Mixedness in a Japanese context. Although Japanese people of mixed ethnicities did not become a widely recognised phenomenon until the American occupation of Japan after World War II, they have existed since European missionaries and traders first entered Japan (c. 1560) (Fish, 2009). In post World War II Japan a racially mixed group of people was perceived to be a larger group than it actually was as around areas with military bases the mixed population had become more visible (Fish, 2009), with a significant proportion having Black American fathers36 (Wagamatsu, 1976). In addition, a large proportion were born to single-mothers and consequently tended to become members of lower socioeconomic classes than were the offspring of missionaries and traders (Fish, 2009). Some children were abandoned by their single mothers and put into homes (Xxxxxxxxx, 2008). Such children were not referred to as Japanese, and European racist terminology was used including hāfu (half), kuootā (quarter), and hachiban no ichi (one-eighth) which were the Japanese equivalents of half-caste, quadroon (one-quarter black) and octoroon (one eighth black) (Xxxxxxxxx, 2008). Other Japanese terms, some of which are negative and some of which are positive, have also existed in Japan to describe people of mixed ethnicities. Two negative terms are ainoko (love-child) and konketsu-ji (mixed-blood child) (Xxxxxxxxx, 2002) . Although ainoko literally means love-child, it has a pejorative sense as it indicates ‘a child of unlike things put together’ as in ‘hybrid’ animals or plants (Xxxxxxxxx, 2002, p. 213). Xxxxxx also implies negativity as it was used to label the offspring of US servicemen and Japanese women after World War II. This word has become politically incorrect and it is currently obsolete (Sekiguchi, 2002). The second term, Konketsu-ji, which literally means ‘mixed-blood child’, underlines the importance of blood in Japan (Sekiguchi, 2002). This term was used to negatively refer to the off- spring of American servicemen as it had connotations of single-mother families and school dropouts (ibid). According to Xxxx (2009, p. 41) this label conjures up: traditional images of an ‘outsider’ group in ‘homogenous Japan’, of the importance of pure-bloodedness in Japanese identity, and of a group being victimized by discrimination. In spite of these negative connotations, Fish (2009) points out that the term ‘mixed-blood’ is still the most widely used label in scholarship. This use of the racial metaphor of blood would app...
