Edited by Azizi Powell
This is the fourth post is an multi-part pancocojams series about being mixed race in Asia. Particular attention in this series is given to people who are Blasian (Black/Asian).
The showcase video embedded in this post is the third YouTube video published in 2016 by That Japanese Man Yuta that features "Blasian Farouq".
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The content of this post is presented for cultural and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Farouq and "That Japanese Man Yuta", the producers of this film and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
Click the Blasian tag and the hafu tag below for more posts in this series.
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SHOWCASE VIDEO: Dating as Half-Black in Japan (Blasian Farouq Interview)
That Japanese Man Yuta, Published on Dec 8, 2016
-snip-
"Blasian Farouq" is the screen name for a young Japanese-Black man who was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan.
Farouq is the last person who was [apparently randomly] interviewed on the street by producer That Japanese Man Yuta [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpDF_uV_J1M "Actually Being Mixed-Race in Japan (interview with 'Half-Japanese' People ft Farouq)"] At the end of that interview, Yuta, gave his business card to Farouq - which was a good thing since almost all of the comments in that video's discussion thread were highly favorable regarding this young man. That probably prompted Yuta to publish a subsequent two part interview featuring "Blasian Faouq".
The second video in this "series" is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KMO02xxX1g&t=183s "Growing Up Half-black in Japan (Blasian Farouq Interview)"
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SELECTED COMMENTS FROM THE YOUTUBE DISCUSSION THREAD FOR THE "DATING AS HALF-BLACK IN JAPAN (BLASIAN FAROUQ) VIDEO
Pancocojams Editor's Note:
A number of comments in this video's discussion thread were about Farouq's response to the question about his dating preferences. Farouq indicated that he preferred a Japanese woman who is "neat and pure", or "half-Japanese" girls, or "blonde European girls".
In addition to the comments about dating, another topic that commenters focused on a lot was whether it's correct to refer to a person with one Black birth parent and one birth parent of another race or ethnicity as "Black".
These two groups of comments comprise the bulk of the selected comments in this pancocojams compilation.
-snip-
Numbers are added to these comments for referencing purposes only.
Some screen names may have been changed as certain names don't always match the names given in the replies.
WARNING: Some comments include profanity. I've used amended spelling for those words.
1. micah white, 2017
"I know he's Japanese but hearing him say he prefers white girls while he's black was disappointing to me but he was raised in Japan so."
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2. DarkMatter11k, 2017
"I'd love to see a study done that dives into the impact that racism has on mating. It's unnatural, but understandable that he is admittedly more attracted to full Japanese women, describing them as "neat" and "pure" unlike himself, though his does indeed appear to be both neat and pure. He's attracted to European women with blonde hair as well. These two he was very excited about. Did anyone notice he wasn't particularly excited about half Japanese women, nor did he mention desiring to be with a fully "black" woman. Although he looks like a "black" man, his desire is not of the very image that he possesses, despite the fact that his image is beautiful. He mentioned that Japanese women call him handsome, but do not speak. I think the reality of being a minority causes feelings of inferiority and self rejection.
**
REPLY
3. TheKarret, 2018
"He didn't say he didn't think he was neat or pure, nor do I get the impression he was implying that. Plenty of white dudes talk about wanting a "pure" girl; like innocent and sweet and all that kind of sh&t*, not a troublemaker or "unladylike" so to speak, and I don't think white dudes are trying to say they themselves aren't pure when saying that. It is a curious thing to note that he'd single out European/blonde haired women, though Nevermind, no it's not; he expressed interest in dating a blonde European girl because he's never dated a girl like that, so it's very possible he's dated black girls before. Full Japanese women makes sense because that'd be the majority of what he's surrounded by - I don't think that's a red flag warning sign that he's ashamed of himself or being half black, but just a reflection of being in a predominantly Japanese environment.
Also, one's image doesn't mean anything - his own father was black and had at least one child with an Asian woman, what if he's most interested in full Japanese women as a result of a subconscious thing based on who his own parents are? Like father, like son, it could be, rather than he's ashamed of being black. I'll grant you, though; this is all based on two very brief clips/videos with him, but that seems"
like a very real possibility that shouldn't be discounted or diminished, either.
-snip-
*This word was fully spelled out in this comment.
This sentence was underlined in that original comment.
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REPLY
4. ichnsn chgo, 2018
"He was born and raised in Japan, that's what they like."
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5. Dwayne Whitted, 2017
"The indigenous Japanese were dark skin know your history"
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REPLY
6. SkinnyFB, 2018
"Exactly! The AINU!!!"
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7. SONNY da CUSE, 2017
"its always the black father and Japanese mother.....why???"
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REPLY
8. GUY MAD, 2017
"Do you mean why 'no black woman and Japanese man?'"
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REPLY
9. Sharon !, 2017
"Sonny S ,, Military Bases !"
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REPLY
10. SHARE H!S V!S!0N, 2017
"Agree with the military comment, plus, if it were a black women she wouldve brought the kid back with her, plenty of people like that in the US black mom, russian dad, or I knew a guy once whos father was from Monaco, mother was a sales rep, black."
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REPLY
11. Miguel Lewis, 2018
"Here are a bunch of African women with Japanese husbands.
http://asianblackcouples.com/japanese-and-black-couples-in-committed-love/
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REPLY
12. Justinian21c, 2018
"There's a lot more men than women in the U.S. military, hence more American fathers of half-Japanese kids. Secondly, blacks are a disproportionately large percentage in the U.S. military compared to the overall U.S. population."
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REPLY
13. Lonelyeco, 2017
"I understand why he would say white, blonde girl when thinking of foreigners, since us Black Americans usually don't have enough to travel. Oh well. Keep the fine brothas in Japan on their toes. Peace."
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REPLY
14. StarRoseAngelic, 2017
"What? I lived in both Japan and Korea and there were plenty of Black foreigners. Please remove yourself from whatever bubble you're living in."
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REPLY
15. Ahido Mikaro, 2017
"+StarRoseAngelic Maybe you haven't really "lived" much in them or don't know what "plenty" means. Half a percent of Japan is not Japanese, Chinese or Korean. And that still doesn't mean just black, which are a minority in the minority. Ultimately you are not proving much by talking about the exception to the exception to the rule."
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REPLY
16. StarRoseAngelic, 2017
"+Ahido Mikaro Did you even read the original comment? No one is speaking on Japanese natives, we are talking about foreigners. Specifically black foreigners. The OP's claim that this young man only references "white blonde girls" because many Black Americans don't travel is founded in ignorance, not facts."
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REPLY
17. kelkel5169, 2018
"Ahido Mikaro his african=black genes phenotype dominated he's a Blackman (it don't matter if he's biracial his culture mayb different from mines but if he gets pulled over or apply for a job or go missing you know what they gonna check on that box) I've dated one for 2yrs he's a blasian 2 born overseas 2 but he calls his self a african/black man & identified as a African but his skin light as asian(Full African daddy!)But he sides with Africans more)"
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REPLY
18. IG georgio24, 2018
"kelkel5169 full African daddy! Lol where are you from"
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REPLY
19. Ke ke G, 2018
"IG georgio24 amerikka roots from Haiti and Louisiana"
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REPLY
20. Lonelyeco, 2017
"StarRoseAngelic to you and the other. When you say you've seen many blacks where was that? Tokyo? And we black Americans do not travel much. Look at the quotas. Also, another factor of him thinking this way is media. When America is advertised overseas White Males and White Females are majority of the time used to represent America. It is not ignorance, but research from many sources. So check your attitude before acting a fool to look superior. I am not the one. Can't even post a relaxed friendly post on here anymore. Dang!"
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REPLY
21. Jon, 2017
"I'd say that's definitely just because of things like film because I stayed in Seoul for a few years and I definitely saw plenty of nonwhite foreigners. More so than I expected. It's like it's just been beaten into the minds of people in other countries but yea, you'd probably be surprised to see first hand blacks and middle eastern folk in places like Korea."
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REPLY
22. StarRoseAngelic, 2017
"+Lonelyeco Sad that you think that way. You should note that media portrayal and actual statistics are two different things. Please join and follow the social media accounts of TravelNoire, BlackTravelHackers, and other groups. There are many traveling communities of hundreds of thousands of Black Americans who travel annually. If you or your family are having financial issues traveling, check those groups out for tips. God bless."
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REPLY
23. Prince Asim, 2017
"He did say that he tends to date "half-Japanese" girls, so that probably includes half-Black/half-Japanese girls too. He said he had never dated, "blonde European girls" before."
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REPLY
24. xenotypos, 2017
"Lonelyeco-> Maybe yes, maybe no, who knows we all never met him. Don't assume the reason of his statement, to have personal preference isn't a sin.
I don't see the issue people always have everywhere all the time about (hypothetical) personal taste."
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REPLY
25. Fauzril Lukman, 2017
"this is funny cuz his thoughts is just the same as most of Indonesian who if they heard "foreigner", their thoughts is always a white men/women, rich, and smart."
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REPLY
26. ALL Star, 2017
"growing up in an Asain culture, he got imprinted with the Asains custom of having light skin in best and thinking Europeans are the standards of beauty, all Asains I met. They even draw all their heroes in anime white, and would kill to meet someone with blonde hair, example Sailor Moon white and blonde with blue eyes , Goku white and blonde with blue eyes, Naruto white and blonde with blue eyes. I bet he doesn't even know the reason he is so good at sports and getting so popular is because everyone think that his dark skin is super hot and his athletic genes he got from his dark skin father, gave him that awesome body but hey to each his own hopefully he finds his pale beauty.
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27. kelkel5169, 2018
"Lonelyeco issa lie 😂😂😂 I travel all the time I'm going to Africa and Korea,Haiti this year & some of us work hard & save,why dont u catch them sales online because they're always having a great sales on Japan ,try income tax time or picking up extra hours!It's plenty of blacks/Africans that come visit their 7-8yrs in a row and I may take a break but I always travel plus all my family 2"
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28. Leila, 2017
"Seems like a nice guy, and these interviews just go to show how much where a person grows up can influence them. I was surprised when he said he likes Japanese girls that are "pure and neat" and gave an example of a Japanese model who is gorgeous but not voluptuous in the slightest, and then said he likes girls with booty lol. I think this guy needs to travel the world more and broaden his horizons a bit."
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REPLY
29. Leila, 2017
"He dresses like someone's who's into "black" culture as well, like hip hop or rap etc. This guy is an enigma lol, it's interesting though"
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REPLY
30. Hadi Nu'man. 2017
"because hip-hop culture is big in japan and korea. that's why he wears that kind of outfit."
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31. Ttheway2 life, 2017
"Well i don't think he should be called Half Japanese. he is full Japanese with some american ancestry. But, only if he have a duel citizenship. He is Japanese with american ancestry."
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32. Jasmine Adachi, 2017
"aw hes cute! too bad he dont like his own kind 😒 we black women dont need a self hating black man anyway 👋🏼"
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REPLY
33. Marwuan, 2017
"Jasmine Adachi he likes half of his kind"
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REPLY
34. Lonelyeco, 2017
"That doesn't mean he hates himself or his own kind. He does not see his ethnicity often. Also, like in the U.S., media plays a huge part in your selection of the opposite sex."
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REPLY
35. Anton Ekstrand, 2017
"Lonelyeco I'd really like to know what you base your assertion that "media" somehow plays a big role in your personal sexual preference on. I don't know any method you could use to accurately measure that and it just sounds like something you would like to be true.
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REPLY
36. Lonelyeco, 2017
"Psychology. The mind subconsciously receives messages through media (television, art, music). If you were born somewhere and the majority you see are black women on makeup commercials and Black women and Asian men are always together whether, through the female the damsel or hero, you would gain the assumption that that is the norm. The same as in a test with girls that showed black girls that played with dolls were more likely to dislike their self because they were not the same ethnicity as the majority of the dolls. Since the majority of dolls were white. Look it up. This is not a theory, which if it were science you would probably take as truth."
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REPLY
37. AfroBoricuaSamurai, 2017
"Well he's Japanese & the majority of Japanese people, half black or not, have a fascination with White people; it's not because he's a "self hating black man." 😒👋🏾"
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REPLY
38. TonyRedgrave1501, 2017
"He is not a "black man". He is mixed..."
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REPLY
39. FixedAlgorithm, 2017
"+TonyRedgrave1501
Are you black?"
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REPLY
40. TonyRedgrave1501, 2017
"+Kodama Mixed too but with east european. I wouldn't call myself black nor white."
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REPLY
41. TonyRedgrave1501, 2017
"+Kodama I mean mixed east-european and african bro'. And with east-european I mean minority groups in caucasus region of russia. So not really typical east-european more like caucasus europeans (armenians, georgians, ossetians, aserbaidchanians and more...). I have 4 different ethnic groups in me. And by the way not all east-europeans are "anti-black". Just racist motherf&&kers* every country has."
-snip-
This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
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REPLY
42. TonyRedgrave1501, 2017
"+Kodama It's always hard to tag the caucasus region because it's not really east-europe nor middle-east/arabia. It's inbetween and culturally really diverse. It's like between tables and in the beginning of asia."
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REPLY
43. TonyRedgrave1501, 2017
"+Kodama What is "Blackness"? I just said he is mixed and that's true since he is half Japanese so he isn't "Black" which is a stupid term anyway. Why call yourself or other people "Black"? It's African you idiot! Black is a color! You seem to be too stupid to read I guess because I wrote I'm half African and half Caucasus-european. I made comments about this stupid term "Black" in the first place because it's stupid to call African people like that and since I'm half African myself I don't want to be called "Black" because it's a term for a color not a ethnicity. White, Black, Yellow, Red only Americans use color terms for ethnicity. Stupid!"
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REPLY
44. Life with Dante, 2017
"He's just as much Japanese as he is black. The "one drop" rule is over, dude."
-snip-
Read my comments below about "the one drop of black blood" rule.
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45. L
"Hopefully this doesnt sound racist, but tbh it's kinda weird for me to see a "black" man speaking japanese fluently."
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REPLY
46. Terasets, 2017
"Honestly african languages/accents are closer to japanese than other english speaking/european countries imo so i dont think it looks weird."
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REPLY
47. Joelthedon22, 2017
"Well he's a Japanese man, so..."
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REPLY
48. Language Learning Lounge, 2017
"A while back there was a video of a black man in China and these two girls cut him in line. He told them not to cut in Chinese.... the pretended not to speak that dialect. He went through three dialects before they gave up and left. It was amazing. Moral of the story: don't be surprised at all. People from all backgrounds speak all sorts of different languages! (Natively or learned. =])"
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REPLY
49. Leandro Ribeiro, 2017
"Actually it is weirder to see native English speakers being able to do so since the pronunciation is so different. I live in Brazil, the country with second largest black population in the world (only behind Nigeria) and it's also the country where Japanese is most spoken outside Japan and also the country with the largest Japanese population outside Japan. I can speak at an intermediate level and I'm pretty sure that I'll become fluent in no time. Most foreigners in Japan that can speak Japanese are not from Europe or US, they are Koreans, Chinese, Brazilians..."
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REPLY
50. Kany Diabate, 2017
"if you are a person that dont travel and knowledge is narrow then yes it will be weird to you, im a "dark skin black" lol female born and raised in paris , origin from west africa , and speaks fluently japanese english, german and african dialects and currently live in LA (plus of course mother tongue french) i travelled a lot so it looks "normal" to me, you should just open and look around youll discover many diversities ;) ;) ( no worries i didnt take it as "racist" , just out of your knowledges zones)"
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REPLY
51. Blacktattedgaijin, 2017
"+Kany Diabate Preach !"
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REPLY
52. Kany Diabate, 2017
"+Blacktattedgaijin ;*!!"
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REPLY
53. Blacktattedgaijin, 2017
"+Kany Diabate Back at you ;*..."
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54. LilyLaya, 2017
"Out of curiosity, why do you keep putting black in quotation marks? The man in this video is black. He is also Japanese. Why are you tip-toeing over his race?"
-snip-
I believe this question was directed to "L".
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REPLY
55. Queen S, 2017
"But he's not black he's biracial"
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REPLY
56. LilyLaya, 2017
"+Shamara Morgan And one of his two racial backgrounds is black. Therefore, he is black. Why do you think biracial and black are mutually exclusive?"
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REPLY
57. Queen S, 2017
"Are you an idiot? Biracial is biracial black is black how much sense does that even make black children come from two black parents not one you modern day slave the one drop rule is a slave rule your master gave you he's BIRACIAL I bet he doesn't even identify as "black" "
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REPLY
58. Blacktattedgaijin, 2017
"All of you ignorant mothaf&&kas* commenting about biracial people and what we identify our selves as PLEASE STFU! I am Black and Mexican. Father is black, Mother is Mexican. I am both, case closed. Crazy how the people who aren't even "biracial" have the biggest mouth on the subject."
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment,
The bold font was used in this original comment.
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REPLY
59. tyra, 2017
"L lmao why did you put black i quotations he is black"
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REPLY
60. Joel Kotto, 2017
"He's biracial and it's pretty obvious when you look at his face and skin tone..."
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REPLY
61. Senpaitama, 2017
"Joel Kotto skin tone?? lol my sister is wayy lighter than him but she not mixed...."
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REPLY
62. SHARE H!S V!S!0N, 2017
"hes dark skinned japanese. Not black. Black is an american thing, and a way for people in America to identify other blacks around the world. But he is so far from black its not even a joke.He dont know anything about our bullshyte over here in the states and I am glad for him."
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REPLY
63. Linda L, 2017
"+SHARE H!S V!S!0N he is half Japanese half black, just because he was born and grew up in Japan does not change the fact that he still has some black descent, one of his parents is African"
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REPLY
64. Linda L, 2017
"+SHARE H!S V!S!0N you don't represent society mate, no matter how you feel, society will still continue to see this man as half black and half Asian, nothing you can do to change that."
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REPLY
65. Joel Kotto, 2017
"Maybe my argument isn't that relevant, yet he's a biracial and Black Americans' rules giving in to the American racist way of thinking inherited from slavery times shouldn't apply to him. If you're biracial, you're not Black, you're biracial and should be proud of everything making you up as who you are. Period. (ain't mad, just os you know)."
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REPLY
66. tyra, 2017
"+Joel Kotto So you're saying he's not black???¿"
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REPLY
67. nekrataal7, 2017
"Let's just go with Obama's example: for all intents and purposes, this half-black, half-japanese guy is pretty much black."
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REPLY
68. Joel Kotto, 2017
"Don't project your low American racist ways of thinking to this guy. If Obama was willing to really define himself according to White supremacist rules, good for him but if this guy doesn't, it's even better."
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REPLY
69. nekrataal7, 2017
"+Lance Fernandez Good luck convincing the rest of America that former U.S. President Barack Obama was biracial/mixed and not just black."
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70. poloko collen, 2017
"ppl say he is black and really he is not...just blasian....no hate."
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71. Qris 6O6, 2017
"im full black i live in guam if your from japan you know alot of japanese from nagoya tokyo,narita etc come here for tourism and as far as i can tell from everyone i meet theyre super friendly and idk how else to say it but they love the fact that im black but sometimes tehy say i look like will smith or eddie murphy haha but i love the japanese theyre super cool"
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72. Sam Y, 2017
"I knew the name Farouq was quite Arabic/Islamic!!! I was genuinely surprised to learn thats his name. I know many African Americans who are not muslim have names that have islamic origins, like Jamal, I know a guy calles Hussein but he isnt muslim either which I thought it was very interesting!"
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73. Gantz akira, 2017
1 year ago
farouq is an islamic name , that is one that knows right from wrong.
my nephew has that name tooo.
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REPLY
74. Sabah Alkhair31, 2018
"Farrouk is muslim name. In arabic language it means different between good and bad. And it means very honest person."
-snip-
A commenter in this discussion thread or one of the other discussion threads of "Blasian Farouq" videos indicated that Farouq said he had gotten his name from his uncle on his father's side. He also said that he wasn't Muslim and neither was his father or his uncle.
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75. Ijacqueline forbes, 2017
"After this interview you will very famous all over the world. The face of the world is changing. Its a fusion of cultures....Get use to it!!!"
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76. Benji Talima, 2017
"I enjoyed this vlog/interview and i look forward to more. However i find it disturbing that some people have failed to understand culture and race till 2017. Black-Asian, why should it puzzle feeble minds. We live in a global society and those that do not travel only read from one page, however thank God we gat the internet, this shouldn't be any harder. Read, explore and learn."
**
77. thatOne, 2018
"I wonder what it was like for his mom raising a black kid in Japan and how it affected her.?"
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Showing posts with label hafu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hafu. Show all posts
Monday, September 17, 2018
YouTube Official Trailer Of "Hafu: The Mixed-Race Experience In Japan" (with selected comments from mixed race people who posted on that video's discussion thread)
Edited by Azizi Powell
This is the third post is an multi-part pancocojams series about being mixed race in Asia. Particular attention in this series is given to people who are Blasian (Black/Asian).
Click the Blasian tag and the hafu tag below for more posts in this series.
This post showcases a 2013 YouTube trailer for a film entitled Selected comments from this video's discussion thread are also included in this post. Most of these comments are from people who self-identify as being mixed race.
Note that in a comment from that discussion thread, the producers identify themselves as being hafu.
"Hafu" is a Japanese term that means "half Japanese" (a person who has one ethnic Japanese birth parent and one birth parent of another race or ethnicity).
