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Conceptualizing Japanese Whiteness

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Conceptualizing Japanese Whiteness Conceptualizing Japanese Whiteness ____________________________________ A Thesis Presented to The Honors Tutorial College Ohio University _______________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation from the Honors Tutorial College with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Political Science ______________________________________ by Jason Akbar June 2010 Table of Contents Introduction 3 Theoretical Framework 7 Part I: Historical Background 18 Chapter I: The Birth of Japanese Whiteness 18 Part II: The Implications of Japanese Whiteness 38 Chapter II: Korean and Chinese Immigrants in Japan 39 Chapter III: Brazilians in Japan 54 Conclusions 65 References 69 2 Introduction Assimilation is often a key issue in the study of how ethnic minorities relate to the domestic people of their host country. When we think of immigrants, we often picture people from distant lands who move to a new place in search of a better future full of ripe opportunities. Every year, millions of people migrate across the world and find themselves in completely new environments. Little by little they adapt to the language, culture, and society of their new homes. Over time, these people adopt a new identity and eventually may even be naturalized as citizens in the country where they now reside. While this image of immigration may seem overly simplified, it is hard to deny that many Americans may share this view. In fact, is this not the ‘American Dream’ speech that is indoctrinated into our minds from an early age? Countless stories of penny‐less European immigrants who made rags‐to‐riches success in the early 20th century are reminders of this maxim. These stories serve as a testament to the American ideology that regardless of your religion, gender, class, or the color of your skin, you shall be welcomed into society and be given citizenship and with it a voice. As benevolent as this creed may sound, it operates on one small, yet highly intrinsic principle: assimilation. The trade‐off for being allowed to reap the benefits of citizenship is that immigrants must be willing to assimilate. Without the assimilation of language, culture, and identity, it becomes difficult for 3 domestic Americans to accept newly initiated Americans. This seems like a relatively small price to pay considering the benefits of becoming a citizen. However, this widely accepted notion presupposes that the host country welcomes immigrants with open arms. But what happens when a nation does not welcome immigrants with such hospitality? What about nations that place preference on the racial majority rather than the minority? Do some nations have institutionalized barriers that prevent ethnic minorities from assimilating? * * * Ware­ware nihonjin, “We Japanese,” is an expression often used by Japanese people to preface statements related to their culture and identity. But just who are these nihonjin? As a concept, what it means to be Japanese has been refined over centuries of tradition. Words like washiki, “Japanese‐style” and yamato­damashi, “Japanese‐spirit,” conjure images of a collective cultural identity. In previous centuries of Japanese history, understanding the Japanese identity may have been easier. Due to self‐imposed policies of isolation, known as sakoku, Japan was able to keep its borders closed for over two hundred years. As a result, international influence on Japanese society was minimal, and a homogenous Japanese society was kept intact. Japanese isolation could very well have continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries if not for the forcing open of its borders by the U.S. Navy in the early 1850s. Due to this foreign pressure, Japanese isolationism ended, and Japan 4 found itself on the path to internationalization. Over the next fifty years Japan’s interactions with the rest of the world continued to increase. By the end of the 19th century, Japan was a fully industrialized nation that even rivaled some Western powers. During the first few decades of the 20th century, Japan put its industrial power to use as it evolved into a dominant imperial power in Asia. Japanese imperialism resulted in cultural influence throughout East and South‐East Asia. Conversely, Japan itself was also influenced by the hundreds of thousands of laborers who were pressed into service in Japan during the war. After World War II, Japan found itself under the influence of a foreign occupier. For seven years, the U.S. occupation forces were in charge of reconstructing and reshaping Japan. The first step was the promulgation of a completely new, U.S. authored, Japanese Constitution. The document, presented to the people in 1947, was a symbol of a new, democratic, and peaceful Japan. For the first time in Japan’s history, all Japanese citizens were given rights and freedoms. Japanese internationalization brought changes to Japan on several levels. On one hand, the implementation of a democratic constitution deconstructed Japan’s former monarchic system. Furthermore, internationalization brought many new peoples, cultures, and ideologies into a place that was traditionally homogenous. 