Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

LEARNING TO BE TRANSNATIONAL

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 42; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14672710903537480

1472-6033

Taku Suzuki,

Global Education and Multiculturalism

Abstract Scholars and practitioners of heritage language education commonly hold two assumptions about heritage language: first, that heritage language is an official national language of a nation-state from which group originally migrated; and second, that heritage language is a vulnerable language on the verge of getting swept away by the national language of the nation-state of a migrant's current residence. This article questions these two assumptions by examining Japanese language education and speech practices among Okinawan-Bolivians in a rural agricultural community called Colonia Okinawa. Okinawan-Bolivians’ heritage language education and speech practices suggest that immigrants who were marginalized in the nation-states of their migratory/ancestral origin, like Okinawans, consciously transform their linguistic heritage from a sub-national one to a national one in order to gain socioeconomic advantages in their migratory destination. Furthermore, when immigrant community leaders deem the international standing of the country of their migratory origin higher than their host country's status, such as Okinawan- Bolivian leaders in Colonia Okinawa, they regard heritage language education as a crucial means to maintain their community members’ political, economic, and symbolic powers over other local residents. By ethnographically portraying the ways in which Japanese is taught and spoken in Colonia Okinawa, this article highlights the shifting scales and locations of the immigrant community's “ancestral homeland” and draws attention to the multiple meanings of the language the community designates as its “heritage.” Notes 1. Cummins Citation2005, 586. 2. Basham and Fathman Citation2008, 578. 3. Carreira Citation2004, 18. 4. Blackwood Citation2007; Lie Citation2003; Nicholls Citation2005. See also Mercurio and Scarino (2005) regarding the Australian government's various attempts to define and label various languages (e.g., “indigenous,” “foreign,” “ethnic”) spoken within its territory. 5. Horvath and Vaughan 1991. Hornberger Citation(2005) claims that while U.S. policymakers, scholars, and educators have only recently adopted the term “heritage language” as a neutral and inclusive alternative to terms such as minority, indigenous, immigrant, ethnic, second, or foreign language, their Australian counterparts had long been using the term “community language” to refer to this same range of language resources in their national context. 6. See, for example, Brutt-Griffler and Makoni 2005; de Bot and Gorter Citation2005. 7. In this sense, Japanese language schools in Colonia Okinawa function similarly to bilingual schools in Argentina. Banfi and Day explain that bilingual schools in Argentina catered initially to the German and Italian immigrant communities as “heritage schools,” but more recently established bilingual schools are called “global language schools” for they provide the children of “internationally mobile families” with English, the “global language.” Banfi and Day 2004, 404, 405. 8. Scholars have long debated whether Okinawan is a dialect of Japanese or a linguistically distinct language. The Okinawan language remains virtually incomprehensible to the majority of mainlanders of Japan, but most of the words used are in fact the same. It is intonation and the particular pronunciation of words that make the Okinawan language sound different from mainland Japanese “standard” language. The major difference in pronunciation is the number of vowels used. Standard Japanese has five vowels: a, i, u, e, and o; in Okinawa only three are used: a, i, and o. As a result, same words are pronounced differently in two languages (e.g., te [té, hand] in mainland Japanese is ti in Okinawan). In addition, many consonants used in the Okinawan language do not exist in modern Japanese, as well as some verbs that have a unique set of conjugations, which differ from their mainland counterpart, and some adjectives that are not found today in mainland Japanese. The Okinawan language itself has a wide variety of dialects throughout the Ryþkyþ Islands. The off-lying islands show the widest diversion from what was considered to be “standard” Okinawan, which is used in the Shuri area of Okinawa Hontō Island. See Molasky Citation2003, 165; Barrell and Tanaka Citation1997, 135; and Kerr Citation1958, xvii, 34. 