Identity and language by reviewing both Maori and Japanese colonization
According to Getz (2018) “Despite the Government’s attempts at reducing disparities, Maori still have the highest suicide rate, at 21.7 per 100,000, in contrast to 14.7 per 100,000 for non-Maori” (p.11). On the other hand, “In 2022, over 21.8 thousand people committed suicide in Japan” (Statista, 2023).
Getz (2018) says, “Through Maori lens, suicide can be seen as the indigenous wounding of the spirit by the historical effects of colonization” (p.12). In terms of Japanese suicide, “The Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare says that in many cases people feel driven to kill themselves because of social issues that can be addressed”(Nippon.com,2023). As with Aotearoa New Zealand, Japan has also experienced the trauma of colonization throughout its history.
After World War II, the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands (USCAR) took over and governed Japan’s Okinawa Islands from 1952 till 1972 as a result of the San Francisco Treaty signed by Japan in 1951.
During World War II, between the 6th and 9th of August 1945, two major Japanese cities - Nagasaki and Hiroshima were destroyed by nuclear bombs.The United States government has always maintained that the use of nuclear bombs was to stop the war. However, anti-Japanese discourse such as “Japanese are yellow monkeys, so we can treat them as an animal.” allowed America to discriminate against Japanese people based on the identity politics that the Japanese are losers and Japan is a part of the United States. Adorno et al. (1950) state, “Critical psychologists have been keen to challenge the mainstream intrapersonal accounts of racism and prejudice, which regard these as either explained by faulty information processing or particular personality types such as authoritarianism” (Cited in Burr,2015,pp.65-66). It means that discrimination and racism depends on individual decisions and philosophy. According to Andermahr (2015), “Therefore, racially based forms of trauma historically rooted in the global systems of slavery and colonialism pose a significant challenge to the Eurocentric model of trauma as a single overwhelming event” (p.501).
Bowker and Levine (2018) say, ”Thus, victimizers may victimize victims for their audacity in claiming the enviable mantle of victimhood” (p.32). Considering my own philosophy as a trauma therapist, I want to be a survivor, not a victim of the history of my country. I cannot support my clients if I victimize myself on both personal and professional levels. McLaughlin (2011) defines survivor in the Nazi Holocaust as “The capacity of men and women to live beneath the pressure of protracted crisis, to sustain terrible damage in mind and body and yet be there, sane, alive, still human'”(p.55).
I have a passion to use my generational, historical, and group trauma of ‘exclusion and oppression’ by past colonization in Japan. Wymer et al. (2020) discover, “The findings indicated that participant counsellors perceived trauma counselling work as involving both challenges and rewards” (p.302). Bowker and Levine (2018) emphasize, “Identity is an important part of their group identity and, therefore, as an important part of themselves”(p.34). In 2008, I was able to attend a Treaty of Waitangi workshop where I had an unforgettable experience. Pihama et al. (2020) clarify, “The results of land wars, the theft and confiscation of Maori lands and the influence of imperial and continued colonising practises have contributed to the excessive levels of trauma that are experienced and affect whanau, hapu and iwi today” (p.26). The Maori facilitator of the workshop was crying while explaining to us, “We are still fighting with the past colonization but I believe it depends on if we accept as a victim or survivor, then we can be proud of ourselves. I want to encourage young Maori not to give up their life.” Both the facilitator and I were born into societies that experienced the trauma of colonization. However, McLaughlin (2011) considers, “vicarious survivors, those who were not directly affected by the traumatic experience but who have nevertheless suffered” (p.52). Here, I have a question, how do we transform from a victim to a survivor?
McLaughlin (2011) answered my question when describing the survivors of the Holocaust. “The narration of their personal stories and the finding of shared experiences led to the adoption of the name `second generation' and, in the process, personal experiences merged into collective identity” (p.56). He continues, “The desire to `know' a past that cannot be replicated, to remember as a process, not a recollection, has helped shape many children's Jewish identity around the shared trauma of the Holocaust” (p.56). I believe this process can also be applied to the experience of Maori and Japanese people. In addition, descendants do not have as much `retrospective conflict' as their ancestors who lived in the era of colonization. In other words, McLaughlin (2011) argues, “In this sense, aspects of what has been termed a 'culture of survivor hood' can be utilized in order to affect not only a personal narrative but also socio-political change” (p.64).