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The content of this post is presented for cultural and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to the producers of this film and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
****
PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE ABOUT COMPILING SELECTED COMMENTS FROM A YOUTUBE VIDEO'S DISCUSSION THREADS:
I believe that a number of YouTube video discussion threads contain content that should be archived and disseminated for informational purposes, and as a way of documenting some of the attitudes and opinions that are at least partly reflective of those times and populations. In addition to the content itself, I'm interested in documenting examples of the ways that people communicate on YouTube discussion thread- i.e. screen names, the use of internet lingo, the lack of attention to punctuation and capitalization, the use of run-on sentences, etc.
That said, I recognize that the selected YouTube discussion thread comments that I feature in these pancocojams posts reflect my interests and biases. For example, initially, when I began culling through YouTube discussion threads (for my no longer active website called jambalayah), I presented edited YouTube comment threads in part so readers could read what I considered "comment gems" without reading the numerous comments in those threads that contained profanity, salacious material, and/or were racist.
As a means of compiling these discussion thread examples, I almost always read the entire discussion thread for a showcased video, selecting the sample comments as I read. The selected comments are presented in relative chronological order with the oldest dated comments given first, except for replies. Because some comments may be missing from particular exchanges, these selected comments may not be in consecutive order.
Once these compilations are posted on this pancocojams blog, I rarely go back and update these compilations with more recently published comments from that video's discussion threads.
The comments selected by me for these YouTube discussion threads aren't necessarily meant to be representative of all of the comments in those featured discussion threads.
****
SHOWCASE VIDEO: 映画『ハーフ』予告編 Hafu: the mixed-race experience in Japan [Official Trailer]
Hafu Film, Published on Aug 13, 2013
DVDの販売が始まりました！DVDs are now on sale. http://hafufilm.com/en/buyandrent/
ストリーミング レンタルは Watch the film online https://vimeo.com/ondemand/hafufilm
-snip-
Here are selected comments from that video's discussion thread (with numbers added for referencing purposes only). Note that after reading this video's entire discussion thread, it appears to me that a number of the replies in that video's discussion thread are from commenters whose screen names may have changed or whose comments are no longer shown in that discussion thread.
1. Hlynb93, 2013
"This movie should be screened all over Japan, and shown in schools all over the country.
The older generations can't do much now, but children and teenagers are the future of Japan, they need to be able to see this movie as a way to prepare them for the future of their country, so that they can grow into understanding and open minded adults who can one day lead the country towards a brighter future."
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REPLY
2. Hafu Film, 2013
"We are working on it! One step at a time!"
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3. NadiiDK, 2013
"I'm also a half or a "hafu" living in a very homogeneous country. Even though i'm not half japanese, i can relate to these people. thank you for making this."
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4. Tabbylover55, 2013
"I hope that some day all of humanity will become one. It doesn't matter where you come from, it matters WHO you are and what we can learn from each others' cultures. Racism and intolerance are just wrong and don't accomplish anything but war and hatred. The guy who is half Japanese-half Ghana from the trailer is super hot, call me ;)"
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5. Kiyotaka Izumi, 2013
"Not living in Japan but I can understand how all of these people felt. Half Japanese half Arab."
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6. Tanaie, 2013
"This look really interesting! Waah~ I really wanna watch it.
I'm a ハーフ, well a German x Jamaican mixed. And I can definitely relate to these people!"
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7. Jay Cunningham, 2014
"Half Blacks and japanese are actually one of the most common mixed hybrids in Japan, I'm also Black/Japanese btw"
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8. Sammy Chill, 2014
"Why focus only on mixed race kids? In fact, they have it much better than "non-Japanese" kids such as the Brazilians or kids from the Phillipines. When I taught at the junior high, the other kids didn't even _speak_ to those kids. The so-called "half" kids are also often the recipients of the stereotype "half kids are so beautiful!". The foreign kids were either bullied or left alone entirely. This movie looks like someone wanted their kid to be in a movie."
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REPLY
11. Hafu Film, 2014
"Hi Sammy- There certainly should be other films made about the non Japanese kids in Japan. We highly encourage and support anyone who seeks to make such films! We, the filmmakers, are hafu ourselves. We think its best if we try to tell our own story first before telling other people's stories for them."
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12. SailorJupi, 2014
"How dare you complain about people sharing their personal stories and undermine their hurt just because some find mixed kids beautiful, as if that gives mixed kids an overwhelming amount of special privilege. Aside from the ignorance of that, let me say as a mixed person, people telling me my hair or what have you looks nice could never make up for the feeling of not thinking I belonged to any race just because I belonged to two or being categorized by those that don't know me."
**
13. smallpond808, 2014
"this is great! hopefully it'll be available to a bigger audience.
It'll also be interesting to make a film about Japanese-American, Japanese-Brazilian, 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation Japanese of different countries, and their lives(identity, culture, etc) in their home country and/or those who have returned to japan."
**
14. Weirdo, 2014
"なぜ"Hafu?"それだとハーフじゃなくて「ハフ」じゃん・・・HāfuかHaafuじゃダメだったの？"
-snip-
Google translate from Japanese to English
"Why is it "Hafu?" That is not a half but "Huff" ... Haafu or Haafu was not it?"
**
15. stakisolo, 2014
"well im a half or double neither is ok
well good thing i was not raised in japan
i like being different and a good thing i look like a japanese and can speak japanese
i live in aomori which is rural and conservative
embrace both your culture never forget one of them
love your family and believe on them thats one thing we have that alot of japanese kids dont "
**
16. Leanna Jackman, 2014
"As a half Japanese, half English person, I am so glad that I was raised in Britain. If you are born in Britain, you are classed as British, no matter what your original ethnicity. I took that for granted because now living in Japan, it makes me sad to see hafu's treated like this. In Britain, I am British, in Japan, I will always be Gaijin...End of!! Japan will slowly change, but for me, I was glad to have missed such discrimination growing up like the people who have suffered in this movie."
**
17. Kurone Shizuhi, 2014
"It's not so bad for the Half-Japan and Half-(insert Asian country name that excludes the darker skin people, but not being racist or anything here) people.
It's the Westerners that really stand out. Which is really sad. I bet most of them get this "Oh! You speak Japanese so well~!" remark wherever they go...
**
18. Dan Weese, 2014
"I never allow Japanese people outside of my 内の者 to realise I speak it. Nihonjin will say the most appallingly stupid things in front of me, as if I wasn't there at all."
**
REPLY
19. Kurone Shizuhi, 2014
"Ah yes. It's amusing at times."
**
20. K J, 2014
"It's like the USA 100 years ago. Maybe 50 or so, but none the less, xenophobia."
**
21. Ivan Miyashiro, 2014
"My father was born in Japan, my grandfather fought for Japan on WW2, lost his wife and kid, my grandmother as a nurce, lost her husband too, fortunetly, they've meet and got maried again, there they've adopted 2 other orphans of friends, reised them until they complete 18, after that, island of Okinawa was a desaster, abandoned by japan during the war. So they came to brazil with my father and other 4 childrens, losing one of them on the ship for the desease. Those who got back to Japan first allways told us here: "don't come, they look at you like if you wore not japonese, you're going to work as a slave on the factorys, that's they're gratitude for us". Knowing that, my family and many other worked hard to develop Brazil, there is a lot of half-japoneses here, 6% of the population, but 95% of them now live amog the 30% richest. If they want to get back to Japan? Just forget about Japan! Brazilians respect more the japoneses here, than the japoneses respect themselfs."
**
Carmichael Caudron, 2014
"I applaud the effort of trying to make people of mixed race feel belonged. I think even though virtually everyone claims they like being different, they really just want to be like everyone else, it doesn't feel good being treated differently than the masses. I've been there and have felt confusion,anger but my childhood thankfully was colorblind, I was fortunate there.With that said, my advise to those struggling with borderline racism because you are dark or of mixed race, I still don't have the answers but who does? just if u want to belong, be yourself. love who u want, male or female or both, white or black or both because through your struggle, a community acceptive of you that u also in turn like, will embrace u just for who u are. if u change that's when problems occur, people somehow can smell self hatred a mile away no matter how hard u hide it. be yourself, be free and through the ignorance u will find an acceptance."
**
2. Holmes Ink, 2014
"I ain't no ハーフ I tell that I'm double
人の倍気持ち込めた言葉を
何卒ご理解いただきたい
差別すること自体が間違い
預けな期待、俺等照らすライト
人の道歩みゃ、外れはしないと
気付いててくりゃまだ遅くない
共に築こう新たな時代"
-snip-
Google translate from Japanese to English"
"I ain't no Half I tell that I 'm double
Happy words that people twice
Thank you for your understanding
Discrimination itself is a mistake
Expectations of deposit, lights that illuminate us etc.
People's way of walking, you have to come off
It is not too late if you are aware
Let's build a new era"
**
3. GJMSLF, 2014
"The Half-Japanese persons who was born and living in Europe or North America,
They are called "ching chang chong" … Why???"
**
REPLY
4. dhrcat, 2015
"That's racism in those countries. I live in North America and stupid kids will call any Asian with such name. It's making fun of how Asian language (mainly Chinese) sounds like to them."
**
5. Sam .Raby, 2015
"Half English, quarter Bengali, quarter Indian here. I'll never be the same as most of my native UK but I come close to forgetting that in London. I never turn heads in the street, every friend I have is from a different background: Arab, mixed, Indian, Chinese, Serbian, Irish etc. and we talk simply because we live near and like the same things. The way it should be I think. I tentatively hope that the world will move more in this direction in the future."
**
6. Pandaジエイダ, 2015
"I love mixed race people. They are the least racist in this world I believe. That's because they learn to accept diversity, unlike people I see here who don't want other races to mix with Japanese people. Please just hide under a rock if all you care about is your country turning multi-racial/cultural."
**
7. rcmp09, 2015
"I'm in an interracial marriage and my children will eventually be mixed race, however, people tend to want their descendent to look like them. There is nothing wrong with people who think that races should be kept pure, as long as they don't stop others from wanting something different."
**
REPLY
8. Joost Kralt, 2015
"Actually, there is something wrong with believing races should be kept pure, first of all because it originates from the assuption that there is something like a 'pure race' to begin with. Race only mattters to people because they are raised to believe it matters by society, not because of the practically non-existent biological and genetic differences."
**
REPLY
9. rcmp09, 2015
"I will agree with the fact that technically none of us are probably "pure."
However, saying race only matters to people because they are raised to believe it matters is completely false. It is literally the opposite. In a primitive sense, we only generally care about our family, and the further our genetic differences, the less we will attempt to work together. However, cooperation as a culture proved very effective, and as civilizations have grown larger, we have been trying to bring larger and larger groups of people together. Culture brought us together, not apart, it just takes longer when it's not just about cooperating with a neighboring village/tribe, but with people on the other side of the planet.
Also, saying that there are practically non-existent biological and genetic differences is completely false. Different climates, prey, predators, and pathogens forced each race to evolve slightly differently. We are each specialized to be slightly more suited to a different environment. It's these differences that make us interesting."
**
REPLY
10. Joost Kralt, 2015
"Yes, the fact that humans tend to care more about those regarded as close to them may be primitive, but that a biologically falacious concept of race is used only underlines the fact that this is socially constructed.
I have yet to read conclusive proof of the biological validity of race. Yes, there are superficial deviations caused by different envitonments, but these are rendered insignificant in the face of the overwhelming similarities caused by common ancestry.
These differences may be interesting, yes, but the notion of keeping something 'pure' along the lines of a concept that is unable to provide a scientifically grounded delineation beyond superficial differences is, I believe, fundamentally mistaken."
**
REPLY
11. rcmp09, 2015
"It is not. Something that is primitive is innate and the stronger desire to protect and work with those that are genetically similar is a universal trait within every single species. Social constructs are what have gotten us to attempt to move past our primitive nature.
Everything is relative, however. We are all human, so all our DNA is extremely similar. However, if we share 50% of our DNA with bananas, and 99% of our DNA with apes, how small of a difference in DNA do you think there is between a wolf and a chihuahua. However, the differences between these two animals is significant. So when you talk about individuals differences within humans, .0001% is the difference between being slow, and being an olympic sprinter, or being in the bottom 5% of the SAT and the top 5% of the SAT.
Those "superficial differences" are important though. While race may be arbitrary to you, genetically, differences in races represent the larges differences between individuals within the human species. An Irish person from purely a primitive sense, is more likely to work together someone that is also of Irish descent compared to someone of Italian descent and even more so compared to someone of African descent. Primitively, groups naturally form towards people who LOOK most similar. With the introduction of culture, people tend to form groups with those who ACT more similar to them."
**
12. Lao Jiang, 2015
"To be fair i'm a half White American-Japanese and i stayed longer in Japan but i never felt being accepted in Japan and i rather stay here in Chicago than staying in there. Japanese are racist, specially to all half race. Just sayin'."
**
REPLY
13. Pandaジエイダ, 2015
"+69glazer Wow, that's new to me. Because I heard that they actually liked half white half Japanese people... They even have a name for it and a makeup look to look half japanese."
**
REPLY
14. Lao Jiang, 2015
"+ジェイダ White They love female halfs because mostly they're cute but if you're a guy they will hate you for some reason specially those Japanese men. I don't know maybe i have something in me that they hate but i don't feel any hate coming from Japanese females (actually they're quite friendly) except for the elders of course (Elders there hates Gaijins regardless of where you're from) . Take note if you're a half be careful of those Gaijin hunters specially if you're a guy."
**
15. Bryce Antony Franco da Silva, 2015
"I feel the same living in Korea! My dad is black-American and my mom is a Korean. Younger I was called names like hybrid, mutt, half breed and some that a worse like monkey and dog! But things are also changing in Korea to! Lots of half Korean children are being born by Whites, blacks, Arabs and Latinos! Hopefully those kids will have a better childhood than my generation of mixed Koreans"
**
16. HalfThaiKorean1990, 2015
"u forgot half east asians with south east asians ,bcs u have the same problems with people for still being something else then korean or japanese. im thai and japanese and had the same experiences"
**
17. saver vionetta, 2015
"japan is changing? i am pretty skeptical about that"
**
REPLY
18. HalfThaiKorean1990, 2015
"it does change , but quite slowly and most likely more with the younger generation"
**
REPLY
19. saver vionetta, 2015
"i hope so"
**
REPLY
20. ečnasaufuqt, 2016
"+HalfThaiKorean1990 The older generation in Japan is actually much more accepting because the way others were treated in world war 2 has left their eyes open"
**
21. Ambre Badipi [bold commenters are hafu], 2015
"I am not mixed with Japanese but being biracial/mixed myself I know what it is not being fully accepted on either sides of your heritage and feeling kind of alienated. I am Belgian with Greek and Congolese(African) heritage and this trailer got me teary-eyed."
-snip-
This screen name is given as it was found in that discussion thread.
**
22. Kytota [bold comments aren’t hafu], 2015
"I am a Malaysian born Australian of Hungarian, Serbian and Chinese heritage. When I was young, I get flack from all sides. Asians calling me 'impure' (actually got insulted like that a few times) and whites calling me 'foreigner' and I should go back where I came from. They made me believe I can never be a part of anything.
When I got older and wiser, I really began to appreciate who I am and my heritage. I realized my parents overcame race AND religion to have me. Being mixed also makes me more open-minded and more willing to interact with people from any background because I finally understood in a world as large and diverse as this, we are all same and different no matter the color of our skin or where we came from. "
-snip-
This screen name is given as it was found in that discussion thread.
**
REPLY
23. DeadPurpleStar, 2015
"+Kytota \U are amazing let me tell u that !! People get suicidal but u overcame it all. Congrats ^^ .P.S. I am from Serbia haha and I look asian so I was bullied as well, but in Serbia, we don't have a specific look to us like for ex the Asians do . U have an awesome mix wow duude :3"
**
REPLY
24. Kytota, 2015
"+WMeMyselfAndI001 Well, thanks. If there's one thing I learned, it is to stop feeling bad about yourself just because others want to. You are who you are, nothing can ever change that. And if people can't accept who you are, it's not your problem."
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25. Kytota, 2015
"+Bloke Poppy All kinds, unfortunately. Being the one and only Caucasian-looking guy in a Malaysian high-school where people can be mean like hell and visiting my Asian relatives in my family's rural hometown was where I got it the most. My friends do joke about me being mixed but not in a mean-spirited way though. As for the whites calling me 'foreigner' thing, this happens when I visit Western countries. I think Americans for example, are pretty nice but the morons among them keep thinking I am invading their country to steal their jobs when I am only there on vacation.
It all comes down to how different people look at me. Asians think I'm a white, Westerners think I'm Asian. My mixed heritage gives me a unique look. Never had these problems when I moved to Australia, though. In fact, can't even remember the last time I was insulted about my heritage."
**
26. MrRebuttal, 2015
"HUGE VICTORY FOR BLASIANS: Ariana Miyamoto Half-Black\Half-Japanese contestant wins Miss Japan 2015!!!"
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27. ken dutchess, 2015
"I have lived in Japan, on and off for the last 27 years, and love it here. My great Grandmother was Japanese, and though I speak Japanese fluently, I almost never bring the fact up that I have Japanese ancestry, as the few times I revealed that I was part Japanese, even 1/8, I was told, Uso bakari, Which means, you are telling a lie. How could that be, as I don't even look Asian. I keep it to myself. I love living here but I agree, it can be very difficult for mixed race kids here, especially if they are sensitive. I hope that this attitude changes.
**
28. S S
"Sounds weird. If you live in the UK or USA people would love you. Mixed race kids with especially with at least a bit of black heritage are more likely to be good looking and therefore popular. Trust me, every mixed race kid I know is good looking and popular."
**
REPLY
29. Ambre Badipi, 2015
"It's not that i'm unpopular. it's not that I have no friends. It's not that I am unloved. It's that your White side constantly reminds you that you are not white (we are mixed so we are obviously not white that's fair enough !) and your black side constantly reminds you that you are not black either so you are left in between and more often than not, you develop an identity crisis because you are not considered black yet you face all the struggles and issues of being black (because you are person of color) in a white supremacy society. You know what I mean ? +dark side :)"
**
REPLY
30. +Ambre Badipi Well, I know that you will never feel completely white or black, and not accepted by both but the thing is mixed race people do not have to identify themselves as black or white. But I mean, have you ever actually experienced discrimination or did someone actually tell you something that made you upset? I know black people are more likely to accept mixed race kids so they are always hanging out together, but the new generation of white kids is becoming more open and accepting of other cultures.
**
REPLY
31. Ambre Badipi, 2015
"+dark side omg dear sorry for the late reply !!!
I have already been discriminated against but usually what happens are "microagressions". What I mean by that is getting ignorant and prejudiced comments filled with backstabbed compliments.
So it's not racism,in the way that it's not in the explicit form and they don't do it on purpose to hurt me by feeling racially superior but it's unintended racism that is so deeply embedded that they don't even recognise it and it shows in comments and ways of thinking that are quite conservative and full of prejudices and stereotypes.
But then again, nothing major. It's not awful but rather annoying and frustrating you know what I mean.
Also, I am totally accepted by both parts of my origins because they accept me for who I am but I know that deep inside they won't ever consider me as a part of them if that makes any sense (which is comprehensive since I'm not either of them) I don't know if that made any sense to you. Anyway, have a good day mate ! "
**
33. ammie Bo, 2015
"I'm half Japanese and half Ghanaian and when I went to Japan, I realised that apart from my aunt and grandma, none of my family knew I was half black :/ But they were really accepting anyway :) I'm definitely going to watch this. woo go David!! #Twinning"
**
REPLY
34. Annette Caitlyn, 2015
"Where were you born?"
**
REPLY
35. ammie Bo, 2015
"+Annette Caitlyn London 😊"
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36. Tornado1994, 2015
"Interesting Fact: Did you know that the founder of Sega, David Rosen Iijima was half Japanese?Half French American? Rosen's mother was a French immigrant, his father was born in Saitama,Toyko. His parents migrated to NYC in 1929."
**
37. Sean Goto, 2015
"Im Japanese/Irish,
in ireland im often mistaking as chinese
in japan iv been mistaking as an american, iranian, indian, brazillian, spanish, australian and other races but i cant remember lol.
tbh i experienced waaay more racism in ireland than i ever did in japan.
in ireland i was called a chink countless times and i got my ass kicked a lot by groups of people for simply being half japanese.
i never once in my life ever feel threatned by the japanese if anything their a bit scared of me. i think thier more xenophobic than racist (im not saying that racism doesn't exist here its a worldwide problem)
because it is a homogenous society of course thier gonna look at you as gaijin thats not gonna change but i dont feel bad about it, id rather be called a gaijin than a 'chink, 'dog eater' slanty eyes' anyday"
-snip-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaijin
"Gaijin (外人, [ɡaid͡ʑiɴ]; "outsider", "alien", "Non-Japanese") is a Japanese word for foreigners and non-Japanese. The word is composed of two kanji: gai (外, "outside") and jin (人, "person"). Similarly composed words that refer to foreign things include gaikoku (外国, "foreign country") and gaisha (外車, "foreign car"). The word can refer to nationality, race or ethnicity, concepts generally conflated in Japan.
