{"id":57449,"date":"2019-02-02T03:19:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-02T03:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=57449"},"modified":"2019-02-02T03:20:20","modified_gmt":"2019-02-02T03:20:20","slug":"is-naomi-osaka-japanese-enough-for-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=57449","title":{"rendered":"Is Naomi Osaka Japanese enough for Japan?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is Naomi Osaka Japanese enough for Japan?<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Nikkei View: Perspectives on Asian-American culture through the lens of identity, history, and experience<\/a>
\n2019-02-01<\/p>\n

Gil Asakawa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Naomi<\/a>
\nNaomi Osaka<\/a> at the 2018 Nottingham Open<\/a> qualifiers, photo by Peter Menzel, Creative Commons\/flickr<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

I love following the exciting young career of Naomi Osaka<\/a>, the world\u2019s first Japanese tennis star who has been ranked number-one by the Women\u2019s Tennis Association<\/a>, after her recent win in the Australian Open<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I love her passion and skill and determination to win. And most of all, I love that she is mixed-race, with a Japanese mom and Haitian dad. And, that she\u2019s culturally as American as she is Japanese or Haitian.<\/p>\n

She was born in Japan<\/a>, and her family came to the U.S.<\/a> when she was just three years old. They first lived with her father\u2019s family in Long Island, New York<\/a>, and by the time she was 10, the family (which includes an older sister who also competes in tennis) moved to Florida<\/a>, where they still live.<\/p>\n

Osaka claims both American and Japanese citizenship. She\u2019s 21 now, and the media have begun pointing out Japan\u2019s citizenship law: At 22, Japan doesn\u2019t allow dual citizenship. Naomi will soon have to choose her nationality…<\/p>\n

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

Which brings us to the most striking part of Osaka\u2019s stardom: She\u2019s biracial Japanese and black. Most Japanese, especially the media, have embraced her for showing the world that a tennis player from Japan can great. But she\u2019s received some flak from racists in her chosen country \u2014 and not just for the color of her skin. It may be a further challenge that like many of us Japanese Americans, she can understand some Japanese but can\u2019t speak fluently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1649,12,16,8,20],"tags":[19325,1793,22759,29356,7222,21018],"class_list":["post-57449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropology","category-articles","category-asia","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-gil-asakawa","tag-japan","tag-naomi-osaka","tag-nikkei-view","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57449","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=57449"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57453,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57449\/revisions\/57453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}