The Language Teacher
06 - 2002
The Development of Bicultural Identities: Japanese Returnees' Experiences
Kanno Yasuko
Monterey Institute of International Studies
Introduction
In the field of SLA and bilingual education, the last several years have seen a surge of interest in issues of identity, and with it a shift towards viewing language learners as complex and multidimensional beings. Norton (2000; Norton Peirce, 1995) and McKay and Wong (1996) demonstrated the multiple identities of language learners. The learners' various social roles interact with their identity as language learner in a complex manner, which results in various degrees of investment in the target language. Tse (1999, 2000) and Kondo-Brown (2000) documented the long-term changes in bilingual individuals' identities. Language minority youths in the US typically move from a preference for the dominant culture to increased appreciation of their ethnic culture as they become older. Pavlenko (2001) showed that the new generation of bilingual writers who publish their work in their L2, English, are claiming their voice as no less legitimate than that of native speakers.
From these recent developments, we can now view identity as multiple, contradictory and changing over time (Norton Peirce, 1995) and posit more complex relationships between language and identity than have been assumed in the past (Pavlenko, 2001). Drawing on these theoretical perspectives, this study examines the changing cultural identities of Japanese returnees. Called kikokushijo in Japanese, these are the children of Japanese expatriates who spend several years abroad because of their parents' overseas job transfers and then return to Japan. By analyzing four teenage kikokushijo narratives of cross-cultural experience, I want to illustrate how their cultural identities matured over time. During adolescence, these students held an either-or view of biculturalism, assuming that one could belong to only a single culture. However, when they returned to Japan and readjusted to their home country, they developed a more multifaceted view of identity that integrates aspects from both of their cultures.
Methodology
The four participants in this study, Kikuko, Sawako, Rui and Kenji, are my former students at a Saturday Japanese school (hoshuko)1 in Toronto, Canada. All of them had lived in North America for at least six years, either consecutively or in two separate sojourns (see Table 1 for details of their backgrounds). They attended local public schools during the week and hoshuko on Saturdays. After finishing high school in Toronto, they returned to Japan in order to attend university. I worked with the four students during the three years in which they made a transition from Canada back to Japan: a few months while they were still in Canada, two years after their reentry into Japan, and another several months for analysis and feedback. The data for this study comes from interviews, letter/email exchanges, telephone conversations, and group journals (our communication was largely in Japanese, and the quotations that appear in this study are my translation, unless otherwise noted).
Table 1: The Participants' Places of Residence and Ages in Each Place
| Name | Places and Ages |
| Kikuko | Kobe, Japan, 0-13; Atlanta, USA,13-17; Toronto, Canada, 17-18: Kobe, 18 |
| Sawako | Kyoto, Japan, 0-7; Los Angeles, US, 7-10; Chicago, USA, 10-13, Kyoto, 13-15; Toronto, Canada, 15-17; Kyoto, 17 |
| Rui | Nagoya, Japan, 0-3; Perth, Australia, 3-9; Matsudo, Japan, 9-12; Toronto, Canada, 12-18; Tsukuba, Japan, 18 |
| Kenji | Kurashiki, Japan, 0-2; Kyoto, Japan, 2-11; Tokyo, Japan, 11-12; Toronto, Canada, 12-19; Fujisawa, Japan, 19 |
Data collection and analysis followed the methodology of narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Connelly & Clandinin, 1988, 1990). Its philosophical orientation is that humans make sense of their lives and identities as narratives: Separate events and actions become meaningful only in the context of a plot of which they are a part (Bruner, 1987, 1990; MacIntyre, 1981; Polkinghorne, 1988). In turn, the plot itself is in constant revision as new events take place that throw our understanding of past events in a new light (Linde, 1993). I collected the students' stories at different points in their cross-cultural experience, and analyzed their changing cultural identities in these narratives, i.e., how the students understood and related to the host and home cultures and viewed the influence of these cultures within themselves. The next three sections present their narratives, followed by an analysis of the development of their bicultural identities.