Some feel the word has come to have a negative or pejorative connotation,[1][2][3][4][5][6] while other observers maintain it is neutral or even positive.[2][7][8][9][10] Gaikokujin (外国人 "foreign-country person") is a more neutral and somewhat more formal term widely used in the Japanese government and in media."
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REPLY
38. Tornado1994, 2015
"+Okiku Ningyo Japan is a very centrist style country with conservative values. With the fact that its birthrate has been lackluster for decades, mixed race Japanese is both unique and fascinating. It's a breath of fresh air to the pure Japanese race that's been aging steadily. Gaijins like me(Black and Half Native American Cherokee/Saginaw), are eager to not only learn the culture,lifestyles and customs of Japan, but also learn to speak its language "Nippon" properly. Please bear with my fellow westerners and their ignorance."
**
39. chigasaki06, 2015
"I'm definitely gonna have to watch. I lived in Japan, and on occasion I saw mixed raced children and wondered what it was like for them growing up in such a homogeneous society. I'm black and at times I felt like an alien based on the attention I received, which was understandable. However, I can't imagine being raised in a country you call home and sticking out like other foreigners. The black/japanese children I saw stared at me and waved as if to say, "look, someone who looks like us." To some they will never truly be Japanese. That's why I have always said if I ever got married and have mixed black/japanese children, I would feel more comfortable for them to be raised in the states rather than Japan."
**
40. 名無しのさくら, 2016
"I wanted to be hafu..."
**
REPLY
41. 怜君の母Ray's mum, 2016
"お嬢さん、ハーフに一度生まれてみなよ。うちの息子は死にたいと云った事があるんだけど？貴方が同じ経験をしてみたら、そんな事は決して云えない。こんなとこに来てまで、幻想を云うのは止めて！！Hafu racial identity crisisについて一度、勉強した方が良いと思う。ハーフの息子を持つ母親として、心の底から云わせて貰うわ。キツイ事云って、ごめん。きっと、貴方はただ単に純粋なんだろうけど、そんなに楽しい事はないんだよ、ハーフ・レントじゃないんだから。
-snip-
Google translate from Japanese to English
"Rei's mother Ray's mum
Lady, try it once in half. My son says I'd like to die. If you try the same experience, you can never say such a thing. Stop talking about illusions until you come to such a place! ! About Hafu racial identity crisis I think that it is better to study once. As a mother with a half son, I will say from the bottom of my heart. Sorry to say that it is hard. I bet you are just pure, but it's not such fun, because it's not half-rent."
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42. Mericasucks, 2016
"Japan has had the longest preserved heritage in the world with one of the most homogenous country in the world. Diversity is still yet to come in this country and many people isn't accepting the fact that other cultures is going to change Japan. Japan will be and always a country of one race. Japanese people"
**
REPLY
43. Areloe Fiezx, 2016
"That is highly unlikely. Unless humanity dies within a couple centuries."
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44. cussigreen, 2016
"human are like, no different beetwen asian,white or black. We are all same worth✌✌"
**
45. Kim Wuhrer, 2016
"this is kinda sad.. my boyfriend is swiss/japanese and he happily never made bad experiences because of that even if you can see his swiss half. (brown hair and freckles).. i also never made any bad experiences even if I'm fully european (blonde hair, green eyes)
i think there are some racist a****les in every country.. even in western countries. i made the experience that european people were treating me worse because of my blonde hair (they say that blonde people cant be intelligent...)"
**
46. Tony Jackson, 2016
"Modern Japanese are "hafu's" themselves they're mixed with Chinese exiles and the Ainu people who are the original inhabitants of Japan."
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REPLY
47. ojideagu, 2016
"Exactly, where do Japanese think they got their characters from? China. I'm sick of this myth that the Japanese themselves perpetuate that they are some pure race which is complete horse sh&t*."
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
48. Jasmine ジャズミン, 2017
"I'm half Japanese and half Canadian , and when people ask me are you Asian? I'm like yes... well kind of . One boy called me "mixed" and everyone else their actual race. I was okay with it I just didn't really know which section I fitted in with"
**
49. Lugztina, 2017
"I didn't know being half Korean and Half Japanese makes you considered mixed. I thought Japanese were descended from Koreans in some way."
**
REPLY
50. Hannah Flower, 2018
"That is completely wrong, sorry. It is scientifically proven that Japanese came from Malaysia and Indonesia - that area. Although we have "zainichi" Koreans who have lived in Japan and have inevitably mixed the blood together but Japanese people have not descended from Koreans."
**
REPLY
51. Chris Anderson, 2018
"Japanese and Korean isnt even mix since they are both from asia lol. You can definitely pass for a full japanese if your half korean, I mean you're still pure east asian. Its like half British half Irish, you're still white in the end lol.. Its the whites and blacks that stand out the most."
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52. Dr BlackCoffee, 2017
"Oh Bugger I'm crying watching this..... I'm Anglo-Japanese and I have felt insecurities from both sides while growing up. I'll try and persuade my parents to buy this and watch it with me, so they can understand more about how I feel growing up as a mixed race person."
**
33. Heyoo, 2017
"im half persian and half japanese! im culturally more japanese, but i love both cultures! :))))"
**
34. Hannah Flower, 2018
"I am half Japanese half English, and although sometimes it makes me feel alienated - I love myself for who I am and I would never want to be anything else. I used to wish that I was fully Japanese, but now I appreciate the double culture that I have been able to experience. It has given me the right to choose for myself which I prefer and personally I prefer Japan. I would not know what to do, if I had not been able to speak Japanese fluently, or even been able to know how horrible fish and chips tastes in England ahaha. Even though I am not fully Japanese, 心は日本人ですし、心の底から日本を愛しています。"
-snip-
Google translate from Japanese to English: My heart is Japanese and I love Japan from the bottom of my heart.
**
35. Poseidon99Jeus, 2018
"I personally don't like it. Especially those hafus, when they get bullied and beat ups, still they like to stick to Japan and pure Japanese people. Why don't you go to your other half??"
**
36. FRIEND 711, 2018
"I hate the word half. to me its really insulting. Half? Half what?? I grew up here and god thats such a black spot word. So You know what? I Dont call myself Half. I call myself a "Hybrid" A mix of the best of both worlds, I have a point of view, the cultural background and heritage that cant be beat \^-^/ I`m not saying its bad to iddentify yourself as one, more power to you! but I must say, this was my way of fighting back, my way of finding my iddentity."
**
37. Mikal Velasco, 2018
"Spanish born with Latin American and Japanese blood 🙌🏼
I used to try to be just one thing... but I just felt incomplete, fake and sad all the time. I really wanted to be just one. I used to tell people: I’m confusing or I’m weird. Then I understood that I just needed to appreciate all the bits I am. See myself with love inside and outside. To like my eyes, my body and my soul. And right now I’m so proud to be me (in a good way) proud of all the bits I am :))"
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Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
This is the third post is an multi-part pancocojams series about being mixed race in Asia. Particular attention in this series is given to people who are Blasian (Black/Asian).
Click the Blasian tag and the hafu tag below for more posts in this series.
This post showcases a 2013 YouTube trailer for a film entitled Selected comments from this video's discussion thread are also included in this post. Most of these comments are from people who self-identify as being mixed race.
Note that in a comment from that discussion thread, the producers identify themselves as being hafu.
"Hafu" is a Japanese term that means "half Japanese" (a person who has one ethnic Japanese birth parent and one birth parent of another race or ethnicity).
****
The content of this post is presented for cultural and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to the producers of this film and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE ABOUT COMPILING SELECTED COMMENTS FROM A YOUTUBE VIDEO'S DISCUSSION THREADS:
I believe that a number of YouTube video discussion threads contain content that should be archived and disseminated for informational purposes, and as a way of documenting some of the attitudes and opinions that are at least partly reflective of those times and populations. In addition to the content itself, I'm interested in documenting examples of the ways that people communicate on YouTube discussion thread- i.e. screen names, the use of internet lingo, the lack of attention to punctuation and capitalization, the use of run-on sentences, etc.
That said, I recognize that the selected YouTube discussion thread comments that I feature in these pancocojams posts reflect my interests and biases. For example, initially, when I began culling through YouTube discussion threads (for my no longer active website called jambalayah), I presented edited YouTube comment threads in part so readers could read what I considered "comment gems" without reading the numerous comments in those threads that contained profanity, salacious material, and/or were racist.
As a means of compiling these discussion thread examples, I almost always read the entire discussion thread for a showcased video, selecting the sample comments as I read. The selected comments are presented in relative chronological order with the oldest dated comments given first, except for replies. Because some comments may be missing from particular exchanges, these selected comments may not be in consecutive order.
Once these compilations are posted on this pancocojams blog, I rarely go back and update these compilations with more recently published comments from that video's discussion threads.
The comments selected by me for these YouTube discussion threads aren't necessarily meant to be representative of all of the comments in those featured discussion threads.
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SHOWCASE VIDEO: 映画『ハーフ』予告編 Hafu: the mixed-race experience in Japan [Official Trailer]
Hafu Film, Published on Aug 13, 2013
DVDの販売が始まりました！DVDs are now on sale. http://hafufilm.com/en/buyandrent/
ストリーミング レンタルは Watch the film online https://vimeo.com/ondemand/hafufilm
-snip-
Here are selected comments from that video's discussion thread (with numbers added for referencing purposes only). Note that after reading this video's entire discussion thread, it appears to me that a number of the replies in that video's discussion thread are from commenters whose screen names may have changed or whose comments are no longer shown in that discussion thread.
1. Hlynb93, 2013
"This movie should be screened all over Japan, and shown in schools all over the country.
The older generations can't do much now, but children and teenagers are the future of Japan, they need to be able to see this movie as a way to prepare them for the future of their country, so that they can grow into understanding and open minded adults who can one day lead the country towards a brighter future."
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2. Hafu Film, 2013
"We are working on it! One step at a time!"
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3. NadiiDK, 2013
"I'm also a half or a "hafu" living in a very homogeneous country. Even though i'm not half japanese, i can relate to these people. thank you for making this."
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4. Tabbylover55, 2013
"I hope that some day all of humanity will become one. It doesn't matter where you come from, it matters WHO you are and what we can learn from each others' cultures. Racism and intolerance are just wrong and don't accomplish anything but war and hatred. The guy who is half Japanese-half Ghana from the trailer is super hot, call me ;)"
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5. Kiyotaka Izumi, 2013
"Not living in Japan but I can understand how all of these people felt. Half Japanese half Arab."
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6. Tanaie, 2013
"This look really interesting! Waah~ I really wanna watch it.
I'm a ハーフ, well a German x Jamaican mixed. And I can definitely relate to these people!"
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7. Jay Cunningham, 2014
"Half Blacks and japanese are actually one of the most common mixed hybrids in Japan, I'm also Black/Japanese btw"
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8. Sammy Chill, 2014
"Why focus only on mixed race kids? In fact, they have it much better than "non-Japanese" kids such as the Brazilians or kids from the Phillipines. When I taught at the junior high, the other kids didn't even _speak_ to those kids. The so-called "half" kids are also often the recipients of the stereotype "half kids are so beautiful!". The foreign kids were either bullied or left alone entirely. This movie looks like someone wanted their kid to be in a movie."
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11. Hafu Film, 2014
"Hi Sammy- There certainly should be other films made about the non Japanese kids in Japan. We highly encourage and support anyone who seeks to make such films! We, the filmmakers, are hafu ourselves. We think its best if we try to tell our own story first before telling other people's stories for them."
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12. SailorJupi, 2014
"How dare you complain about people sharing their personal stories and undermine their hurt just because some find mixed kids beautiful, as if that gives mixed kids an overwhelming amount of special privilege. Aside from the ignorance of that, let me say as a mixed person, people telling me my hair or what have you looks nice could never make up for the feeling of not thinking I belonged to any race just because I belonged to two or being categorized by those that don't know me."
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13. smallpond808, 2014
"this is great! hopefully it'll be available to a bigger audience.
It'll also be interesting to make a film about Japanese-American, Japanese-Brazilian, 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation Japanese of different countries, and their lives(identity, culture, etc) in their home country and/or those who have returned to japan."
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14. Weirdo, 2014
"なぜ"Hafu?"それだとハーフじゃなくて「ハフ」じゃん・・・HāfuかHaafuじゃダメだったの？"
-snip-
Google translate from Japanese to English
"Why is it "Hafu?" That is not a half but "Huff" ... Haafu or Haafu was not it?"
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15. stakisolo, 2014
"well im a half or double neither is ok
well good thing i was not raised in japan
i like being different and a good thing i look like a japanese and can speak japanese
i live in aomori which is rural and conservative
embrace both your culture never forget one of them
love your family and believe on them thats one thing we have that alot of japanese kids dont "
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16. Leanna Jackman, 2014
"As a half Japanese, half English person, I am so glad that I was raised in Britain. If you are born in Britain, you are classed as British, no matter what your original ethnicity. I took that for granted because now living in Japan, it makes me sad to see hafu's treated like this. In Britain, I am British, in Japan, I will always be Gaijin...End of!! Japan will slowly change, but for me, I was glad to have missed such discrimination growing up like the people who have suffered in this movie."
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17. Kurone Shizuhi, 2014
"It's not so bad for the Half-Japan and Half-(insert Asian country name that excludes the darker skin people, but not being racist or anything here) people.
It's the Westerners that really stand out. Which is really sad. I bet most of them get this "Oh! You speak Japanese so well~!" remark wherever they go...
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18. Dan Weese, 2014
"I never allow Japanese people outside of my 内の者 to realise I speak it. Nihonjin will say the most appallingly stupid things in front of me, as if I wasn't there at all."
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19. Kurone Shizuhi, 2014
"Ah yes. It's amusing at times."
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20. K J, 2014
"It's like the USA 100 years ago. Maybe 50 or so, but none the less, xenophobia."
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21. Ivan Miyashiro, 2014
"My father was born in Japan, my grandfather fought for Japan on WW2, lost his wife and kid, my grandmother as a nurce, lost her husband too, fortunetly, they've meet and got maried again, there they've adopted 2 other orphans of friends, reised them until they complete 18, after that, island of Okinawa was a desaster, abandoned by japan during the war. So they came to brazil with my father and other 4 childrens, losing one of them on the ship for the desease. Those who got back to Japan first allways told us here: "don't come, they look at you like if you wore not japonese, you're going to work as a slave on the factorys, that's they're gratitude for us". Knowing that, my family and many other worked hard to develop Brazil, there is a lot of half-japoneses here, 6% of the population, but 95% of them now live amog the 30% richest. If they want to get back to Japan? Just forget about Japan! Brazilians respect more the japoneses here, than the japoneses respect themselfs."
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Carmichael Caudron, 2014
"I applaud the effort of trying to make people of mixed race feel belonged. I think even though virtually everyone claims they like being different, they really just want to be like everyone else, it doesn't feel good being treated differently than the masses. I've been there and have felt confusion,anger but my childhood thankfully was colorblind, I was fortunate there.With that said, my advise to those struggling with borderline racism because you are dark or of mixed race, I still don't have the answers but who does? just if u want to belong, be yourself. love who u want, male or female or both, white or black or both because through your struggle, a community acceptive of you that u also in turn like, will embrace u just for who u are. if u change that's when problems occur, people somehow can smell self hatred a mile away no matter how hard u hide it. be yourself, be free and through the ignorance u will find an acceptance."
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2. Holmes Ink, 2014
"I ain't no ハーフ I tell that I'm double
人の倍気持ち込めた言葉を
何卒ご理解いただきたい
差別すること自体が間違い
預けな期待、俺等照らすライト
人の道歩みゃ、外れはしないと
気付いててくりゃまだ遅くない
共に築こう新たな時代"
-snip-
Google translate from Japanese to English"
"I ain't no Half I tell that I 'm double
Happy words that people twice
Thank you for your understanding
Discrimination itself is a mistake
Expectations of deposit, lights that illuminate us etc.
People's way of walking, you have to come off
It is not too late if you are aware
Let's build a new era"
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3. GJMSLF, 2014
"The Half-Japanese persons who was born and living in Europe or North America,
They are called "ching chang chong" … Why???"
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4. dhrcat, 2015
"That's racism in those countries. I live in North America and stupid kids will call any Asian with such name. It's making fun of how Asian language (mainly Chinese) sounds like to them."
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5. Sam .Raby, 2015
"Half English, quarter Bengali, quarter Indian here. I'll never be the same as most of my native UK but I come close to forgetting that in London. I never turn heads in the street, every friend I have is from a different background: Arab, mixed, Indian, Chinese, Serbian, Irish etc. and we talk simply because we live near and like the same things. The way it should be I think. I tentatively hope that the world will move more in this direction in the future."
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6. Pandaジエイダ, 2015
"I love mixed race people. They are the least racist in this world I believe. That's because they learn to accept diversity, unlike people I see here who don't want other races to mix with Japanese people. Please just hide under a rock if all you care about is your country turning multi-racial/cultural."
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7. rcmp09, 2015
"I'm in an interracial marriage and my children will eventually be mixed race, however, people tend to want their descendent to look like them. There is nothing wrong with people who think that races should be kept pure, as long as they don't stop others from wanting something different."
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8. Joost Kralt, 2015
"Actually, there is something wrong with believing races should be kept pure, first of all because it originates from the assuption that there is something like a 'pure race' to begin with. Race only mattters to people because they are raised to believe it matters by society, not because of the practically non-existent biological and genetic differences."
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9. rcmp09, 2015
"I will agree with the fact that technically none of us are probably "pure."
However, saying race only matters to people because they are raised to believe it matters is completely false. It is literally the opposite. In a primitive sense, we only generally care about our family, and the further our genetic differences, the less we will attempt to work together. However, cooperation as a culture proved very effective, and as civilizations have grown larger, we have been trying to bring larger and larger groups of people together. Culture brought us together, not apart, it just takes longer when it's not just about cooperating with a neighboring village/tribe, but with people on the other side of the planet.
Also, saying that there are practically non-existent biological and genetic differences is completely false. Different climates, prey, predators, and pathogens forced each race to evolve slightly differently. We are each specialized to be slightly more suited to a different environment. It's these differences that make us interesting."
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10. Joost Kralt, 2015
"Yes, the fact that humans tend to care more about those regarded as close to them may be primitive, but that a biologically falacious concept of race is used only underlines the fact that this is socially constructed.
I have yet to read conclusive proof of the biological validity of race. Yes, there are superficial deviations caused by different envitonments, but these are rendered insignificant in the face of the overwhelming similarities caused by common ancestry.
These differences may be interesting, yes, but the notion of keeping something 'pure' along the lines of a concept that is unable to provide a scientifically grounded delineation beyond superficial differences is, I believe, fundamentally mistaken."
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11. rcmp09, 2015
"It is not. Something that is primitive is innate and the stronger desire to protect and work with those that are genetically similar is a universal trait within every single species. Social constructs are what have gotten us to attempt to move past our primitive nature.
Everything is relative, however. We are all human, so all our DNA is extremely similar. However, if we share 50% of our DNA with bananas, and 99% of our DNA with apes, how small of a difference in DNA do you think there is between a wolf and a chihuahua. However, the differences between these two animals is significant. So when you talk about individuals differences within humans, .0001% is the difference between being slow, and being an olympic sprinter, or being in the bottom 5% of the SAT and the top 5% of the SAT.
Those "superficial differences" are important though. While race may be arbitrary to you, genetically, differences in races represent the larges differences between individuals within the human species. An Irish person from purely a primitive sense, is more likely to work together someone that is also of Irish descent compared to someone of Italian descent and even more so compared to someone of African descent. Primitively, groups naturally form towards people who LOOK most similar. With the introduction of culture, people tend to form groups with those who ACT more similar to them."
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12. Lao Jiang, 2015
"To be fair i'm a half White American-Japanese and i stayed longer in Japan but i never felt being accepted in Japan and i rather stay here in Chicago than staying in there. Japanese are racist, specially to all half race. Just sayin'."
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13. Pandaジエイダ, 2015
"+69glazer Wow, that's new to me. Because I heard that they actually liked half white half Japanese people... They even have a name for it and a makeup look to look half japanese."
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14. Lao Jiang, 2015
"+ジェイダ White They love female halfs because mostly they're cute but if you're a guy they will hate you for some reason specially those Japanese men. I don't know maybe i have something in me that they hate but i don't feel any hate coming from Japanese females (actually they're quite friendly) except for the elders of course (Elders there hates Gaijins regardless of where you're from) . Take note if you're a half be careful of those Gaijin hunters specially if you're a guy."
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15. Bryce Antony Franco da Silva, 2015
"I feel the same living in Korea! My dad is black-American and my mom is a Korean. Younger I was called names like hybrid, mutt, half breed and some that a worse like monkey and dog! But things are also changing in Korea to! Lots of half Korean children are being born by Whites, blacks, Arabs and Latinos! Hopefully those kids will have a better childhood than my generation of mixed Koreans"
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16. HalfThaiKorean1990, 2015
"u forgot half east asians with south east asians ,bcs u have the same problems with people for still being something else then korean or japanese. im thai and japanese and had the same experiences"
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17. saver vionetta, 2015
"japan is changing? i am pretty skeptical about that"
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18. HalfThaiKorean1990, 2015
"it does change , but quite slowly and most likely more with the younger generation"
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19. saver vionetta, 2015
"i hope so"
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20. ečnasaufuqt, 2016
"+HalfThaiKorean1990 The older generation in Japan is actually much more accepting because the way others were treated in world war 2 has left their eyes open"
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21. Ambre Badipi [bold commenters are hafu], 2015
"I am not mixed with Japanese but being biracial/mixed myself I know what it is not being fully accepted on either sides of your heritage and feeling kind of alienated. I am Belgian with Greek and Congolese(African) heritage and this trailer got me teary-eyed."
