Uma das perguntas eh Como o meu senso racial e identidade etnica foi formado?
Gostaria de fazer um Brainstorming (nao sei como traduzir esta palavra - colocar as ideas no papel)... da pergunta aqui no Blog.
Desculpa mais vai ser em ingles ta. Assim vcs tambem poderao ir praticando...
The formation of my racial and ethnic identity:
1.When I was a kid, my parents used to dress me up with Japanese costumes. I have many pictures of my Kimono e Japanese sandals. I had many type of kimonos that my parents brought to me from Japan.
2. Since a young age I went to many Japanese events either in the Japanese school, Japanese clubs (Usegui e Country Club), Japanese weddings, and Japanese Bingos and Karaokes.
3. In those events, my sense of being Japanese was formed because not only I dressed up as Japanese, but also people saw my as a Japanese little girl. When I look at my childhood pictures, I see myself as a Japanese little girl.
4. In my home, we spoke a few Japanese words and ate some Japanese food such as Gohan everyday. Speaking those words was not so revealing until I noticed that other Brazilian friends did not do that at their home. Eating Japanese food, having a rice cooker at home was just part of my regular life. Again, until I found out that those kind of things were only common among the Japanese-Brazilian people or whoever had some connection with Japanese people in Brazil. In contrast, today many people in Brazil without a Japanese background eat Japanese rice and "Care" and have a rice cooker at home.
5. Another way that my Japanese identity was created was through the encounters that I had with other kids. In our neighborhood for example, my brothers and I had "Japanese" nicknames. My brother was called Japa or "Hichini" (that comes from the Japanese counting Ichi, ni, san...) and I was called Japonesa.
6.When I was 6 yrs old, I went to Japanese school on Saturday for a year. During that time I learned for the first time how to write the Japanese vowels in hiragana. However, for some reason that I don't know I stopped going. I recall that I enjoyed going to that school. At the end of the year, I sang a children song in Japanese in front of a big Japanese audience.
7. Whenever I went to my relative's house the idea of being Japanese was reinforced, because the way we looked was different from a regular Brazilian without any trace of Japanese in their lives.
****Until my childhood I was really fine with my Japanese identity*******
As a teenager
1. When I moved to Manaus, I began to have trouble with my Japanese identity. As a tennager, I was trying to assimilate to a new culture to try to blend in.
2. My brother and I did not want to stand out as Japanese because there weren't so many Asians at our school. One instance of our attempt to blend in was when we first took our Japanese bento (food) that our dad prepared to our school. For some reason, we were kind of embarrassed to eat our bento at school. We thought that we would call so much attention from people that we were different. For this reason, we tried to hide ourselves at the end of the cafeteria. However, the school coordinated saw us eating by ourselves and came to talk to us. When she saw our food, she thought that it was Amazing!!! We were shocked!!! The coordinator really enjoyed seeing onigiri (rice balls) for the first time. And as a result, she started to call other students to see. My brother and I blushed as people were gathering around us. **** We became marked***** In anthropology, being marked means that you stand out because you don't fit the standard. So, we did not fit the standard of being a regular Brazilian student at that school.
3. Some things about us called people's attention specially our Japanese last name. The other kids began to call us by our last name. But the only problem was that if the last name is pronounced incorrectly it can mean a bad word in Portuguese. I think that from that time I tried to disconnect myself with the idea of being Japanese. We were teased and bulled all the time because of our name. In my mind, that meant that being Japanese was not cool for a teenager.
4. The process of dis assimilation with Japanese culture started and lead to the process with strong assimilation to my Brazilian background.
During that time, I was attending Japanese schools every Saturday. But I remember that I was refusing to go, because I wanted to do something else. First, I thought that I should not be studying on Saturday. Then, my best friend and I wanted to go every Saturday to a matinee. As a result, I argued with parents a lot about not wanting to go to Nihongaku (Japanese school). However, my mom did not let me stop it. Her reasoning was that I was Japanese and needed to understand the culture and language of my ancestors. I remember that my dad was not caring as much as my mom. Although she is not Japanese, she was the one who really wanted my to learn Japanese.
5. I feel ashamed to say this now, but I was such a bad student at Japanese school. I was very rebellious towards learning Japanese. I would go to school and not pay attention to anything. First, I was so lost in this class because the students were already speaking in Japanese. This lead me to decrease my interest for the language. Second, I did not want to connect with the students because I was in denial. I wanted to deny the fact that I could belong to that group. In my mind, it was not cool being Japanese anymore because of the fact that I was teased a lot.
So, I would try to assimilate myself with my friends from my regular school and maintain little connection with the people from my Japanese school. I remember that they were so close friends because they were part of this Colonia Japonesa. But I refused to be part of it.
6. This not only affected me, but also my siblings who had to go to Japanese school the next year. Unfortunately, they followed my attitude. I remember my mom saying how important it is to set good examples for my younger brothers and sister. But I was a teenager having problem to adjust and be accepted.
I began to celebrate my Brazilianess. During my teens, I was really exposed to Brazilian music from Bahia (Samba and Axe). My Brazilian side became really strong. Through music, people, parties, fokloric festivals, and places I traveled within Brazil my Brazilian identity became stronger and overpowered my Japanese identity.
The changes
7. I went to America to be an exchange student after finishing high school. During that time, I decided to give it a try and took Japanese again. I had a Japanese teacher who was American without any Japanese background. I was so inspired by her attitude towards the culture and the language. Through her classes, she showed us her passion for Japan. Seeing that a foreigner had a strong passion and respect for Japanese culture and language inspired me to assimilate again to my Japanese identity. I began to make effort to learn the language and associate myself with Japanese people again.
8. At SUA... Japanese identity vs. not being recognized as Japanese. Struggle to understand my racial identity. I already talked about it in the blog. I perceived my face features as Japanese, but nobody else did. My actions did not match with Japanese culture, but that side of me was strong and I did not understand why people could not see that. I became really confused. During that time, people would assume that I was from different race and ethnicity. Depending on the context who I was with or where I was people would have different assumption of my background. I was called: Mexican, Bolivian, Philippino, Indigena, and Southeast Asian. But people would never connect me with Japan or Brazil.
9. My study abroad in Japan. Going to study abroad in Japan provided me the opportunity to readdress my issues with my Japanese identity. I decided to go there with a very open heart to learn more about the culture and appreciate my background. The results were Amazing!!! I was able to understand more about Japan, my dad, and my issues. I was able to connect with so many Japanese friends and learn more about the culture. Now I feel more connected with Japan and Brazil.
10. Now my identity is becoming strong in both sides. I am confident that I'm a Japanese Brazilian. I cannot deny neither of my background because both of them are important to define who I am and what differentiate me from others. Through all this identity conflict I learned how to be both. Depending on the context, my Brazilian identity is stronger than my Japanese or vice versa. That does not mean that I am changing and being a hypocritical, but it means that I became flexible to adjust to both. Being mixed is not an easy task. I need to fulfill certain standards in both. I feel that there are a lot of expectation coming from people in different sides.
I will finishing for now. Maybe I will post something else latter on.
Thank you for reading such a long and complicated posting. If you faced any identity issue please write me a comment how did you deal with it.
bye
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