Two Worlds: My Journey as an Indigenous Hafu
written on 12/13/2022
Japan is, and has been, a conversative society that values uniformity. In general, to fit in living there you simply conform to live and look in the same way as everyone else. As such, living in Japan as someone who is mixed race, or "hafu" (ハーフ, literally "half") carries with it a unique experience that, while it provides a special perspective, is often also filled with discrimination and struggle.
I have always believed that the experiences of hafu people should be highlighted more when talking about the Japanese cultural experience. However, I also find that much of what does get put into the public eye is from people who are mixed white, and never from people who also carry other poc experiences with them.
As such, while this site isn't really social media or "public" per se, I wanted to share my experience as someone who grew up in Japan while being both indigenous caribbean and Japanese.
Initially, I was born in America, with my taíno + puerto rican mother and my white + japanese father. Two years later my brother would be born, and so early on I had many cultural experiences introduced to me. I grew up hearing taíno stories and fables from my grandfather, eating traditional japanese foods when with my japanese family, and also experiencing the white catholic culture of other family members.
However, things were also very complicated at this time. Before I was born, my parents had become apart of a cult (or rather, a christian based group with incredibly cult oriented practice.) Growing up in that environment would affect me for decades to come, but it's not what I'm here to talk about - what matters is that while they were trying to escape, my Japanese aunt and uncle offered to take me with them while they went back to live in Japan, to get me away until things were safe.
As such, when I was 6 years old I went to Japan with my aunt Airi and uncle Aoki. I was lucky enough to have them as very loving figures in my life, and so at that age it really did seem like a big advengure. I was little and picked up on the language very quickly, especially from watching tv shows like pretty cure and sailor moon before and after school each day. I was given a Japanese name to go by while I was there, along with their last name - I became Watanabe Mizuki.
For the most part, my childhood became one of a normal Japanese child. I would go to school each day, come back and work on homework. I would walk to the local grocery stores to help with family, and I would be given yen to get sweets from Kyoto vendors on the weekends. However, the older I got, the more it became evident to me that something about my experience was very different from that of my peers.
From when I first started school, I would get invasive questions about my appearance. "Why does your hair look like that? Were you out in the sun too long? Why is your skin so dark?" I would answer them as best I knew how - but there was always an edge of fascination at best, and distrust or disgust at worst as I did. I was an outsider - I had brown and curly hair, something that marked me as obviously different from them.
As you get older, you begin to notice it more. People would see me in public with my family and their eyes would widen, they would whisper to their friends and coworkers about who I could be. I often received comments from people older than me that I should consider bleaching my skin, straightening my hair, or both. And when I went into middle and high school there was bullying, bullying from peers who would call me names and poke fun at my skintone and hair.
I loved living in Japan - it was a culture I considered home at the time. I loved the food, I loved going to festivals with family and with the friends I had, I loved the music and the games. However, I also felt incredibly alone. I was an outsider in this home - I was someone marked at first sight as "wrong" because of my appearance, something that made it very hard for me to make friends and truly connect with other people. And it was something that would contribute to me becoming incredibly depressed beginning in middle school.
When I was 12, I started to go back to visit America in short month long periods, to acclimate me to eventually moving back now that my parents and brother were safe. It was something that made me very excited - I would be able to see my parents in person after only calling and video chatting for years, I would connect with past family and friends - and maybe, just maybe, I would feel more welcome.
And yet, somehow, I was still very alone. My parents were very opposed to many of the Japanese customs I had picked up, and would often become aggressive or openly upset when I defended them. To the people around me, I was not only indigenous latino, but also Japanese, someone who had come from "over there" - and this led to the same experiences I had been going through living in Japan. Invasive questions, aggression, and feeling incredibly alone.
It was when I narrowly escaped a hate crime alongside my mom and brother while shopping that it really hit me - even back where I had been born, I was still unwelcome. I was still considered "foreign".
When I was 14, I permanently moved back to America to be with my parents and brother. At the time, I was extremely depressed. Not only was I dealing with multiple undiagnosed mental illnesses and forms of trauma, something Japanese culture had taught me should be repressed - but I was having an identity crisis. I didn't know where I belonged, and I wasn't sure I ever would. It wasn't until a narrowly escaped suicide attempt at 16 that things began to change.
I went into therapy, and began to be given medication I sorely needed. My parents, despite their flaws and the many ways they had hurt me, did their best to accommodate my issues. Slowly, but surely, I began to get better.
By now I'm an adult - I am 21 at the time of writing this. My mental health has improved significantly, even though I still have a ways to to. In spite of that though, I still struggle with the same question: What culture do I really belong in?
I continue to keep in touch with both of the cultures I consider mine. I participate in activities and community with my taìno nation as best I can in diaspora, while also keeping in touch with Japanese friends and family, and discussing its culture with others. Oftentimes, this causes me to feel like some kind of imposter.
My taíno values of independence, spirituality, and every diverse voice being heard are directly at opposition with many of the things in Japan that influenced me - values of group thinking, of conformity, of staying quiet and polite whenever possible. Yet I still love Japan, I love its history, the festivals, the music scene, my friends, all the things I learned there. In Japan, my being indigenous was considered unwelcome - in taíno, what I learned there is considered against what's right.
Who am I then, I the end?
This is something that continues to haunt me - and something that it may take me decades more to figure out. Logically I know I have plenty of right to participate in both cultures, but emotionally, culturally, familial wise, it has never been that simple. I know many other hafu people feel the same way.
I don't write this essay looking for answers about this; it's something that will happen on its own time. However, as I said in the beginning - I think it's important that experiences like this continue to be discussed. Not even just hafu experiences, but the struggle of being mixed race in general.
I want people like me to know they're not alone, and for others to acknowledge we exist. And I hope that eventually we all come to the answers we're looking for