9. Lan Citation2006, 11, citing Nippert-Eng Citation1996, 7. 10. Kimura Citation1981. 11. Arakaki Citation2002, 36. Many argue, and I agree, that Okinawans today still do not possess the same political and economic rights in Japan as other Japanese citizens. The Prefecture of Okinawa remains home to 75 percent of U.S. bases and the majority of U.S. military forces in Japan. (The bases occupy 20 percent of the Okinawa Hontō Island.) Per capita income has been around 70 percent of the national average during the 1990s, and Okinawa's unemployment rate has constantly been the highest among all prefectures. See Hein and Selden Citation2003a, 5–6, for a summary of Okinawa's precarious status within Japan–U.S. relations today. For more comprehensive studies regarding Okinawa's struggles against injustices perpetrated by the Japanese national government and the U.S. military, see Johnson Citation1999, Hook and Siddle Citation2003, and Hein and Selden 2003b. 12. The spelling of Ryukyu, using two Chinese characters as is done now, was standardized during the Ming dynasty period in the fourteenth century. The word has been rendered phonetically in more than sixty forms, such as Luchu, Liukiu, Loo Choo, and Roo Choo. Over time, however, the Japanese term, Okinawa, has slowly replaced other alternatives as the generic name for the islands (Kerr Citation1958, xvii). “Ryūkyū,” with elongated vowel signs, is the more phonetically appropriate spelling, but Okinawa's local institutions, such as the University of the Ryukyus and Ryukyu Shimpo, regional newspaper, employ the romanized term without elongation. I use “Ryūkyū” throughout this essay. 13. As a result of Imperial Japan's rigorous assimilation policy from the 1890s to 1940s, Okinawans today, especially young people in the prefecture's urban areas, have no speaking or comprehensive abilities in the language. See Ching 2001, Oguma Citation1995, and Tomiyama Citation1997 for the cultural and linguistic assimilation of Okinawans and other imperial subjects. 14. Nakasone 2002a, 17. 15. Sakihara Citation1981, 15; see also Ishikawa Citation1973. 16. JICA Okinawa 1985. 17. For Okinawan residents, “Naichi,” literally “inner land,” refers to the four major islands of Japan. Although the term is also often used to refer to the residents of Naichi, I use the term Naichi-jin, “people of Naichi,” to refer to the Naichi residents of Japan, in order to distinguish the geographical areas and demographic groups. See Toyama and Ikeda 1981. 18. Oguma Citation1995. 19. Christy Citation1997. 20. Oguma Citation1995, 388. 21. For instance, although the Meiji constitution, promulgated in 1890, promised wide representation in the law-making body of the nation-state, Okinawans had to wait until 1920 to be allowed to send the prefecture's representatives to the Lower House of the national Diet. See Kerr Citation1958, 428. 22. Postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha calls this “colonial mimicry.” See Bhabha Citation1994. 23. Bhabha Citation1994, 86. See Kaneshiro Citation2002 for Okinawans in the Philippines whom locals viewed as being different from Japanese Naichi-jin. The Okinawan immigrants’ tenuous relations with their Naichi-jin counterparts in Hawai'i are detailed by Ige Citation1981, Toyama and Ikeda 1981, and Ueunten Citation2002. Discrimination against Okinawans by Naichi-jin Japanese took place in Naichi as well. The massive exodus of Okinawans to mainland Japanese cities took place in the 1920s, when the decline in the international price for sugar hit Okinawa's monoculture agricultural economy. The serious recession was called “sotetsu palm hell,” because people in Okinawa suffered from famine and reportedly had to eat poisonous sotetsu palm leaves to survive. See Mukai Citation1992 and Tomiyama Citation1990 for the causes of the recession and subsequent Okinawan emigration to cities in mainland Japan such as Osaka, Kawasaki, and Yokohama. 