We got 99 problems and Nationalism is probably a few of them

Welcome back, dear readers! This week, we’ll be tackling the subject of nationalism (which all of you should recognize as a familiar subject since it plays a large part in my Japanese studies scholarship and current portfolio work). ‘What is nationalism?’ you may ask. Well, let’s find out.

According to Ashcroft et. al in Post-Colonial Studies: They Key Concepts, the definition of nationalism is “the myth of nationhood, masked by ideology…in which specific identifiers are employed to create exclusive and homogenous conceptions of national traditions. Such signifiers of homogeneity always fail to represent the diversity of the actual ‘national’ community for which they purport to speak and…consolidate the interests of the dominant power groups within any national formation” (150). Is that definition a doozy, or what? Let’s try to unpack it with the example that came to my mind as I read to help contextualize it a little better.

Easter is a national holiday in the U.S., right? Doesn’t it seem a little funny to you that it’s a national holiday when in reality there are plenty of people who don’t celebrate it because they aren’t religious or celebrate a non-Christian religion? That’s a form of nationalism. When white people stole this land from the Indigenous peoples who were living here, they made their Christian beliefs and interests the be-all, end-all solution and did not take into account the views of others when creating their, for lack of better words, holiday system. “But everyone celebrates Easter/Christmas/etc.!” No, they don’t. White Christians do, and because they as colonizers hold the most power, their holidays (read: nationalism and nationalism tendencies) do not represent the beliefs of other people in America (especially people of color). You can’t tell me that there aren’t people who celebrate Jewish Passover instead of Easter, or Hanukkah, Kwanza, or Lohri instead of Christmas. But, because white is still very much the dominant power group in the U.S., nationalism says we ALL celebrate Christmas and Easter even if we don’t. There is generally no other representation on a similar scale.

Starting to get the big picture? Me too. So, let’s move on to this week’s assignment and start analyzing! I was very interested in the reading because I could finally see some of work I’m doing in my field of study applied to other cultures, which (I think) helped improve my understanding of the materials; however, I did struggle this week because there was a lot to work with and comprehend, so please bear with me. Even though I wanted to stay away from East Asia completely in this course, I’m not beginning to think that comparing new examples to the ones I’m familiar with will assist me in reading theory.

I began this week’s work with Frantz Fanon, one of most important names in the post-colonial realm. In his essay “On National Culture,” Fanon contends that “the cultural problem as it sometimes exists in colonized countries runs the risk of giving rise to serious ambiguities” (204). Fanon gave the example of “Negro and African Negro culture [breaking] up into different entities because the men who wished to incarnate these cultures realized that every culture is first and foremost national” (204). Think about that closely. Every culture is national. Why are we lumping black Americans in with black Ghanaians or black Algerians? Yes, they’re all black, but they’re also all different with different problems. This reminded me of the danger of the single-story; the danger with ambiguity is very similar in that cultures can get smashed together simply because they’re racially related (but not related by much else). This is why Fanon argues that the native intellectual exists both within his identity as a colonized subject and within his cultural identity; once the native intellectual recognizes both identities, he can then begin to utilize them to oppose the dominant ideology, helping his people and building up the nation. The nation building will form a national culture, which will hopefully then translate internationally. It sounds like a lot for one person to undertake, but it’s necessary hard work that will hopefully help to decolonize the minds of people who never belonged colonized in the first place.

Keeping in mind the latter half of my previous sentence, I’d like to switch to Aime Cesaire’s “From Discourse on Colonialism,” as I found his distinction between colonization and civilization completely enlightening. He poses the question, “has colonization really placed civilizations in contact?” (61) and goes on to explain that no, they haven’t. It’s a statement with which I agree, as every example I’ve ever seen demonstrates that colonization intentionally destroys pre-existing civilizations (usually in the name of God) to further a white (imperialist) agenda. Cesaire argues that “colonization = thingification,” (62) which I interpreted as the colonized peoples becoming an object to the colonizers post-colonization. This explains why the language used by colonizers for the colonized is always objective or animalistic in nature; colonizers don’t consider the colonized as people, only as toys or objects that are expendable when needed or not useful anymore. Despite trying to throw away the colonized people’s culture and forcefully instilling a new (white Christian) sense of nationalism within them, the colonizers still see their subjects as inhuman.

