Zainichi (Koreans in Japan): Diasporic Nationalism and Postcolonial Identity
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Zainichi (Koreans in Japan): Diasporic Nationalism and Postcolonial Identity John Lie Published in association with University of California Press Description: This book traces the origins and transformations of a people—the Zainichi, migrants from the Korean peninsula to Japan and their descendants. Using a wide range of arguments and evidence—historical and comparative, political and social, literary and pop-cultural—John Lie reveals the social and historical conditions that gave rise to Zainichi identity, while simultaneously demonstrating its complex, fractured, even ephemeral nature. Key to understanding Zainichi ideology are, for Lie, the nationalist yearnings it expressed from a condition of diaspora and discrimination. Lie’s nuanced treatment acknowledges both the tragic and triumphant qualities embedded in this formulation, while resisting the essentialism it implies. Rather, he embraces the vicissitudes of the lived experience of Koreans in Japan, shedding light on the vexing topics of diaspora, migration, identity, and group formation. Author: John Lie is Class of 1959 Professor of Sociology and Dean of International and Area Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Zainichi (Koreans in Japan) UUC-Lie-revises.inddC-Lie-revises.indd i 88/27/2008/27/2008 11:12:27:12:27 PPMM UUC-Lie-revises.inddC-Lie-revises.indd iiii 88/27/2008/27/2008 11:12:44:12:44 PPMM Zainichi (Koreans in Japan) Diasporic Nationalism and Postcolonial Identity John Lie Global, Area, and International Archive University of California Press Berkeley los Angeles London UUC-Lie-revises.inddC-Lie-revises.indd iiiiii 88/27/2008/27/2008 11:12:45:12:45 PPMM Frontispiece: Y. David Chung, Satisfaction (detail), 1993, graphite and watercolor. The Global, Area, and International Archive (GAIA) is an initiative of International and Area Studies, University of California, Berkeley, in partnership with the University of California Press, the California Digital Library, and international research programs across the UC system. GAIA volumes, which are published in both print and open- access digital editions, represent the best traditions of regional studies, reconfigured through fresh global, transnational, and thematic perspectives. University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2008 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lie, John. Zainichi (Koreans in Japan) : diasporic nationalism and postcolonial identity / John Lie. p. cm. — (Global, area, and international archive) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn : 978-0-520-25820-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Koreans — Japan. 2. Japan — Ethnic relations. I. Title. DS832.7.K6L54 2008 305.895’7052 — dc22 2008019409 Manufactured in the United States of America 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z r 39.48 – 1992 ( 1997) (Permanence of Paper). UUC-Lie-revises.inddC-Lie-revises.indd iivv 88/27/2008/27/2008 11:12:46:12:46 PPMM For Charis and Charlotte UUC-Lie-revises.inddC-Lie-revises.indd v 88/27/2008/27/2008 11:12:46:12:46 PPMM UUC-Lie-revises.inddC-Lie-revises.indd vvii 88/27/2008/27/2008 11:12:46:12:46 PPMM Contents Preface ix 1. Silence 1 2. Exile 32 3. Cunning 66 4. Recognition 97 5. Reconciliation 133 6. Reflections 168 References 195 Index 219 UUC-Lie-revises.inddC-Lie-revises.indd vviiii 88/27/2008/27/2008 11:12:46:12:46 PPMM UUC-Lie-revises.inddC-Lie-revises.indd vviiiiii 88/27/2008/27/2008 11:12:46:12:46 PPMM Preface Human beings may very well have a nesting instinct — a deep desire to settle down — but they have also uprooted themselves out of necessity or volition. These two impulses clashed mightily in the twentieth century. Governments frequently sought to enhance allegiance by fostering nation- alism — with its attendant beliefs in shared genealogy and geography, his- tory, and culture — but they also deployed soldiers and banished dissidents. Even as nationalism became a potent political ideology and at times a redemptive religion, people deracinated themselves in order to avoid dan- ger, pursue profi t, seek adventure, or follow kin. Korean nationalism fl our- ished when its largely rural population was profoundly and repeatedly unsettled by the looming threat of colonial subjection, the collapse of a long-lasting dynasty, the nascent but turbulent development of capitalist industrialization, the discipline and violence of Japanese colonialism, the murder and mayhem of a fratricidal war and the ensuing division of the putative homeland, and the consequent churnings of urbanization and modernization. Perhaps it is not surprising that people who live in inter- esting times should express heartfelt beliefs in their solidarity born of blood and soil, custom and tradition. Contradictory to the core, to be sure, but somehow complementary