Racism without racial difference? Co-ethnic racism and national hierarchies among Nikkeijin ethnic return migrants in Japan

ABSTRACT

Although immigrant minorities in Western countries are often racialized as culturally different, Japanese Americans and Brazilians who “return” migrate to their ancestral homeland of Japan are initially racialized as culturally similar Japanese-descent Nikkeijin. Nonetheless, these ethnic return migrants are eventually deemed culturally foreign because they have been living for generations abroad. As a result, they are hierarchically ordered by nationality in an unequal class structure in Japan, producing a type of “co-ethnic racism” among members of the same racial group. After the Japanese, the Japanese Americans enjoy the most privileged status, whereas Japanese Brazilians are positioned lower in the hierarchy, experience more cultural discrimination, and are confined to unskilled jobs. Although co-ethnic racism is directed toward groups that are not phenotypically distinct, it is still “racist” because their cultural traits are essentialized as inferior and based on apparently immutable national differences, producing structural inequalities that are difficult to overcome.

KEYWORDS:

• Co-ethnic racism
• racism
• social inequality
• ethnic return migrants
• Japanese Americans
• Japanese Brazilians

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The former are known to look more Caucasoid than majority Japanese and the later are generally of darker complexion. Although a few of my Japanese Brazilian interviewees were of Okinawan descent, none of them noted their racial visibility in Japanese society. Not only were two of them of partial Okinawan descent, there is variation among Japanese in terms of skin tones as well. None of my Japanese American interviewees were of Okinawan descent.

2 It is possible that the varying experiences of Japanese Americans and Brazilians are partly the result of the different locations where they live in Japan. As skilled workers and students, the Japanese Americans in my research sample primarily lived in major metropolitan areas (especially Tokyo) whereas the Japanese Brazilians lived in more rural industrial towns or smaller satellite cities as unskilled migrant workers and few live in major cities. As a result, the former tend to interact with educated and cosmopolitan Japanese whereas the latter are primarily exposed to less educated, rural (and often working class) Japanese. This partly explains the more favorable experiences of the Japanese Americans (see Tsuda 2009). However, such local residential differences themselves are a product of the higher labor market positioning of Japanese Americans as privileged skilled professionals/students (who mostly live in urban areas) in contrast to their Brazilian counterparts, who are confined to unskilled jobs in factories that are mainly located in smaller cities and rural areas. In addition, the Japanese Americans do not interact with more educated and cosmopolitan Japanese simply because they live in urban areas (where there are plenty of less educated and parochial Japanese residents) but mainly because they are skilled professionals and students who are thus exposed to more elite Japanese professionals and university students.