I think we can all agree by now that nationalism is a social and political construct, no? This is why Anderson says “nation-ness, as well as nationalism, are cultural artefacts” (4) and that nationalism is “an imagined political community” (6). If all cultures are national, then a culture’s idea of nationalism is of course going to be constructed from their particular ideas, ceremonies, and ways of life. This may be why it’s so hard for critics to concretely define nationalism in the first place. Most definitions (in addition to what most people think of when the word comes to mind) seem to involve a sense of community, but my whole thought while reading the Introduction was, “if the community is imagined, then is it really a community?” I tied this thought back once again to the idea of a single story – if you don’t know the members of your community, especially since its imagined, how can you be sure you all want the same things? This is why nationalism is a problem: because it pushes people together when it shouldn’t, sort of like the Japanese train conductors who use a stick and just keep packing people into the trains even though there’s clearly no room. (I still have nightmares, but that’s another story.

I’d like to conclude my blog post with a quote from Jameson’s in “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism.” On page 66, he writes, “there is nothing particularly disgraceful in having lived a sheltered life, in never having had to confront the difficulties, the complications and the frustrations of urban living, but it is nothing to be particularly proud of either.” I understand all too well as a white, middle-class woman that reading post-colonial work is hard, especially since most of us have only ever encountered white British or American literature for most of our lives. It’s okay to only be finding out about these issues now. I am, too. Going forward, we need to step out of our comfort zones, decolonize our minds, and hold ourselves accountable as we pick up new works from old (but new to us) writers that we should have been reading all along. It’s okay to still read the classics from the literary canon, but it’s better that we read other works to gain a more rounded worldview and expose the problematic doctrines that have hurt others for hundreds of year.

Stor(ies) Time: An Intro to Po-Co

Welcome back to the Pain Train, everybody – I bet you thought you’d seen the last of me! Well, fortunately for all of us, this train is painless and I’m back to have a conversation (or several) with you about post-colonialism. That’s right: I’ve got ANOTHER English project!

I’d like to start off my first blog post for ENG 551 by introducing myself. My name is Sam, and I’m a white, female, cisgender, lower-middle class student in a master’s program. Some of you may be thinking, “Why is all of that information necessary?” Well, this information is necessary because, contrary to the common thought that an individual has one identity, identities are actually made up of multiple components. Each word I listed describes just a piece of who I am – I would be incomplete without them.

When speaking to others, be it a friend who holds similar identities or a stranger who’s your polar opposite, it’s important to keep in mind that you come from a place of bias and need to be aware of that when sharing your thoughts. Before I began my master’s degree, none of those identities mattered to me; honestly, I didn’t even know they existed. However, when I took my Indigenous Rhetoric class (the course from which my previous blog posts stem), I was challenged to start thinking about who I am as a person in more than one way, using a both/and method instead of continuing to see myself (and my world views) as incapable of changing.

Despite growing up in a city full of diversity, my parents held a lot of sway over my views (read: I blindly adopted their views and never thought to question them). High school taught me everything about America and nothing about the rest of the world, and my undergraduate years primarily taught me about British Literature. It wasn’t until my semester abroad in Japan that I began to question my parents’ views and think of myself as an individual; Indigenous Rhetoric took that initial questioning a step further. It introduced me to the concept of settler colonialism and helped me realize not only that ‘yes, I’m a colonizer,’ but also that I have the voice and platform to push back against settler colonialism in academia as long as I ask those fighting against it if they need help (and back off if they say no). In light of this class, I hope to further expand upon my knowledge of settler colonialism and keep remembering that the people with whom I engage are multi-faceted; there are two sides to every story, you know.