-snip-
This screen name is given as it was found in that discussion thread.
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22. Kytota [bold comments aren’t hafu], 2015
"I am a Malaysian born Australian of Hungarian, Serbian and Chinese heritage. When I was young, I get flack from all sides. Asians calling me 'impure' (actually got insulted like that a few times) and whites calling me 'foreigner' and I should go back where I came from. They made me believe I can never be a part of anything.
When I got older and wiser, I really began to appreciate who I am and my heritage. I realized my parents overcame race AND religion to have me. Being mixed also makes me more open-minded and more willing to interact with people from any background because I finally understood in a world as large and diverse as this, we are all same and different no matter the color of our skin or where we came from. "
-snip-
This screen name is given as it was found in that discussion thread.
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23. DeadPurpleStar, 2015
"+Kytota \U are amazing let me tell u that !! People get suicidal but u overcame it all. Congrats ^^ .P.S. I am from Serbia haha and I look asian so I was bullied as well, but in Serbia, we don't have a specific look to us like for ex the Asians do . U have an awesome mix wow duude :3"
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24. Kytota, 2015
"+WMeMyselfAndI001 Well, thanks. If there's one thing I learned, it is to stop feeling bad about yourself just because others want to. You are who you are, nothing can ever change that. And if people can't accept who you are, it's not your problem."
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25. Kytota, 2015
"+Bloke Poppy All kinds, unfortunately. Being the one and only Caucasian-looking guy in a Malaysian high-school where people can be mean like hell and visiting my Asian relatives in my family's rural hometown was where I got it the most. My friends do joke about me being mixed but not in a mean-spirited way though. As for the whites calling me 'foreigner' thing, this happens when I visit Western countries. I think Americans for example, are pretty nice but the morons among them keep thinking I am invading their country to steal their jobs when I am only there on vacation.
It all comes down to how different people look at me. Asians think I'm a white, Westerners think I'm Asian. My mixed heritage gives me a unique look. Never had these problems when I moved to Australia, though. In fact, can't even remember the last time I was insulted about my heritage."
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26. MrRebuttal, 2015
"HUGE VICTORY FOR BLASIANS: Ariana Miyamoto Half-Black\Half-Japanese contestant wins Miss Japan 2015!!!"
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27. ken dutchess, 2015
"I have lived in Japan, on and off for the last 27 years, and love it here. My great Grandmother was Japanese, and though I speak Japanese fluently, I almost never bring the fact up that I have Japanese ancestry, as the few times I revealed that I was part Japanese, even 1/8, I was told, Uso bakari, Which means, you are telling a lie. How could that be, as I don't even look Asian. I keep it to myself. I love living here but I agree, it can be very difficult for mixed race kids here, especially if they are sensitive. I hope that this attitude changes.
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28. S S
"Sounds weird. If you live in the UK or USA people would love you. Mixed race kids with especially with at least a bit of black heritage are more likely to be good looking and therefore popular. Trust me, every mixed race kid I know is good looking and popular."
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29. Ambre Badipi, 2015
"It's not that i'm unpopular. it's not that I have no friends. It's not that I am unloved. It's that your White side constantly reminds you that you are not white (we are mixed so we are obviously not white that's fair enough !) and your black side constantly reminds you that you are not black either so you are left in between and more often than not, you develop an identity crisis because you are not considered black yet you face all the struggles and issues of being black (because you are person of color) in a white supremacy society. You know what I mean ? +dark side :)"
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30. +Ambre Badipi Well, I know that you will never feel completely white or black, and not accepted by both but the thing is mixed race people do not have to identify themselves as black or white. But I mean, have you ever actually experienced discrimination or did someone actually tell you something that made you upset? I know black people are more likely to accept mixed race kids so they are always hanging out together, but the new generation of white kids is becoming more open and accepting of other cultures.
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31. Ambre Badipi, 2015
"+dark side omg dear sorry for the late reply !!!
I have already been discriminated against but usually what happens are "microagressions". What I mean by that is getting ignorant and prejudiced comments filled with backstabbed compliments.
So it's not racism,in the way that it's not in the explicit form and they don't do it on purpose to hurt me by feeling racially superior but it's unintended racism that is so deeply embedded that they don't even recognise it and it shows in comments and ways of thinking that are quite conservative and full of prejudices and stereotypes.
But then again, nothing major. It's not awful but rather annoying and frustrating you know what I mean.
Also, I am totally accepted by both parts of my origins because they accept me for who I am but I know that deep inside they won't ever consider me as a part of them if that makes any sense (which is comprehensive since I'm not either of them) I don't know if that made any sense to you. Anyway, have a good day mate ! "
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33. ammie Bo, 2015
"I'm half Japanese and half Ghanaian and when I went to Japan, I realised that apart from my aunt and grandma, none of my family knew I was half black :/ But they were really accepting anyway :) I'm definitely going to watch this. woo go David!! #Twinning"
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34. Annette Caitlyn, 2015
"Where were you born?"
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35. ammie Bo, 2015
"+Annette Caitlyn London 😊"
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36. Tornado1994, 2015
"Interesting Fact: Did you know that the founder of Sega, David Rosen Iijima was half Japanese?Half French American? Rosen's mother was a French immigrant, his father was born in Saitama,Toyko. His parents migrated to NYC in 1929."
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37. Sean Goto, 2015
"Im Japanese/Irish,
in ireland im often mistaking as chinese
in japan iv been mistaking as an american, iranian, indian, brazillian, spanish, australian and other races but i cant remember lol.
tbh i experienced waaay more racism in ireland than i ever did in japan.
in ireland i was called a chink countless times and i got my ass kicked a lot by groups of people for simply being half japanese.
i never once in my life ever feel threatned by the japanese if anything their a bit scared of me. i think thier more xenophobic than racist (im not saying that racism doesn't exist here its a worldwide problem)
because it is a homogenous society of course thier gonna look at you as gaijin thats not gonna change but i dont feel bad about it, id rather be called a gaijin than a 'chink, 'dog eater' slanty eyes' anyday"
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaijin
"Gaijin (外人, [ɡaid͡ʑiɴ]; "outsider", "alien", "Non-Japanese") is a Japanese word for foreigners and non-Japanese. The word is composed of two kanji: gai (外, "outside") and jin (人, "person"). Similarly composed words that refer to foreign things include gaikoku (外国, "foreign country") and gaisha (外車, "foreign car"). The word can refer to nationality, race or ethnicity, concepts generally conflated in Japan.
Some feel the word has come to have a negative or pejorative connotation,[1][2][3][4][5][6] while other observers maintain it is neutral or even positive.[2][7][8][9][10] Gaikokujin (外国人 "foreign-country person") is a more neutral and somewhat more formal term widely used in the Japanese government and in media."
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38. Tornado1994, 2015
"+Okiku Ningyo Japan is a very centrist style country with conservative values. With the fact that its birthrate has been lackluster for decades, mixed race Japanese is both unique and fascinating. It's a breath of fresh air to the pure Japanese race that's been aging steadily. Gaijins like me(Black and Half Native American Cherokee/Saginaw), are eager to not only learn the culture,lifestyles and customs of Japan, but also learn to speak its language "Nippon" properly. Please bear with my fellow westerners and their ignorance."
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39. chigasaki06, 2015
"I'm definitely gonna have to watch. I lived in Japan, and on occasion I saw mixed raced children and wondered what it was like for them growing up in such a homogeneous society. I'm black and at times I felt like an alien based on the attention I received, which was understandable. However, I can't imagine being raised in a country you call home and sticking out like other foreigners. The black/japanese children I saw stared at me and waved as if to say, "look, someone who looks like us." To some they will never truly be Japanese. That's why I have always said if I ever got married and have mixed black/japanese children, I would feel more comfortable for them to be raised in the states rather than Japan."
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40. 名無しのさくら, 2016
"I wanted to be hafu..."
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41. 怜君の母Ray's mum, 2016
"お嬢さん、ハーフに一度生まれてみなよ。うちの息子は死にたいと云った事があるんだけど？貴方が同じ経験をしてみたら、そんな事は決して云えない。こんなとこに来てまで、幻想を云うのは止めて！！Hafu racial identity crisisについて一度、勉強した方が良いと思う。ハーフの息子を持つ母親として、心の底から云わせて貰うわ。キツイ事云って、ごめん。きっと、貴方はただ単に純粋なんだろうけど、そんなに楽しい事はないんだよ、ハーフ・レントじゃないんだから。
-snip-
Google translate from Japanese to English
"Rei's mother Ray's mum
Lady, try it once in half. My son says I'd like to die. If you try the same experience, you can never say such a thing. Stop talking about illusions until you come to such a place! ! About Hafu racial identity crisis I think that it is better to study once. As a mother with a half son, I will say from the bottom of my heart. Sorry to say that it is hard. I bet you are just pure, but it's not such fun, because it's not half-rent."
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42. Mericasucks, 2016
"Japan has had the longest preserved heritage in the world with one of the most homogenous country in the world. Diversity is still yet to come in this country and many people isn't accepting the fact that other cultures is going to change Japan. Japan will be and always a country of one race. Japanese people"
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43. Areloe Fiezx, 2016
"That is highly unlikely. Unless humanity dies within a couple centuries."
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44. cussigreen, 2016
"human are like, no different beetwen asian,white or black. We are all same worth✌✌"
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45. Kim Wuhrer, 2016
"this is kinda sad.. my boyfriend is swiss/japanese and he happily never made bad experiences because of that even if you can see his swiss half. (brown hair and freckles).. i also never made any bad experiences even if I'm fully european (blonde hair, green eyes)
i think there are some racist a****les in every country.. even in western countries. i made the experience that european people were treating me worse because of my blonde hair (they say that blonde people cant be intelligent...)"
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46. Tony Jackson, 2016
"Modern Japanese are "hafu's" themselves they're mixed with Chinese exiles and the Ainu people who are the original inhabitants of Japan."
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47. ojideagu, 2016
"Exactly, where do Japanese think they got their characters from? China. I'm sick of this myth that the Japanese themselves perpetuate that they are some pure race which is complete horse sh&t*."
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
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48. Jasmine ジャズミン, 2017
"I'm half Japanese and half Canadian , and when people ask me are you Asian? I'm like yes... well kind of . One boy called me "mixed" and everyone else their actual race. I was okay with it I just didn't really know which section I fitted in with"
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49. Lugztina, 2017
"I didn't know being half Korean and Half Japanese makes you considered mixed. I thought Japanese were descended from Koreans in some way."
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50. Hannah Flower, 2018
"That is completely wrong, sorry. It is scientifically proven that Japanese came from Malaysia and Indonesia - that area. Although we have "zainichi" Koreans who have lived in Japan and have inevitably mixed the blood together but Japanese people have not descended from Koreans."
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51. Chris Anderson, 2018
"Japanese and Korean isnt even mix since they are both from asia lol. You can definitely pass for a full japanese if your half korean, I mean you're still pure east asian. Its like half British half Irish, you're still white in the end lol.. Its the whites and blacks that stand out the most."
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52. Dr BlackCoffee, 2017
"Oh Bugger I'm crying watching this..... I'm Anglo-Japanese and I have felt insecurities from both sides while growing up. I'll try and persuade my parents to buy this and watch it with me, so they can understand more about how I feel growing up as a mixed race person."
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33. Heyoo, 2017
"im half persian and half japanese! im culturally more japanese, but i love both cultures! :))))"
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34. Hannah Flower, 2018
"I am half Japanese half English, and although sometimes it makes me feel alienated - I love myself for who I am and I would never want to be anything else. I used to wish that I was fully Japanese, but now I appreciate the double culture that I have been able to experience. It has given me the right to choose for myself which I prefer and personally I prefer Japan. I would not know what to do, if I had not been able to speak Japanese fluently, or even been able to know how horrible fish and chips tastes in England ahaha. Even though I am not fully Japanese, 心は日本人ですし、心の底から日本を愛しています。"
-snip-
Google translate from Japanese to English: My heart is Japanese and I love Japan from the bottom of my heart.
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35. Poseidon99Jeus, 2018
"I personally don't like it. Especially those hafus, when they get bullied and beat ups, still they like to stick to Japan and pure Japanese people. Why don't you go to your other half??"
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36. FRIEND 711, 2018
"I hate the word half. to me its really insulting. Half? Half what?? I grew up here and god thats such a black spot word. So You know what? I Dont call myself Half. I call myself a "Hybrid" A mix of the best of both worlds, I have a point of view, the cultural background and heritage that cant be beat \^-^/ I`m not saying its bad to iddentify yourself as one, more power to you! but I must say, this was my way of fighting back, my way of finding my iddentity."
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37. Mikal Velasco, 2018
"Spanish born with Latin American and Japanese blood 🙌🏼
I used to try to be just one thing... but I just felt incomplete, fake and sad all the time. I really wanted to be just one. I used to tell people: I’m confusing or I’m weird. Then I understood that I just needed to appreciate all the bits I am. See myself with love inside and outside. To like my eyes, my body and my soul. And right now I’m so proud to be me (in a good way) proud of all the bits I am :))"
****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
Sunday, September 16, 2018
Article Excerpt, YouTube Videos, And YouTube Comments About 2018 Tennis World Cup Champion Naomi Osaka's Haitian/Japanese Ancestry
Edited by Azizi Powell
This is the second post is an multi-part pancocojams series about being mixed race in Asia. Particular attention in this series is given to people who are Blasian (Black/Asian).
Click the Blasian tag and the hafu tag below for more posts in this series.
This post provides excerpts from an online article about 2018 Tennis World champion Naomi Osaka who is of Haitian and Japanese descent.
This post also showcases two videos of Naomi Osaka and presents selected comments from those videos' discussion threads.
WARNING: These compilations include comments that I consider to be racist and/or provocative. Some of these comments include profanity. I amended the spelling for those words.
****
The content of this post is presented for cultural and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Special thanks and congratulations to Naomi Osaka. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publishers of these videos on YouTube.
****
ARTICLE EXCERPT ABOUT TENNIS CHAMPION NAOMI OSAKA
From https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/naomi-osaka-black-too-215603554.html "Naomi Osaka Is Black, Too — And We Need to Say So" by BRIT + CO Kat Armstrong,BRIT + CO, Fri, Sep 14 5:56 PM EDT
"Since Saturday, even people who don’t watch tennis have been talking about legendary player Serena Williams’ US Open loss to 20-year-old powerhouse Naomi Osaka. While Osaka’s win was overshadowed by the controversy surrounding the potential role of bias in the umpire’s now-contentious decision to issue Williams a series of penalties, Osaka’s identity — that of a Japanese and Black woman — has repeatedly been diminished.
[...]
A major example of Osaka’s whitewashing is the wildly racist cartoon published this week in Australia’s Herald Sun, which depicted the tennis player as a white woman with blonde hair. More often, the erasure is more subtle, like when media outlets describe Osaka as “Japanese” without acknowledging her multiracial identity. Erasing Osaka’s Blackness further divides her from Williams, who, in turn, is often depicted as a stereotypical “angry Black woman.” Whether intentionally or not, the whitewashing of Osaka serves to reinforce a racist victim-and-villain storyline.
Most importantly, however, is that in ignoring Osaka’s Blackness, we fail to acknowledge how poignant it is that the young tennis player is being given the torch of tennis greatness by her idol, Williams. Tennis is such a white-dominated sport that fewer than 40 Black women have ever competed at the elite level.
Not to say that Osaka isn’t also Japanese. Osaka was born in Japan and professionally represents the country. But it’s important to note that her father, Leonard François is Haitian. Osaka and her older sister, Mari (who is also a professional tennis player), were both given their Japanese mother’s surname at birth for practical reasons — its easier to register for schools in Japan with a Japanese surname. The family moved to the US when she was just three years old, which makes Osaka a Japanese-Haitian-American woman.
The newly-minted US Open winner is never shy about checking reporters who fail to mention that she’s Haitian (like she did earlier this year in Australia). She’s also talked about how, when Japanese people see her name, they are confused that she’s “a Black girl.”....
-snip-
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-herald-sun-serena_us_5b992d85e4b0162f4732fd0d is one of many online article about the racist Australia cartoon that is mentioned in this article.
Two videos of interviews in which Naomi Osaka "checked reporters who fail to mention that she's Haitian" are embedded below.
****
SHOWCASE VIDEOS
Video #1: You Tell ‘Em! Tennis Player Checks Reporter for Neglecting to Mention Her Haitian Heritage
GrandMilli, Published on Jan 23, 2018
-snip-
Pancocojams Editor's note:
Notice the advertisement sign for "Blackmores" that is shown in this video. According to https://www.blackmores.com.au/about-us/company-information/about-blackmores "Blackmores is Australia’s leading natural health company...[providing] quality range of vitamin, minerals, herbal and nutritional supplements"... [end of quote]
The company's name is the surname of its founder Maurice Blackmore.
Information about the surname "Blackmore" and information and my comments about the similarly spelled word "blackamoor" and the name "Maurice" can be found in the comment section of this post.
-snip-
Selected comments with numbers are added for referencing purposes only [Note that all of these comments were posted in September 2018 after Naomi Osaka won the 2018 World Cup.]
1. Goddess Earline Mallory
"He tried to overlook her Haitian side (African ancestry), but she politely put him in his place asap. You go girl!!! I swear they hate to give proper credit. It’s absolutely ridiculous!!!! She is a perfect blend of Japanese and Haitian. They need to get over it because she’s obviously not denying her Blackness."
REPLY
2. wizeguy007
"He didn't try to overlook, he certainly did. Glad she made it clear! We all saw this coming once she won; the media was going to focus on her Japanese side, completely disregarding her Haitian ancestry."
**
REPLY
3. Claire Ueda,
"wizeguy007 + LOL ! You mean the same media that rush to Haiti bedside to say "how great and paradisiac of a country it is", when Trump laid down the truth on a comment he made about it ??? You have quiet the selective memory, you know ! No wonder arabs are still allowed to do what they are have been doing to your race for THAT long ! ^_^"
**
REPLY
4. Mas Gonderawi
"Yeah, why are you fools obsessed with race ? They did not overlook her Haitian side, she represents Japan, her mother's and her birth country. She just wanted to give a nod to her Haitians side even though she doesn't even posess Haitian citizenship."
**
REPLY
5. dan theman
"Claire Ueda Black athletes are only strongly represented in certain sports, Tennis not traditionally being one of them. Despite the dominance of the Williams sisters in recent years, there have still only been 3 black grandslam winners, male or female, in open Tennis history out of literally hundreds of players. So to finally have mixed black and Asian winner from black heritage outside of America, is nice and deserves to be mentioned as much as her Japanese heritage. It might mean nothing to you but to Haitians and West Indians, it means a lot. Plus the fact that she always remembers her black roots proudly, when all the interviwers seem to always forget, means even more. Only someone who has never felt underrepresented, left out or overlooked would get upset by the OC.
Ps, there is nothing racist about being proud your racial heritage and international representatives when they do well."
**
6. Tiwha26
"Just wanna let you know that the Haitian community is very proud of you"
**
REPLY
7. Mas Gonderawi
"ouubet She isn’t Black. She’s Biracial. And I’m not “White”. Idiot."
**
REPLY
8. stevenO
"+Claire Ueda i wonder how often she is already been called hafu and Gaejin already... there is no one more racist on this planet thst asians especially japanese and chinese. So sell your bullsh&t* to the birds!
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
9. NYCfactor
"why? just cause her BLOODLINE is Haitian? she never lived in Haiti or really experienced life there. Her father is American Haitian. always about SKIN TONE and COLOR and RACE."
**
REPLY
10. Michael Cooper
"NYCfactor
Other than being born in Japan to an interracial couple Naomi did not grow up in homogeneous Japan (FACT#1). She represents Japan only because her dad thought it would be a good idea to heighten her brand and stock - hence, Nissin (FACT#2). Naomi grew up in a Black (Haitian) household in New York (FACT#3). She’s not fluent in Japanese (FACTS#4). She’s fluent in English and Haitian Creole (FACT#5). Naomi’s favorite music 🎶 genre is R&B (FACT#6). Her favorite singer is Beyoncé (FACT#7). Naomi has a cute crush on actor Michael B. Jordan (FACT#8). Son, it’s not about race or color or shared-complexion, it’s about lineage and culture. #FACTS!"
**
11. sonson s
"The question was intentional directed to make you forgot your Haitian background but thank you for being very professional representing who you are. Congratulations for being a great and strong Haitian/Japanese woman."
**
REPLY
12. LinnErellie haha
"I think to many people are confusing race with nationality. They say Japan because it's where she's from she's not from Haiti. They didn't ask her what her race was."
**
REPLY
13. Anna Doe
"+LinnErellie haha And do you think that Haiti is a race? Do you even read your answer before writing it? SMH!
She's from Haiti because her dad is from Haiti and your half-baked reasoning is not gonna change this fact that she herself, made a point to underline. She grew up in a Haitian household.
Let's assume he only asked about the country she was representing in the tournament or the citizenship she used to enter it: when she answered, SHE MADE a point to highlight the fact that SHE DOESN'T consider herself as only Japanese but Haitian as well. So your ignorant comment about Haitian being a race is pointless here.
