Invisible Racialized Minority and Intergenerational Intermarriages: A Follow-up Study of Zainichi Korean Mothering

• In Event: 2262 - Critical Perspectives On Interracial Marriage

Abstract

This paper examines the ways in which ethnicity is negotiated, practiced, and materialized in everyday life among Zainichi Korean and Japanese intermarried families. Some intermarried families contest hegemonic mono-ethno-racial, and nationalistic collective identities. They make concerted efforts to transform their otherwise invisible dual heritage into something visible. Others opt for blending into the Japanese majority. Various life history accounts suggest intermarried families who are well connected to grassroots activism in local communities are more likely to provide their children with “racial literacy” (Twine 2010) than those without any ethnic social capital. Based on in-depth follow-up interviews and by specifically focusing on the choices of nationality and name as key social signifiers with which a minority ethnic origin is materialized in everyday life, I illustrate how the expressions of dual heritage change over time. Parental involvement provides a significant foundation in cultivating consciousness of dual heritage, which continues to be negotiated in a larger societal context. Based on the 2000 and 2016 follow-up data, I introduce two contrasting cases of inter-generational name and nationality choices, specifically focusing on Zainichi Korean mothers and their children who reached adulthood. The meanings attached to Japaneseness entail critical revisions of Japanese authenticity. Nonetheless, once visible ethnic origins gradually become invisible again, as the adult children of intermarriage face life transitions including intermarriage. These case studies suggest how the legal system, formally approved family norms, and shifting socio-political circumstances affect everyday practices of ethnicity and reproduce narrowly-defined and expressed Japaneseness, despite challenges and objections.

Author

• Youngmi Lim, Musashi University, Tokyo, Japan