (Sweet 1989). In the global south local people manipulate the exoticizing gaze to economically exploit tourists. To do this local residents sell tourists “authentic” and “traditional” images of their culture, either with cultural knickknacks or village tours, in an effort to appease the tourists’ desire to have an ‘authentic’ cultural experience. This ultimately results in local people commodifying and “Disneyfying” (or simplifying and caricaturing) their culture for

Western consumption in return for economic gains. Contrary to Urry’s argument that power is bound to the tourist, the relationship between tourists and locals is more complex. The local residents are capable of manipulating and staging cultural acts to exploit the tourists, return the tourists’ gaze, and recast existing power relations (Maoz 2005). Moreover, it is important to note that the reverse gaze demonstrates that local residents can and do reject Western constructions.

The local people’s ability to exploit the tourist proves that power rests on both sides.

Sweet (1989) is not the only scholar to highlight that marginal groups critically analyze and reject the West’s image of them, and form identities that exist outside of Western influence.

In Black Looks (1992), bell hooks develops the idea of an “oppositional gaze.” According to bell hooks, the “oppositional gaze” is constructed when African-American women “actively resist the imposition of dominant ways of knowing and looking,” and define themselves outside of the white/black and male/female binaries that position blacks and women as subjects to the white and male gaze (hooks1992: 317). Thus, the oppositional gaze allows African-American women to freely transgress the boundaries of identity, and embody a self that was not constructed to legitimate white/male superiority. Bell hooks’ and Sweet’s works clarify that the subject of the gaze is not passive. Instead, those that are gazed upon actively resist being shaped by the

Western, white, and male gaze and develop self-identities that cannot be used to legitimate male and Western dominance. However, do the reverse and oppositional gazes make gazing equal?

Some scholars argue that the subaltern gaze makes gazing mutual because each actor possesses the power to shape and normalize their other (Maoz 2005). The “mutual gaze” is when both the subject and the gazer look upon each other equally and act according to the gaze of the other. For example, the Western gaze shapes the non-West’s actions and vice-versa. Therefore each group has equal potential to shape the other (Maoz 2005 and Aitchison and Jordan 2008).

Gazing is not a unilateral process; each actor is given the power to gaze upon the other, and construct an image that places the other in contradistinction to the gazer’s “self” identity.

According to the “mutual gaze,” power is evenly dispersed across subject and gazer.

However, the consequences of the return gaze and the power it affords the local population still pales in comparison to the effects and omnipresent power of colonialism (Maoz 2005). To begin with, local populations hoping to economically benefit from Western tourism must present a caricatured version of their culture that conforms to and reinforces Western stereotypes. Frantz

Fanon (1967) in White Skin, Black Masks details how being constructed as inferior by the gaze

7 can be psychologically damaging when the subject believes they are equal to their gazer. In addition, studies that examine the “reverse gaze” found that when the traveler becomes the subject they only experience temporary discomfort, shame, embarrassment, and vulnerability

(Gillespie 2006 and Jordan and Aitchison 2008). This is because the return gaze forces the tourist to acknowledge the disparaging power of the gaze (Gillespie 2006 and Sweet 1989). Although the local residents have the capability to discomfort the Western tourist, these brief moments of embarrassment do not position the local gazer as superior to their Western subject. The non-

West can return the Western gaze and construct an essentialized image of the West, but in the end their images are less damaging because the West is still capable of oppressing the local community. Despite the decolonization movements of the mid-20th century, neocolonial relationships have reemerged between the West and non-West that allow the West to exploit the people and resources of non-Western countries for economic gain. Thus, the local population may be empowered and receive some economic benefits from the return gaze, but it does not allow them to eschew or usurp the West’s pervasive influence (Evans-Pritchard 1989). As a result, the gaze becomes fractured; although it still disproportionately favors the West, it is no longer strictly unilateral.

In the end current research on “the gaze” demonstrates that it can be returned but it is not mutual. If economic, military, and political power still rests with the Western viewer, what are the dynamics of the reverse gaze when the Westerners subjected to the return gaze are marginalized because they are non-white and non-male? Do these non-white and non-male

Western gazers still maintain political and economic dominance over their non-Western subjects? It has been found that women traveling abroad, especially alone, are always gazed upon. Their gender prevents anonymity and inflicts a gaze that categorizes them as sexual

8 objects, rendering them vulnerable to sexual abuse, exploitation, and victimization (Jordan and

Aitchison 2008 and Evans-Pritchard 1989). The subject racialized as black also has the potential to be positioned as inferior to local residents in Korea and Japan because of how pigmentocracies position blacks (individuals of African descent) as inferior to browns (individuals of Asian descent), and whites (individuals with European ancestry) (Hyndman 2000). Moreover, East

Asia’s adoption of Eurocentric racial hierarchies has negatively influenced the perception of

African-Americans in Japan and Korea. Thus, depending on the race and gender of the traveler they may automatically be categorized as inferior despite being American.

There are still many questions to be answered about the power dynamics of the gaze, especially when both the subject and the gazer do not fit the traditional mold of white, male and

Western. The literature on the return and oppositional gaze illustrates that the return gaze has been crucial in showing that marginalized groups are not passive subjects to be constructed for

Western consumption or to legitimate Western identity. Instead traditionally oppressed populations are active participants in the process of gazing, they think critically about the effects of being gazed upon, and fill both roles of gazer and subject. Therefore, when the gaze is no longer strictly assumed to be Western centered how does it work; when the threat of being shaped by the dominant Western/white/male group is removed does opposition to the gaze remain? Do these groups still actively try and prevent the gaze from consuming them and applying an identity to them? More importantly, how do the dynamics between non-white, non- male, and non-Western gazers and subjects work? Within this new context, will the subject still critically construct an image of their gazers that protects the subject’s self-identity? If not how do non-white, non-male, and non-Western subjects reverse the gaze?

This study examines these ideas further by looking at how the dynamics of gazing work within a context where both gazer and subject do not fit within the traditional framework of white, Western, and male. Therefore this study examines African-American women’s experiences with the gaze in East Asia. To do this we must first review how Japan and South

Korea have historically engaged with the West, and how these relationships have shifted since the 1980s.

Japan, the West, and Shifting Power Dynamics

To assume that Japan-U.S. relations have remained strictly unilateral since the 19th century fails to encompass Japan’s ceaseless striving for parity with the United States. In the mid to late 19th century the racial politics of the West muddled together all non-Westerners and marked them as inferior. In confronting Western imperialism in the mid-1800s Japan acknowledged and accepted Eurocentric definitions of race that ironically defined Japan as inferior. However, Japan used Western notions of race to construct a Japanese national identity that strategically “distinguished [itself] from non-Western nations and close[r] to the Western powers [it] wished to emulate” (Tajima and Thornton 2012: 346).

To fully understand the construction of Japan’s national identity from the mid-19th to 20th century we must explore Japan’s rapid emergence as a world power decades after being forcibly opened in 1853. With the arrival of Commodore Perry and the rapid signing of the unequal treaties, Japan was forced to confront the threat of imperialism. However, as Michael Auslin

(2004) argues, Japan’s encounter with imperialism was unique. The West did not colonize Japan, forcibly take land, or carve out spheres of influence like Europe did in Africa, essentially treating

Japan more as an “equal” than any other colonized nation (Auslin 2004). The treaties created a

10 relationship between Japan and the West that allowed Japan to view imperialism as a surmountable force. Imperialism was not monolithic, and Japan sought to transform the treaties into equitable trade agreements by adopting Western systems to gain equality in the eyes of the

West.

Encounters with the West taught Japan’s leaders that autonomy was attainable if Japan became “civilized” by adopting Western social, political, and economic systems. As a result,

Japan engaged in an initiative for total transformation to align itself with the Western benchmarks for civilization. Japan’s leaders possessed an understanding of the standards used by the West to define countries as uncivilized, so they sought to align Japan closely with Western ideals of sophistication to avoid submission.

Significant political gains like the Russo-Japanese war, colonies in Korea and Taiwan, and an invitation to the League of Nations signified Japan’s rise as a world power. However,

Japan’s imperial success left it in unchartered territory. The empire’s achievements made it impossible to classify Japan as a backwards or uncivilized nation, but as a non-white nation it could never possess the necessary characteristic of whiteness to gain true parity with the West.

Thus, Japan’s strategy of accepting Eurocentric racial hierarchies rested on the fact that Japan

(the world power) was messy to define, and to circumvent this problem it claimed the title of

“ruler of racial others” or “champion of the darker races,” and imagined itself as superior to other-Asian groups and blacks.2

2For a period of time Japan’s new identity as the “champion of darker races” was accepted by prominent African- American civil rights leaders like W.E.B. Dubois. By the early 1900s African-Americans looked to Japan as a model for liberation, Japan’s success was idealized, and an African-American-Japan alliance was formed. However, Tajima and Thornton (2012) argue that this alliance was one-sided and Japan viewed its success not as a rallying point for non-white solidarity, but as a signal to whites that it was a world power. Moreover, during the Pacific War Japan’s empire worked diligently to racialize subjects in its South Pacific territories as “darker,” “uncivilized,” and “inferior” (Baskett 2008).

Japan’s numerous contradictions are due to the fact that it came to power in a time that was heavily defined by race and the construction of racial inequality. Japan had to straddle a middle ground that was overrun with inconsistencies, simply because embodying an identity that fit within the strict binary of colonizer or colonized was impossible. Japan’s empire was released from its ambiguous position after it was defeated in WWII, and the U.S. occupation stripped

Japan of its military power.

By the second half of the 20th century Japan had successfully rebuilt itself, overcome the stain of fascism, and remarkably claimed the title of an economic world power. As early as 1975

Japan became a G-7 and G-5 nation, and was granted membership to an annual meeting of the world’s top capitalist countries (Gordon 2003 and Duus 1998).

Japan’s growing economy generated a surplus within the nation’s banks and corporations that was quickly reinvested abroad. By 1980, Japanese companies like Mitsubishi and Toyota were building facilities in the United States, and Japanese institutions purchased American treasury bills and historic landmarks like Rockefeller Center and Pebble Beach (Gordon 2003).

Ironically, by the 1980s Japan and the United States had entered into a semi-colonial economic relationship that positioned Japan as the “colonizer”. Overlooking the United States military (imperial) presence in Japan, it was engaged in this relationship “as seller of raw materials to Japan and buyer of manufactured goods” (Gordon 2003: 295). Japan’s dominant economic status in comparison to its former occupier was exaggerated by the U.S.-Japan trade imbalance (Gordon 2003 and Duus 1998).

Economic prosperity and newfound status as a world power bolstered national self- esteem and assuaged Japan’s sense of inferiority in relation to the West. Polls conducted around

12 the second half of the 20th century revealed that the Japanese people believed they “were superior to any other in the world” and a “substantial majority thought Japan was equal or superior to the counties of Western Europe in technology and ‘economic power’” (Duus 1998: 332). The nation’s growing self-esteem was mirrored in Japan’s declining respect for the United States and other Western countries (Duus 1998). By the 1980s there was a growing sense that the United

States and other Western powers needed to learn from Japan’s success and emulate its economic model. Some Japanese even brashly attributed the West’s stagnating economy to laziness and complacency (Gordon 2003 and Duus 1998).

Despite Japan’s growing economic might it remained a marginal world power. The trade imbalances that helped fuel Japan’s success were quickly rebuked by the United States, and it asserted its dominance by passing a series of laws that reestablished trade relations in favor of

U.S. interests (Gordon 2003 and Duus 1998). The U.S.’s use of its political dominance to stunt

Japan’s economic growth demonstrates two things. Firstly it shows that Japan’s economic prosperity and growing self-confidence did not make it an equal in the eyes of the West. Second, the U.S.’s success in enacting unequal trade polices exposed Japan’s dearth of political and military might on the international stage.

Japan’s ambiguous position as a world power was highlighted by claims that its “foreign policy was passive and reactive” (Duus 1998: 339), or that “Japan was a reluctant giant, unable or unwilling to involve itself deeply in international politics” (Duus 1998: 339). By the late 20th century there was a gap between Japan’s economic might and its political influence. Japan’s paucity of political power left it unable to successfully remove itself from under the United

States’ dominance, thus hindering its acceptance as a world leader.

What does Japan’s assumed parity mean for the dynamics of the gaze? Firstly it helps to demonstrate that the gaze is not strictly unilateral. Japan’s economic success has allowed its citizens to explore the world in the same manner as Western tourists. They are able to consume and commodify foreign cultures for leisure and entertainment, and the Japanese do so at a remarkable rate. By the 1990s, Japanese took an estimated ten million trips abroad and expenses on overseas travel exceeded $20 billion. It is argued that contemporary travel is used to

“represents a shake-off of tradition, poverty, and political control” and that it works to increase

“one’s cultural capital as a world citizen” (Winter, Teo, and Chang 2009:7). However, in defining the Japanese-self, international travel demonstrates Japan’s cosmopolitanism and ultimately its status as an elite nation, whose economic growth freed it from Western dominance.

Moreover, theme parks, known as gaikoku mura, which offered domestic replicas of Western villages, began to emerge. These parks allowed Japanese tourist to travel abroad and have the quintessential Western experience without leaving the country.

Joy Hendry (2000:4) argues “these forms of representation [Western theme parks] are not only possible, but relatively acceptable, because Japan and Britain are countries at an approximate equal stage of technological and economic development.” However, Japan’s parity with the West is limited, and America still possesses military and political influence in the region that maintains an asymmetrical power relationship between Japan and the West. Thus, Hendry’s

(2000) claims that a mutual gaze exist because of Japan’s position as an economic world power is incomplete. However, Hendry’s assertions should not be completely discounted. Gaikoku mura arguably are manifestations of Japan’s sense of parity and superiority over the West, because much like increased leisure travel, they illustrate that economic and technological

14 equality have afforded Japan the ability to engage with the gaze to define itself in opposition to the West.

When comparing Japan’s interactions with the West at the tail-end of the 19th century to the late 20th century and early 21st century, the contemporary dynamics of the East-West gaze are decidedly different than before.3 By the late 20th century Japan differentiated itself from the West to highlight the positive attributes of the Japanese self. Following Japan’s rise to economic prominence, the West is positioned as an other that solidifies Japanese identity. The creation of theme parks that represent historic European villages stands in opposition to the contemporary

Japanese-self, and serves to construct an image of an antiquated West. Moreover, these theme parks expand on tropes often used by the West to define the non-West as other.

In this context Japan’s economic success reveals the fluidity of the gaze’s power, exposes that the dynamics of the gaze in Japan are complex and difficult to define, and that the gaze is neither unilateral nor mutual. Contemporary Japan is not a passive participant in the gaze, and

Japan’s elevated self-confidence and awareness of its newfound status is consequential for how the gaze will work to construct African-American female bloggers as Westerners. The bloggers will be encountering a Japan that has faded euphoria for the West, and they will be living in a country that views itself as the U.S.’s equal, if not its superior. The West’s assumed traditional position of dominance is erased, and it is impossible to assume that Japan is a passive subject, only granted power through resistance or opposition. Westerners in Japan are positioned as subjects, and are clearly defined as “other” to reaffirm a superior Japanese self.

3 It is important to note that the dynamics of the East-West gaze shifted throughout the 20th century, and Japan’s perception of the West in the early 1900s was vastly different by the end of the century. Moreover, Japan’s relationship with the U.S. was arguably constantly in flux, when considering the Pacific War, Occupation, post- Occupation, the Vietnam War, and Japan’s economic success.

Korea’s Economic Success and Growing Anti-American Sentiment

Similar to Japan, Korea’s economic development in the second half of the 20th century thrust it onto the world stage. Its growth was conceptualized as miraculous, boosted national self- confidence, and served as proof of “Korean exceptionalism.” From 1910-1945 Korea was a

Japanese colony. Japanese rule prevented the development of an independent Korean financial system. As a result, liberation at the end of WWII forced Korea to “[establish] a self-reliant economy” (Man-Gil 1994: 264), and forty years later Korea had succeeded.

Korea’s seemingly miraculous economic growth granted it status as a world power and sparked domestic awareness of its new global position. South Koreans were proud and keenly aware that their success granted elevated status on the world stage. Many even began to question the unequal dynamics of power between Korea and the United States, to the extent that by the

1980s an anti-American movement began to emerge (Kim 1989, Kim 2003, Shorrock 1986, and

Shin 1996). Prior to the 1980s the U.S. was shrouded in “illusions” and “myths,” and was upheld as the premier South Korean ally. The U.S. liberated South Korea from Japan, and supported the

Korean War, and in short was imaged as South Korea’s “savior” in the decades following WWII

(Kim 1989: 751 and Shin 1996). However, political reasons also hindered the development of anti-American sentiment prior to the 1980s (Kim 1989). The tumultuous climate following decolonization, and the successive illegitimate authoritarian governments that sprouted, and

“sought American support for their legitimacy…did not permit anti-Americanism to emerge in the nation. An anti-American movement was identified with a pro-communism or a pro-North

Korean movement and was considered to serve the interests of the enemy” (Kim 1989: 752).

As time progressed, and the decades accumulated following liberation and the Korean

War, the fondness for America faded. The younger generations had not witnessed “America the savior” and their failure to idealize the U.S. allowed them to critique and devalue the Korean-

American alliance, in a way their grandparents did not (Kim 1989 and Kim 2003).

The widespread anti-Americanism that developed in South Korea in the 1980s is largely attributed to the actions of the U.S. in the years following Park Chung Hee’s assassination. The downfall of the authoritarian Park regime sparked hope for political change. Shorrock (1996:

1199-1200) writes that, “many Koreans rejoiced at the death of the dictator, and looked forward to an end to military rule, a new Constitution, and a presidential election.” Moreover, South

Koreans were hopeful that the U.S. would unconditionally support the nation’s steps towards democracy.

Instead, Doo Hwan Chun seized power illegally and reinstated a militaristic regime. To the dismay of the Koreans, the U.S. backed Chun. The Kwangjiu massacre is seen as evidence of the U.S.’s hypocritical failure to support democracy and freedom abroad (Shin 1996). The

Kwangjiu massacre began with students mobilizing against Chun’s seizure of power, and many

Koreans expected the U.S. to intervene on the side of the students; the side of democracy.

However, it was rumored that the U.S. sent in troops to suppress the protest and in the process massacred hundreds of dissenters. While the United States has not admitted to its involvement, many South Koreans remain suspicious (Shin 1996). Moreover, the U.S. did undeniably support

Chun’s reign, and he was even invited to the White House by President Regan.

The U.S.’s unquestionable backing of Chun left many disillusioned by America’s claims of supporting democracy and freedom, and generated the belief that the U.S.’s stake in Korea did

17 not involve the betterment of Korea or its people. Instead there were strong feelings that the U.S. only viewed the Korean peninsula as a “Cold War pawn” (Shin 1996).

Thus, by 1986 many involved in the anti-American movement viewed the United States as a barrier to democratization and reunification, and it was considered the “enemy” of a stronger

Korea (Shorrock 1986). A survey conducted by Hanguk Ilbo, in 1987 of 1,043 middle-class

Koreans found that 90% of the respondents felt that “the United States [was] more concerned with its own national interest than with Korea’s political development”(Kim 1989: 754). Many

Koreans began to further question the U.S.’s motives, and the endless pressure from the U.S. for

Korea to open its markets manifested in increased anti-American sentiment. Kim (1989: 763) notes that student groups asserted that “opening of the economy, under pressure from the United

States, show[ed] that America simply wants to exploit the Korean market.” Moreover, anti-

American movements spread to larger segments of the population. For example, the pressure from America to liberalize the beef and grain imports threatened the livelihood of Korean farmers, and in “1985…several hundred farmers attempted to march on the U.S. embassy in

Seoul [in] protest” (Shin 1996: 794-5).

The 1988 Olympics did not alleviate anti-Americanism, and Kim (1989) argues that the

American athletes’ disorderly conduct, the vandalism by U.S. servicemen, and NBCs ‘unfair and distorted coverage of the Olympics and South Korea’” allowed anti-American sentiment to further infiltrate the Korean public. It is important to note that anti-Americanism, at least in the

1980s, did not reflect a strong hatred of America but reflected a growing awareness among the public about America’s presence in South Korea, and the nation’s changing perception of the

U.S. (Kim 1989).

In 1987, the oppressive Chun regime fell, and “gave way to a more democratic one, and

South Korea [was] now acclaimed as a model that [had] achieved both economic development and political democracy almost comparable to advanced Western nations” (Shin 1996: 787).

Thus, by the late 1980s Korea had finally taken its position as a world power on the international stage. The nation’s economic success and newly instated democratic government boosted national self-esteem and feelings of nationalism (Kim 1989). Moreover, Koreans were keenly aware of the importance of their achievements. Kim (1989) refers to a quote from James R.

Lilley, the U.S. Ambassador to South Korea that sums up the nation’s growing pride

This country is admired as the land of the economic miracle a transformation in a single generation from a country impoverished by war into a major economic power, and still the nation with the world's fastest economic growth rate. Today Korea is becoming increasingly well known for its dramatic political transition, which has also occurred with breathtaking speed. (Kim 1989: 754) However, the U.S.-Korean relationship was far from symmetrical and many Koreans still questioned its value.

Despite the seemingly widespread anti-American sentiment present in South Korea it is important to note that the national critiques of American foreign policy have not manifested into blatant or overall public dislike for American visitors. While some Americans may be met with derision, particularly as Kim (2009) notes, Korean-Americans are sometimes chastised and ridiculed for being culturally illiterate. South Korea is not an “unsafe” country for Americans to visit, and in fact “many Koreans remain friendly to Americans they meet and they respect

American social institutions” (Shin 1996: 787). However, South Korea’s shifting perception of

America throughout the 20th century clearly demonstrates that America is no longer romanticized in the Korean imagination, that South Koreans have begun to critically reflect on their

19 asymmetrical relationship with the United States, and that Korea’s economic success has allowed the nation to view itself as an American equal.

In this context the gaze is complex, but it is not unilateral or mutual. South Korea is no longer passive, and its national pride and awareness of its status as a world power have been consequential in how Koreans construct America and Americans. The African-American female bloggers will be encountering a South Korea that has faded euphoria for the U.S. and they will be living in a country that views itself as the U.S.’s equal.

Korea’s and Japan’s active role in using the gaze to assert their power disrupts the myth that the gaze is Western centered. In the end, Japanese and Koreans’ othering of Americans illustrates power’s fluidity, and that both nations despite being non-Western are able to claim positions of dominance in relation to America, a country that half a century earlier arrogantly assumed it was inherently superior to the East. Moreover, loudly and publicly othering the West highlights that Japan and Korea have created an ideal self that excludes, dismisses, and devalues those nationalized as American.

Thus, it is clear that the old notions of the gaze are inapplicable to contemporary Japan-

U.S. and Korea-U.S. relations. However, how do the women’s racialized and gendered identities intersect with their nationality to construct them in Japan and Korea? This study examines how being racialized as black and gendered as woman, which are assumed constraints in the U.S., interact with the bloggers’ American nationalities, in Japan and Korea, to influence the dynamics of the gaze abroad. In order to do this effectively the following section will examine how the ideal is defined in Japan and Korea and then assesses how the conflicting ways the women meet the ideal shapes their social position.

Defining the Other in Japan and South Korea

Few scholars can deny that foreigners are marked as “other” within Japan and Korea, but otherness is not homogenous and foreigners are constructed differently based on gender, nationality, class, and race. Thus, despite the bloggers existing in a space of “outsider-ship” the women inhabit a unique social position as middle-class black-American women working as

English instructors and studying abroad. As Vera Mackie (2002) discusses in “Embodiment,

Citizenship and Social Policy in Contemporary Japan,” otherness is determined on a spectrum.

Mackie (2002) writes, “[c]itizenship is not a simple matter of a binary distinction between citizens and non-citizens, but rather a constellation of features which determine one’s position on a spectrum of citizenship” (200). Thus, we must explore who is unequivocally invited into the national community to define the ideal citizen. Within South Korea and Japan there are subtle markers of belonging, which marginalize individuals beyond naturalization. Before exploring how the bloggers perform and experience the gaze we must first map how race, nationality, class, and gender organize society.

Defining the social hierarchies in Japan and South Korea, and determining why particular individuals are granted or denied privileges will reveal how people are othered, and shed light on how the gaze constructs the women as residents in both countries. Dissecting these hierarchies reveals how being racialized, nationalized, classed, and gendered as black-American middle- class women all intersect, to uniquely position the women in Japan and Korea. Ultimately this section explores how the women’s social identities are used to construct a particular body that stands in opposition to the Japanese and Korean self.

Korean: subtle markers of citizenship

The most basic requirement for South Korean nationality is “blood” or ancestry. The naturalization laws explicitly state that nationality is granted to those who at the time of birth were born to a South Korean national, thereby making ancestry a requirement to legally be a

South Korean citizen. As a result, those who lack Korean “blood” are instantly marked as other.

However, within the categories of national/non-national inside the nation’s borders there are processes of inclusion and exclusion that grant and deny privileges.

Some “blood” Koreans, within the country’s borders challenge the notion that ancestry makes one undeniably Korean. One is admitted into Koreanness based on how well they express

“Korean culture.” However, what is Korean culture, and how is it defined? Most readily, blood, language fluency, and cultural literacy are used to determine who is Korean and who is not (Kim

2009). Reicheneker’s (2011) work on the marginalization of Afro-Koreans, born and raised in

Korea, demonstrates that this is not always the case, and that Koreanness is more nuanced.

South Korea’s significant rise to economic power in the 1980s and 1990s sparked a desire to define Korean cultural identity to shed light on the essential aspects that aided Korea’s success.

The search for Korean culture sparked a belief that Korea’s true cultural identity resided in the past. As a result, cultural relics from Korea’s past were dug up to mark the boundaries of identity.4

4 Why did large-scale construction of Korean identity not emerge until the 1980s and 1990s? One argument is that South Korea’s long standing position as a Japanese colony, and exposure to U.S. domination hindered the Korean state’s ability to develop and create a national identity (Cho 1998). The spaces available for Korea’s self- construction during colonization were strictly reactive and steeped in nostalgic resistance, and the definitions of Korean culture that emerged resisted construction as a Japanese or Western other and insisted that Korea’s “true” identity existed in its unadulterated past (Cho 1998).

It was believed that reviving Korean traditions and looking to the past would codify

Korean culture. The past would reveal the “essence” of Korean culture that aided the country’s economic success, and provide the tools to help maintain its success (Cho 1998). As Cho (1998) writes,

Many cultural nationalists now believe that national traditions and values have been the principal resources for Korean economic development and that the revival of traditional culture is the only way to maintain themselves [Korea] in a competitive materialistic age. (84) Insisting that knowing the Korean-self came from the past also implied a shared cultural history.

Advocates of tradition looked back to “recover their ancestral ways” (Cho 1998). The search for the nation’s “ancestral ways” assumes that Korean genealogy is shared. Using tradition constructed a communal history and unified the nation around a homogenous past. Revival was based in ideologies of shared national lineage and “blood,” and “Korean blood” is a necessary marker for inclusion. At this time clear definitions of Koreanness come to include: cultural literacy, language fluency, and “blood Koreans” self-identifying as Korean (Kim 2009). It should be noted however, that codifying nationality in ancestry also constructed the idea that

“Koreanness” was intrinsic, and permanently marked all non-Koreans as other.

Cho (1998) contends that Koreanness was largely defined by older, middle-class men, and the resurgence of traditional values privileged their voices. The qualities of “Koreanness” derived from the past were homogenous, excluded the perspective of minorities, and “push[ed] women back into the domestic sphere” (Cho1998: 89). Thus, by the 1990s, the construction of

Korean identity served a limited and privileged majority. If we favor the Korean national ideal developed in the 1990s, the “true” Korean is male, a middle-class white-collar employee, possesses Korean ancestry, and is culturally literate. This definition excludes a host of individuals within Korea’s borders.

For foreigners, who lack Korean ancestry, their race, language, and culture work in conjunction with nationality to exclude them from being “ideal Koreans.” However, how are other identity markers working to construct “outsiders” in Korea? As mentioned earlier, not all

“blood Koreans” conform to the ideal and class is important in distinguishing the boundary of

Koreanness, with working-class identities marked as other. Thus, how are middle-class foreigners constructed, and how do their privileged middle-class identities intersect with nationality to place them within Korea’s spectrum of belonging, and influence the unique way they are othered?

Creating a Korean self in the wake of economic success

To understand why middle-class employees are privileged, and working-class and unskilled laborers are marginalized in South Korea, it is necessary to explore how Korea’s economic success shaped its identity at the end of the 20th century. Korea’s seemingly miraculous economic growth granted it status as a world power, and generated national awareness of its new global position. South Koreans were proud and keenly aware that their economic success granted elevated status on the world stage. Many became “obsess[ed]” with national rankings that in some ways also functioned as racial rankings, a student named Ms. Che remarked:

“Whenever Korea assesses countries, the economic level matters in many ways. In our case, Korea seems to always think about ‘rich countries, poor countries’ When our economy developed during the 1970s and 1980s, we seemed to be obsessed with wanting to be richer than the other countries, like we should have such and such rank in the world” (Kim 2008: 85). There was a fierce commitment to the idea of an international hierarchy, and the self-confidence economic development instilled resulted in South Korea striving for the elite ranking it deserved.

It is important to note that the international hierarchies Korea referenced hinged on ideas of the

24 richest and white nations on top, and darker skinned and developing nations on bottom. In Korea race, nationality, and occupation all simultaneously marked bodies as desirable. The interconnectedness of nationality, economic status, race, and power in the 20th century are consolidated by Wallerstein’s concept of the core-periphery, which speaks to the legacy of 19th century empires refiguring global hierarchies along racial and national lines.

According to Wallerstein, the core-periphery illustrates the world-economy’s spatial division of labor and power. Developing nations involved in primary production inhabit the periphery, while developed countries with service and information based economies stay in the core. The geographical split of the core-periphery typically places whites and predominately white nations in the core, and majority non-white nations in the periphery. This visual division makes it easy to use “race” and assumed racial differences to justify the core-periphery, maintain its unequal balance of power and resources, and unify the core around a common identity- whiteness (Balibar and Wallerstein 1991). However, with South Korea’s successful transition from the periphery to the core in the second half of the 20th century, it joined Japan in disrupting the racial hierarchy embedded within the world economic system, and left South Korea fighting to claim its position of power within a paradigm committed to preserving the ideologies of racism and white supremacy. South Korea attempted to make sense of its new position as a world economic power, while it dealt with the unyielding reality of racism.

