There are many of ha-fu musicians in Japan and seen on TV, radio, newspapers, and internet. They usually talk in Japanese and know the culture of Japan same as the other Japanese.

Sometimes we do not notice that a musician is a ha-fu or not. For example, You Hitoto who is a famous singer in Japan looks like Japanese because her father is Taiwanese and her mother is Japanese, which mean they are both Asian. She also sings a song in Japanese and talk in Japanese in some interviews.

On the other hand, there are some musicians who look different from Japanese people. The singer of enka (Japanese traditional music) JERO can be one of them. Although, he is a quarter but still a good example of that. He got black skin and some characteristics that black people have. However, he sings and also speaks very well in Japanese, and the biggest reason of it is that his grandmother is Japanese. He has got many of prizes in Japanese music world and been on TV shows so many times.

Also, the pop music singer Becky is one of them. She has Japanese mother and English father, so her looks is almost foreigner. The difference we can see is the color of her eyes and her skin. It is seen in the picture here. She has been on TV many times and much of Japanese people know that she is a ha-fu.

So, what do they produce? I think the answer is that they make up the images of ha-fu people in Japan. Those people are often introduced specially as a ha-fu person. JERO is in the shows as “the first enka singer of black people.” If there were no ha-fu people around you, you would make images of them what you see in media. Especially in the childhood, the Japanese TV show “Ohasuta” was seen in our generation. Becky was in the show and act really excitingly. I think our fundamental images are coming from those shows.

However, as we saw in the class, many ha-fu people in Japan who do not act in media would be feeling in other way. Some of them are not that exciting or good at something, or even speaking in Japanese. We should more care about this, and at first, it is necessary to know about ha-fu people around us. The images that made by media can be different from the real.

by Junsuke Fujino

Eri Kobayashi

Eta/Hinin system was built up in Edo period to categorize people in a hierarchical way. This system is one of characteristic discrimination forms in Japan which has led to “Buraku discrimination” today.

Eta/Hinin lived in a certain district called buraku so they are called “burakumin”.

The factor of buraku discrimination lies in the backgrounds of their ancestors. They were divided into a group of Eta or Hinin on grounds that they had committed crimes, they were homeless, or unable to pay taxes out of poverty. They usually did the work like nobody would want to do such as talking care of dead bodies, working in a sewage disposal plant, skinning animals, and the like.

Up until now, especially in our grandparents’ generation, it was common to see people from buraku. At school, there were often 2 or 3 students from buraku in a class. According to my grandmother, people could tell if he or she was from buraku according to where they lived. My grandmother said that she was told not to be close to burakumin by her parents, otherwise she would get into a trouble. At that time, many people had a bad image over burakumin and they had to face severe discrimination in finding jobs, marriage, and education.

But now, the situation is different. Buraku area has been reconstructed and improved its condition as a government policy initiated to correct a gap between buraku and other areas. Also, after experiencing a rapid economic growth, people have moved in and out, so buraku areas are no longer a place peculiar to burakumin. Like this, buraku discrimination has gradually become an unfamiliar matter for young people and children.

Although buraku discrimination is now cooling off, the word of “buraku” still seems to be considered as a taboo. I have learned about buraku as a part of moral education(dowa education) in high school and was taught that “we shouldn’t talk about buraku so easily in public because some people hide their origin and can get hurt by your inconsiderate words”. After listening to a teacher say like this, I felt I was forced to be always aware of buraku discrimination though I can’t really see or know about it around me. It is indeed important to pass on a story of buraku to prevent further discrimination, but if it is done excessively or in a wrong way, the result will be otherwise.

Buraku areas dispersedly exist in Japan, so education level of buraku should be limited to each area, for example, a place where used to have a large number of burakumin. Since these places have a deep and long history of buraku and people have more chances to get to know about it from their families, relatives, or schools, they can have a better understanding about the discrimination, accordingly,  dowa education can finally reach its goal to stop discriminstion from spreading ever again.

Tomofumi Kodo

What does the word of “minority” and “majority” mean? I do not know the answer, because it seems, for me, that these idea can easily be created based on arbitrary criteria. For example, when we consider “Okinawan” people as a minority group, that means WE are in a majority simply because we are not them, or because they have different dialect, culture, behavior, and so on compared to us, “Japanese”. However, these criteria implicitly mean that we share same identities and deny the diversity within us. Since the awareness of diversity, or being different, makes people alienate the different group from them. “We are not same.” Within the majority group, other minorities are created, and then, “original minority”, “Okinawan” people in my post, would be categorized into “majority”, after those segmentalization of original majority. I think that majority turns into a minority, and then, various minority idea would be taken over by the idea of majority. Then, we notice that it is useless to consider “Okinawan” people as a minority. “Why do we need to think ‘Okinawan as minority’, even though we are not majority?”

However, I do not think this process does not, or hardly, occur in reality, because people, including me, try to avoid from being treated as minority, ignoring lots of difference. I have Japanese nationality, but am not sure I have Japanese identity as other Japanese have. Some tell me the definition of Japanese people with various identities, but I do not totally agree to the definition because there must, and actually, be Japanese people who is not Japanese based on his definition but I believe he is. It’s true that there is minority group in number, but this does not mean at all. We put them various identities and create as minority groups, not as a relative, but as an absolute one through the discrimination to them, for example.

It’s almost impossible to clear away minority groups from this world unless these activities of creation and recreation of minority disappear. However hard do I try not to make minority or majority group, we would intentionally do. But it would still be important to ask ourselves that “on what point can we say so?” when we see some people, or group, as minority or majority.

At some time, maybe I’m either minority or majority, but other times I’m both or neither.

During the discussion and in the short films shown in class about hafu, people raised several advantages of hafu, but not many disadvantages were raised. The first thing that was raised as the advantage was that “hafu are bilingual”. However, I find this perception is a disadvantage.

It may be true that hafu have more opportunities of becoming bilingual since usually hafu have parents speaking different languages. However, that does not mean that hafu can naturally become bilingual. Many hafu, especially those who are half Japanese half white or black that live in Japan, face pressure of becoming bilingual, and have a complex that they are not bilingual.

Since half white/black hafu do not look Japanese or Asian, the Japanese people automatically decide that they are bilingual or at least speak English. This becomes a pressure to many of the hafu. Most hafu living in Japan live in a Japanese society, going to Japanese school, playing with Japanese friends, talking in Japanese with their family, and hardly use English in their daily life. If both parents are bilingual, there is a less chance of using English at home. Nevertheless the Japanese people do not realize that hafu kids are living just the way any other Japanese kids are living like.

One of the things I felt unfair was those kikokushijos, who are Japanese but have been living overseas for their whole or part of their lives. Although they are Japanese, if they cannot speak Japanese, the Japanese people will say its “shouganai” because they have been living in an environment without Japanese. Why can’t they apply that to hafu living in Japan?

The best way for hafu to become bilingual is to use English at home. However, because they are living in a complete Japanese society, this is difficult to accomplish since children will dislike being forced speaking in a language they are not familiar with. Another possible way is to make hafu go to an international school which will be difficult for those who live in the countryside and since the tuition is very expensive many parents cannot afford it.

Japanese should realize and consider the fact that hafu are not naturally bilingual, and that hafu also have to make the effort like any other monolinguals to become bilingual.

 by Rashel Phillips