5 Currently, there are approximately 2.1 million foreign residents in Japan. Out of a population of about 127 million, foreigners account for roughly 1.5 percent. The three largest ethnic groups in Japan are Koreans (North and South), Chinese (mainland and Taiwanese), and Brazilians. According to a census conducted by the Japanese government in 2007, they represent around twenty‐ eight, twenty‐seven, and fourteen percent, respectively, of the total foreign resident population. Despite all the foreign influence that Japan has experienced over the past century and half, Japanese identity still remains highly protected. Phrases like ware­ware nihonjin and washiki are still commonly used in reference to characteristics about Japanese identity. What is important to understand here is that Japanese people use these phrases to distinguish a clear divide between what is Japanese and what is not, or moreover, who is Japanese and who is not; or as will be elaborated below, who is ‘white’ and who is not. This divide has created friction between those who are nationals and those who are foreigners, and a system of exclusion and discrimination has become institutionalized. * * * 6 Theoretical Framework Critical Race Theory (CRT) will serve as the primary basis for my analysis for understanding racial discrimination and its source in Japanese society. Through its application, I will be not only proposing, but also supporting the notion that relations with ethnic minorities are based on a racial contract with the ‘white’ signatories being Japanese nationals. In addition to my analysis, I will also be researching the implications of the Japanese system and its effect on minorities groups. Moreover, through my research I will show that Japanese society, like Western societies, is founded on a racial contract, which in turn governs relations between the majority race and minority races. From this assessment, I will be going as far as to say that Japanese people themselves are whites, and that the imposition of their whiteness has relegated the non‐whites of their society to the periphery; ignoring their voice and their needs. From a theoretical standpoint, approaching the system of institutionalized discrimination in Japan is difficult. While numerous texts that describe the social status of different ethnic minorities exist, these works are primarily descriptive of a system that is already in play. However, deconstructing the system to analyze and understand how such a relationship developed proves more difficult. 7 Due to a lack of theoretical analysis on this subject and the increase in friction between the majority and minority, it seems that it has become necessary to fundamentally break down this system and identify its source. In the context of Japan, the application of CRT is insightful because it can be applied to illustrate how racial discrimination has become fused into the social, political, and economic systems. Discrimination is no longer solely the disdain that different races feel towards each other; rather, it is the implementation of a hierarchical power structure that differentiates between the insiders and outsiders in a society based on race. In Western societies, CRT refers to the subjugation of one racial group by another as Whiteness. Charles Mills’, The Racial Contract addresses whiteness in the context of American society. According to Mills, a racial contract is “that set of formal or informal agreements or meta‐agreements between the members of one subset of humans…designated by (shifting) “racial” (phenotypical/ genealogical/ cultural) criteria C1, C2, C3…as “white” and coextensive with the class of full persons, to categorize the remaining subset of humans as “nonwhite” and of a different and inferior moral status, subpersons, so that they have a subordinate civil standing in the white or white‐ruled polities the whites either already inhabit or establish or in transactions as aliens with these polities, and the moral and juridical rules normally regulating the behavior of whites in their dealings with one another either do not apply at all in dealings with nonwhites or apply only in a qualified form,”(Mills, 1997,11). Here, Mills’ terminology is key because he uses the word ‘contract’ to underscore the fact that racial discrimination is not a natural occurrence, rather, it is intentionally institutionalized by the people of the majority class. Furthermore, white privilege is further protected through the concept of the epistemology of 8 ignorance. Mills states that racism in our society is able to survive due to widespread “white misunderstanding, misperceptions, evasion, and self‐ deception on matters related to race.” These elements are pivotal in the Racial Contract, “which requires a certain schedule of structured blindnesses and opacities in order to establish and maintain the white polity,” (Mills, 1997,19). Additionally, the Racial Contract system privileges the white class above other racial classes, which naturally promotes racism through ideas of superiority and the organization of power.
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