Between Colonial Racism and Global Capitalism: Japanese Repatriates from Northeast China since 1946
Author(s)
Tamanoi, Mariko Asano
Abstract
A decline in imperial power is not necessarily accompanied by “an equal and concomitant decline in racial ideas and ideologies” (Rich 1990:1). In this article, I examine this thesis in the context of contemporary Japan, which lost its empire with its unconditional surrender to the Allied powers in 1945. The protagonists of this article are the Japanese farmers who colonized northeast China during Japan’s imperial expansion. Although the former colonists have been repatriating to Japan since 1946, their “Japaneseness” in postcolonial Japan has been contested not only by the Japanese state but also by the repatriates themselves. In contemporary Japan, the returning colonists are joined by an increasing number of Chinese immigrants, whom Japanese mainstream society identifies as “economic refugees.” On the basis of long-term ethnographic research, I follow two generations of repatriates from China to Japan. I argue that to understand a resurgence of racism against Chinese immigrants in contemporary Japan, one should not only investigate the identity politics of the repatriates but also historicize such politics through repatriates’ memories.