South Korea’s emergence as an economic world power left the nation striving to distinguish itself from its non-Western peers, and align itself with the West. However, in addition to navigating the space of a non-Western power, South Korea had to face Japanese subjugation (Kim 2008). Thus, South Korea’s marginal position as “not-quite” Western on the world stage was exacerbated by the nation’s history as a Japanese colony (Kim 2008). This

25 process was complicated further by the fact that within the same time frame, both South Korea and Japan were striving to establish symmetrical power relationships with the West that discarded the West’s lingering beliefs in East Asia’s inherent unchanging economic, military, and political inferiority.5

Korea’s solution was to define itself closer to “whiteness,” “middle-class,” and “Western” and distance itself from nations and individuals who did not embody these desired characteristics, particularly developing “other-Asian” countries. “Other-Asian” implies that there are fundamental differences between Korea and Asia; and Japan and Asia that distinguish both in superior opposition to the rest of the continent, and align both closer to the West. Moreover, the concept of “other-Asian” asserts that Japan and Korea are separate from the monolithic and homogeneous East. Ultimately, the term is used to legitimate Japan’s and Korea’s status as world powers while they remain geographically located in Asia, or the non-West.

Korea’s attempts to distinguish itself from “other-Asian” countries is exemplified in

Kim’s (2008) assertion that as South Korea gained status “as an ‘Asian Tiger’ the peninsula began borrowing Japan’s racialization of the global order”(Kim 2008:84). At the tail-end of the

20th century racial ideologies from Imperial Japan, which had remained dormant in the years following colonization, gained legitimacy (Kim 2008). Korea adopted the Eurocentric hierarchies that positioned “White West, Asian middle, and [black] African bottom” (84).

Identity formation created distance from “other-Asian” countries, and was a necessity by the 1980s, because significant numbers of migrant laborers from developing countries arrived in

5 Despite Korea’s emergence as a world power in the late 20th century, Japan has inhabited the space of “not-quite” white throughout the 19th century, and has engaged on and off in the process of asserting its power as a non-white world leader for decades. However, by the late 20th century both nations were attempting to carve out spaces for themselves as world powers.

South Korea. The nation’s expanding economy demanded more low-wage workers to fill the jobs Korean nationals were overqualified for, or no longer found desirable (Lee 2009). By the mid 2000s it was estimated that 360,000 immigrant laborers lived in South Korea. Roughly, 65% were men working in the construction and manufacturing sectors, and women migrants found employment in manufacturing, housekeeping, and hospitality; or were migrant brides (Lee 2009).

The majority of these migrants hailed from other-Asian countries like Thailand, the Philippines,

Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, and Vietnam (Lee 2009). The racial hierarchies imported from Japan “blackened” immigrants from Southeast and South Asia. Since unskilled migrant laborers hailed from developing countries and performed menial labor they were considered inherently inferior. As Kim’s (2008) research reveals,

“Koreans have considered these workers’ desperation for Seoul’s jobs of drudgery an expression of inferior national blood, sometimes betrayed by darker skin. By contrast, South Korea is ‘whiter’ and more ‘middle-class’ than the third world nations from which the foreign workers hail in the ‘world system’ (Wallerstein 1974)” (Kim 2008: 84) The ideologies of “racial hierarchies” worked to construct low-class migrant workers as “black.”

Despite many looking phenotypically similar to South Koreans, unskilled migrants were racialized as “black” as a means to clearly label them as outsiders, and most importantly inferior.

As South Korea’s labor force was racialized, and unskilled laborer and working-class identities were associated with “other-Asians,” the myth of a homogenous Korean middle-class became solidified.

Nationality, occupational stratification, and admittance into Koreanness

The marginalization of unskilled migrants from the periphery is revealed when they are compared to skilled migrants from the core. Migrants from the core typically do not occupy unskilled labor positions, but are insulated within Korea’s skilled labor market. Korea’s

27 immigration policies overwhelmingly favor skilled migrants from the core, and these elite laborers are welcomed to Korea with “open-arms.”

The passage of the Overseas Korean Act in 1999, solidified Korea’s already nationalized occupational hierarchy, by implementing immigration policies that favored migrants from the core. The Act invited overseas Koreans to “return home,” but excluded Chinese-Koreans and

Russian-Koreans (Jeon 2012). However, Korea’s immigration policies did not work alone to privilege core migrants, and migrant recruitment trends also solidified Korea’s nationalized occupational hierarchies. The increasing value placed on English education, in conjunction with the overseas Korean Act, tracked core migrants into skilled labor positions, by creating opportunities for them that were closed to migrants from the periphery. The host of English as second language programs that emerged, such as English Program in Korea (EPIK) and Teach

Language in Korea (TaLK), systematically favored core migrants, by requiring applicants to be native-English speakers from Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the United

Kingdom, or the United States. Thus, the Overseas Korean Act and English as second language programs advantaged core migrants by granting them skilled positions and relaxed immigration laws.

For Americans the unique intersection of their occupational status and nationality position them closer to Korean within Korea’s spectrum of citizenship. For Korean-Americans, being nationalized as Americans with English fluency offers significant occupational and social advantages. 6 Considering the bloggers it is likely that their jobs as English teachers and their

6 However, being nationalized as American does not always provided immediate acceptance for return migrants, and Korean-Americans do admit to feeling like outsiders. Many encounter discrimination, or pushback from local Koreans, because they do not speak the language and are culturally illiterate (Kim 2009). However, Kim (2009) also found that Korea’s anti-American and anti-colonial movements have sparked a disdain for America and those who

American nationalities aid their acceptance as closer to Korean. As Americans they should be shielded from the institutional racism felt by periphery migrants in unskilled labor positions, and there are legal and social systems in place that grant Americans privilege, regardless of their race.

Who is Japanese

Possessing Japanese ancestry is essential for inclusion into the national community.

“Japanese blood” constructs the notion of a unified national family, and claims that everyone shares a common lineage (Yoshino 1998). Similar to family, membership into the national community implies that everyone is inherently linked. Ancestry marks the boundary between “us”

(Japanese) and “them” (non-Japanese), distinguishes the Japanese race, and constructs Japanese culture and identity around a “communal uniqueness”(Yoshino 1998: 14). Moreover, quantifying blood makes citizenship unattainable for foreigners, and justifies notions that assimilation, acceptance, and understanding of, or into, Japanese culture is limited to “Japanese” (Yoshino

1998).

It was not until after WWII that Japan began to conceptualize itself as a “homogenous nation.” Following the war Japan rescinded the minor rights of “citizenship”(Kominka) Imperial

Japan granted to its formally colonized subjects in Korea and Taiwan. Japanese-blood became a necessity for citizenship rights, and the government began to closely monitor all non-Japanese residents within its borders, which in the immediate post-war era consisted mostly of displaced colonial subjects from Korea (Komai 2001). Surveillance entailed assimilation, and those who failed to assimilate risked deportation. Thus, immigration in the post-war era was constructed as a privilege that could easily be revoked. Foreigner surveillance developed within a discourse that fled to the U.S. decades earlier. As a result, the returnee children of American emigrants are subjected to distain for political, in addition to cultural and linguistic reasons.

29 believed “outsiders” (or the other) threatened the national wellbeing (Foucault and Ewald 2003).

Foreigners undermined Japan’s communal lineage and mono-ethnicity. Thus to maintain Japan’s self-identity, foreigners who threatened it had to be removed or limited. The nation’s black and white definition of citizenship leads to discrimination against non-Japanese.

The strict immigration policies that emerged post-war solidified the myth of Japan’s uniqueness and “homogeneity,” Moreover, these policies justified ethnic discrimination by constructing foreigners as displaced. However, it wasn’t until the late 1970s and early 1980s that foreigners became a visible part of Japanese society (Komai 2001).7

It was in the late 1970s and early 1980s that the idea of Japan’s inherent uniqueness was solidified, with the emergence of Nihonjinron literature (Mouer and Sugimoto 1986). Japan’s miraculous rise as a world power in the late 20th century generated a growing interest and curiosity in Japanese culture. There was a fascination with understanding the qualities that propelled Japan’s success, and an eagerness to codify the cultural differences that many assumed existed in Japan. Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro founded the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, which aimed to “look at the origins and development of what constituted

Japanese culture” (Goodman 2005:59). The literature produced by the center and its scholars, succeeded in defining “Japaneseness” and the findings were wildly popular. Japanese culture was largely defined in opposition to the West as racially homogeneous, founded on hierarchical relationships (instead of equalitarianism), valuing groupism and interdependence (instead of independence), instilling its members with a sense of duty (instead of a sense of rights), and

7 Waves of unskilled migrant laborers began to enter Japan in the mid 1960s on trainee visas, to address the labor shortages spurred by the economic success of the Tokyo Olympics (Komai 2001).

30 lastly arguing that Japanese behaviors were guided by emotion (instead of logic and reason)

(Goodman 2005: 64).

The definition of Japanese culture perpetuated by Nihonjinron has been criticized for overlooking the wealth of diversity present in both Japan and the West, and for constructing

“Japaneseness” as monolithic and homogenous (Goodman 2005). Moreover, some scholars have critiqued Nihonjinron as a tool for constructing the Japanese majority (Mouer and Sugimoto

1986, Goodman 2005, Befu 2001, and Yoshino 1998). Nihonjinron did more than essentialize

Japanese culture it conflated race and culture; it reified the idea of a true and distinct biological and cultural differences, and relied on the idea of a “unique” Japanese race to explain the customs, practices, and institutions present in Japan as exclusively Japanese (Yoshino 1998).

The construction of Japanese culture as esoteric perpetuates the assumptions that non-

Japanese, specifically foreigners who do not look phenotypically Japanese, even if raised in

Japan, can never learn how to “think and behave like the Japanese” (Yoshino 1998: 22). 8

Within the discourse of Japaneseness all foreigners without Japanese ancestry are considered “other”. However, as discussed earlier, blood does not protect all Japanese from exclusion in fact there is a host of scholarship that demonstrates that a significant number of

Japanese nationals are excluded from the national community (Roth 2005 and Ohnuki-Tierney

1998). Moreover, Vera Mackie (2002) argues that the ideal Japanese citizens, those granted the

8 Yoshino (1998) found that the line of “Japanese” / “non-Japanese” is not indelible for Japanese-Americans or phenotypically similar foreigners (i.e. residents from Korea or China). Many of Yoshino’s (1998) Japanese respondents felt that since Japanese-Americans possessed “Japanese blood” they could learn, with some persistence, how to be “Japanese.” In addition, Korean and Chinese, acceptance into “Japanese” shifted depending on the context, and while they are permanently marked as “other” in some situations, in other contexts full assimilation, obtaining Japanese names and erasing all aspects of foreignness, allows Chinese and Koreans to “become Japanese” (Yoshino 1998). However, the overarching and unwavering conviction that Japaneseness is acquired by birth permanently marks all foreigners within Japan as “other.”

31 full rights of citizenship, are male, able bodied, heterosexual, and white collar. Anyone who falls outside of this ideal is automatically marked as undesirable, and the weight these attributes carry and the extent to which deviants are marginalized is highlighted in Japan’s two-tiered system for stratifying migrants.

Japan’s legally desirable foreigners

By the 1970s and early 1980s foreigners became a visible part of Japanese society

(Komai 2001). The majority of foreigners arriving to Japan at this time were sex industry workers (mostly women from “other-Asian” countries like the Philippines), refugees, and North

American and European professionals. By the early 1990s, because of Japan’s bubble economy, the types of migrants expanded to large numbers of low-wage unskilled laborers from the periphery, foreign students, undocumented workers who overstayed visas, and Brazilian and

Peruvian Nikkeijin (Komai 2001).

To cope with the massive influx of foreigners and the growing number of illegal residents, who were difficult to monitor and control, the government passed the Immigration Control Act.

This law failed to halt illegal immigration, and the number of undocumented workers is assumed to have risen since 1989 (Sassen 1998). However, the act did channel immigration flows towards skilled workers and migrants of Japanese descent. Since most unskilled laborers hailed from the periphery, migrants from developing countries were affected the most by these legal changes

(Sassen 1998 and Komai 2001).

Comparatively, these new immigration laws created an almost open-door policy for

Japanese decedents (Nikkeijin) and professional workers from the core (Sassen 1998 and Komai

2001). Since the Immigration Control Act supported the inflow of Nikkeijin, Latin-American

Nikkeijin were sought to address the shortage of unskilled labor the new immigration laws created (Sassen 1998). Latin-American Nikkeijin were considered ideal because their Japanese ancestry and middle-class backgrounds (the majority of Japanese descendents in Brazil and Peru enjoy privileged backgrounds) were viewed as assets in helping them assimilate to Japanese culture. Latin-American Nikkeijin were constructed as partially Japanese, and because of this were granted entry more freely than other unskilled laborers (Takenaka 2010). These new policies created a system that institutionally devalued the presence of non-Japanese unskilled migrant laborers from the periphery.

The concept of citizenship in Japan does not leave room for non-Japanese. Thus all foreigners in contemporary Japan are imagined as temporary and their stays are considered a

“privilege.” Japan has constructed itself as a homogenous, developed, majority middle-class nation, and it has defined itself in “reference to a racialised Other” that is non-Japanese, originating from the periphery, and working-class (Miles 1993: 148). However, within this framework of self/other there is room for categorizing foreigners as desirable or undesirable, and

Japan’s immigration policies express some flexibility for admitting non-Japanese skilled migrants from the core.

Foreigners did not emerge in Japan’s collective consciousness until the latter half of the

20th century, particularly because the insignificant number of foreigners allowed them to remain invisible. The country’s economic success, labor shortages, and growing popular interest in

Japan created an inflow of foreign visitors. In the wake of these changes Japan had to confront its mono-ethnic identity, while it was transitioning into a multiethnic nation. Japan dealt with these contradictions by holding on to the discourse of homogeneity, and relying steadfastly to the spirit of the laws and policies passed in the immediate post-war era. More importantly, foreigners that

33 strayed farthest from Japan’s national identity of industrialized and middle-class were marginalized and this is partially revealed in Japan’s nationalized immigrant labor force.

Considering the women in this study within Japan’s construction of legally desirable foreigners the bloggers meet most of the criteria as middle-class, skilled migrants from America. As a result, it’s possible that the women are not wholly marked as other despite being “non-Japanese.”

Stratification of foreign residents in Japan

Robert Yoder in Deviance and Inequality in Japan and Apichai Shipper in Fighting for

Foreigners decipher how occupation, nationality, and race intersect to stratify non-Japanese.

Yoder (2011) categorizes Japan’s hierarchy of foreigners as follows: first are Zainichi (foreigners born in Japan with Korean and Chinese ancestry), second are Asian wives (Chinese, Korean,

Thai, and Fillipino women who marry Japanese men), followed by Nikkeijin (born outside of

Japan but have Japanese ancestry), students or English instructors (who enter Japan on pre- college student, college student, and instructor visas or as specialist in humanities or international services), and lastly Asian laborers (both men and women from China, Thailand,

Vietnam, or Indonesia who enter Japan on entertainment or trainee visas). Shipper (2008) adds an additional category for illegal immigrants (visitors who overstay their visas). Within this hierarchy unskilled migrants from the periphery are the most marginalized reflecting Japan’s rejection of individuals who diverge the most from Japan’s national identity as a homogenous middle-class developed nation.

Fourth on the hierarchy are foreign students and English teachers, and this is where the bloggers likely fall. Students living in Japan despite inhabiting the lower strata of the social hierarchy arguably enjoy comfortable lifestyles, and have an easier time adjusting to Japan than

34 working migrants. Tsuda (2008), despite exploring the experience of Japanese-Americans, argues that the university setting buffers students from marginalization. This is because college campuses and study abroad programs provide international clubs and organizations that introduce exchange students to Japanese students interested in learning about other cultures, speaking foreign languages, and making foreign friends (Tsuda 2008). Thus, visiting students are typically surrounded by more cosmopolitan open-minded individuals than working-class migrants. The students’ social bubble maintains the illusion that foreign students, especially those from the West enjoy privileged social positions.9

Shipper (2008) combines international students and teachers in his hierarchy, but the working conditions of English teachers diminish the illusion of privilege that is well maintained for students. English instructors’ jobs are tenuous, but they enjoy high wages and a decent standard of living. Many work part-time and are ineligible for health care, and for full-time instructors access to health care is only granted after living in Japan for one year (Yoder 2011 and Shipper 2008). It is also important to note that the citizenship rights English teachers hold outside of Japan afford them semi-extraterritorial rights, and they avoid some of the problems faced by other foreign workers because their home governments offer some protection (Shipper

2008).

Most Americans work in Japan as English instructors and immigration categorizes them as “professionals” or “specialist.” However, Yoder contends that despite their professional status most English teachers (70%) are working-class. Their immigration status, which muddles

English instructors with skilled professionals like finance bankers, lawyers, and engineers,

9 Tsuda (2008) only looks at the experience of Japanese-American students, and Jane Yamashiro’s (2008) work argues that Japanese-Americans tend to have an easier time adjusting to Japan, because they are accepted as partially Japanese, while non-Japanese visitors are viewed as strictly other.

35 conceals an English instructor’s low socioeconomic status and perpetuates the myth that

America’s political, economic, and military dominance in Japan translates to an elevated status for its expatriates (Yoder 2011).10

Yoder, specifically, illustrates that the overwhelming number of Americans living and working in Japan as English teachers are working-class and their American passports do not translate into privilege. In doing so Yoder’s work supports Favell et al (2006) argument that there are countless individuals crossing borders for work who do not fit within the binary of elite skilled professionals (from the core) or unskilled laborers (from the periphery). Instead, he helps to demonstrate that there is a middle group of workers, particularly from developed nations, who lack the privileges, resources, and credentials of their elite counterparts, and are thus subject to undesirable working conditions and exploitation.

Adding complexity to Yoder’s argument however is the fact that English teachers in

Japan can be divided into multiple categories, most notable are: those that are government sponsored by the Japanese Exchange and Teaching Program (JET), instructors who work with private companies, and lectures at the university level. Unlike irregularly employed English teachers, JETs work full-time, are awarded benefits, and possess stable employment. In addition,

JET is a highly competitive program that recruits over 1000 young adults annually (JET website).

The prestige of this program, its government sponsorship, and the benefits it offers its employees arguably elevates the social position of JET’s language instructors and protects them from some

10 In fact even elite expatriates are not immune to subjugation for being non-Japanese. While foreigners working for multinational corporations enjoy well paying jobs, comfortable living arrangements, and cosmopolitan and elite social circles (Tsuda 2008), they still encounter ethnic discrimination in the work place. Foreign women complain of sexual harassment, and expatriates working in Japanese companies must combat a glass ceiling and the fear, and reality, that their foreigner status and non-native language fluency hinder their opportunities for career advancement (Insch, McIntyre and Napier 2008, Regge Life 1993, Taylor and Napier 1996, Oishi 2012)

36 of the abuses experienced by private English teachers. However, even the privileges afforded

JETs are minimal in comparison to their fellow Japanese English teachers. JETs tend to be recent college graduates, who despite sometimes working alongside similarly qualified Japanese instructors, are shut out from holding permanent positions, teaching classes without assistance, and from occupying positions of authority or leadership (McConnell 2000).

Private English instructors are assumed to be below JETs, but they can be further divided into two categories: those that work for private companies like Interac as ALTs at the secondary and elementary school level, and those that work for commercial English language schools like

NOVA. Despite, the difference in job titles, both are subcontractors and possess marginal positions. They are part time temporary workers and the opportunity for regular permanent employment is non-existent. Moreover, their employment is unstable, many are frequently moved between assignments, and they are fired without cause (Yoder 2011). Private companies also have “shoddy business practices”. One woman Yoder interviewed complained that employers failed to honor contracts, or compensate workers consistently (Yoder 2011: 93). The marginal position of private instructors was demonstrated perfectly in 2007 when NOVA, the biggest English school company in Japan went bankrupt. The sudden closing of the school left its teachers unemployed and an estimated 4000 teachers without pay for months. In a letter Yoder cites, an employee affected by the NOVA bankruptcy complained that the Japanese government compensated students who lost money in the bankruptcy, but failed to assist teachers who were unemployed and no longer able to support themselves (Yoder 2011). 11

11 Even at the university level foreign English teachers are subject to exploitation. Similar to their peers at the secondary and elementary school level, college level English lecturers are expected to be temporary workers. They are hired on one-year part-time non-tenured contracts, or two-three years full-time, non-renewable, non-tenured contracts. Foreign language instructors face enormous job insecurity, which is exacerbated by the expectation that their teaching careers in Japan are temporary, which is possibly fueled by popular notions that “all” foreigners are

English instructors are simultaneously advantaged, and disadvantaged. They enjoy live- able wages, job security, and benefits, but face discrimination as foreigners in the workplace.

However, it should not be overlooked that their skilled labor positions and American nationalities buffer them from the harsh exploitation and subjugation faced by unskilled laborers.

English instructors, might be vulnerable to exploitation in the workplace, but their positions as

American English teachers places them fairly close to the ideal; they are largely imagined as

“middle-class” (despite their working-class salaries), and evade assumptions about criminality and laziness that are applied to working-class residents. In addition, as core migrants the instructors do not threaten Japan’s identity as a developed middle-class nation. The privilege that accompanies being an American English-instructor in Japan is illuminated further when their social position is explored in relation to unskilled labor migrants from the periphery, who Yoder and Shipper place at the bottom of the social strata.12

assumed as visitors or temporary residents. In some instances lectures are dismissed for “having taught too long,” and older lecturers are released because their “pay scale is higher than younger teachers” (Yoder 2011: 117). Moreover, foreign lectures are rarely considered for tenure. According to Yoder (2011: 116), “there are more tenured foreign instructors at George Washington University in the U.S. than the total number of tenured foreign instructors in all of the 87 Japanese national universities combined”, with foreign migrants accounting for roughly 2% of tenured faculty at Japanese universities. Conversely, instructor autonomy, job security, transparency in hiring and firing process, and tenure-ship are all privileges enjoyed by Japanese instructors. The difference in experiences makes clear that ethnic discrimination is felt by American English instructors at the university level, however, their marginal position and precarious employment make even complaints of discrimination to unions easily overlooked or likely to result in dismissal (Yoder 2011)

12 Other- Asian workers split into two categories legal and illegal migrants. Legal migrants are further divided, by their visa status, into two groups: trainees and entertainers. Trainees work as semi-skilled or unskilled laborers for minimal wages (living and travel expenses only). They are not protected by Japanese labor laws and have no political, social, or civic rights. Entertainers are typically women who work as dancers or singers. Similar to trainees entertainers are paid very little and have no rights (Shipper 2008).

At the bottom of the social hierarchy are illegal Asian workers. These are visitors who have overstayed their visas and work as subcontractors, sex workers, construction workers, and restaurant staff. Their undocumented status makes them easy targets for abuse and many “encounter irregular Japanese business practices such as uncompensated accident insurance, unpaid wages, and arbitrary dismissal” (Shipper 2008: 51). Since illegal residents have no legal rights they are unable to advocate for themselves or report abuses out of fear of being arrested or deported (Shipper 2008)

For African-American women their nationality, education level, and status as skilled laborers likely buffer them from complete marginalization. As American English instructors they should be imagined as middle-class, and would enjoy greater privileges than working-class residents in Japan. However, can we safely assume that when subjects are racialized as black that class outweighs race, “Japanese blood,” or even gender? Moreover, in Japan and Korea

Americans are typically constructed as white. Thus, can we assume that the women will be granted privileges by virtue of being American and skilled workers, or are the advantages of this social position only awarded to white-Americans? Lastly, Japan and Korea are patriarchal societies, thus how do these important and visible identities, of black and female, shape the women’s social status? The following section will explore how gender shapes the lives of women in Japan and Korea to answer how being gendered as female possibly intersects with the bloggers’ other identities.

Women as Foreign Residents in Japan and Korea

So far, we have ignored how gender intersects with nationality, occupation, and race to produce social expectations for foreign women that both diverge and dovetail with those placed on native Korean and Japanese women. We will now explore the construction of “other-Asian,” white-American, Japanese-American, and Korean-American female identity in Japan and South

Korea.

Japan’s life course is heavily gendered and impenetrable for those not raised in Japan, or who have opted out of participating in the mainstream. The combination of gender stratification and inaccessibility works to shape the lives of Japanese women differently than their foreign counterparts, particularly in comparison to women who arrive in Japan as temporary residents.

Japan’s gendered life course works to marginalize women. Despite notable increases in educational attainment, there is still an underlying belief that a women’s education holds little long-term value. As a result, families invest less in educating their daughters, fewer women attend the nation’s elite universities, and women are encouraged to attend Junior colleges at higher rates than men (Yu 2009 and Brinton 1993). For some women that do obtain elite credentials their careers with major corporations are short-lived and many despite having grand career aspirations rarely achieve their goals, because of the social pressure to become wives and mothers (Bishop 2005 and Yu 2009). The scarcity of women in the mainstream labor force following the passage of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act (EEOA), and increasingly progressive ideas about gender equality is partially due to the fact that the lifetime employment system, in combination with weak enforcement of the EEOA, institutionalizes gender stratification (Yu 2009).

Women who enter the work force as regular workers are compelled to exit after marriage, or in some instances after surpassing a marriageable age (Brinton 1993 and Robert 2005), and they are often forced to leave when faced with implicit company policies and explicit public opposition (Roberts 1998). Women who attempt to stay encounter hostile work environments and conditions that are incompatible with the roles of wife and mother they are also expected to fill (Yu 2009). Moreover, for some unlucky working women their husbands’ refusal to share domestic chores further complicates women’s attempts to balance their work and home duties

(Roberts 1998). Thus, for women post marital departure from the work force is still high in Japan, and long-term uninterrupted employment is low (Yu 2009). However, not all women permanently depart from the work force after marriage, and following their child bearing years many return to work (Bishop 2005 and Yu 2009). However, once leaving the mainstream track

40 access to regular employment is impossible. As a result, women typically find non-regular employment, which are typically part-time and temporary jobs. These positions offer lower wages, fewer benefits and minimal legal protection in comparison to regular full-time employees, and the adoption of neoliberal policies has exacerbated the presence of women in non-standard positions (Bishop 2005).

Contrary to mainstream expectations, all Japanese women are not full-time homemakers, and despite constraining gendered trajectories, some women remain regular full-time employees throughout their life. Moreover, these women are present in both blue-collar and white-collar positions. Roberts (1998 and 2005) argues that the class differences between these women create diverging motivations for work, and result in them navigating their expected roles of wife and mother differently. Blue-collar women typically enter the work force after junior high or high school and remain employed after marriage to support their families, because one income is insufficient. Thus, not all women are permitted to retire early, and the expectation that women depart the workforce after marriage is largely a luxury reserved for middle-class women.

However, some middle-class women, whose spouses’ salaries permit marriage retirement, continue to work to achieve their own career aspirations (Roberts 1998 and 2005). Not all women in Japan have the same relationship to work, and gender constrains women differently depending on class highlighting that inequalities outside of gender marginalize Japanese women.

The bloggers however, are not within blue-collar or corporate settings, but are teachers, and a significant proportion of Japan’s schoolteachers are also women (Gelb 2009: 58). Despite large numbers of women working full-time as educators, such women still face gender inequities in the workplace, which manifest as underrepresentation in higher education and administrative positions (Gelb 2009). This has the potential to have serious implications for the bloggers,

41 because it creates an additional burden in the workplace. McConnell’s (2000) work on JETs found that foreigners are often discriminated against in the workplace, and for the bloggers as foreign women they will likely be vulnerable to both exclusion and gender inequality in the workplace.

Japan’s gendered trajectories create a system that makes social mobility and financial independence for women difficult to attain. These institutionalized forces compel women to participate in the reproductive labor force (Yu 2009; Bishop 2005; Holloway 2010). However, not all women accept their fate as dependents, and for others dependence on their spouse is impractical. Moreover, many women critically question the system that strips them of their financial and social autonomy. Scholars, even claim that the decreasing marriage and birth rates in Japan are a reaction to a system that works to confine women to the reproductive sphere

(Nemoto 2008). Most foreign women however are exempt from Japan’s gendered trajectories, and they are not compelled by the same systemic forces to engage in the reproductive sphere

(Holloway 2010). Moreover, the expectation that foreign women will embody the ideal wife and mother is either muted or applied for different reasons.

American women, particularly those living in Japan as English teachers are not expected to become permanent residents, and Karen Kelsky’s (2001) research on interracial relationships in Japan, suggests that Western women are immune to Japan’s patriarchal structure. The

Japanese women in Kelsky’s study imagined Western women as having agency. Unlike Japanese women, Westerners voluntarily become members of Japan’s “oppressive” society through marriage, and they could with little resistance avoid being marked as subordinated subjects. This idea stems from the belief that Western women’s stays in Japan are temporary. As a result

Western women are ultimately imagined as Western citizens who adhere to Western social norms. Essentially they are not Japanese.

The sense that Americans possess the privilege of choice is reflected when Kelsky writes about her own experience as an American women married to a Japanese man. According to

Kelsky, Japanese women often felt she “forfeited the chance to marry a white man”-whom popular Japanese female discourses define as more desirable because a white husband’s progressive views are assumed to liberate Japanese women (Kelsky 2001: 426). Moreover,

Leonard Schoppa’s (2008) work suggests that for some Japanese women who chose to marry foreign men as a means to exit Japan’s system of patriarchy, Kelsky’s decision would seem nonsensical. Thus, Western women are assumed to participate in Japan’s system of patriarchy voluntarily while Japanese women are forced. Further aiding the idea of Western agency in

Japan is the fact that American women often arrive in Japan with the impression that all Asian women are oppressed (Kelsky 2001). As a result, they often find themselves openly resisting being placed as subaltern, and expect or force American-style feminism into their daily interactions (Hardacre 2003 and Kriska 2011).

The myth of mono-ethnicity and pure-blood Japanese and Koreans, further allows

Western women to eschew traditional gender roles. This is because as non-Japanese or non-

Korean Western women are not expected to be wives and mothers in East Asian countries.