Sojourn
While the four students lived in North America, they held a relatively simplistic view of cultural identity: that one can belong to only a single culture and that to do so requires assimilation of certain traits and values. This belief was most clearly expressed by Kikuko: "The moment I set out to make friends with Japanese, I decided that it would be impossible to speak to foreigners, given the number of Japanese [in my high school]." Kikuko was a high achiever academically, but virtually all her close friends in her Canadian school were Japanese. Her consistent use of the word foreigners (gaijin in Japanese ) to refer to Canadians, even while she was in Canada, suggested her Japan-centered viewpoint.
Sawako had a much stronger desire to be accepted by Canadians. Just like Kikuko, however, she found it impossible to enter English-speaking social networks. While she was friendly with other ESL students, she argued that socializing with ESL students did not count:
As long as I hang out with ESL students, I feel like I don't get to know life here, like I am not interacting with people who belong here.... My English doesn't improve either. I feel like I'm not recognized as a Canadian, I mean, as one of them.
For her, possessing native proficiency in English was the key to participation in the Canadian mainstream. If she did not qualify because of her limited English, she was not going to accept other ESL students as legitimate members of Canadian society either.
In many ways, Rui was the mirror image of Sawako: a student grounded in English-speaking Canadian life who desperately wanted to be Japanese. Rui himself thought that he was Japanese, but as someone who had spent two-thirds of his life outside Japan, he was not sure if other Japanese regarded him as one of them. He took great pains to maintain his Japanese language proficiency. He tried to attend parties as much as possible when invited by his peers from hoshuko, "because I have this belief that to be excluded from this group would be the same as being denied of my Japaneseness."
Kenji, the fourth participant, presents an interesting case. Although he arrived in Canada relatively late, at age 12, he was remarkably successful at being accepted by Canadian students. He believed that his athletic abilities helped him relate to his peers. By his final year in Toronto (Grade 13), his popularity was such that he was elected king at his prom. Nonetheless, he firmly believed that he was Japanese, with no desire to be identified as Canadian. He attributed his detachment from Canada to his involuntary relocation: "The reason for my coming here itself is--I just tagged along my parents. It's not like I chose it. So from the beginning, it was impossible for me to become Canadian." Although he enjoyed his life in Canada and was highly successful at making friends with Canadians, he fundamentally believed that one's allegiance belonged to a single culture. "To me, that is Japan," he said.
Reentry
Having completed high school in Canada, the four students returned to Japan in order to enter university. They moved to different regions in Japan and enrolled in different universities. After their reentry, they exhibited two different patterns of readjustment: Kenji and Kikuko tried to assimilate to Japanese norms of behavior, while Sawako and Rui differentiated themselves from regular Japanese. While their coping mechanisms were the opposite of each other, their fundamental understanding of their situation was the same: They were strangers entering a homogeneous culture with highly codified norms of behavior and values.
Kenji and Kikuko assumed that differences must be minimized and that the onus fell on them to narrow the cultural gap. Kenji joined the taiikukai golf club. Taiikukai is the Japanese equivalent of varsity with strict seniority-based hierarchy among students. Its highly regimented code of behavior imposes a harsh regimen on its members. Kenji believed that being in taiikukai was an excellent way to reacquire the behavior expected in a highly collective society. "In another two or three years in here," he told me, "I think I'll become quite confident of my manners and conduct in hierarchical relationships. In short, how to play my assigned role in an organization."
Kikuko too assigned herself a task of assimilation. Since she possessed high proficiency in Japanese and was privy to the current Japanese popular culture from her extensive reading of Japanese magazines and newspapers in Canada, she was able to create a credible persona as a "returnee who is not like the standard returnees." In both Kenji's and Kikuko's stories, we can see clear evidence of their belief that to become a member of Japanese culture requires assimilation of certain values and behavior, perhaps at the expense of what one has learned elsewhere.
In contrast, Rui and Sawako emphasized their uniqueness. Rui's change of identity was dramatic. Although in Canada he had longed to be accepted as Japanese, hardly a week in Japan passed before he decided that he was no longer Japanese. Long away from Japan, he had held an idealized image of the country. The reality was a major disappointment. In his disillusionment, he fell into a simplistic "Canada (or North America) is good and progressive; Japan is bad and backward" mentality. He associated exclusively with other returnee students on campus, saying that he had difficulty relating to nonreturnee students. "The Japanese don't look at you in the eyes," he said.
