Letters to the Editor
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Half-Japanese or Half-Asian?
I’d like to thank Gary Kamiya for an intensely personal essay on racial identity. However, as an Asian-American, I find it curious that he refers to himself not once, but twice as “half-Japanese", rather than “half-Asian.”
Yes, I understand that his father is indeed from Japan, making Gary half-Japanese. Unfortunately, such is not the racial politics of this country where such fine-grained analysis takes place. Or, as I’ve often explained to newly arrived Asians, you may think of yourselves as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, etc., but to the average white guy on the street, you’re probably Chinese.
Rather than continue to fight this unfortunate tendency (or promote in-fighting among particular Asian ethnicities), it would be wise to transcend our own ethnic politics and recognize who we are and who we are preceived to be as a race. We may feel, for example, Japanese on the inside, but in this country, it is wiser (and more pragmatic) to simply be Asian.
And thus, Gary’s downplaying of himself as half-Asian undermines his entire essay. One final thing: away from the west coast, the one drop rule still definitely applies, even for the hapas.