Here, you're welcome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkX0bjOyNME
-snip-
This video is given as Video #2 below.
**
REPLY
[This comment was written in reply to a comment from LinnErellie that was filled with profanity]
14. Michael Cooper
"LinnErellie haha
Calm down! When a commenter replied with vulgar words only says that he or she had been defeated in the conversation."
**
REPLY
15. LinnErellie haha
"+Michael Cooper Truthfully most people don't care about others races. It's black Americans who are obsessed with it. Look around they are the ones crying if a mixed person has black in them and the whole world is not bending over to acknowledge their blackness. It's f&&king* stupid. I have four half Asian daughters all look straight up asian with green eyes I don't follow kids around saying "don't forget your mama is Italian you must praise your mom's side" So please let's not speak for all American because the videos on youtube and stories come from black people not anyone else.
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
REPLY
16. Doug D
"No it was intended to undermine her Haitian/black heritage. Not to "make her forget". How can she forget? She's not delusional unlike Megan and others."
**
17. Måristadt Minxed
"That was the smoothest, most polite, sweetest "checking" you could ever expect xD respect and love from a dominican-american!"
**
18. Math major Alpha
"My dad is Haitian . Represent 😂🇭🇹🇭🇹"
-snip-
This comment quotes what Naomi Osaka said. "HT" is a referent for the Caribbean nation of Haiti.
**
REPLY
19. Minuteman
"Your black side is only mentioned when you've done something negative lol.... good job on checking the reporter and forgetting his question LOL"
**
REPLY
20. Kevin Walker
"Tiger Wood says thats a lie ..."
**
REPLY
21. Mas Gonderawi
"She is born in Japan to a Japanese mother and represents Japan. Therefore, she represents Japan regardless of her ethnic make-up."
**
REPLY
21. Mas Gonderawi
"@Kevin Walker and Tiger Woods is right. Why are Blacks bitter when Biracial/Multiracial people express the reality of their plural identity ? I've never witnessed any people more obsessed about race and skin colour as Blacks (of Americans and West Indies in particular)."
**
REPLY
22. scoff Qub
"Mas Gonderawi don't be stupid.. Do you think Do you think the Japanese ppl would accept her as a miss japan if she wanted to be one ? no ! that is also when they d say she is not Japanese enough... And I wouldn't expect anything different from channel 7 reporters... the Australian Fox news."
**
24. collin355
"I guess it goes both ways because nobody in America including blacks likes to acknowledge that Tiger Woods is half asian.. when he won the Masters it was Tiger Woods becomes first African American to win Masters never heard that he was the first Asian American to win it"
**
REPLY
25. Michael Cooper
"collin355
When Tiger Wood was arrested by the police the report had him as black not “cablasian” whatever that means."
**
REPLY
26. dan theman
"collin355 Actually that's not true. The moment he won his first major, the entire world knew he was part Asian. The media shouted it from the rooftops. As soon as got caught cheating, he became just another disgraced black celebrity."
**
REPLY
27. collin355
"+dan theman bullsh&t* they did..when he won the masters it was all over the news. "First African American to win masters" you never heard first Asian to win masters.
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
REPLY
28. dan theman
"collin355 Tiger Woods himself said he wasn't black and it was all over the papers....lol."
**
REPLY
29. poosnip
"Bull sh&t* .... tiger woods referred himself as “Amerasian” And there were documentaries about his other heritage. But yes,before him no one of African decent had so far won a major tournament. There have been Asians doing that but no one of African decent. It is a more compelling story to tell
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
REPLY
30. collin355
"+poosnip there had been zero Asians who had won a major golf tournament before tiger. Where are you getting this false info at? Calvin Peete was a very successful golfer who was black in the 70s and had won quite a number of PGA tournaments. And yes the media rarely acknowledge tiger as Asian when he won. It was always first African American to win. You guys have no idea what your talking about"
**
31. Jules-son Jean
"He should have apologized to her if his question wasn't intentional but he got caught and didn't know how to act
He couldn't redeem himself from embarrassment
Too bad sucker
Thumb up Naomi I'm proud of you and your parents."
**
32. Maurice Simpson
"He just ignored what she says about her other half (Haitian)...that is the most weird reaction from a reporter you could get. The 'natural' response would have been, oh yeah, sorry, of course. Or, if you really didn't know, you would say, "oh sorry about that, I was not aware" - me the no basically researching dummy - but he just carried on like he heard nothing. Very Very strange. Sounds like he knew all along and had his agenda. Wow! And then you have the type of people who will say, 'it doesn't matter what she is, she is just a great tennis player'...except that it clearly matters as the reporter brought up ethnicity veiled as nationality - don't blame the people on You Tube for then taking it up and commenting further."
**
REPLY
33. Joann J.
"She was born in Japan and lives in America now, and has dual citizenship in both countries. The question was asking her how her fans feel back home based on her relationship with these two nations. Even though she is half Haitian, she is now representing the Japan Tennis team, and not Haiti, so the emphasis isn't going to be on Haiti."
**
34. Shelly Walker
"That's by design. They want to distinguish her from Serena and the rest of the black people. They do that. They like having a favorite black person to compare to the others ( you know, good one, bad one). They even tried that with Venus and Serena. Sadly she and her mother have been rejected by her Japanese grandparents. Of course now that she is rich and famous, she will be meeting her Japanese grandfather for the first time."
**
REPLY
35. Yuda Zona
"Her grandfather "rejecting" her is different from Japan as a country rejecting her. Her mother is 100% Japanese and didn't reject her, and if Naomi had any resentments towards Japan, she wouldn't have had a Japanese sponsor and be representing Japan."
**
36. Sondy Ceran Tv
"oh Boy I'm so proud of her now, she really prove that she love her heritage, I wanna let you know we love you too Naomi and we are so proud of you"
****
Video #2: Naomi Osaka answers: How Haitian and Japanese culture made her who she is today
Haiti Info, Published on Sep 6, 2018
http://www.haitianinternet.com/photos/naomi-osaka-answers-how-haitian-and-japanese-culture-made-he.html
"Watch this video... Tennis Player Naomi Osaka tells journalist how her Haitian culture and Japanese culture help shaped her into who she is today. What about the American culture? Well... Watch and listen...
[video embedded]
The journalist didn't even bother to ask her about her Haitian heritage. How nice of Naomi Osaka to set the record straight.
What do you think?"
-snip-
Selected comments with numbers are added for referencing purposes only [Note that all of these comments were posted in September 2018 after Naomi Osaka won the 2018 World Cup.]
1. Lanisready T
"She asked Naomi about her Japanese culture and American culture. Good for Naomi for pointing out that she was raised in aHaitian home. We need to call out the media when they do this crap because it is hard enough to swallow dealing with the William sisters and now they have to deal with Naomi but the Haitian part is too much for them."
**
REPLY
2. GMSkillah Qam
"call out the media for what? she has not been to Haiti. She was raised in America and Japan. So whats the f&&king* problem, racist?
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
REPLY
3. Polynice Auxerre
"+GMSkillah Qam Umm she's been to Haiti several times.. her father is Haitian and they purposely ignored that side so yes it is a big deal!"
**
REPLY
4. Abdal'Aliy Desert
"Reason why the reported ask about US and Japan is because she is respresenting Japan when she competes. Its likely they didn't even know about her Haitian heritage. So relax"
**
REPLY
5. Blu Tooth
"Abdal'Aliy Desert Oh the media knows her father is Haitian! They didn’t mention it hoping she wouldn’t mention it! You relax you are what your father is she’s Haitian black by DNA"
**
6. Sabina Dorvile
"The fact that in every interview they keep ignoring her Haitian heritage is irritating... I love how she always correct them. #zoelifeornolife🇭🇹 🇭🇹"
**
REPLY
7. Raghu Seetharaman
"She decided to play for Japan not Haiti."
**
REPLY
8. Malki Tzedek
"+Raghu Seetharaman Because of funding. Duh & 🇭🇹 doesn't have 🎾 infrastructure. Which is a good move not representing 🇺🇸 racism would prevent her from becoming great as she is doing"
**
REPLY
9. Raghu Seetharaman
"+Malki Tzedek racism in America?....aren't blacks the face of nearly every sport in America? And don't they get paid millions?..."
**
REPLY
10. JD Henchmen
"+Malki Tzedek
So she couldn't get funding in America? If you're the best at what you do. Especially in America, nobody would fund her? Stupid idiot. It's okay if she likes sushi and egg rolls. She can still be black."
**
REPLY
11. Malki Tzedek
"+JD Henchmen I just read an article from the washington post saying her father did try to get funding from the 🇺🇸 but was ignored. 🇺🇸 sucks"
**
REPLY
12. Rodne Jean
"Raghu Seetharaman they cheer their greatness not their color of skin ; for your info Maria Sharapova was their favorite until Serena greatness shut them down malki tzedek is right she won’t be acknowledged too quickly if she represent Haiti simple as that."
**
13. Johnny67409
"Naomi Osaka makes sure to let the racist media know that she is also Haitian."
You go girl!!!
**
14. Chigjuan Spartacus
"SHE IS HAITIAN - HER DAD IS BLACK HAITIAN - SHE IS BLACK HAITIAN with Japanese MOM. The media claims she is the first Japanese to win grand slam, but SHE IS THE FIRST HAITIAN TO WIN US OPEN. The media want her to be everything but BLACK. WELL; SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
**
REPLY
15. nia z
"look at her face mf , does she look negro or asian to u........her asian gene is dominant than your weak ass negro gene, so stfu"
**
REPLY
16. Raghu Seetharaman
"+nia z even tiger woods who is Buddhist claims his Asian side more. Not surprising as how he says blacks make fun of him growing up for being part Asian and only claims him when he's rich n famous. I wouldn't be surprised if if it happened to her too."
**
REPLY
17. Malki Tzedek
"+Raghu Seetharaman not really. She's always the one correcting everyone and remind them she's Haitian. Tiger, when he was arrested, they put black as his race on his arrest papers to show you Tiger cant escape his blackness no matter how hard he tries to."
**
18. jero
"+Malki Tzedek ..As I known Tiger was not claimed himself to be Thai as his mother side.In Thailand we know that he is black american."
**
19. Michael Cooper
"Japan is a very homogeneous country. The Japanese value racial purity. In the eyes of Japan, Naomi is a Black girl with a Japanese last name or, at the very least, a hafu. Btw, white supremacists use Japan as their model of ethno-statehood."
**
REPLY
20. Sapphire Star
"Then why isn't Japan getting slammed by anti-racists for being too homogenous? Why aren't they going after Japan for not allowing non-Asians into the country? During WW2, Japan tried their hand at colonizing the Pacific Islands. What they did to the Polynesians living on the islands they managed to get, and their POW's, was just as bad as anything that occurred from European colonization. Rape, slavery, extortion of the natives, etc.
Yet it's a sin if only whites dare to ask to keep Europe majority white?"
**
REPLY
21. Shanna Collins
"White supremacists use Japan as their model of ethno-statehood? Cut this bullsh&t* out."
-snip-
* This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
REPLY
22. Michael Cooper
"+Shanna Collins
It’s true, Shanna"
**
REPLY
23. Michael Cooper
"Japan is not better at colonizing land like Europeans. The Micronesians (not Polynesians) were mostly affected by Japanese colonization. Europeans, like the British and French, colonized so many countries throughout Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Caribbean that the people of the colonized countries speak the language of their European colonizers, which is why so many non-Europeans flock to Europe. Europeans made the bed (colonization) that the have to lie in (diversity). Don’t forget that the Japanese were so admired by Hitler that he called the “honorary Nazis”."
**
24. Abnell Jacobs
"This is the reason why they always talk sh&t* about Haitian, when we accomplished good thing they always hide it. They media is there just to talk about the negative"
-snip-
* This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
25. Shanna Collins
"White reporters don't know how to deal with Black children of mixed ancestry, particularly when the child is of Asian and Afro-Caribbean ancestry. Like is it that hard to understand that a Black kid can grow up Japanese and Haitian, and be deeply influenced by both?"
**
26. George Cardin
"Naomi is such a smart young lady. She understands very clearly the media has this western colonial mindset to undermine her Haitian heritage, she is always aware of that and throws it right back in their face. I have never met a Haitian person that wasn’t proud to be Haitian despites the fake news media who has this deep hatred towards Haiti for being the first black country in the Western Hemisphere to be independent. Go ask france about Haiti, go ask the so called greatest General Napoleon Bonapart about Haiti. Most Haitians speak 3 different languages and also hard working. I speak Creol, French, Spanish & English.
How many languages do YOU speak?"
**
27. Wilson Saintil
"Before winning Wimbledon, she was listed in Wikipedia as Japanese-Haitian professional tennis player. Right after she won, someone had to go back on there and make changes. She's now a just a Japanese professional tennis player. Are they serious?"
**
28. HacksignKT
"White supremacist media not even shocked... But AWESOME she represented her Haitian then Japanese heritage, cause lets be honest America has always treated those who are melinated as 2nd classes citizens. And as for Japan, they are only cheering her on cause they can make money off her hard work and success. Not to long ago when a Black/Japanese woman won miss Universe people got to calling her Halfu or worse..."
**
29. suem sueley
"i hate how everyone is trying to erase her haitian heritage like she has as much haitian in her as japanese. plus she said herself that she wasnt always tolarated by japanese people but was more by haitian or black people."
**
30. Kam Lu
"You go baby girl. Don’t let them take away your blackness. Parents you raised you well and to be proud of both your races. I’d love to know where did white people get that they are the superior race? Baby girl don’t change. You are Haitian and Japanese."
****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
This is the second post is an multi-part pancocojams series about being mixed race in Asia. Particular attention in this series is given to people who are Blasian (Black/Asian).
Click the Blasian tag and the hafu tag below for more posts in this series.
This post provides excerpts from an online article about 2018 Tennis World champion Naomi Osaka who is of Haitian and Japanese descent.
This post also showcases two videos of Naomi Osaka and presents selected comments from those videos' discussion threads.
WARNING: These compilations include comments that I consider to be racist and/or provocative. Some of these comments include profanity. I amended the spelling for those words.
****
The content of this post is presented for cultural and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Special thanks and congratulations to Naomi Osaka. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publishers of these videos on YouTube.
****
ARTICLE EXCERPT ABOUT TENNIS CHAMPION NAOMI OSAKA
From https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/naomi-osaka-black-too-215603554.html "Naomi Osaka Is Black, Too — And We Need to Say So" by BRIT + CO Kat Armstrong,BRIT + CO, Fri, Sep 14 5:56 PM EDT
"Since Saturday, even people who don’t watch tennis have been talking about legendary player Serena Williams’ US Open loss to 20-year-old powerhouse Naomi Osaka. While Osaka’s win was overshadowed by the controversy surrounding the potential role of bias in the umpire’s now-contentious decision to issue Williams a series of penalties, Osaka’s identity — that of a Japanese and Black woman — has repeatedly been diminished.
[...]
A major example of Osaka’s whitewashing is the wildly racist cartoon published this week in Australia’s Herald Sun, which depicted the tennis player as a white woman with blonde hair. More often, the erasure is more subtle, like when media outlets describe Osaka as “Japanese” without acknowledging her multiracial identity. Erasing Osaka’s Blackness further divides her from Williams, who, in turn, is often depicted as a stereotypical “angry Black woman.” Whether intentionally or not, the whitewashing of Osaka serves to reinforce a racist victim-and-villain storyline.
Most importantly, however, is that in ignoring Osaka’s Blackness, we fail to acknowledge how poignant it is that the young tennis player is being given the torch of tennis greatness by her idol, Williams. Tennis is such a white-dominated sport that fewer than 40 Black women have ever competed at the elite level.
Not to say that Osaka isn’t also Japanese. Osaka was born in Japan and professionally represents the country. But it’s important to note that her father, Leonard François is Haitian. Osaka and her older sister, Mari (who is also a professional tennis player), were both given their Japanese mother’s surname at birth for practical reasons — its easier to register for schools in Japan with a Japanese surname. The family moved to the US when she was just three years old, which makes Osaka a Japanese-Haitian-American woman.
The newly-minted US Open winner is never shy about checking reporters who fail to mention that she’s Haitian (like she did earlier this year in Australia). She’s also talked about how, when Japanese people see her name, they are confused that she’s “a Black girl.”....
-snip-
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-herald-sun-serena_us_5b992d85e4b0162f4732fd0d is one of many online article about the racist Australia cartoon that is mentioned in this article.
Two videos of interviews in which Naomi Osaka "checked reporters who fail to mention that she's Haitian" are embedded below.
****
SHOWCASE VIDEOS
Video #1: You Tell ‘Em! Tennis Player Checks Reporter for Neglecting to Mention Her Haitian Heritage
GrandMilli, Published on Jan 23, 2018
-snip-
Pancocojams Editor's note:
Notice the advertisement sign for "Blackmores" that is shown in this video. According to https://www.blackmores.com.au/about-us/company-information/about-blackmores "Blackmores is Australia’s leading natural health company...[providing] quality range of vitamin, minerals, herbal and nutritional supplements"... [end of quote]
The company's name is the surname of its founder Maurice Blackmore.
Information about the surname "Blackmore" and information and my comments about the similarly spelled word "blackamoor" and the name "Maurice" can be found in the comment section of this post.
-snip-
Selected comments with numbers are added for referencing purposes only [Note that all of these comments were posted in September 2018 after Naomi Osaka won the 2018 World Cup.]
1. Goddess Earline Mallory
"He tried to overlook her Haitian side (African ancestry), but she politely put him in his place asap. You go girl!!! I swear they hate to give proper credit. It’s absolutely ridiculous!!!! She is a perfect blend of Japanese and Haitian. They need to get over it because she’s obviously not denying her Blackness."
REPLY
2. wizeguy007
"He didn't try to overlook, he certainly did. Glad she made it clear! We all saw this coming once she won; the media was going to focus on her Japanese side, completely disregarding her Haitian ancestry."
**
REPLY
3. Claire Ueda,
"wizeguy007 + LOL ! You mean the same media that rush to Haiti bedside to say "how great and paradisiac of a country it is", when Trump laid down the truth on a comment he made about it ??? You have quiet the selective memory, you know ! No wonder arabs are still allowed to do what they are have been doing to your race for THAT long ! ^_^"
**
REPLY
4. Mas Gonderawi
"Yeah, why are you fools obsessed with race ? They did not overlook her Haitian side, she represents Japan, her mother's and her birth country. She just wanted to give a nod to her Haitians side even though she doesn't even posess Haitian citizenship."
**
REPLY
5. dan theman
"Claire Ueda Black athletes are only strongly represented in certain sports, Tennis not traditionally being one of them. Despite the dominance of the Williams sisters in recent years, there have still only been 3 black grandslam winners, male or female, in open Tennis history out of literally hundreds of players. So to finally have mixed black and Asian winner from black heritage outside of America, is nice and deserves to be mentioned as much as her Japanese heritage. It might mean nothing to you but to Haitians and West Indians, it means a lot. Plus the fact that she always remembers her black roots proudly, when all the interviwers seem to always forget, means even more. Only someone who has never felt underrepresented, left out or overlooked would get upset by the OC.
Ps, there is nothing racist about being proud your racial heritage and international representatives when they do well."
**
6. Tiwha26
"Just wanna let you know that the Haitian community is very proud of you"
**
REPLY
7. Mas Gonderawi
"ouubet She isn’t Black. She’s Biracial. And I’m not “White”. Idiot."
**
REPLY
8. stevenO
"+Claire Ueda i wonder how often she is already been called hafu and Gaejin already... there is no one more racist on this planet thst asians especially japanese and chinese. So sell your bullsh&t* to the birds!
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
9. NYCfactor
"why? just cause her BLOODLINE is Haitian? she never lived in Haiti or really experienced life there. Her father is American Haitian. always about SKIN TONE and COLOR and RACE."
**
REPLY
10. Michael Cooper
"NYCfactor
Other than being born in Japan to an interracial couple Naomi did not grow up in homogeneous Japan (FACT#1). She represents Japan only because her dad thought it would be a good idea to heighten her brand and stock - hence, Nissin (FACT#2). Naomi grew up in a Black (Haitian) household in New York (FACT#3). She’s not fluent in Japanese (FACTS#4). She’s fluent in English and Haitian Creole (FACT#5). Naomi’s favorite music 🎶 genre is R&B (FACT#6). Her favorite singer is Beyoncé (FACT#7). Naomi has a cute crush on actor Michael B. Jordan (FACT#8). Son, it’s not about race or color or shared-complexion, it’s about lineage and culture. #FACTS!"
**
11. sonson s
"The question was intentional directed to make you forgot your Haitian background but thank you for being very professional representing who you are. Congratulations for being a great and strong Haitian/Japanese woman."
**
REPLY
12. LinnErellie haha
"I think to many people are confusing race with nationality. They say Japan because it's where she's from she's not from Haiti. They didn't ask her what her race was."
**
REPLY
13. Anna Doe
"+LinnErellie haha And do you think that Haiti is a race? Do you even read your answer before writing it? SMH!
She's from Haiti because her dad is from Haiti and your half-baked reasoning is not gonna change this fact that she herself, made a point to underline. She grew up in a Haitian household.
