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30 June, 2003
We Speak Such Good English...
"You speak such good English!"
Most Japanese Americans have probably heard this backhanded compliment, and then suffered through a variation of the following conversation.
 JAs eventually became part of the fabric of pre-war American life. 1930s photo of Seattle parade float sponsored by the Japanese Fishing Tackle Dealers Association. (Photo courtesy of Mitsuoka Family Collection and Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project -- any use prohibited without expressed permission. Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project is an excellent online resource of still images, video and documents of the Japanese American experience). |
"Really, your English is so good, what nationality are you?"
"American."
"No, really where are you from?"
"California."
"Oh, you know what I mean. Where's your family from?"
"California."
Then the other person walks away thinking you're a jerk who's being difficult. But what's difficult is the inescapable feeling that you were not being taken seriously as an American, not just as an American citizen but as a person who is American.
Non-Asian Americans often think of us as foreigners, even if we happen to be third, fourth, fifth or even sixth generation Japanese Americans. Not even hapas, or mixed-race JAs, are exempt. I've heard of hapas who get this version of the conversation: "Oh, you're half Japanese? Which parent is American?"
The fact is, almost all Americans, Asian or otherwise, came from someplace else.
Japanese have been living in the United States since the 1880s, but many people still assume we're newcomers - Fresh off the Boat, or FOB - when they first see us. It's irritating, because in most ways, Japanese Americans today are much more American than Japanese. Sure, we may have back hair, "slanty" eyes and "yellow" skin (who decided we're yellow, anyway? I've never thought my skin looked yellow). But in our speech, mannerisms, our values, and perhaps most important, our spirit, we're Americans.
Japanese Americans aren't Japanese. Some of us may be more connected to our roots than others, and a few of us might be able to actually make the transition and live and work in Japan someday - be Japanese. But most of us wouldn't be considered Japanese by someone from Japan. Which is interesting, when you consider that so many Americans have a problem considering us Americans.
 Japanese American Boy Scouts on a camping trip in Cedar River, Washington, circa 1929. How much more "American" can you get? (Photo courtesy of Mamiya Family Collection and Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project -- any use prohibited without expressed permission. Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project is an excellent online resource of still images, video and documents of the Japanese American experience). |
I should mention that when I speak of Japanese Americans, I'm making a generalization, and one that I don't even fit completely. I consider Japanese Americans as a group to have been in the US for several generations. I know that many Japanese come to live in America every year, and many become naturalized citizens. My family moved to the States in the mid-'60s when I was a kid, so we're somewhat recent immigrants.
But the immigrants that set the standards of JA culture began arriving in 1885, and most of us can trace our families to grandparents or great-grandparents who came to America in the early 20th century.
And that's what makes us different from the Japanese. It's not that we've had a hundred years to become more American. It's that Japan has changed so much since the era when our ancestors arrived in Hawaii and California.
In historical terms, those immigrants way back then were raised in a poverty-stricken rural country that was just starting to find its place among the world's modern industrial nations. That first wave of Japanese came like earlier Chinese immigrants had: to make more money then they could at home, and to return to Japan as wealthy men (they were almost exclusively men).
The values they brought with them to the United States were ones that had been in existence for centuries, based on duty and obligation, extolling hard work and perseverance. It's not that those values are gone today, but I don't think they're as pervasive and powerful as back then.
| Japanese have been living in the United States since the 1880s, but many people still assume we're newcomers - Fresh off the Boat, or FOB - when they first see us. |
The popular culture has of course also changed, since not even radio was around when those ancestors climbed aboard ships in Japan for the long trip across the Pacific. For them, an evening might be spent gambling over Jan Ken Po (Rock Paper Scissors) - a game that didn't require any pieces or skill. And, language has changed a lot too. Even Japanese who moved to the States in the '60s like my parents find it hard to follow all the English words that are now used in Japan.
Japan was going through the Meiji era when the first immigrants left the country. The Emperor Meiji was the one who came to power after Commodore Matthew Perry opened Japan up to Western ways. During the last part of the 19th century and early 20th century, Japan was busy playing catchup with the West, soaking up all things European and American and introducing industry to its society. The death of the Meiji Emperor in 1912 was followed by the brief rule of his son during the Taisho era, and then when he died in 1926, his son Hirohito, who was familiar to Americans as the one who ruled over Japan during World War II and the postwar decades, ushered in the Showa era (each emperor's reign is designated by a name, and that name comes to signify the emperor as well as his era). The government first approved the limited emigration of Japanese laborers to America during the Meiji era after the US banned Chinese immigration in 1884, which caused a need for low-paid laborers.
Because so many of the Issei - the first-generation of immigrants - came to the US during the late 1800s and early 1900s, they brought with them values and ideas firmly embedded in the Meiji and Taisho eras. It's Meiji and Taisho values - language and food and traditions - that define Japanese American culture. Our identity is dictated by Japanese culture of a century ago, kept alive through oral traditions, annual festivals, family picnics and even funeral traditions.
As the first immigrants, who thought of themselves as sojourners, began to settle and stay in the US and raise families, the next generation - the Nisei - became the first true Japanese Americans, because they were American citizens by birth. That didn't necessarily mean much - they faced prejudice not just in their communities but also in the media (thanks to the Hearst newspaper chain's harangues about the "Yellow Peril"). And of course, when WWII broke out, citizenship didn't prevent JAs from being rounded up and herded into concentration camps away from the west coast.
Over the decades in the US, laws were passed to restrict the influx of Japanese immigrants and to prevent the Issei from owning land or property, but they JA community thrived in spite of the obstacles. However, the Nisei became the only hope for JAs to establish themselves as Americans when the Immigration Act of 1924 completely banned further immigration from Japan.
Suddenly, those Nisei bore the responsibility of being good Americans and at the same time, preserving the culture their parents brought with them. That culture became the time capsule version of Japanese culture that JAs live by today. And that sense of responsibility led to the great lengths JAs have gone to, to assimilate into the American mainstream.
No wonder why we speak such good English - it was part of our self-defense mechanism!