In my youth I could not help but notice that in a real sense many of the American nissei (second generation Americans of Japanese descent) I knew were more white than white. By that I mean, their English and mannerisms were a little too perfect. It seemed like not even a trace of the Japanese language and culture remained in their being, though their parents were Japanese by birth. Some of these nissei came to Japan as young adults perhaps to find their roots, realizing as adults that something was not quite right. After all, they were unable to assimilate as completely as they had wished, or, if they had, something still seemed to be missing from their standpoint-a hollow conformity had left a void instead of an experience of substance which they imagined others may have? The fact that, in fact, they looked Asian, made it impossible for them ever to be one with "them," especially if they had been raised in predominantly caucasion neighborhoods.

Kids will be like that. They want above all to be one of the "others." However, if they are perceived as foreigners, they can never be. The eternal gaijin, though if they were raised in this country in the Japanese school system they will have tried with all of their hearts and minds and behaviors to be totally Japanese.

They may resent the parent who gave them that unfortunate destiny or they may learn to accept it as their fate. In either case, it is almost impossible to overcome the pain they have to continually feel in the eyes of the others-one of whom they cannot be, exacerbated all the more whenever they are teased for it.

Their best or only chance is to rise above it or "come in from the top." In other words, they have to be given an education, however difficult, and they have to be bilingual or trilingual as adults. Only then will they be able to overcome, so to speak. Alternatively, they have only mental cures to seek, not unlike the nissei coming back to Japan in the 60's or early 70's. Hopefully that has changed in at least some parts of America by now, wherever diversity has become more typical than uniformity, but not in Japan. Though "normality" is but a sociological abstraction in the US, or an ideological construction in Japan, most Japanese still believe in it and anyone not at least superficially "normal" (i.e., with a Japanese complexion) has to truly suffer. UNLESS they can rise above!

So find a way to educate your children!!

ohnsdavis@hotmail.com