Walking the Bilingual Tightrope - the Blessing and Curse of Identity

“Oddly enough, even though I’m very Americanized, when I’m in the U.S., I
 feel really Japanese, or at least like I can identify with it (being 
Japanese) much more. But the second I land in Japan, I’m so American. 
It’s such a weird thing.” -


Born from a Japanese mother and a New Zealander father, I exist as and occupy different identities based on social landscapes and those I surround myself with. Even within my own social circles; I am seen as the “Asian” figure within my Caucasian friends, and on the contrary I am seen as the “Caucasian” figure within my Asian friends. This has acted to on rare occasion positively benefit me, however it is more commonly an enabler for subtle racist remarks and general discomfort in what should be the company of those I trust. 

I will say now that, this writing is in no way my attempts to oust the light covert racism of my friends, nor do I wish to make this some kind of sob story. In no way do I ever feel like I have been the victim of overt racist targeting or systematic discrimination. I have been blessed to grow up in New Zealand and experience a life that I know many are not fortunate enough to. The intentions of this piece are to reflect upon common misconceptions within how a layperson may perceive the life of someone who can be considered ‘bilingual’ or of mixed heritage, particularly with respect to the prevalent and consistent discourse about diversity and inclusion.

Notions of duality and mixed heritage are not particularly new concepts within the contemporary world and its discussions of identity, especially within academic literature. The issue I have faced is that academia is generally overly verbose for the sake of appearances (otherwise of course, how else could you be considered "academic", right?).

Any amount of time at a tertiary institution will demonstrate that a majority of academic meaning is overshadowed by the urgency to present empty insight through illustrating some kind of arbitrary trend based on qualitative or quantitative data models.  

All ignorant blanket statements aside, I find the connection to human experiences presented in academic literature tends to be lacklustre. Not to suggest that the academia is entirely devoid of genuine human experiences, but as someone who has studied a mixture of liberal arts and STEM at university, I find the objective formalities all a bit too apathetic, and the genre itself over saturated. 

To get back on topic, the most common misconception I hear about is the flexibility and luxury of being able to live interchangeably within two different cultural worlds. While I agree that coming from mixed heritage allows me to experience both Japan and New Zealand and their respective lifestyle similarities and differences, the matter of inclusion and fitting in comfortably are not necessarily as night and day. 

Living in New Zealand, speaking Japanese primarily just with my mother, my speaking ability has remained at about the same conversational level as a native Japanese 7 year old may command - perhaps even worse. As a result, any subsequent visits to Japan, conversations with her side of the family and even communication with my own mother have suffered as a result of my inability to properly articulate myself. As much as I may want to identify with my birth heritage and my native tongue, I have never felt like I could fit in to a purely Japanese group of people. Just recently I visited a series of cities trailing the southern island (Honshu) in Japan with a few of my friends, and was reminded just how out of my depth I was in terms of reading, writing, and speaking comprehension for Japanese. 

Perhaps my most notable takeaway from the trip was understanding that, regardless of whether I was born there 21 years ago, and regardless of my command of the language, I would still always be seen by native Japanese people as an outsider or ‘gaijin’ in society. To put it bluntly, I could talk and walk the part, but never truly fit in there. Xenophobia has existed in Japan since before the Edo period and early modernity, so it comes with no surprise that this attitude, while the fault of no one in particular, acts as an intrinsic part of the contemporary societal fabric of the country. 

My experiences in New Zealand echo a similar sentiment to how I feel being in Japan, as despite speaking English fluently, my physical appearance marks me immediately as identifiably "Asian", and more significantly "non-Caucasian". As a computer science undergraduate, I can't help but notice that groups of people at university tend to consist of those who have their race in common. As for the cohort itself, it is understood that the majority of its members are of Asian descent - as with much of STEM at tertiary institutions. Constrastingly, arts faculties tend to be dominated moreso by Caucasian demographics. 

With that being said, there has been a noticeable push towards inclusion and diversity in a variety of different academic and professional landscapes, however I have always been skeptical of the true effectiveness and motives of these campaigns. Often diversity is used as a commercial ploy and as a marketing buzzword to promote some kind of artificial utopian ideal. On the other hand, the existence of organisations that encourage inclusion of certain groups of people tend to bring out and alienate people by mere existence, acting to separate these people further from what is considered the mainstream demographic. 

There exists a difficult balance between picking your moment to become yourself and establish an identity. This becomes even harder to do if you are juggling two different backgrounds and either due to factors in or out of your control, you are unable to comfortably pick one or conversely fit between the two. I know that there are a lot of people who are walking this same bilingual tightrope and struggling with finding their cultural footing. 

I believe that identity needs to be something that can exist outside of the context of your cultural backgrounds. The issue is rather one of fitting in with yourself, accepting that there are some who occupy a sense of temporality within their identities, living to and from a cultural grey area which many may struggle to recognise and understand - yet it doesn't make your existence any less meaningless or meaningful than the next person. 

r



"If you're going to learn a new language, you can't try to be perfect. 
You'll stop yourself from talking. You just have to let go."