Speaking of stories, I’d now like to transition to this week’s assignment. I was absolutely enthralled with Adichie’s TED talk; she was very relatable, and I was able to see pieces of myself in her story. For example, having recently completed my Indigenous Rhetoric project on the Ainu (which I’ll now be presenting at SAMLA in November), I’ve come to terms with how identity can determine who and who doesn’t have a voice. I’d like to think that I’m more conscious not only of how my own story has expanded to include multiple perspectives (whereas all throughout high school I had one perspective), but also of how that expansion doesn’t happen for a lot of people. In Subject Positions and Positioning, Davies and Harre note that “the contradictions one experiences between the constitution of various selves actually provides the dynamic for understanding,” (2) which I interpreted as ‘you won’t question the single story unless you’re given a reason to do so.’ What would have happened had I not studied abroad? Had I not decided to get a master’s degree? I think of these questions every day because they coincide with my identity (and privilege) as a white, lower-middle class woman. There could easily be other women in the world who hold the same views that I used to who will never have the opportunity to see another perspective due to socioeconomic status, just like there could be women out there have several opportunities to do so, yet chose to ignore them and remain willfully ignorant of the struggles of others. As I climb the proverbial ladder to the top (which will hopefully be my Ph.D.), I know Adichie’s words will stick with me: “when we reject the single story…we regain a kind of paradise” (TED Talk 18:20). Her warning has reinforced my determination as a (future) educator and scholar to not fall into the trap of one-sided lecturing. I need to show my students all sides of all stories, even if they’re ugly (looking at you, elementary school Thanksgiving “traditions” and curricula), and encourage them to think of themselves (and others) as ever-changing individuals who hold the power and knowledge to make a difference, especially if they’ve only ever seen the world through one story. The new story I now need to focus on is post-colonialism – I’m coming into this completely blind and am eager to learn (and un-learn, inevitably) about the subject and its discourse.

Considering the fact that this class is legitimately my first encounter with post-colonialism as a discipline, I didn’t really have much of a definition to begin with. My initial thought of it was something along the lines of, “non-Western and non-White societies that survived imperialism and are trying to put the pieces back together.” Needless to say, the definition in Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts (PCS) was particularly enlightening, as I had no idea that there was so much controversy around the name of the subject itself. In Indigenous Rhetoric, we discussed how settler colonialism was still happening in America because the colonizers never left; it was very interesting to read about similar discussions occurring in the po-co realm. I also found the definition of imperialism helpful; I particularly liked Said’s distinctions between imperialism and colonialism, with imperialism essentially being a cause and colonialism being an effect (Ashcroft, et al., 46). I think having PCS in our arsenal of reading materials is a great idea – now I won’t have to look terms up on the internet and pray to the web Gods that they’re accurate/not out of context/exist in the first place. I’m excited to see where the course will take me, and I’m glad you’re all back along for the ride. It’s story time.

Works Cited

Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffins, and Helen Tiffin. Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts. New York: Routledge. 1998.

Pinkus, Jenny. Subject Positions and Positioning. New Zealand: Massey University, 1996. https://www.massey.ac.nz/~alock/theory/subpos.htm

“The danger of a single story | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.” Youtube, uploaded by TED. 7 October 2009, https://youtu.be/D9Ihs241zeg.

Reflection and the Future: Research and Accountability

As this final post on my blog comes to a close, I’d like to reflect on my semester, overall findings, and future research. Prior to taking this Contemporary Indigenous Rhetoric course, I held many of the same incorrect generalizations about Indigenous groups that many other people do. I’m so happy to say that while I still don’t know everything about Indigenous groups or their struggles, I’ve expanded my knowledge base and am now armed with a plethora of information about their continued existence (because they never “left” in the first place, despite how hard white people tried to make them) that I’m ready to disseminate at the drop of a dime; the best part is that it’s information about both American/Canadian AND Japanese groups, all thanks to this blog’s ability to let me explore topics we didn’t discuss in class. Honestly, the hardest part of the course was figuring out how to get this blog’s queue function to work, LOL (still actually working on that, which is why my last four posts look like they’re all from today – sho ga nai, ne?).