However, in both Japan and Korea there has been a growing trend of migrant brides from “other-

Asian” countries. These women are specifically recruited to Japan and Korea to reverse the declining birthrate and to assist on rural farms, and stereotypes that they are docile and submissive help construct them as ideal wives. “Other-Asian” women, unlike their Western counterparts are expected to become permanent residents and participate in the reproductive

43 sphere. For immigrant brides in Korea engaging in the reproductive sphere grants them access to citizenship (Cheng 2011). Thus, these women are forced to adhere to Japan’s and Korea’s gender norms despite being other-Asian, because of their permanent resident status and their roles in the reproductive labor force.

Race also intersects with nationality to influence how Western women are perceived abroad, particularly for women of Japanese and Korean descent. Korean-American women, despite their occupations as English teachers and their temporary presence in Korea, are expected to conform to local gender norms (Cho 2012). This is because they “look” Korean. A Korean-

American, or Japanese-American, woman’s physical features allow her to blend-in, as a result she is mis-categorized as Korean or Japanese, and while her racial anonymity offers some advantages abroad, it also applies the expectation that she will conform to gendered social norms

(Yamashiro 2008). On the other hand, although American women are considered undesirable spouses they are subject to being hyper-sexualized abroad (Rawlins 2012).

Racism and the Construction of the Other

Much of the literature discussing foreigner stratification has been largely dependent on occupation and nationality, and overlooks the importance of racism. On the one hand, ignoring the work racism does in creating social inequality reveals that skilled core migrants are systematically granted legal and social privileges, regardless of race. However, race is a visible and active marker of difference. Therefore, it is also important to explore how racism works to shape the experiences of immigrants in Japan and South Korea- to fully explore how erasing the white gazer, by racializing the Western traveler as black influences the dynamics of the gaze in

Japan and Korea.

Race is an active social construct in Japan and Korea, and differing ideas exist that color how Japanese and Koreans view white-Americans vs. Japanese-Americans vs. Korean-

Americans vs. African-Americans, and so forth. Therefore, since race is extremely visible, it is flawed to assume that it is not operating to shape similar encounters with the gaze differently.

Racism is ceaselessly and actively working, and it influences how visitors to both countries interpret their encounters, how they cope with being subjects of the gaze, and how they resist the gaze. Acknowledging the work racism does; how does it influence the ways in which visible and invisible foreigners attempt to navigate their social positions, while also considering the power of occupational and national hierarchies? This section analyzes how race interacts with nationality, occupation, and gender to not only position but dictate the social experiences of foreigners in

Japan and Korea.

Race, nationality, and occupation

Race greatly complicates the assumption that the status of an immigrant’s nation of origin– with core nations on top and periphery nations on bottom- directly correlates to stratification in their host countries. Despite Americans’ being wholly imagined as white,

America’s racial diversity debunks the myth of homogenous whiteness, and refutes the easy assumption that national identity comes with fixed racial identities. Moreover, this limited assumption overlooks the fact that how one is racialized can often override nationality, particularly when considering that white-Africans do not inhabit the same marginal space as black-Africans in the United States.

Since, Americans are predominately imagined as white in Japan, whites are arguably instantly marked as such (Yamashiro 2008). Comparatively, for Japanese-Americans who look

45 phenotypically Japanese, race and nationality can remain inconspicuous, and they are granted the privileges of being nationals. However, for some Japanese-Americans especially when their language skills are poor or they lack cultural literacy they are marked as “other-Asian” or handicapped (groups with low social status in Japan) (Yamashiro 2008 and Roth 2005). Often, the only saving grace for Japanese-Americans is to clarify that they are American. By asserting their nationality the stigma attached to being handicapped or other-Asian is removed, and they are granted “passes” that are typically denied other minority groups. As a result, many Japanese-

Americans assert their American identity to prevent confusion or mis-categorization. Comparing these three groups it is clear that race works with nationality to stratify foreigners.

Comparing the social status of Korean-Americans, Chinese-Koreans, and other-Asian groups in Korea suggests that the consequences for being incorrectly marked are comparable to

Japan. Korean-Americans are imagined as “closer” to Korean, enjoy more political and civic rights, and inhabit a higher tier within the social hierarchy than Chinese-Koreans, and other-

Asian groups (Seol and Skrentny 2009). Also where Korean-Americans “[possess] a highly prized linguistic capital [English], they enjoy lives of leisure and privilege” (Cho 2012: 219), and many feel that the “uniform of race” that worked to subjugate them in America is now an asset.

Nationality and language ability escalate the social status of Korean-Americans, and young

Korean-American men exclaim that they feel like “kings” in South Korea (Cho 2012).

However, there is evidence to suggest that Korean-Americans work harder to claim equity with white-Americans in Korea than they do to position themselves in opposition to other-

Asians. The assumption that native-English speakers are white coupled with the belief that

English education will also instill middle-class American values has made white- American

English teachers, specifically women, more desirable pushing Korean-Americans to the side.

These limited stereotypes about English ability have marked Korean-Americans as “inauthentic native speakers”. They are imagined as lacking proper pronunciation, grammar, and the ability to teach students how to think critically in English (Cho 2012). As a result, Korean-Americans work to deflect the notion that they are inadequate English teachers, by asserting their

“privileged American” backgrounds. One of Cho’s (2012) respondents reaffirms his parity with his white American peers by stressing that he graduated from a prestigious American university to imply that he was smarter than white teachers who attended less prestigious schools.

In Korea English language and being Western are idealized as white middle-class attributes and provide social capital. As a result, Korean-Americans must assert their position as

American native-English speakers from middle-class backgrounds to regain the privileges typically reserved for white-Americans.

In Japan and Korea, a fair number of African-Americans, similar to their non-black peers, enter the country as English teachers. However as previously mentioned, the myth of the middle- class, educated, and professional American is predominately imagined as white. As a result, blacks arguably are not marked as “privileged” or “professionals” in the same way as their white-American counterparts and must work to combat racial stereotypes that represent them as hypersexual, entertainers, athletes, or criminals who are violent and scary (Russell 1991 and

Cornyetz 1994).

Nation of origin and occupational status work to stratify immigrants, but race can also assuage marginalization by erasing difference and affording immigrants the luxury of anonymity.

However, African-Americans within the context of Korea and Japan are far from invisible and are instantly marked as different. Japan’s and Korea’s Eurocentric racial hierarchies’ position

47 blacks as inferior (Russell 1991 and Kim 2008), and automatically relegates African-Americans to the margins. However, as argued above national and class distinctions also inform the hierarchy of foreigners; arguably African-Americans can emphasize their nationality and class to reclaim the advantages afforded to Americans. Hypothetically, the bloggers use class to assert an

American identity because Americans are imagined as middle-class, and being marked as a middle-class American carries with it the assumption that one is a highly educated professional who possesses middle-class values (Takenaka 2010), all attributes, as discussed, that mark individuals as desirable and afford social privileges in Japan and South Korea.

CONCLUSION

Historically, the dynamics of the East-West gaze, were assumed to be unilateral. As

Edward Said argues, the East (Orient) was made “with very little resistance on the Orients part” the East submitted to Western domination and passively allowed itself to be constructed in inferior opposition (Said 1978: 7). However, literature on the reverse and oppositional gaze, demonstrates that subjects are not wholly passive. Moreover, as discussed above, within Japan and South Korea the assumed asymmetrical dynamic of power has long faded away. Japan’s and

South Korea’s economic development at the end of the 20th century thrust both countries onto the international stage as world powers. The success of both nations fueled national pride, and generated the belief that parity with the West had been achieved.

Japan’s and Korea’s economic success legitimated notions of Japanese and Korean exceptionalism. Both nations’ miraculous success was used as evidence of their superior difference, and Japan and Korea began to reframe themselves as “better” than, and “superior” to,

48 outsiders (foreigners who lacked Japanese and Korean blood). However, in outlining how both countries conceptualize the other it is clear that both Japan and South Korea possess similar discourses of “foreignness” and “otherness,” and that foreigners are marginalized differently.

The ideal citizen within both contexts is narrowly defined as a naturalized, middle-class, white-collar, able-bodied, heterosexual male and deviants are vulnerable to discrimination at the social and institutional level. In Japan and Korea the women in my study are foreign skilled labor from the core, attributes that arguably stratify them into similar social positions in both countries.

As a result, the social and institutional discrimination we would expect the women to experience, if we overlook nuances, should be are relatively similar. Thus, despite the obvious cultural and historical differences between Japan and South Korea, and the contentious relationship that exists between the two countries, the converging racial, national, and occupational ideologies that prevail create similar experiences with the gaze for the bloggers. Thus, despite navigating vastly different social contexts, nations, and cultures, the women are likely marked as “other” in ways that transcend national lines.

My study explores the implications the altered dynamics of power, and the unique social position of African-Americans has for African-American women living in South Korea and

Japan. The women are not entering a “passive” non-West quietly submitting to being constructed as a “backwards,” “uncivilized,” and inferior other. Instead, Japan and Korea have proven that these labels are inapplicable. Thus, the newfound status of these two nations as “non-Western” powers, further complicates the dynamics of the gaze, and has implications for the women.

Moreover, as foreigners in countries where outsiders are automatically positioned as other the women are instantly marked as abnormal and used to construct Japanese and Korean identity as superior. Thus, how do the women navigate being marked as “other” away from home?

This study examines how the women grapple with the conflicting ways their bodies are coded, and how they use the oppositional gaze to combat being constructed in the limited, stereotypical, and confining ways that legitimate the Japanese and Korea self. As discussed above, the oppositional gaze is often employed to resist construction. However, most studies only examine resistance in opposition to a white, male, and Western gazer. The traditional notions of the gaze are not applicable within Japan and Korea. Therefore, when the gaze is no longer strictly assumed to be Western centered how does it work; when the threat of being shaped by the dominant Western/white/ male group is removed does opposition to the gaze remain? Thus, how do the women maneuver the way the Japanese and Korean gaze constructs

African-American women as other, and how do the women’s unique social positions influence how they use the oppositional gaze to resist the Japanese and Korean gaze, if at all? Moreover, as

Western travelers the women are not exempt from engaging in the process of gazing, so how do they construct Japanese and Koreans in opposition to themselves? The following chapter will provide a set of hypotheses that address how the bloggers might navigate life in Japan and Korea based on how race, class, gender, and nationality intersect for the women as middle-class black-

Americans.

Chapter 2

Methods and Findings

METHODS

To explore how the power of the gaze manifests as race, gender, class and nationality intersect in East Asia this study uses content analysis to examine seven travelogues written by

African-American women during their first year living in South Korea and Japan. This study explores how these women experience and perform the gaze, in an effort to reevaluate the idea of the gaze as unilateral and capture more fully the fractured dynamics of the gaze. Often it is assumed that those with the power to gaze and construct “the other” are Western, white, and male

(Said 1978; and Lutz and Collins 1993). The literature shows that non-white, non-male, and non-

Western groups do possess the power to gaze upon the Western-white-male, but that the gaze in these contexts still disproportionately favors the West. This study examines the gaze in a context where the traditionally dominant looker (the white-Western-male) is absent and both actors, the gazer and the subject are from non-white groups thereby showing how the power to gaze operates when the traditionally dominant looker the white-Western-male is absent.

The context of Japan and Korea further complicates the dynamics of the gaze, when the dominant looker is absent. As discussed in chapter 1, Japanese and Koreans are not subjugated groups in their own countries and despite remnants of asymmetrical power relationships between the United States and Japan; and the United States and Korea American nationals are not granted blind positions of dominance in either country. Instead, by virtue of being foreigners Americans are marked as inferior others.

Foreigners, however, are othered differently and depending upon how one is racialized, gendered, nationalized, and classed they can be granted or denied social privileges. Thus, as discussed in chapter 1 identity markers intersect to influence how foreigners navigate being positioned as inferior others in Japan in Korea. Therefore, when considering the women in this study, how does the intersection of their class, gender, nationality, and race, dictate their experiences as subjects of the gaze, and how they gaze upon locals?

The subjects in this study are all college educated, middle-class, African-American, women who are in Japan and Korea as English teachers and study abroad students. All the women in

Korea Joia13, Overdose14, and Sista Sha15 are private instructors for or commercial English schools.

The women have chosen to document their experiences by writing public blogs. The blogs serve as a way for the women to keep family and friends informed about their trips, but their posts also share the women’s experiences with a larger, and often unknown, audience. In Japan two of the bloggers Sexy Diva16 and Ms. World17 are JET ALTs, while Takara18 is studying abroad in Tokyo.

Given the discussion in chapter 1 on the dynamics of the gaze and how similarly nationalized and classed foreigners respond to being marked as other this study will explore three hypotheses to examine the dynamics of the gaze when the Western traveler is racialized as black, gendered as female, and middle-class in East Asia.

13 Joia. The Seoul of Black Folks. (http://joiasia.blogspot.com/). 14 Kourt. Overdose of Satisfaction. (http://kourt-overdoseofsatisfaction.blogspot.com/search/label/South%20Korea). 15 Sister Sha. Sister Sha in Seoul: An ESL Teacher Living and Working in South Korea. (http://sistershainseoul.blogspot.com/) Supa Dupa Fly. The Supa Dupa Fly Seoul Sista. (http://theblackeslteacher.blogspot.com/). 16 Delta, Deltadivajp on Xanga. (http://deltadivajp.xanga.com/). 17 Ms. World. All About Ms. World’s World (http://wordgyrl.typepad.com/weblog/) 18 Takara. Takara in Tokyo: Ramblings of a Wife, New Mother, and Entrepreneur from Alabama Living in Tokyo.(http://sistaintokyo.blogs.com/).

Hypotheses: Hypothesis 1: In Japan and Korea, since African-Americans are not always imagined as middle-class or American, identities that hold significant social capital, the bloggers will assert their middle-class and American identities to prevent being mis-categorized as non-American or lower-class to gain the social privileges that are automatically granted white-Americans in Japan and Korea. Hypothesis 2: The women when positioned as subjects of the Japanese and Korean gaze will use the oppositional gaze to disrupt the local’s attempts to define the women in inferior opposition Hypothesis 3: When the bloggers are positioned as gazers they will construct their Japanese and Korean subjects as other to define themselves as American, or African-American In order to gain a better understanding of how African-American women experience and perform the gaze and to test the hypotheses this study focused on the following question: How do the women describe their encounters with the local culture and citizens? Answering this question allows African-American women to give their perception of the gaze, how they feel local Koreans and Japanese are constructing them and where they believe their place is within a national, social, and cultural context different from the United States. In the end, this study explores whether

African-American women’s positions as subjects of the Japanese or Korean gaze engenders the same feelings of marginalization as the white, Western, and male gaze, if African-American women still oppose being gazed upon, when their gazer is non-white, or non-Western, and how the women construct the Japanese and Korean other in opposition to an American self.

Data Collection

This study analyzed travelogues that took the form of weblogs. Weblogs are defined among new media scholars as individually authored “websites that display dated entries in reverse chronological order” with links to other websites and blogs, and a section for readers’ comments

(Karlsson 138: 2007). The explosion of weblogs on the internet, since 2005, was facilitated by

53 user-friendly publishing sites like, Xanga, Blogger, and Wordpress (Cohen 2005 and Karlsson

2007). These websites gave the most novice computer users the ability to create their own websites

(Karlsson 2007). Since there are a vast number weblogs, there are numerous genres, and the content within blogs can range from informal weblogs, which take the form of public diaries, to substantial weblogs, that provide in depth opinions and reporting on the news and politics

(Gregory et al. 2007).

This study specifically analyzed diary weblogs that are travelogues. Diary weblogs are weblogs that focus on the daily life, thoughts, and feelings of the author, and they are “deeply personal, emotional-laden”, and invite readers to personally identify with the authors of the blog

(Karlsson 2007). The diary weblogs analyzed in this study, are also travelogues because they document the bloggers’ temporary experiences abroad. Despite the fact that these women are living in their host countries for extended periods of time their blogs are still considered travelogues because when each of the bloggers arrived in their host countries their blogs during the first year were written under the assumption that their trips were temporary.

While research on expatriate bloggers in China found that diary weblogs can serve as a

“digital extension of conventional Euro-American travel writing,” and like travel writing and travelogues these blogs define and categorize the new cultures the bloggers encounter, weblogs must be analyzed as a distinctly different form of text (Tang and Chao 2010: 384). Unlike printed travelogues, weblogs are a type of social media, which is inherently interactive (Gregory et al.

2007), which allows the blogger to be self-reflexive about their posts (Bhagat et al. 2007).

For the purpose of this study seven blogs from six different authors were analyzed, four from South Korea and three from Japan. Given the scope of this project I have decided to examine three bloggers from each country. Unlike other research on blogs I will not use computer software

54 to extract specific words and phrases from the blogs; instead I will read each blog post in its entirety, and extract relevant content, retaining its qualitative detail while still coding systematically (Banyai and Glover 2012).

The seven blogs were obtained by conducting a Google search for “African-American travel blogs in Korea” and “African-American travel blogs in Japan” both searches returned a link for a webpage that listed African-American travel blogs, entitled “Black People do Travel A

Directory of Black Travel Blogs and Black Expat Blogs on the Web”

(http://kiratianatravels.com/2010/05/18/black-peopel-do-travel-a-directory-of-black-travel-blogs- and-black-expat-blogs/) from this webpage I searched for travel blogs written by women living in

Korea and Japan. In addition to using the weblogs this site provided, I also referred to each weblogs’ “blog rolls” (a list of blogs each author recommends), which often linked to similar blogs, about African-American women living in Korea and Japan. A total of four Japan blogs and seven

South Korean blogs were found. I initially selected the three blogs from each country that had the most post within the first year. However, one of the bloggers was simultaneously blogging about her experience in South Korea on two separate weblogs. Therefore, I included both of the woman’s blogs in my final sample.

Based on research about weblog communities blogs and bloggers do not exist in isolation.

Instead, bloggers are constantly interacting with each other by providing links to other blogs, commenting and posting on blogs, and subscribing to other blogs (Bhagat et al. 2007). However, bloggers do not interact with each other randomly. Like blog readers, bloggers gravitate towards blogs they feel personally connected to, or share interests with (Karlsson 2007 and Kumar 2004).

Thus, bloggers form online communities or friend groups based on common interests, and are more likely to follow and recommend blogs that are similar to their own. Bhagat et al. (2004)

55 found that blogs on average provide 10-30 links to similar bloggers on their blogrolls. Therefore, the best way to find additional blogs by African-American women living in Korea and Japan was to use blogrolls, because they often linked to blogs with similar content. However, the one drawback to relying on this sampling method is that my sample might not be representative of the experience of all African-American women traveling in East Asia, but represent the experience of one particular community of bloggers.

Although the length of stay in Korea and Japan for each blogger ranged from 1 year to 6 years I only analyzed their blog entries from their first year living abroad. This allowed me to standardize my data collection. Also, most of the bloggers do not provide updates consistently, with some blogging once a month, every day, whenever the mood strikes or when they find free time. I read every entry produced within the first year in Korea and Japan to ensure my approach was systematic. The age range of the participants was purposefully left open because it is difficult to obtain their exact age through reading their blogs. Moreover, each of the bloggers mentions their race and gender in the biography they provide or within in their blog. Thus, the study only used blogs written by individuals who self-identified as African-American and female. Lastly, to ensure that I had permanent access to their blog entries I copied and saved every entry into a separate word document labeled [BlogTitledateofentry]. Saving the content ensured that I was able to retrieve the blog entries if the website urls were deactivated. Also the naming system ensured that my data collection remained systematic.

Data Coding

To answer the main study question, how do African-American women describe their encounters with native citizens, and react to being subjects of the non-white gaze? I coded each

56 blog post separately, first for events or interactions with a Japanese or Korean resident. The frequency of events per blog post varied, and multiple events could occur in a single blog post, but there were also entries when the women did not describe their interactions with local residents.

Events were coded with a mixture of latent and manifest coding. Every social interaction with a local Korean or Japanese citizen was coded as an event. I coded who the blogger met, if it was a stranger, close friend, acquaintance, student, co-worker, host family member, or an abstract gazer (an indefinable or non-concrete person). When the bloggers wrote phrases like “sometimes people” or “the Japanese people”, because there is not a specific person they are interacting with, and they used broad encompassing terms to define their gazer I defined the gazer as abstract.

Since, the number of friends, acquaintances, and host family gazers was small these three categories were combined into the code social gazer. Moreover, students and co-workers were combined into the code work gazer. I coded what the activity was: school, social, or work, since only one blogger, Takara, was not working full-time, school and work were combined into the code work.

I also coded how the blogger described her feelings as a result of the experience by collecting direct quotes, and recording whether the blogger felt it was a positive or negative social interaction and whether the encounter made her feel uncomfortable, marginalized or compelled to resists the local’s gaze. Within this study the positive and negative labels are not mutually exclusive, thus an event could be both positive and negative, and the absence of a positive experience did not render it negative. Thus, there were three categories positive, negative, and neither positive or negative. The codes for discomfort, marginalization, and resistance could be coded simultaneously for a single event, and feelings of resistance, marginalization and discomfort

57 sometimes appeared together, or in pairs. As a result, no reaction was also coded. Lastly, I recorded if the blogger’s race was specifically mentioned, and when staring or touching occurred.

Separately, I also examined how the bloggers described their host countries to explore how the women use the “narrative tradition” of travel writing, which historically has constructed “the exotic to codify western domination,” to see how these women uphold “orientalist thinking”(Fish

2004: 131). Therefore, I coded any time the women described a place or landscape, food, people, and activities, and explored whether these women use traditional travel writing conventions in their descriptions. Do these women make generalizations, do they essentialize the culture, or assume there are fundamental similarities found in all Japanese or Koreans? Moreover, do the women use orientalist buzzwords like “traditional,” “simple,” and “picturesque.” Are the travel writing conventions of discovery and surveillance employed? Moreover, how do the women compare Japanese and Korean culture to American culture, and in their comparisons do they value

American culture more or less than Japanese and Korean culture, do they assume Japanese and

Koreans are inherently different from Americans?

Content Analysis was a useful and appropriate method for analyzing the weblogs because it is an unobtrusive method that uses preexisting data. As a result, the data collected are naturally occurring and non interactive, which preserves the women’s authentic voices (Hesse-Biber and

Leavy 2007). In using weblogs authored by the women the study is able to analyze the experience of the women from their perspective, and allows the study to privilege the voices of African-

American women in Japan and Korea, a group that is underrepresented and arguably absent in the discourse on black-Americans in Japan and Korea.

Content Analysis also is a method that is equally qualitative and quantitative and the systematic coding system produced a wealth of both. The frequencies generated from the

58 quantitative data offers a clear picture of the data overall. Analyzing the frequencies reveals particular trends that are not readily apparent in the qualitative data. We will look for differences between bloggers, and then between countries, based on gazer, context, and reactions.

Acknowledging these underlying findings expands our understanding of how the gaze is context specific, sheds light on the possible cultural nuances that are operating to shape the dynamics of the gaze differently, and ultimately illustrates how the gaze is operating uniquely in each of the women’s lives. However, frequencies fail to construct the full picture, and the conclusions inferred from the quantitative data do not reveal what is perpetuating the trends that emerge. Ultimately, quantitative data is decontexualized, but context is central to exploring my research question of how the dynamics of the gaze operate in Japan and Korea when the traditionally dominant white- male gazer is absent. Thus, the qualitative data are used to contextualize the quantitative findings and offer a more detailed view of how the gaze is operating. Qualitative passages from the women’s experiences reveal the dynamics of how they try to position themselves within the complex social contexts of contemporary Japan and Korea as they grapple with the gaze.

Sprague (2005: 91) argues that the aim of social science research is to “understand [the] mechanisms that are creating situations.” My study looks specifically at how sexism, nationalism, racism, and classism intersect to uniquely position the bloggers in Japan and Korea, and how the women confront the ways they are uniquely othered. Referring to the qualitative data paints a more vivid picture of how the women are opposing, resisting, transgressing, and contesting the gaze, and how they perform an oppositional gaze, as well as a gaze that positions them as superior to their Japanese and Korean others. Moreover, it is the qualitative data that privileges the women’s voices in answering how they chose to contest the local gaze, which the quantitative data erases. The women’s stories sketch detailed accounts of their lives abroad and uncover how

59 feelings like marginalization, discomfort, and resistance are expressed in their daily lives. We learn exactly what each emotion looks like in the context of Japan and Korea, what specifically about each event invokes these reactions, and how their reactions shift according to context- all information that can only be gleamed from the content of the women’s posts.

FINDINGS

The weblogs were written between the years 2003 and 2010.There were 489 blog posts,

208 from Japan and 290 from Korea. The range of posts per blogger was 22-119. In the 489 blog posts there were 405 events involving some kind of interaction with local people, 183 from Japan and 222 from Korea. There were 589 country descriptions, 210 from Japan and 379 from Korea.

The number of descriptions per blogger ranged from 24 to 194. The quantitative data will be examined first to determine whether there are specific differences between bloggers, and then between countries, based on gazer, context, and reactions. Such variations must be kept in mind when we later look at qualitative examples drawn from various bloggers’ experiences.

Descriptions of Interaction Events in the Blogs

The mean number of posts varies for events, with 69.3 for Japan and 96.6 for Korea. The percent of posts without an event were equal 56.3% and 55.2% for Japan and Korea respectively.

Despite, Japan having fewer events, the rate of posts per 100 events was 88 in Japan compared to

77 in Korea. Thus, despite the greater volume of events from Korea, the women in Japan wrote more frequently about their encounters with locals. This tends to balance out the event data from the two countries.

Table 1. Posts per country, number of events, and rate of events per 100 posts. Number of Number of Number of Post % post with no Rate of events per Posts Events without Events events 100 posts Japan 208 (m=69.3) 183(m=61) 117 56.3% 88 Korea 290 (m=96.6) 222 (m=74) 22 55.2% 77 Total 498 (m=83) 405 (m=67.5) 227 55.6% 81

Positive and Negative Reactions to Events

There were 176 events coded as positive and 152 coded as negative. About a quarter of the posts did not include either a negative or positive comment, but the codes for negative and positive were not mutually exclusive and both could be reported for a single event. The percent of positive events was slightly higher in Korea (45.5%) than in Japan (41.0%). However, the percentage of negative events was considerably higher in Japan (42.6%) compared to Korea (33.3%).

Table 2. Negative or positive responses to events, by country* Positive Negative Not Stated Total # of Events Japan 75(41%) 78 (42.6%) 40(21.9%) 183 Korea 101(45.5%) 74 (33.3%) 51 (23%) 222 Total Events 176(43.5%) 152(37.5%) 91(22.5%) 405 *Percents do not sum to 100 because of multiple response

Although within the Japan blogs the number and percent of negative (42.6%) and positive (41%) comments were equal, the bloggers in Korean reported fewer negative interactions. Only a small number of bloggers in either country registered both negative and positive responses to the same event. An event was typically negative and positive when the women adjusted their perception of the experience, by mentally reframing a negative experience into a positive one. For example, the women often write of transforming their frustration, with being stared at into something they happily embrace.

Types of Gazers

There were 104 stranger gazers, 133 abstract (non-concrete) gazers, 58 social gazers, which are friends, host family, and acquaintances, and 117 work gazers, which are students and teachers.

Stranger gazers were more prevalent in Korea (32.4%) than Japan (17.1%). However, abstract gazers were higher in Japan (35.8%) than Korea (29.7%). Social gazers as well were higher in

Japan (18.5%) than Korea (11.3%), and work gazers were higher in Japan (29.9%) than Korea

(27.4%).

Table 3. Total gazers per country* Stranger Abstract Social Work Total # of Total Gazers Events Japan 32 (17.1%) 67(35.8%) 33 (18.5%) 56(29.9%) 188 187 Korea 72 (32.4%) 66(29.7%) 25(11.3%) 61(27.4%) 224 222

Total 104(25.7) 133(32.8%) 58(14.3%) 117(28.9%) 412 405 *The percent do not sum to 100 because of multiple response.

Feelings of Discomfort, Marginalization, and Resistance to Events

The women’s description of their reactions to each encounter were also coded. There were

111 posts that mentioned the women’s discomfort, 86 that mentioned feelings of marginalization, and 129 used resistance to navigate social interactions. These were often combined in an account of an event.

Table 4. Response of discomfort, feelings of marginalization, or resistance, by country Discomfort Marginalization Resistance No Reaction Total Events Japan 50 (27.3%) 43 (23.5%) 65 (35.5%) 71(38.9%) 183 Korea 61 (27.5%) 43 (19.4%) 64 (28.8%) 107(48.2%) 222 Total Posts 111 (27.4%) 86 (21.2%) 129 (31.6%) 178(44%) 405 *These percent do not sum to 100 because of multiple response

The women’s feelings of discomfort were essentially the same in both countries with 27.3% for

Japan and 27.5% for Korea. Feelings of marginalization and active resistance are both higher in

Japan, with 21.1% more descriptions of marginalization, and 23.3% more accounts of resistance in

Japan. The rate of no reaction mentioned at all was higher in Korea.

Descriptions of People, in the Blogs

From the total country descriptions (589), 249 were descriptions of people (42.3%), and 72 were from Japan and 177 were from Korea. The number of people descriptions per blogger ranged from 11-114, and descriptions of people were higher in Korea (46.7%) than Japan (34.3%). Since, my research primarily explores the dynamics of the gaze, my analysis will only look specifically at how the women construct the local people, despite coding descriptions of food, places, and activities. This decision was made because I wanted to examine specifically how the women use the gaze to construct the local people to offer a more focused look at how the women use the gaze to mark Japanese and Korean bodies as different from themselves.