are the reality of change and difference and the ideology of stasis and commonality. This book focuses on a population (Koreans in Japan) and delineates the birth and transformation of a peoplehood identity (Zainichi). It is neither a comprehensive history of the Korean minority in Japan nor a systematic study of ethnogenesis and ethnic relations (there exist, even in English, many books on these topics: see for instance Mitchell 1967, Lee and De Vos 1981, Weiner 1989, Ryang 1997, Hicks 1998, Lie 2001, Chapman 2008, Ryang and Lie 2008). Instead, I stress the instability and complexity of a ix UUC-Lie-revises.inddC-Lie-revises.indd iixx 88/27/2008/27/2008 11:12:46:12:46 PPMM x / Preface postcolonial, diasporic identity in Japan called Zainichi, the literal transla- tion of which would be “residing in Japan,” with an inevitable inflection on its impermanence. One may very well be Zainichi Chinese or Zainichi American, but the term refers almost always — by ethnic Japanese and eth- nic Koreans alike — to a population of colonial-era migrants from the Korean peninsula that settled in the Japanese archipelago and their descendants. Nationalist discourse often asserts the chasm between Korea and Japan and the essential homogeneity of each population. This line of thinking minimizes or ignores connections, differences, and changes; thus there are Japanese in Japan and Koreans in Korea, but not Koreans in Japan or Japanese in Korea except as short-term sojourners. Ontologically speaking, Zainichi should somehow not exist. Reality is more complicated, confus- ing, confounding. Consider only the basic facts of nationality and name. During the colonial period (1910 – 45), Koreans living on both the Japanese archipelago and the Korean peninsula were Japanese imperial subjects. In spite of colonial racism, Japanese law and official discourse decreed ethnic Koreans as Japanese nationals and the Emperor’s children. The 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty restored Japanese sovereignty but rescinded Japanese citizenship for ethnic Koreans remaining in Japan. Overnight, imperial subjects became resident foreigners; Japanese citizens became Koreans [Chösenjin] when there was no Korea, only two warring states claiming the mantle of Korea. By the end of the Korean War in 1953, the political division in the pen- insula rendered difficult what in English is an uncomplicated assertion of being “Korean.” Partisan politics, with more than an innuendo of racial discrimination, plagued the seemingly simple act of appellation. In Japan, the very name Korea became contested: Chösen — the common colonial- era appellation — came to refer to North Korea (Kita Chösen for North Korea, and Chösenjin for Koreans affiliated with North Korea). Simultaneously, Chösen — inflected by both colonial-era domination and postwar anticommunism — was a racial epithet. In the 1950s, the term for ethnic Koreans in Japan was Zainichi Chösenjin, reflecting in part the population’s overwhelming allegiance to North Korea (often called the “Republic” [Kyöwakoku]). Later, waning allegiance to the North, espe- cially after the 1965 Normalization Treaty between Japan and South Korea, required an explicit reference to the divided Korea: Kankoku was the pre- ferred South Korean term for (South) Korea and Kankokujin for Koreans affiliated with South Korea. Hence, the normative nomenclature in the 1970s and 1980s for the totality of ethnic Koreans in Japan was the rather cumbersome Zainichi Kankoku Chösenjin [resident South Koreans and UUC-Lie-revises.inddC-Lie-revises.indd x 88/27/2008/27/2008 11:12:46:12:46 PPMM Preface / xi North Koreans in Japan] — though those strongly allied with one of the two Koreas would prefer either Zainichi Kankokujin or Zainichi Chösenjin. When NHK — Japan’s national broadcasting service — aired a course on the Korean language in 1984, it avoided both renditions in Japanese [Chösengo or Kankokugo] and instead opted for the name of the script (han’gul) (Ömura 2003:267 – 84). By the 1980s, some used the English term “Korean” to neutralize the split between the two Koreas — Zainichi Korians [resident Koreans in Japan] (Önuma 2004:iv – v). Others preferred the Sinified equiv- alent, Zainichi Kanjin (Yoon 1992:204). The ideology of Japanese cultural and ethnic homogeneity had effectively barred the plausibility in Japan of the term Korean Japanese [Kankokukei or Chösenkei Nihonjin, or Nihonseki Chösenjin or Kankokujin or Korian] (cf. Kishida 1999:61 – 62; Kim Yondal 2003b:21 – 23). By 1995, however, a popular Zainichi singer, Arai Eiichi, would identify himself as “Korean Japanese” in his autobio- graphical song, “Chonhä e no michi” (The road to Chonhä). No wonder most people were confused (Miyauchi 1999), even though shifts of ethnic appellation are generic, as we can see in the serially acceptable terms Colored, Negro, Black, and African American in the twentieth-century United States.