Name and Ethnic Identity: Experiences of Korean Women in Japan

Introduction

A name indicates identity. Since ethnicity, name, and identity are strongly connected, a name reflects both self-perception and perceived identity, which impacts the self and others, especially for members of minority groups (Ang, 2001; Fukuoka, 2003; Hyun, 2002). Ethnic minorities often use nicknames, alter their names, or mispronounce them in order to assimilate into the dominant culture. As in the United States (US), where ‘American’ identity has been associated with white Europeans, in Japan, ‘Japanese’ identity is associated with Japanese ethnicity. In both countries, ‘otherness’ is negated and the dominant group has created hegemonic societies defining the cultural values and norms (Bhabha, 1994; Giroux, 1981; Lie, 2000; Lowe, 1996; Oguma, 2002; Omi and Winant, 1994; Wu, 2002). The minority groups have been forced to assimilate into the mainstream, not only by speaking the dominant language, eliminating the cultures of their homelands, but also by changing their ‘ethnic’ names. In other words, immigrant parents have given their children names in the language of the host country in order to assimilate into the dominant society so that their children will not be marginalized. For example, many Japanese American Nisei (second generation) took English names or altered their Japanese names to the ones that sound more English; Tsutomu became Tom; or Sumire became Violet (Takaki, 1998). Even so, when the family names represent their ethnic background, they might be marginalized in the mainstream. Ironically, their assimilated given names are not of their ancestral country anymore. Therefore, a name itself reflects not only personal background but also historical and social background in the dominant society.

People of Korean descent in Japan (Zainichi Koreans), most of whose ancestors came to Japan during the annexation of Korea (1910–45), were forced to use the Japanese names under the system called sōshikaimei, literally meaning creating family names and changing given names, by the Japanese government, who framed this coercion as encouragement (Fukuoka, 2003; Harajiri, 2003; Ryang, 2000). Even after World War II (WWII), most Koreans who stayed in Japan continued to use their Japanese names to avoid discrimination: to rent a room for living from a Japanese landlord, to get a job, and so on (Harajiri, 2003; Hyun, 2002). Although some schools and teachers now encourage them to use Korean names since human rights education, including the rights of Zainichi Koreans, was included in the curriculum, many Koreans continue to use Japanese names, partly because of the prejudice which still exists against them, and partly because of the result of assimilation, which became natural for them to use Japanese names both in public and private (Fukuoka, 2003; Harajiri, 2003; Kuraishi, 2003; Okubo, 2006; Ryang, 2000).

However, the use of Japanese names for people of Zainichi Koreans has made them perpetually invisible in Japan; at the same time, by keeping their Korean names in official documents, they have remained ‘Other’ in Japanese society, which is strongly believed to be homogeneous by the dominant group. In fact, there are minority groups in Japan, such as the Ainu (indigenous Japanese), Burakumin (the outcast people), Korean immigrants (since the 1900s) and so-called newcomers (people of Japanese emigrant descent returning from Latin America since the 1990s), those who seem invisible and marginalized (Amano, 2001; Kawamura, 2002; Kishida, 2001; Lie, 2000; Sakuma, 2001). Moreover, keeping harmony, a Japanese core value, means not standing out and not being different, which have pressured those minority groups including Zainichi Koreans not to be inharmonious. The denial of the reality of ethnic diversity in Japan perpetuates oppression and exclusion of minority groups. Therefore, the diversity of Japan should be recognized and more deeply understood.

The experience of Zainichi Koreans is quite different from that of an ethnic Japanese, a member of the dominant group in Japan, who was given a name reflecting one’s own background. From the perspective of the dominant group, forcing people to take names in the language of that group makes it easier to address them (‘call them’ as they want to), which makes it easier to control them because the dominant group does not have to adapt to the subordinate groups. For example, in the US many immigrants who came to the country had their names changed or anglicized on Ellis Island. Waters (1990), who studied European descendants of immigrants to the US, found a relationship between their ability to retain their ethnic names and how they identified themselves, which also affected the degree to which they retained or lost their cultural heritage. Takaki (1993), as mentioned earlier, stated that Japanese Americans who experienced anti-immigrant sentiment and incarceration during WWII have adopted Western first names and American customs to avoid discrimination and to fit into the dominant American culture. Even after WWII, Nisei (second generation) parents, many of whom had experienced incarceration, chose for their children Anglicized names to ‘mitigate the perception of foreignness’ (Tuan, 2005: 67).

