“Mixed-Race Identity Project”[1]: A Case Study Mirroring Kich’s Three Stages of Biracial Identity Development.

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Shaitan Alexandra

Birkbeck College, University of London

Introduction

This paper discusses findings pertaining to mixed-race adults’ identity construction told in ethnographically-informed, semi-structured interviews. It begins with a brief review of the research literature related to mixed-race individuals born and raised in Japan, initially reviewing studies conducted in the past two decades. This is followed by an overview of Kich’s (1982) theoretical framework of bicultural/biracial identity development appropriated in this study. Further, readers are introduced to a case study of a 45-year-old male participant, focusing on his lived experiences as a mixed-race individual in Japan. The article concludes with a brief discussion of findings and recommendations for further research. In particular, it highlights the necessity for further work on discursive construction of haafu identity of Japanese mixed-race adults (born between 1960-1980), which has been found to be under-researched.

Focal Studies on Mixed-Race Individuals in Japan

Over the last thirty years or so, the issues of Japan’s multi-ethnic[2] identity and mixed-race population have gained an increased interest in non-academic genre (Joh, 2020; Haeflin, 2012; Kinoshita, 2019; Yoshitaka, 2018), as well as academic literature, resulting in studies on multi-ethnic children and adolescents (Greer, 2003; Jabar, 2013; Kamada, 2005; Nakamura, 2020; Seiger, 2017), youth (Murphy-Shigematsu, 2012; Oshima, 2014; Yoshida & Oikawa, 2012), and  adults (e.g., Murphy-Shigematsu, 2017; Shaitan & McEntee-Atalianis, 2017); as well as explored issues of raising multiracial[3] children (e.g., Kuramoto, Koide, Yoshida & Ogawa, 2017; Takeshita, 2019).

 Despite the growing research on this community as evidenced above, one of the persistent dilemmas, however, concerns the appropriacy of the socio-ethnic referent used to refer to biracial/bi-ethnic individuals, that has been circulating in Japanese society for many years (Kamada, 2010). In Japan, the term haafu or “half” in English^[4], has become commonly used as a generic referent for persons of mixed-race heritage despite differences in self-ascription^[5] (Okamura, 2017). However, some parents feel that this term has a negative and derogatory connotation and prefer using the term daburu, or “double” in English^[6], to emphasize their children’s bicultural access to two or more cultures (Kitaka, 2013; Surdick 2013) or “a bridge between the minority and the majority with cultural, racial and ethnic literacy” (Osanami-Törngren, 2017, p.  3).  Moreover, while addressing the problematic issue of what to call multiracial children in Japan, Greer (2001) warns, “binary notions such as half and double are inadequate to describe the multiple selves that make up their multifaceted identities” (p. 14). For example, in his earlier study of multi-ethnic Japanese identity, Greer (2003) reports that adolescent participants reacted differently to the term haafu. The word haafu is “tolerated and ignored, assumed and ascribed, accepted and contested” (Greer, 2003, p. 20) depending on the situation in which participants find themselves. He further comments that the term is also associated with other negative ascriptions in English such as “half-breed” and “half-caste.” The results of this study also reveal that not all multi-ethnic teenagers necessarily position themselves using the referent – ‘daburu’- either. In his 2005 study, Greer found that participants reported being negatively positioned by Japanese people who often ascribed non-Japanese or novice attributes to them, which in turn implied their outsider status and haafu’s lack of – “authentic”- Japanese cultural proficiencies. Applying the Yin Yang Metaphor[7] to the study of multi-ethnic identity development of twelve multi-ethnic teenagers in Japan, Greer (2005) theorizes its dualities by demonstrating that, “being multi-ethnic is not an either/or choice but a both/and experience” (p. 16). The results of this study reveal that one’s identity projection and navigation are reflected and (co) constructed in “everyday talk and mutually accomplished, assumed and ascribed through social interaction with others” (p. 15). That is to say, being simultaneously viewed as privileged and marginalized, and being ethnified as Japanese or non-Japanese or as a cultural expert or a novice (Greer, 2005).

