The perceived desirability of American women became a source of pride at the same time interracial encounters between American women and the Japanese embassy threatened American racial hierarchies. Entering law before the former Meiji Constitution (1889) and the former Nationality Law (1899), international marriage at the time required both a permit and surrender of recognised social standing (分限). Family Issues on Marriage, Divorce, and Older Adults in Japan: With Special Attention to Regional Variations.

The use of identity cards and a Japanese registry thus enabled the Department to categorize the community along a spectrum of national affiliation as it monitored the population within an increasingly securitized environment. I part ways with the portrayal of the permits as a “magic elixir” Footnote 10 that deracinated Footnote 11 Japanese women married to white men. His naturalized Japanese Canadian father was confined at the Tashme site, and his white American mother was deported to the United States. Japanese Canadian men married to white women also requested permits, and a small number received them.Footnote 66 His inelegant framing—that the permits excluded interracial persons from exclusion—is instructive. When I finally met a girl who was into Asian guys I could hardly believe it (and of course, we became friends instantly).

The potential risks posed by mixed race progeny to the norms of inheritance were managed by rules that protected men’s estates and legacies. Delighted to find that one of the young painters who comes to redecorate her bedroom speaks fluent Japanese, Yumi shares a pot of green tea with them. I gotta give Ellie credit, she doesn’t just have to learn Japanese—she has to understand gangsta Hiroshima-ben!

It’s a theme that commonly comes up, often focusing on why foreign men (sometimes independent of their attractiveness), get all the girls! I explore the interactive process between racialized subjects and the state by considering the outlier cases of Japanese Canadian husbands of white women who managed to obtain permits. Outright answers were pretty cut and dry, whether for or against dating a foreigner, but after some discussion, most of the girls seemed to agree that if they were able to communicate well (either the girl could speak a foreign language or the guy could speak Japanese), and the cultural and value differences were sorted out it, they’d probably be okay with it. Je soutiens que les permis ont recatégorisé les intimités interraciales vers deux fins raciales, soit de 1) différencier le citoyen de « l’étranger ennemi » et de 2) réglementer la famille interraciale selon les principes patriarcaux de la common law.