According to Hyun (2002), Korean family names represent the ancestor’s lands of origin which have been passed down through generations. The name of ancestors should be inherited by their male offspring. A Korean woman, therefore, is expected to give birth to a son who can inherit the family and its name of her husband when she gets married. As in many cultures, Zainichi Korean women’s names are gendered and their last names are lost since their children inherit only fathers’ names. Moreover, they have been silenced and seen as inferior in two ways: as women and as women of a minority group (Jung, 2003; Kim, 2005). Many Zainichi Korean women have Japanese-sounding first names, such as Takako, which makes them more ‘invisible’ when they use Japanese last names, while some do have Korean-sounding first names, such as Kyung Hee. In this study, all my participants had Japanese-sounding first names, although the Chinese characters of their names were read the Korean way; for example, Yoshiko (美子) was read Mi Ja (미자) in Korean, when I was introduced to her.

One of the reasons I studied Zainichi Korean women for this study was to listen to their silenced voices. My first contact with a Zainichi Korean friend occurred at a university in Minnesota when I was an exchange student. I had never met Zainichi Koreans in person before probably both because I had not been aware that they live close to me back in rural Kyoto, and because they had been invisible to me because of the use of Japanese names. Although my encounter with Zainichi Koreans has been mostly females and a few males, I have realized that there is more literature by male than by female Zainichi Koreans. Listening to Zainichi Korean women’s lived experience is therefore even more necessary to cast the light not only on their own lives, but also Zainichi Korean and Japanese society.

This paper explores the experiences of Zainichi Korean women, one of the marginalized groups in Japan, and examines how having altered names has impacted their identity. Their voices tell their own stories which reveal the counter narrative against the master narrative. The questions addressed are as follows: (1) How do women participants who have more than one name identify themselves? (2) How does the use of name reflect their self-perception? (3) How does it reflect their situation within the group and the larger society?

The Term Zainichi Korean

In this study, the term Zainichi Korean is used to describe the Koreans living in Japan. Zainichi, the word itself, means a person living in Japan as a foreigner. This word is often used to describe Koreans living in Japan, for instance, ‘she is zainichi,’ meaning ‘she is a person of Korean descent living in Japan.’ Usually, in Japanese, the combination of a country name and people (jin) describes one’s nationality. For example, chugoku jin (China + people), means Chinese people or person. However, to describe people of Korean heritage in Japanese, there are several ways because of the division of the Korean peninsula. Traditionally, people from the Korean peninsula were called chōsen jin before the division. After the Republic of Korea was founded, people of South Korea are called kankoku jin, meaning South Korean people. Koreans who were living in Japan at that time could change their registration to kankoku, South Korea. However, there were people who retained chōsen registration, now referring to North Korea in most cases, even though most people who came to Japan during the annexation were from the southern region of Korea, such as Pusan, Deagu, and Jeju-do. Therefore, among people of Korean descent, there are people who identify as chōsen jin and kankoku jin.

Another term, Zainichi Korean, pronounced zainichi korian in Japanese, can describe people of both North and South Korean descent living in Japan. This has been used only recently by the younger generation. I chose this recently-produced term for three reasons: there was no South or North Korea when they first came to Japan; there is no appropriate Japanese word to describe both; and I can include all participants whether they identify themselves as chōsen jin or kankoku jin, or zainichi korian. In this study, Mi Ja used the term zainichi korian and kankoku jin, Soon Ja and Hong Ja used kankoku jin, and Yu Ja used chōsen jin to identify themselves.