In the same year, Kamada (2005) examines how multi-ethnic girls (all attending Japanese public schools, thus being fully immersed in and socialized in Japanese culture and social mores), discursively construct their ethnic identities. The findings reveal that instead of positioning themselves as powerless victims within limited discourses, the girls co-constructively position themselves as powerful, by having access resources of “intercultural savvy, greater access to foreign cultures and foreign languages, and – ‘embodied’- ethnic attractiveness and exoticness” (p. 39).

In a further investigation of linguistic traces of these girls’ movement towards more empowering discourses of gender and femininity, Kamada (2008) identifies seven discourses of ethnicity in the girls’ data. These include discourses of 1) homogeneity, 2) conformity, 3) gaijin (foreigner) otherness, 4) halfness, 5) diversity, 6) interculturalism, and 7) doubleness.

Ethnic embodiment was also found to be a contributing factor in how these girls constructed their gender and ethnic identities. And similar to the findings in Kamada’s (2005) study, rather than positioning themselves as powerless victims, the girls “celebrate their diversity and position themselves and each other within a privileging discourse of foreign/ethnic attractiveness” (Kamada, 2008, p. 190), at the same time positioning Japanese “as ordinary and as being without access to this special cultural capital” (Kamada, 2005, p.  39).

Using Feminist-Poststructuralist Discourse Analysis (FPDA) as a theoretical framework for her study, Kamada (2010) examines how multi-ethnic Japanese girls position themselves within the discourse of gender embodiment and how it affects what they say about their own and other participants’ bodies. This longitudinal study explores how six adolescent girls discursively construct their mixed-race identities. It shows how they take up, represent or reject racialized, ethnicized and gendered practices in their daily interactions with others. In addition, the author highlights how multi-ethnic people use a variety of discursive strategies to enhance their identities. The findings illustrate that over a span of three years, these girls were not only able to resist ethnic marginalization within a limited discourse of homogeneity, but also to position themselves within a wider repertoire of “empowering discourses of diversity, interculturalism and ethnic attractiveness thus co-constructing and co-accomplishing positive cultural capital based on their ethnicity” (Kamada, 2010, p.  224).

Yoshida and Oikawa (2012), however, note that earlier qualitative studies on mixed-race individuals in Japan preclude generalization due to their small samples. Therefore, their study sought to “augment such studies by examining the results of a questionnaire administered to over one hundred participants” (p. 16). Specifically, this exploratory study aimed to identify what the outcomes of being bi-ethnic in Japan were, and which background variables would predict these outcomes. The average age of the participants was 22- years old, more than half of them being university students. Out of 108 selected participants, 82 were born in Japan and the rest were born in thirteen other countries. The results of the study reveal that biethnic identity is not simply warranted by an individual’s choice, rather it is continuously negotiated within a society. In addition, similar to earlier studies (Kich, 1982; Oikawa &Yoshida, 2007), this study found that identity issues that many of the participants have had throughout their lives, was a result of “the dissonance between society’s construction of identity and their own” and that “biethnic individuals did not notice that they were different until the society told them so” (pp. 28-29).

More recently, a study by Osanami-Törngren (2018) examines ethnic options and practices of passing and covering (Goffman, 1990)[8] among multiracial and multiethnic youth in Japan. Eighteen semi-structured interviews were conducted by the researcher where participants aged between 18- and 25-years old shared their lived experiences in Japan as a multiracial/multiethnic. By applying Goffman’s concepts of passing and covering[9], an analysis of 18 semi-structured interviews shows that multiethnic and multiracial individuals have an access to different kinds of ethnic options and practice passing and covering differently (e.g., Japanese, haafu, human being, mixed roots, more American than Japanese, Asian and white).  Namely, whereas multiethnic interviewees revealed that they could pass as Japanese, multiracial interviewees reported that they are mostly treated as “gaijin” (foreigner). The results of the study show that physical appearance, family structure, living environment and whether these individuals are multiethnic or multiracial were the key factors in the ability to pass as Japanese.

