Recovering Heritage and Homeland: Ethnic Revival Among Fourth‐Generation Japanese Americans

Abstract

In recent years, fourth‐generation Japanese American youth have been attempting to recover their ethnic heritage and reconnect with their ancestral homeland. This ethnic revival is a response to their continued racialization as “Japanese,” which has caused them to become concerned about their overassimilation to American society in an era of multiculturalism where cultural heritage and homeland have come to be positively valued. As a result, they are studying Japanese, majoring in Asian studies, living in Japan as college exchange students, and participating in Japanese taiko drum ensembles in local ethnic communities. Although this return to ethnic roots is a more serious commitment than the symbolic ethnicity observed among white ethnics in the past, it indicates that ethnicity remains involuntary for racial minorities, even after four generations. The case of later‐generation Japanese Americans demonstrates that cultural assimilation does not preclude the continuation and active production of ethnic difference.

“Forever foreigners”: Intergenerational impacts of historical trauma from the World War II Japanese American incarceration.

“…As the fourth generation in the United States, the Yonsei are likely to have weakened ties to Japanese culture and increased assimilation to mainstream American culture. However, Tsuda (2015) noted that they also appear to be undergoing an "ethnic revival" (p. 601) and reconnecting with their Japanese heritage. He suggested possible explanations for this desire to connect with cultural roots as including increased global value of diversity and multiculturalism, increased American interest in Japanese pop culture, and continued racialization of Yonsei as "Japanese" rather than "American" by mainstream American society.…”

“I Don’t Feel Very Asian American”: Why Aren’t Japanese Americans More Panethnic?

“…However, most of my Japanese American interviewees were racialized more specifically as “Japanese” instead of collectively as “Asian,” which was one reason their racialization usually did not produce a sense of panethnic unity with other Asian Americans. They reported that mainstream Americans are not simply content with knowing that they are Asians (which is quite apparent because of their racial appearance), but wish to know whether they are “Chinese,” “Korean,” or “Japanese.” In this manner, racialization processes are not simply limited to the panethnic meanings attached to general racial categories, but is ethnically differentiated according to national origins (Tsuda 2015:607–608), an experience undoubtedly shared by other Asian Americans.…”

Enacting Ethnicity of “Japanese Canadian” in Oral History: A Comparison Between the Japanese Canadian Sansei and the Ijusha Nisei

“…The maintenance of a cultural heritage and the desire for it are observed in the Japanese Canadian Sansei and Yonsei youth and/or multi-racial backgrounds. As opposed to the highly assimilated image of Japanese Canadians, Sansei and Yonsei Nikkei youth attempt to recover their ethnic heritage through language school and cultural events (Noro, 2009;Tsuda, 2015). Tsuda (2015) in his ethnographic research on Japanese Americans in San Diego argues that this reorientation to Japanese culture is a response to the group's continued racialization as "Japanese" and a reflection on the overassimilation to American society.…”