It is significant to note, however, that the terms which describe the people of Korean heritage have acquired negative connotations due in part to the political conflict in the Korean peninsula and the international conflict among Japan and North and South Korea (Harajiri, 2003). Especially, the word chōsen jin is often used in a derogatory way by the Japanese (Harajiri, 2003; Hyun, 2002). This complexity of naming, in turn, has created a multilayer of identity among Koreans residing in Japan, including the participants in the study.

Theoretical Framework

Sense of identity contains the notions of difference and sameness, and is shaped by the reflections mirrored back by others and through interactions with them (Erikson, 1963; Polkinghorne, 1998; Suárez-Orozco, 2004). Since identity is constructed in the process of relating to the dominant group, members of marginalized groups have ‘twoness’ or dual identity as DuBois (1989) described, which is often reflected in their names. Further, identification is a process of articulation, not a subsumption, as Hall (1996) states:

Identities are about questions of using the resource of history, language and culture in the process of becoming rather than being: not ‘who we are’ or ‘where we came from,’ so much as what we might become, how we have been represented and how that bears on how we might represent ourselves. (p. 4)

In a hegemonic society, assimilationism, which means to make people of subordinate groups assimilate into the dominant society, is the official goal; at the same time, it is ‘inherently contradictory, because the very acquired – rather than inherited or ascribed – character of cultural traits gained in the process of assimilation turns the assimilating subjects into a less than real, and thus somehow inferior Westerner’ (Ang, 2001: 9), which can be applied to the relationship between the Zainichi Koreans and ethnic Japanese in the Japanese context. Most Zainichi Koreans use Japanese names, speak Japanese, and look the same as Japanese. However, having a Korean ethnic background still makes them less authentic Japanese.

People of the dominated group have constructed the sense of otherness, which Bhabha called ‘culturally alien consciousness,’ negating the primordial identity (1994: 74). Immigrants are pressured to erase the trace of their origin in order to assimilate. Their ethnic origin is often denied by not being ‘authentic’ in both host and home country (Ang, 2001). For example, if Zainichi Koreans learn to speak the Korean language, they are often told it is not ‘correct’ Korean by the Koreans from Korea; if they cannot speak the language, they are told that they are not Korean enough (though they may, in fact, carry a Korean passport), yet they are not considered Japanese either (Maeda, 2005). Moreover, in hegemonic society, diasporic identity, what it means or should mean, is decided by the dominant group (Ang, 2001; Oka, 2000).

However, Zainichi Koreans have constructed a transcultural identity with which they can negotiate and translate both host and home countries’ cultures and create their own culture as Zainichi Korean (Bhabha, 1994; Suárez-Orozco, 2004). In a ‘third space’ or ‘in between space,’ which makes it possible to construct their own history, people of the dominated group can define their own identity, not be defined by the dominant (Bhabha, 1994).

Since Zainichi Koreans have been discriminated against based on national origin as well as ethnicity, national identity is often considered an important part of their identity. Nationality is given to people of the nation, which is defined as an imagined community by Anderson (1983). Especially during international conflicts, such as WWII, the diplomatic relations between their home and host countries affect immigrants’ lives (Lowe, 1996). Unlike many countries, people born in Japan are not necessarily considered Japanese unless one of their parents is a Japanese citizen (until 1986, just a father). Therefore, many people of Korean descent retain Korean nationality because Zainichi Koreans became ‘foreigners’ whose civil and human rights were restricted after WWII, when Japan gave up all territories including the Korean peninsula when they signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1952, although Koreans possessed Japanese nationality during the annexation (Ryang, 2000; Shin and Tsutsuki, 2007).

According to Omi and Winant (1994), ethnicity was understood as being formed by descent and culture, such as language, customs, religion, and so on; however, it is also socially constructed through the relationship with the dominant group and through social movements. In the Japanese context, ethnicity and nationality are described or understood similarly; while non-Japanese are racialized and socially constructed as non-White, people are racialized in the West as well (Lie, 2000; Murphy-Shigematsu, 2004). Therefore, ‘Japanese’ is defined as ethnic Japanese, those who have privilege, although these definitions can be both explicit and implicit because of the complexity and intersectionality of the multiple aspects of social constructions of gender, class, generation, national origin, and so on. Moreover, ethnic Japanese sometimes see themselves as a race, and nationality is often understood as equivalent to the way citizenship is defined in the context in the US (Lie, 2000). Fukuoka (2003) classified the people living in Japan into eight categories (see Table 1). According to Fukuoka, those who are considered ‘Japanese’ share all three variables of heritage, culture, and nationality, or two of them, or even one of them. At the same time, those who do not share all three variables can also be considered as non-Japanese. For example, even if a Zainichi Korean gets naturalized, she or he may not be considered as Japanese because of different ethnic heritage, while a Japanese American can be considered as Japanese because of the same ethnic heritage (as Japanese in Japan).

