{"id":20935,"date":"2012-02-28T02:48:36","date_gmt":"2012-02-28T02:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=20935"},"modified":"2012-02-28T03:31:03","modified_gmt":"2012-02-28T03:31:03","slug":"hybrid-identities-and-adolescent-girls-being-%e2%80%98half%e2%80%99-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=20935","title":{"rendered":"Hybrid Identities and Adolescent Girls: Being \u2018Half\u2019 in Japan [Review: Shigematsu]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hybrid Identities and Adolescent Girls: Being \u2018Half\u2019 in Japan<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Social Science Japan Journal<\/a>
\nPublished Online: 2012-01-19
\nDOI: 10.1093\/ssjj\/jyr053<\/a><\/p>\n

Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu<\/a>
\n<\/strong>Stanford University<\/em><\/p>\n

Hybrid Identities and Adolescent Girls: Being \u2018Half\u2019 in Japan<\/a><\/em>, by Laurel D. Kamada. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2009, 272 pp., (hardcover ISBN 978-1-84769-233-7), (paperback ISBN 978-1-84769-232-0)<\/p>\n

I hated it when I was little \u2026 the school trip photo \u2026 only MY face was somehow different, so I hated that, and now \u2026 it\u2019s like it\u2019s good, I guess.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hybrid Identities and Adolescent Girls<\/a><\/em> captures the raw voices of teenage girls, revealing their intimate feelings about being \u2018half\u200a\u2019 in Japan. Laurel Kamada<\/a> gives us a rich account of adolescent development and identity construction, based on group interviews with six girls of mixed ancestry, presenting their actual voices in conversations with her and each other. Kamada takes up three central questions: (a) tensions and dilemmas of hybridity, (b) celebration of hybridity, and (c) the intersection of hybridity and gender. Her study is informed and inspired by her insider knowledge of the data collection site of Western Japan, and her long residences living, working, and raising her own mixed-ancestry child there. She is careful to position herself as a white, Western woman and acknowledges how she influences the research through reflexive commentary.<\/p>\n

The girls are a population rarely heard from\u2014public school students from intact families, with one Japanese parent and one non-Japanese (white-foreign) parent. They are from families who made a conscious decision to raise them by integrating them into Japanese society through education at regular local Japanese schools, rather than sending them to private international schools. Historically, this is a major dilemma for mixed-ancestry children, going back to Miki Sawada\u2019s<\/a> famous Saunders Home, where she raised and educated children after World War II<\/a>, and continuing up to the recent Amerasian School<\/a> in Okinawa<\/a>. The controversy of whether mixed-ancestry children should be educated in public schools or in special schools has been not only an issue of race but also of class, with those whose families could afford it opting for the friendlier, more comfortable environment of international schools,…<\/p>\n

Read or purchase the review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hybrid Identities and Adolescent Girls: Being \u2018Half\u2019 in Japan Social Science Japan Journal Published Online: 2012-01-19 DOI: 10.1093\/ssjj\/jyr053 Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu Stanford University Hybrid Identities and Adolescent Girls: Being \u2018Half\u2019 in Japan, by Laurel D. Kamada. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2009, 272 pp., (hardcover ISBN 978-1-84769-233-7), (paperback ISBN 978-1-84769-232-0) I hated it when I was little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16,5,125,25],"tags":[1793,2366,9799,9804,512],"class_list":["post-20935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-asia","category-book-reviews","category-identitydevelopment","category-women","tag-japan","tag-laurel-d-kamada","tag-laurel-kamada","tag-social-science-japan-journal","tag-stephen-murphy-shigematsu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}