Table 5. Country Descriptions and rate of descriptions per 100 posts Number Country Posts with no Rate of Descriptions Rate of People of Posts Descriptions description descriptio of People # Descriptions per 100 (# and %) ns per and % of all posts 100 posts descriptions Japan 208 210 (m=70) 106 (50.9%) 100 72 (34.3%) 35 (m=69.3) Korea 290 379 120 ( 41.3%) 130 177 (46.7%) 61 (m=96.6) (m=126.3) Total 498 589 226 ( 45.4%) 118 249 (42.3%) 50 (m=83) (m=98.1)

The mean number of descriptions per country varies considerably: 70 for Japan and 126.3 for

Korea. There are about 20 percent more posts with no descriptions in Japan, and the rate of

63 descriptions per 100 posts is 30% higher in Korea. Thus, both the volume and rate of descriptions were greater in Korea. Many descriptions were of places and activities. A smaller number of posts contained descriptions of people, and this was considerably more common in Korea (46.7% of posts) than in Japan (34.3% of posts). Moreover, the rate of people descriptions per 100 posts was nearly twice as high in Korea (61 per 100) as in Japan (35 per 100). Further coding was done for these descriptions of people, but it is important to remember that these reports are nearly 2.5 times as likely to have come from the Korean blogs.

OVERVIEW OF CHAPTERS

Chapter 3 A Middle-Class African-American Identity Abroad extends the exploration of difference making began in the introduction, to look at how racism interacts with nationality, gender, class, and occupation for African-American and African migrants. Race does not independently shape the African-American woman’s experience with the gaze in Japan and South

Korea. This chapter compares the foreign status of African-Americans and black-Africans in Japan and Korea, two groups who despite being racialized the same inhabit different social positions because of how they are nationalized and classed. In the end, this chapter tests hypothesis 1, by exploring how African-American women navigate the privileges the intersection of their race, gender, nationality, class, and occupation afford and deny them abroad.

Chapter 4 The Bloggers Resist the Local Gaze to Maintain Self-Confidence examines how the women perform resistance. As subjects of the gaze, the study has found that the women do attempt to prevent the Japanese and Korean gaze from constructing them as inferior others. This chapter examines hypothesis 2, by looking specifically at the tactics of resistance the women employ. Resistance is multifaceted, and the women’s actions to transgress, contest, and challenge

64 dominant discourses that attempt to mark their bodies as other takes many forms. These strategies will be explored in chapter 4.

Chapter 5 How the Bloggers Construct People in East Asia, tests hypothesis 3 by looking specifically at how the women use the gaze to reaffirm their self-identities as American and black-

American. Despite the local gaze shaping and constructing the women, the bloggers also possess the power to gaze, and they use the gaze to re-produce the American ideal to position themselves as different from the locals. All of the chapters preceding chapter 5 explore the women’s use of the oppositional gaze to deflect how their bodies are marked as other, but this chapter removes the women from the position of subjects, explores their power to gaze, and further reiterates that the gaze is not unilateral, by highlighting the ways in which the women gaze to define the local populations as other.

Chapter 3

A Middle-Class African-American Identity Abroad

Within both Japan and Korea nationality, occupation, gender, and so on work in conjunction with race to position individuals within social hierarchies. Thus, when we explore the social position of African migrants and African-Americans, despite both being racialized as black, because they inhabit different occupations, classes, and nationalities they are constructed differently in relation to the ideal Japanese or Korean citizen. Thus, I will argue that race alone does not expose African-Americans and Africans (primarily Nigerians) to prejudice in Japan and

Korea. Instead nationality and occupational status intersect to position Africans and African-

Americans differently. This chapter will test hypothesis 1:

Since African-Americans are not always imagined as middle-class or American, identities that hold significant social capital, the bloggers will assert their middle-class and American identities to prevent being mis-categorized as non-American or lower-class to gain the social privileges that are automatically granted white-Americans in Japan and Korea. Through examining how Africans and African-Americans navigate their foreignness to discern how nationality, race, and socioeconomic status simultaneously afford and deny African-

Americans advantages while abroad.

Before examining the qualitative data, to effectively explore how identity intersects to influence the dynamics of the gaze the initial two sections of this chapter will provide background on how being racialized as black intersects with other identity markers. The first section will explore the literature on Africans and African-Americans in Japan and Korea and discuss how African-Americans confront being mis-nationalized abroad. The second section discusses how middle-class African-Americans, in the United States, maintain middle-class

identities in public spaces to avoid the marginalization and discrimination that is directed towards lower-class blacks. Ultimately, section two demonstrates that middle-class black-

Americans are socialized to resist attempts to mis- categorizatize them as lower-class.

African-Americans Jockey for Social Position and Police Nationality

While African-Americans are immediately marked as “other,” the visible presence of

African immigrants creates the possibility for African-Americans to be mis-categorized. As one black G.I. claimed in Joe Wood’s Yellow Negro, Japanese people have difficulty distinguishing between Africans and African-Americans. Joe Wood’s interviewee states, “the Japanese girls can’t tell the difference [between black Americans and Africans]” (Wood 1997: 53). Moreover,

Aki Tanaka (2010) writes that she (a Japanese national) can only distinguish between African-

Americans and Africans because she has lived in America implying that Japanese with less exposure cannot.

Similar to Japanese-Americans who are mis-categorized as “other-Asian”, mis- categorization can have consequences for black-Americans. African immigrants have a lower social status and are subject to severe cases of discrimination because of their occupational status and nationality. Africans are a relatively new immigrant group to Japan: in 2012 there were

29,166 African migrants in Japan. The largest senders of immigrants were Nigeria (3,119),

Ghana (1,893), and Kenya (1,491). Although African immigrants are not listed within Shipper’s

(2008) and Yoder’s (2011) analysis of foreign groups in Japan there is some evidence to suggest that African immigrants are grouped with Asian labors (Yamashiro 2008, Prieler 2010, and

Foreign Ministry Data). By 2012, 3,078 Africans were in Japan on trainee visas, although trainees only amounted to 1% of the total immigrants trainees are awarded the most visas.

Moreover, after the economic bubble burst many African immigrants have been denied access to

Japan’s regular labor market as blue-collar workers. Instead, Africans seek work as entertainers or “ethnic entrepreneurs” as owners of shops and restaurants that cater to African immigrants. In addition, many recent immigrants are undocumented so they lack the necessary papers to acquire

“legitimate” employment, and are forced to enter the informal labor market as club promoters or owners- when they have the resource of a Japanese-spouse (Schans 2009) 19. The work Africans find in the informal labor market is insecure and low paying (Schans 2012), which confines them to a working-class status.

To date the academic study of Africans in Japan is scarce and only a handful of scholars explore how this diverse and expanding immigrant group is received. Thus, most of the information published on African immigrants is derived from newspaper or anecdotal accounts.

Popular stories of Nigerian nightclub owners committing credit card fraud and drugging patrons have produced an unfavorable image of Africans in Japan (Schans 2012 and Tanaka 2010). In addition, there are numerous cases of Japanese newspapers reporting racial profiling of Africans

(Schans 2012). The negative stereotypes of Africans were given increased weight when Tokyo’s governor Shintaro Ishihara remarked that “Africans-and I do not mean African-Americans-who do not speak English are there doing who knows what (Japan Times 2008 – via Schans 2012).

These examples suggest that Africans are treated differently than African-Americans, and are positioned lower within the social hierarchy. However, there are similar examples of discrimination and negative stereotyping of African-Americans. In the late 1980s Japan’s Prime

Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro “blamed the presence of blacks, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans for

19 “In African-Japanese marriages the power of the wife in the relationship is considerable since not only may spouses depend on them for their legal status but also since they are indispensable as sources of help for dealing with Japanese bureaucracy, employment and so on.”(Schans 2009)

69 declining ‘American intelligence levels’” (Russell 1991: 3). Further blurring the line between how black Africans and black-Americans are represented in Japan is that Russell uses “black” interchangeably to refer to how Africans and African-Americans are represented as “other” in contemporary Japan.

How do we make sense of the argument that Japan has adopted Eurocentric racial hierarchies that represent blacks (as a whole) as inferior, barbaric, and savage, but also accept that Africans and African-Americans inhabit different social positions in Japan? Answering this question requires us to reject the notion that Africans and African-Americans are imagined as the same, and accept that notions about the “black other” become more nuanced when nationality and occupation enter the equation. This idea is made clearer with Nina Cornyetz’s argument that the popularity of American hip-hop has allowed African-Americans to enter the Japanese imaginary as cool (Cornyetz 1994).

With the boom in hip-hop culture in the 1980s and 1990s blackness was “reconfigured as desirable” (Cornyetz 1994:132), but this reimagining of blackness was limited to American- blacks, and this is arguably demonstrated in Ishihara’s remarks in 2008. It is necessary to note that American-blacks still emerge in the Japanese imaginary in limited ways primarily as entertainers or athletes, and that their desirability holds connotations of consumption and fetishization. However, the lens of hip-hop positions African-Americans as desirable aspects of

American culture, and assuages the image of the “violent” or “scary” black-American (Cornyetz

1991: 122).

It is important to reiterate that Africans are mistaken for African-Americans in Japan

(Tanaka 2010 and Wood 2007), and the mislabeling of Africans as American presents a source

70 of frustration for some American-blacks, specifically black men (Wood 1997). Many Africans in

Japan attempt to pass as American to increase their social capital. According to Schans (2012)

Nigerian owners of hip-hop style clothing stores adopt the style and appearance of African-

Americans to enhance the legitimacy of their business, gain “coolness,” and shed the negative image of “underdeveloped” and “poor” that is attached to Africa and Africans (Schans 2012: 83).

Wood (1997) observes that in one instance some American-blacks used violence to dissuade Africans from passing, and to aggressively police African-American identity in Japan.

In this particular case, one night a group of black servicemen beat to death the son of a Ghanaian diplomat. It was rumored that the fight was over a woman; however Wood notes “no one believes… they were only fighting for the woman's affections. The issue [was] authenticity,” and regulating who could be African-American (Wood 1997: 53). It becomes clearer that African-

American identity is closely monitored when Wood writes,

The Africans actually cause American blacks considerable discomfort, in part because they can "pass" for American. They walk around "head-to-toe in Karl Kani," one American complained to me. "Nobody who knows anything about hip-hop culture would go out looking like that. They don't know any better. And the Japanese girls can't tell the difference." (Wood 1997: 53)

Imitation in this context induces discomfort and anger precisely because it blurs the “neatly” defined lines between Africans and African-Americans. When Africans mimic black-American culture it not only allows them to easily transgress the assumed boundaries of “race” and

“nationality”, but it also pollutes “real” or “true” African-American culture making it harder for

African-Americans to distinguish themselves and clearly define what constitutes a “black

American” in Japan.

The urgency surrounding the surveillance of national and cultural identity in Japan echoes the same anxiety that emerged when African-Americans attempted to pass for white in

71 the legally segregated United States. Discovered passers were met with fierce resistance and faced harsh penalties from their peers and whites (Ginsberg 1996). This is because passing disputes the notion of fixed identity. As Elaine Ginsberg (1996: 4) argues, transgressing the boundaries of identity challenges the assumption that “identity categories are inherent and unalterable essences” and instead demonstrates that we can become something we are not.

Passing also threatens the idea of distinct and inherently different groups, and the social hierarchy applied to identity categories. Similar to national borders, identity is defined as constant to reinforce the idea of inherent difference and maintain a hierarchical social structure

(Ginsberg 1996). However, if we can perform and discard aspects of ourselves that are considered inherent than the very concept of natural racial, gender, or class differences is rendered void (Ginsberg 1996).

Since passing interrogates the legitimacy of social inequality it is not surprising that those transgressing the boundaries of identity are met with resistance. Passing affirms that we have the capacity to play with and rework our social positions. In doing so, passing also demonstrates that the power linked to each social position is also fluid (McClintock 1995). Therefore the borders of identity are patrolled to restrict access to the rights and privileges of the dominant group that are granted with passing, and to prevent a critical reflection of the systems of power that engender inequality.

The tight policing of African-American identity shows that it holds power for black-

Americans, and similar to Japanese-Americans African-Americans sometimes emphasize their nationality to avoid being mis-categorized to a lower social group. But, from a more nuanced perspective, African-Americans are not immune to prejudice in Japan, so they assert their

American identities to evade “cross-discrimination”, which is mis-directed prejudice, or

72 prejudice that is mistakenly directed to the “wrong” group because the perpetrator is unable to distinguish difference (Feagin 1991).

Studies on Africans in South Korea are minimal, but based on the information available

Africans in South Korea inhabit a similar social position as their Japanese counterparts. They are positioned as foreigners. Nigerians make up the largest population of African immigrants in

South Korea (several thousand) (Iglauer 2011). The recruitment of low-wage laborers for 3D jobs is limited to Asia, and many Nigerians are solicited to work in Korea’s manufacturing industry. Enclave communities sprouted and ethnic shops and restaurants were established. Like other immigrant groups in South Korea, Nigerians have been accused of overstaying their visas, and in recent years the Korean government has deported large numbers of undocumented

Nigerian immigrants. In 2011 the Nigerian ambassador spoke out against these mass deportations and claimed that the Korea’s irregular immigration practices, which allowed labor recruiters to mis-name Nigerian immigrants and falsify their visas led to their unfair deportation.

Moreover, the forced exodus was framed as unfair, because many of the residents had settled permanently in Korea, established families, and started business. (Iglauer 2011) These shaky immigration practices are a point of contention with Nigerian immigrants, particularly because many complain that long-term visas are hard to obtain, and that the Korean government only grants month to month visas (Durbach 2009).

South Korea’s immigration policies are a predictor of social status and desirability, and

Nigerian immigrants do not appear to be wanted, or to inhabit a space within the political imaginary that welcomes their sustained presence. This belief is reflected in a statement by the

Nigerian Foreign Minister Olugbenga Ashiru who said that the Korean government is “chas[ing]

Nigerians away from Korea” (Iglauer 2011). However, further research is needed to say

73 definitively if the low social status of Africans in Korea creates the same contentious relationship with African-Americans over social status, mirroring Japan.

Class works in tandem with nationality to stratify African-Americans and African immigrants in Japan and South Korea. Nationality is not the sole predictor of an immigrant’s social status in their host country, and the overwhelming tendency to imagine African immigrants as blue-collar, irregular, or illegitimate laborers positions them as undesirables. The misconception that unskilled immigrant groups are from poverty stricken backgrounds, raise crime rates, and drain resources further marginalizes Africans due to occupation (Yamamoto

2008). However, as Takenaka (2010) illustrates in her work on Peruvian Nikkeijin these bigoted ideas about class actively work to stratify immigrants who share nationality.

Within the context of Japan and South Korea some identity contestations and negotiations arise between African-Americans and African immigrants that are arguably founded on access to power and privilege. However, do the bloggers in this study engage in similar battles for social position? Moreover, how do they police the borders of African-American -ness, and protect their privileged identities as skilled American migrants? As mentioned earlier this chapter will explore how the bloggers assert and protect their privileged identities as a tactic to resist the local gaze from applying a host of racial stereotypes that erase their status as American professionals.

African-Americans Maintain Middle-Class Identities in Public Spaces

The bloggers’ middle-class identities are essential aspects of their experiences abroad.

Their status as middle-class African-Americans has shaped their self-perception and influenced how they navigate their social position abroad. If we apply Vera Mackie’s (2003) concept of the

“ideal citizen,” one who is unequivocally granted the privileges and rights of citizenship, to the

U.S. the ideal American is imagined as white and middle-class (Urciuoli 1994). Thus, in the U.S. middle-class blacks are compelled to embody cultural values and attributes that are assumed inherent in the white middle-class to legitimate their positions of privilege. Moreover, blacks must work to assert their status as middle-class to avoid the mistreatment and discrimination that accompanies being viewed as lower-class and black.

What implications does racializing the ideal as white and middle-class have on how middle-class blacks attempt to position themselves closer to the ideal in the United States? What do the “black” and “lower-class” identities they are distancing themselves from look like?

Urciuoli (1994) maps out how America’s immigration quotas in conjunction with racialized slavery and the forced assimilation and removal of Native-Americans constructed the ideal

American as white. Within this context non-white Americans are “not ‘real’ Americans” and are positioned as second class citizens (Urciuoli 1994: 22).

Whiteness however, is not the only determinant for inclusion; quite often “productivity” and “responsibility” are used to measure desirability. As Urciuoli (1994: 20) observes, in

America one is either a “good Italian-American or low-class Sicilian. [H]ardworking African

American or underclass black.” In this paradigm “productivity” (read employment) is racialized and those that are seen as hard working and employed are closer to whiteness and American. A true American is a productive and responsible member of society, and adheres to middle-class ideas of “self-direc[tion], self- develop[ment], and self-con[trol]”. (Urciuoli 1994: 24). A Jewish-

American respondent remarks in Jonathan Rieder’s Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn

Against Liberalism, clearly demonstrates how black-Americans stand in opposition to “hard working” “whites”,

Face it, the Haitians and Jamaicans and the other islanders down in Flatbush don't consider themselves black. These island people are producing people, they're up early sweeping their stoops and taking care of their homes. They're producing people like we are! But the black lower element don't contribute to society, they just take. In my view, you should get what you put into. You have to contribute (Rieder 1985:105).

In this context, Jamaican and Haitian immigrants who are phenotypically black are constructed as non-blacks, because they are “productive people,” who “contribute to society.” Thus, to distance one’s self from blackness and its marginal social position individuals must prove their worth in society to demonstrate “productivity” and the personal values of “self-motivation” and

“self-control.” It is necessary to restate that productivity, whiteness, and middle-class are inextricably linked in the American imagination, and this works to construct the non-white working-class as inherently lazy or apathetic, and we see these ideas reproduced in another one of Rieder’s respondents

Some of the problems of the poor blacks is their cultural background. It’s the way they have lived in America. I don’t know about Africa, but dependency has become ingrained in their culture. This attitude is “Let others take care of me.” There is a lack of self-reliance. (Rieder 1985: 105)

In this context, the discipline and motivation to “wake up early,” or to lift oneself out of poverty are inherently absent in lower-class blacks, and these values become bounded to middle-class whites.

A consequence of tightly associating a “good” work ethic with whiteness and the middle- class is that class mobility becomes defined as a non-black behavior. By claiming lower-class blacks inherently lack the drive and self-motivation for class advancement blacks are permanently coded as lower-class. As a result, racialized “blacks” must prove that they belong to the middle-class. However, since notions of race and class are intertwined in the U.S. and whiteness automatically implies middle-class, despite the “American cultural model of the

76 middle-class…not specifically [being] white,” many non-whites “[map] what they typify as middle-class behavior onto whiteness (Urciuoli 1994:25). It is within this context that Karyn

Lacy’s (2007) Blue Chip Black: Race, Class and Status in the New Black Middle-Class explores the processes of “strategic assimilation” and identity preservation to demonstrate how black-

Americans define middle-class behaviors as white, strive to meet middle-class standards, and publicly demonstrate their acceptance of middle-class norms to others.

Since a middle-class black’s class status is constantly contested, Lacy (2004 and 2007) argues that “strategic assimilation” and identity preservation (presenting public identities) have become tools for combating discrimination and maintaining middle-class privilege. According to Lacy (2004), middle-class blacks engage in “strategic assimilation”, which is the partial adoption of mainstream (read white) middle-class values to ensure middle-class privileges, while maintaining their “black racial identities”. Essentially, middle-class blacks use the black world for socializing and “live” and “work” in the white world. Although Lacy (2004) skillfully asserts that middle-class blacks engage in strategic assimilation, their acceptance of mainstream middle- class attributes and social worlds may be less of a choice and more of a forced necessity to maintain middle-class success. As one of Feagin and Sikes (1994) respondents noted, socializing in all black groups is often interpreted by white strangers, or outsiders, as suspicious and unproductive, and the respondent vehemently expressed feeling “punished for expressing [her] black culture…[and that blacks are] just constantly forced to take on the culture of white-

America” (Feagin and Sikes 1994: 96) However, despite some middle-class blacks despising assimilation they still do it, at least partially because it is believed to be required to obtain the economic and social rewards of the middle-class.

The necessity to conform to mainstream culture is further revealed when middle-class blacks select colleges for themselves and their children. They choose universities they believe will provide the greatest advantages in the “white-world”, in light of the possible negative social and emotional repercussions. Black students studying at an Ivy League university “reported being alienated and miserable, yet because an Ivy League degree would give them a boost in the outside world, they were resigned to the indignities of that milieu” (Feagin and Sikes 1994).

Similarly, some of Lacy’s (2004) respondents preferred for their children to attend predominately white universities over Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), because they believed these schools would provide their children with the social skills necessary to navigate a majority white corporate world. Moreover, there was a sense that elite majority white institutions offered access to elite and influential peer groups (Lacy 2004). In both instances the respondents believed that integration into the white world and the credentials acquired from integration were “important steps on the path to economic success” (Lacy 2004).

Middle-class blacks are socialized to believe that validation as an American middle-class citizen also requires assimilation into whiteness. A mindset that has been critiqued for reproducing racism by reifying white as the ideal and good, and black as abnormal and bad

(West 1990). However, Lacy’s (2007) and Feagin and Sikes’ (1994) respondents have fully accepted the “promises of the American dream,” and the ideology that hard work, self-disciple, and the acquisition of mainstream credentials grants undeniable access to white middle-class privileges (Feagin and Sikes 1994: 8). One of Lacy’s (2007) respondents defines their achievements as such,

“we are reasonably successful , but that has to do with the fact that we paid our dues, we went to school, we pulled all-nighters like everybody else. Yeah we got an education, and we’re willing to work, to put the time in. And that’s how it works in this country” (Lacy 2007: 121).

This response demonstrates recognition among middle-class blacks that they have achieved the markers of middle-class success and feel entitled to the rewards.

The respondents in Lacy’s (2007) study also passed the “value” of hard work down to their children one recalls her husband flatly telling their children,

“go to college, do well, be successfully, get a good job, make a nice living, be able to go out to dinner, buy nice clothes. Or you can not do that-…and have a little teeny apartment somewhere, take a bus, work at McDonald’s” (Lacy 2007: 124). Again, the above quote reproduces the idea that hard work, productivity, and self-discipline grant privileges in America. These middle-class children are taught to accept “partial assimilation” as a necessity. Growing up in a middle-class family instills the belief that college educations and white-collar jobs, and the personal motivation to achieve these goals guarantee middle-class status. More importantly, however middle-class African-American children are taught that these credentials clearly mark them as middle-class for others. This is because these credentials conform to mainstream expectations, and are readily associated with middle-class achievements.

However, it is important to note that with assimilation middle-class blacks expect the privileges of middle-class, which are often denied because blacks are imagined as lower-class, to be bestowed (Lacy 2007)

Since black-Americans, in the U.S. are more readily assumed to be lower-class, middle- class blacks must assert their status to ensure the everyday privileges of the middle-class are granted. According to Lacy (2007), middle-class blacks clearly mark themselves as middle-class in public. This is because they are most likely to encounter strangers who contest their middle- class status, and discriminate against them on the assumption that they are lower-class blacks. In clearly defining their class for strangers, middle-class blacks distance themselves from lower-

79 class blacks and “blur the distinctions between themselves” and the white-middle class (Lacy

2007: 75).

Similarly, in Japan and South Korea middle-class Americans are largely imagined as white, and the positive attributes of “Americans”, are reserved for whites. Conversely, the attributes readily applied to African-Americans are often limited or negative (Cornyetz 1994 and

Russell 1991). Thus, despite black-Americans and white-Americans possessing the same nationality, these two groups are imagined separately even when factors like occupation are controlled. As Kim (2008) illustrates, in South Korea all American soldiers are constructed negatively, however, black-Americans in the military are more immediately seen as troublesome, violent, and impoverished. Moreover, these characteristics are generalized to all black-

Americans, while the negative stereotypes attributed to white soldiers remain exclusive to whites in the military (Kim 2008). Thus, in Japan and Korea the bloggers are likely to enter situations where identity preservation is necessary, particularly because their race works to declass them.

Considering the bloggers’ own middle-class position in the U.S. it can be assumed that they arrive to East Asia expecting their credentials to translate into privilege in the same way they did at home. This is because their time in the United States has taught them that their material success holds significant social capital. In addition, they come to Japan and South Korea with practice defending their social positions, as a means to ensure that their “hard work” is rewarded adequately. The bloggers’ identities as middle-class blacks have made it so that they arrive to Japan and South Korea prepared to defend their middle-class status, and we will see below that the bloggers assert their middle-class identity as well as their American nationality to regain the privileges afforded white-Americans in Japan and Korea.

The Bloggers Assert American Middle-Class Identities

The bloggers emphasize their American identity as a means to define themselves as middle-class Americans and distinguish themselves from other low-class Americans and non-

American “blacks” to gain the privileges afforded white-American nationals. Ms. World the blogger of Ms. World’s World strongly identifies herself as American when she writes, “I’m a

Black woman. I’m the American variety” (Ms. World). It is clear that Ms. World finds it necessary to make her nationality known and it is appears to be a salient part of her self- definition while abroad.

Sexy Diva also, takes pains to distinguish Africans and African-Americans when she discusses the lack of black people in Japan. She writes,

You know, I know there are black people (more specifically Americans) here in Japan but they really must be on the DL. Everywhere you go, you see Nigerians but there really weren't any African Americans in Tokyo...I mean maybe a handful and BLACK WOMEN....I think I saw three around Tokyo, one which I believe was West Indian, the other Nigerian and the other POSSIBLY afam [African-American]. So, we are a rare species here. I did get a chance to go to First Fridays in Tokyo and there were some more black folk..only one other black woman but it was cool.(Sexy Diva) Here Sexy Diva makes it clear that despite racial similarities she does not imagine Africans and

African-Americans as possessing a shared community.

Contrary to Wood’s argument, the women do not attempt to violently police the boundaries between them and “other-blacks”, but accept that “mis-categorization” is an aspect of living in East Asia. Joia has an encounter where she is mistaken for Jamaican and she corrects the man by clarifying that she is American

As we're chatting along, I felt this….presence at my backside. Some middle-aged man wandered up on us and started jammering in Korean! Obviously, I don't speak Korean but I know some words. He was talking to Cute Trainer Guy and said, "Migook?? Jamaica??" Migook means American…And well, OBVIOUSLY, Jamaica….so I said, "No no, not Jamaica. New York City."

(No, I'm not from New York City, but it's the one city everyone knows here) (The Seoul of Black Folks)

Overdose has an interesting encounter, and is mistaken for African. However, it is her Iranian boyfriend who asserts Overdose’s American identity. She writes,

today when I went to the bf's soccer match, we walked by a group of Korean men and they made a comment about me being African, in which my bf quickly replied in Korean that I was American, which caused them to break out in nervous laughter (Overdose of Satisfaction ) For Overdose being mis-categorized is not a problem. She does not seek to reclaim her American identity. However, her boyfriend does and aggressively presents Overdose’s nationality. This incident is interesting, because Overdose’s nationality seems to hold significant meaning for her boyfriend, and he uses it to correct the prejudice she experiences. Despite the women failing to aggressively differentiate themselves from Africans or Caribbeans, they still mark themselves as distinctly American by clarifying their nationality for their gazers illustrating that their nationality is central to their self-definition while abroad, and reaffirming the importance of national difference.

The significance the bloggers’ American identity holds is made clear by the discomfort they feel when others question their “Americaness”. Takara and her African-American friends have an interesting encounter with a Japanese man outside a sumo match. She writes that after noticing the man staring at them for a few minutes one of her friends introduced herself.

We introduced ourselves and he was very surprised that we were all from America. In fact, the response when one of the sistas said she was from America was so surprising that I remember thinking to myself, ‘Dag, is it that deep?’ Anyway, the Japanese man said, ‘You all are from America?’ ‘Were your parents born in America?’ After, we assured him that we were indeed all born in America he asked us what we were doing in Japan. We replied that we were students and were studying Japanese. He was even more surprised than learning we were American. (Takara in Tokyo) Takara is perplexed that this man is so surprised, and annoyed that he cannot accept that America is her home. Here Takara is confronted with the fact that in Japan Americans are imagined as

82 phenotypically white. It causes her some discomfort and forces her to strongly reassert that despite her race she is American. In claiming her American nationality Takara and her friends also clarify that they are educated Americans who possess middle-class values and attributes.

The women state multiple times that they are students, in Japan to learn. This is made clear when they respond to the man’s follow-up questions.

He then asked, "Do you play sports? Run Track? We were like, "Ummmm, well sometimes, but we're here to study." He then asked if we could sing and if we liked to dance. After explaining to the man that we were indeed from America, were students studying Japanese, didn't run track or were not a part of a dance group, and tyring to explain to the man that not every Black person he encounters is an athlete or entertainer we eventually got on train […] we all agreed that since being in Japan we had encountered many stereotypes about Black people. (Takara in Tokyo) Takara and her friends are careful to distance themselves from stereotypes about blacks that could diminish their status as educated middle-class Americans.

The next time Takara encounters stereotypes about blacks in Japan she learns that the overall thinking in Japan groups blacks as African-Americans. She writes about her experience giving a talk on African-Americans to an English exchange group,

What I discovered was that many Japanese refer to all Black people as African-American and there are many stereotypes Japanese have about Black people. (Takara in Tokyo)

In this instance, Takara learns that mis-categoization can lead to a muddling of stereotypes that preserve limited representations of blacks as poor, entertainers, and uneducated. In this case, all the stereotypes that exist about blacks, whether they are American, Caribbean, or African, are attributed to African-Americans as a whole and obscure the heterogeneity within these populations. Moreover, this amalgamation of stereotypes has the potential to conceal the bloggers’ status as privileged middle-class Americans for their gazers. Thus, when they are threatened with mis-categorization the women actively guard against being both mis-nationalized and being grouped into a lower-class. Here is where nationality, race, and class (occupation)

83 clearly intersect for the bloggers. The women actively assert to others that they are African-

Americans from middle-class backgrounds, aspects of their identities that are often overlooked.

Thus, the bloggers clearly distinguish themselves from other blacks, and mark themselves as possessing middle-class values to preserve the social privileges they are granted as a result of how their nationality and class is imagined.

The bloggers perceive themselves as “middle-class” and the sense of privilege they arrive in Korea and Japan with remains a significant aspect of their identity while abroad. Ms. World makes her middle-class status clear when she gives her readers a synopsis of her upbringing,

I’m a nice African-American woman from a wonderful family who is well-educated, traveled, and spirited. I come from people who helped build Baptist churches. (Ms. World)

Ms. World owns her middle-class identity, and she also clearly uses it to (facetiously) prove that she possesses good morals and values.

