The Social Identity of African Americans Living in Japan

This paper is adapted from my graduate thesis. It may take some time to get through this text because of it’s length and complexity but I assure you it’s worth reading!

On a balmy September morning as we walk toward the Tamagawa River that separates Kawasaki City from Tokyo, I glance nervously at my husband who returns my concerned look with a reassuring smile. I feel the increasing pressure of little fingers gripping my hand as we approach Furuichiba Yochien and I look down to see my five-year-old son, Stephen Paul’s frightened brown eyes widen with nervous anticipation of his first day attending an all-Japanese kindergarten. As I reach to hug him, admiring his bright yellow boshi (hat) and traditional blue smock worn by all kindergartners in the Kanagawa prefecture, I remind him of how much fun he is going to have meeting new friends and learning to speak the Japanese language. My husband tells a joke that makes my son laugh and eases my anxiety and yet I still have many questions:

Will the Japanese children accept my handsome, kind-hearted son, or will he become the object of ridicule? Will his sensei (teacher) take the time to nurture him and to help him learn the Japanese language or will he be cast aside because he is a brown-skinned outsider? And what will the Japanese teachers and parents expect of my husband and me? Will they include us in the various social programs we were told about or will they keep us at arm’s length because of the language and cultural barriers?

Still more questions come to mind as we step through the gates of the kindergarten though my thoughts slowly begin to shift from those of trepidation to delight as we are greeted warmly by members of the teaching staff. They bow and welcome us, inviting Stephen Paul to meet the other children. My husband and I smile at each other as we kiss our son goodbye before he is whisked away into a circle of curious kindergartners. Feeling pleased but still uncertain, we are approached by several parents who introduce themselves. These parents assure us through a translator that our son will be very happy at Furuichiba while others stand back observing our gestures and our behavior. Perhaps they are wondering if we are anything like the African Americans they have seen on television. Perhaps they do not know what to make of this young, African American family at all.

Upon being sized up by the Japanese families and doing our share of sizing up, I sensed that we were embarking on a cultural journey that would have far-reaching social and cultural implications. How our son would fare from this experience was our main concern. However, we felt confident, given his above-average intellectual capacity, his out-going personality, and the support he receives from his family, that our decision to enroll him in a Japanese kindergarten was a solid decision — one that would affect each of us in a myriad of positive ways.

Having lived in other countries prior to our arrival in Japan we had some sense of what to expect as outsiders in a foreign land. However, living in Japan, amidst the illusion of homogeneity where dark foreigners are treated sometimes with adoration, sometimes with disdain, and often with fear, I sensed that our public displays of concern and affection toward our son ran counter to preconceived views Japanese held about African Americans. And while we stood in opposition to the stereotypical lens through which African Americans are often viewed, I have witnessed the erosion of these preconceived views as we began to open our home and our hearts to the Japanese families we call friends and neighbors. If my family through subtle means began to unravel some of the mysticism and perceived beliefs the Japanese held about African Americans, how do thousands of other African Americans living in postmodern Japan unconsciously serve as agents of change? How does our presence work to debunk false ideologies and stereotypes as we search for our own sense of self in a sometimes volatile society?

This paper will examine the ways in which African Americans 1) are viewed within conflicting racial ideologies, 2) act as agents for the deconstruction of stereotypes created through age-old racism and discrimination adopted from White Western traditions and values and 3) create their own identity, separate and distinct from the labels placed upon them by Japanese society. Thus, I would argue that African Americans living in postmodern Japan find themselves in a unique position of constructing social identities within opposing views of kokujin, or black foreigners. These opposing views include on the one hand, traditional, racist ideology that define blacks as inferior and primitive, equating blackness with sexual and athletic prowess, disease, and violence.[i] On the other hand is the somewhat fanatical adoration of African Americans by Japanese youth in light of the kokujin bomu (black boom) or kokujin karucha bomu (black culture boom).