            It can thus be concluded that, for biracial people whose phenotypical features and language skills did not mark them as – “different,”- the options of covering and passing into the – “safe”- category of race were to their avail much easier than for those whose appearance marked them as – “gaijin”- (foreigner) (Osanami-Törngren & Sato, 2019). In both cases, such individuals had to make choices to fit in and avoid a risk of being otherized and/or marginalized. A -“choice”- in this situation may not be necessarily experienced as determinedly conscious, but instead as a lived, emphatic style of life and self-presentation. It may best be seen as “the person’s lived position on the question of ethnicity” (Kich, 1982, p.  3).

            Similarly, Takeshita (2019) explores the experiences of mixed-race children in Japan through the lens of Goffman’s (1990) passing concept. This longitudinal study is predominantly based on 139 interviews of mixed-families of diverse nationalities and religions residing in Japan’s urban areas. The study explores whether mixed-children perceived their mixed-heritage background as problematic, and if the act of – “passing”- caused any insecurities or feelings of guilt. The analysis of the interviews reveal that the children’s lived experiences and choices are dependent on whether or not the child is – ‘visibly’- different from other children in Japanese society, parental support, as well as the teachers’ perceptions of their situations.

            Oshima’s (2014) study of Japanese mixed-race youth, however, yielded unexpected findings. The author conducted group sessions with thirteen university students aimed at exploring issues that the students might have experienced due to their multi-ethnicity, to provide a platform for students to talk about their lived experiences of being viewed and/or different from mainstream (not racially mixed) Japanese individuals, and to identify how they are treated by Japanese society. Contrary to previous studies (discussed above) that reveal an outsider status of mixed-race individuals in Japan, the results of the interviews and group discussion of this study produced mixed findings. Namely, the participants in this study had positive feelings of being mixed-race in Japan thus feeling more comfortable with their bicultural and biracial/ethnic identity, thereby yielding different results from what the author had expected.

            Thus, whilst research on haafu children, adolescents, and youth has been undertaken in Japan, as evidenced in the literature review above, to date there has been limited research on haafu adults, the so-called earlier generation of mixed-race individuals born and raised in Japan in the early 60s, 70s and 80s. However, recently, this underrepresented group has started to gain more attention among researchers (e.g., Burkhardt 1983; Kich 1982; Murphy-Shigematsu 2017; Shaitan & McEntee-Atalianis 2017). For example, Shaitan and McEntee-Atalianis (2017) explored the identity development of mixed-race adults in their late 30s, 40s, and 50s in Japan. The study investigated how haafu adults construct their identities with respect to others’ ascriptions, the dominant discourses about being – ‘haafu,’- and to the affiliations/ascriptions haafu individuals seek/invoke throughout their lived experiences. Based on an analysis of ethnographically-informed, semi-structured sociolinguistic interviews, the results reveal that “identity construction is borne out as a complex process and a product of localized practices, ideologies and lived experiences” (p. 95).

            Whilst it is impossible to review all studies in this section due to the space limit, based on consulted literature and academic evidence, lacuna research on mixed-race Japanese adult individuals in their late 30s, 40s, 50s (born between 1960-1980) has been identified. Therefore, the academic studies reviewed above highlight the necessity for further work on the discursive construction of haafu identity of Japanese mixed-race adults.

Theoretical Lens: Three Stages of Biracial, Bicultural Identity Development

In addressing biracial and bicultural identity development of 15 mixed-race adults of ‘White and Japanese’ heritage (ages 17-56), Kich (1992) shows that all mixed-race individuals’ lived experiences impinge on three crucial stages of developing and asserting a biracial, bicultural identity. He presents a heuristic model of biracial identity development life-cycles by claiming that the model may be applicable to all people of multiracial heritage.