Sawako also thought that being a kikokushijo was something she should accentuate. Her hope was that her unique background would serve as a conversation opener when meeting new people, and indeed for a while after she entered university, her identity as a kikokushijo was welcomed. She joined a rock band club, and other club members took to calling her "kanada-jin (Canadian)." They sought her advice on the pronunciation of English words that appeared in their repertoire. Soon, however, a rift started to emerge. Despite their ripped jeans and bleached hair, Sawako's peers favored consensus in decision making and hierarchy among members. When she spoke her mind or when she approached her senpai (seniors) as equals, her behavior stood out. She was accused of being ignorant of "Japanese common sense." If the club members positioned themselves as proprietors of Japanese common sense, Sawako also took the practices of this small group as representative of Japanese culture. "If one person speaks ill of you, then the whole group will start looking at you negatively," she said. "Getting along with others is important here. It's a strange world, Japan."
Reconciliation
About one-and-a-half years to two years after their reentry into Japan, all four students started to change. First of all, they started to socialize in different circles. When they first entered university, they associated with peers who happened to be close by: club members, people in the same department, other kikokushijo who entered university at the same time. These were socializing opportunities created by the rhythm and structure of university life. Their social circles were relatively limited, and yet they tended to view behavior and opinions within those circles as representative of Japanese culture as a whole. Kenji, after a growing frustration with the regimented practices of taiikukai, began to spend more time outside the club. Sawako formed her own band.
Sometimes, their search for a wider world took them outside the universities. Rui, while he continued his strong ties with other kikokushijo, started to attend a nearby Christian church. He said that people there were warm and friendly, ready to include any newcomers, a trait he found rare elsewhere in Japan. Kikuko began a part-time job at a video rental store near her home. She socialized with other part-timers and briefly dated one of them.
In expanding their social networks, the returnees seemed to have realized that even in an allegedly "homogeneous" society like Japan, there are in fact people with markedly different values and ways of thinking. Not fitting into one group does not mean that you cannot fit into another. For example, at the end of her first year in university, Sawako went on a trip with several peers, and five of them became very close. Late night talks and an endless flow of beer helped nurture the bond. For the first time since she returned to Japan, Sawako found herself truly included. One of her peers said to her, "But I want people like you who can speak up their mind as my friends. I'm glad we've become friends." In the original group in which she socialized, speaking up one's mind was considered selfish; in another group it was welcomed.
As they began to find people who accepted and supported them, the returnees also gradually came to terms with their own bicultural identities. It was interesting to observe that Kikuko and Kenji, who had tried very hard to assimilate into a "collective culture," both came to feel that they could not, and did not want to, fit in. After relating the problems he had had with his taiikukai peers, Kenji told me, "I'm really not good at 'Single file! Stand straight!'" Kikuko too observed, "Recently I have come to realize that I'm not suited to acting like one of the group so I've stopped forcing myself to pretend that I am, and try to live more individually."
Rui, on the other hand, became more appreciative of Japan. Approximately one-and-a-half years after he returned to Japan, he emailed me, saying, "I'm getting along, and I now realize that I must take advantage of the situation; that I am in a good university that has definite potential to shape my life in many positive ways." Then he added, "Quite a change since last year, don't you think?" (original in English, his emphasis). In short, those who tried to assimilate by burying the parts of themselves that did not fit into the dominant mode of the society realized that it was OK to be different. On the other hand, those who refused to identify with Japan, dismissing it as inferior to their host country, learned that Japan in fact had much to offer as long as they were willing to give it a chance.
Discussion
A longitudinal perspective such as the one adopted in this study helps us see that returnees' identities are not static. Rather, identities are shaped and reshaped in the interactions between the returnees and their sociocultural environments. They had one set of identities with which they operated in Canada; after their return to Japan, each person's identities had to be reworked because they were now involved in different social interactions. Later, their improved readjustment to life in Japan and expanded social networks again entailed some shift in identities. In the ways the four students negotiated and renegotiated their identities with their surroundings, we can recognize their increasingly sophisticated understanding of the relationship between culture and identity.
