Chanpon

Setting Assumptions Aside: Exploring Identity Development in Interracial/intercultural Individuals Growing up in Japan

Penny Sue Kinnear
Master of Arts, 2001
Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto

Abstract

This research attempts to understand the experience of interracial/intercultural individuals growing up in Japan. Their experiences do not fit current minority identity development models. Much of the tension in their experience appears to be between the individual's own experience and the stereotypical experience he or she is supposed to undergo as a mixed individual. Identity was not a question of either/or, but took shape from dialogues that reflected a complex relationship between community, individual, language, and culture. One factor determining the tenor of the dialogue is its grounding in commonalities or in differences. The experience was profoundly different for individuals who attended international schools or Japanese schools. The difficulty that the international school attendees articulated, in contrast to those attending Japanese schools, appears as a clash of boundaries, not values. This is reflected particularly where "Japaneseness" fits in the hierarchy and the degree of rigidity or permeability of those boundaries.