As a therapist, language is integral to my daily work. In the following section, I will discuss the relationship between language and identity.
Burr (2015) says, “We think of language as a bag of labels which we can choose from in trying to describe our internal states such as thoughts and feelings” (p.53). However, he continues, “I have suggested that our experience of ourselves and how we understand ourselves and others do not originate in pre-packaged forms inside us” (p.54). His words remind me of the Japanese ‘kuuki’ (air in English). For instance, Jung et al.(2023) discuss, “‘Kuuki-wo-yomu’ holds particular importance in Japanese society. Its literal translation means ‘reading the air,’kuuki wo yomu’ refers to attitudinal and behavioral patterns that Japanese exhibit in social groups.”
When I was young, my mother used to say to me, “It is your responsibility to read the air to respect others. But, you must also create your ‘Kuuki’ to let people understand what you want to say because direct words may hurt others.” This was a shock to me at the time as I did not know that both the speaker and the receiver carry responsibilities in their non verbal communication when trying to understand each other.
According to Burr (2015) “The idea that the structure of language determines the lines along which we divide up our experience is at the heart of what is referred to as structuralism”(p.58). He refers to Saussure’s study of structural linguistics in his discussion. The main concept of Saussurrurean linguistics is signs and linguistic signs are bilateral. He explained it by using an example. “There is the thing referred to ( dog, intelligence) and there is the word, the spoken sound, used to refer to it. Saussure gives these two parts different names - the spoken sound is the 'signifier', and the thing it refers to is the 'signified'” (p.59). It means the sound word (signifier) is an expression and the concept (signified) is the meaning. I can recount that my grandmother once told me, “After the GHQ colonized Japan, we used ‘kuuki wo yomu’ way of communication more often. We started using more onomatopoeia and the same Iinu as Okinawa people. They use these strategies to camouflage their conversations as a way to survive under the colonizer’s control. GHP people can speak Japanese but they cannot use ‘Kuuki wo yomu’ way of communication and understand our onomatopoeia.”
Burr (2015) demonstrates the effects of language:
The person you are, your experience, your identity, your personality are all the effects of language If language is indeed the place where identities are built, maintained and challenged, then this also means that language is the crucible of change, both personal and social.(p.61)
How did colonization impact these factors? Pihama et al. (2020) insist, “The impact that colonization has had on Maori identity has been highlighted and includes the inability to identify positively as Maori” (p.27). It can say colonization has the power to create a negative political identity through daily negative discourse.
When I was in Japan, I worked as a social worker for both victims of trafficking, and for World War II widows who worked as illegal prostitutes. Every year, there would be legal campaigns to arrest these women and prosecute them in court. My role was to interview them and submit their affidavit as their case manager. As part of this work, I had to be careful in the use of each word in the affidavits for my clients. From the poststructuralist theory, they emphasize a word could challenge or change a person’s identity. For instance, the use of “victim of world war II” rather than “prostitutes” would completely change the impression on the judge. Burr (2015) insists, “What it means to be a woman, to be a child or to be black could be transformed, reconstructed, and for poststructuralists’ language is the key to such transformations “(p.64). My efforts in conducting interviews with them were at times complicated. Burr (2015) refers to the fact that French does not have the word ‘mouton’ as same as English (p.59). I had similar experiences. For instance, some interpreters could not translate their mother-tongue in Japan because there were corresponding words. In addition, when I interviewed the Japanese client, I had to be aware of the risk of countertransference because I have indirect but generational trauma the same as my client. Figley (1988) says that even neighbours of victims of crime are affected in ways similar to the victim member (p.637).
