Voices of In/Visible Minority: Homogenizing Discourse of Japaneseness in Hafu: The Mixed-Race Experience in Japan

ABSTRACT

In this essay, I examine Japan’s mixed-race identity (i.e. hafu) and negotiation in Hafu: The Mixed-Race Experience in Japan. This essay is concerned with Japaneseness as a theoretical and conceptual framework in order to investigate how the dominant homogeneous discourse of Japaneseness marginalizes or positions hafu individuals in contemporary Japan. Simultaneously, this essay illuminates the possibilities to further interrogate hafu identity through a close reading of Hafu: The Mixed-Race Experience in Japan. Overall, the goal of this essay is to critique and facilitate scholarly conversations about the relationality between Japaneseness and hafu identity.

KEYWORDS:

• Hafu
• mixed-race identity
• Japaneseness
• whiteness
• homogeneity

Acknowledgement

The author would sincerely like to thank Drs. Shinsuke Eguchi, Godfried Asante, and Mary Jane Collier for their support and belief in my scholarship. Also, the author would like to thank the Journal Editor, Dr. Jason Wrench and the intelligent and kind anonymous peer-reviewers for their careful and insightful evaluations of this study. Lastly, the author would like to thank Drs. Robert Gutierrez-Perez, Joseph Flores, Zhao Ding, and my friends, Christina Blankenship and Oscar Alfonso Mejía for giving me their constructive feedback and encouragement during my work on this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Keisuke Kimura

Keisuke Kimura (M.A., Bowling Green State University) is Doctoral Student in the Department of Communication & Journalism at the University of New Mexico. His research interests focus on critical intercultural communication studies, global and transcultural studies, critical race/ethnic/gender/sexuality studies, and Asian/Pacific/American studies. An earlier version of this MS was presented at Western State Communication Association (WSCA), Intercultural Communication Interest Group, Denver, CO, in February 2020.