Half Japanese: Japanese Children of Visibly Mixed Ethnic and Cultural Heritage

This book is about a minority group in Japan that blurs the line between 'insider' and 'outsider' in Japanese society as it is about the children of international marriage between 'mainstream' Japanese and non-Asian foreigners. These Japanese children of mixed ethnic and cultural heritage are referred to as "hafu" in Japan as in the English word 'half'. Due to the foreign parent's physical appearance, the children also have a different phenotype than the stereotypical 'mainstream' Japanese. But as they are born and raised in Japan they have native language and cultural fluency. These biracial Japanese by their very existence alone have questioned ideas of Japanese homogeneity and furthered the dialogue about what it means to be Japanese today. This minority group is enjoying popularity in Japanese mass media and entertainment at the moment but their social status in Japanese society can be marginalized because they look physically 'different' from 'mainstream' Japanese. Through interviews with multicultural families, a personal perspective on the challenges of raising a visibly biracial Japanese child in Japan will be explored. By examining Japanese society in the present and from a historical perspective a deeper understanding of what it means to be considered and treated like an 'outsider' in Japan will be seen.