Japanese American Spiritual Ambiguity and Arts of Silence

Abstract

Japanese American Spiritual Ambiguity and Arts of Silence Brett J. Esaki The current political climate is not new. My Japanese American ancestors walked a similar path of uncertainty, and I am listening to them. In my early years, they told me about their experiences and today they continue in spirit, yet their messages have not resonated fully until the last decade or so. Some of these lessons are straightforward and stated. For example: Imperial powers live in a bath of fear, developing fantasies of hidden pirates and saboteurs and lashing out when the phantoms seem to take form. Imprisoning and banning whole classes of people out of phantom military necessity is not necessary, extremely expensive, and nearly impossible to reverse. Creativity, strength, and endurance are essential for resisting and surviving another's nightmares. The rest of the messages are ambiguous and silent. My ancestors did not have as many educated and empowered representatives, so they cannot fully guide my path. I count myself among those who have benefitted from my ancestors’ perseverance, and I turn to women, African Americans, and Native Americans who can help me to fill in the gap of experience (and listening to others is part of my ancestors’ wisdom). In addition to the clear lessons and non‐existent ones, my ancestors send silent messages of ambiguity. Esteemed Japanese American theologian Fumitaka Matsuoka explained that ambiguous messages like these come from Japanese Americans’ “holy insecurity,” which he later phrased “holy amphiboly.” In this article, I will apply Matsuoka's holy amphiboly to the struggle of Japanese American artists to express messy, contradictory, and ambiguous realities in their art. Artists do so purposefully and sometimes in order to negotiate the political minefield of audiences who do not want to hear direct stories of injustice. By exploring instances of silent ambiguity, I hope to articulate some of the complicated messages of Japanese Americans who have survived times like ours. Ambiguity of Japanese American history It is accurate to say that the history of Japanese Americans is ambiguous. Our first immigrants were well educated (in respect to the time), hardworking, and with low criminality rates, yet spit on and accused of monopolizing (read “invading”) industries and enslaving women. The next generation, born in the United States as American citizens, were categorized as enemy aliens and imprisoned en masse (the Internment Camps during WW II). The following generation successfully secured reparations for their parents’ losses, yet were depicted as the model minority and symbols of Japan's rise in technology. I am part of the generation after that, and the results are yet to come. Scholars have commented on the precarious position of Japanese Americans. In the early twentieth century, sociologist Robert E. Park presented Japanese Americans as a prime example of his theory, the Marginal Man, or one who is in transition to assimilation but is held from full assimilation by oppression. Other examples from the 1920s included Jews and mixed‐race African Americans. A more recent theory is racial triangulation, where Asian Americans serve as models of economic success through hard work and as rhetorical discipline of stagnant or downwardly mobile African Americans. At the same time, Asian Americans are categorized as foreigners, rendering them incapable of reaching whiteness. Likewise, there has been a common trope among Japanese Americans that we are suspended between white and black. These characterizations of Japanese Americans have utility in some respects and shortcomings in others, yet they all describe the straightforward fact that our lives are ambiguous. Given this fact, one might ask: Why haven't people just stated that and built from this point? The answer is that there have been countless Japanese Americans who have done this, but it has been difficult for people to understand, especially considering the challenge of understanding ambiguity, as others in this journal attest. In reaction to severe tragedies and minor misfortunes, Japanese Americans used the expression “shikata ga nai,” which is frequently translated as “it can't be helped.” More accurately, it is “what happened is nothing” or “do not dwell on that and move on.” More colloquially, it is “sh*t happens” or “shake it off” (in the lyrics of Mariah Carey and Taylor...