| Chapter 1: | Reconsiderations of Race, Ethnicity, and Identity: Transnational Migrants in Post–World War II Global Society |
Yugoslavia, and a “race” categorization—black identity—has been used to foster solidarity among those of African heritage. Regardless of what scholars have been arguing, race and ethnicity have remained two of the most ambiguous and contested terms in the social sciences.
Besides giving particular ethnographic accounts and descriptions, in this volume we also focus on Japanese and Nikkei transnational migrants in a global world as a means to study the nature of these terms, especially ethnicity. When race and ethnicity are discussed, Japanese are not typically the first group of people to come to mind. However, I suggest that because of their mediating status, the Japanese actually are an interesting case study. For example, although Japanese have been categorizedas “Asian,” “Yellow,” “Pacific Islander,” or “Oriental” in North America, in South Africa Japanese were labeled as “Honorary Whites” or “Honorary Europeans” during the apartheid period in the 1960s (Kawasaki 2001, 54). Since the 1980s, Japanese, as well as some other Asians, were also called “Honorary Whites” even in North America, often because of their “model minority” status. These attributions are related to the definitions of both terms—race and ethnicity—and are not only based on physical characteristics or national heritage but also economics and politics.
Furthermore, in modern history, the Japanese have also tried to separate themselves from other Asians or East Asians, regarding themselves as equal to, or equivalent to, Westerners. These feelings contributed to Japanese nationalism and provided an excuse for the invasion and colonization of several Asian nations in the early 1900s (e.g., Beasley 1991; Guelgher 2006; Kang 2005; Ohno 2006). Even today it is often said that Japanese treat Asians more harshly than white people—whether they are casual visitors or long-term residents (e.g., Ryang 2005). While the Japanese are keen to separate themselves from other Asians, some Nikkei also try to separate themselves from Japanese (see Millie Creighton, chapter 6 in this volume).
Why do Nikkei try to see themselves as different from Japanese from Japan? “What is Japanese?” “What is Nikkei?” “What is race?” “What is ethnicity?” By looking at “Japanese-ness” and “Nikkei-ness” as a case study, we intend to broaden understandings of the nature of ethnicity and race. In this chapter, I will reconsider a few notions regarding ethnicity