Mixed Race Studies

hafu (half Japanese)

Lakeland Lectures
Lakeland College
5-7-12 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 1st Floor
2012-03-07, 19:00 JST (Local Time)

Marcia Yumi Lise, Researcher and Co-Founder
The Hafu Project

Lakeland College is pleased to present our ongoing lecture series, free of charge, for scholars, students and members of the public to discuss contemporary issues. You are cordially invited to our next lecture.

This lecture asks the very question of what it is to be a Hafu in Japan from a sociological perspective. We will explore the complex nature of the Hafu experiences, which are often a result of the racially designated society surrounding us, as well as the various individual factors ranging from physical appearance, upbringing, or education. Ultimately, it seeks to characterise the negotiation and self-definition of ethnic/racial territory & identity in relation to the cultural and racial discourse in Japan.

Marcia was born in Kanagawa, Japan to a Japanese mother and an Italian-American father. She moved to London in 2001 where she studied Sociology and completed an MA in Social Research at Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2008. She is now based in Tokyo and is the thematic advisor of the Hafu Film.

For more information, click here.

The whole story on being ‘hafu’

CNN International
CNN Go
2010-11-29

Daniel Krieger

The movie ‘Hafu’ explores the limbo world of people who are half-Japanese and half something else, as they try to find their place in society

What does it mean to be half-Japanese in 21st-century Japan?

This is what filmmakers Megumi Nishikura and Lara Takagi set out to explore in their documentary film, “Hafu,” of which they showed a preview screening last month at the Kansai Franco-Japanese Institute in Kyoto.

The film, which is not yet completed, is an offshoot of the Hafu Project, which was set up in London two years ago by sociologist Marcia Yume Lise and photographer Natalie Maya Willer, both half-Japanese.

The project profiles hafus with photos and interviews that shed light on the experience of living between two cultures.

“We wanted to create an opportunity to discuss contemporary Japan through the lens of half Japanese,” says Lise…

Read the entire article here.

Will there ever be a rainbow Japan?

CNN International
CNN Go
2010-12-01

Tracy Slater

Government statistics suggest multiculturalism is on the rise, but social organizations for mixed-race Japanese say ‘hafus’ still face challenges

Japan, which closed its borders from 1639 to 1854 and later colonized its neighbors, has an uneasy history with foreigners, national identity, and multiculturalism.

Yet government statistics and grassroots organizations say multiculturalism in the famously insular country is now on the rise…
Japan: The new melting pot?

Japan’s national government recently announced it is turning to travelers in a foreigner-friendly mission to boost diversity — at least in tourist spots — by paying them to provide feedback on how to increase accessibility for non-Japanese speakers.

David Askew, associate professor of law at Kyoto’s Ritsumeikan University, identifies more profound changes.

In 1965, a mere 1 in 250 of all marriages in Japan were international, he notes. By 2004, the number had climbed to 1 in 15 across the nation and 1 in 10 in Tokyo…

Celebrating diversity

A handful of new organizations are tied, at least in part, to the increase in multicultural marriages.

Groups such as Mixed Roots Japan and Hapa Japan, founded by children of mixed-Japanese couples, aim to celebrate the broadening scope of Japanese identity, both nationally and globally.

“There is a real need now to recognize that Japan is getting more multiracial,” says Mixed Roots founder Edward Sumoto, a self-described “hafu” of Japanese/Venezuelan ethnicity. “The Japanese citizen is not simply a traditional Japanese person with Japanese nationality anymore.”

The issue of the identity of hafu is also being explored in a new film titled “Hafu,” currently under production by the Hafu Project.

In support of multiracial families, Mixed Roots holds Halloween and Christmas parties, picnics and beach days…

Read the entire article here.