Shaping, Masking, and Unmasking of a Stigmatized Identity: The Case of Japan-Residing Koreans

Abstract

Through a case-study approach, this study explores Japan-residing Koreans' identity management and its underlying dynamics from the privacy boundary management perspective. The “closetability” of Koreanness and the role of self-efficacy/agency are highlighted. Analysis of two autobiographical essays suggested that (a) ethnic minority identity is constructed upon the notion of “otherness,” which leads individuals to passing; (b) passing is emotionally consequential and potentially fatal; (c) enacting Koreanness involves not only psychological dissonance but enhanced perceptions of coping-efficacy; and (d) management of stigmatized identities is an ever-ongoing process. Other findings and limitations, as well as directions for future research, are also discussed.

KEYTERMS:

• efficacy
• ethnic identity
• Japan-residing Koreans
• passing
• privacy boundary management

I thank Dr. Ronald L. Jackson, Jr., as well as all CAS 597A classmates, for their insightful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this manuscript. I also thank the anonymous reviewers of the JUCA and The Howard Journal of Communications for their feedback.

Notes

The original texts (Lee, 1993; Yu, 1997) are written in Japanese and the translations in this article are mine. An independent English-Japanese bilingual person verified the accuracy of the translation.

Quotation marks are often used in critical cultural studies to indicate that race is a cultural/social construction and not biological/essential feature of human beings. Moreover, I put the word racial in quotation marks because there is no racial difference whatever between the Japanese and the Koreans. The fact that Japan-residing Koreans are discriminated against because of their “race” itself clearly indicates that race is an artificial construct.

Because of this closetable property of Koreanness, twisted with the fear of marriage discrimination (i.e., disapproval of the intermarriage between Koreans and Japanese), sometimes ironic tragedy happens. Potentially suitable couples, where both partners are Japan-residing Koreans, remain unaware of each other's ethnicity and terminate their relationship, because both use Japanese aliases and are afraid to take the risk of getting too involved with their “Japanese” counterpart (Hicks, 1997).

“Text” here is generally referred to as artifacts that allow researchers to interpret the feelings of another person and the meanings of an episode or event (e.g., Polkinghorne, 1988).

Her last name, Yu, is a Korean, not a Japanese, name. Nonetheless, the same letter can be read as Yanagi, which is a Japanese name.

An earlier version of this article was presented as the Top Student paper of the Japan-U.S. Communication Association (JUCA), an independent affiliate of the National Communication Association (NCA), at the annual convention of NCA, Boston, November 2005.