The women vehemently defend their position as middle-class blacks as well, by informing their gazers that African-Americans are not poor and uneducated. Takara makes this clear when she is confronted with the stereotype that all African-Americans use broken English.

The icing on the cake that makes me almost want to gag is when Yamada-san explains to Tanaka- sensei that African-Americans are sometimes hard to understand because our English is very different from White-American English. He turns to me and says, “Your English is very good though. But many times African-American English is like this,” Yamada-san proceeds to gesture with his hands a roller-coaster going up and down. “White-American English is like this,” and he gestures a smooth line. Yamada-san asks me, “Am I right?” I tell him no and that what he was referring to was an accent common to many Americans located in different parts of the U.S.. I told him that accents aren’t based on skin color but rather on different locations. (Takara in Tokyo) Regardless of Takara being positioned as a person who speaks “good” English, she is angered by this assumption and makes it known that she is not an anomaly, and that this myth of improper

English cannot be exclusively applied to blacks, but as she explains is regional

The bloggers’ American privilege also becomes a valuable commodity abroad. Ms.

World observes that she is advantaged abroad in ways that are typically reserved for white men in America.

It is a very interesting experience for me to have my nationality be a defining characteristic. I’m Black or African-American in the U.S.A.. However, in Japan, I’m American.

I’ve tasted the sweetness of privilege, the kind that comes from wielding an American passport. The passport in countries of less economic means has been a magical get out of jail free card. I’ve been waved into countries and shielded from police harassment due to my membership in the exclusive American passport club. This privilege is in kinship with white wealthy male privilege which dominates my homeland. (Ms. World) Ms. World is not only shocked that her nationality is a significant aspect of her identity, but acknowledges that it offers privilege, and she knows how to use and emphasize her nationality to gain advantages.

The bloggers make it clear that they are African-American and demonstrate discomfort when this is overlooked, or when all “blacks” in Japan are grouped without nationality taken into account. Moreover, they understand that their nationality affords them advantages, and they highlight their nationality when it helps them. The bloggers’ identity assertions mirror Ayumi

Takenaka’s (2010) and Jane Yamashiro’s (2008) arguments that individuals on the margins separate themselves from the negative stereotypes attached to their identity20. Thus, the women

20 Takenaka (2010) found that Peruvian Nikkeijin work diligently to distinguish themselves from non-Japanese Peruvian migrants. Both groups tend to work blue-collar jobs, but Nikkeijin were initially recruited for work by the Japanese government because their high levels of educational attainment, Japanese ancestry, and middle-class “values” were believed to facilitate a smooth transition into Japanese society. These assumptions about class values translate into the belief that Peruvian-Nikkeijin are less likely to become permanent residents and will not generate social disorder. On the other hand there is a fear that non-Japanese Peruvians, who lack the markers of upper-class and occasionally enter the country illegally on falsified visas that classify them as Peruvian-Nikkeijin will attempt to stay in Japan permanently and create social problems. However, once both groups arrive in Japan, the Japanese tend to view them as one, and imagine both Peruvian-Nikkeijin and Peruvians as lower-class (Takenaka 2010).

In order to combat the social consequences of being grouped with Peruvian immigrants, Peruvian-Nikkeijin attempt to distinguish themselves by using ethnic, legal, and class differences. Thus, they emphasize their Japanese ancestry and privileged immigration status. Moreover, Nikkeijin assert their middle-class backgrounds, and claim “[they]

85 distance themselves from non-Westerners and lower-class blacks in an effort to define themselves as middle-class Americans an identity that is “socially” acceptable in Japan and

South Korea. However, the bloggers’ identity assertions differ from African residents in Japan.

Compared to African-American women, Africans attempt to minimize the consequences of their difference, and instead of asserting their nationality they try to assimilate. Similar to

Japanese-Americans, Africans attempt to blend, as best they can, into mainstream Japanese culture and believe that “becoming Japanese” is attainable with effort (Yamashiro 2008 and

Tanaka 2010). Thus, African immigrants attempt to learn the language and adopt Japanese social customs.

The majority of African immigrants are male and a major step in adopting a Japanese identity is marrying a Japanese woman to obtain permanent residency and establish businesses

(Schans 2012, Schans 2009, Tanaka 2010, and Wood 1997). In Tanaka’s case study of the

Nigerian immigrant Mr. Omo, Tanaka writes that Mr. Omo tries to diminish his foreignness by studying the Japanese language and culture, and becoming a Japanese citizen (Tanaka 2010).

Moreover, the case study of Mr. Omo highlights his asymmetrical perception of his daughter

(half Japanese and Nigerian) and his family as Japanese. He often speaks of his daughter as

Japanese, and expresses that he wants to “become Japanese” to provide a steady Japanese cultural role model for his daughter. Essentially Mr. Omo believes that his duty as a parent is to properly socialize his daughter, but he can only do this correctly if he is culturally literate

were brought up with certain (read, middle-class) values” that their non-Japanese countrymen lack (Takenaka 2010: 232). Thus, Peruvian-Nikkeijin attempt to elevate themselves from their marginal social positions by asserting their Japanese ancestry and middle-class upbringings.

(Tanaka 2010). Mr. Omo’s goals illustrate his desire to assimilate and diminish his otherness, despite his skin color and ethnicity making his goals unattainable.

For African immigrants, marrying Japanese wives, obtaining Japanese citizenship, and mastering the language allows them to assimilate as best they can into a country that mythologizes itself as “homogenous”, and marks anyone who is not completely Japanese as other. Moreover, by adopting a “not-quite” Japanese status Africans are allowed to advance up the social hierarchy, because they are awarded minor perks, such as residency, employment, and health care that were previously denied.

Arguably, this process of assimilation only takes place for African immigrants and not

African-Americans. This is because unlike their American counterparts Africans cannot rely on their original nationality to alleviate their marginal status (Shipper 2008). As mentioned earlier, when Japanese-Americans are mis-categorized as “other-Asian” they re-assert their American nationality, and are awarded privileges and advantages that were previously denied (Yamashiro

2008). However, asserting a Nigerian nationality does not offer privilege, but evokes a host of negative images of criminality, working-class identities, and the “dark continent” (Schans 2012 and Russell 1991). According to Japan’s and Korea’s Eurocentric racial hierarchies, the bloggers’ race positions them and Africans equally at the bottom. However, the women as middle-class migrants from a developed country are granted elevated social status. Thus, is seems “racial” hierarchies are second to national and occupational ones.

The privileging of national and class distinctions over race is made even clearer when the women are compared to “other-Asian” migrants, and black-Japanese and Afro-Koreans (mixed- raced Japanese-African-American or Korean-African-American), two marginal groups that are

87 typically imagined as working-class in Japan and Korea. When the bloggers are compared to

“other-Asian” migrants despite the bloggers not looking phenotypically Korean or Japanese, their jobs and nationality place the women closer to “Korean” or “Japanese” than working-class migrants, who could potentially pass as nationals. However, what is more revealing is that Afro-

Koreans and black-Japanese inhabit a more marginal position than African-Americans. Despite

Afro-Koreans and black-Japanese, being born and raised in country, and having “Korean “ or

“Japanese” blood, because they are typically imagined as working-class, homeless, or criminals, they do not conform to the ideal citizen and are pushed to the periphery (Reicheneker 2011) .

The privileging of class over “racial” hierarchies in Korea can possibly be explained by

Kim’s (2009) assertion that in Korea’s attempt to gain international legitimacy following its economic success it defined itself closer to “middle-class” and pushed anyone who threatened this identity to the periphery. Thus, the bloggers as skilled, middle-class Americans do not threaten the Korean, self that emerged at the end of the 20th century.

In the end, nationality, class and race intersect to place African-American and African residents differently in Japan and Korea. The bloggers present themselves as middle-class

Americans, to contest the locals using the gaze to construct the women as lower-class and non-

American; the latter are identities that hinder their access to privileges readily granted American professionals in Japan and Korea.

RAC(ISM) REMAINS SALIENT FOR AFRICANS AND AFRICAN-AMERICANS

It is clear that the bloggers’ American identity and class becomes more significant while abroad, and that they push others to acknowledge their nationality (Clifford 1985). However, as

Dolby (2004) and Jewett (2010) argue, the process of identity formation abroad is complex and identity conflicts and contradictions emerge. For African-Americans and African immigrants, regardless of how both groups navigate their nationality, race and ethnicity remain significant markers of self.

African-Americans and Africans express the significance of race by building close social bonds with other blacks. The propensity for these friendships mirrors Lacy’s (2004 and 2007) strategic assimilation, and illustrates that blacks often seek and enjoy the company of other blacks. However, these bonds rarely cross continental lines, and often African-Americans seek

African-American friends and Africans develop relationships with Africans.

It is important to note here that race is a social construct, and to assume that it is the causal factor, or that skin color is directly linked to the formation of close social bonds is flawed, and reifies notions that distinct biological and cultural differences exist across “races” (Miles

19993). However, we cannot ignore that racism operates socially; the women and African immigrants are racialized by social attribution, and their experiences with racism profoundly impact their lives at home and abroad. For African-Americans, particularly women, developing close, supportive, and nurturing social bonds with other blacks (who are assumed to face similar oppressions) helps to ease the stress of racism (Dill 1983, Collins 1983 and 2000, and Byng

1998).

For the bloggers, and other African-Americans abroad developing relationships with black-Americans offers a support system. Sexy Diva is relieved when she learns that a black

ALT will be in a nearby town

I didn’t even think about it but one of my Sorors called me yesterday and told me that she met a new ALT that is black and that is coming to IWATE!!! Watch out now. I can’t wait to meet her! (Sexy Diva)

Sexy Diva is excited about the possibility of making a black friend, and having someone close by who she believes she will be able to relate to and share common experiences with. Sista Sha reiterates this point when she writes about how finding a close group of like-minded black friends has made her experience in South Korea exponentially better. She writes,

[H]aving a circle of black friends is a personal preference. My coworkers have never been anything other than kind to me, and invite me out often, and NEVER made me feel bad when I would (often) decline. They are nice, but I was needing a different kind of connection. Now that I have one, it has made living here infinitely better and life is wonderful. I don’t go a day w/out speaking to one of my sistas online or on the phone, I see them every weekend, and they make me so fucking happy. It took a while until I found them… and so, those first several months living here was really lonely sometimes. I'd like to clarify, it's not just any black friend that would do it, I’ve met more like-minded people now, and it's changed everything. (Sista Sha) Sista Sha no longer feels isolated in South Korea. She is happier and more comfortable. This comfort comes from knowing that she has “met more like-minded people”. Sista Sha believes that her black friends provide a supportive community with shared experiences.

This desire for black community is also demonstrated by the handful of black-American social groups in Japan and Korea. In Life’s film Struggles and Success the group “Girl Talk” is highlighted. “Girl Talk” is promoted as a casual social group that meets weekly to allow African-

American women to connect and share their experiences in Japan. One woman in the documentary mentioned that “Girl Talk” allowed her to, “feel like [she] can go back out there [in to Japan] motivated” (Life 1993). This quote is reminiscent of Michelle Byng’s (1998) argument

90 that African-American women seek each other’s company because it creates an environment that is “intimate, self-defining, and concurrently, free from the racial hostilities of larger society”

(Byng 1998: 483). Thus, “sisterhood” simultaneously constructs a safe-space that is “free” of racism, allows African-American women to rejuvenate their sense of self, and develop a self that transgresses dominant ways of knowing, which position African-American women as inferior

(hooks 1992). The function of these social bonds demonstrates that “resisting” the gaze is not a solo act, but a community driven one, and highlights how these support groups serve as tools for self-preservation in an environment they perceive to devalue their self-worth.

Sista Sha even started a Facebook group called “Brothas and Sistas of South Korea” to bring blacks together. She creates this social group after failing to finding a visible, active, and easily accessible African-American community in South Korea. Almost a decade later Sista

Sha’s group is still active, boasts over 3000 members, and frequently hosts social events (Brothas and Sistas of South Korea 2013). While they are abroad, race becomes a significant identity marker because it offers access to social bonds and support groups for African-Americans and

Africans.

The Nigerian immigrant Mr. Omo speaks profusely of his skin color uniting him with other black-Africans in Japan. In an interview with Tanaka Mr. Omo states,

This is our identity, this skin. We are black. Where I see black, there is love. Like Bob Marley, black makes us together everywhere we go. If you see Black, you see them as brothers and sisters and feel one love (Tanaka 2010)

Since blackness is so visible in Japan it serves as a way for Africans to connect with one another instantly. The depth of this racial bond is illustrated by the social support Africans offer each other simply because of skin color. Schans offers an example of this social support from his interviews with Africans in Japan

One person told me that when he arrived in Japan in the late 80s with no knowledge of the country and no family or friends in Japan yet, he walked around in Tokyo and approached the first Black African he saw on the street. This person (from a different nationality) provided him with food and housing for 3 months until he set himself up in Japan (Schans 2012: 85). Acknowledging race’s salience is a survival tool, and is a form of indirect resistance to the local gaze that aims to place African-Americans and black-Africans in inferior opposition to the

Japanese self. Identifying as black, offers social advantages, and social support within black-

African or African-American communities in Japan and Korea. Even though, race may work to marginalize these individuals within mainstream society it protects, supports, and shields blacks from some of the negative effects of discrimination.

On the surface these racialized social bonds appear beneficial, and they do important work to maintain the emotional and physical well-being of African-Americans and African residents in Japan and South Korea. However, these friendships, and their fundamental assumption that happiness is found through connections with other blacks, particularly of the same nationality, reinforces racism and overlooks how attributes like class, gender, and sexuality fracture individuals who share race and nationality. As Sista Sha writes, “it's not just any black friend that would do it,” therefore in exploring these social bonds we must also de-essentialize them and question how and why these friendships are dictated by differences like class, gender, and sexual orientation.

WHY DO THE BLOGGERS DISTANCE THEMSELVES FROM AMERICANS

Despite nationality, occupation, and class intersecting to grant Americans privileged identities, being nationalized as American does possess the potential to be negative. As discussed earlier, economic development in Japan and Korea produced a sense of national pride and assumed equality and superiority over America. As a result, Americans are placed in inferior

92 opposition to the Japanese and Korean self. Thus, there are occasions when the bloggers attempt to distance themselves from the negative stereotypes about Americans as a form of resistance.

The bloggers distance themselves from Americans abroad when they are embarrassed by the behavior of their peers, or when being associated with America positions the women as

“other” in a negative way. Joia makes her embarrassment clear when she writes about her brother’s behavior at a McDonalds in Tokyo,

We…went to McDonald's. Greasy food is mandatory after binge drinking right? Jar was so plastered that he kept trying to touch the cashier girl. I thought they were gonna call security on him! He kept ordering more food (a #1 Big Mac meal, a fish sandwich, fries, 5 piece nugget, soda...) and saying how "little and cute" she was. EMBARRASSING!!! (The Seoul of Black Folks)

Joia is not embarrassed by her brother’s drunken behavior but his ignorance. He insists on invading the cashier’s personal space and uses his gaze to treat the woman like a site of discovery; treating the cashier like an animal at a petting zoo. Moreover, he refers to her as “cute” and “little” adjectives that are often used to essentialize Japan. Joia is ashamed of his arrogance, and that his behavior reifies the idea of the insensitive American. The stereotype of the

“obnoxious” American is what the women continuously run-away from.

Takara is particularly annoyed by the behavior of her classmates. She writes early in her trip that she can relate to locals being annoyed by Americans.

I'm beginning to understand the 'loud and obnoxious American' stereotype because a couple of the students here with me are just getting on my last nerves. Maybe I'm just really irritable right now, or maybe I'm not and am telling the truth. If I here 'the normal way' or the 'American way' one more time this week I will scream... Nah, I'll probably just look @ them like you know better. (Takara in Tokyo)

These feelings persist throughout her trip. When she protests attending an excursion to Nagano with her study abroad program it is because she “just wanted to spend time alone exploring

Tokyo, instead of being with a huge group of noisy Americans for 5 days” (Takara in Tokyo).

In both instances Takara is not distancing herself from her “American” identity which as discussed above affords her advantages. Instead she separates herself from the negative stereotypes about Americans. One could argue that this is tactical. Takara is aware that her race positions her as inferior, and generates particular stereotypes about her that are not attributed to her white peers. Takara learns this when riding the train with a staff member of her program. She asks him what his perception of African-Americans is and she receives an answer that both shocks and angers her. He responds that,

In past time there have been maybe 1 or 2 African-American students. I don’t know much about them though. They did not like it here and complain a lot. (Now this next comment had me trippin) Especially Spelman students. We have one each semester and they do not like Japan very much. They always complain and have bad attitude. Other African-American students always twenty to thirty minutes late and always smile and apologize. Japanese people are very serious and 5 minutes late is very bad. But African-American students always laughing, smiling, singing, dancing, and everything is fun to them. (Takara in Tokyo)

Takara initially responds to Yamada-san by telling him

“It is wrong to base your ideas of Black people on the few students you have seen.” He agrees and I say, “Yamada-san, if you are going to be interacting with students from different backgrounds you can’t make blanket statements like the ones earlier.”(Takara in Tokyo)

Takara distances herself from Yamada-san’s assumptions about blacks by asserting that his views of African-Americans cannot be generalize to all blacks, and more importantly to her.

Creating distance allows Takara to evade being further stereotyped in a negative way.

Other bloggers’ attempts to distance themselves from the “negative” stereotypes about

Americans mirror a similar desire to not be “one of those” loud and obnoxious Americans. Sista

Sha writes of an incident on the train that illustrates this,

last week i was on the subway with a couple of coworkers going to a meeting for work. i was with jane (korean-american) and leo (canadian). we were chatting, complaining about how far we had to travel for the meeting, etc, and a korean man leans in on leo and quietly tells him something. leo apologizes.

"whats wrong?" i ask, b/c leo is one of the nicest guys you could meet, really, what does he have to apologize for? "he said that this a public place and we're being too loud."

mom and dad, i was so embarrassed! i have seen the foreigners on the train friday and saturday nights on their way to a club, and they ARE loud and obnoxious, but us? but LEO? he's so soft spoken and kind! i felt super bad. i talked in low tones the rest of the trip. leo, never loud in the first place, kept quiet too. jane, however, got really annoyed, and kept right on loud-talking, louder than before :) she's from new york, and has an aggressiveness about her. i apologized to leo again later, who said he was fine. well, looks like i was the only one bothered/embarrassed. geez, im such a stick in the mud. (Sista Sha)

Sista Sha and her friends respond to this situation differently, but Sista Sha is the only one embarrassed to be viewed as “loud”. She desperately wants to be marked as culturally aware, and avoid fueling the image of obnoxious Americans. This is illustrated by the fact that she goes through pains to lower her voice. However, placing distance between herself and the negative

American stereotypes might also demonstrate her awareness that she is a representative of her

“race.” Although this is not expressed by Sista Sha, Ms. World and Takara both write that they feel pressure to present positive images of blacks while abroad.

Surprisingly, the bloggers have unexpected relationships with military personnel in Japan and Korea. Until recently, Korean interactions with blacks were limited to soldiers, a population that most Koreans paint as “low class, uneducated, and unrefined” (Kim 2008: 95). However, within this largely negative and narrow image of American military personnel black-American soldiers are positioned as the least desirable. Often Koreans believed stories and news reports

95 about abusive, troublesome, and low-class African-American soldiers on Korean soil (Kim 2008).

One would expect that the negative stereotypes about the military, and black-American servicemen in particular, would push the women to avoid them altogether, but the women do not.

In their writings the bloggers do not draw a firm line between “us” and “them,” and they do not view American military personnel negatively. Instead, some develop friendships with soldiers, attend parties on base, and even capitalize on the privileges a military affiliation provides, such as shopping at the Base Exchanges (BX) or Post Exchanges (PX) abroad. Joia even writes about a night when she became instant friends with an officer stationed in Korea

Margot and I were meeting up with this Alpha named Rio because he was selling tickets to the stepshow that night. Such a cool guy! He's also an officer in the Army. I don't remember the rank but he's pretty high up. He was speaking in acronyms all night and none of us knew what the world he was saying but we nodded anyway! :) … He ended up being our new best friend…We all just chatted it up like old friends. Margot went to Fisk, Rio went to Howard, and I'd gone to Hampton. We immediately had HBCU love. And that's nice to know. (The Seoul of Black Folks) The women’s relationships with military personnel, particularly in countries where the U.S. military presence is abhorred conflict with the argument that the women distance themselves from negative American identities.

The bloggers’ reaction to stereotypes presents an interesting window into how identity works within this context, and how the gaze of the local Japanese and Koreans can cause the women to shift or exaggerate aspects of their self-identity. The consequences of the local gaze coupled with the permanent visibility of race pushes the women to react this way. Blackness is always visible. No matter where they go, the women will always be black. They cannot distance themselves from this identity or its baggage, but nationality can become invisible, and can be misjudged, which depending on the context can be a blessing or a curse. As a result, the women also use the difficulty in defining nationality to their advantage.

CONCLUSION

African- Americans are afforded privileges because of their nationality. However, the presence of a diverse group of immigrants with African ancestry presents the opportunity for

African-Americans to be mis-categorized as non-American. Thus, as suggested in hypothesis 1,

To combat the decline in social status that losing American identity possesses, African-

Americans attempt to assert their nationality and class. Conversely, African immigrants diminish their nationality to gain social advantages. The intersection of race and nationality however is complex and for African immigrants and African-Americans their blackness remains a salient aspect of their identity in Japan and it provides them with a sense of community and social support.

The women as subjects do resist the Japanese and Korean gaze but they use resistance to recoup as many advantages as possible. The bloggers’ use of the gaze for social gain and personal advancement reproduces the Japanese and Korean hierarchies they are contesting.

Instead of challenging, contesting and circumventing the gaze as a means to evade oppression, the women are navigating these hierarchies and how they understand their bodies to be constructed to claim positions of authority within systems of inequality. Thus, the actions of the bloggers within this chapter reproduce ideas of class and national differences to maintain privilege and the bloggers’ actions call in to question the argument that the oppositional gaze undermines dominant ideologies.

Both the bloggers and African immigrants resist by claiming social positions that minimize oppression within dominant hierarchies, which supports Lacy’s (2007) and Feagin and

Sikes’s (1994) findings that using resistance to avoid discrimination entails operating within dominant structures defined by those in power. This chapter’s findings suggest that

“transgressing,” “circumventing,” and truly “challenging” dominant discourses that create inequality to eliminate inequity is not always viable, or initially sought. The bloggers’, were socialized as middle-class American-blacks, were taught that credentials, social mobility, and social status are effective tools to avoid being marked as inferior. Therefore how can one expect them to seek social transformation in their daily interactions when they have been taught that class is a valid social organizer and that equity is granted (at least partially) upon advancement up class hierarchies?

Acknowledging that the bloggers’ resistance challenges the argument that oppositional gazing contests, revises, and interrogates dominant ideologies, is it valid to dismiss the oppositional gaze as a tool for dismantling dominant discourses? Hastily rejecting the oppositional gaze and its power as a tool of deconstruction overlooks the varied functions the oppositional gaze serves. Literature on the oppositional gaze argues that resisting the gaze is also highly intrapersonal, and that resistance is also employed to protect an individual’s self-worth.

Thus, when the women perform the oppositional gaze to preserve self-esteem do their actions conform to the argument that resistance involves deconstructing, transgressing, and circumventing dominant discourses around race, class, and nationality? The next chapter addresses this question by using both the qualitative and quantitative data to examine how the women resist the gaze to protect their self-worth.

Chapter 4

The Bloggers Resist the Local Gaze to Maintain Self-Confidence

THE OPPOSITIONAL GAZE

In the previous chapter, it was clear that the bloggers resist the gaze as a form of identity preservation. The bloggers’ clarify their class and nationality for their gazers to ensure that they are not mis-categorized and do not suffer the marginalization and discrimination that accompanies being coded as lower-class and black or non-American. However, the gaze as a system of power does more than mark individuals as inferior; it is used as a tool of oppression.

The gaze’s ability to legitimate subjugation by claiming its subjects are intellectually and culturally inferior has consequences for the subject’s self-esteem and self-perception. As Fanon

(1968) argues, being constructed as inferior by the gaze can be psychologically damaging. Thus, the power of the gaze extends beyond declassing the women, and their resistance embodies more than attempts to reclaim social status. Instead, the feelings of marginalization the gaze induces encroach on the bloggers’ self-worth, and resistance is used to eliminate these feelings.

The literature on the oppositional gaze specifically explores how subjects reject being constructed as inferior to retain their self-worth, and the bloggers in this study also actively prevent the gaze from constructing them as “other” to maintain a positive self-perception. Thus, this chapter examines how the women employ the oppositional gaze as a form of resistance to navigate discomfort and impositions upon their self-worth my maintaining a positive attitude.

Moreover, this chapter looks at how the women employ the oppositional gaze to cope with the stress and feelings of marginalization racism produces. Lastly, this chapter explores how the

100 women use resistance to challenge popular, and often negative, images of blackness by offering positive counter representations.

Manthia Diawara (1988) is one of the earliest scholars to suggest that African-Americans question, challenge, and resist the dominant images of blackness depicted in mainstream culture.

Diawara argues that blacks critically engage with racial representations in mainstream cinema, and do not passively accept the limited images of blackness portrayed on screen. He calls this

“black spectatorship” or “resisting spectatorship” because non-blacks can also engage with this process. Diawara’s (1988) work however, is confined to cinema and does not directly address how blacks confront limited representations of blackness in everyday life.

In Black Looks (1992) bell hooks develops the idea of an “oppositional gaze.” According to bell hooks, the “oppositional gaze” is constructed when African-American women “actively resist the imposition of dominant ways of knowing and looking,” and define themselves outside of the white/black, male/female binary that positions blacks and women as subjects to the white and male gaze. (hooks 1992: 317). Bell hooks argues that black women use the oppositional gaze to contest, revise, interrogate, and resist the images constructed of them by their white-Western- male gazers, and invent identities that transgress these boundaries (hooks1992). Thus, the oppositional gaze allows African -American women to freely transgress the boundaries of identity, and embody a self that was not constructed to legitimate white/male superiority.

Since African-American women are frequently constructed as an “inferior other,” being able to reject and challenge “dominant ways of knowing” is crucial for maintaining a positive sense of self, and serves as a tool to prevent a passive acceptance of African-American inferiority.

The necessity for critical thinking is demonstrated in Janie Ward’s (1996) work Raising Resisters.

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Ward (1996) argues that African-American parents teach resistance to arm their children with the tools to face racial discrimination and negative representations of blackness. According to Ward, parents “cultivate resistance against beliefs, attitudes, and practices that can erode a black child’s self –confidence and impair her positive identity development” (Ward 1996: 85-6). Resistance entails instilling racial pride, presenting alternatives to dominant [images] representations, and cautioning against a desire to “internalize” and “emulate” negative representations and stereotypes (Ward 1996: 92). Thus, socializing black youth to question and reject racial stereotypes, while offering alternative images ensures that their self-confidence is not threatened while navigating spaces that seek to undermine their self-worth.

Ward (1996) presents two types of resistance: “resistance for survival” and “resistance for liberation.” Although resistance is a tool for navigating hostile environments, “resistance for survival” is often “counterproductive to the development of self-confidence” (Ward 1996: 95).

This is because it only offers quick fixes, or short-term solutions that help soothe the pain racial discrimination invokes. On the other hand, “resistance for liberation” is argued to empower and reaffirm positive identity. Ward claims that “resistance for survival” works to override negative representations with positive ones, and “correct[s] those who would diminish [a] black child’s self-worth” (Ward 1996: 95).

Maya Poran (2006) elaborates on how resistance is used by African-American women to navigate negative representations of blackness, by exploring how they use the oppositional gaze to challenge popular media representations of African-American women. Poran (2006) found that African-American women use the oppositional gaze as a means to prevent negative constructions from disempowering them, and ultimately to protect their sense of self. However,

Poran (2006) found that the oppositional gaze does not strictly respond to white constructions of

102 blackness, and that mainstream media’s acceptance of diversity has changed how women engage with the oppositional gaze.

African-Americans use resistance as a means to combat America’s dominant racial discourses that work to define blacks as inferior. Daiwara (1988), Ward (1996), Poran (2006), and bell hooks (1992) demonstrate that black-Americans are not passive subjects, but that they actively disrupt the gaze by contesting, challenging, and circumventing negative representations of blackness in the U.S.. The literature on the oppositional gaze and resistance illustrates that

African-Americans (and all subjects of the gaze) do not submit to being constructed as inferior others, which suggests that when confronted with the local Japanese and Korean gaze the bloggers will likely resist being constructed in inferior opposition.

Resistance is multifaceted. The function of the oppositional gaze discussed here is profoundly different than the previous chapter, because the bloggers use resistance for self- maintenance. The oppositional gaze allows the bloggers to protect their self-esteem and self- worth while still navigating the local gazes that mark them as other. In the examples below, the women’s resistance goes beyond seeking the tangible rewards of elevated social status. Instead, I explore how the women use the oppositional gaze to combat the daily feelings of marginalization that racism and being constructed by the local gaze as inferior has on the bloggers’ self-confidence and self-worth. However, the bloggers only employ opposition once they’ve overcome their discomfort with being subjects of the local gaze.

DISCOMFORT WITH THE REVERSE GAZE

Table 6 presents the bloggers’ reactions to locals staring and touching. Locals staring and touching makes the bloggers uncomfortable the most (42.5%). When staring or touching occur

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the women’s reactions are almost equal across countries, and it is clear that the bloggers

experience these emotions in reaction to being (literally) gazed upon. The study’s findings

mirrors Gillespie’s (2006) and Jordan and Aitchison’s (2008) arguments that when the Western

traveler becomes the subject they experience discomfort, shame, embarrassment, and

vulnerability.

