| |
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 article 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.
[i] Russell, J.G. ‘Consuming Passions: Spectacle,
Self-Transformation, and the Commodification of Blackness in Japan’
pp.114 Positions Duke University Press (1998)
[ii] Creighton, M. ‘Imaging Racial Others, Imagining Homogeneous
Japan’ pp. 212 Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity London:
Routledge, (1997).
[iii] Creighton, M. ‘Images of foreigners in Japanese Advertising’,
in J. Kovalio (ed.) Japan in Focus, Toronto: Captus Press (1994).
[iv]Creighton, M. ‘Imaging Racial Others, Imagining Homogeneous
Japan’ pp. 212 Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity London:
Routledge, (1997).
[v] Creighton, M. ‘Imaging Racial Others, Imagining Homogeneous
Japan’ pp. 214 Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity London:
Routledge, (1997).
[vi] Russell, J.G. ‘Consuming Passions: Spectacle, Self-Transformation,
and the Commodification of Blackness in Japan’ pp.152 Positions
Duke University Press (1998)
[vii] Creighton, M. ‘Imaging Racial Others, Imagining Homogeneous
Japan’ pp. 216 Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity London:
Routledge, (1997).
[viii] Creighton, M. ‘Imaging Racial Others, Imagining Homogeneous
Japan’ pp. 213 Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity London:
Routledge, (1997).
[ix] Wagatsuma, H. & Yoneyama, T. 1967, Henken no Kozo-Nihonjin
no Jinshu-kan (The Structure of Prejudice – The Japanese Image of
Race) Tokyo: NHK
[x] Russell, J.G. ‘Consuming Passions: Spectacle, Self-Transformation,
and the Commodification of Blackness in Japan’ pp.164 Positions
Duke University Press (1998)
[xi] PerfecTV information and statistics were obtained from Japan’s
digital satellite services website
May 8, 1999
[xii] Zielenziger, M. “Black is Beautiful As Rebels Buck Japan’s
Stiff Culture” The Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City, Utah May 26,
1998.
[xiii] Vann, Sonya C.,. Personal Interview. Tokyo, Japan. November
14, 1998.
[xiv] Life, Regge, Struggle & Success: The African-American
Experience in Japan film documentary, 1995.
[xv] Russell, J.G. ‘Consuming Passions: Spectacle, Self-Transformation,
and the Commodification of Blackness in Japan’ pp.115 Positions
Duke University Press (1998)
[xvi] Russell, J.G. ‘Consuming Passions: Spectacle, Self-Transformation,
and the Commodification of Blackness in Japan’ pp.130 Positions
Duke University Press (1998)
[xvii] Russell, J.G. ‘Consuming Passions: Spectacle, Self-Transformation,
and the Commodification of Blackness in Japan’ pp.115 Positions
Duke University Press (1998)
[xviii] Russell, J.G. ‘Consuming Passions: Spectacle, Self-Transformation,
and the Commodification of Blackness in Japan’ pp.128 Positions
Duke University Press (1998)
[xix] Struggle & Success: The African-American Experience in
Japan. Life, Regge. 1995..
[xx] Vann, Sonya C., Personal Interview in Tokyo, Japan. November
14, 1998.
[xxi] Vann, Sonya C., Personal Interview in Tokyo, Japan. November
14, 1998.
[xxii] Struggles and Success: The African-American Experience in
Japan, Life, Regge. 1995.
[xxiii] Sisk, Avril. Personal Interview in Tokyo, Japan. October
22, 1998.
[xxiv] Field, Norma. From My Grandmother’s Bedside: Sketches of
Postwar Tokyo. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los
Angeles, CA, 1007, pp.7
«back to writings
|