24. See Peattie Citation1988 (216–22) for a description of the social hierarchy in colonial Micronesia. Peattie details the occupational ranks among Japanese immigrants: mainland Japanese at the top, Okinawans and Koreans in the middle, and local Micronesians at the bottom. See also Tomiyama Citation2002, 65, for Okinawan émigrés in Micronesia, who worked in harsher working conditions for lower wages than their Japanese Naichi-jin coworkers at sugarcane plantations, launched “the Lifestyle Reform Movement” to erase Okinawan features from their bodies (e.g. clothes, language, and food), and amplified discriminatory behaviors against the local Micronesians. See Tomiyama Citation1990 and Rabson Citation2003 for similar patterns of cultural self-Japanization and discrimination against non-Japanese Others that were observed in pre–WorldWar II Osaka, where Okinawan domestic migrants worked as construction and manufacturing laborers. 25. The U.S. attacks and the violence caused by the Imperial Army's Naichi-jin soldiers were both responsible for the deaths. The colonial ambiguity of Okinawans as “not quite” Japanese national subjects is believed to have caused the mass killing of Okinawan civilians by Japanese Naichi-jin soldiers during the Battle of Okinawa. Naichi-jin soldiers, who were stationed in Okinawa to protect local Japanese – Okinawan – residents, suspected that Okinawans were potential spies, and frequently killed Okinawan civilians both by execution and in what is often referred to as “compulsory group suicides.” See Allen Citation2003, Field Citation1993, and Ota Citation1999. 26. GRI consisted of locally elected officials and was in charge of the administrative and legislative functions of Okinawa, but it was obliged to obey the orders of Uscar, which also maintained the right to nominate the government's chief. Uscar nominated the first four chiefs of GRI, but the fifth chief, Yara Chōbyō, was elected by the Okinawan people. Yara was the last GRI chief before Okinawa's reversion to Japan in 1972. 27. As a gesture of salvaging Okinawa from tyrannical Imperial Japan, Uscar held a democratic election for Okinawans to choose the GRI chief, who served under Uscar. When the first election for the GRI chief in 1950 did not turn out as Uscar had expected, however, it abandoned the system and handpicked a chief it favored. 28. Oguma Citation1998, 504, 474–76. The minimum wage for American employees at U.S. bases was reportedly fourteen times higher than that of the Okinawan workers. See also Oguma Citation1995, 504. 29. Under the agreement made between Uscar and GRI in 1952, landowners contracted with the GRI chief, and the chief then rented the land to the U.S. military. Since the rent Okinawan farmers received from Uscar for their land was extremely low, only 2 percent of the landowners agreed to the contract with GRI. Hence, Uscar resorted to compulsory land expropriation in 1953. (See Miyagi Citation1968, 217.) During 1953 alone, 447 families were forced to move; the U.S. military acquired 175 hectares of farmland as a result. By the end of 1953, U.S. bases occupied 14 percent of the entire Okinawa Hontō Island, or 42 percent of the island's farmland. The land problem triggered island-wide protests by local Okinawans from 1953 to 1954. See Ōshiro 1992, 99. 30. In one survey, approximately 10 percent of Okinawan settlers in Colonia Okinawa stated that their dislike of living under U.S. occupation, particularly working for the U.S. military, was a major reason for their decision to emigrate. According to Amemiya, “nearly all” Issei had been employed at one time or another by the U.S. military bases. Her informants expressed their disdain for “military labor,” or gun sagyō, because they were placed below American superiors both in terms of pay scale and administrative rank. See Nakayama et al., Citation1986, 45, and Amemiya Citation1999, 58–9. 31. The number of settlers increased from four hundred at the time of departure from Okinawa, due to childbirth on board ship and after the group's arrival in South America. See Higa Citation2000, 243. 32. Mori Citation1998; Suzuki Citation2007; Tsujimoto Citation1998. 