My biggest takeaway from this course is something that I’ve said in my blog posts before and will reiterate here once again: why do one thing when we can do both/and? Why should I just focus on Indigenous peoples in my own country when I can do that AND focus on others who are also struggling internationally? Why should I just talk about these issues in this course when I can do that AND create ways to bring the discussion to the whole campus? If Indigenous writers can doubly code their writing and art to BOTH reach a wider audience and cater to their own people, why can’t I do that with my future projects and research? The point is, now that I’ve been exposed to different types of Indigenous rhetoric, I want to pay it forward and do the same for other people.

So, it made it my mission to start doing so little by little. My first task was to ask Kahna, Kayla, and Eddie if they wanted help with publicity for their Indigenous Writer’s Lunch event since I write the university press releases. They said yes! So, I wrote the press release and made sure the whole campus (and local media outlets) knew about it two weeks in advance. Whether or not it reached that broader audience, I can’t be sure, but I did something, which is more than I would’ve done in the past. I then chose to turn this series of blog posts into a conference proposal that I’ve since submitted to the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, which I never would’ve thought to do had the both/and concept never been introduced to me – I would’ve stuck with a boring article that people probably wouldn’t have read. The conference proposal gives me access to a wider audience and also lets me test out the art of oral storytelling, which lets me pay homage to the group on whom I’m presenting. My next goal is to set up an Indigenous Art & Rhetoric Conference at Kutztown before I graduate next spring; I’ve since mentioned the idea to Kayla and Kahna, and we’re headed to one of the Kutztown Composition Conference organizers this week to see if she can help us out. My goal is to have arts, science, and literature included in the conference, as well as to invite Indigenous students and artists in the area to come and display their work. Even if it’s only for half a day, accomplishing this conference will be more than I set out to do when I first started my graduate career here at KU.

All of the things we’ve read/watched for class have been full of so much creativity (not only because Indigenous media just is, but also because it’s had to be in the past in order to get its message across) that it’s rubbed off on me and made me rethink the way I present myself and my research. While I hadn’t initially thought to include the Ainu in my capstone project, I’ve found that they’ve slowly nestled their way in and fit perfectly in my synthesis paper about the dangers of passive Japanese media consumption and why it’s important to recognize political undertones in Japanese pop culture and hold ourselves accountable. In short, to fully appreciate Japan in a healthy way, viewers must learn to see Japan outside of its stereotypical image and examine its problems (and how they penetrate media and entertainment), with one of these problems being the lack of Ainu visibility and representation, among various other problems. The more I let my audience know that these problems exist and that it’s important to try and keep them in the limelight to aid the Ainu, the closer we get to actually being heard. As you’ve read about in my blog, the Ainu population may be dwindling, but they’re still coming on strong to defend their rights and their land (and rightly so!). Now that I know about Indigenous struggles and contemporary Indigenous groups, I keep a whole other type of audience in mind when I write simply because I know that they exist, and that they listen – the least I can do is listen back and help if they’ll allow me to do so.

Well, my dear audience, you know the story of the Ainu and where they’re headed, and now you know my story and where I’m headed. I leave you with some closing words in the tradition of Thomas King’s The Truth About Stories: Take my story and the story of the Ainu – they’re yours now. Tell them to your friends, tell them to your family, tell them to the world, or don’t tell them at all. But, don’t forget them. And don’t tell me you would’ve lived your life differently if only you had known about them. You do now.

So, where are you headed?

The Ainu on Social Media

Welcome back, friends! Today, I’d like to really put my multi-modal motto to the test. I know I’ve exposed you to newspaper articles, academic articles, my classmates’ presentations, and various YouTube links to music videos or short interviews; however, I want to take the time to explore social media trends! In particular, I’m going to examine the hashtags #Ainu and #porotokotan on both Twitter and Instagram to see how the Ainu are faring on social media real time. Since I’m using my phone to do this, it’ll be harder for me to put links here on the blog; so, I recommend you follow along with me! Now, let’s get down to business.