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Table 1.

Types of Japanese

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
	Ethnic Japanese	Naturalized emigrants	Returnees (from China)	Naturalized immigrants	Japanese heritage	Resident foreigners	Indigenous Japanese	Foreigners
Heritage	+	+	+	−	+	−	−	−
Culture	+	+	−	+	−	+	−	−
Nationality	+	−	+	+	−	−	+	−

Note: Adapted from Fukuoka (2003).

Moreover, the concept of citizenship historically is gendered in patriarchal societies, first only given to privileged men, which influences not only formation of racial but also of gender identity (Lowe, 1996). Women’s voices therefore were long ignored and neglected socially and politically. Since their silence was expected, they have internalized their voicelessness. Jung (2003) further pointed out that, during the liberation movements when Zainichi Koreans fought for equality, Korean women remained oppressed in their own families. Women in the marginalized groups often cannot relate to feminists of the privileged group, who do not fully understand the inter-relatedness of sex, race, and class oppression (hooks, 1984). The perspective from the marginalized groups, which is shaped by the ‘world view differed from those who have a degree of privilege,’ is necessary to create counter-hegemony for the dominant classist, racist, and sexist hegemony (hooks, 1984: 15). Thus Zainichi Korean women’s voices are essential to deconstruct the hegemony in Japan.

Historical Background and Names of Koreans in Japan

During the annexation (1910–45), many Korean farmers and their families migrated to Japan as cheap labor in industries such as mining and civil engineering because they had lost their land and homes to the land reform of the Japanese military (Kim, 1994; Ryang, 2000). Especially after WWII began, the number migrating from Korea dramatically increased to approximately two million, some forcibly taken to supply the shortage of labor caused by accelerating militarization (Kim, 1994). After WWII, about 600,000 Koreans stayed in Japan, settling down or finding the situation in Korea to be unstable (Kim, 1994; Lie, 2008; Ryang, 2000). Currently Zainichi Koreans compose one of the biggest minority groups in Japan and most of them are second, third, and fourth generation. The estimated population varies from 600,000 to 1,000,000, because the Japanese census does not survey the ethnic background of those who have Japanese nationality. Therefore, naturalized Koreans or those who have a Korean mother or father are not counted. In 2010, there were 578,495 Korean residents living in Japan (Ministry of Justice, 2010). At age 16, those who have South or North Korean nationality need to register as ‘foreigners’ with their pictures and more details such as their occupation and family members (Tanaka, 2004). In 2012, the immigration law was changed and registered residents do not have to carry the alien registration card any more, but they still need to register as ‘foreigners’.

It is not surprising that most Koreans who stayed in Japan after WWII continued to use their Japanese names to avoid discrimination. The use of a Japanese name for first and second generation, according to Lie (2008: 19), was a ‘sheer consequence of camouflage’ which made them unwilling to identify publicly as a minority and willing to play the majority in order to succeed in Japanese society. At the same time, however, because of their continued use of Japanese names, their invisibility has been perpetuated.