Images of racial categories projected in Japan are associated with images of self-identity. These images are part of the process through which Japaneseness is constructed as normative, in contrast to foreigners who represent universal ‘Otherness’. The imagination of Japaneseness is strongly tied to notions of uchi and soto, inside and outside. Uchi defines the boundary of an inside group or space; that is, a primary locus of membership and belongingness. Although interacting networks of relationships in Japan are also conceptualized in uchi/soto terms, such that the indexical framework of uchi and soto is situational and shifting, there is a general sense that all of Japan creates an uchi, a national inside boundary of affiliation, in contrast to everything that is soto or outside of Japan.[ii]

While all foreigners are considered outsiders and referred to as gaijin, which literally means ‘outside person,’ the term gaijin is generally relegated to white foreigners who are considered ‘pure gaijin’ or ‘true gaijin’.[iii] In her analysis of labels attached to foreigners in Japan, Creighton explains:

Research by Manabe et al. (1989) reveals that the Japanese tend to use the word gaijin only for Whites, while the term gaikokujin (person from an outside country) is used for Blacks and non-Japanese Asians. Blacks are also called kokujin, while other Asians are called Ajiajin, or referred to by their country of origin (i.e Chugokujin for a Chinese person).[iv]

The idea of considering whites pure or true foreigners indicates Japanese association of “whiteness” as normative and acceptable, even prescriptive.

Examining popular culture through the images of foreigners in Japanese advertising, it is not hard to see how “whiteness” reflects an elusive standard that the Japanese have been eager to commodify and emulate. Japanese advertisements do not emphasize providing information about products, but instead have an essentially symbolic focus. Images of foreigners appeal to Japanese interest in foreign people and foreign places, but they also fit into the Japanese advertising industry’s offerings of ‘fantasy excursions.’

M. Creighton, in her analysis of Japan’s mood advertising illustrates:

Many Japanese advertisements contain little information about products or persuasive arguments, providing instead pleasant or unusual imagery and playful excursions into a fantasy world. Images of foreigners become fantasy vignettes, representation of exoticism, visual quotations of Otherness, while foreigners are rendered misemono, things to look at, and not quite real.[v]

White Westerners have long been the standard of beauty and progress in Japan. According to Russell, “television and print ads typically portray…whites in quiet, urbane repose in settings that are intended to reflect Western sophistication, affluence and family values.”[vi] The idea that “whiteness” sets the normative standards Japanese have long admired and worked hard to achieve is supported by the change in the style of dress in Japan from the kimono as everyday clothing to yofuku, or ‘Western-style clothing’ in post-war Japan. This shift in cultural values stems back to the Meiji era (1868-1912) when white Westerners became the foremost outsiders in relation to whom the Japanese dialectically defined self. The Meiji era, which marked Japan’s reopening to the outside world after two and a half centuries of self-enforced isolation, was characterized by intense curiosity about the West combined with a strong consciousness of Western power, technological expertise and economic dominance.[vii]

The international economic and political dominance exemplified by white Western power on the one hand served as the standard Japan sought to emulate. On the other hand, this power challenged Japan’s own cultural identity while simultaneously safeguarding this identity because no matter how hard Japanese sought to catch up with the West, they still embodied soto Others. This Western representation of Otherness as seen in Japanese advertising provides an oppositional contrast constructed and perpetuated to reinforce Japanese self-identity. And while this self-identity is ultimately made up of many selves the Japanese protect the ideological force that tells the outside world they are a homogenous, unified self. Creighton explains:

The prevalent image statements surrounding foreigners in Japanese advertisements serve not only to define Japanese identity traits (through oppositionality), but ultimately to project heterogeneity onto the outside world, reaffirming Japan’s self-assertion of homogeneity, while symbolically negating diversity within Japanese society.[viii]

If the Japanese view of the white other is the standard by which they maintain their self-identity, it is also the standard by which other foreigners, particularly black foreigners, are psychologically processed and socially perceived. In his analysis of the social perception of skin color in Japan, Wagatsuma points out that Japanese have long associated the color ‘white’ with purity and positive traits, while ‘black’ has symbolized that which is ugly and impure.