As adolescents, the four students had a relatively simplistic notion of the relationship between culture and identity. Dealing with multiple and often conflicting cultural allegiances is a complex task. The students simplified the task by focusing on one culture over the other. That way, they did not have to divide their attention between two worlds. However, as they spent time in university and settled into the life of a college student, they became capable of a more complex approach. Socializing with a wider range of people taught them that culture is multidimensional and often contradictory. No one has a command of the entire repertoire of a culture; no one certainly belongs to the entirety of a culture. What each of us achieves is partial belonging. By taking part in local and tangible communities, we gain a sense of belonging to abstract collectivities such as culture and society (Wenger, 1998). Obviously the students in this study did not make their social observations in such theoretical terms. However, at least the realization that one does not have to accept all of a culture in order to belong to it made it easier for them to negotiate their place within Japanese society and to accept their own bicultural identities.
An interesting question is what prompted this change in identity. The literature suggests that college age is when bilingual individuals often learn to accept their dual identity (Baetens Beardsmore, 1986; Kondo-Brown, 2000; Tse, 1999). In university, students meet people from more diverse backgrounds than they have been accustomed to. The multicultural ethos of a university encourages bilingual students to socialize with a wider range of people. In this context, being different becomes less problematic.
However, I also believe that the fact the returnees' bilingualism and biculturalism had more value as "cultural capital" (Bourdieu, 1991) in Japan than in North America helped their reconciliation. Kenji once told me that in Canada he was after all just one of the "Asians," with all the stereotypes attached to it, but "if I go back to Japan, maybe I can be somebody." Despite the rhetoric of cultural diversity, in the mainstream North American context, the students in this study were more likely to be defined by their lack of English proficiency--as ESL students--than by their bilingual and bicultural knowledge. By contrast, in Japan the knowledge of their native Japanese is vital to social participation, and the knowledge of English and North American culture carries high prestige. When society grants recognition to a particular competence, it is easier to incorporate it positively into one's identity. I argue that that is part of the reason why these participants were able to affirm their bilingual and bicultural identities in Japan. In particular, after they spent some time in Japan and honed their Japanese linguistic and cultural competence, whatever else they possessed was an extra, and this carried a significant weight in Japan.
Conclusion
In this study I investigated the changing cultural identities of Japanese returnees. My analysis of the longitudinal narrative data suggests a gradual shift in the returnees' identities from a polarization towards one culture to a balance between two (or more) cultures. Rather than choosing between total rejection and total assimilation, the students started to pick and choose parts of each culture compatible with their values. This in turn made it easier for them to come to terms with their bicultural identities.
Language teachers working in Japanese universities meet many returnees like those in this study. There is much that language teachers can do to help returnee students come to appreciate their bilingual, bicultural identities. First of all, every time I interviewed the four students in Japan, they were extremely eager to talk, which suggested that perhaps they did not have many people they could confide in. I suggest that English language classes, especially those for returnee students, could provide returnees with opportunities to share their experiences in a supportive environment. Rui had such a class, and he appreciated the opportunity to unload himself and also to learn that many of the difficulties he was facing were shared by other returnees. From the point of view of language teaching, drawing on students' cross-cultural experiences in returnee English classes has two advantages: (1) English is used for authentic communication; and (2) the class content is personally meaningful to the students.
However, I do not think that the sharing of stories, cathartic though it may be, is enough. The findings of this study suggest that after their return to Japan, returnees are apt to take a rigid, judgmental view of their situation and themselves. Sweeping generalizations about life in Japan and stereotypical characterizations of the host country are rampant in the stories of recently returned students. Language teachers can help direct the returnees' attention to diversity within a culture by gently challenging the broad generalizations the students make about the host or the home culture. Judging from my own experience, it is tempting for Western-educated English teachers to join the returnees in the chorus of complaints about what's wrong with Japan or Japanese universities. But I believe that it is the adults' responsibility to encourage the youths to critically examine their own assumptions and biases in making their judgments, helping them to see that there may be an alternative interpretation.
Notes
1. Hoshuko are Japanese supplementary schools established outside of Japan for the purpose of helping grade-level Japanese expatriate students maintain and further develop their academic proficiency in Japanese.
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