Let's assume he only asked about the country she was representing in the tournament or the citizenship she used to enter it: when she answered, SHE MADE a point to highlight the fact that SHE DOESN'T consider herself as only Japanese but Haitian as well. So your ignorant comment about Haitian being a race is pointless here.
Here, you're welcome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkX0bjOyNME
-snip-
This video is given as Video #2 below.
**
REPLY
[This comment was written in reply to a comment from LinnErellie that was filled with profanity]
14. Michael Cooper
"LinnErellie haha
Calm down! When a commenter replied with vulgar words only says that he or she had been defeated in the conversation."
**
REPLY
15. LinnErellie haha
"+Michael Cooper Truthfully most people don't care about others races. It's black Americans who are obsessed with it. Look around they are the ones crying if a mixed person has black in them and the whole world is not bending over to acknowledge their blackness. It's f&&king* stupid. I have four half Asian daughters all look straight up asian with green eyes I don't follow kids around saying "don't forget your mama is Italian you must praise your mom's side" So please let's not speak for all American because the videos on youtube and stories come from black people not anyone else.
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
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16. Doug D
"No it was intended to undermine her Haitian/black heritage. Not to "make her forget". How can she forget? She's not delusional unlike Megan and others."
**
17. Måristadt Minxed
"That was the smoothest, most polite, sweetest "checking" you could ever expect xD respect and love from a dominican-american!"
**
18. Math major Alpha
"My dad is Haitian . Represent 😂🇭🇹🇭🇹"
-snip-
This comment quotes what Naomi Osaka said. "HT" is a referent for the Caribbean nation of Haiti.
**
REPLY
19. Minuteman
"Your black side is only mentioned when you've done something negative lol.... good job on checking the reporter and forgetting his question LOL"
**
REPLY
20. Kevin Walker
"Tiger Wood says thats a lie ..."
**
REPLY
21. Mas Gonderawi
"She is born in Japan to a Japanese mother and represents Japan. Therefore, she represents Japan regardless of her ethnic make-up."
**
REPLY
21. Mas Gonderawi
"@Kevin Walker and Tiger Woods is right. Why are Blacks bitter when Biracial/Multiracial people express the reality of their plural identity ? I've never witnessed any people more obsessed about race and skin colour as Blacks (of Americans and West Indies in particular)."
**
REPLY
22. scoff Qub
"Mas Gonderawi don't be stupid.. Do you think Do you think the Japanese ppl would accept her as a miss japan if she wanted to be one ? no ! that is also when they d say she is not Japanese enough... And I wouldn't expect anything different from channel 7 reporters... the Australian Fox news."
**
24. collin355
"I guess it goes both ways because nobody in America including blacks likes to acknowledge that Tiger Woods is half asian.. when he won the Masters it was Tiger Woods becomes first African American to win Masters never heard that he was the first Asian American to win it"
**
REPLY
25. Michael Cooper
"collin355
When Tiger Wood was arrested by the police the report had him as black not “cablasian” whatever that means."
**
REPLY
26. dan theman
"collin355 Actually that's not true. The moment he won his first major, the entire world knew he was part Asian. The media shouted it from the rooftops. As soon as got caught cheating, he became just another disgraced black celebrity."
**
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27. collin355
"+dan theman bullsh&t* they did..when he won the masters it was all over the news. "First African American to win masters" you never heard first Asian to win masters.
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
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28. dan theman
"collin355 Tiger Woods himself said he wasn't black and it was all over the papers....lol."
**
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29. poosnip
"Bull sh&t* .... tiger woods referred himself as “Amerasian” And there were documentaries about his other heritage. But yes,before him no one of African decent had so far won a major tournament. There have been Asians doing that but no one of African decent. It is a more compelling story to tell
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
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30. collin355
"+poosnip there had been zero Asians who had won a major golf tournament before tiger. Where are you getting this false info at? Calvin Peete was a very successful golfer who was black in the 70s and had won quite a number of PGA tournaments. And yes the media rarely acknowledge tiger as Asian when he won. It was always first African American to win. You guys have no idea what your talking about"
**
31. Jules-son Jean
"He should have apologized to her if his question wasn't intentional but he got caught and didn't know how to act
He couldn't redeem himself from embarrassment
Too bad sucker
Thumb up Naomi I'm proud of you and your parents."
**
32. Maurice Simpson
"He just ignored what she says about her other half (Haitian)...that is the most weird reaction from a reporter you could get. The 'natural' response would have been, oh yeah, sorry, of course. Or, if you really didn't know, you would say, "oh sorry about that, I was not aware" - me the no basically researching dummy - but he just carried on like he heard nothing. Very Very strange. Sounds like he knew all along and had his agenda. Wow! And then you have the type of people who will say, 'it doesn't matter what she is, she is just a great tennis player'...except that it clearly matters as the reporter brought up ethnicity veiled as nationality - don't blame the people on You Tube for then taking it up and commenting further."
**
REPLY
33. Joann J.
"She was born in Japan and lives in America now, and has dual citizenship in both countries. The question was asking her how her fans feel back home based on her relationship with these two nations. Even though she is half Haitian, she is now representing the Japan Tennis team, and not Haiti, so the emphasis isn't going to be on Haiti."
**
34. Shelly Walker
"That's by design. They want to distinguish her from Serena and the rest of the black people. They do that. They like having a favorite black person to compare to the others ( you know, good one, bad one). They even tried that with Venus and Serena. Sadly she and her mother have been rejected by her Japanese grandparents. Of course now that she is rich and famous, she will be meeting her Japanese grandfather for the first time."
**
REPLY
35. Yuda Zona
"Her grandfather "rejecting" her is different from Japan as a country rejecting her. Her mother is 100% Japanese and didn't reject her, and if Naomi had any resentments towards Japan, she wouldn't have had a Japanese sponsor and be representing Japan."
**
36. Sondy Ceran Tv
"oh Boy I'm so proud of her now, she really prove that she love her heritage, I wanna let you know we love you too Naomi and we are so proud of you"
****
Video #2: Naomi Osaka answers: How Haitian and Japanese culture made her who she is today
Haiti Info, Published on Sep 6, 2018
http://www.haitianinternet.com/photos/naomi-osaka-answers-how-haitian-and-japanese-culture-made-he.html
"Watch this video... Tennis Player Naomi Osaka tells journalist how her Haitian culture and Japanese culture help shaped her into who she is today. What about the American culture? Well... Watch and listen...
[video embedded]
The journalist didn't even bother to ask her about her Haitian heritage. How nice of Naomi Osaka to set the record straight.
What do you think?"
-snip-
Selected comments with numbers are added for referencing purposes only [Note that all of these comments were posted in September 2018 after Naomi Osaka won the 2018 World Cup.]
1. Lanisready T
"She asked Naomi about her Japanese culture and American culture. Good for Naomi for pointing out that she was raised in aHaitian home. We need to call out the media when they do this crap because it is hard enough to swallow dealing with the William sisters and now they have to deal with Naomi but the Haitian part is too much for them."
**
REPLY
2. GMSkillah Qam
"call out the media for what? she has not been to Haiti. She was raised in America and Japan. So whats the f&&king* problem, racist?
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
REPLY
3. Polynice Auxerre
"+GMSkillah Qam Umm she's been to Haiti several times.. her father is Haitian and they purposely ignored that side so yes it is a big deal!"
**
REPLY
4. Abdal'Aliy Desert
"Reason why the reported ask about US and Japan is because she is respresenting Japan when she competes. Its likely they didn't even know about her Haitian heritage. So relax"
**
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5. Blu Tooth
"Abdal'Aliy Desert Oh the media knows her father is Haitian! They didn’t mention it hoping she wouldn’t mention it! You relax you are what your father is she’s Haitian black by DNA"
**
6. Sabina Dorvile
"The fact that in every interview they keep ignoring her Haitian heritage is irritating... I love how she always correct them. #zoelifeornolife🇭🇹 🇭🇹"
**
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7. Raghu Seetharaman
"She decided to play for Japan not Haiti."
**
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8. Malki Tzedek
"+Raghu Seetharaman Because of funding. Duh & 🇭🇹 doesn't have 🎾 infrastructure. Which is a good move not representing 🇺🇸 racism would prevent her from becoming great as she is doing"
**
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9. Raghu Seetharaman
"+Malki Tzedek racism in America?....aren't blacks the face of nearly every sport in America? And don't they get paid millions?..."
**
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10. JD Henchmen
"+Malki Tzedek
So she couldn't get funding in America? If you're the best at what you do. Especially in America, nobody would fund her? Stupid idiot. It's okay if she likes sushi and egg rolls. She can still be black."
**
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11. Malki Tzedek
"+JD Henchmen I just read an article from the washington post saying her father did try to get funding from the 🇺🇸 but was ignored. 🇺🇸 sucks"
**
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12. Rodne Jean
"Raghu Seetharaman they cheer their greatness not their color of skin ; for your info Maria Sharapova was their favorite until Serena greatness shut them down malki tzedek is right she won’t be acknowledged too quickly if she represent Haiti simple as that."
**
13. Johnny67409
"Naomi Osaka makes sure to let the racist media know that she is also Haitian."
You go girl!!!
**
14. Chigjuan Spartacus
"SHE IS HAITIAN - HER DAD IS BLACK HAITIAN - SHE IS BLACK HAITIAN with Japanese MOM. The media claims she is the first Japanese to win grand slam, but SHE IS THE FIRST HAITIAN TO WIN US OPEN. The media want her to be everything but BLACK. WELL; SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
**
REPLY
15. nia z
"look at her face mf , does she look negro or asian to u........her asian gene is dominant than your weak ass negro gene, so stfu"
**
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16. Raghu Seetharaman
"+nia z even tiger woods who is Buddhist claims his Asian side more. Not surprising as how he says blacks make fun of him growing up for being part Asian and only claims him when he's rich n famous. I wouldn't be surprised if if it happened to her too."
**
REPLY
17. Malki Tzedek
"+Raghu Seetharaman not really. She's always the one correcting everyone and remind them she's Haitian. Tiger, when he was arrested, they put black as his race on his arrest papers to show you Tiger cant escape his blackness no matter how hard he tries to."
**
18. jero
"+Malki Tzedek ..As I known Tiger was not claimed himself to be Thai as his mother side.In Thailand we know that he is black american."
**
19. Michael Cooper
"Japan is a very homogeneous country. The Japanese value racial purity. In the eyes of Japan, Naomi is a Black girl with a Japanese last name or, at the very least, a hafu. Btw, white supremacists use Japan as their model of ethno-statehood."
**
REPLY
20. Sapphire Star
"Then why isn't Japan getting slammed by anti-racists for being too homogenous? Why aren't they going after Japan for not allowing non-Asians into the country? During WW2, Japan tried their hand at colonizing the Pacific Islands. What they did to the Polynesians living on the islands they managed to get, and their POW's, was just as bad as anything that occurred from European colonization. Rape, slavery, extortion of the natives, etc.
Yet it's a sin if only whites dare to ask to keep Europe majority white?"
**
REPLY
21. Shanna Collins
"White supremacists use Japan as their model of ethno-statehood? Cut this bullsh&t* out."
-snip-
* This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
REPLY
22. Michael Cooper
"+Shanna Collins
It’s true, Shanna"
**
REPLY
23. Michael Cooper
"Japan is not better at colonizing land like Europeans. The Micronesians (not Polynesians) were mostly affected by Japanese colonization. Europeans, like the British and French, colonized so many countries throughout Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Caribbean that the people of the colonized countries speak the language of their European colonizers, which is why so many non-Europeans flock to Europe. Europeans made the bed (colonization) that the have to lie in (diversity). Don’t forget that the Japanese were so admired by Hitler that he called the “honorary Nazis”."
**
24. Abnell Jacobs
"This is the reason why they always talk sh&t* about Haitian, when we accomplished good thing they always hide it. They media is there just to talk about the negative"
-snip-
* This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
25. Shanna Collins
"White reporters don't know how to deal with Black children of mixed ancestry, particularly when the child is of Asian and Afro-Caribbean ancestry. Like is it that hard to understand that a Black kid can grow up Japanese and Haitian, and be deeply influenced by both?"
**
26. George Cardin
"Naomi is such a smart young lady. She understands very clearly the media has this western colonial mindset to undermine her Haitian heritage, she is always aware of that and throws it right back in their face. I have never met a Haitian person that wasn’t proud to be Haitian despites the fake news media who has this deep hatred towards Haiti for being the first black country in the Western Hemisphere to be independent. Go ask france about Haiti, go ask the so called greatest General Napoleon Bonapart about Haiti. Most Haitians speak 3 different languages and also hard working. I speak Creol, French, Spanish & English.
How many languages do YOU speak?"
**
27. Wilson Saintil
"Before winning Wimbledon, she was listed in Wikipedia as Japanese-Haitian professional tennis player. Right after she won, someone had to go back on there and make changes. She's now a just a Japanese professional tennis player. Are they serious?"
**
28. HacksignKT
"White supremacist media not even shocked... But AWESOME she represented her Haitian then Japanese heritage, cause lets be honest America has always treated those who are melinated as 2nd classes citizens. And as for Japan, they are only cheering her on cause they can make money off her hard work and success. Not to long ago when a Black/Japanese woman won miss Universe people got to calling her Halfu or worse..."
**
29. suem sueley
"i hate how everyone is trying to erase her haitian heritage like she has as much haitian in her as japanese. plus she said herself that she wasnt always tolarated by japanese people but was more by haitian or black people."
**
30. Kam Lu
"You go baby girl. Don’t let them take away your blackness. Parents you raised you well and to be proud of both your races. I’d love to know where did white people get that they are the superior race? Baby girl don’t change. You are Haitian and Japanese."
****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
Saturday, September 15, 2018
Being Mixed Race In Asia: Excerpt From A 2015 Article About The Japanese Term Hafu (with a video about Ariana Miyamoto, Miss Universe Japan 2015)
Edited by Azizi Powell
This is the first post is an multi-part pancocojams series about being mixed race in Asia. Particular attention in this series is given to people who are Blasian (Black/Asian).
Click the Blasian tag and the hafu tag below for more posts in this series.
This post provides excerpts from an online article about the Japanese term "hafu" (meaning "half": "mixed ethnicity"/"racially mixed"). Information about Ariana Miyamoto, a hafu who was crowned Miss Universe Japan 2015, is included in this post along with a video of Ariana Miyamoto. Selected comments from that video's discussion thread are also included in this post.
The content of this post is presented for cultural and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Special thanks to Ariana Miyamoto, and to the writer of this article and publisher of this video on YouTube.
****
ARTICLE EXCERPT ABOUT THE JAPANESE TERM "HAFU"
From http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/9/9/hafu-in-japan-mixed-race.html Being ‘hafu’ in Japan: Mixed-race people face ridicule, rejection" by Roxana Saberi, September 9, 2015
"TOKYO — Ariana Miyamoto was born and raised in Japan and speaks fluent Japanese. But she said most people in her homeland see her as a foreigner.
“My appearance isn’t Asian,” she said, “[but] I think I’m very much Japanese on the inside.”
Miyamoto, 21, was born to a Japanese mother and an African-American sailor who left Japan when she was a child. In Japan she’s considered a hafu, or half-Japanese. Some people prefer the term daburu to signify double heritage, but Miyamoto said she’s not offended by the word hafu.
“I don't think the equivalent word for hafu exists overseas, but in Japan you need it to explain who you are,” she said.
In March she became the first half-black, half-Japanese woman to be named Miss Universe Japan. Many people in Japan cheered, tweeting messages such as “She represents Japan! Being hafu is irrelevant.”
But others complained on social media that she didn’t deserve the title.
“I don’t mean to discriminate,” one post read, “but I wonder how a hafu can represent Japan.”
Another person tweeted, “I didn’t know Miss Japan doesn’t have to be pure Japanese ... What a shock!”
“I ran for Miss Japan expecting some criticism, so it wasn’t such a big surprise for me,” Miyamoto said. “But of course, those kinds of comments don’t make me feel good, so I try my best to turn them into positive motivations.”
She said she has heard those kinds of comments since childhood, when she was constantly bullied and even called kuronbo, the Japanese equivalent of the N-word. Some children threw garbage at her or refused to swim in the same pool.
“I didn’t cope at all,” she said. “I didn’t tell my parents or my friends. I was the type to just keep it inside me.”
[...]
Hafu account for a small portion of Japan’s population. According to Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, approximately 36,000 children with a non-Japanese parent are born every year in the country, accounting for about 3 percent of births.
But with a rise in intermarriage, their numbers are growing.
“Over the last 20 years, there has been a doubling of the percentage of the population that’s foreigners,” said Jeff Kingston, the director of Asian studies at Temple University in Japan. “One out of 30 Japanese babies who are born has mixed parents.”
Hafu are making their mark in a country where fitting in is often preferred to sticking out, immigration is restricted to a trickle and the idea that all Japanese belong to the same race runs strong.
“There are many Japanese who believe in the purity of Japanese culture and traditions,” Kingston said, “and they have this imagined Yamato race … Everybody in the archipelago comes from this same blood pool, this same DNA. Now, anybody who seriously researches Japanese history knows that this is a myth.”
Some biracial Japanese are finding fame, such as Antony, a half-African-American, half-Japanese comedian and Saira Kunikida, an Italian-Japanese model advertising for a Japanese department store. She’s the face of a campaign called Japan Senses, which places importance on Japanese traditions and culture.
[...]
The most intermarriages in Japan are between Japanese men and women from other Asian countries, including China, the Philippines and South Korea, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
Hafu with a Korean or black parent tend to have the toughest time in Japan, according to Megumi Nishikura, a half-Japanese, half-Irish-American filmmaker who co-directed the 2013 documentary “Hafu.”
“There’s an unspoken racial hierarchy” inside and outside the hafu community, she said. “If you are half-white, you are considered to be the ideal hafu.” She added that she has heard some people in Japan refer to Asian-mixed Japanese as zanen, or disappointing, hafu.
[...]
Miyamoto said her country still has “a long way to go” to embrace diversity.
She is already making big strides for black hafu by challenging the widespread view that lighter skin is more beautiful.
And she has advice for other young people who feel they are not accepted because of their mixed-race background. “It’s OK to be who you are,” she said. “There isn’t another you out there, and it’s no fun when everybody’s the same.”
She added, “Believe in [yourselves] and don’t care too much about what other people say.”
-snip-
UPDATE: Added September 15, 2018
If I correctly understand what I've read on this subject, hafus (half Japanese people] born in Japan are automatically Japanese citizens. Here's some information about Japanese citizenship from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nationality_law
"Japan is a strict[1] jus sanguinis state as opposed to jus soli state, meaning that it attributes citizenship by blood and not by location of birth. In practice, it can be by parentage and not by descent.[2] Article 2 of the Nationality Act provides three situations in which a person can become a Japanese national at birth:
1. When either parent is a Japanese national at the time of birth. If born abroad, the child must be registered within three months of birth or otherwise will have to live in Japan before the age of 20 and notify the MOJ.
2. When either parent[3] dies before the birth and is a Japanese national at the time of death (limited to fathers until 1985)
3. When the person is born on Japanese soil and both parents are unknown or stateless
A system for acquiring nationality by birth after birth is also available. If an unmarried Japanese father and non-Japanese mother have a child, the parents later marry, and the Japanese father acknowledges paternity, the child can acquire Japanese nationality, so long as the child has not reached the age of 20. Japanese nationality law effective from 1985 has been that if the parents are not married at the time of birth and the father has not acknowledged paternity while the child was still in the womb, the child will not acquire Japanese nationality.[4][5] However, Japan's Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that denying nationality to children born out of wedlock to foreign mothers is unconstitutional.[5]"...
-snip-
Click that link for more information on Japanese citizenship.
****
INFORMATION ABOUT ARIANA MIYAMOTO
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariana_Miyamoto
"Ariana Mamiko Miyamoto (宮本・エリアナ・磨美子 Miyamoto Eriana Mamiko, born 12 May 1994 in Nagasaki) is a Japanese model and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss Universe Japan 2015. She represented Japan at the Miss Universe 2015 pageant,[2] but after her victory she encountered some people disapproving of her win, mostly in the form of online social media, for not being of typical Japanese appearance; she is the first hāfu (multiracial) woman to be Miss Japan.[3][4]
Miyamoto was born to a Japanese mother and African American father, Bryant Stanfield, who was stationed at a United States Navy base in Sasebo.[5] Miyamoto's parents divorced when she was one year old.[6] She attended elementary school in Japan and, at age 13, emigrated to the United States to live with her father in Jacksonville, Arkansas, where she attended Jacksonville High School for two years. Upon return to her native Japan, she did not immediately complete high school, but worked odd jobs, including that of a bartender.[7][8][9][10][11]
In 2015, Miyamoto won the title of Miss Nagasaki and represented her prefecture at the Miss Universe Japan contest.[12][13]
Discrimination
Miyamoto was the only mixed-race girl in her class while growing up in Sasebo, Nagasaki.[14] Miyamoto recalled, "Whenever the teacher told us to hold hands, other children thought my black skin would rub off on them, so they said, 'Don't touch me'"[15] Some of her classmates in Sasebo, Nagasaki would say things like, "Don't swim in the same pool 'cause your skin will rub off on me."[16] Miyamoto was shunned due to her skin color and curly hair as she grew up in Japan.[17] Parents and classmates used the term kurombo (a racist expression) to refer to her.[17]
Miyamoto has decided to use her fame to help combat racial prejudice.[18] In 2015, Miyamoto said "I want to start a revolution. I can't change things overnight but in 100-200 years there will be very few pure Japanese left, so we have to start changing the way we think."[18]
Career
Miss Universe Japan 2015
On 12 March 2015, Miyamoto was crowned as Miss Universe Japan 2015 (Miss Japan 2015) at Hotel Chinzanso Tokyo...