When something becomes dirty and smeared, it gets black. White skin in our minds symbolizes purity and cleanliness. Then by an association, black skin is the opposite of purity and cleanliness… Black skin after all suggests something unclean. It is not the natural state of things.[ix]

While white others primarily occupy a space in Japanese society that has positive values attached, black others have traditionally represented that which is negative.

An elderly Japanese woman interviewed in Regge Life’s documentary Struggles and Success: The African American Experience in Japan corroborated this view of blacks. When asked her opinion of African Americans she matter-of-factly replied, “What we know from the news is that African-Americans do bad things so our image is that they are bad.” Another Japanese interviewee, a middle-aged male, responded to the same question, asserting firmly, “We don’t really want them to come here.” These views are not uncommon among many older Japanese who primarily construct their images of African-Americans from news media and film representations, both of which are controlled by white power brokers. John Russell’s discourse supports this statement, asserting:

…White producers, publishers, and newspaper editors still decide which black realities are to be consumed by the American public, which aspects of the black experience are to be inspected, discussed, and ultimately transmitted abroad…Blacks do not control the means of their representation.[x]

As African American residents of Japan, my family has experienced the ill effects of the pervasive stereotypes and negative values placed on black Others. Not a day goes by that my presence, as I run along the Tamagawa River, does not cause an older Japanese man to stare at me, with his mouth open wide with disbelief, almost peddling his bicycle off the road. It is also very rare for my husband to be on the train and not have an older woman grab her belongings, giving up her comfortable seat to avoid sitting next to a tall, black man. While it can be argued that Japanese reactions to our dark skin may be the result of factors other than negative ideologies, the subtle discrimination African Americans experience on a daily basis in the United States heightens our awareness of this social phenomenon making the overt discrimination we face in Japan easily discernible yet no less painful.

Analyzing a modest sample of African American films that make their way into the programming lineup of Japan’s satellite broadcasting services and onto video store shelves further illustrates the ways in which negative representations of blacks work to create an even wider cultural divide. In the summer of 1997, six months after the introduction of PerfecTV, Japan’s first digital satellite broadcasting service reaching approximately 100,000 households in Tokyo and surrounding areas[xi], the movies featuring African Americans were overwhelmingly violent, many depicting gang-related themes. PerfecTV debuted films such as “Colors,” “Boys in the Hood,” “Menace 2 Society,” and “Juice,” (with Japanese subtitles) all of which exhibit inner-city violence between young African American men and women in opposing gangs. Bringing these types of movies to an audience with very little or no understanding of African American culture has broad social significance for African Americans living in Japan. I would argue that the Japanese who view “whiteness” as the cultural standard of beauty and progress see these violent, often misogynistic films (disseminated by the white American film industry) and accept the messages of frustration, hopelessness, and despair as the true definition of blackness in America. Thus, these films substantiate the images of urban violence reported by the news media, making the issue of violence in America an overwhelmingly black phenomenon and giving Japanese cause to fear, misunderstand, and stereotype African Americans that much more.

Ironically, these films are understood by many youth of Japan in a very different context. In their desire to embrace what they consider the ‘black culture boom,’ these young men and women view these films, with their glaring representations of black life and auditory assault of loud hip-hop music, as cultural symbolism that begs to be imitated. It is not my position that Japanese youth imitate the violence depicted in the films. I argue instead that Japanese youth look to these films for cues on what it means to be black in terms of style, dress, and attitude. By conflating the depiction of African Americans in these films, with similar images in popular music videos, and in sports and entertainment, Japanese youth are able to create and commodify their own definition of African American culture. This ‘creation’ can be seen walking down the streets of Shibuya or Harajuku in the form of dreadlocks and goatees or “wafferu” (waffle) hair and dark tans.