Among the Koreans who have tried to regain their ethnic identity through student movements during the 1960s and 70s, many of them reclaimed their Korean names publicly. Names, therefore, are one of the sensitive issues for many Zainichi Koreans:

[Names] are an extremely sensitive issue for some Koreans whose resentment lingers over assimilationist policies practiced during the colonial period in which Koreans were forced to assume Japanese surnames. The government’s stance (at least in the past) that naturalizers should adopt Japanese surnames therefore evokes resistance and accusations that acquiring Japanese nationality requires becoming Japanese in body and soul. (Murphy-Shigematsu, 2004: 313)

Keeping Korean names, therefore, can mean resistance to assimilation. Fukuoka (2003), who studied the identity of young Zainichi Koreans, found that they related their names to their identities. Especially for those who use Korean names, their names indicate their ethnicity and make them more conscious about being a minority in Japan. However, some use Korean and Japanese names interchangeably depending on the situation. There are three categories of names used by Zainichi Koreans in Japan as explained below:

Usually, in (1) and (2), the Chinese characters of the name are the same but read differently while in (3), the family name is changed. In Zainichi Japanese family names, however, they often use the original Chinese characters of their last name or district’s name of origin, such as kim/kane (金), and add another Chinese character such as yama (山) because many Japanese family names are compounded of two Chinese characters. This way Zainichi Korean last names would look more Japanese and make it easier to ‘pass’ as Japanese. At the same time, by keeping their original Chinese characters, Zainichi Koreans’ Japanese last names can retain cultural identity (Hyun, 2002).

As a second generation Zainichi Korean, Hyun (2002) describes his complicated situation; he has used three names (patterns (3), (2), (1), respectively). He used to use his Japanese name, Nobeyama, Yoshimitsu, pattern 3, but he ‘threw away’ his Japanese name and started to use his Korean name. Even though he awakened his ethnic consciousness to become ‘real Korean’ by using his Korean name, pattern 1, with his Zainichi Korean colleagues, he still uses pattern 2 with Japanese. When he goes to Korea, his relatives call him by his first name the Japanese way, but with Korean pronunciation. The way his Zainichi Korean colleagues address him (pattern 1) is not correct in contemporary Korean, but they use this form because ‘they have lived in the world too far from using contemporary Korean language and hesitate to use those expressions’ (Hyun, 2002: 77). Hyun further says even though some people might say a name is just a symbol which your parents chose without your will and has nothing to do with your ‘real nature,’ he feels skeptical:

That is because we, the second generation Zainichi Koreans, have lived telling many lies, and on top of all that, not being able to tell which is false and which is true, we have not been able to dispel the ‘doubt’ if we’ve continued ‘lie’ after ‘lie.’ We’ve lived in insecurity wondering if self-existence itself is lie or false. And we wish, someday I want to be ‘real me,’ but where is it? (p. 78)

Zainichi Koreans are sensitive about their names because the insulting historical relationship with Japan forced them to change, but simply using a real Korean name is not a solution to their identity crises.

Lee (2004), also second generation, found out she had two names around the time she was in junior high school. She was bewildered at first when she needed to use her Korean names:

When I entered junior high, I was told that the school required the students to use real names. Ikuno District in Osaka city had the largest population of North and South Koreans, and one out of four students was Korean. Therefore, the real name system started . . . When I asked the teacher at the junior high, the teacher said, ‘We want you to be proud of yourselves.’ In our school, we had name tags . . . I felt uncomfortable to have my real name on my name tag . . . I mean, I had been called Morimoto, then once I got in junior high, I became ‘Lee.’ Some of my friends from elementary school still call me by my Japanese name. (Lee, 2004: para. 3)

Although Lee decided to continue to use her Korean name in high school, many students chose to use Japanese names again. Lee says that schools which encourage Korean students to use their Korean names protect them, but cannot do so outside school or after students graduate from school.

Harajiri’s research (2003) showed that, in Kanagawa prefecture, Japan, out of 866 Zainichi Korean students, 91.3% used Japanese names in 1986. Currently, a movement exists to encourage Korean students to use their Korean names (Harajiri, 2003). As a consequence, the number of Zainichi Korean students who use their real names at school is increasing, because it is the ‘right’ thing to do in terms of ethnic consciousness, although some Zainichi Korean parents still hesitate to choose Korean names because of discrimination. Moreover, Kuraishi (2003) argues that those teachers who encourage Korean students to use Korean names tend to see only the historical reasons for and social stigma associated with the label of a Korean ethnic background and they do not respect the students’ choices about naming themselves, regarding keeping their Japanese names. Yet Korean students who have used Japanese names in school often feel they have lied to other people and to themselves (Chen, 2005). The history of Zainichi Koreans’ use of name reflects their history as well.