This view, however, is contested by Rocha and Fozdar (2017, p.  9) who argue that “mixed-race does not mean the same thing, in terms of histories, experiences or identities, across the world.” Notwithstanding, according to Kich (1992, p. 305), all biracial individuals in his study report progressing through three major stages in the development and continuing resolution of their biracial identity. Stage 1 highlights an initial awareness of differentness and dissonance between self–perceptions and others’ perceptions of them (initially, three through ten years of age). It is at this stage of initial awareness of difference and dissonance when almost all multiracial individuals are constantly reminded of their differentness by ever accompanying questions of “Where are you from?” or “What are you?” thus accentuating the experiences of being both yet neither. In addition, Kich (1992, p. 307) notes that it is during this stage when parental support is of paramount importance to a child who may experience isolation or loneliness facing such experiences on his own. In particular, when a name does not – “match”- the phenotypical makeup of a biracial child, he/she is likely to face situations where his/her belonging and identity might be questioned more often than not.

In Stage 2, the focus shifts onto the struggle for acceptance from others (initially, 8-years-old through late adolescence and young adulthood). By the time they have reached adolescence, most biracial individuals learn to shift between two – “worlds -”. Namely, they start using self-ascribed labels to their advantage in order to fit into the society. In particular, those individuals who develop close ties with their extended families, are able to symbolically capitalize on their bicultural/bilingual commodities and deploy such in their social interactions with others.

Kich (1992) also shows that an instant reply to the question “Where are you from?” serves as a passport to being recognized and accepted or vice versa by the interlocutor. In addition, this stage provides a platform for mixed-race individuals to practice their – “chameleon ability” – and ‘passing’ in order to feel the “temporary sense of freedom and relief from the restrictions and ambiguities of being – “both”- and – “neither”- (p. 312).

Another evidential feature of this stage is related to the issue of loyalty. Biracial people are faced with a constant dilemma of having to choose between the ethnic heritage of either parent. This, in turn, may result in inner struggle and resilience thus leading to identity crisis. Further, it is at this stage where adolescents begin to search for peer groups thus trying to “belong” somewhere. Such peer groups may provide a temporary relief from a social devaluation of themselves where members of such a peer group share similar lived experiences as themselves. To illustrate the latter, Kich (1992, p. 313) presents an example from his seminal study on biracial individuals: “When you’re with another Eurasian there’s a lot of things it seems like you don’t have to explain, that you might have to explain to other people … that’s not explainable anyway. It’s just an understanding that you have” (Kich, 1982, p. 181). Interestingly, Shaitan & McEntee-Atalianis (2017) mirror similar findings in their study where one of the participants comments: “I wish there was a country called – “Hapa”- where only haafus lived. It would feel great, as nobody would ever ask you questions like ‘Where are you from?’ or about your ethnicity or nationality. Because all haafu share similar experiences and stories” (p. 94).

Finally, the Stage 3 concludes the cycle by showcasing mixed-race individuals’ acceptance of themselves as people with a biracial and bicultural identity (late adolescence throughout adulthood), referred to by Kich (1992) as the stage of self–acceptance and assertion of an interracial identity. This stage is characterized by the breakthrough achievement for biracial individuals in that they finally learn how to positively view and self-identify themselves. They no longer rely on others’ labeling and mislabeling them, rather, they self-ascribe their interracial heritage. Moreover, they develop an awareness that not all questioners are necessarily racist or attempt to negatively identify them. Therefore, biracial people try to adapt and measure their answers based on a discursive situation they engage in.

Additionally, Kich (1992) reports that self-acceptance opens up numerous pathways for biracial people. That is to say, self-acceptance enables them to practice earlier-acquired skills of ‘passing’, and to become more self-assertive and self-expressive rather than negatively reactive or defensive. Also, the ability to self-label rather than other-label themselves “creates and fosters a coherent, whole sense of self” (p. 317).

Methodology

Individual ‘Portrait’: The Stories We Live By

The form of our stories (their textual structure),

the content of our stories (what we tell about),

and our story telling behaviour (how we tell our stories)

are all sensitive indices not just our personal selves,

but also of our social and cultural identities.