Miss Universe 2015
As Miss Japan 2015, Miyamoto competed at the Miss Universe 2015 pageant[23] where she made it to the Top 10. Before Miyamoto's placement, Japan placed in the top 15 last in 2008 with Hiroko Mima."...
****
SHOWCASE VIDEO: Miss Japan challenges the norm
Al Jazeera America, Published on Sep 28, 2015
Roxana Saberi spends a day with Ariana Miyamoto, who became the first half-black Japanese woman to be named Miss Japan.
-snip-
selected comments from this video's discussion thread, with numbers added for referencing purposes only;
1. Kamala Roxanne Burakom, 2016
"Well, I'm a hafu too. But my other half is Thai. So Japanese people can't really tell that I'm not pure Japanese. However that doesn't mean they won't distance me when they find out that I'm half Thai. My point is the racism in Japan does exist. I have witnessed it far too many times."
**
REPLY
2. RyzeUp, 2018
"That’s not another race tho....."
**
REPLY
3. jy jy, 2018
"RyzeUp
to outsiders its not another race but believe me even within asians themselves there is TONS of racism. non asians cant tell the difference between different asian groups but asians themselves can tell the difference. hell even amongst chinese theres racism between the north and the south. so even if physically thais and japanese are very similar it still doesnt matter . she will never be treated as a true japanese and will be treated like another hafu. if asians cant stand intermarraige between other asians what makes you think they would accept intermarriage between TOTALLY different races like blacks or even whites?(believe it or not there are plenty of instances where asian parents stopped their kids from marrying whites)"
**
4. Raven Destari, 2016
"Comments section:
10% supporters
90% racists.
Lovely -.-
Who should care. If shes a citizen, she can enter and win. No arguement on that."
**
REPLY
5. Philly Cheese Take, 2016
"+Raven Destari There are hundreds of thousands of Japanese women more beautiful and accomplished than her.
Miss Japan should be a Japanese woman, not a half-Japanese woman. If you seriously believe that diversity is what Japan "needs", just look at the US, and what diversity did there."
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6. Raven Destari, 2016
"ChasingTruth TakingFlak I guess im looking at it differently because I am half-Japanese. No matter though, nobody is the most beautiful or accomplished and I do not believe that someone else was a better fit. It may help more half-Japanese be more confident with themselves as people and to help ignore the criticism that we recieve."
-snip-
"ChasingTruth Taking Flak" appears to be a former screen name for "Philly Cheese Take"
**
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7. Philly Cheese Take, 2016
"+Raven Destari
How is no-one a better fit? She hasn't accomplished anything, she's done literally nothing, she didn't even finish high-school. She lived in the US for 3 years, and still doesn't speak English, not exactly an indicator of someone with drive and determination.
I have no problem with half-Japanese people in general, but to pretend like you represent Japan, or can represent Japan, when Japan has a very distinct culture and is very homogeneous, is laughable.
I fear that in not too long, no country, or land, or culture, will be immune to the nonsense that is multiculturalism. There will be no Japanese people, there will be no Europeans, there will be no Indians etc., and hence, no diversity. Everyone everywhere will look, speak, and act similarly. It will not happen in our lifetime, but I don't want to progress towards it."
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[written in response to a comment about racial slurs being used in this particular sub-thread of this discussion]
8. Gieszkanne, 2016
"+Raven Destari
I didnt have seen any comment yet with the n word. Neither any racist comment. And you wrote 90%!
She just dont look Japanese. Also she lived form age 13 in the US what is concealed here!
And the Jury also wasnt Japanes (only two) .
How she can represent Japan?!
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9. Areloe Fiezx, 2016
"+Gieszkanne Because she is half Japanese ethnically and fully Japanese nationally. Get over it."
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10. Madison Hu, 2016
"So I guess if you're born in Japan-and from a Japanese woman, grew up speaking Japanese, are a Japanese citizen, have Japanese mannerisms, and have pride in your country, but are of mixed race, I guess that still doesn't mean you can represent Japan. Wow. Why is she considered half-black instead of half Japanese? She can't honestly say she's African, she has no roots there, probably has no idea about the culture. It's inside what counts, but nah, I guess we really all are just that shallow."
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11. かんぐちあき, 2018
"Fuma Fu the ones making comments that she's half-black and taking this out of proportion are the "western" posters here on YT more than anything else. I don't say Japan has no racism, but the "problem" if anything is more that she is half "non-Japanese". So called "fully-Japanese" people will discriminate against any "haafu" as being "other" and not Japanese enough. Whether half black, white, Arab, etc don't really make that much difference (well, if you're half "other Asian" you might not be discriminated much because of your looks until they FIND OUT you're half something else) I myself being "haafu" growing up I in Japan living now in US see a LOT more racism against blacks (based on color) here than ever in Japan. Tho I'm not part black, I've been discriminated in US just for looking Hispanic, and have heard enough racial "color" comments rampant in US, compared to in Japan, comments are about "foreigners" as a whole (it's not really about "color"). On top of that, many Americans simply seem to believe they are not racist because they are multi cultural nation and Japan is racist because they are "single race". That's such an ignorant, simplistic, and juvenile way of looking at things."
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12. Ym Mm, 2016
"Nothing wrong with having a mixed raced Miss Japan. Majority of the Japanese people could care less about it. Hell, you always see mixed raced celebrities these days on Japanese tv and out in public. But the fact that she made a comment about wanting to start a revolution to make the ethnic Japanese people go extinct isn't going to make her any better. It's her stubborn self conscious attitude that's making it difficult for herself. She had the honor to become Miss Japan, yet all she talks about on media are how she wishes pure Japanese people would go extinct and how she thinks she was victimized of "bullying" due to her skin color. Her being mixed race doesn't mean anything, it's her ATTITUDE thats bring out the negativity to the public."
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13. LookzA, 2016
"where did she say that all Japanese people should "go extinct"?"
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14. Ym Mm, 2016
"+LookzA look it up. she said on a interview right after she was chosen"
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15. JanellaMa, 2016
"To that comment "... I wonder how a hafu can represent Japan" and " I didn't know Ms. Japan doesn't have to be pure Japanese". I know this isn't Japan but Miss Philippines is a "Hafu" Filipino-German...? I'm Filipino, my nationality is American and I think I'm more American than Filipino, it's not a big deal because I still appreciate my heritage and still take part of my culture. I think it's okay it's just how the contestant can represent their country by being proud of who they are not by the color of their skin or the look of their face. I hope Japanese culture can accept the diversity; Not saying they don't but in the future."
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16. Adriana Dor, 2016
"+JanellaMa Miss Philippines is biracial, not a hafu. There is a difference. Hafu means one that is half Japanese."
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17. Stop Me, 2016
"Don't get it wrong. Being Hafu is not an issue, being African Hafu is. Simply because you inherit stereotypes and prejudices. As humans we can't look past physical appearance."
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18. jerramy, 2016
"Kudos to the judges who obviously chose Ms Universe Japan on her merits rather than some idea of ethnic purity. I will bet the haters wouldn't be displeased if Ms Australia was Asian because there are so many Asians in Australia now. It is only a matter of time before this kind of thing is happening world-wide with so many mixed race marriages."
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19. Linda Naranjo-Hayakawa, 2016
"I feel sorry for my son. Its very very sad to watch this video but at the same time- gives me hope that Japan ONE day will change.... it will take a long time for the mentality to change. My son is only 2 years old - haf Japanese/ Brazilian/ Irish/ French. I can only hope the government too will change their policy as for double citizenship. You can't ask someone - what are they the most? Japanese or.... what do they feel they are? its very hard question. I'm mix myself! I AM a citizen of the world above all."
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20. Makai Diy, 2016
"There is an equivalent word to "hafu" in western society. Since the days of slavery the word has been "mulatto."
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21. VERLAN, 2016
"+Makai Diy no. the equivalent is "mixed", which is what people say to someone who has mixed heritage........"
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22.jad3948, 2016
"Hafu is slang with a slight derogatory tone to it. "Mixed" doesn't convey that at all. That's a horrible translation"
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23. whitetea, 2016
"+Makai Diy Isn't the equivalent Happa in "English" (It's actually a Hawaiian word.) I have never seen or heard the word "mulatto" outside of history books, but this is just my experience"
But I don't think Happa has the derogatory connotation, but then again I didn't think Hafu did either... It's like many Gaijin (foreigners) think "Gaijin" is slightly derogatory because it points out their difference but the Japanese don't see it as derogatory. What I mean is you can talk about someone who is lets say Irish in a good or bad way, but "Irish" itself isn't a bad term. The fact that they always refer to you as "Irish" might be annoying or grading tho
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24. Thisbandsux, 2017
"yeah there is a word over sea for hafu, its called blasian, or even hapa, half asian half white"
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25. MrRebuttal, 2016
"+Makai Diy WRONG! The better word for "Hafu"; is "Biracial". The word mulatto more specifically implies Black-white mixes where as biracial is a more broad term of mixed race individuals. Like this Half-Black, Half-Japanese lady."
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26. john doe, 2017
"Actually, people like her are called BLASIAN. In fact, since her father was a Black American...that is exactly what she is... a Blasian American. And we love our blasians...especially pretty ones like her."
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27. Ykhraam, 2016
"her childhood reminds me of my childhood ~.~ growing up in a country thats 99.9% one race and you rly stand out"
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28. tom11zz884, 2016
"+Ykhraam That has to be extremely rough, which is why most people that grow up that way develop identity crisis issues.
Learn about your past and culture to develop some self pride and racial pride."
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29. かんぐちあき, 2018
"tom11zz884 well, I'm bi-racial and I didn't feel as much identity crisis growing up in Japan because I knew I belonged to the "haafu" group. We have an identity of our own in Japan we can belong to. But living here in the US for number of years now, I can understand how I WOULD have had an identity crisis if I grew up HERE. Because, here you have to either lose your cultural identity and become white-washed, or if you even have a drop of African blood in you, you are forced by one group to identify yourself as "black", "African-American" (and deny your white ancestry all together, even if that side of family was not "slave owners"), or they will think you are a sell-out, an "Oreo", etc. Why can't people identify themselves as being "mixed" and be proud?"
**
30. MrEjidorie, 2016
"Japan is a highly homogeneous country, and supposed to be. So it might be very shocking and humiliating for many Japanese citizens that a woman with a foreign origin represents beautiful Japanese women. However, such phenomena are not unique in Japan. When an African woman was selected as a Miss Italy a few years ago, it provoked a strong backlash in Italian people."
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31. Mori Soba, 2016
"+MrEjidorie Nope. It's actually not like that in Japan. Most Japanese aren't shocked at all to hear Ariana Miyamoto became the first half-black Japanese woman to be named Miss Japan. People just thought it's an unusual case and the main stream media didn't care much about her.
But It provoked a strong backlash when she commented on racism in Japan for foreign media. It seemed to many Japanese people like she was making this problem big and just wanted to be famous by racial problem topic."
**
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32. MrEjidorie, 2016
"+Mori Soba Thank you for your reply. I think Ms.Ariana Miyamoto is very charming and intelligent, and she is deserved to be Miss Japan. Although her father is an Afro American, I`m quite sure that her heart is Japanese and she is really Yamato Nadeshiko (Japanese woman with all the traditional graces.). That`s why her remark about racism in Japan shocked and made me sad. Whether we like it or not, Japan is in a transitional period from highly homogenious society to more multiracial and multicultural nation. Judging from what`s going on in Europe, Japan should not accept huge number of immigrants right now, but we should be more generous to people with foreign origin as far as they respect our culture, language and Japanese society as a whole. I believe that Ms. Ariana Miyamoto is a full-fledged member of the Japanese family."
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33. Mori Soba, 2016
"+MrEjidorie I feel sorry for Ariana Miyamoto having had tough childhood because of racial bullying. But bullying can happen to anybody anywhere for any reason. She may be too young to understand it.
As for multiculturalism I understand what you mean and I'm personally trying to judge any person not by his/her nationality or race, and hope many Japanese do so. Although I cannot agree with Japan as the nation should install the multiculturalism of immigration nations like US, Canada, Australia and Singapore. Each country has its ethnic identity and that should not be violated."
**
34. Tiger Lily, 2016
"The "she doesn't look japanese" argument is so flawed. Just because you don't look like the average Japanese person doesn't mean you aren't Japanese. For example, my younger sister is Chamorro. Our mom, dad, grandpa, grandma, aunts, uncles, we are all Chamorro. My sister has fair skin and is constantly mistaken as white or korean. She looks nothing like my aunts and uncles who are the average Chamorro who is dark brown. But my sister is 100% chamorro, she just doesn't look it.
Does that mean my sister isn't chamorro? Of course not. Appearance doesn't equal race. Black people with complete vitiligo don't look black, but they are most definitely black. Same with Ariana. She was born, raised, has japanese blood, speaks japanese. She is Japanese AND Black. And people should acknowledge her Japanese side just as much as her Black side.
-snip-
Here's information about Chamorro from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamorro_people
"The Chamorro people are the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands; politically divided between the United States territory of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Micronesia."...
**
35. Marie Ji, 2017
"It's a common misconception that mixed race people are more accepted in America. My whole life people told me to choose one race. As if you can't embrace more than one. I've been teased about my family and our genetic features. So, while younger people don't tend to care, older people definitely have issues."
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36. JTL, 2017
"Absolutely true. I feel this struggle deeply. Clearly we have a long way to go still, just like the rest of the world."
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37. jhunt5578, 2017
"It's so depressing how people in the comments are supporting Ariana who suffered from racism, by being racist to Japanese people."
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38. AgitoFang, 2017
"Of course some backlash are from an older generation. There are plenty of hafu celebrities in Japan now that people idolize simply because they are hafu and have foreign features. Not even because they are specifically talented. I find it very hypocritical if they can call those idols Japanese and not Ariana. It could also be because she is half black, and they prefer hafus with white/european features. It's ridiculous."
**
39. MrEjidorie, 2017
"I identify myself as a Japanese nationalist. But irrespective of ethnic, religious or cultural backgrounds, ethnic people should be accepted as full-fledged members of the Japanese community as far as they are loyal to Japan. Through her interview, I`m fully convinced that Ms. Ariana Miyamoto loves Japan and people. I believe that she is a "Yamato Nadeshiko" an ideal Japanese woman with all the traditional graces. So she belongs to Japan, and she is our great assets! I also deeply impressed that Ms. Ariana Miyamoto always keeps her smile, maintains a positive attitude and expresses her love for Japan and Japanese people in spite that she has been discriminated because of her ethnic background."
**
40. Quéren Akemi, 2017
"Being hafu is already difficult, when it is mixed black think it is not easy. I'm mixed I suffered I still suffer a little."
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41. hayward hightower, 2017
""In Japan ,we have a long way to go" - too true, a statement, if ever there was, in regards to diversity!!!"
**
42. Kalai Reed, 2017
"No Japanese don't hate mix people.They hate Japenese people they're mix with black"
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43. Jessica Williams, 2018
"Bigotry is a world wide thing, not just an American thing. Very sad. This young lady is absolutely gorgeous and seems to have a beautiful and gentle soul. Why would anyone mistreat a person like her?"
**
44. Ursa chan, 2018
"How come the Japanese media is not making her famous?
It is 2018 and thanks to the internet I got to know about her. Brave girl!
I live in Japan , I have two daughters , “hafu” and I can not believe that people minds in this country still almost the same than 41 years ago.
My kids have their share of suffering of been “ hafu” but I never give up and support them with all my heart, I made them confident, but I was always scare because I knew about other “ hafu” committing suicide because the pressure and discrimination was really bad.
When my youngest daughter was 13 years old, without telling me, change the color of her hair from light brown to very dark black! Of course I got really upset, then crying she told me that the teacher in charge of her class has demand that she must have black hair, because was the rule of the school. This happen 20 years ago. I really want to put them in jail, for me, what they did to my daughter at 13 years old, was criminal. And we let them know and of course we try to get him and the principal fired. They were just move to another school...."
**
45. #pandas4rlife, 2018
"I am Japanese, Hawaiian, Fillipino, and many other things. I am very insecure about having so many different racial backgrounds. I feel very ashamed of myself often. That is why this lady is inspiring for me. I also have dark skin which is something I am insecure about. I love the message that she gives in the end. Very inspiring and it helps me a lot."
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46. Matthew Kaopio, 2018
"In Hawaii, we have a term "hapa" such as seen in the word "hapa haole "which was half/Hawaiian and half/Caucasian. Hapahaole were considered beautiful and appreciated in both cultures. That's why so many people in Hawaii are "mixed-race" or ethnically diverse. This girl is beautiful, both inside and out. Come to Hawaii, Ariana! We love you just as you are."
**
47. Toyang Albina, 2018
"When she said, "Be happy of who you are, there's no other other you out there and it's no fun when everyone is the same..." Burn haters burn lol"
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48. Diabetic One, 2018
"Can someone explain why Naomi Osaka is accepted and Ariana is not? One represents Japanese, athletics and the other represents Japanese Beauty. What is the difference they are both Hafu and, they both have African fathers and Japanese mothers."
-snip-
Naomi Osaka was born in Osaka, Japan to a Japanese mother and a Haitian father. She won the 2018 tennis World Cup against Serena Williams.
****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
This is the first post is an multi-part pancocojams series about being mixed race in Asia. Particular attention in this series is given to people who are Blasian (Black/Asian).
Click the Blasian tag and the hafu tag below for more posts in this series.
This post provides excerpts from an online article about the Japanese term "hafu" (meaning "half": "mixed ethnicity"/"racially mixed"). Information about Ariana Miyamoto, a hafu who was crowned Miss Universe Japan 2015, is included in this post along with a video of Ariana Miyamoto. Selected comments from that video's discussion thread are also included in this post.
The content of this post is presented for cultural and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Special thanks to Ariana Miyamoto, and to the writer of this article and publisher of this video on YouTube.
****
ARTICLE EXCERPT ABOUT THE JAPANESE TERM "HAFU"
From http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/9/9/hafu-in-japan-mixed-race.html Being ‘hafu’ in Japan: Mixed-race people face ridicule, rejection" by Roxana Saberi, September 9, 2015
"TOKYO — Ariana Miyamoto was born and raised in Japan and speaks fluent Japanese. But she said most people in her homeland see her as a foreigner.
“My appearance isn’t Asian,” she said, “[but] I think I’m very much Japanese on the inside.”
Miyamoto, 21, was born to a Japanese mother and an African-American sailor who left Japan when she was a child. In Japan she’s considered a hafu, or half-Japanese. Some people prefer the term daburu to signify double heritage, but Miyamoto said she’s not offended by the word hafu.
“I don't think the equivalent word for hafu exists overseas, but in Japan you need it to explain who you are,” she said.
In March she became the first half-black, half-Japanese woman to be named Miss Universe Japan. Many people in Japan cheered, tweeting messages such as “She represents Japan! Being hafu is irrelevant.”
But others complained on social media that she didn’t deserve the title.
“I don’t mean to discriminate,” one post read, “but I wonder how a hafu can represent Japan.”
Another person tweeted, “I didn’t know Miss Japan doesn’t have to be pure Japanese ... What a shock!”
“I ran for Miss Japan expecting some criticism, so it wasn’t such a big surprise for me,” Miyamoto said. “But of course, those kinds of comments don’t make me feel good, so I try my best to turn them into positive motivations.”
She said she has heard those kinds of comments since childhood, when she was constantly bullied and even called kuronbo, the Japanese equivalent of the N-word. Some children threw garbage at her or refused to swim in the same pool.
“I didn’t cope at all,” she said. “I didn’t tell my parents or my friends. I was the type to just keep it inside me.”
[...]
Hafu account for a small portion of Japan’s population. According to Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, approximately 36,000 children with a non-Japanese parent are born every year in the country, accounting for about 3 percent of births.
But with a rise in intermarriage, their numbers are growing.
“Over the last 20 years, there has been a doubling of the percentage of the population that’s foreigners,” said Jeff Kingston, the director of Asian studies at Temple University in Japan. “One out of 30 Japanese babies who are born has mixed parents.”
Hafu are making their mark in a country where fitting in is often preferred to sticking out, immigration is restricted to a trickle and the idea that all Japanese belong to the same race runs strong.
“There are many Japanese who believe in the purity of Japanese culture and traditions,” Kingston said, “and they have this imagined Yamato race … Everybody in the archipelago comes from this same blood pool, this same DNA. Now, anybody who seriously researches Japanese history knows that this is a myth.”
Some biracial Japanese are finding fame, such as Antony, a half-African-American, half-Japanese comedian and Saira Kunikida, an Italian-Japanese model advertising for a Japanese department store. She’s the face of a campaign called Japan Senses, which places importance on Japanese traditions and culture.
[...]
The most intermarriages in Japan are between Japanese men and women from other Asian countries, including China, the Philippines and South Korea, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
Hafu with a Korean or black parent tend to have the toughest time in Japan, according to Megumi Nishikura, a half-Japanese, half-Irish-American filmmaker who co-directed the 2013 documentary “Hafu.”