33. The local non-Nikkei Bolivians were, of course, highly diverse in their socioeconomic statuses and ethnic/racial backgrounds. For a more nuanced analysis of complexities of the local class and ethnic/racial relationships, see Suzuki forthcoming and Stearman Citation1985. 34. Yamasaki 2010. 35. “Becoming Japanese” was a complex process for Okinawan immigrants and their offspring. For details about the historical transformations of the ethnic Okinawan community in Colonia Okinawa, see Suzuki Citation2006. 36. Mori Citation1998, 106. 37. Nichibo Kyōkai 1985, 2. 38. Kunimoto Citation1989. 39. Mitsuhashi Citation1983. 40. See contrasting cases of the foundation processes of Japanese language schools in Peru and the United States. See Doerr and Lee forthcoming and Yamasaki 2010. 41. In 2001, the school charged US$30 a month for students who attended the morning Spanish classes only, and US$50 for those who took both Spanish and Japanese language classes. 42. While the percentage of Okinawan–Bolivian CBJ students decreased steadily from 1987 (100 percent) to 1995 (67 percent ) during the “dekasegi fad” (due to the emigration of families with school-age children), Okinawan-Bolivians continued to represent the majority of the student population (84 percent ) in 2001. See Mori Citation1998, 112. 43. Okinawa Daiichi Nichibo-kou 2001, 1. Translation by the author. 44. The actual dynamics of education in the CBJ school are far more complex than what the school's slogans suggest. See Suzuki (forthcoming) for representations and interpretations of Japanese-ness, Okinawan-ness, and Bolivian-ness by teachers, parents, and students at the school. 45. Okinawa Daiichi Nichibo-kou 1998. 46. In the Special Class designed for non-Japanese speakers, non-Nikkei Bolivian students, and the children of intermarried parents, a bilingual Nisei teacher used the JSL (Japanese as a second language) instruction materials. Since the Japanese proficiency of CBJ students was somewhat behind that of Japanese students in Japan, the textbooks used were also behind by one year (i.e., students in Class 5 used a fourth-grade-level Japanese textbook). Some of these textbooks, relatively new editions, were donated by the past JICA teachers or Okinawa Prefecture teachers. 47. In order to protect my informants’ confidentiality, individual names used in this article are pseudonyms. 48. Approximately 81 percent of the second-generation Okinawan-Bolivian respondents in Anbo et al.'s survey expressed confidence in their ability to comprehend; 61 percent felt comfortable speaking Uchinμguchi. Anbo et al. Citation1998, 246. 49. See, however, the case of Japanese-Peruvian communities, where terms and expressions in Uchinμguchi have become integral parts of the “Japanese” language they speak. See Yamawaki Citation1996 and Yamasaki 2010. 50. Nichibo Kyōkai 1998. 51. Higa Citation2000, 251. 52. Gushiken Citation1995. 53. “Dekasegi” literally means one who “goes out” to earn money, with the intention of returning home in the future. The term originally referred to workers from rural areas of Japan who migrated to cities in Japan in search of work. See Tsuda Citation2003, xii. See Suzuki forthcoming and Tsujimoto 1999 for a more comprehensive study of dekasegi migration of Okinawan-Bolivians from Colonia Okinawa to Japan. Among the many excellent studies on Japanese-Brazilian dekasegi migration to Japan are Roth 2001, Tsuda Citation2003, and Linger Citation2001. 54. Tsujimoto Citation1998. See Yamasaki 2010 for Japanese-Peruvians’ dekasegi migration to Japan. 55. For more about JLPE see Yamasaki 2010. 56. In 2008, the annual average unemployment rate in Okinawa Prefecture was 7.4 percent, while the national average was 4.0 percent. See Okinawa Prefecture's labor statistics page: http://www.stat.go.jp/data/roudou/sokuhou/nen/ft/pdf/ index.pdf (accessed 20 August 2009) and Japan Statistic Bureau's labor statistics page: http://www.stat.go.jp/data/roudou/sokuhou/nen/ft/pdf/index.pdf (22 August 2009). 57. See Takamori Citation(forthcoming) for similar practices of “boundary work” among Japanese-American residents in Japan. 58. Lan calls this symbolic value of language “linguistic capital.” See Lan Citation2003, 137. 59. Stephenson Citation1999, 2–3. 60. Osterweil Citation1998, 151. 61. Axel Citation2001, 7–15.