Michael Zielenziger, whose column appears in The Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City, Utah, summarized Japanese fascination with black culture:

From dance parties in Roppongi to cutting-edge videos on television, from rising demand for porkpie hats to a rush in ‘gangsta’ fashion, a new focus on African American music and culture is giving voice to a strain of rebelliousness in young Japanese, confronting the most serious economic stagnation in 50 years… Suddenly black is beautiful for some of the trendiest youth.[xii]

Some Japanese youth have specific reasons for embracing black culture. “It’s a way of telling people you don’t want to be part of the large corporate lifestyle. A lot of people in their 20’s are not working at old-fashioned companies, so they get into black music and the hip-hop dancing, getting frizzy hair or an Afro haircut,” said Minako Suzuki, a black culture enthusiast interviewed in Zielenziger’s article. Other trendy youth embrace the black culture boom because they consider it kako-ii (cool).

Sonya C. Vann, writer and de facto president of GirlTalk, a social organization of black women in Japan boasting a membership of over 250 women, interviewed 20 young Japanese men for an article examining hip-hop culture in Japan. Each of these dreadlocked young men declared to Vann their undying loyalty to black culture and the hip-hop genre because of their desire to ‘be like black DJ’s (disc jockeys) from New York.’ One respondent, Ginji “G.T.” Setsumasa of Setagaya, explained to Vann, “I love everything about black culture that’s why I dress like this and wear my hair like this. For me, it’s not a fad it’s a way of life. I want to be like black D.J.’s from New York who come to Japan to spin records. They are what it means to be kako-ii.”[xiii]

There is little debate that ‘being cool’ is an important concept among many Japanese as well as Western teenagers and young adults. However, I find it problematic that Japanese youth embrace, with such enthusiasm, their perception of African American culture without really knowing or understanding what it is they are embracing (and sadder still, what they are not embracing). For these young people, the totality of African American culture is the black ‘gangsta’ they see killing other blacks in violent films, the tall black basketball player they see dunking a basketball, and the black entertainer they see dancing in music videos. While the international success of African American athletes and entertainers is cause for celebration, those who decide which black realities are to be transmitted abroad, and the Japanese who commodify these black images ultimately leave no room for images of African Americans whose everyday lives are not that different from their own.

Essentially, Japanese construction of African American images is often like a double-edged sword with two contrasting views. On the one hand, African Americans are scorned by some Japanese. On the other hand, African Americans are adored but misunderstood by others. This is the paradox for African-Americans living in Japan. J.R. Dash, freelance editor and resident of Yokohama, expressed his concern about the stigmatized identities of African Americans in Japan, “If the exposure the Japanese have to us are going to be what we deem as negative then the Japanese can only go on what they have been told. So in that right we are here as ambassadors. We have to make sure we exemplify the positives and not the negatives.”[xiv]

Many African American residents of Japan often feel trapped between the two contrasting views held by the Japanese, feeling that neither view accurately depicts the average, hard-working African American. The stereotypes that serve as defining mechanisms for the Japanese are the very stereotypes African Americans work hard to eliminate, creating instead more positive images that will foster a greater sense of respect, and understanding.

Last fall, my husband, son, and I walked past a group of Japanese teenage boys in Shinjuku. They were playing loud rap music and attempting to impress passers-by with their break dance routines. Upon hearing the familiar rap music, Stephen Paul stopped to watch the boys, laughing at their attempts to imitate African American street dancers. The Japanese boys began to encourage my son to participate in their dance routine at which time I pulled him away from the crowd. Stephen Paul could not understand why I did not let him join the fun of break dancing with the teenage boys. He surmised that Mom did not want him to have any fun. I could not make his young mind understand that as an African American male, his participation in a seemingly innocent public act served as reinforcement of false stereotypes for the young Japanese boys, while validating their re-creation of African American culture as they understand it. Not all African Americans break dance.

