The Racial Replenishment of Ethnicity: Asian Immigration and the Persistence of Japanese American Community

• In Event: 452 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 11. Race and Migration

Abstract

Examining the case of later generation Japanese Americans, this paper connects and extends two growing strands of literature on immigration and race: (1) the persistent racialization of immigrant-origin communities and (2) immigrant impact on host societies. Unlike Jimenez’s immigrant replenishment of ethnicity (2009), which posits the persistence of Mexican American ethnic identification due to the consistent flow of Mexican immigrants, Japanese American immigration was nearly nonexistent from 1924-1980. I find Japanese American ethnicity is heavily shaped by contemporary immigrants from other Asian nations. Japanese American ethnicity is not replenished by co-ethnics, but through the arrival of similarly racialized immigrants resulting in a racial replenishment of ethnicity. In response to racial lumping, Japanese Americans attempt to distinguish themselves from other Asian Americans and maintain their ethnic-specific communities. Simultaneously, given their diverse ethnic setting, they reconceptualize panethnic communities formed in recognition of the common racialization experienced by Asian Americans in the US context. Given the contemporary dominance of non-white immigrants, the later generation Japanese American case provides an important harbinger of ethnic persistence in the likely prolonged racialized future of contemporary immigrants. Data for this project is drawn from 93 in-depth interviews with third and fourth generation Japanese Americans in Southern California.

Author

• Dana Y. Nakano, California State University, Stanislaus