Table 6. Reaction to staring and touching by country Discomfort Marginalization Resistance Not Total Staring and Mentioned Touching Japan 20 (40.8%) 10 (20.4%) 19 (38.8%) 23 (35.9%) 72 Korea 28 (43.8%) 11 (17.2%) 25 (39.1%) 13 (26.5%) 77 Total 48 (42.5%) 21 (18.6%) 44 (38.9%0 36 (31.9%) 113

Comparing the results of this study to the literature, it appears that the bloggers are made

uncomfortable because the local’s staring and touching deviates from what they consider

“normal” social behavior.Their host’s social infractions disorient the women, and take them by

surprise. This is reflected when Joia writes of a strange encounter she has while jogging

I was out running one day, looking a hot mess...and this guy just started waving at me profusely and blew me a kiss. What???? Yeah, a little strange. (The Seoul of Black Folks) Joia is not the only blogger left confused by an interaction with local residents. Ms.World is also

made uncomfortable by a local man,

Last year, I had a Japanese gentlemen pointing at me and talking about the U.S. military. I had no idea what he was talking about. He really freaked me out. (Ms. World)

For both Ms. World and Joia, their discomfort stems from the fact that their hosts, who were

previously assumed to be passive subjects are instead extremely active. The Western centered

approach to the gaze positions non-Westerners as “other,” and renders them as passive subjects

who are unable to look back or challenge the Western gaze. The local residents in these

104 situations are looking back as well as approaching the bloggers, which can be disruptive and disorienting for the women as gazers (Rony 1996).

Staring not only disorients the bloggers but also creates feelings of marginalization

(18.6%). Sexy Diva’s discomfort at an onsen (Japanese hot spring) is mixed with feelings of alienation. She writes,

When a whole bunch of old Japanese women came in and were making their little groups and staring at us gaijin (foreigners), me and my buddy decided to bounce (Sexy Diva)

The local gaze in this context is consequential. Sexy Diva feels more than embarrassed or shame, she is made to feel unwelcome by the gaze. It is clear that the local gaze does possess power to marginalize its subjects from Western countries.

The women were also uncomfortable with being touched by strangers. Joia writes about one woman touching her at the gym.

[B]efore I knew what hit me, she reached out and touched me! She rubbed my leg and started jammering in Korean and laughing shyly. I tried to wipe the horrified look off my face, but it was stuck. My reflexes didn't even function. I just sat there dumbfounded…and she went back to working out. WEIRD!! So I got up and moved onto a different machine. (The Seoul of Black Folks)

Overdose of Satisfaction has a similar experience with being unexpectedly touched by a Korean man. She writes,

I've had a few minor misadventures....there was an old guy who kept talking to me in Korean at the bus stop and one day he grabbed my arm to make me sit next to him on the bench at the bus stop. The next day I avoided him like the plague while waiting for the bus. Now I haven't seen him since...which does make sense considering he never got on my bus. (Overdose of Satisfaction) The local gaze has invaded the bloggers’ personal space. The women no longer are observed from a distance but are treated like interactive exhibits. Essentially, being touched by the locals exaggerates the effects of their “gaze”. The women are disoriented, made anxious and a little

105 scared by these bold local residents. However, the locals’ unabashed curiosity demonstrates the gaze’s mobility. If the power to gaze were truly Western centered, these local residents would not be satisfying their curiosity for the exotic by treating the bloggers like animals at petting zoos.

Touching makes the gazer’s curiosity tangible, and in turn the women’s otherness is made blatant. These uninvited confrontations reveal the local’s desire to know the other, which the women are explicitly told through touch is them. Ultimately, touching removes the local gazer’s desires to “know,” “explore,” and “experience” the other from the confines of voyeurism the longing to experience the other is made explicit. However, contact without consent has the potential to be more than unnerving it can be degrading, and briefly grants the gazer the ability to physically dominate their subject. This is because physically exploring implies that the gazer is appraising their subject in the same way they would an item on display; one is able to pick-up, look over, judge and then abandon the other after they have satisfied their curiosity.

Looking Back and Disrupting the Local Gaze

As the bloggers’ trips progress their discomfort with the local gaze subsides, and in situations where strangers are staring the women disrupt the gaze. The women look back at inquisitive strangers and reflect the discomfort they are made to feel back onto their gazers. Takara tells her readers about her experience looking back at a Japanese boy,

Oh yeah, there was this little boy that ran up to me and came within 2 inches of my face and just stared. So, what did I do? I stared back and looked as confused as he did. Not sure if it offended his parents or anyone else, but I really didn’t care @ that moment. (Takara in Tokyo) Takara reflects the boy’s confusion, and by looking back in this manner she makes him aware of the discomfort she feels being his subject. Similar to Gillespie’s (2006) and Sweet’s (1989) arguments, that flipping the direction of the gaze forces the viewer to acknowledge the gaze’s

106 disparaging power, Takara returns the gaze and subtly reclaims her dominant position, as an adult, by dispelling her feelings of discomfort onto the young boy.

Further into Takara’s trip she shifts from reflecting the gaze to trying to turn her encounters with the gaze into a game. She writes,

Anyway, now staring doesn't bother me. It doesn't make me uncomfortable at all and I am fascinated at the way some Japanese people, in particular the older women do it. When I turn away they stare, examine, look, everything, but when I turn around and smile, some bow their heads, some turn away, and some say hello. It's become somewhat of a game to me to see what type of staring I will encounter for the day. (Takara in Tokyo) Takara is no longer made uncomfortable by the gaze but is intrigued by it, and arguably her

“fascination” stems from the fact that she no longer perceives herself as an object. Takara’s looking back now hints at her constructing the locals; she is actively looking now instead of mirroring the local gaze.

Takara is not alone in finding joy in disrupting the local gaze and the bloggers often write that they enjoy making their Japanese and Korean gazers uncomfortable. Joia from The Seoul of

Black Folks writes,

I've been mistaken for a Korean before when some guy started yapping to me about the bus. Then when I turned around, he nearly had a heart attack. Love doing that...(The Seoul of Black Folks) Joia likes challenging the reality of her gazers, and pushing the lines between who is Korean and who is not. Here Joia’s difference is not an annoyance or a point of frustration. This is clear when the quote above is juxtaposed with an earlier experience Joia has startling a Korean woman on the street. She writes,

I did have one woman who gasped when she bumped into me. Big deal, lady!!! KEEP IT MOVING!!! (The Seoul of Black Folks)

The quote above demonstrates that the bloggers’ perceptions do shift. As the women’s trips

107 progresses some of them are made less uncomfortable by the gaze and are able to enjoy the disruptions their difference creates.

It seems that what the bloggers enjoy most is disrupting this “myth” of normal, and pushing their gazers to see beyond what they are accustomed to. This is made clear when Joia writes that when people see her and another black friend “[their] brains just malfunction and

[they] can’t understand what’s happening” (The Seoul of Black Folks). The bloggers find the most joy in creating “malfunctions”. An example of this is the enjoyment Takara finds in causing a man to crash his bike at the sight of her. She writes,

I remember one day in particular a young man was riding his bike passed me and ran into a woman because he was looking at me so hard. I laughed :D. I shoudln't have... but I did.(Takara in Tokyo) Ms. World has a similar response when she visits an upscale jewelry store,

we crashed into Tiffany`s with all of our grungy ALT elegance. They didn`t throw us out even though we got some interesting looks. We observed a Japanese man having a subtle heart attack as his female companion ogled and discussed diamonds with a salesperson. (Ms. World) Ms. World’s “otherness” is two-fold. She does not fit the expected class to be in the jewelry store and her “race” and nationality makes her out of place. However, Ms. World and her friend are not embarrassed, but seem to take pride in making the stores patrons uncomfortable, by disrupting her gazer’s expectations for what is normal.

Sexy Diva has an interesting experience with the gaze (that disrupts what is normal) when she is out with a Japanese friend who has her hair styled in corn-rolls (a braided hairstyle not often found on Japanese women). She writes,

First, here is a pic of Kaoru…she was the lovely girl who I stayed with the whole time and took me all around Tokyo! She got more looks than I did…maybe cuz of her cornrolls, but folks would look at me and then hurry and look at her…its funny, (Sexy Diva)

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Sexy Diva finds humor in her gazers’ discomfort, but it is secondhand. It is Sexy Diva’s

Japanese friend who causes “brain malfunctions” by diverging from the norm and adopting aspects of black style. The women ultimately use resistance to play with what is normal, and in doing so they challenge notions that they are abnormal, or “out of place” in Japan and Korea.

In looking back, the women are clearly resisting the local gaze. However, as visible foreigners the women’s experiences with staring are not unique or race specific, and white-

Americans in Japan and South Korea also report staring or inappropriate touching. However, race is an active social construct in both countries, and differing ideas exist that color how

Japanese and Koreans view white-Americans vs. African-Americans. Therefore, since race is extremely visible it is flawed to assume that it is not operating to shape similar encounters with the gaze differently. Racism is ceaselessly and actively working, and it influences how the bloggers’ interpret their encounters, how they cope with being subjects of the gaze, and how they resist the gaze. Thus, acknowledging the work racism does, when race is specifically referenced as a part of the bloggers’ interactions with Japanese and Korean locals how do the women respond to the gaze?

NAVIGATING THE DISCOMFORT RACIAL DIFFERENCE CREATES

Since Japan and South Korea imagine themselves as homogenous countries their citizens are defined by their assumed “sameness”. Differences within Japanese and South Korean society and similarities across national and ethnic lines are overlooked to construct Japanese and South

Korean national identity. As a result of this myth, the bloggers are positioned as outsiders in

East Asia and their differences are used to shape the Japanese or South Korean self. The power of the myth of mono-ethnicity in Japan is revealed when Takara gives a presentation on African-

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Americans to an English exchange group.

For Takara there is a moment when her “race” is highlighted subtly when the myth of

Japan as a homogenous country is mentioned after her presentation. She writes,

After the presentation many thanked me afterwards and tried to explain that these attitudes exist in Japanese because Japanese don't have to think about discrimination or race because everyone is the same. (Takara in Tokyo) The explanation Takara receives about racism forces one to think about how Takara’s race works for her in Japan. Since Takara is not the “same,” how is she positioned within Japanese society?

The idea that Japan is mono-ethnic is a misconception, and holding onto this myth has serious implications for Takara, and her integration into mainstream society. Takara will forever be positioned as an outsider, she will face subtle and overt discrimination as a result, and her otherness will be used to define Japanese identity. Thus, despite her English group’s naïve assertions that discrimination does not exist in Japan the bloggers and all non-Japanese visitors will forever be excluded because of their difference.

This myth of homogeneity serves not only to solidify Japanese identity by concealing difference within Japan, but also prevents the recognition of sameness across racial and national lines. Sexy Diva’s encounter with a Japanese man outside of a local bar illustrates how the idea of sameness in Japan marginalizes and positions non-Japanese as permanent outsiders. Sexy

Diva writes,

[L]ast night when I was out with Brett and Brent.two guys from my program, we were sitting outside and this Japanese guy (old) comes up to talk to us..asks us where we're from etc. I say America then I hear him say something to Brent about me being black so Brent translates for me and says the guy says that I'm very light for a black person...no harm intended. I thought it was funny b/c a LOT of my students (summer or not) are darker than I am. (Sexy Diva)

Sexy Diva notices the irony that blacks are expected to be a certain color (darker than her). In

Japan, a foreigner’s complexion is used to identify who is black, despite the fact that some

Japanese are darker if not the same color as some blacks. Sexy Diva recognizes that racial

110 differences are not easily defined, and that overlap does exist. However, the man cannot see these similarities and continues to mark Sexy Diva as other. We would not expect the man to label Sexy Diva as Japanese simply because of her fair complexion. However, in the man’s failure to see Sexy Diva as black, while uncritically accepting “dark” skin Japanese as Japanese, demonstrates that he accepts complexion heterogeneity in Japanese people, but not for other races. He is unaware that blacks come in various colors, and his fixed notion of “blackness” prevents him from expanding his frameworks for skin color to other races. Given how the bloggers’ racial differences clearly mark them as other, how do the women respond when their race motivates an interaction with locals?

Table 7 summaries the mentions of race by gazer. Abstract gazers emerge the most

(54.6%) followed by stranger gazers (24.1%). There is an even occurrence of gazer types across countries.

Table 7. Mentions of race by gazer. Stranger Abstract Social Work Total Japan 11 (27.5) 22(55%) 1 (2.5%) 7(17.5%) 40 Korea 15(22.1%) 37(54.4) 6(8.8%) 11(16.2%) 68 Total 26(24.1%) 59(54.6%) 7(6.5%) 18(16.7%) 108

When considering the qualitative data, abstract gazers emerged connected to race, when the women were reflecting on an event, and would attempt to place their interaction into a broader context that explained their overall experiences with Japanese and Koreans. Despite mentions of race emerging with abstract gazers the most the women still have a host of reactions to events that involve race.

Table 8 presents the women’s reactions to interactions when race is mentioned. As discussed earlier, the slightest difference is used to mark non-Japanese and position them as a marginalized other, and when the women’s race is mentioned they express feelings of

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marginalization (37%), significantly more than when staring occurs (18.6%) (See Table 6).

However, the women in Korea (42.6%) express feeling marginalized more often than the women

in Japan (27.5%). Typically when feelings of marginalization occur they manifest as frustration

or annoyance. The women are most obviously marked as different and subjected to the gaze

because of their race. However, it is important to reiterate that race, nationality, and class

intersect to generate images that place the women within Japan’s and Korea’s social hierarchy.

Table 8. Reaction to race by country Race Discomfort Marginalization Resistance Not Total Race Mentioned Japan 9 (22.5%) 11 (27.5%) 29 (72.5%) 8 (20%) 57 Korea 18 (26.5%) 29 (42.6%) 35(51.5%) 17 (25%) 99 Total 27 (25%) 40 (37%) 64 (59.3%) 25 (23.1%) 108

When it comes to navigating their difference the women become annoyed with the

endless attention they attract. Some of the women express a longing for a shred of anonymity,

which is arguably impossible, and to be displaced from their position as subjects of the local

gaze.

When the bloggers encounter strangers and race is mentioned there are some instances

when the women become upset that their “difference” is pointed out. Joia the blogger of The

Seoul of Black Folks becomes frustrated with being the center of attention at a local restaurant,

and her friend tells her that the businessmen at the adjacent table are only staring because she is

“different”. Joia angrily responds, “Gee, thanks for letting me know! I had no idea I was

"different" in Korea, but thanks for staring at me for 15 minutes. I'm well aware now!” (The

Seoul of Black Folks). Joia is obviously angry because her difference is highlighted, but her

frustration is rooted in the fact that the men choose to make her difference a point of interest, and

112 that she has become an object of obsession. Joia, becomes dinner conversation for the men, because she is “different,” but is her foreignness and racial “difference” the only factor attracting the businessmen’s attention ? Joia’s gender also subjects her to the male gaze, and her race and gender intersect to impose upon her the label of an erotic other. Joia’s race and gender erase the possibility of anonymity, place her on display, and make her an object of obsession.

The blogger from Overdose of Satisfaction expresses similar frustration with being singled-out. She writes that she misses the anonymity being in American brings. Overdose writes,

I'm not really "missing" home, just some things that make the US and Korea so different, on a regular basis I get stared at, laughed at, or called "African"...it doesn't bother me 99% of the time, but there is always one day when I want to be just another person blending in with the others....which is very hard in Korea. (Overdose of Satisfaction)

Overdose longs for the anonymity she is granted in the U.S.. Joia and Overdose express an opposing theme to Yamashiro (2008), who found that Japanese-Americans gained a sense of invisibility in Japan that they were never allowed in the United States. Yamashiro (2008) writes that many Japanese-Americans are able to “blend-in” and shed the uniform of race they are forced to wear in America. However, the rarity of African-Americans in Korea and Japan, and the countless stereotypes that construct them as “cool”, “exotic”, and “sexualized” arguably intersect to position African-Americans as objects of intrigue (Cornyetz 1994 and Russell 1991).

The uniform of race works differently for African-Americans in Japan and Korea. The bloggers’ blackness does not afford them the luxury of eschewing race, but magnifies it in East Asia. This is demonstrated in a later post that Overdose writes,

I mentioned in a early blog how living in Korea is hard sometimes because I am constantly singled out because of my skin tone, which I'm sort of use to but Koreans take it to a whole new level. I can count on there being an empty bus seat next to me on the bus no matter how crowded the bus will be and at least once a week I hear the word "African" thrown in my general direction. (Overdose of Satisfaction)

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The bloggers’ race or “difference” is exaggerated and works to position them as subjects of the

gaze in ways that do not occur at home. To cope with the new meanings of their racial identities

the women often attempt to use positive thinking to navigate the constant attention their

difference generates.

Table 8 demonstrates that the women use resistance more when race is mentioned

(59.3%) than when staring or touching occur (38.9%) (See Table 6). Most often resistance takes

the form of downplaying the severity of the gaze with a positive attitude. Anger and frustration

are not the only emotions to arise when the bloggers’ race is pointed out. Instead they more often

rely on positive thinking to deal with their frustration being stared at and approached. The

bloggers are aware that they attract attention because they look different, and they use this

method to prevent themselves from viewing the endless attention as a negative.

Table 9 summarizes the women’s positive reactions to types of gazers, and Table 9’s

findings expand on the notion that the bloggers use positive thinking as a form of resistance to

cope with the attention their difference attracts. Most of the bloggers’ positive experiences occur

with either strangers or abstract gazers. In Korea stranger gazers (37.6%) occur the most with

positive experiences, while in Japan abstract gazers (37.3%) occur the most.

Table 9. Positive encounters by country based on gazer Stranger Abstract Social Work Total Positive Total Positive Gazers Events Japan 15 (20%) 28 (37.3%) 18 (24%) 17 (22.7%) 78 75 Korea 38 (37.6%) 20 (19.8%) 16 (18.8%) 28 (27.7%) 102 101 Total 53 (30.1%) 48 (27.3%) 34 (19.3%) 45 (25.6%) 180 176

The high occurrence of positive interactions with strangers in Korea is likely explained by the

fact that the women do report meeting helpful, friendly, and kind people. However, when

analyzing the qualitative data a fair amount of the women’s positive encounters in Korea and

Japan involved them flipping potentially negative, frustrating, and bothersome interactions that

114 highlighted their difference into positive ones. Thus, when difference is noted the women frequently use positive thinking to avoid constantly feeling annoyed or frustrated, and this process occurs with both abstract and stranger gazers. This is made clear when Ms. World writes about how she copes with the negative attention her difference creates by embracing it. The key to Ms. World’s acceptance is acknowledging her uniqueness in rural Japan.

There are several things I learned in Japan * how to deal with everyone and their grandmother staring at me because I might be the first person of African descent that they had ever come into contact with. I dealt with all of the attention by turning it into a positive interaction. I’ve spent a lot of time in Japan smiling, waving, and speaking to strangers because I’ve found it easier to be positive than to get pissed.* that I like a lot of attention. (Ms. World) Ms. World proudly writes that living in Japan has taught her that she enjoys being the center of attention. However, it is clear that this was not always the case, and it still might not be true. Ms.

World only embraces the attention to keep from becoming angry. It is easier for her to cope with constantly being positioned as an outsider by putting on a happy face and smiling at her onlookers, essentially she wears a mask. Joia deals with the constant staring in a similar way.

She writes “if I catch someone staring at me, I just wave and smile and suddenly, they're doing it too” (The Seoul of Black Folks).

James Baldwin writes in Stranger in a Village that he reacted to interested onlookers in a

Swiss hamlet by

trying to be pleasant -it being a great part of the American Negro’s education (long before he goes to school) that he must make people ‘like’ him. This smile-and-the-world-smiles-with-you routine worked about as well in this situation as it had in the situation for which it was designed, which is to say that it did not work at all. (Baldwin 1955: 161) For Baldwin, wearing this mask of pleasantry is a burden and a band-aid for a much bigger problem. However, it does not appear that the bloggers are being “nice” in order to get people to simply like them; instead for them the “smile-and-the-world-smiles-with-you-routine” is a way to engage their gazers. Waving back breaks the gazer’s frozen curiosity, and allows the blogger

115 to assert that she is looking too. By staring back the blogger makes it known that she is not a living exhibit to be admired from a distance but a human being just like them, which diminishes the “exotic” quality her gazer applies to her.

Moreover, breaking the curiosity helps preserve the bloggers’ mental stability, keeps them from becoming angry, and allows the “smile-and-the-world-smiles-with-you-routine” to work for them in a way that it did not for James Baldwin. Sista Sha demonstrates this when she writes about her friend Mayma being approached for a photo

mayma was hella cool about it, just smiled and was polite and took the picture with them. i guess this goes back to just controlling what you can. people are curious and pictures will be taken with or without your permission , all that you can control is your reaction to it (Sista Sha). Sista Sha’s response demonstrates her awareness that how she chooses to interpret a situation can have a longer effect than the encounter itself. Choosing to view people staring at her in a positive light works to preserve Sista Sha’s sense of self, particularly when considering that she believes she lives in a country that questions her humanity by positioning her as other. For Sista Sha and her friend Mayma a positive reaction is better than a negative one; it implies “moving on” and demonstrates their acceptance that curiosity and narrow representations of blackness will emerge, but maintaining a positive attitude will prevent the opinions of others from influencing their self- worth. Thus, Sista Sha, and the bloggers, smile and wave to protect their sense of self not to gain the approval of others.

Sexy Diva has a wonderful experience that demonstrates how a positive reaction to local curiosity can be transformative, alter the meaning of a situation entirely, and ultimately sustain the bloggers’ positive self image. Sexy Diva and her boyfriend were out to dinner with her friends when her boyfriend had his private space invaded in the restaurants restroom. Sexy Diva writes,

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After having a few beers, Bray asked where the bathroom was so someone showed him and he said when he got there, a guy was waiting there and told him that someone was in the bathroom and that they'd have to wait. Bray ended up chatting to the guy a little and then goes into the bathroom. So, the guy follows him in and asks him "KING SIZE??" something something "King Size?" So Bray starts laughing and says "Hai"/yes…yeah he went there and tried to get a peep of the monster I suppose he thought Bray had. Bray said he made sure he covered himself then came out to the table and told me the story. I actually wasn't surprised..I told him he's lucky he hasn't had it GRABBED at an onsen (hot spring/…nude public bath)…hahaha, good ol Japan!(Sexy Diva)

Instead of being offended, both Sexy Diva and her boyfriend Bray find his exchange in the bathroom humorous. It was a positive encounter, and Sexy Diva brushes it off as one of the many facets of life in Japan. Arguably her positive attitude makes it easier to deal with being foreign and black in rural Japan where, as John G Russell (1998) argues, stereotypes and ideas about blacks and black male sexuality are abundant..

In a sense, Sexy Diva and Bray have taken to framing encounters like these as a game.

The game of “what awkward encounter will our race lead us to this week” or “what crazy thing will these well-meaning but ignorant Japanese people say”? Again, Sexy Diva places the blame on the gazer and this encounter is brushed off as an expression of the gazer’s curiosity. This casual acceptance makes these encounters, which are fueled by curiosity, ignorance, and limited representations of blackness in Japan easier to process. Furthermore, the bloggers’ positioning

Japan as different or strange deflects the label of other imposed upon them by their hosts and allows the women to define the locals as abnormal. Thus, as the locals use the gaze to construct the women, the bloggers simultaneously reflect a gaze that preserves their sense of self and defines the local populations in opposition. In the end, a positive self-perception helps the women to devalue racism’s significance and disrupt the power of the gaze to define them as inferior.

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THE BLOGGERS RESIST THE GAZE TO LIMIT FEELING MARGINALIZED

Table 10 summarizes resistance by gazer. Abstract gazers occur the most in both

countries, although within countries Korea (44.6%) had slightly more than Japan (40%). When

considering the qualitative data, as mentioned above abstract gazers also emerged the most in

connection to the bloggers’ assumptions about racism in Korea and Japan (see Table 7), and

would attempt to place their interaction into a broader context that explained their overall

experiences with Japanese and Koreans.

Table 10. Resistance by gazer* Stranger Abstract Social Work Total Resistance per event Japan 15(23%) 26(40%) 4(6.2%) 22(33.8%) 65 Korea 24 (37.5%) 29 (44.6%) 1 (1.6%) 11 (17.2%) 64 Total 39 (30.2%) 55 (42.6%) 5 (3.89%) 33 (25.6%) 129

When the bloggers enter into situations that could be interpreted as racist they often resist

the gaze in two ways; first they downgrade the severity of the interaction from racism to

curiosity, cultural differences, or ignorance. The second form of resistance the bloggers use is

returning the local gaze either by disrupting the gaze, or reshaping the image of blacks in East

Asia. In doing so, the bloggers reject their gazers’ perceptions of them and devalue the validity

of their gaze.

The bloggers’ consistent downplaying, or ignoring the presence of anti-black and anti-

foreign sentiment in South Korea and Japan demonstrates their attempts at deflecting racial and

national ideologies that position them as inferior or unwelcome, and prevents racism from

infecting their self-worth. In a sense their gazer’s racism becomes less harmful because it was

done out of ignorance, or “not knowing any better” (hooks 2002). As Ms. World puts it “black

118 folks really don’t have to believe [we are inferior]!”(Ms. World), and the bloggers’ actions in racially offensive situations demonstrate their attempts to ignore notions of their inferiority, and preserve their self-worth. Similar to Michelle Byng’s findings that black-American women ignore racism to make negative experiences easier to endure, the bloggers also “define discriminatory experiences as non-events, as not important in their lives” to deflect oppression

(1998: 480). The women downplay the severity of their negative interactions by attributing discrimination to cultural and language differences, referencing their strength in the face of adversity, and by comparing racism in East Asia to American racism.

Language Barrier

For the blogger Sexy Diva her first encounter with discrimination in Japan happened while leaving a bar with a group of friends of mixed nationality and ethnicity. The owner of the bar made derogatory remarks which upset Sexy Diva and her friends. However, despite Sexy

Diva’s anger she rationalizes that the situation was “not that bad” and downplays the severity of the incident,

The situation wasn't as terrible as it could have been b/c 1. I can't understand Japanese and 2. she was VERY VERY drunk but still..kinda hurts to see someone's true feelings come out like that. It was definitely my first negative experience here. I know I can't let it get to me and thus I will move on..”(Sexy Diva) Sexy Diva places the blame on her gazer; she partially attributes the shopkeeper’s hurtful remarks to the fact that the woman was drunk, implying that being intoxicated offers a free pass

(which it does in Japan). However, Sexy Diva was hurt by the woman’s comments, but she tries to get over her pain. By asserting that she has to “move on” she is isolating this experience and is preventing the anger it invoked from affecting her beyond that night. In making the conscious decision to ignore the comments and prevent them from infecting her thinking she manages to

119 preserve a positive sense of self. Sexy Diva rejects the idea of “black inferiority” by dismissing the woman’s comments and ignoring her opinion. What is most interesting is how Sexy Diva uses the language barrier to disregard the owner’s comments. For Sexy Diva the situation “was not terrible” because she could not understand Japanese. The language barrier worked to shield her from the owner’s hatred.

Sexy Diva is not alone. The bloggers often reference the language barrier stopping anti- black sentiment from reaching them. Joia, the blogger for The Seoul of Black Folks answers questions about her experience with racism. Overall Joia feels that she has not had negative interactions related to race, and she writes that outside of the occasional stare she has not

“notice[d] people going out of their way to be mean.” Joia even feels that local residents are

“eager to help [her] out and talk to [her]” (The Seoul of Black Folks). However, she contradicts her claims by explaining that her inability to speak Korean might be shielding her from any overt racism that may exist in South Korea.

“I DO NOT speak or understand a lick of Korean outside of hello, goodbye, and thank you. Oh, a curse word here and there. So I don't know what they're saying. They could be cursing me up and down” (The Seoul of Black Folks ). Even though Joia has not experienced open prejudice or discrimination, like she and her readers expected (earlier she writes about her hesitation moving after reading about others experiences with racism online), she still attempts to preserve the possibility for anti-black sentiment in South

Korea by arguing that the language gap prevents racism from being exposed.

Ms. World, an English teacher in Japan also writes that her inability to speak Japanese protects her from potentially racist situations. Ms. World comes to this realization after talking with some Japanese friends. When her friends ask her how she is coping with life in rural Japan they are often shocked to hear that she is enjoying herself and adjusting well.

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They always look at me like I’ve recently escaped from a mental hospital. Basically they don’t buy me happy Black woman in Toyama story. It took me awhile to understand their vibe, basically, they know their people and I don't. I don't speak or understand the Japanese language well. I don't know what people are saying about me when I leave a shop, get off the train, or walk away from the counter (Ms. World) Similar to Joia and Sexy Diva, the language barrier is not an obstacle but an asset that allows her to tolerate anti-black sentiment. Ms. World also assumes that if prejudice were expressed it would be in her absence. Similar to Joia, at this point in her trip, Ms. World has not witnessed the blatant racism that is expected but she does not negate the possibility that racism will reveal itself.

Ms. World even dismisses that “phantom” racism or hidden racism her Japanese friends warn her about. She boldly asserts “what other people think of me is none of my business.” With this statement she is proclaiming that even if she could understand the language and anti-black sentiment was revealed it would not bother her. Ms. World goes on to write,

I don't care. I think that is remarkable growth on my part especially as a Black American woman. I have a feeling some Japanese people probably talk a little or a lot of shit about me because of my skin color, but I don't care. I don't need to know what they are saying because it doesn't mean anything to me. (Ms. World) The last sentence of the quote above is a powerful one. Ms. World proclaims that the opinions people have about her or her race do not only lack power because she cannot understand them, but because she chooses to ignore them. By dispossessing other’s opinions of meaning, Ms.

World illustrates that she does not look to others to validate her self-worth. The rejection of external opinions is an essential aspect of survival, and is central to how the women resist the gaze in Japan and Korea. As noted earlier Ms. World states that “black folks really don’t have to believe [we are inferior]!”(Ms. World), and based on her blog posts it is clear Ms. World understands that she lives in a world that positions blacks as inferior and she chooses not to seek self-validation externally, because she will never be satisfied with the response.

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Overcoming Adversity through Self-Reliance and Independence

It should be noted though that achieving Ms. World’s sense of security requires

“remarkable growth,” and the theme of maturity, growth, and mental strength emerges as the bloggers carefully navigate racial prejudice abroad. Interestingly, the motif of self-reliance appears mostly when an abstract gazer is present. The emergence of these themes dovetails with

Patricia Hill Collins’ argument in Black Feminist Thought that black women learn to embody

“self-reliance” and “independence” as survival tactics, and that these personality traits are valued and respected (2000: 118).