Schiffrin (1996: 170)

As Murphy-Shigematsu (2017) suggests, researchers should avoid generalizations and stereotyping of mixed-race individuals by placing them in one group. Rather, each individual account should be treated as a window into that particular person’s meaningful lived experiences in order to understand the complexities and subtleties surrounding their biracial and bicultural identity development. In a similar manner, the current paper follows this line of thought by introducing readers to one ethnographic case study (Duff, 2018) of a haafu male adult, aged in his late 40s to highlight his lived experiences of growing up as a haafu in Japan. This ethnographically-informed, sociolinguistic semi-structured interview is one of the 15 that the author has conducted for her doctoral dissertation research (Shaitan, 2021, forthcoming). The thematic content of the interviews was adopted, adapted and developed based on Kamada’s (2010) questionnaire, to match the age group of the study participants. Due to space limitations, the focus is on a data set extracted from a larger corpus collected as part of the author’s doctoral research.  

Key Participant:

The narratives presented here focus primarily on one main subject referred to (using the pseudonym) as William. The selection of William as a case study is based on the following criteria: William (aged 45) lives and works in Tokyo, Japan. William’s father is American and his mother Japanese. He was born, raised, and educated in Japan and has lived there his entire life. However, he reports travelling to America at the age of twenty to pursue his university studies, thus having spent four years in the USA. He is proficient in both Japanese and English and reports using his bilingual skills at his current place of employment. William has also been a member of haafu community in the Tokyo area for more than a decade or so, thus enabling him to keep in touch with other mixed-race individuals.

 The excerpts (see below) presented in this paper, aim to illustrate how William deployed small stories (as a discursive tool) told in an ethnographically-informed semi-structured interview to elaborate on how his lived experiences have shaped him into who he is now. Moreover, it should also be noted that the author has known William (as well as all other 14 participants) for the past eight years, thus being able to interact with him/them in many social events organized by the haafu community in Tokyo, Japan, other than a one-time interview meeting.

It should also be noted that rather than testing any hypotheses or following any theoretical frameworks, this study was exploratory in nature, aimed to capture the moments and mechanisms of how individuals discursively project and (co) construct their identity and how they want to be perceived by the interlocutor.

However, after the data was coded and iterative/thematic analysis was performed following Bamberg and Georgakopoulou’s (2008) Small Story Analysis Framework, it has been found that all 15 participants have gone through three stages of biracial and bicultural development throughout their entire lives as theorized by Kich (1982; 1992).

The stories presented here, were chosen as exemplars of repeated occurrences among all the participants running throughout the interviews in a larger part of the study.

Stage 1: An Initial Awareness of Dissonance: Not Being Full-Blooded Japanese

 (childhood) (Kich, 1982)

Excerpt 1.

1. Alex: What were your experiences of growing up in Japan?
2. William: I was teased in my neighborhood. Yeah, we (referring to his brother) were
3. teased. I was teased quite a bit. My mom told me that I pretty much came back home
4. crying every single day. When I was, like a kid up to like, five, six years old. And…
5. but yeah, I was kind of like, (laughing) maybe I was just stupid enough to still go out
6. there and try to hang out with them. But my mom remembers… remembers… it
7. being almost every single day. I don’t remember it. So, must have not been as
8. traumatic or I am just like hiding it (laughing)…you know…almost every single day.
9. William: Oh, Alex, um, oh, just one extra thing I was going to mention. I went to the
10. Japanese kindergarten. And I remember, the teacher (in a high pitch voice) was even
11. picking on me! Yeah, it sounds like, oh, just like saying, oh, “Because you’re not full
12. It shouldn’t make me cry. I don’t remember. I just remember she had like,
13. her hair was dyed, brown, you know, chappatsu. And back then, erm… usually, like
14. the bad people, like the gangsters and punks did that. So, she wasn’t really cool to
15. begin with. Anyways, I just wanted to just throw that in there. So that’s why my
16. parents decided to send me to school on the Navy base, because they’re like, “This is
17. really bad. Yeah, it’s getting bad.”

Stage 2: The Struggle for Acceptance (adolescence) (Kich, 1982)

Excerpt 2.

