Books by Jane H. Yamashiro
There is a rich body of literature on the experience of Japanese immigrants in the United States,... more There is a rich body of literature on the experience of Japanese immigrants in the United States, and there are also numerous accounts of the cultural dislocation felt by American expats in Japan. But what happens when Japanese Americans, born and raised in the United States, are the ones living abroad in Japan?
Redefining Japaneseness chronicles how Japanese American migrants to Japan navigate and complicate the categories of Japanese and “foreigner.” Drawing from extensive interviews and fieldwork in the Tokyo area, Jane H. Yamashiro tracks the multiple ways these migrants strategically negotiate and interpret their daily interactions. Following a diverse group of subjects—some of only Japanese ancestry and others of mixed heritage, some fluent in Japanese and others struggling with the language, some from Hawaii and others from the US continent—her study reveals wide variations in how Japanese Americans perceive both Japaneseness and Americanness.
Making an important contribution to both Asian American studies and scholarship on transnational migration, Redefining Japaneseness critically interrogates the common assumption that people of Japanese ancestry identify as members of a global diaspora. Furthermore, through its close examination of subjects who migrate from one highly-industrialized nation to another, it dramatically expands our picture of the migrant experience.
Check out the website https://redefiningjapaneseness.com
Like the book on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/redefiningjapaneseness/
Watch a short interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0u43MQWZAg
See a book talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGC3D9M6GUk&feature=youtu.be
Journal Articles by Jane H. Yamashiro
Geoforum
The terms “diaspora” and “diaspora strategies” are both used in inconsistent, and often, conflict... more The terms “diaspora” and “diaspora strategies” are both used in inconsistent, and often, conflicting ways. Who encompasses “the diaspora” and what are “diaspora strategies”? What roles do ethnicity and affinity play in conceptualizing relationships between diasporas and homeland governments? This paper extrapolates from programs and organizations that link overseas coethnic and former resident non-coethnic populations to Japan to offer clarity and consistency in usage by bringing together concepts not typically put in conversation with each other and introducing new terms that conceptualize more specific aspects of who we are referring to as “diaspora” and what we are referring to as “diaspora strategies”. Conceptualizations of diaspora often gloss over internal differences, including whether or not people deemed members of a diaspora actually demonstrate a homeland orientation. Focusing on the difference between ethnicity-based and affinity-based definitions of diaspora, I distinguish between three types of diaspora strategies: “diaspora-connecting”, “diaspora-cultivating”, and “diaspora-creating strategies”. Finally, as a way to discuss the potential contributions of both overseas coethnic and non-coethnic populations to a given nation, I conclude by considering Joseph Nye’s notion of “soft power” in relation to diaspora strategies. By engaging these concepts together, the paper highlights the tensions between considering ethnicity and affinity as factors for deciding who to target for diaspora strategies, and demonstrates how diaspora strategies can also target non-coethnics
Sociology Compass
This article introduces sociologists and others interested in race and the social construction of... more This article introduces sociologists and others interested in race and the social construction of minorities to the case of Japan. The construction of race in Japan conflates race, ethnicity, language, culture, class, and citizenship. As a result, the majority ‘‘Japanese’’ are constructed against ‘‘foreigners,’’ both categories implying the aforementioned characteristics. Minorities in Japan lack some or all of the aforementioned traits: most are seen as racially different from Japanese but some are marginalized in other ways that support hierarchical social organization. After reviewing scholarship that analyzes the meaning of race in Japan, I briefly describe the major minority groups: Ainu, Okinawans, Burakumin, ethnic Koreans, foreign workers, Japanese Brazilians and mixed race Japanese.
AAPI Nexus Journal: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Policy, Practice and Community
Asian ethnic return migration policies are having an important impact on the lives of Asian Ameri... more Asian ethnic return migration policies are having an important impact on the lives of Asian Americans. By making it easier for later generation Asian Americans to work and invest in their ancestral homelands, these policies have affected the scale of Asian American migration and their economic, cultural, and social connections to Asia. However, ethnic return migration policies and their effects are not uniform across all Asian American groups.
