im needing this for an essay for my japanese class and am a little unsure how to go about this. I know the word にっけい as for the literal translation of “japanese descent” but the examples given arent in terms of people but of things like companies, cars, etc. I was thinking of formating it this way:
私に友達はアメリカに住んでいます。 そして、にっけいです。
my online dictionary I use gave the word にっけい べいじん as “an american of japanese descent.” is this accurate?
the essay is centered around the influence this friend brought me in terms of japanese culture due to his parent’s japanese heritage.
7 comments
べいじん (米人) is super formal, but maybe appropriate for an essay? If you’re a beginner though I think it would make more sense/you’re teacher would expect you to use the more standard アメリカ人. To describe you’re friend you can say にっけいアメリカ人. By the way, the kanji for にっけい is 日系
I think 日系人 にっけいじん is the word you want there.
日系アメリカ人 is probably more modern / colloquial than 日系米(国)人 – the べい abbreviation is more of a newspaper-ish thing, imo.
Legal nationality is 国籍 こくせき if you want to be specific about that. アメリカ国籍、日本国籍 and so on.
If it’s a pretty casualish introduction of someone, you could get away with something like 彼・友達はアメリカ人ですが、家族は日本から来ました, perhaps?
日系アメリカ人 is the most normal way to say this. 米人 sounds like it’s from a newspaper article.
>my online dictionary I use gave the word にっけい べいじん as “an american of japanese descent.” is this accurate?
More typically [日系アメリカ人](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5%E7%B3%BB%E3%82%A2%E3%83%A1%E3%83%AA%E3%82%AB%E4%BA%BA).
The meaning of “ethnicity” is different across various cultures. If you’re writing about people who are the descendants of Japanese immigrants, they aren’t considered ethnically Japanese here. Just say diaspora. The word for Japanese diaspora is 日系人.
血 is the word you are looking in terms of people. We have to go through long list in the islands, and especially Hawaii, of what ethnic backgrounds people are, and any time you are are mixed, you use the word 血 (chi) for that part.
The other important idea is 純粋 which means pure blood so 純粋日本人, and then where you are raised (育ち sodachi). Lots and lots of important, to some people, distinctions. There are lots of Japanese people, raised in all kinds of situations. Japanese mom, Palauan dad, three kids, one American, one Palauan, one Japanese, if you checked their passports. So are the kids, all fluent in Japanese, Japanese? They are clearly not 純粋日本人, but they are far more Japanese than the kids who cannot speak any Japanese, who were born in Walnut Creek to two Japanese parents, who, themselves as kids, were in internment camps.
In many places, in use, the word 日系 can means anything from 100% Japanese to part Japanese, or thought of as Japanese from the outside. If you look at Hawaii’s enormous “Japanese” population, you will find that many of them are actually Okinawan that came over as expert farmers in a huge wave in the late 19th century, after the Ryukyu Kingdom was ‘disssolved’. And then some chop suey’d into the Japanese/Korean/Russiab/Scottish/Italian mix. Even those people can be referred to as Nikkei by some people. Other people keep the term for 純粋日本人 even if that is actually Okinawan, not Japanese.
This is also true in many other places with Japanese influence. It’s often actually Okinawan, with later addition of Japanese lumped into Japanese.
So you might call them 日系 not because they are Japanese (because they are not, they are Okinawan) but because they are Japanese adjacent. And everyone outside calls them Japanese, because people just thinks Okinawa is Japan. And now it is long ago enough, and Japan culture has overrun Okinawan culture enough, that people just leave the distinction alone. Or not.