I was having a conversation with a family member about my project of moving to Tokyo and they raised an important matter « If you ever marry and have children there; it’s likely to be with a Japanese how would you deal with having mixed children, don’t you think they’ll get racism on daily basis or how school will be for them? »
Children aren’t in my future plans at all neither is marriage but they raised an important question.
I don’t care about the ethnicity or nationality of my parter as long they are a good person and we have shared values and they plan to stay in Japan with me, but if I do have kids with a Japanese person we’ll definitely have mixed children especially when I’m not even Asian.
How is the situation socially for mixed children in Japan? Do they receive bullying from fellow children or judgement from adult like teachers because of their mixed heritage? Are they fully accepted in the society socially? They won’t struggle to get jobs just cause of their heritage?
Also they would speak Japanese + others language since I plan to raise them as trilingual if I ever have any kids, in this situation I would want them to know my native language and their Japanese parent language and English.
As someone who was bullied at school (not for reasons linked to racism though) I won’t stand up for any shit that happens to my children even if I have to sue a school for not reacting or parents of a kid if something grave ever happens i have a zero tolerance policy to bullying, but I wouldn’t want my children even if i do this, to feel like they will be hated here because outside from taking actions as parents, their feelings also matters and it might repeat or affect them psychologically or happens in way that are more subtle cause you know racism doesn’t show just in saying slurs you know? I’m not expert when it comes to racism since it only happened to me a few times, but I know it can manifest in more way than just slurs, physical violence like judgement and nasty stereotype.
I would also want my children if their second parent is Japanese to feel Japanese, of course I wouldn’t want them to deny their other half but feel like they are citizen of both places, Japan included.
For those of you who had mixed children with Japanese in Japan how do they treat your own children basically what is your own experience? Did they already went through racism or people actually don’t care or perhaps treat them warmly because they think mixed heritage is cool? Also works if you’re a mixed children of a Japanese parent and non Japanese parent and you spent your childhood in Japan!
6 comments
This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
—
**Do mixed children of one Gaijin parent and Japanese parent have to go through racism in their own country or places like school, if yes how often?**
I was having a conversation with a family member about my project of moving to Tokyo and they raised an important matter « If you ever marry and have children there; it’s likely to be with a Japanese how would you deal with having mixed children, don’t you think they’ll get racism on daily basis or how school will be for them? »
Children aren’t in my future plans at all neither is marriage but they raised an important question.
I don’t care about the ethnicity or nationality of my parter as long they are a good person and we have shared values and they plan to stay in Japan with me, but if I do have kids with a Japanese person we’ll definitely have mixed children especially when I’m not even Asian.
How is the situation socially for mixed children in Japan? Do they receive bullying from fellow children or judgement from adult like teachers because of their mixed heritage? Are they fully accepted in the society socially? They won’t struggle to get jobs just cause of their heritage?
Also they would speak Japanese + others language since I plan to raise them as trilingual if I ever have any kids, in this situation I would want them to know my native language and their Japanese parent language and English.
As someone who was bullied at school (not for reasons linked to racism though) I won’t stand up for any shit that happens to my children even if I have to sue a school for not reacting or parents of a kid if something grave ever happens i have a zero tolerance policy to bullying, but I wouldn’t want my children even if i do this, to feel like they will be hated here because outside from taking actions as parents, their feelings also matters and it might repeat or affect them psychologically or happens in way that are more subtle cause you know racism doesn’t show just in saying slurs you know? I’m not expert when it comes to racism since it only happened to me a few times, but I know it can manifest in more way than just slurs, physical violence like judgement and nasty stereotype.
I would also want my children if their second parent is Japanese to feel Japanese, of course I wouldn’t want them to deny their other half but feel like they are citizen of both places, Japan included.
For those of you who had mixed children with Japanese in Japan how do they treat your own children basically what is your own experience? Did they already went through racism or people actually don’t care or perhaps treat them warmly because they think mixed heritage is cool? Also works if you’re a mixed children of a Japanese parent and non Japanese parent and you spent your childhood in Japan!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/movingtojapan) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>Children aren’t in my future plans at all neither is marriage
Quite frankly: If marriage/children aren’t in your plans right now why are are you worrying about it? Think about it when it becomes relevant, because things like this change year-to-year and school-to-school.
>How is the situation socially for mixed children in Japan?
It depends on where you live. Or which school you go to. Or which homeroom at a particular school your theoretical child is assigned to.
>I won’t stand up for any shit that happens to my children even if I have to sue a school for not reacting or parents of a kid if something grave ever happens i have a zero tolerance policy to bullying
While that’s a noble sentiment, this is an absolutely 100% sure-fire way to *destroy* your children’s experience. This is not the US (I’m making an assumption based on you jumping straight to “SUE EVERYONE!”). Going on a lawsuit spree will just guarantee that your child would be ostracized by *everyone*. Teachers will give them the bare minimum interaction for fear of arousing your ire, students will refuse to interact with your child because you’re the lawsuit-happy crazy foreigner.
Bro life is tough and everyone has their tribulations.
Kids will bully other kids, and if they are a different race they will probably target that will name calling, sure. But if they are short they will call them short, if fat then fat, etc etc.
Don’t let reddit convince you racism is as big of a boogeyman as they want it to be. Sure it exists, and it’s not a good thing, but noone is going to lynch your kid in Japan or a western country.
Reddit’s not a real place.
Somewhat related but…do you know any mixed Asian people in real life? Ngl, we’re pretty common. I’m not Japanese, but I can tell you that your vein of questioning/speculating feels very much like the same exotifying questions I’ve gotten my whole life. My problems in school weren’t bullies making fun of my Asian-ness outright, what mostly made me uncomfortable were non-Asian people turning very invasive questions on me about my life/heritage/existence, as though I wasn’t the child of 2 people, but some weird experiment.
Tldr, talk to some real life 1/2 Asian people, and treat them like people, not discussion exercises.
being mixed is always a struggle
This documentary is 10 years old but provides good insight: https://www.amazon.com/Hafu-David-Yano/dp/B01GPJV0PI