“There’s an unspoken racial hierarchy” inside and outside the hafu community, she said. “If you are half-white, you are considered to be the ideal hafu.” She added that she has heard some people in Japan refer to Asian-mixed Japanese as zanen, or disappointing, hafu.
[...]
Miyamoto said her country still has “a long way to go” to embrace diversity.
She is already making big strides for black hafu by challenging the widespread view that lighter skin is more beautiful.
And she has advice for other young people who feel they are not accepted because of their mixed-race background. “It’s OK to be who you are,” she said. “There isn’t another you out there, and it’s no fun when everybody’s the same.”
She added, “Believe in [yourselves] and don’t care too much about what other people say.”
-snip-
UPDATE: Added September 15, 2018
If I correctly understand what I've read on this subject, hafus (half Japanese people] born in Japan are automatically Japanese citizens. Here's some information about Japanese citizenship from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nationality_law
"Japan is a strict[1] jus sanguinis state as opposed to jus soli state, meaning that it attributes citizenship by blood and not by location of birth. In practice, it can be by parentage and not by descent.[2] Article 2 of the Nationality Act provides three situations in which a person can become a Japanese national at birth:
1. When either parent is a Japanese national at the time of birth. If born abroad, the child must be registered within three months of birth or otherwise will have to live in Japan before the age of 20 and notify the MOJ.
2. When either parent[3] dies before the birth and is a Japanese national at the time of death (limited to fathers until 1985)
3. When the person is born on Japanese soil and both parents are unknown or stateless
A system for acquiring nationality by birth after birth is also available. If an unmarried Japanese father and non-Japanese mother have a child, the parents later marry, and the Japanese father acknowledges paternity, the child can acquire Japanese nationality, so long as the child has not reached the age of 20. Japanese nationality law effective from 1985 has been that if the parents are not married at the time of birth and the father has not acknowledged paternity while the child was still in the womb, the child will not acquire Japanese nationality.[4][5] However, Japan's Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that denying nationality to children born out of wedlock to foreign mothers is unconstitutional.[5]"...
-snip-
Click that link for more information on Japanese citizenship.
****
INFORMATION ABOUT ARIANA MIYAMOTO
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariana_Miyamoto
"Ariana Mamiko Miyamoto (宮本・エリアナ・磨美子 Miyamoto Eriana Mamiko, born 12 May 1994 in Nagasaki) is a Japanese model and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss Universe Japan 2015. She represented Japan at the Miss Universe 2015 pageant,[2] but after her victory she encountered some people disapproving of her win, mostly in the form of online social media, for not being of typical Japanese appearance; she is the first hāfu (multiracial) woman to be Miss Japan.[3][4]
Miyamoto was born to a Japanese mother and African American father, Bryant Stanfield, who was stationed at a United States Navy base in Sasebo.[5] Miyamoto's parents divorced when she was one year old.[6] She attended elementary school in Japan and, at age 13, emigrated to the United States to live with her father in Jacksonville, Arkansas, where she attended Jacksonville High School for two years. Upon return to her native Japan, she did not immediately complete high school, but worked odd jobs, including that of a bartender.[7][8][9][10][11]
In 2015, Miyamoto won the title of Miss Nagasaki and represented her prefecture at the Miss Universe Japan contest.[12][13]
Discrimination
Miyamoto was the only mixed-race girl in her class while growing up in Sasebo, Nagasaki.[14] Miyamoto recalled, "Whenever the teacher told us to hold hands, other children thought my black skin would rub off on them, so they said, 'Don't touch me'"[15] Some of her classmates in Sasebo, Nagasaki would say things like, "Don't swim in the same pool 'cause your skin will rub off on me."[16] Miyamoto was shunned due to her skin color and curly hair as she grew up in Japan.[17] Parents and classmates used the term kurombo (a racist expression) to refer to her.[17]
Miyamoto has decided to use her fame to help combat racial prejudice.[18] In 2015, Miyamoto said "I want to start a revolution. I can't change things overnight but in 100-200 years there will be very few pure Japanese left, so we have to start changing the way we think."[18]
Career
Miss Universe Japan 2015
On 12 March 2015, Miyamoto was crowned as Miss Universe Japan 2015 (Miss Japan 2015) at Hotel Chinzanso Tokyo...
Miss Universe 2015
As Miss Japan 2015, Miyamoto competed at the Miss Universe 2015 pageant[23] where she made it to the Top 10. Before Miyamoto's placement, Japan placed in the top 15 last in 2008 with Hiroko Mima."...
****
SHOWCASE VIDEO: Miss Japan challenges the norm
Al Jazeera America, Published on Sep 28, 2015
Roxana Saberi spends a day with Ariana Miyamoto, who became the first half-black Japanese woman to be named Miss Japan.
-snip-
selected comments from this video's discussion thread, with numbers added for referencing purposes only;
1. Kamala Roxanne Burakom, 2016
"Well, I'm a hafu too. But my other half is Thai. So Japanese people can't really tell that I'm not pure Japanese. However that doesn't mean they won't distance me when they find out that I'm half Thai. My point is the racism in Japan does exist. I have witnessed it far too many times."
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2. RyzeUp, 2018
"That’s not another race tho....."
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3. jy jy, 2018
"RyzeUp
to outsiders its not another race but believe me even within asians themselves there is TONS of racism. non asians cant tell the difference between different asian groups but asians themselves can tell the difference. hell even amongst chinese theres racism between the north and the south. so even if physically thais and japanese are very similar it still doesnt matter . she will never be treated as a true japanese and will be treated like another hafu. if asians cant stand intermarraige between other asians what makes you think they would accept intermarriage between TOTALLY different races like blacks or even whites?(believe it or not there are plenty of instances where asian parents stopped their kids from marrying whites)"
**
4. Raven Destari, 2016
"Comments section:
10% supporters
90% racists.
Lovely -.-
Who should care. If shes a citizen, she can enter and win. No arguement on that."
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5. Philly Cheese Take, 2016
"+Raven Destari There are hundreds of thousands of Japanese women more beautiful and accomplished than her.
Miss Japan should be a Japanese woman, not a half-Japanese woman. If you seriously believe that diversity is what Japan "needs", just look at the US, and what diversity did there."
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6. Raven Destari, 2016
"ChasingTruth TakingFlak I guess im looking at it differently because I am half-Japanese. No matter though, nobody is the most beautiful or accomplished and I do not believe that someone else was a better fit. It may help more half-Japanese be more confident with themselves as people and to help ignore the criticism that we recieve."
-snip-
"ChasingTruth Taking Flak" appears to be a former screen name for "Philly Cheese Take"
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7. Philly Cheese Take, 2016
"+Raven Destari
How is no-one a better fit? She hasn't accomplished anything, she's done literally nothing, she didn't even finish high-school. She lived in the US for 3 years, and still doesn't speak English, not exactly an indicator of someone with drive and determination.
I have no problem with half-Japanese people in general, but to pretend like you represent Japan, or can represent Japan, when Japan has a very distinct culture and is very homogeneous, is laughable.
I fear that in not too long, no country, or land, or culture, will be immune to the nonsense that is multiculturalism. There will be no Japanese people, there will be no Europeans, there will be no Indians etc., and hence, no diversity. Everyone everywhere will look, speak, and act similarly. It will not happen in our lifetime, but I don't want to progress towards it."
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[written in response to a comment about racial slurs being used in this particular sub-thread of this discussion]
8. Gieszkanne, 2016
"+Raven Destari
I didnt have seen any comment yet with the n word. Neither any racist comment. And you wrote 90%!
She just dont look Japanese. Also she lived form age 13 in the US what is concealed here!
And the Jury also wasnt Japanes (only two) .
How she can represent Japan?!
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9. Areloe Fiezx, 2016
"+Gieszkanne Because she is half Japanese ethnically and fully Japanese nationally. Get over it."
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10. Madison Hu, 2016
"So I guess if you're born in Japan-and from a Japanese woman, grew up speaking Japanese, are a Japanese citizen, have Japanese mannerisms, and have pride in your country, but are of mixed race, I guess that still doesn't mean you can represent Japan. Wow. Why is she considered half-black instead of half Japanese? She can't honestly say she's African, she has no roots there, probably has no idea about the culture. It's inside what counts, but nah, I guess we really all are just that shallow."
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11. かんぐちあき, 2018
"Fuma Fu the ones making comments that she's half-black and taking this out of proportion are the "western" posters here on YT more than anything else. I don't say Japan has no racism, but the "problem" if anything is more that she is half "non-Japanese". So called "fully-Japanese" people will discriminate against any "haafu" as being "other" and not Japanese enough. Whether half black, white, Arab, etc don't really make that much difference (well, if you're half "other Asian" you might not be discriminated much because of your looks until they FIND OUT you're half something else) I myself being "haafu" growing up I in Japan living now in US see a LOT more racism against blacks (based on color) here than ever in Japan. Tho I'm not part black, I've been discriminated in US just for looking Hispanic, and have heard enough racial "color" comments rampant in US, compared to in Japan, comments are about "foreigners" as a whole (it's not really about "color"). On top of that, many Americans simply seem to believe they are not racist because they are multi cultural nation and Japan is racist because they are "single race". That's such an ignorant, simplistic, and juvenile way of looking at things."
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12. Ym Mm, 2016
"Nothing wrong with having a mixed raced Miss Japan. Majority of the Japanese people could care less about it. Hell, you always see mixed raced celebrities these days on Japanese tv and out in public. But the fact that she made a comment about wanting to start a revolution to make the ethnic Japanese people go extinct isn't going to make her any better. It's her stubborn self conscious attitude that's making it difficult for herself. She had the honor to become Miss Japan, yet all she talks about on media are how she wishes pure Japanese people would go extinct and how she thinks she was victimized of "bullying" due to her skin color. Her being mixed race doesn't mean anything, it's her ATTITUDE thats bring out the negativity to the public."
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13. LookzA, 2016
"where did she say that all Japanese people should "go extinct"?"
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14. Ym Mm, 2016
"+LookzA look it up. she said on a interview right after she was chosen"
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15. JanellaMa, 2016
"To that comment "... I wonder how a hafu can represent Japan" and " I didn't know Ms. Japan doesn't have to be pure Japanese". I know this isn't Japan but Miss Philippines is a "Hafu" Filipino-German...? I'm Filipino, my nationality is American and I think I'm more American than Filipino, it's not a big deal because I still appreciate my heritage and still take part of my culture. I think it's okay it's just how the contestant can represent their country by being proud of who they are not by the color of their skin or the look of their face. I hope Japanese culture can accept the diversity; Not saying they don't but in the future."
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16. Adriana Dor, 2016
"+JanellaMa Miss Philippines is biracial, not a hafu. There is a difference. Hafu means one that is half Japanese."
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17. Stop Me, 2016
"Don't get it wrong. Being Hafu is not an issue, being African Hafu is. Simply because you inherit stereotypes and prejudices. As humans we can't look past physical appearance."
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18. jerramy, 2016
"Kudos to the judges who obviously chose Ms Universe Japan on her merits rather than some idea of ethnic purity. I will bet the haters wouldn't be displeased if Ms Australia was Asian because there are so many Asians in Australia now. It is only a matter of time before this kind of thing is happening world-wide with so many mixed race marriages."
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19. Linda Naranjo-Hayakawa, 2016
"I feel sorry for my son. Its very very sad to watch this video but at the same time- gives me hope that Japan ONE day will change.... it will take a long time for the mentality to change. My son is only 2 years old - haf Japanese/ Brazilian/ Irish/ French. I can only hope the government too will change their policy as for double citizenship. You can't ask someone - what are they the most? Japanese or.... what do they feel they are? its very hard question. I'm mix myself! I AM a citizen of the world above all."
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20. Makai Diy, 2016
"There is an equivalent word to "hafu" in western society. Since the days of slavery the word has been "mulatto."
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21. VERLAN, 2016
"+Makai Diy no. the equivalent is "mixed", which is what people say to someone who has mixed heritage........"
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22.jad3948, 2016
"Hafu is slang with a slight derogatory tone to it. "Mixed" doesn't convey that at all. That's a horrible translation"
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23. whitetea, 2016
"+Makai Diy Isn't the equivalent Happa in "English" (It's actually a Hawaiian word.) I have never seen or heard the word "mulatto" outside of history books, but this is just my experience"
But I don't think Happa has the derogatory connotation, but then again I didn't think Hafu did either... It's like many Gaijin (foreigners) think "Gaijin" is slightly derogatory because it points out their difference but the Japanese don't see it as derogatory. What I mean is you can talk about someone who is lets say Irish in a good or bad way, but "Irish" itself isn't a bad term. The fact that they always refer to you as "Irish" might be annoying or grading tho
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24. Thisbandsux, 2017
"yeah there is a word over sea for hafu, its called blasian, or even hapa, half asian half white"
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25. MrRebuttal, 2016
"+Makai Diy WRONG! The better word for "Hafu"; is "Biracial". The word mulatto more specifically implies Black-white mixes where as biracial is a more broad term of mixed race individuals. Like this Half-Black, Half-Japanese lady."
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26. john doe, 2017
"Actually, people like her are called BLASIAN. In fact, since her father was a Black American...that is exactly what she is... a Blasian American. And we love our blasians...especially pretty ones like her."
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27. Ykhraam, 2016
"her childhood reminds me of my childhood ~.~ growing up in a country thats 99.9% one race and you rly stand out"
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28. tom11zz884, 2016
"+Ykhraam That has to be extremely rough, which is why most people that grow up that way develop identity crisis issues.
Learn about your past and culture to develop some self pride and racial pride."
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29. かんぐちあき, 2018
"tom11zz884 well, I'm bi-racial and I didn't feel as much identity crisis growing up in Japan because I knew I belonged to the "haafu" group. We have an identity of our own in Japan we can belong to. But living here in the US for number of years now, I can understand how I WOULD have had an identity crisis if I grew up HERE. Because, here you have to either lose your cultural identity and become white-washed, or if you even have a drop of African blood in you, you are forced by one group to identify yourself as "black", "African-American" (and deny your white ancestry all together, even if that side of family was not "slave owners"), or they will think you are a sell-out, an "Oreo", etc. Why can't people identify themselves as being "mixed" and be proud?"
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30. MrEjidorie, 2016
"Japan is a highly homogeneous country, and supposed to be. So it might be very shocking and humiliating for many Japanese citizens that a woman with a foreign origin represents beautiful Japanese women. However, such phenomena are not unique in Japan. When an African woman was selected as a Miss Italy a few years ago, it provoked a strong backlash in Italian people."
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31. Mori Soba, 2016
"+MrEjidorie Nope. It's actually not like that in Japan. Most Japanese aren't shocked at all to hear Ariana Miyamoto became the first half-black Japanese woman to be named Miss Japan. People just thought it's an unusual case and the main stream media didn't care much about her.
But It provoked a strong backlash when she commented on racism in Japan for foreign media. It seemed to many Japanese people like she was making this problem big and just wanted to be famous by racial problem topic."
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32. MrEjidorie, 2016
"+Mori Soba Thank you for your reply. I think Ms.Ariana Miyamoto is very charming and intelligent, and she is deserved to be Miss Japan. Although her father is an Afro American, I`m quite sure that her heart is Japanese and she is really Yamato Nadeshiko (Japanese woman with all the traditional graces.). That`s why her remark about racism in Japan shocked and made me sad. Whether we like it or not, Japan is in a transitional period from highly homogenious society to more multiracial and multicultural nation. Judging from what`s going on in Europe, Japan should not accept huge number of immigrants right now, but we should be more generous to people with foreign origin as far as they respect our culture, language and Japanese society as a whole. I believe that Ms. Ariana Miyamoto is a full-fledged member of the Japanese family."
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33. Mori Soba, 2016
"+MrEjidorie I feel sorry for Ariana Miyamoto having had tough childhood because of racial bullying. But bullying can happen to anybody anywhere for any reason. She may be too young to understand it.
As for multiculturalism I understand what you mean and I'm personally trying to judge any person not by his/her nationality or race, and hope many Japanese do so. Although I cannot agree with Japan as the nation should install the multiculturalism of immigration nations like US, Canada, Australia and Singapore. Each country has its ethnic identity and that should not be violated."
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34. Tiger Lily, 2016
"The "she doesn't look japanese" argument is so flawed. Just because you don't look like the average Japanese person doesn't mean you aren't Japanese. For example, my younger sister is Chamorro. Our mom, dad, grandpa, grandma, aunts, uncles, we are all Chamorro. My sister has fair skin and is constantly mistaken as white or korean. She looks nothing like my aunts and uncles who are the average Chamorro who is dark brown. But my sister is 100% chamorro, she just doesn't look it.
Does that mean my sister isn't chamorro? Of course not. Appearance doesn't equal race. Black people with complete vitiligo don't look black, but they are most definitely black. Same with Ariana. She was born, raised, has japanese blood, speaks japanese. She is Japanese AND Black. And people should acknowledge her Japanese side just as much as her Black side.
-snip-
Here's information about Chamorro from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamorro_people
"The Chamorro people are the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands; politically divided between the United States territory of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Micronesia."...
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35. Marie Ji, 2017
"It's a common misconception that mixed race people are more accepted in America. My whole life people told me to choose one race. As if you can't embrace more than one. I've been teased about my family and our genetic features. So, while younger people don't tend to care, older people definitely have issues."
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36. JTL, 2017
"Absolutely true. I feel this struggle deeply. Clearly we have a long way to go still, just like the rest of the world."
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37. jhunt5578, 2017
"It's so depressing how people in the comments are supporting Ariana who suffered from racism, by being racist to Japanese people."
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38. AgitoFang, 2017
"Of course some backlash are from an older generation. There are plenty of hafu celebrities in Japan now that people idolize simply because they are hafu and have foreign features. Not even because they are specifically talented. I find it very hypocritical if they can call those idols Japanese and not Ariana. It could also be because she is half black, and they prefer hafus with white/european features. It's ridiculous."
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39. MrEjidorie, 2017
"I identify myself as a Japanese nationalist. But irrespective of ethnic, religious or cultural backgrounds, ethnic people should be accepted as full-fledged members of the Japanese community as far as they are loyal to Japan. Through her interview, I`m fully convinced that Ms. Ariana Miyamoto loves Japan and people. I believe that she is a "Yamato Nadeshiko" an ideal Japanese woman with all the traditional graces. So she belongs to Japan, and she is our great assets! I also deeply impressed that Ms. Ariana Miyamoto always keeps her smile, maintains a positive attitude and expresses her love for Japan and Japanese people in spite that she has been discriminated because of her ethnic background."
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40. Quéren Akemi, 2017
"Being hafu is already difficult, when it is mixed black think it is not easy. I'm mixed I suffered I still suffer a little."
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41. hayward hightower, 2017
""In Japan ,we have a long way to go" - too true, a statement, if ever there was, in regards to diversity!!!"
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42. Kalai Reed, 2017
"No Japanese don't hate mix people.They hate Japenese people they're mix with black"
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43. Jessica Williams, 2018
"Bigotry is a world wide thing, not just an American thing. Very sad. This young lady is absolutely gorgeous and seems to have a beautiful and gentle soul. Why would anyone mistreat a person like her?"
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44. Ursa chan, 2018
"How come the Japanese media is not making her famous?
It is 2018 and thanks to the internet I got to know about her. Brave girl!
I live in Japan , I have two daughters , “hafu” and I can not believe that people minds in this country still almost the same than 41 years ago.
My kids have their share of suffering of been “ hafu” but I never give up and support them with all my heart, I made them confident, but I was always scare because I knew about other “ hafu” committing suicide because the pressure and discrimination was really bad.
When my youngest daughter was 13 years old, without telling me, change the color of her hair from light brown to very dark black! Of course I got really upset, then crying she told me that the teacher in charge of her class has demand that she must have black hair, because was the rule of the school. This happen 20 years ago. I really want to put them in jail, for me, what they did to my daughter at 13 years old, was criminal. And we let them know and of course we try to get him and the principal fired. They were just move to another school...."
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45. #pandas4rlife, 2018
"I am Japanese, Hawaiian, Fillipino, and many other things. I am very insecure about having so many different racial backgrounds. I feel very ashamed of myself often. That is why this lady is inspiring for me. I also have dark skin which is something I am insecure about. I love the message that she gives in the end. Very inspiring and it helps me a lot."
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46. Matthew Kaopio, 2018
"In Hawaii, we have a term "hapa" such as seen in the word "hapa haole "which was half/Hawaiian and half/Caucasian. Hapahaole were considered beautiful and appreciated in both cultures. That's why so many people in Hawaii are "mixed-race" or ethnically diverse. This girl is beautiful, both inside and out. Come to Hawaii, Ariana! We love you just as you are."
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47. Toyang Albina, 2018
"When she said, "Be happy of who you are, there's no other other you out there and it's no fun when everyone is the same..." Burn haters burn lol"
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48. Diabetic One, 2018
"Can someone explain why Naomi Osaka is accepted and Ariana is not? One represents Japanese, athletics and the other represents Japanese Beauty. What is the difference they are both Hafu and, they both have African fathers and Japanese mothers."
-snip-
Naomi Osaka was born in Osaka, Japan to a Japanese mother and a Haitian father. She won the 2018 tennis World Cup against Serena Williams.
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