To begin my search, I logged in to Twitter and typed #Ainu in the search bar. I then clicked on “Latest” instead of “Top” because I was curious on what was most recently posted. I was both shocked (and maybe pleasantly surprised?) to find that the first post was from an account called @AinuHateCounter and was made only minutes ago. So, I clicked on the account and began trying to read and translate the tweets. From what I could discern, the account functions as a bot that detects hate speech against the Ainu and counters it with facts or truth to disprove the hate. The bot also retweets scholar Mark Winchester, who specializes in Ainu history and has had work published in The Asia-Pacific Journal(remember the Morris-Suzuki article, anyone?). So, not only does this tell me that there’s an academic twitter for Ainu issues (yes!), but there’s also people out there who are actively working to make sure that discrimination against and misinformation about the Ainu are stopped. Most of the other tweets in the #Ainu feed are from Winchester himself, this same bot, actual Ainu people who are open about their heritage, and other people who happen to have “ainu” as a part of their names. Satisfied with my search, I’ll now move on to the next hashtag.

Searching #Porotokotan on Twitter was definitely…interesting to say the least. The first thing that comes up is a user, @porotokotan22, who has absolutely nothing to do with the Ainu or the museum; instead, they seem to sleep a lot and promote Japanese idol games. Strange? Yes. Shocking? Not really. Most of the other posts in the hashtag include your run-of-the-mill pictures and videos of people’s previous trips to the village before its official closing in March 2018. However, there was one interesting tweet from February 6 from a user named @Ben_Steiner. He mentioned the existing Porotokotan village in Shiraoi and called it sad, but then he also mentioned gambling. I did some digging and found that he was responding to an article from Gambling News that suggested Hokkaido could get a casino license and partner with the Hard Rock company to build a hotel, casino, monorail, and Broadway theater – what? While I highly doubt these claims, it’s definitely something I’ll be keeping on my radar in the near future. But, knowing the Japanese government and how little they like to involve the Ainu in their dealings, it wouldn’t terriblyshock me if any of the above mentioned actually happened.

Now, to move to Instagram. Similar to my Twitter investigation, I typed #Ainu in the search bar and clicked on “Recent” instead of “Top” to get a feel for what’s going on in the hashtag in real time. The very first thing that popped up was what appeared to be a bracelet. So, I clicked on the user’s profile, @ninkari_kana, and was pleasantly surprised to find that she’s a Ainu woman who’s making her own ninkari, which is a metal ring with a ball on it typically traditionally worn like an earring. There were also other Ainu women on Instagram showcasing their craftwork with small, handmade embroidery brooches and other accessories. For me, seeing this reinforced the reading I’d been doing about the Ainu cultural revival and how the women were contributing; it was so cool to see the products first-hand and read about their methods and materials. Of course, my luck ran short, as I soon began seeing accounts that had nothing to do with the Ainu marketing “official” or “traditional” Ainu goods to attract buyers for their products. When you see things like these and can confirm that they’re selling bogus items and using someone else’s culture for money without experiencing their oppression (see: cultural appropriation), report them! While it may not seem like much, it’s still helping to encourage people to find real Ainu people to buy from if they’re interested in craftwork. Help support the Ainu communities by buying from them, not from non-Ainu vendors trying to cash in on the raising support for the Ainu.

Last, but not least, I investigated the Porotokotan hashtag on Instagram. While it made me very sad because the museum is now closed (and by the time I get back to Japan, the old museum will be gone and the new museum will be open in its place), I was also happy to see that people were still posting about their experiences there and raving about not only the beauty of Shiraoi, but also how amazing the Ainu museum staff and dancers were at their jobs. In fact, one user, @morimura_shan, even noted that Porotokotan isn’t on any travel guides; this is because the Ainu do not want to attract a bunch of tourists for money – that’s not who they are. The Ainu want people to come to their museum because they wantto come take the time to travel to Shiraoi and learn about the Ainu history and culture. That’s why this new museum makes me so angry – it was never about tourists for the Ainu, but that seems to be all the government cares about. So, what can we do to combat this tourist-as-solution idea? We make sure that the Japanese government consults the Ainu, and not just the higher ups in the Hokkaido Association (which, if you remember, only represents 10-20% of the Ainu population). Call them out on Twitter, keep asking about the plans and where the money is going, question the laws and how it’ll help the people. All it takes is one person to start a movement.

