Japanese and Black in America

The two articles for this week through into tension the realities of Japanese Americans and African Americans, exploring the points of similarity, difference, and potentials for solidarity work. Yamamoto's piece, "A Fire in Fontana," mentions her process of politicization and how she came to understand the black American struggle as implicated in her own struggle. She says, "sometimes I see it as my inward self being burnt black in a certain fire" (Yamamoto 150). What makes this statement so interesting, powerful, and controversial is the ways that she proceeds to explain how she basically passes as white in many cases in her life. She uses the "white" bathroom at rest stops in the South, she lives in a white neighborhood, she bears the responsibility of being assumed to be a "white" thinker and receiving racist comments that are believed to be shared by her. Sometimes she mentions challenging these people, but other times she talks about her inner frustration, while she sits and does not do much. Ultimately, her conlcusion that the Watts riots symbolized the fire in Fontana and the fire in her leaves me wondering how exactly racial solidarity work plays out in her life. I understand how her emotions around African Americans and Japanese Americans inform this link, but I do not see a clear, tangible action coming out of this.

Grace Hong calls Yamamoto out on exactly this point. Much of Hong's article explores Harris' idea of whiteness as property, then talks about how Japanese Americans, through measures like the Alien Land Act, have been denied property rights, and thus excluded from white America (like blacks in America). If we use this framework, we begin to see how black and Japanese people in America do not have a same history, but do have a shared denial of access to whiteness and property in America. However, this still does not change the fact that Yamamoto describes access that seems to include "passing" as a white person. Hong speaks about the lack of resolution in Yamamoto's work, which is exactly what frustrated me. I wonder if Yamamoto and Hong ever engaged in a dialogue about this work? I would love to hear/read a conversation between the two of them discussing the issue of cross-racial solidarity work.