1. Alex: Did you have any part-time job back then?
2. William: Let’s just say like, 15, between 15 and 16 years old. Yeah. So, this is a high
3. school time. I did get have some work on the Navy base easily. But if I wanted to
4. have a job, let’s say at a kombini or Starbucks it would pretty much be a no!
5. Alex: Did they say why?
6. William: It’s because I look, I don’t look Japanese to people. Um…Well, I’ve never
7. gone to the interview. But you would see that that you would only see Japanese
8. people working at these places. Also, my mom would just tell me, she’s like, “You
9. probably won’t get a job.” Like, you can’t, you can’t even get a job as maybe even as a
10. garbage man. You know, just because I don’t look full Japanese. And that scares
11. people. And that’s the xenophobia that’s pretty have… has been embedded in the
12. Japanese culture for centuries and centuries.
13. Alex: So, did you finally manage to get a job?
14. William: I just never took that kind of risk…. but you know, I did. I did find a job at a
15. field maintenance place, just because my other haafu friends were working there for
16. the summer. So, you know, with a lot of physical labor and getting sunburned and
17. stuff. But they’re really cool, though…and… Yeah. So yeah.

Stage 3: Self-acceptance and Assertion of an Interracial Identity (adulthood) (Kich, 1982)

Excerpt 3.

1. Alex: How do you explain to strangers, if asked, that you are mixed-race? Do you say
2. you are haafu, double or mixed-roots?
3. William: In the late 90s, people were already talking about their experiences as
4. mixed Japanese, and almost all of them mentioned about having identity crisis which
5. I’ve never had… And it’s because I believe, because I already had an identity as a
6. “haafu“. Now, the term haafu is, among some people, mostly non-haafu people, they
7. find it as an offensive term because it derives from the word half in English. Right?
8. But the thing is that the I always refute that, because Japanese people, including
9. myself… we never, we don’t think of the word term hanbun or half something that is
10. half…
11. Alex: So, you do not think of it as a derogative…
12. William: And…yeah, no, not at all.
13. I recently made a self-revelation is that people who are handicapped, right? Physical
14. handicap where they can’t walk, their hands contorted, they’re blind, they have other
15. kind of disability abilities to physically, you know, you don’t hear them like, yeah, of
16. course, they will complain. A lot of people that will complain, but they, they’re like.
17. “I can’t change this. This is how I am. This is my disability. I’m in a country with
18. people who walk regularly… I can’t do that. But I will make the best of it. I can, I’ll
19. make the most of what I have.” And I, the main important thing is changing your
20. mindset. That’s why from the Haafu film, David, the half Ghanian guy, he obviously
21.  looks black to most people in the world. But his view, is that, really inspired me and
22. But he said that, “I consider
23. everything a teaching opportunity.” Each time I, people ask, oh, “Where you’re
24. from?” is like, “Not that damn question again!” No, no, no, that’s, that wasn’t his
25. attitude. He’s always like, “Oh, no, my mother’s Ghanian and my father’s Japanese.
26. That’s why I have this last name.” He’s even asked like, “Oh, are you married? Is that
27. why you have a Japanese last name?” Which doesn’t make sense, right? And so, I
28. think just keep changing the attitude and your mindset is like the key.
29. Alex: Sounds interesting, thank you very much.