The cultural appropriation of blackness in Japan cannot be defined simply as the consumption of African American images filtered through white Western discourse. John Russell explains how black images are shaped in Japanese society:

To say that American media images shape the social construction of blackness in Japan (and elsewhere) is not, however, to suggest that Japanese are merely passive consumers. Japanese not only consume these images, but also reproduce them within the context of their own national obsessions.[xv]

Russell, in his narrative “Consuming Passions: Spectacle, Self-Transformation, and the Commodification of Blackness in Japan” writes about popular discourse in Japan by authors such as Ieda Shoko in her journalistic expose, “Women Who Flock to My Black Skin,” and Yamada Eimi’s novel “Beddotaimu Aizu” (Bedtime Eyes). In his analysis, Russell argues:

Contemporary Japanese discourse reduces the Black Other to a mute object of the lingering gaze, desire, and dread. These narrative privilege discourse about blacks while effectively precluding any dialogue since the black is perceived as already known. In silencing the Black Other, the speaker reasserts the very racial boundaries she boasts of transgressing. Pleasure is derived not from the act of discovery of the Other but from the ability to elicit “self-exposure” in which the Self is exposed – not to the Other – but to itself through orgasmic epiphany.[xvi]

Russell’s argument is centered on the conspicuous consumption of blackness, the most salient of which fetishizes black male sexuality. While Russell makes a solid case for his argument that “contemporary discourse presents blacks, in particular African American males, as desired (if not completely desirable) objects of sexual consumption,”[xvii] I tend to disagree with the extent to which this sexual mystification of black men in popular Japanese discourse is translated in contemporary society through the commercialization and commodification of blackness. In his essay, Russell explains, “…Black men in Japan have become the object of libidinous Japanese females, from roving teenage high-school students and OL’s (“office ladies”) to adulterous middle- aged housewives and prowling mother-daughter teams.”[xviii] Russell’s essay contains multifarious examples of narratives in which Japanese females pursue black lovers as a way of transgressing sexual and racial boundaries to bring about self-discovery in a society they find repressive and dissatisfying. Russell’s focus on the sexual narratives and his theory that Japanese consumption of blackness is almost entirely sexual in nature leads his audience to believe that fetishism of African American male sexuality in Japan is as pervasive as it is perverse. In fact, while some images of African Americans in Japanese advertising are used to exploit black male sexuality, the overwhelming majority of ads that exhibit black images (other than those of entertainers) tend to be highly caricatured, comic, low-class, or foolish figures.

John Dower, an MIT historian featured in Regge Life’s documentary substantiates the image of blacks in contrast to the image of whites in Japan asserting, “People of power and prestige tend to be whiter and you showed lower status by showing dark people.”[xix] Further, Russell devotes a total of one paragraph to black women in his essay identifying the lack of appreciation and recognition of black female beauty beyond stereotypes that cast them in the role of whores and entertainers. The imagery of black women in Japanese society briefly depicted in Russell’s work remains constant with exploitative representations of black women filtered through media and film. However, I find Russell’s focus on the discourse on Japanese sexual fetishism of African American men to the near exclusion of discourse on black women problematic because it mirrors the overarching tendency to silence the black voice in general and the black female voice in particular within the Japanese/African American stratum.

As an African American woman living in Japan, I have discovered a strong, black female voice that works to deconstruct popular perceptions of African American women. This positive voice, which has been all but silenced by the white media and by contemporary Japanese society, is manifest through the collective identity of African American women in an organization called GirlTalk. GirlTalk was established in Japan in the early 1990’s by a small group of Black women in search of refuge from the pressure of being viewed as soto Others and from racial stereotypes they encounter in Japan. The organization, now functioning as a social and educational network for over 250 women throughout Japan, creates opportunities for African American women to share ideas and information ranging from where to find good English-speaking doctors to ways to cope with overt discrimination in Japanese society.