Burr (2015) discusses:
“Wittgenstein used the term 'language game' to refer to these different social contexts. So, for example, within the 'language game' of psychology (which includes interactions within the academic discipline itself as well as the occasions when ordinary people draw upon psychological concepts in their everyday discourse), terms such as 'unconscious' and 'extravert' have shared meanings that facilitate the flow of interaction” (p.55).
In reality, I had to understand the client’s genuine feelings and thoughts by ‘reading air’ not only using the verbatim after the interview, otherwise, I could have misinterpreted their language because Japanese minimized the language game in our conversation.
Bowker & Levine (2018) argue:
“Here, what feels real is the experience of abandonment and the absence of relationships that facilitate self-contact and identity development rooted in the presence of self. If such experiences are shared (or imagined to be shared) by a group, and if that group comes to form a central part of the individual’s identity, then threats to the norms and fantasies of the group, in the form of triggering language or material, remind the individual that the loss of self he feels is also, paradoxically, “who he is.” (p.42).
Colonization is historical trauma that damages the spirit and the soul. In fact, Duran (2006 as cited in Pihama et al.2020) writes that within the Native community people talked of issues related to "spiritual injury, soul sickness, soul wounding, and ancestral hurt” regarding the past colonization.
McLaughlin (2011) proposes, “If the ability to speak out is empowering for the individual concerned and also for social justice, the wider survivor narrative can be co-opted within a framework that can be just as disempowering for the individuals concerned” (p.71). This sentence reminds me of the Japanese concept of ‘Ikigai’. “Ikigai means your ‘reason for being.’ ‘Iki’ in Japanese means ‘life,’ and ‘gai’ describes value or worth. Your ikigai is your life purpose or your bliss. It's what brings you joy and inspires you to get out of bed every day” (Eatough,2021).
My father once told me, “I hate America. When I was four years old, they chased me from a plane to try to hit me with a gun. I felt they enjoy hunting a rabbit. I gave you your name Ai (Love in English). Think about how your Ikigai helps people.” I am exploring whether I can introduce these traditional Japanese philosophies to Maori both in my professional work and private life as a means to moving forward.
Reference
Andermahr, S. (2015). Decolonizing trauma studies: Trauma and postcolonialism—Introduction. Humanities, 4(4), 500-505. https://doi.org/10.3390/h4040500
Burr, V. (2015). Social constructionism (3rd ed.). Taylor & Francis.
Eatough, E. (2021). What is ikigai and how can it change my life? BetterUp. https://www.betterup.com/blog/what-is-ikigai
Figley, C. R. (1988). Victimization, trauma, and traumatic stress. The Counseling Psychologist, 16(4), 635–641. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000088164005
Jung, Y., Kim, S., & Tanikawa, T. (2023). Toward a conceptualization of kuuki-wo-yomu (reading the air) in the Japanese organizational context. Culture and Organization, 29(4), 336-355. https://doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2023.2185780
McLaughlin, K. (2011). Surviving identity: Vulnerability and the psychology of recognition. Routledge.
Nippon.com. (2023, March 27). Number of suicides in Japan rises in 2022. [Graph]. https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h01624/
Pihama, L., Smith, L., Cameron, N., Te Nana, R., Kohu-Morgan, H. S., & Mataki, T. (2020). He oranga ngākau: Māori approaches to trauma informed care. Journal of Indigenous Wellbeing, 2(3), 18–31.
Statista Research Department. (2023, March 14). Number of suicide in Japan 2013-2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/622065/japan-suicide-number/
Turner,J (2020). ‘Reading the Air’ in Japanese Culture. JAPAN INSIDER. https://japaninsider.com/reading-the-air/
Wymer,B.,Guest, J.D.,Deaton,J.D.,Newton,T.L., Limberg,D., & Ohrt,J.J., (2020). Early career clinicians’ supervision experiences related to secondary traumatic stress when treating child survivors of sexual abuse. The Clinical Supervisor 39(2), 284-305. https://doi.org/10.1080/07325223.2020.1767253
