In “‘The Invisible Man’ and other narratives of living in the borderlands of race and nation,” Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu details his experience with one of his students, Kim Young Sook, whose mother is Japanese and father is Korean. Since, traditionally, a wife must follow her Korean husband into Korean tradition, Young Sook was heavily influenced by Korean culture despite growing up in Japan. Thus, she had decided to not exercise her right to become a Japanese citizen and, instead, retained her Korean citizenship.
Much of the reasoning behind this decision seemed to come from an external place rather than an internal one. For example, when asked why she couldn’t be both Korean and Japanese, she replied by stating, “Japan is different than the United States. If you are Korean, you can’t be Japanese.” And when asked why she doesn’t naturalize, she replied with, “Because of what Japan did to Korea in the past… as long as there is still discrimination against us I think we shouldn’t give up being Koreans.” These answers exemplify how much external factors, such as the relationship between two countries, can deeply affect someone’s personal identity formation. It seemed like she had been constructing these somewhat anti-Japanese narratives her whole life, which were enforced by her parents' experiences with the tense relationship between Korea and Japan. The way she chose to construct her identity then went on to influence the rest of her life, as she ended up working at a Korean corporation and having a Korean boyfriend.
An interesting aspect of this story was that Murphy-Shigematsu had initially thought Young Sook was full Japanese by appearance alone. Ever since arriving in Japan, I have also noticed myself categorizing people into different groups and ethnicities solely based on looks. I remember taking note that whenever we went to a museum and saw a group of children there on a field trip, they were all Japanese. At least, I had assumed they were since they all had straight, black hair, fair skin and dark eyes. After reading this passage, it’s become apparent to me that many of these kids may have been half-Korean or half-Chinese or maybe even just full Korean. It made me realize that kids who can pass as Japanese grow up with a much different experience than kids who do not look Japanese. These differing experiences can then in turn greatly influence their respective identity formations and lives as a whole.
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