The appreciation of self-reliance in the face of adversity is made clear when Joia becomes exasperated with the trouble her race creates in finding a teaching position.

Yes, I'm black. I'm black, black, blackkity black black!! And it ain't gonna change! Yes, this seems to make it slightly more challenging to get placed. However, I'm not unaccustomed to adversity. I don't run and cry when someone makes fun of me (although I used to...back in 6th grade).(The Seoul of Black Folks)

For Joia it is childish to become upset because someone dislikes you for something as immutable as race. Joia makes it known that she knows adversity and can successfully cope with life’s challenges. Sista Sha also evades being perceived as weak or childish by refusing to let the opinions of others negatively influence her. Sista Sha writes angrily of friends offering her sympathy for the harsh isolation and racism they think she is experiencing in South Korea

they'll ask how i find korea and i say that things are great, then the conversation routinely leads to them telling me about how awful these close minded koreans are and apologizing for any stress i may be under while here. i dont need your sympathy, fools. im black, not weak willed or weak minded. dont get the two confused. (Sista Sha) Sista Sha vehemently proclaims that she can handle herself, and that she has the mental strength required to navigate racism’s stress, or “not being liked.” It is as if Sista Sha is saying that she is

122 stronger than another person’s opinion of her. Moreover, she asserts that she is adept at not letting another’s ignorance cripple her self-esteem or define her self-worth.

Like Joia and Ms. World, Sista Sha also talks specifically about how the strength to deal with prejudice took personal growth. Sista Sha writes, “these things don’t break me. These experiences are not new. What is new is my tolerance for it.”(Sista Sha) Again, her ability to prevent these experiences from shaping her sense of self and her self-worth is deemed to come from maturity and experience.

The necessity for self-growth to endure prejudice also emerges for Takara the blogger of

Takara in Tokyo. Takara was placed in an elementary school for an internship program as a part of her study abroad. However, at her interview the principal made a series of offensive remarks and questions about African-Americans. Reflecting on her experience at the elementary school

Takara writes, “I learned so much in those 3 hours that there is no doubt in my mind that this is where I am supposed to be until December. Rest assured, I will learn tolerance and patience here.

I will be okay” (Takara in Tokyo). The ability to be tolerant of racism and ignorance is essential to the women’s resistance. However, tolerance it is also painted as a virtue and it is something that is meant to be cultivated. Like Sista Sha, Takara’s tolerance is not innate, but is something she has to acquire, and Takara sets out to improve these skills.

The resilience motif is intriguing because the women also imply that their ability to

“grow,” “cope,” and “learn” from racism abroad is a skill that white-Americans in Japan and

South Korea lack. This idea reproduces Collin’s (2000) argument that resilience is instilled in

African-Americans as a means to combat American white supremacy’s ceaseless attempts to devalue and undermine black-Americans’ self-worth. This is made clear when Sista Sha writes,

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[I]’ve been thinking about how foreigners here complain about how awful koreans are...big deal. it's my opinion that it's white people who have trouble dealing with this; having lived your life of privilege and being a part of the majority, it'll sting you more when you're not number one for the first time in your life. this is not your home. that's not a bad thing. it means that youre out of your comfort zone, try to grow from it. it means that you need to keep your foreigner status in mind, and respect the space. get used to it. i dont have too much sympathy for these complainers. toughen up.(Sista Sha) Sista Sha’s is frustrated that white-Americans expect all aspects of white privilege to overflow into South Korea. She is annoyed that the whites she encounters are genuinely shocked when they are not treated as equals, despite being foreign residents with no legal claims to citizenship, particularly because their complaints overlook the ubiquity of racism and inequality for non- whites in America. Sista Sha’s response that “these complainers toughen up,” relies on the necessary lessons of resilience she learned growing up in the U.S., a country her white peers praise as “free.” As Sista Sha elaborates she is frustrated by white “gripe[s] that [they] aren’t free in korea” when she feels that she, as a black woman is “no less free [in Korea] than… in the states” (Sista Sha). Thus, it seems that her anger stems from the belief that the racism present in

Korea is manageable, when compared to the U.S.’s history of white supremacy. Sista Sha’s sentiments that racism in South Korea is negligible are made clearer when the bloggers compare the racism they witness in South Korea and Japan to the U.S..

Comparing U.S. and East Asian Racism

The bloggers also downplay their encounters with racism by drawing comparisons between the U.S. and East Asia, to resist the local gaze and their host’s attempts to define them as inferior. The women’s comparisons are often more forgiving of racism in East Asia than at home. Downgrading the severity of racism in East Asia creates a space where racism is easier to endure. Moreover, it allows the bloggers to engage in a process of “defining for themselves what

124 their lived experiences mean” and assert that they will not accept racial oppression in East Asia

(Byng 1998: 485).

In trying to explain her encounters with racism in South Korea Sista Sha writes that she has experienced “a little bit of discrimination here and there but I’ve not experienced anything worse than I have back home” (Sista Sha). For Sista Sha discrimination in South Korea is manageable. This assumption however, minimizes the impact of racism in South Korea and implies that her experience with prejudice will never reach the severity or be as explicit as it is in the U.S.. To a certain extent Sista Sha might be correct, and racism in South Korea could have trivial effect on her life compared to the U.S., but diminishing the presence of racism makes the issue of racism in East Asia invisible and conceals the process of difference making that creates institutions that exclude ethnic minorities in South Korea. Thus, even though Sista Sha’s dismissal of race may help her navigate life in South Korea it is also dangerous.

Sista Sha further validates the process of difference making that takes place in South

Korea by asserting that she is tolerant of racism and discrimination because she is not seeking acceptance in a country that is not her home. Sista Sha writes “I’m a guest here. I respect the space. America is supposed to be my home. It is when these things happen there that I get angry”

(Sista Sha). Sista Sha’s concession that she is not a citizen in Korea who is guaranteed rights leads her to accept racism and discrimination. To Sista Sha it seems that racism in Korea is “ok” because she believes her civil liberties are not infringed upon in the same manner that they would be in the United States. She is not a “second class citizen” because she does not have any rights to citizenship, and more importantly she imagines herself as a temporary visitor arguably in the same way tourist do. Sista Sha is in Korea to explore the world, learn more about herself, and gain new experiences. In the end, her perception on her quality of life is not truly hindered by

125 racism in South Korea. Moreover, this response to racism makes clear that despite living in

Korea or Japan that the bloggers view themselves as removed from the societies they are entering.

The act of dismissing racism because South Korea is not Sista Sha’s permanent home creates space for racism in Korea, and East Asia to be overlooked. Moreover, Sista Sha seems to dismiss discrimination because it has a different face in the U.S.. However, because Korean racism does not look identical to the West (U.S.) does not mean it should be ignored. It is futile to argue that anti-black sentiment or discrimination in South Korea is identical to the U.S., is expressed in the same ways, with the same institutional weight as in the U.S., or that anti-black sentiment originates from the same ideas and understandings about race. However, downplaying the presence of racism does prevent an exploration of the processes that have created anti-black sentiment, and hinders an exploration of how othering takes place in South Korea and Japan as a whole.

Sista Sha is not the only blogger to sweep racism under the rug, because it does not resemble American racism. Overdose downplays racist remarks because they do not mirror what she understands as truly racist behavior. This is clear when Overdose shares with her followers an incident she had leaving her boyfriend’s soccer game, an account discussed in the previous chapter. She writes with frustration that her skin color attracts negative attention in South Korea, and as she and her boyfriend passed a group of Korean men

they made a comment about me being African, in which my bf quickly replied in Korean that I was American, which caused them to break into nervous laughter. I give him credit because he’s been in Korea longer so he’s always trying to protect me from the racism of Korea. But I really don’t care, I’m fine with being called African, as long it’s not the n word, I could care less. (Overdose of Satisfaction)

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Here because the “n word” is not used, a term commonly understood in America as an expression of racism, Overdose is tolerant of being called African. She is not quickly aroused to anger even though being called African may frustrate her. However, despite the severity of the word, and despite the fact that those Korean men may have called her African without any malicious intent it still served as a means to highlight that she was not Korean but different, an exotic other, rare and based on Korea’s racialized and nationalized hierarchy, less than. Thus, it is important to explore othering despite the severity the bloggers attach to it, and despite the severity of perceived and actual racism.

Ignoring and overlooking the local gaze allows the bloggers to downplay and dismiss their gazers. Dismissing the local gaze delegitimizes the local’s power to construct an image of

African-Americans that defines what it means to be Japanese or Korean. However, the bloggers do more than overlook discrimination in Japan and South Korea as a means of resisting the gaze.

The women also attempt to counter their gazers’ limited and often negative understandings of blacks with positive representations.

Shifting Perceptions of African-Americans Abroad

As discussed earlier, Table 7 shows that abstract gazers occur the most with mentions of race. However, the qualitative data reveals that the women overwhelming attempt to shift perceptions of African-Americans abroad when definitive (strangers, friends, and so on) gazers are present. This is likely explained by the fact that the teaching or sharing alternative information about blacks requires there to be an actual person present.

When shifting perceptions of African-Americans, the women do not passively dismiss the representations of blackness they encounter. Rather, they actively challenge the images of

127 blackness presented to them, and it seems they do so out of obligation. Often the women write with a sense of duty and purpose that they must change the negative representations of blacks they are confronted with in East Asia. Sista Sha’s frustration with the limited representation of blacks she encounters is clear when she writes,

[A]s i dont like it when people say, "Black people always..." Non blacks think that my people are like the rappers and gangsters they see on tv... the men have all been in jail and have tattoos and wear lots of bling. the women all have babies from different men, we're all gold diggers, etc. When really, how many black people do you KNOW? you can count them on one hand. and you dont really know them. even if you think you do. (Sista Sha) Sista Sha’s anger is two-fold. She is not only frustrated with how the media depicts blacks, but with how people misinterpret and internalize these negative representations. The bloggers are aware that homogenous representations of blackness are pervasive and shape their interactions with non-blacks, specifically the local residents. Thus the bloggers set out to shift these narrow perceptions by providing evidence to refute the negative stereotypes by being model examples of blackness. Ms. World demonstrates this when she writes,

I'm highly aware that everywhere I go in this land, I am representing not only myself and my family, but I represent the Black race. Therefore I always do my best to represent Black people as well as I can. (Ms. World) Ms. World has taken on the task of being a “model minority” and hopes to use her presence to diversify the images of blacks circulating Japan.

Takara also comes to view her stay in Japan as an opportunity to challenge the negative images of blacks she encounters. Takara however, does not take on this job lightly, and she is anxious about representing her race.

Many thoughts run through my mind. ‘What am I doing here?’ ‘How long can I last here?’ ‘Should I watch my words?’ ‘Should I watch my behavior?’ ‘When I go out am I representing all Black people, in particular Black women, when Japanese people see me?’ (Takara in Tokyo)

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The belief that her every move is being watched, judged, and used to construct an image of blacks is heavy and almost too much to digest. The pressure leads Takara to question her self- sustainability. Her mental stability is threatened by the assumption that she does not have the luxury to relax, make a mistake, or present herself as less than perfect.

Her anxiety over being watched echoes Frantz Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks when he writes, “And then the occasion arose when I had to meet the white man’s eyes. An unfamiliar weight burdened me…I know that if I want to smoke, I shall have to reach out my right arm and take the pack of cigarettes lying at the other end of the table…And all these movements are made not out of habit but out of implicit knowledge” (Fanon 1968:110-1). The pressure of being watched creates an awareness of how to behave “properly” and “correctly”. Like Fanon, Takara becomes aware of how she moves around the world. To Takara, her every move is defining blackness for her gazer. As Fanon writes, it is the feeling of “being dissected under white eyes”, and this is arguably how Takara feels when she first acknowledges that her race and gender have singled her out to be watched (Fanon 1968:116).

Takara is not permanently paralyzed by the gaze and decides to take on the task of being a “model minority” and she attempts to use her racist encounters as teaching moments that contest the narrow representation of blacks. One situation that sticks out is when Takara is with

Yamada-san, a faculty member of her study abroad program. Takara asks Yamada-san his opinion of the black students he has met. Takara’s response to his description is:

I was instantly taken to images of Sambo, Amos and Andy, and other derogatory images of Black people. At first I wanted to tell him to stop talking because it was stupid of him to base his ideas an entire people on a few individuals and that it wouldn’t hurt for him to read a book or two on African History. Then, I remember that there aren’t many books here about us in Japan and he is actually considered an exception…He knows more than the average Japanese person. I take a deep breath and tell him, ‘It is wrong to base your ideas of Black people on the few students you have seen.’ He agrees and I say, ‘Yamada-san, if you are going to be interacting with students

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from different backgrounds you can’t make blanket statements like the ones earlier.’ I battle with myself for some time as to whether or not I should dismiss him or not and I finally say, ‘From now on I every time I see you I will teach you something.’(Takara in Tokyo)

Takara makes a point to alter Yamada-san’s perception of African-American women. Moreover, she wants to teach Yamada-san that blacks are more diverse than the handful of students he has met.

Takara is not the only blogger to attempt to flip an offensive representation into a positive one. Joia also uses a moment with her students as a chance to teach about the diversity of black culture. After realizing that her students are calling a black girl in their textbook a monkey Joia writes,

I walked right outta the classroom. When I came back, I had 5 sheets of paper. I handed them out and proceeded to write 3 sentences on the board.

‘ I WILL NOT CALL PEOPLE NAMES. IT IS NOT NICE AND IT HURTS THEIR FEELINGS. I AM SORRY, JOIA TEACHER.’ For the rest of class, they wrote it over and over again. Some of their hands started to hurt and I didn't really care…But as a TEACHer, it is my job to bring a certain level of understanding. I can't single-handedly halt prejudice in the world but I can damn sure stop it in my classroom. (The Seoul of Black Folks)

Joia makes a point to try and use this moment not only to discipline but educate her students about prejudice, and its harmful effects. She also tries to push her students to identify the root of their prejudice. The students initially argue that they are not laughing at the girl and calling her a monkey because she is black, but they cannot provide evidence to the contrary. In questioning her students Joia forces them to scrutinize why they automatically think of blacks as monkeys.

Ms. World also takes on the task of being a teacher when she meets a fellow English teacher from China that makes racist claims about African-Americans. Ms. World writes

Z. was talking a lot of crazy non-sense about Black Americans. That pissed me off! I wanted to curse Z. out. However, I am fully aware that I'm representing African-Americans, my family, and

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my country, so I politely introduced myself… Basically, Z. doesn't know any Black Americans and has only read about them…and believes Black Americans are poor and criminals except Condoleeza Rice….informed her that I'm not poor or a criminal. I also pointed out to her that I don't make disparaging comments about China or Chinese people. Why would she make disparaging remarks about Black Americans when she doesn't know any of them? Then Z. asked me about Black people in America. I told her some of us are doing very well and some of us aren't doing well. I also had to inform her that white Americans fall in the same economic category. (Ms. World) Similar to Takara, Ms. World uses this opportunity to teach someone who is uninformed about the reality of African-Americans. Ms. World accepts the woman’s ignorance and tries to remedy it by expanding the woman’s knowledge about blacks. Ms. World, like Takara, chooses this route instead of “cursing Z out”, because she is aware that she is representing blacks in Japan, and that she must present an image that will not reinforce her gazer’s negative opinion of blacks.

Ms. World’s resistance in this context offers some fascinating contradictions. On one hand, Ms. World’s decision to approach Z politely fails to truly circumvent Z’s gaze, because she chooses to behave in a way that conforms to Z’s ideal, or operates within the limited options

Z’s narrow view of blacks provide. Ms. World can either be true to herself and her feelings, and disregard “appropriate” behavior, but present an image of blackness for Z that yet again is negative. Or, Ms. World, can deny her true feelings, and address Z in a manner that conforms to

“appropriate” behavior and presents blacks in a positive light. While, Ms. World’s decision to be polite, does not circumvent Z’s limited representations of blackness, and silently reproduces notions of black homogeneity by giving weight to the idea that one black person represents all blacks. The form of resistance Ms. World chose to use, dispelling ignorance with education, would be ineffective if she were to aggressively approach Z. Ms. World is oddly facing a double-edged sword, and neither option truly allows her to transgress or challenge Z’s dominant notions of blackness, but the method she selected has the potential to have a greater positive effect.

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The bloggers resist the gaze by trying to create a new image of blacks that transgresses their gazer’s homogenous perception of African-Americans. They use their presence as a chance to be positive examples of blackness. However, they also take on negative racial encounters as teaching moments. They attempt to teach their gazers not only that prejudice is hurtful, but that black culture is more diverse than the images they are accustomed to seeing portrayed in the media.

Despite challenging dominant stereotypes about African-Americans, this act of replacing negative images of blacks with positive ones has been critiqued for reproducing racism. As

Cornell West assets, any notions of “the real Black community” and “positive images” are value- laden, socially loaded, and ideologically charged (West 1994: 104). West (1994) argues that this process has a history of being used by middle-class blacks insecure about their status who chose to refute notions of black inferiority by presenting positive images that proved they were “like whites” (West 1994). Stuart Hall (1993) and West (1994) argue that the images of blacks that emerged to combat racism created homogenous representations that overlooked how race, class, sexuality, gender, and so on fractured “black” identity. Moreover, West (1994) asserts that offering positive alternatives that demonstrate adherence to “white” ideals does not challenge the paradigm that positions whites as the superior ideal. Instead, in attempting to prove “similarity,” these positive images maintained the racialized binary that equated whites with superiority and non-whites as inferiority. Thus, the bloggers’ attempts to flip negative perceptions of black-

Americans by offering positive alternatives, or alternatives that only strip blackness of its negative connotations by aligning blacks closer to “whiteness” (or an idealized norm), although broadening the images of blacks abroad reaffirms white superiority.

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CONCLUSION

Even though Japan and Korea are predominately non-white and non-Western settings, as hypothesis 2 suggests the women still resist the gaze. The women employ resistance by downplaying the local gaze, and by actively confronting the images of blacks they encounter by creating new ways of knowing and understanding blacks and black womanhood for the locals. In resisting the local gaze the women refuse to let the gaze be used to solidify East Asian identity.

However, their resistance seeks to protect their self-confidence as they navigate contexts that they perceive to define them as inferior. Racism, sexism, and classism are operating in Japan and

Korea to subjugate individuals, and regardless of the women hailing from the West, a

“traditionally” assumed position of privilege, the women are not freed from the emotional stress oppression induces simply because they travel to spaces traditionally dominated by the West.

Instead, racism, classism, sexism and so on simply manifest in Japan and Korea to oppress the women differently than at “home”.

It is important to note that the new forms these dominant ideologies take do not halt resistance. As mentioned above, the women do still limit their host’s attempts to construct them as other to preserve self-worth. However, at times the types of resistance the women employ do appear to be context specific and tailored to fit Japan and Korea. The specificity of the bloggers’ resistance is not obvious when they reference language barriers or define racism in East Asia as

“less” severe than in the U.S.. These tactics are all unique to the women’s encounters with the gaze abroad. Thus, this chapter found that the women still engage with the gaze even when the traditional white and Western actor is absent, but that the unique contexts of Japan and Korea, and both nations’ particular relationship to “dominant ways of knowing”, forces resistance to vary and embody different forms than it would in the U.S.. Despite the women adapting the

133 oppositional gaze to be context specific some of the women’s methods of resistance for self- worth do reproduce dominant discourses surrounding class, racism, and sexism. Thus, mirroring the findings in chapter 3, the bloggers’ resistance does not always deconstruct the very inequities it aims to undermine.

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Chapter 5

How the Bloggers Construct People in East Asia

Until now the analysis of the gaze has explored how the women resist being constructed in opposition to Japanese and Koreans. However, as Americans in countries where the U.S. historically has held dominant political, military, and economic influence, despite their marginalized status due to skin color and foreignness, the bloggers are allowed to participate in reproducing and reestablishing ideas about race and nationality that mark their hosts as “other”.

Therefore, in this section I argue that the women’s privilege allows them to uncritically reproduce popular Western representations about East Asia, and pushes them to use homogenous representations of Asians to reclaim the power being nationalized as an American in Japan and

South Korea grants.

The position of privilege these women possess is tenuous, because their race prevents them from being marked as Japanese, Korean, or Western. In East Asia the myth of homogeneity is pervasive, and people are initially grouped into one of two categories, foreign or not-foreign

(Japanese or Korean), and physical appearance is the most immediate way to determine belonging. Moreover, within the category of foreign a hierarchy exists, which typically positions

Western (which is conflated with whiteness) on top and “other Asian” (Chinese, South Asians, etc) and blacks grouped together on the bottom (Prieler 2010). As a result, a superficial glance automatically relegates the women to the margins in Korea and Japan. However, national and class distinctions also help to inform the hierarchy of foreigners, and asserting their American nationality and middle-class status, overtly or subtly, allows the women to reclaim the

advantages afforded to Americans. Thus, the women essentialize the people, and claim

instinctual differences as a way to position themselves in opposition to Japanese and Koreans

and to ensure that they are clearly understood as American (Yamashiro 2008).

Table 11 presents how the women referenced essential and intrinsic differences when

describing local Japanese and Koreans. A description was coded as essential if the women

assumed there were fundamental similarities found in all Japanese or Koreans. In addition, a

description was defined as intrinsic if the women assumed Japanese and Koreans were inherently

different from Americans. The women essentialized the local population in 100 of their

descriptions, and referenced instinctual difference times 86 times, 34 times in Japan and 52 in

Korea.

Table 11. Essentialized and intrinsic difference descriptions of host country people, by country Essentialized Intrinsic Difference Not Stated Total People Descriptions Japan 41 (56.9) 34 (47.2) 21 (29.2) 72 Korea 59 (33.3) 52 (29.4) 100 (56.5) 177 Total 100 (40.2) 86 (34.5) 121 (48.6) 249

Despite the far greater number of descriptions of people in Korea, the women in Japan

more frequently essentialized their hosts (56.9%), and defined them as intrinsically different

(47.2%). Over half of their descriptions of people by Korean bloggers did not essentialize their

hosts or refer to intrinsic differences, compared to less than a third of people descriptions that

were free of these qualities when Japanese bloggers described people in their host country.

In essentializing the local residents the bloggers’ often described Korea and Japan as

lacking heterogeneity. References to “sameness,” “a lack of individuality”, and “conformity”

were used when describing native Japanese and Koreans. It is likely that the bloggers’

assumptions are influenced by larger discourses; the first one being Japan’s and South Korea’s

137 ceaseless efforts to define themselves as homogenous. As I discussed earlier, despite the growing number of immigrant groups in Japan and Korea transforming both countries into multicultural nations, the myth of mono-ethnicity has been preserved. Moreover, popular American assumptions about East Asia, also positions these two countries and their cultures as homogenous and conformist, particularly when discussing them in opposition to American individualism.

ENGLISH PROFICIENCY AS A MARKER OF DIFFERENCE

The bloggers’ privilege as Americans is exposed when they discuss their difficulty navigating the language barrier. The women frequently encounter individuals who speak incorrect English and on some occasions they note that the inability of local residents to understand or speak fluent English complicates their daily lives; and often the women enter situations expecting or demanding English speakers. Their position of privilege is only intensified when the women become angry with locals who speak “broken” English, or with an accent.

Joia the blogger of The Seoul of Black Folks writes repeatedly of becoming frustrated with co-workers and friends who stumble through English. Joia writes about one co-worker, who confronts her about a student evaluation,

[S]he really irritates the HELL out of me because it takes her 15 minutes to spit out one sentence. I know she's trying, but seriously...maybe you should write it down first. And she has godawful breath which only grates on my nerves more. So, she's pointing at the evaluation and stammering and I catch a serious attitude.(The Seoul of Black Folks ) Joia fails to appreciate that it is a luxury to have co-workers who speak, even minimally, her native language. This is a privilege migrant workers from “other Asian” counties are not always afforded (Ahmed 2000). However Joia on a different occasion writes,

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[he] was choking on his words so badly that in my semi-drunken state, I almost whacked him in the throat and blurted, "SPIT IT OUT!!!!" He was rather annoying. (The Seoul of Black Folks )

Joia’s privilege allows her to expect English in Korea, and blinds her to the fact that her expectations and impatience are unwarranted in a space where English is not the first language.

The bloggers’ privilege as Americans, fluent in English, constantly emerges attached to them expecting Japanese and Koreans to speak English. From some of the bloggers’ observations that

English schools and teachers are abundant in Korea and Japan, the bloggers falsely assume that everyone has access to English as a Second Language courses. This idea not only conceals issues related to class and access to education but also implies an inherent failure on the part of locals to learn English. This is implied, because despite having the tools necessary to learn English

Korean and Japanese citizens are unable to master the language. Thus, the bloggers’ privilege allows them to imply that Japanese and Koreans have an inferior work ethic and level of intelligence, or more specifically reproduce stereotypes about English inadequacy among East

Asians.

Sista Sha generously gives Koreans a “pass” for not knowing English, while still expecting them to be proficient. Sista Sha writes,

like if i cant communicate with someone here, i dont get in a huff about no one speaking english despite all the english language schools everywhere, instead i know that im in korea and ought to learn to read and write korean.(Sista Sha). She acknowledges that living in a country with an official language different from English requires an effort on her part to learn a new one. However, Sista Sha seems to suggest that her frustration, like Joia’s, would be valid. As Sista Sha puts it, everyone should know English simply because English language schools are prevalent. Sista Sha places an unrealistic goal on the local residents, and her privilege allows her to overlook why English is considered a valuable

139 commodity in Korea. Instead, she believes she can become angry when communication in

English breaks down.

The bloggers also place an unrealistic expectation of fluency, or advanced proficiency on their students. There is a sense among the women that those who have studied English longer should be more advanced.

You would THINK high school kids would have an advanced level of English because they've been studying it for awhile but NO, they're usually worse than my little ones. And they don't freaking talk!(The Seoul of Black Folks ) There is a general consensus among the bloggers that the local residents should know

English, and speak it well. However, the women never question their expectations, and they do not challenge the weight Japanese and Korean societies place on English education. Moreover, their critiques of language ability demonstrate how their privilege allows them to question the intellectual ability of Japanese and Koreans and overlook the fact that U.S. imperialism is the reason why English education is so popular. The women fail to see how their position as

Westerners allows them to construct the locals as incompetent. Arguably Japanese and Koreans are not able to describe Americans in the same way, especially when in the United States.

Japanese and Koreans are not able to visit or live in the United States and become frustrated, or

“in a huff” because locals do not speak Japanese or Korean. Instead, most visitors, particularly in non-metropolitan areas, are expected to speak, read, and write English. Thus, the bloggers’ critique of English ability reproduces Western dominance in East Asia.

All of the bloggers, excluding Takara, are ESL teachers. Their identity as native English speakers from America is why they were afforded the opportunity to live abroad. Private and non-private English language programs such as JET in Japan specifically employ college

140 educated, native English speakers, from Western countries (Yoder 2011). Thus, the women are granted advantages, because of their nationality that other foreign migrants are not.

The women also use the Japanese and Korean accents as markers of difference, making it known that despite speaking English, Japanese and Koreans use the language in a way that is un-

American. Joia writes,

Koreans (or perhaps it's just an Asian thing in general) like to add random "th's" on the end of words. Like, my name should never have a "TH" at the end. (The Seoul of Black Folks)

And she informs her readers that,

Most Asians ESL students struggle pronouncing L's and R's. In Korean, those 2 letters are actually one sound so oftentimes, students will say "lope" instead of "rope" and "rake" instead of "lake". It's very interesting…linguistics. (The Seoul of Black Folks) Joia essentializes all Asians by failing to differentiate between the varieties of Asian ethnicities, and the diversity of languages present on the continent. Moreover, she marks their use of the

English language as fundamentally different from “American English”. Joia is clear that variations in English that she finds in Korea do not mirror the “proper” or “correct” English spoken in America, and by doing so she distinguishes herself as “American” and apart from the local population.

Sista Sha also essentializes Koreans when noting that they use English incorrectly. She writes that most of her students use “Konglish” a mix between English and Korean.

sometimes i'll ask the kids to try harder to pronounce things w/out their korean accent… "konglish" (korean + english) seems more of a habit rather than not being able [to] pronounce things.

They constantly say "A-pull" instead of A+, tho none seem to have a problem w/saying "s." Again, it's b/c it's so common for them. Same with saying "Yes." instead, they say "Yes-uh." the sound "Uh" is at the end of nearly every word.

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I was talking to one class about the importance of trying to not speak with the accent if they can, b/c they'll get stuck in the habit otherwise and maybe have trouble communicating, or have trouble being understood.

"But teacher," little Lina says, "I feel like 'Yes' is too short, so I have to add to it when I say it."

just like when the brothas and sistas say "conversate" instead of converse, or "axe" instead of ask… Ah well, so long as the kids keep the proper pronunciation in mind, and perhaps be multilingual in korean, english AND konglish. (Sista Sha)

Sista Sha still reproduces the idea that there is a “proper” English, and the “brothas and sistas” in

America and her Korean students who do not speak “correct” English are othered and positioned outside of mainstream American culture. This is made clear when Sista Sha writes “As long as the kids keep the proper pronunciation in mind, and perhaps be multilingual in korean, english,

AND konglish” (Sista Sha). She makes it clear that there are definitive rules that must be adhered to be considered an “authentic” American and Konglish or the slang used by black-

Americans hinders acceptance. What is important to note here is that Sista Sha makes it clear that she knows proper English. She knows the rules and is able to properly follow them, and is able to position herself as American.

Accents are not only disparaged, but used to draw a boundary between the women as

Americans and the locals as non-Americans. It is clear from their comments that being proficient in English is not enough to remove the label of non-American. One must speak English with a perfect accent, and correct grammar. They do not only use their language proficiency to distinguish themselves as American, but the privilege of being a native English speaker also helps relieve social stressors and discomforts while abroad.

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PRIVILEGE PROVIDES A SENSE OF COMFORT

The women are not always frustrated by ESL students using English incorrectly and they often express a sense of gratitude when they encounter English speakers in situations where they are unable to effectively communicate. The women frequently write that their everyday lives are improved by the presence of even the most minimal English speaker. Sista Sha writes after a trip to the bank “the bank teller spoke a lot of english, so he made it all pretty easy” (Sista Sha).

