Japanese American Ethnicity: The Persistence of Community

Introduction

INTRODUCTION During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. most scholars saw ethnicity as a relic of traditional society which would wane in the face of the forces of modernization. From this perspective, ethnicity was viewed as the embodiment of traditional primordial relationships that would be replaced by more utilitarian forms of association, such as those of the marketplace or bureaucracy (Glazer and Moynihan, 1975). Since the end of World War II. however, we have witnessed the persistence and, in a number of instances, an actual revival of ethnicity as a significant form of identification and attachment even in the most advanced industrialized societies. Scholars have, quite correctly, pointed out that this phenomenon can be accounted for in large measure by the political utility ofethnicity in the modern state. In some instances ethnicity has become a catalyst to reinforce existing class identifications and in other instances it serves as a basis for collective mobilization when no other exists (Glazer and Moynihan, 1975; Nielsen, 1985; Olzak, 1983). There is, nonetheless. a limitation to the preceding explanation in that it does not account for the substantial variations in the retention ofethnicity in the same society. In particular, the question remaining to be answered is: why are some groups apparently more successful than others 3 4 Introduction in retaining their ethnicity while at the same time moving into the mainstream of modern society? Clearly, events outside the group itselfplay an important role in answering this question. No one doubts, for example, the role of the Holocaust in the persistence ofJewish ethnicity in the United States. Nevertheless, at best these external events only provide a necessary but not a sufftcient condition for the development, change, and re-creation of ethnic community institutions. Our contention is that a significant amount of the variation in the capacity of ethnic groups to maintain viable community life, while their members are becoming structurally assimilated into the institutional life ojthe larger society, is due to the way the cultures and social organization of different ethnic groups inhibit or encourage their adaptation to changing structural exigencies. This study seeks to explain why contemporaryJapanese Americans are able to retain high levels ofinvolvement in their ethnic community even though the vast majority of them have become structurally assimilated into mainstream American life. As a group, Japanese Americans fit Gordon 's definition of being structurally assimilated, in terms of their "large-scale entrance into diques, dubs. and institutions of [the] host society, on (al primary group level" (I964:7I). Most Japanese Americans live in predominantly Caucasian neighborhoods, have Caucasian friends. participate in mainstream community affairs, and have begun to intermarry in significant numbers with Caucasian Americans. In 1979. for example, 50 percent of aU new marriages involving Japanese in Los Angeles were with non-Asians (Kitano et at, 1984; Levine and Rhodes, 1981; Montero, 1978, 1980). Yet our data will show that compared with most second and third generation members of ethnic groups at similar stages ofstructural assimilation, Japanese Americans have retained a very high level of participation in ethnic voluntary associations and other forms of behavioral, rather than merely psychological, involvement in ethnic community life. Certainly, external events have played a significant role in the preservation of the Japanese American community. Most important here are the continuous experiences ofJapanese Americans with discrimination from the time of their arrival in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to their internment in concentration camps during World War 11. Nevertheless, although these events are important in explaining the motivation individuals have for maintaining Japanese American community life, they do not, in themselves, explain the actual process ofcommunity development and change. Introduction S Our central thesis is that the persistence ofJapanese American ethnicity stems from dements in traditional Japanese culture that structure social relationships among group members in such a way that they are able to adapt to changing exigencies without losing group cohesiveness. These cultural principles have generated for Japanese Americans. as they have for theJapanese inJapan. a strong sense ofpeoplehood, allowing them to adopt major elements from other cultural systems without totally sacrificing social relationships within the group (see, e.g., Haglund, 1984; Reischauer, 1981). A distinguishing feature of social relationships in Japanese American communities is that individuals perceive all members of their ethnic group-not just those in family, kin, or region-as "quasi kin." This is related to the group orientation of the original immigrants as it was reinforced by historical...