Fall 2009 Speaker Series

INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL STUDIES CERTIFICATE PROGRAM

“Post-racial Obama in Japan?

Struggles of Blood Ideology amid Calls for Change”

Dr. Christine Yano

Dept. Anthropology, UHM

This presentation examines race and the Obamamania phenomenon in Japan, particularly during Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and continuing through 2009. When asked, many of these fans claim that Obama’s race (whether African American or mixed) plays little or no part in his image or popularity, and that he thus heralds the possibility and acceptability of a “post-racial” figure. And yet, Japan is a country whose blood ideology persists. This ideology plays a part in defining who is or may be “Japanese,” whether legally or culturally. It is an ideology that combines with historic relations with the United States and American racialism. Barack Obama must therefore be placed within a history of African American encounters and images in Japan. In this presentation, I ask the following questions: How is Obama’s purported post-raciality inflected by persistent blood ideology in contemporary Japan? How does race take on different guises, whether vetted as commodity or nullified by humor?