In conclusion, I encourage you to keep exploring social media to see what you can find on the Ainu! Don’t let the language barrier stop you! Ask questions, be patient, and listen with your ears and your heart. Who knows? You might just find a home among the Ainu-Ally social media community.

The Ainu in Japanese Popular Culture

For this post, I’d like to take a quick venture into Japanese pop culture and explore what the Ainu are producing in the entertainment industry. In one of my previous posts, I introduced you all to Oki Kano and the Oki Dub Ainu Band. While he is one of the leading Ainu artists, he’s not the only one making waves in the Japanese music industry.

Formed in 2011, the musical duo IMERUAT has also begun to garner attention both in Japan and internationally. The duo is comprised of Mina Sakai, former member of the Ainu Rebels, which was a popular Ainu performance group active from 2006-2010 that fused Ainu dances and language with hip-hop and rock (and even performed at the United Nations Indigenous Peoples Summit in 2008 – videos available on YouTube), and Masashi Hamauzu, who is best known as one of the primary composers for many of the video games in the Final Fantasyseries. The group’s websiteproudly lists all of their singles and albums, some of which were for the Final Fantasy games (especially Final Fantasy XIII), as well as discloses Mina’s Ainu heritage (as does her homepage of her own website). Mina has always been proud of her Ainu heritage, and initially formed the Ainu Rebels with her brother and childhood friends to spread Ainu culture through music, which she thought everyone could connect to. She practices rhetorical sovereignty in her works, singing not only in the Ainu language, but also in English and Japanese to reach a broader audience. The simple fact that many video game fans recognize her as one of the voices of Final Fantasyand continually praise her work demonstrates that she’s achieving her goal of inviting everyone to listen to and enjoy her craft while simultaneously showing them the beauty of the Ainu language and culture.

Before Umeko Ando’s death, she achieved a similar feat with her work on the popular anime series Samurai Champloo. Her song “Pekambe Uk” was featured in one of the later episodes in the series, which was dedicated in her honor after her passing. Her credit on the episode, in combination with the beauty of the song, encourages people to look up her work and (once they discover she is Ainu and has worked with Oki Kano) check out other Ainu artists and the Ainu in general.

Moving on to film, Ainu actor Takashi Ukaji has recently been in the spotlight for his work in three of the Kamen Riderfilms, as well as in the recent Kingdom! live-action film based on the popular manga series. The Kamen Rider Serieshas been running since the 1970s and consists of a franchise that includes a manga series, several anime series, several tv series, and a film series. It is one of the most popular metaseries in Japan and has made a huge impact on the Japanese superhero/action genre, out of which many new series (like the ever-popular Boku No Hero Academia)have spawned in recent years. His partaking in the Kamen Rider Seriesalso serves to reinforce that the Ainu are indeed here (not a people of the past) and part of Japanese popular culture (whether the Japanese want it or not).

There are even non-Ainu Japanese individuals who support Ainu culture. One of these individuals is Japanese composer Akira Ikufube. Ikufube is best known for creating the film scores for the Godzilla series. One of the films for which Ikufube used Ainu-inspired music was King Kong vs. Godzilla, which is being re-made into Godzilla vs. Kongset for release in 2020. No doubt, this remake will cause people to go back and watch the original film, exposing them to the Ainu-inspired music and chanting, which will hopefully encourage them to explore Ainu culture. Another non-Ainu Japanese individual who supports Ainu culture is none other than famous manga artist Satoru Noda. Noda is most famous for the outrageously popular contemporary manga series, Golden Kamuy, which recently received its own anime adaptation. Noda constantly works with an Ainu linguistic specialist to incorporate Ainu words, phrases, and cultural aspects into the manga. The popularity of the manga and anime series have helped to contribute to the Ainu cultural revival, as many people have begun to take more interest in the Ainu (which could even be a deciding factor of why the Japanese government finally declared the Ainu as Indigenous this year, don’t you think?).

