Thread by @keikoinboston

1. It’s always a risk tweeting about racism & xenophobia in Japan. Never takes long for people to bring up WWII whether it’s the bombing of Hiroshima or Japanese Imperial Army war crimes. 🙄 My mentions are ridiculous right now.

https://twitter.com/keikoinboston/status/1383550753025904649

2. While some prejudice in Japan is still rooted in WWII, not all ignorance there is rooted in things that happened nearly a century ago.

3. Non-Japanese tweeting about WWII frequently don't have any knowledge of post-WWII Japanese and the experiences of foreigners in Japan in 2021.

4. Some foreigners living in Japan report very positive experiences and little to no racism/xenophobia. Others report more.

5. It appears to vary depending on race, nationality, age, class, level of Japanese fluency, willingness to assimilate to local norms, and local community members attitudes.

6. There is no one single experience for foreigners in Japan and anyone claiming a one-sided black & white narrative doesn’t know what they’re talking about or is pushing an agenda.

https://twitter.com/keikoinboston/status/1366562801100206082

7. I have a white American friend who was raised in Japan from a young age and had a very positive experience there as a child.

8. She started with a bad attitude about learning Japanese and trying to be part of her school community but she had very kind, supportive classmates who helped her learn Japanese. When I met her in the States she struck me as more Japanese in demeanor than I am. 😮

9. Unfortunately after living in the US for college and work she returned to Japan and didn’t have as good of a time as a white woman in the workplace. May have had more to do with gender than race but she eventually found a non-Japanese partner and left the country.

10. Meanwhile her white parents are still quite happy living there. And surprisingly her mom isn’t even fluent in Japanese after years there.

So ymmv even within the same family.

11. The idea that Japan is an inherently racist/xenophobic place is no more true than the idea that the US is. People are different and they bring their lived experience to every interaction with outsiders.

12. There are some places in the US where you an be a white person who moves to a community in another state and you’ll still be seen as an outsider 20 years later.

Finding common humanity v. labeling people as outsiders crosses all identity labels.

13. Also, I invite anyone justifying the murder of hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians by the US military because of war crimes committed by the Japanese Imperial Army to get educated.

hpmmuseum.jp/?lang=eng

14. But you will be blocked because I don’t need to sit here receiving your tweets dehumanizing and undervaluing Japanese lives.

I’ve met Japanese hibakusha (survivors of the atomic bombings) and their descendants. No one deserved this.