Forfeiting Citizenship, Forfeiting Identity? Multiethnic and Multiracial Japanese Youth in Australia and the Japanese Nationality Law

• Main Author: Aoife Wilkinson
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: The Japan Foundation, Sydney 2020-08-01
• Series: New Voices in Japanese Studies
• Subjects: australia; careers; citizenship; contemporary; cultural capital; hafu; japanese australian; law; mobility; multiethnic identity; nationality law; nikkei; social and cultural identity; youth; japan
• Online Access: https://newvoices.org.au/volume-12/forfeiting-citizenship-forfeiting-identity-multiethnic-and-multiracial-japanese-youth-in-australia-and-the-japanese-nationality-law/

The rising fame of multiethnic and multiracial or ‘mixed’ celebrities in Japan, such as tennis player Naomi Osaka, has brought into focus the roles of Japan’s Nationality Law and understandings of nationality and citizenship in shaping identity. According to Article 14 of Japan’s Nationality Law, persons holding multiple nationalities must choose to forfeit all but one before the age of 22. In this article I aim to address how multiethnic and multiracial youths of Japanese descent in Australia are approaching the ambiguities surrounding their citizenship and nationality rights. To do so I will closely examine to what extent the Nationality Law affects their future decisions and identities by drawing upon evidence from in-depth interviews I conducted with mixed Japanese youth who are the child of one Japanese parent and one non-Japanese parent and live in Australia. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital, I argue that mixed Japanese youth in Australia perceive citizenship less as an agent of identity and more as an index of socioeconomic opportunity. My findings demonstrate that these individuals actively strive to maintain their dual citizenship and strategically align their cultural capital to realise meaningful cross-cultural careers that communicate between Australia, Japan, and their own mixed identities.