A strict departure from the images of Black women often transmitted through Western media and film, members of GirlTalk make up an impressive roster of professionals. From attorneys to writers; from Japanese classical dancers to educators; from securities brokers to mothers who stay at home to raise their children, these African American women come to Japan for a myriad of reasons. Some of the women are married to Japanese men and others travel to Japan as corporate professionals working in the Japan offices of America’s largest corporations. And yet they share a common bond in their need to be part of a collective consciousness that serves as a means of empowerment while embracing each member’s individuality. Sonya C. Vann, president of GirlTalk, describes the role the organization plays in the lives of its members: “GirlTalk is a group that allows African American women to let their hair down. It gets frustrating being constantly reminded that you are an outsider in Japanese society. We get together to talk, laugh and support each other in our commonalties and our differences.”[xx]

African American women, claiming the status of double minority in America are often devalued and dehumanized in many aspects of their personal and professional lives, working twice as hard for half the recognition and respect. Many leave the United States in search of a temporary reprieve from the harsh realities of being a Black women in America. Others leave in search of understanding their sense of self and their place in the world. Traveling to Japan, whether with a partner or alone often satisfies the desire to seize opportunities for personal and professional growth and fulfillment that may otherwise never come within the confines of America’s borders. Though some African American women have preconceived ideas of what life as a Black foreigner is like in Japan, many are shocked to learn the extent to which Japanese do not understand and subsequently fear and/or disrespect Black foreigners.

“Riding the Ginza line on my way home from work, I seem to always attract Japanese businessmen who let their inhibitions slip away with each glass of saki or beer. Perhaps in a drunken stupor they mistake me for a slut or prostitute because I have had to confront many Japanese men as they try to grope me or discreetly touch my breast on a crowded train,” admitted Vann.[xxi]

Other members of GirlTalk have shared similar stories of sexual misconduct by Japanese men in public places. It is not understood whether the men who conduct these types of improprieties do so because they perceive African American women to be whores and prostitutes or whether they are acting out respect many Japanese men have shown African American women is indicative of how deeply entrenched racial and sexual stereotypes are embedded in Japanese society.

For every account of sexual impropriety, disrespect, or ignorance told by a member of GirlTalk, there are at least ten stories of cultural sensitivity and understanding shared among the group. These positive accounts not only help African American women cope with the negative aspects of being Black and female and soto other in Japan, they reinforce the many positive aspects that drew them to Japan in the first place.

Rita Scott, freelance consultant and GirlTalk member, reflects on the merits of her talent an as individual in the workplace, “In Japan I am judged purely on what I can do. In America, I am constantly asked to prove myself and I have to be better than my counterparts. But here I am judged on my credentials.”[xxii]

Avril Sisk, attorney and law professor at Temple University – Japan campus, and wife of an African American nuclear physicist, shared her thoughts on being an African American woman in Japan:

As a person of color, I find living and working in Japan to be extremely challenging and extremely rewarding. It is difficult to live in a society that tends to place value on similarities, especially because the way I look, talk, think, and act are very different from the Japanese. But I find it rewarding because I have many Japanese friends – both male and female – who judge me for what’s in my heart, not for the color of my skin.[xxiii]

If this collective voice of African American women looks to its members for value and sense of self, how are these values translated into positive images for African Americans within Japanese society? I would argue that African Americans living in postmodern Japan recognize that like class, social identity “…has to do with where you feel you have a right to be, or where you feel you belong, because you can easily feel yourself an imposter even when you have not only the right but the means to be someplace. And where you can go and where you can stay are hugely important in determining your identity.”[xxiv] For most African Americans living in contemporary Japanese society the need to shed racial stereotypes in search of not one, but many positive social identities has everything to do with a sense of belonging. Sitting next to my husband and our Japanese friends as my son walked across the stage to shake the principle’s hand and accept his kindergarten diploma, I felt that he and our family had achieved a great sense of belonging.