Japanese American Ethnicity: In Search of Heritage and Homeland across Generations by Tsuda Takeyuki (review)

Contemporary social sciences pay little attention to the Japanese American experience and give little credit to the ability of empirical studies of this group to add to contemporary assimilation or racialization literatures. However, the Japanese American case presents a sociological paradox. After four-plus generations in the United States, Japanese Americans are regarded as an ethnic group noted for high socioeconomic achievement, thorough acculturation, and even honorary white status. Yet, despite their mythic model minority status, Japanese Americans continue to be recognized as racially and ethnically distinct. Anthropologist Takeyuki Tsuda's Japanese American Ethnicity examines this paradox through a nuanced study of the importance of ethnic heritage and race in the everyday lives and identity formation among contemporary US-born Japanese Americans. Tsuda does more than weave a tale of persistent ethnic identity that exceeds the symbolic practices predicted by assimilation theories; he demonstrates how ethnic heritage and authenticity is maintained, revived, and constructed in relationship to assimilation, transnationalism, multiculturalism, and racialization.

Tsuda draws upon a year and a half of fieldwork within Japanese American communities and organizations in San Diego, CA, and Phoenix, AZ, supplemented by 55 in-depth interviews. Tsuda's examination of the contemporary Japanese American experience breaks new ground with its coverage of four US-born generations: three stemming from pre-1924 immigration and one from post-WWII immigration. The generation concept structures Tsuda's study, which examines how each generation relates to their ethnic heritage and ancestral homeland.

Tsuda makes a number of compelling assertions about the Japanese American experience and theoretical implications of other immigrant-origin and diasporic populations in the United States. Tsuda problematizes the assumption of homogeneous generations by comparing the nisei (second generation) and shin-nisei (new second generation). Tsuda calls attention to the often-overlooked divergences between two constructions of generation, immigrant and historical. Nisei and shin-nisei inhabit the same immigrant generation. Historical generation refers to a group of individuals born during a similar temporal period that therefore are shaped by similar historical events and experiences. The nisei, stemming from pre-1924 immigration and generally born prior to the 1940s, and shin-nisei, the product of post-WWII immigration and generally born in the 1980s and 1990s, represent very different historical generations. This difference in historical generation produces different forms of attachment to ethnic heritage, despite their similar generational distance from the ancestral homeland. While Japanese Americans provide a clear example of this divergence in ethnic heritage, Tsuda rightfully argues that similar examinations should be taken into consideration for other immigrant-origin groups, particularly those with multiple or consistent waves of migration.

Tsuda notes that the shifts toward multiculturalism and transnationalism since the 1980s lead to different conceptions of ethnic heritage between the earlier generations, nisei, and third generation (sansei), largely born in the 1950s and 1960s, and more recent generations, shin-nisei and fourth generation (yonsei), largely born between 1970 and 2000. Yonsei and shin-nisei, who grew up during a period of transnationalism and multiculturalism, are able to hold more positive associations with their ethnic heritage and create stronger connections with their ancestral homeland. As transnational ties dwindled among the nisei and sansei, yonsei have not inherited transnational connections and culture from their parents or grandparents. Rather, yonsei forge and reactivate their ethnic heritage and transnational ties for themselves, particularly through the practice of taiko drumming and by spending extended periods living and working in Japan. While multiculturalism allows yonsei and shin-nisei to celebrate their transnationalism and heritage within the growing diversity of the United States, such a celebration of difference can also serve to reinforce external assumptions of foreignness. In this way, assertions of ethnic heritage may be empowering on a personal level, but can undermine collective efforts for social belonging and claims on American identity.

Tsuda also connects his discussion of transnationalism with the literature on diaspora. Tsuda introduces the concept of diasporicity, a scalar measure of the strength...