This paper analyzes how Asian Americans are being affected by ethnic return migration policies through comparative examination of the Immigration Control Act in Japan and the Overseas Korean Act in South Korea. The two policies in Japan and South Korea (hereafter Korea) are similar in their initial targeting of ethnic return migrants and in their privileging of skilled workers and investors in the 2000s to increase each country’s competitiveness in the global economy. However, while Korea’s policy has cast a net to include Korean Americans specifically, Japan’s ethnic return migration policy has not been aimed at Japanese Americans in the same way.
Ethnic and Racial Studies
This article examines Japanese Americans in Japan to illuminate how 'Japanese American' - an ethn... more This article examines Japanese Americans in Japan to illuminate how 'Japanese American' - an ethnic minority identity in the US - is reconstructed in Japan as a racialized national identity. Based on fifty interviews with American citizens of Japanese ancestry conducted between 2004 and 2007, I demonstrate how interactions with Japanese in Japan shape Japanese Americans' racial and national understandings of themselves. After laying out a theoretical framework for understanding the shifting intersection of race, ethnicity, and nationality, I explore the interactive process of racial categorization and ethnic identity assertion for Japanese American transnationals in Japan. This process leads to what I call racialized national identities - the intersection of racial and national identities in an international context - and suggests that US racial minority identities are constructed not only within the US, but abroad as well.
Migrations & Identities 1:2, 2008
Book Chapters by Jane H. Yamashiro
Japanese American Millennials: Rethinking Generation, Community, and Diversity, 2019
co co CO © 2.012. by the Board of Regenrs of the University of Nebraska All rights reserved Manuf... more co co CO © 2.012. by the Board of Regenrs of the University of Nebraska All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America © Library of Congress Catalogingin-Publication Data Transnational crossroads: remapping the Americas and the Pacific / edited by Camilla Fojas and Rudy P. Guevarra Jr. p. cm. -(Borderlands and transcultural studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8032-3795-7 (pbk.: alk. paper)
Other Publications by Jane H. Yamashiro
Nikkei Heritage Magazine, 2016
JAMsj NEWS: A Quarterly Newsletter of the Japanese American Museum of San Jose
Summary of February 7, 2015 panel at Japanese American Museum of San Jose (JAMsj) on "Fighting fo... more Summary of February 7, 2015 panel at Japanese American Museum of San Jose (JAMsj) on "Fighting for the Emperor: Japanese Americans in the WWII Imperial Armed Forces" for the JAMsj newsletter
Nearly 16 million strong, Italian Americans are often identified with the tide of poor immigrants... more Nearly 16 million strong, Italian Americans are often identified with the tide of poor immigrants who arrived in the early 20th century and built cohesive communities 766---Italian Americans
Most scholarly research on Nikkeijin has been conducted on the Brazilian population in Japan. Thi... more Most scholarly research on Nikkeijin has been conducted on the Brazilian population in Japan. This is because the term Nikkeijin, as mentioned earlier, tends to suggest Japan as a frame of reference, and Brazilians have the largest Nikkeijin presence in Japan. Other Nikkeijin populations in Japan are also becoming subjects of study. In addition, more comparative work on Nikkei communities around the world is also being done. Comparative histories of emigration and settlement in each country help to show what the social conditions were both in Japan and in the countries of settlement, and why migration occurred at the specific times and to the specific places that it did. This type of research reveals how Japanese migrant experiences in different sociopolitical contexts have led to the formation of very different Nikkei communities around the world.
Interviewed and cited in by Jane H. Yamashiro
Tempura, 2021
I didn't write this magazine article in French, but was interviewed for it and cited in the discu... more I didn't write this magazine article in French, but was interviewed for it and cited in the discussion about Japaneseness in Japan and in relation to overseas Japanese communities.