As you can see, the Ainu have been working their way into Japanese media for a long time, and with the Ainu being in the limelight due to popular anime and film series especially, I think it is safe to say that they are not going anywhere any time soon. The Ainu have loudly and proudly staked their claim, though small, in the entertainment industry – all we have to do is keep supporting them! I welcome you to investigate the artists and series above; you never know what will pique your interest. Next post, I’ll be exploring the Ainu on social media platforms – maybe we’ll find even more artists to add to the list above. Until next time!

The Importance of Integrating Indigenous Rhetoric

I’m going to briefly take a break from my exploration of Ainu issues at the beginning of this blog post in favor of reflecting on a presentationof my classmates’—Kayla,Kahna, and Eddie—final project and then explaining why the groundwork that they laid in their presentation is important to integrating Indigenous issues into the school experience (after which I’ll tie all of this back to the Ainu, of course).

Kayla, Kahna, and Eddie decided to hold an Indigenous Writer’s Lunch as their final project, which I thought was a great idea to introduce Indigenous peoples and issues to college students. Kahna made native Tacos, which consisted of taco meat on fry bread, and the three of them invited their audience to speak with them and ask questions throughout the presentation. Before they got started, they even performed a land acknowledgement and blessing, which you could see really impact the students in the audience. Most people don’t think about who the land their homes, schools, and workplaces belongs to, so the fact that Kahna, Kayla, and Eddie took the time to do so seemed to, for lack of better words, get the gears in their heads turning without the presenters having to address the audience directly. People sat up a little straighter and nodded their heads in acknowledgement, completely enthralled with what else the presenters had to say. The reason I go into so much detail about the audience’s reaction is because I want everyone to know that the topic of land and Indigenous peoples doesn’t have to be a “sore subject” or difficult to talk about. It seems as though many teachers are afraid to broach the subject in their classes because they’re afraid of offending people, but the way the presenters addressed the topic proves that you can acknowledge Indigenous peoples and their struggles without starting a fight or being aggressive about how that information is presented.

Moving on to the actual presentation, Eddie focused on discussing John Trudell, his activism at and after Alcatraz, and his lasting impact on the Indigenous community. The clip he showed of Trudell from the documentary, Trudell, even included Wilma Mankiller, yet another pioneer in the Indigenous community, praising Trudell for his wit and intelligence. Eddie picked specific quotes from Trudell’s work, which included formal interviews, informal interviews, and a performance, and explained them both in context of Alcatraz and how the issues back then still persist today. He was able to contextualize the past in the present and let the audience know that Indigenous people still exist, which was surprising to many of the students watching the presentation. It shouldn’t be shocking, though, because we should be learning about these events in school. I’m a master’s student in college, yet I had never heard of the Alcatraz takeover until three months ago – no wonder the undergraduates in the audience didn’t know about it either. It’s important that these events be included in modern history classes not only to erase the trope of the “vanishing Indian,” but also to help students become more socially aware and globally competent. If we want a future full of bright students and equality, we need to stop hiding major events like these simply because they don’t involve the majority (read: white people).