Despite their appreciation, it is clear that their privilege offers them the advantage of comfort and they do not have to stray too far outside of their comfort zones while abroad. Takara speaks of her host father using English to make her feel more at home. She writes,

Otosan comes home and is a joy to the house. He plays with the kids and he is really funny. He even attempts to be funny in English with me :). (Takara in Tokyo) She is made to feel comfortable, and it is at the expense of the host father stepping outside of his comfort zone. Takara, as a Japanese language student, does not attempt to use her limited

Japanese to fit in with the family. Instead, her host father must step outside his comfort zone to make her feel welcome and comfortable. Takara unconsciously is relying on her dominant position as an American abroad, and the privilege that assumed ignorance grants Western foreigners.

The women however might be relying on others to use English because of their own anxieties around speaking a foreign language. Their position as American foreigners in countries where English speakers are available and “social norms” excuse the limited language ability of foreigners, particularly Western ones, allows the women to easily avoid attempting to speak their host countries’ language. As Joia, demonstrates when she goes to the grocery store, even though

143 she is learning Korean and the clerks present her with an opportunity to practice, she is unnerved by the opportunity.

Checking out always makes me nervous, too. I don't know why but it does. The clerks are really nice and I appreciate them always trying to give me a chance to speak Korean. However, I'm not having full conversations here.( The Seoul of Black Folks ) Joia is hesitant to step out of her comfort zone. For Sista Sha the same sense of nervousness manifests as embarrassment. She is hesitant to engage her co-workers because she does not speak Korean fluently.

i REALLY hate asking the korean staff at my school for help b/c they're so overworked and underpaid and im sure have better things to do than to take care of the new foreigner. plus they speak little english and im embarrassed to try to communicate b/c i speak no korean. ( Sista Sha)

Sista Sha is aware of the burden her privilege presents, and that her co-workers despite speaking minimal English will try their best to help her and forgive Sista Sha’s inability to communicate in Korean. This is a luxury that is not always afforded to other foreigners.

Sexy Diva’s limited language skills also alienate her from her co-workers when English speakers are absent. She writes repeatedly of feeling lonely at her work parties because her co- workers do not speak English.

This is probably one of the most difficult aspects about being here. Yes I know I came here alone but its kind of weird that I feel more "alone" when amongst the staff of my school (including the TWO English teachers) than I do when I'm here at my apartment. I don't know if its a cultural difference or what but I have gotten quite upset when going out or being somewhere with them and they chattter away in Japanese and neglect to TRY to include me in on the conversation....who knows..i'll get over it…( Sexy Diva)

Sexy Diva feels that it is her co-workers’ job to include her in the conversation, and early on in her trip Sexy Diva does not assume that she must try to learn or use her limited Japanese. Joia writes of a similar experience with her co-workers one night

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For the first time, I really felt entirely out of place. As I sat there, watching my coworkers drink Soju (don't drink Soju…it will mess you up GOOD) and eat again, I just turned sour. I didn't want to be there. I wanted to be at home, listening to music, and resting my overextended belly. I had NO idea what anyone was saying. The two people that did speak English did me no favors by trying to involve me. I know about 20 Korean words and half of those are the numbers from 1-10. I was not gonna be jumping in, interrupting the flow of conversation. It was just awkward.(The Seoul of Black Folks ).

Both women are uncomfortable and angry when English is not used in an attempt to include them. Like Takara, they seem to expect and rely on the fact that Japanese and Koreans will reach out to them and attempt to use the bloggers’ native language to include the women.

This is made clear when Sexy Diva writes about being at a party where the Japanese teachers approach her using English, and this time she writes about feeling accepted and comfortable in her surroundings.

I will admit that when I was first sitting there I was again feeling the "alone among the crowd" feeling but after they started drinking, they all started moving around and talking and that made me feel more comfortable. It suprises me how many of the teachers actually know some English but hold out....that is until they get a few drinks in them. I had a lot of fun and just enjoyed feeling like I belonged. Just wish my darn Japanese was better so I could say more. (Sexy Diva)

Their privilege as Americans is made clear in these situations; they unconsciously believe that they should be included, especially when English speakers are present. However, the women overlook that they are living in foreign countries where English is not the official language and is not required or regularly spoken in social situations. Even though Sexy Diva wishes she knew more Japanese, she still does not appear to use the minimal Japanese she knows to include herself; instead she relies on the hope that others will use English.

The classroom also seems to be a space where the use of either English or Korean can cause the bloggers anxiety or alleviate stress. Sista Sha writes about being nervous for her first day of class.

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i was afraid i'd be going into a class of students who couldnt understand a word of english, but they actually understand quite a lot. i think it's more SPEAKING that is the challenge for them, they're thinking about proper grammar and subject/verb agreement, etc;

For Overdose, she finds that having students in her classes that can translate the lessons makes class easier, and she writes with frustration about controlling her second grade classroom where none of the students understand English. Overdose writes

2nd grade: one of my harder classes, the first two classes with them were calm (because the teacher was in class) so at first I never understood why the Korean teachers said they are the worst...now I know why, the other day two of my students walked out of class, and it's hard to explain for them to sit down and be quiet when the don't understand and some just keep asking "why?" When the Korean teacher is present, Overdose is comfortable managing the classroom. However, when she is alone with the students without a translator her comfort quickly turns to frustration, and she paints the students as unruly, but in reality there is a communication gap. However, for her older students, since a student translator and a Korean teacher are present Overdose praises this class as her best class.

6th grade: I have the most fun in this class, only 5 students (so I know all of their names) they are into soccer and music. I have two translators in this class but a third one is stepping up. The teacher of this class is my co-teacher. (Overdose of Satisfaction )

She is able to relax and have fun, and one cannot help but think that this is because communication is not a problem.

The luxury of comfort that the women are afforded by the presence of English speakers in Japan and Korea highlights the ways in which languages are political, and exposes how the

United States’ dominant economic, political, and military influence in East Asia translates into privileges for Americans abroad. It is clear that the women position themselves in opposition to

Japanese and Koreans through language; however the women also rely on the popular ideologies of Western individualism in comparison to Eastern conformity to define themselves as American.

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DEPICTING A LACK OF DIVERSITY IN KOREA AND JAPAN

The bloggers construct everyone in Japan and Korea as the “same.” Takara reaches this conclusion after reading Walter Lefeber’s book The Clash: U.S. Japanese Relations Throughout

History, Takara finds a quote that perfectly summarizes her experiences abroad.

Lefeber uses the following analogy to describe the "fundamental difference" between the United States and Japan. He writes, "In the United States there is a saying, 'The squeaky wheel gets the oil' while in Japan there is a proverb that reads 'The nail that stick up gets hammered down'." (Hmmmmm-yep)

When I read this, I had to sit the book down for a moment and think about it. My conclusion, after taking a look at my numerous experiences in Japan is "YEP, that 's it... That describes the basis of many 'cultural confusions' I have encountered since arriving here." (Takara in Tokyo) Takara then proceeds to describe numerous encounters where she notices Japanese people sacrifice themselves for the group. Takara uses Lefeber’s quote to compare her instinct to say

“thank you” when a bus waits for her, to a Japanese woman’s response of “excuse me”. She writes that in Japan,

the person running late for the bus says "excuse me" instead of "thank you" acknowledging the fact that they have just caused bus driver to alter his regular routine. As for me, when I was late I said thank you acknowledging the fact that bus driver helped me by holding the doors open.(Takara in Tokyo). Takara has used her observations to construct an image of Japanese people as conformist in an attempt to prove Lefeber’s assertion that Japanese people seek to be “hammered down” not stick out. In doing so, she clearly distinguishes the Japanese as other in comparison to Americans, and

Takara makes clear that her behaviors are inherently American, thus positioning herself within the dominant group. In addition her conclusions are essentialist and erase the possibility of heterogeneity in Japanese self-expression.

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Takara is not the only blogger to depict East Asians as the “same” and Ms. World complains that Japanese men lack diversity compared to American men. She writes, “I've never had a bias against Japanese men but now I'm so over them. I'll take America with its variety of men” (Ms. World). She dismisses an entire country because she has chosen to lump them as one.

As a result, she erases the fact that Japanese men, like men everywhere, are heterogeneous. What is notable is that she compares them to Americans. Japanese men are positioned as monotone as a way to define American men as eclectic, and Ms. World being an American woman prefers individuality, which as Takara also points out is a fundamental American virtue. Here the bloggers use uniqueness and their desire for it to define Americans, and to define themselves as

American.

The tendency towards sameness is invoked again when Sista Sha brings up the strict dress code at her school. She writes that the students’ appearance is so closely monitored that they are required to all have the same hairstyle and any deviation is publicly punished. She writes,

[I] wasnt aware, but many schools here: not only are the students to wear a uniform, but they are also keep a certain haircut. it used to be that the boys AND girls had to have short hair in a certain style, X number of centimeters above the ear; something about making sure the students would keep all focus on their studies. it's not quite as strict now, but i guess the occasional teacher will insist on a hair cut and the kids have no choice but to submit… they want to have just ONE thing to express themselves. everyone, and i mean every one in korea has straight black hair, not like back home where everyone's hair is a different color/texture.(Sista Sha) Again a comparison is drawn between the amount of individuality that is allowed in the U.S. versus Korea. From the bloggers’ point of view, it is clear once again that individual freedom is not tolerated. But, Ms. World also implies that sameness is innate in Korea. Koreans cannot naturally express or demonstrate uniqueness because everyone is born the same, in contrast to

148 the U.S. where diversity is inherent. Again, the bloggers make a clear distinction between the

U.S and East Asia, and they are careful to position themselves on the “American” side.

Ms. World does note that the students do attempt to rebel and express their individuality, but in doing so she only reinforces the idea that valuing sameness is inherently Korean, and fundamentally different from the U.S., when she writes that students are publicly disciplined for not conforming. All of the bloggers’ assumptions about “sameness” in Japan and Korea help to reify the idea of American independence, and the American self is often constructed as individualistic in opposition or a conformist “East” (Kusserow 1999)

This idea assumes that identity is constructed homogenously in America, and that all

Americans embody this vague and all encompassing spirit of individualism. As Kusserow (1999) reveals this idea of a homogenous American individuality is false, and is an ideology used to create a unifying American identity. Moreover, this ideology disregards and devalues heterogeneity within American society, by positioning all Americans who possess conformist traits as other. Unsurprisingly, these abnormal groups often do not fit within the framework of white, male, or upper class, which solidifies the image of an American self that is specifically imagined as male, middle-class, and white. However, as argued in previous chapters, the bloggers must claim their American identity, and to do so they are required to demonstrate that they possess characteristics that place them within mainstream American culture. Thus, they must demonstrate that they are middle-class, educated, native English speakers and individualistic in order to negate being mis-categorized.

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CONCLUSION

The women’s privilege, as native English speakers allows them to uncritically reproduce popular Western stereotypes about East Asia. Thus, chapter 5’s findings support hypothesis 3, and the women reproduce notions of sameness and poor English proficiency to define themselves as American in opposition to Japanese and Koreans. Since the women live in countries where their nationality, occupation, and race work in conflicting ways to afford and deny them social advantages, and Americans are assumed as white the women must work to find ways to emphasize the aspects of their identity that are unequivocally understood as positive

American attributes. As a result, the women reaffirm their self-identities as Americans and black-Americans in opposition to Japanese and Koreans. In the end, the bloggers reproduce essentialist images of the “East” to eschew being negatively marked and relegated to inferior social positions.

The bloggers in constructing Japan and Korea use their power as gazers to protect their privileged identities. In defining themselves as “American,” the bloggers do not only distinguish themselves from Japanese and Koreans, but they attempt to recoup the social privileges attached to their American identities. However, unlike the preceding chapters, the women are not subjects but gazers. They have been given the power to define themselves while marking their Japanese and Korean subjects as “abnormal” or “inferior,” ultimately this is the women’s chance to define themselves irrespective of dominant ideologies and to create a “self” that transgresses, challenges, and circumvents dominant ideologies; a self that places them outside of the influence of dominant discourses. However, the women create identities that are reactive to dominant ideologies, and use the space to construct themselves to respond to the Japanese and Korean gaze, rather than to create an identity independent of their host’s gaze.

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Arguably, the bloggers’ perpetual positions as outsiders in Japan and Korea, and the work their race does to simultaneously mark them as other and erase their privileged identities, constricts the women’s power. Within Japan and Korea the women are permanently marked as other and even when they are in positions of power erasing the visibility of their outsider-ship is impossible. Thus, the bloggers arguably have marginal power as gazers, because even within positions of dominance they are being constructed as “other.” As a result, they actively define themselves as “American” to refute omnipresent assumptions that they are non-American, non- middle-class and inferior.

How do the bloggers’ actions as gazers help us understand the gaze when the white, male, and Western actor is absent? Moreover, what do the bloggers’ behaviors reveal about how marginalized groups perform the gaze? The women’s inability to challenge dominant ideologies sheds light on the fact that they are entrenched in settings that strive to define them as inferior.

Arguably, these attacks on the bloggers’ social position and self-worth are constant, and the women must first buffer themselves from the psychological consequences of these attacks by establishing parity in Japan and Korea before they can conceive of identities that challenge dominant social hierarchies.

What is also important to consider is that the bloggers as Americans have also been shaped by the dominant discourse of East/West. The women’s constructions of “self” in Japan and Korea also mirror dominant American assumptions about Asia as conformist or homogenous.

Thus, the bloggers reproducing dominant discourses of the “East” may be equally a reflection of the bloggers’ positions as Americans in East Asia, as it is a reaction to the omnipresent nature of the bloggers’ otherness. Both takes are important and highlight on how the intersection of

151 nationality, race, and gender are shaping the bloggers’ performance of the gaze in Japan and

Korea.

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Chapter 6

Conclusion

Most scholarship [on blacks in Japan] is primarily concerned with the triangular relationship between African American men and Japanese women and men; the experiences of black women are marginalized or neglected altogether. (Carter and Hunter 2008)

The above quote is from “A Critical Review of the Academic Perspectives on Blackness in

Japan,” co-authored by Mitzi Carter and Aina Hunter. Their assertion that scholarship on the

“black experience” in Japan marginalizes and excludes women parallels John G. Russell’s

(1998) argument that the discourse of blackness circulating about Japan is largely sexualized, male, and heterosexual. However, Russell’s research reproduces the notion that women are absent in the Japanese imaginary, while Carter and Hunter (2008) loudly claim that women are absent, not from the Japanese imaginary, but from the academic discourse of blacks in Japan.

When representations of black womanhood do emerge it is within the confines of

African-American men’s intimate relationships to Japanese women; it is reinterpreted through

Japanese women who alter their appearance to “look like” black women to attract black men.21

The research on African-Americans in Korea is scarce; however, the few studies that do mention

African-Americans largely explore the intimate relationships of African-American men and

21 The assumption within academic discourses, that black women exist in Japan’s popular conscious only to be reinterpreted by Japanese women, results in an African-American woman’s identity being defined through a variety of gazes that all exclude her from defining herself. Not only is a black woman’s identity defined through the American media and then reinterpreted by Japanese women, who uncritically accept the Western media’s depiction of black women as accurate and generalizable, but black men or more specifically the assumption of what black men find attractive, is used to define black women. The black male gaze operates in this process of imitation on the level of assumption. Black men do not directly tell Japanese women what type of women they desire. Instead, these women adopt sexualized personas, tan their skin, and perm their hair under the assumption that black men will desire them more. These assumptions also imply that black men are intrinsically attracted to black women, which these interracial relationships disprove. It appears that even black men or the black male gaze is indirectly involved in the construction of black womanhood in Japan, which arguably further limits the diversity of representations of black womanhood in Japan. .

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Korean women, and the offspring these encounters produced (Moon 1997, Reicheneker 2011, and Hurh 1972); once again neglecting to examine the experience of African-American women.

The absence of African-American women in the scholarly discourse of blacks in Japan and South Korea challenges researchers to stop ignoring the multitude of African-American women living and traveling in these two countries, and forces scholars to acknowledge that

African-American women are active participants in shaping how both countries construct blackness. African-American women have been present in Japan as early as the Occupation

(Okada 2012). Thus, Russell’s (1998) conclusion that African-American women are absent from the Japanese imaginary overlooks the very presence of African-American women in Japan and

Korean. Black women have been visible in Japan and Korea for decades, so it is unlikely they would be invisible from both countries’ contemporary conceptions of blackness. Ignoring

African-American women and their experiences in Japan and Korea overshadows the reality that black-American women have been carving out spaces for themselves within the Japanese and

Korean imaginary, at least since the Occupation era22, that allowed them to define themselves, outside of the sphere of Japanese and Korean women and African-American men’s intimate relationships. Thus, prematurely asserting black women’s invisibility not only silences their voices but erases the host of experiences African-American women have had living in Japan and

Korea.

The academic discourse of blacks in Japan and Korea is not only critiqued for being male-centered, but it also has been questioned for its persistent preservation of notions that anti- black sentiment is omnipresent in Japan and Korea (although Nadia Kim in her book Imperial

22 Okada (2012) found that African-American women in Japan during the occupation “defined, asserted, and performed alternative racial identities, gender roles, and class positions to achieve their own empowerment within the "trans-Pacific" boundaries they encountered as "occupiers," as well as racial and gender minorities”

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Citizens offers a more heterogeneous view). Carter and Hunter (2008) partially make this argument to show that black-Americans do not constantly confront anti-black sentiment in Japan, which is also true for the bloggers. My research also demonstrates that “blacks” are not unequivocally, or uncritically, marginalized in Japan and Korea because of how they are raced.

Instead, numerous factors, such as gender, class, nationality, and so on grant and deny privileges.

To simply claim that race is the only determinant of exclusion or inclusion in Japan and Korea limits Japan’s and Korea’s heterogeneity, and oversimplifies both countries’ complex relationship with Eurocentric ideas of race and racism (Condry 2007 and Wood 1997). Moreover, only exploring anti-black sentiment in Japan and Korea dismisses the racialized, nationalized, gendered, classed and occupational hierarchies that function to marginalize, or advantage, individuals within Japan and Korea.

In an attempt to insert heterogeneity into Japan’s and Korea’s academic discourses of blackness, this study highlights the diversity within “blackness,” and challenges the idea of a monolithic “black experience,” because it obscures the diversity and fractions within the large group that is defined as “black.” Ultimately, this study addresses Carter and Hunter’s (2008) critique that essentializing the black experience in Japan and Korea incorrectly asserts that “a black British model in Shibuya, an illegal immigrant from Ghana, an American banking executive in Tokyo, an American GI stationed in Yokohama, and an English teacher in rural

Japan could ever share a similar ‘black experience’”(Carter and Hunter 2008: 194). Thus, I have diligently demonstrated how identities intersect to grant and deny individuals access to privilege in Japan and Korea to explore how the women in my study, who share similar backgrounds, navigate life in Japan and Korea.

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Therefore, I must assert that this study does not attempt to represent all African-

American’s voices in Japan and Korea, and by no means is my study an exhaustive one on the experience of African-American women. What this study does instead is provide insight into a particular type of African-American experience in Japan and Korea; that of the middle-class, college educated, young woman, teaching English (and studying abroad). However, even the bloggers who share important identity intersections are unique and their experiences diverge to shape them in profoundly different ways. Thus, to even claim that my research speaks fully to the experience of middle-class African-American women in Japan or Korea is overly ambitious.

My study instead removes African-American women’s voices from the academic margins and opens a space to critically examine their untold stories. Privileging the black women’s voices is accomplished by analyzing the shifting dynamics of the gaze, and looking at how the women perform resistance, or the oppositional gaze, in non-white countries. Moreover, the study examined how the bloggers participated in reinventing and reproducing “the East,” or the Orient.

The study demonstrated that the bloggers are constantly in the process of defining themselves; however, it is in response to the Japanese and Korean gaze. The bloggers use resistance in chapter 3 as a tool to align themselves closer to the “ideal” American in Japan and

Korea, who is a middle-class, highly educated, skilled worker, and white, which confirms hypothesis 1that the women will assert their privileged identities to avoid discrimination. The women’s race works to consistently position them as other, and prevents them from being imagined as “American.” Thus, the women assert middle-class American identities to preserve social privileges that are erased when they are assumed to be non-American or lower-class black-

Americans.

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Resistance in chapter 4 supports hypothesis 2, and the bloggers perform the oppositional gaze to preserve their self-worth, and combat their hosts’ constant attempts to mark them as

“inferior others.” Thus, this chapter found that the women still engage with the gaze even when the traditional white and Western actor is absent, but that the unique contexts of Japan and Korea, and both nations’ particular relationship to “dominant ways of knowing”, forces resistance to vary and embody different forms than it would in the U.S.. Moreover, despite, the women adapting the oppositional gaze to be context specific, some of the women’s methods of resistance for self-worth do reproduce dominant discourses surrounding class, racism, and sexism.

Chapter 5 explores how the women construct the Korean and Japanese other in opposition to themselves. The findings confirm hypothesis 3 that the women’s privilege as native

English speakers allows them to uncritically reproduce popular Western stereotypes about East

Asia. The women reproduce notions of sameness and poor English proficiency to define themselves as American in opposition to Japanese and Koreans. In the end, the bloggers reproduce essentialist images of the “East” to eschew being negatively marked and relegated to inferior social positions.

Exploring the gaze when non-white and non-Western actors are absent revealed a lot about the dynamics of the gaze when it is no longer Western centered. First, the findings clearly illustrate that the gaze is not strictly Western in Japan and Korea, and arguably, the Japanese and

Korean gaze possessed more power than the bloggers’, despite their Western origins. Also, oppositional gazing is context specific, and resistance is adapted to fit particular settings.

Ultimately, it was found that the bloggers as subjects of a non-white gaze do disrupt the gaze as a means of maintaining the power to define themselves in opposition to the identity imposed upon them by their gazer, and to avoid marginalization. However, the intersection of their social

158 identities, as black, American, middle-class, and so on, creates a particular kind of gaze and oppositional gaze that reaffirms dominant discourses around class, race, and nationality, which is contrary to the argument that the oppositional gaze “transgresses dominant ways of knowing.”

The bloggers possessed at least two identities that intersected to grant them social advantages: nationality, and class. Moreover, as African-Americans from the middle-class the women were raised to use their class as a tool for resistance. Thus, the bloggers arguably failed to contest pervasive class and national hierarchies in Japan and Korea, because those hierarchies offered them privilege. Thus, their inability to critique inequality in Japan and Korea is less of a

“character flaw” and more a reflection of the bloggers’ entrenchment in dominant American discourses surrounding class and nationality.

The ways in which the bloggers’ identities intersected to influence their performance of the gaze, is compelling, and presents an area for further research. For example, would a working- class or lower-class American question the middle-class ideal in Japan and Korea? How would a transgendered female experience the gaze and be positioned within Japan and Korea’s heavily gendered trajectories? As touched on at the end chapter 5, the women’s construction of “self” as distinctly American, is equally influenced by popular American assumptions about the “East”, and reflects the bloggers’ desire to define themselves as American to avoid marginalization.

Thus, further exploring the interconnectedness of intersectionailty and the gaze will offer fruitful insight into the dynamics of the gaze; and help to further answer how individuals perform both the gaze and resistance based on their social identities.

In carefully outlining how class, gender, nationality, and so on interact in Japan and

Korea to determine the bloggers’ unique social position the study also revealed a lot about how

159 ethnicity, race, and class operate in Japan and Korea. This study offers additional evidence that

Japan and Korea are not mono-ethnic societies, by illustrating that both countries for decades have legally and socially conceived of how to position foreigners in relation to national identity.

Dissecting the process of othering also magnified that blackness is not monolithic in Japan and

Korea. Instead, both nations have clear conceptions of the differences between African-

Americans, Nigerians, Ghanaians, and so on, and each are positioned differently within social hierarchies. However, the bloggers’ identity assertions as “middle-class” suggest that the pervasive assumptions about African-Americans are based on limited and confining stereotypes that erase heterogeneity within the black-American community.

The bloggers typically reaffirm dominant class and national hierarchies to present identities that shake off negative stereotypes about black-Americans that would deny them social privileges. In the end, the bloggers often fail to create a self-identity independent of dominant ideologies. Instead, the self-identity created relies on a paradigm and set of ideologies that subjugate, overlook, and marginalize groups to legitimate the supremacy of others. Thus, ironically the bloggers use a model founded on inequality to acquire equality. More importantly by presenting images that challenge stereotypes by offering images that adhere to the ideal, they do not question the power dynamics that have created and sustained them, but support them by claiming that one should uncritically strive for the idealized norm.

The bloggers’ uncritical acceptance of dominant class and nationalized hierarchies also reveals the limits of the oppositional gaze. Much of the literature on the oppositional gaze argues that blacks contest limited and confining representations of blackness. However, questioning racism does not translate into a critical reflection of all inequalities, such as class, nationalism, gender, and so on. Thus, my findings reveal the gaze’s complexity, and suggest that truly

160 circumventing the power dynamics embedded in the act of gazing may require more than creating, presenting, and articulating “oppositional” self-identities, and might require one to critically question the power and privilege embedded in their various social identities.

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APPENDIX 1

Weblogs as Text

As a tool of analysis weblogs, particularly diary weblogs, are complex and encompass a host of contradictions. Blogs are simultaneously social and detached, private and public, and equal parts self-reflective, self-involved, and self-less in their aim to connect with others.

Deconstructing weblogs, it is difficult to dismiss these fundamental characteristics, particularly because they coalesce to create a product that is deeply engaging and intimate. As a reader, I feel like I have met six new women. Each blog clearly conveyed each woman’s unique voice and offered a vivid peek into each woman’s life. The women’s posts invoked real emotions and I felt connected to each woman’s story; and I often felt waves of emotions I as read their blogs, becoming angry alongside them, annoyed with their endless complaints, or amused by their awkward encounters and humorous observations. However, my connection with these women is not reciprocal or personal, but one-sided. I do not know them outside the internet (they do not even know I exist), and what little I do know about them the women have self-censored.

Acknowledging blogging’s censored intimacy highlights that bloggers carefully craft online personas for their readers, either by omission, exaggeration or emphasis. Thus, despite feeling close to the women I only know what they chose to share. The women express multiple times that they are in charge of what they disclose, that the blogs are public, and that their posts have the power to shape the audience’s perception of them. A perfect example of this is when

Overdose writes with reservation, that she married her boyfriend of only a few months.

I know people are going to question it because I've only been in Korea since October, but this is why I haven't went public with it. I have a tendency to try and defend every decision I make when people question it and sometimes when they don't. But for this, I don't feel like defending it. (Overdose of Satisfaction)

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Her post dismantles the façade that the readers personally knows Overdose, and highlights that as followers there are aspects of her life that we will never know.

By default of omission blogs are partially inauthentic. However, a blog’s underlying secrecy does not override its intimacy and the reader rarely feels disconnected from the author.

Bloggers are able to develop interpersonal relationships with their readers through balancing privacy and intimacy. However, successfully cultivating a balance between public and private is more inherent in blogging, than a practiced skill. Since blogs, unlike diaries, are public an unavoidable negotiation of private and public is demanded from the author (McCullagh 2008).

Thus, a blogger is free to vent about hating their boss, like they would in a journal entry, but they do so with the knowledge that their boss might one day be a reader, so identifying details about their employer are kept out. Navigating this space of public and private leads each blogger to find a balance that suits their comfort level (McCullagh 2008), and through engaging in the process of blogging authors eventually find “a boundary between self and society that they feel comfortable with, yet at the same time they are able to interact socially with their readers,” and the social nature of blogging is what makes it unique (McCullagh 2008: 14).

Blogging is social (Miura and Yamashita 2007), and quite often resembles a conversation between the blogger and the reader, which engenders an interpersonal dynamic between the author and audience that is lost in traditional media used to analyze the gaze. Film, travel writing

(excluding correspondence), and photographs are all one-sided and are not produced with the underlying goal of social interaction. Blogging on the other hand provides the author with a

“social existence,” and blogging, like face-to-face friendships, eradicates feelings of alienation and loneliness. Thus, bloggers also view their followers as friends, and supportive, encouraging, and sympathetic followers come to embody emotional support systems. Moreover, as Miura and

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Yamashita (2007) argue the support that readers offer motivates the bloggers to continue posting, and ultimately makes them comfortable sharing their lives with strangers.

An author’s belief that her blog can be used as a safe form of self-expression also makes weblogs a powerful research tool. As a reader, like other followers, I became a “friend,” and as a researcher I was automatically granted an intimate picture of the blogger’s lives. Other social science research methods, such as interviews, case studies, and ethnographies require the researcher to form trusting relationships with their subjects before initiating research. However the bloggers’ trust, security, and comfort are imbedded in the blogs. Prior to, and independent, of my study the women made the decision as bloggers to share their experiences, and their comfort doing so is insured by the fact that they can control what they disclose free of external pressure.

My position as a researcher does not negatively influence the data- and this is ultimately aided by my use of content analysis an unobtrusive method.

Weblogs, however, are characterized by more than their social nature. Much like diaries or journals, blogs are self-reflective and offer the writer room for self-expression. Since all blogs in this study took the form of diary weblogs, I was given regular accounts of the women’s feelings, actions, and interpretations of each event as the women were living them. Conversely, if

I had conducted interviews my subjects would have been forced to recall experiences and much of what is captured in the blogs would have been lost. Moreover, writing regularly about their experiences helped the women debrief, question, analyze, and critically look at their time abroad.

The self-reflection that is required in writing a weblog post compels one to make sense of their emotions and encounters, and the women engage in this process constantly. They consistently attempt to place their experiences into a larger context, and frame their posts with references to larger social questions and issues, which ultimately generates multidimensional responses.

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Similar to participant observation, which would allow me to witness the events acting on my subjects, the women’s blog post provide detailed accounts of their interactions. However, unlike participant observation, the self-reflective nature of their posts privileges how each woman understands each event, and their thought processes typically engaged dominant discourse related to racism, sexism, and nationalism. Having access to how the women view these dominant discourses working in their lives was the most invaluable aspect of using weblogs to answer the main research question: how do the women perform the oppositional gaze, as a way to resist “dominant ways of knowing” constructing them in inferior opposition to the Japanese and Korean self. This is because the self-reflective nature of weblogs allowed me to explore the women’s thought processes as they navigated the gaze abroad.

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