Methodology

This study utilized a qualitative research method. The qualitative approach allows the investigation and analysis of this topic in depth. Although the number of participants in this research was relatively small, the qualitative interviews with open-ended questions enabled engaged dialogues with participants and deeper investigation of the participants’ names and identities. It is important to note that each Zainichi Korean woman’s experience is different depending on where she was born, whether she grew up bilingual or not, what her nationality is, and so forth. Therefore, the narratives of this study did not intend to describe Zainichi Korean women’s experience as a whole, but describe each participant’s experience in depth.

This study was specifically inspired by feminist oral history research, which enables women (participants) to create and construct their own history using their own voices and experiences (Gluck, 2002; Minister, 1991). Since this study focused on Zainichi Korean women’s experience, ‘liberatory feminism’ was addressed, which is constructed by women’s personal testimony and personal experience and deconstructs the ‘hegemonic feminist theory produced primarily by academic women, most of whom were white’ (hooks, 1994: 63). In a Japanese context, the hegemonic theory has been constructed by the ethnic Japanese. Moreover, a liberatory feminist approach would listen to the silenced voices of women. Adler (1998) states that, in her study of Japanese American women’s identity, ‘The construction of who they are must come from themselves, from their own historical perspectives, told in their own voices with their own interpretations’ (p. 169). The participants’ voices may not necessarily represent all Zainichi Korean women’s experience; however, their narratives critically reflect their experiences as persons of Korean background living in Japan and are intended in part to enable them to hear their own stories and recognize their importance in that they reflect a side of Japanese society which has been invisible.

This research was conducted in the Kansai area of Japan. The participants were four Zainichi Korean women (one second generation aged 64, and three third generation aged 22, 29, and 30). Two sets of dialogues were conducted with each participant in 2007. All dialogues were audio-recorded and then transcribed. I also took notes during the dialogue.

The data analysis was done by ‘work[ing] back and forth’ between the transcripts with each participant, finding generative themes (Rubin and Rubin, 1995; Silverman, 2000). Therefore the generative themes were found and developed during the actual dialogues with the participants, transcribing the dialogues, reading the transcriptions, and coding the transcriptions. Data interpretation was done by finding links among the generative themes and how these linking themes pose historical and cultural context (Freire, 2000).

Findings

Conclusion

For Zainichi Koreans in Japan, choosing a name according to the tradition of their countries of residence is becoming the norm. Because Zainichi Koreans have fought to retain ethnic identity against assimilation policies, ethnic names mean beyond official identification for them, notably, internally and possibly externally to educate ethnic Japanese. At the same time, third generation Zainichi Koreans still struggle with their names in the dominant society because of potential discrimination.

Resistance to the dominant groups has been seen regarding retaining or regaining ethnic names, which also reflects cultural maintenance. Further, a name reveals the dynamics of identity. In this study, mobility, such as studying or traveling abroad, influenced identity, and thus, choice of name. At the same time, how participants perceived their identity was reflected in all participants’ choices regarding names.

The study showed that each participant had different and unique experiences and that their choice of name or names (for those who used both Korean and Japanese names) reflected these experiences. However, since this study was conducted with a small number of participants, more study is needed for a deeper understanding of the names and identity of Zainichi Koreans.

The participants’ experiences indicate implications for education in Japan. Japanese education, which has been founded upon the assumption of a homogenous society, must include the diverse backgrounds of students in its curriculum in order to reflect the true composition of Japanese society. The participants’ experiences showed that just using Korean names or encouraging them to reveal their ethnic identity cannot avoid bullying. Teachers and schools should encourage a deeper and critical understanding of the history of Zainichi Korans to explain why they use Japanese names. Moreover, it is significant to understand the fact that many immigrants have lost their names and culture through the process of assimilation. A diverse society, which Japan is becoming even more, should accept diverse names and identities.