Why “100% Japanese” and “right decision” don’t belong in the same question
Mar 31
Hawai’i's Cherry Blossom Festival last Saturday held its signature event, the Festival Ball, where the final judging takes place before bestowing on a young Japanese American woman the distinction of serving as Cherry Blossom Queen.
Contestants are judged in part by their responses to questions posed to them on stage during one part of the evening’s program.
One contestant was apparently asked this: “Do you think the Festival made the right decision allowing contestants who aren’t 100 percent Japanese to participate?” (I wasn’t there and had to rely on reliable sources.)
Worded this particular way, I hope this question is never asked again.
Before sharing why, here’s some background to provide context. In 1998, as president of the organization that runs the Cherry Blossom Festival, I persuaded our board of directors to end 47 years of discrimination in the Festival queen contest against multi-ethnic Japanese American women. Until that time, a young woman could not be a contestant unless her ethnicity was 100 percent Japanese. (This article provides more details behind the change.)
The question doesn’t offend me because I was a proponent of the change. Many members of our organization and others in the community were strongly against the change, some because they were anxious about change itself, others because they simply did not believe that a Festival celebrating the Japanese American community should be represented by a multi-ethnic woman. I wasn’t bothered by the criticisms of the change.
What’s wrong about the question is subtle and subversive.
When the question identifies someone as “not 100 percent Japanese,” I know that it’s intended to refer to the ethnic composition of the person, but an unintended consequence of the phrase — and remember that this is being asked in front of hundreds of people — is the reinforcement of the notion that a person’s ethnic makeup dictates their cultural identity.
The amount of “Japanese blood” in a person should never be a barrier to that person being a full-fledged member of the Japanese American community. And that’s why I feel the question as worded and asked to the contestant risks priming our subconscious discrimination.
If you think that’s a ridiculous notion, read this.
If the question was “What do you think about the Festival’s decision to allow multi-ethnic contestants to participate in the Queen contest?” – you avoid the slanted nature of the original question as well as encourage a broader range of possible answers.
In an interview I did for a book written about this very subject, I had expressed hope that years later, the Festival would focus less on the “blood quantum” issue, and more on increasing the Festival’s overall relevance to the Japanese American community.
I’m not a good judge of the latter since I haven’t lived in Hawai’i for ten years.
But on the first part of my aspiration, it seems that 12 years later the notion of being “100 percent Japanese” is still worthy of a stage question.
