ABSTRACT
Studying the history of ‘mixed-blood’ Japanese in modern Japan in many ways resembles a surreal version of the 1970s television game show To Tell the Truth. In this game, three individuals would start the game by proclaiming ‘I am X,’ and then the two imposters would attempt to trick the celebrity judges into believing they were actually ‘X.’ In this slightly surreal version, the three contestants, each claiming to be a ‘mixed-blood’ Japanese, would stick to the following scripts, all delivered in fl uent Japanese:
Contestant One: I grew up in Tochigi Prefecture, the daughter of a Caucasian-American mother and Japanese father, and I developed a close relationship with my paternal grandmother. At the age of 15, I received a scholarship to attend high school in the United States, and proceeded to spend the next ten years primarily there. Returning to Japan during my twenties to pursue my musical career, I have achieved recent success, including an appearance on Japan’s traditional New Year’s show, Kohaku (Red and White Song Battle), in which I sang my popular ballad as a tribute to my grandmother in rural Japan. Although I did struggle to learn English in my teenage years, Japanese is my language of choice.