Discussion and Concluding Remarks

Rather than providing readers with a detailed discourse analysis of the above-mentioned excerpts, the author has attempted to present detailed accounts of the interview thus enabling readers to read the stories and develop an insight into how William’s meaningful lived experiences have influenced his life choices and molded him into the person he is now. The stories shown above (Excerpts 1, 2, 3) mirror three stages of biracial identity development introduced by Kich (1981; 1992). The narrative in Excerpt 1 is indicative of William’s childhood experiences in Japan. Namely, William’s negative experiences stem from (Excerpt 1) “Because you are not full Japanese.” (Stage 1, line 11). He claims that this was the catalyst for his parents’ decision to transfer him to an international school. Excerpt 2 shows William’s struggle for acceptance (Stage 2) in Japanese society. He narrates his experiences of trying to find a part-time job as rather painful. A prospect of finding a part-time job for him was rather slim. He claims that it was rather hard, basically impossible, to get a job, even at the convenience store. Moreover, his efforts to find a part-time job were further exacerbated by his mother’s interreference and reassurance of not pursuing it. Yet again, he explicates it clearly by stating that, “It’s because I look, I don’t look Japanese to people” (line 6). Finally, Excerpt 3 provides an example of William’s self-acceptance and assertion of interracial identity (Stage 3).  This narrative highlights the fact that William does not have identity crisis because the term -‘haafu’-  has provided him with a safety net of claiming his mixed-race status in Japan. He states that he always refutes claims by the “non-haafu people” (line 6) who often associate this term with a negative connotation. On the other hand, though, a story told by William in Extract 3, suggests that despite the fact that he is in his late 40s, he is still faced with some issues of how to navigate his own mixed-race identity at this stage of his life, “I am still working on it because of my own issues” (line 22). Therefore, we can cautiously suggest that an on-going identity development of biracial and/or bicultural people is not something that is “achieved” at a certain point in life by all individuals. Rather, it is a fleeting, fluid, and on-going rite de passage which ebbs and flows at crucial points of an individual’s life and is dependent on a contextualized and localized discursive event (s) and sociocultural practices.

 Also, despite the on-going debate surrounding the term – ‘haafu’- among the lay people and in academia, it can be observed that William has internalized the term – ‘haafu’- as a positive concept which gives him an identity in Japan. He elaborates that the term ‘haafu, instead of being neither/nor,’- gives him an identity of being not either or, rather both and, that is, Japanese and American.

Whilst this short paper has only briefly looked into small stories of one case study that exemplifies three stages of biracial identity development (Kich 1981; 1992); nevertheless, the excerpts above can provide insight into how the earlier generation of mixed-race individuals in Japan have grappled with the issue of claiming their – ‘Japanesness’- throughout their lives. Therefore, future studies of this under-researched community might contribute to identity studies in the context of Japan.

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[1] Identity ‘project’ is used throughout the paper to showcase identity development as a never-ending project of ‘becoming’ (McEntee-Atalianis, 2019: 10).

[2] Race is generally considered to be a biological construct based on observable physical characteristics including skin color or body habitus. Ethnicity has come to represent a social construct that could be defined as an individual’s sense of culture (Kaneshiro, Geling, Gellert and Miller, 2011).

[3] Race is often an ascribed and assigned category, while ethnicity, compared to race, is often acquired and selfclaimed by the individuals in the group (Osanami-Törngren, 2018, p. 6).

[4] Haafu comes from the English term “half” and refers to individuals with one Japanese parent and one parent from a different ethnicity. The public’s image of a haafu, however is typically someone who has one Japanese parent and one Caucasian parent. The stereotype of the haafu is that they are fluent in English and Japanese and that they are good looking (Oikawa & Yoshida, 2012: 30).

[5] Okamura (2017) traces the history of the labels used in Japan to refer to “mixed race” individuals and explores the Haafu-gao makeup fad. Focusing on the late 19th century to the present, Okamura’s study traces the terms used to refer to racial mixture and how “haafu” has become the most common label today. Okamura’s cautions that labeling racializes “Japanese” and “foreigners” and results in the categorization of racially mixed people in Japan as not fully Japanese.

[6] That term “double” was coined in the 1990s after the mother of a mixed heritage child wrote to a Japanese newspaper to promote the positive connotations of a word implying two roots (Okamura, 2017).

[7] Yin and yang (or yin-yang) is a complex relational concept in Chinese culture that has developed over thousands of years. The connotation of yin and yang is that the universe is governed by a cosmic duality, sets of two opposing and complementing principles or cosmic energies that can be observed in nature (Brittanica.com).

[8] Racial passing is an act in which a person of one race identifies and presents oneself as something else, usually as the race of the majority population in the social context. Passing as the majority population will be more difficult for someone who is multiracial compared to multiethnic (Osanami-Törngren, 2018).

[9] Racial and ethnic covering can be achieved by changing names, clothing or behavior patterns. These are the ways to downplay the attributes that otherwise might become the center of attention (Osanami-Törngren, 2018).