Leleu, Clémence. 2021. "Japonité Et Mythe De L'homogénéité." Tempura 8:56-61
Papers by Jane H. Yamashiro
CR: The New Centennial Review, 2012
... Learn more... ProQuest, When the diaspora returns: Transnational racial and ethnic identityfo... more ... Learn more... ProQuest, When the diaspora returns: Transnational racial and ethnic identityformation among Japanese Americans in global Tokyo. by Yamashiro, Jane Hisa, Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I AT MANOA, 2008, 296 pages; 3326464. Abstract: ...
Uploads
Books by Jane H. Yamashiro
Redefining Japaneseness chronicles how Japanese American migrants to Japan navigate and complicate the categories of Japanese and “foreigner.” Drawing from extensive interviews and fieldwork in the Tokyo area, Jane H. Yamashiro tracks the multiple ways these migrants strategically negotiate and interpret their daily interactions. Following a diverse group of subjects—some of only Japanese ancestry and others of mixed heritage, some fluent in Japanese and others struggling with the language, some from Hawaii and others from the US continent—her study reveals wide variations in how Japanese Americans perceive both Japaneseness and Americanness.
Making an important contribution to both Asian American studies and scholarship on transnational migration, Redefining Japaneseness critically interrogates the common assumption that people of Japanese ancestry identify as members of a global diaspora. Furthermore, through its close examination of subjects who migrate from one highly-industrialized nation to another, it dramatically expands our picture of the migrant experience.
Check out the website https://redefiningjapaneseness.com
Like the book on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/redefiningjapaneseness/
Watch a short interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0u43MQWZAg
See a book talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGC3D9M6GUk&feature=youtu.be
Journal Articles by Jane H. Yamashiro
This paper analyzes how Asian Americans are being affected by ethnic return migration policies through comparative examination of the Immigration Control Act in Japan and the Overseas Korean Act in South Korea. The two policies in Japan and South Korea (hereafter Korea) are similar in their initial targeting of ethnic return migrants and in their privileging of skilled workers and investors in the 2000s to increase each country’s competitiveness in the global economy. However, while Korea’s policy has cast a net to include Korean Americans specifically, Japan’s ethnic return migration policy has not been aimed at Japanese Americans in the same way.
Book Chapters by Jane H. Yamashiro
Other Publications by Jane H. Yamashiro
Interviewed and cited in by Jane H. Yamashiro
Leleu, Clémence. 2021. "Japonité Et Mythe De L'homogénéité." Tempura 8:56-61
Papers by Jane H. Yamashiro
Redefining Japaneseness chronicles how Japanese American migrants to Japan navigate and complicate the categories of Japanese and “foreigner.” Drawing from extensive interviews and fieldwork in the Tokyo area, Jane H. Yamashiro tracks the multiple ways these migrants strategically negotiate and interpret their daily interactions. Following a diverse group of subjects—some of only Japanese ancestry and others of mixed heritage, some fluent in Japanese and others struggling with the language, some from Hawaii and others from the US continent—her study reveals wide variations in how Japanese Americans perceive both Japaneseness and Americanness.
Making an important contribution to both Asian American studies and scholarship on transnational migration, Redefining Japaneseness critically interrogates the common assumption that people of Japanese ancestry identify as members of a global diaspora. Furthermore, through its close examination of subjects who migrate from one highly-industrialized nation to another, it dramatically expands our picture of the migrant experience.
Check out the website https://redefiningjapaneseness.com
Like the book on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/redefiningjapaneseness/
Watch a short interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0u43MQWZAg
See a book talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGC3D9M6GUk&feature=youtu.be
This paper analyzes how Asian Americans are being affected by ethnic return migration policies through comparative examination of the Immigration Control Act in Japan and the Overseas Korean Act in South Korea. The two policies in Japan and South Korea (hereafter Korea) are similar in their initial targeting of ethnic return migrants and in their privileging of skilled workers and investors in the 2000s to increase each country’s competitiveness in the global economy. However, while Korea’s policy has cast a net to include Korean Americans specifically, Japan’s ethnic return migration policy has not been aimed at Japanese Americans in the same way.
Leleu, Clémence. 2021. "Japonité Et Mythe De L'homogénéité." Tempura 8:56-61