Kahna continued to explain that Indigenous peoples do indeed exist in the present, as she is living proof! A lot of the students in the audience were shocked at her meme that said “‘you don’t look indigenous’ ‘yeah, well you don’t look Polish, either’.” The fact that people still rely on a person’s physical features to tell “where they’re from” or “what they are” is so, so sad; its proof that racism and prejudice still exist today, even though many argue that they don’t. It’s yet another reason why it’s important for people today to know that Indigenous peoples still exist and are thriving in the music, literature, fashion, and gaming industries, among others. Kahna even read some of her poetry – which was so powerful and absolutely beautiful that it made people in the audience cry – to show that Indigenous peoples aren’t all living on reservations shut off from the world, they’re screaming from rooftops that they exist, that they deserve rights and respects, and that they matter. It was amazing when the girl in the red sweater reinforced that Kahna was a scholar when Kahna started to doubt herself; here, this girl had just come in to listen to their presentation for extra credit for a class, but she was already absorbing the presenters’ information and being supportive in response. She wanted to know more! This just goes to show that you can’t always assume that talking about a subject that hasn’t typically been heard before isn’t going to be of interest to anyone; support people openly, tell your friends about things you learn about the Indigenous community. If you have questions, ask an Indigenous person! Kahna had repeatedly expressed that (white) people were afraid to ask her questions and would instead make incorrect assumptions. It never hurts to ask, especially if you’re looking for the right information to correct the wrong/inaccurate information we learned in school growing up (take, for example, the “Native Americans giving up their land to the Pilgrims” lie we learned in first grade as we made “Indian head bands”). Willingness to listen and learn is the first right step you can take in re-educating yourself about Indigenous peoples.

To conclude the presentation, Kayla discussed water and land sovereignty, which even required the use of Google because people asked questions. Needless to say, no one in the audience knew the ongoing issues with oil pipelines, their effects on the environment, or the fact that they were being built on reservations because white townships didn’t want them running through their land. Almost everyone in the audience then asked how they could find out about this news since it was never covered on regular news outlets, as well as what they could do to help. Luckily, the presenters thought ahead and not only made the stable PowerPoint presentation that I linked above and filled it with shortcuts to all different types of Indigenous artists, media, and news sites, but they also made a small pamphlet that contained even more information. A small presentation like this (with so much care and thought put into it) is all it took to get the audience interested in Indigenous issues. See how easy it is? Talk about things. Ask questions. Don’t ignore it just because you’re not Indigenous.

I bet you’re wondering, ‘Sam, why are you telling me all of this?’ Well, dear reader, I’m telling you all this because I want you to see that this information isn’t hard to incorporate into modern education curricula. Kahna even included one in her presentation on how to incorporate Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thievesinto a classroom setting. It’s not hard to introduce the proper information or include more than the white British or American perspective, especially considering that our schools all side on Indigenous land. You just have to be willing to do the work and stand up for what’s right – and what’s right is not only including the Indigenous perspective, but startingwith it in the first place. It’s not like people won’t be interested (see above for examples).

Now I bet you’re thinking, ‘Okay, but how does this relate to the Ainu? Isn’t that what your blog is about?’ It is! As you know from previous posts, the Japanese education curricula is also lacking information in the Indigenous peoples’ department. How do we fix this? We petition for updated textbooks that do not downplay the injustices to the Ainu. We help them raise money to make one themselves if that first solution fails. We ask them if and how they’d like us to help, and if they don’t want our help, we support their efforts from afar. The main point is that we stop learning the old lies and start telling people the truth about what happened in the history books. You don’t have to be aggressive in the way you do it; there are multiple, age-appropriate ways to learn, but you have to want to teach that way in the first place. We start with ourselves, de-colonize our methods to include Indigenous perspectives (like they always should have been), and then go from there. It won’t happen overnight, but we can at least start being the change we want to see in the world and implementing the way we want to see taught in our own teachings.

The Ainu and Academia Pt. 2

This blog post is the second part to my introduction to the Ainu in academia – welcome back! For this post, I found an article by Kinko Ito and Paul A. Crutcher titled “An Oral History of a Young Ainu Mother: Tomoyo Fujiwara Talks about Her Experiences in Contemporary Japan” that focuses solely on the experiences of an Ainu woman growing up in Hokkaido. I thought it would be interesting to look at because most of the other articles we’ve read up until now only mention brief interviews with Ainu, but do not focus solely on their opinion. Fujiwara-san’s perspective is heavily included throughout the later pages of the article, which is great since my entire goal of this blog is to get people to listen to the Ainu – Ito and Crutcher do exactly that in the hopes that people will read Fujiwara-san’s story and begin treating the Ainu people and culture with the respect and equality that they deserve.

Like most articles, this article begins with a brief background of the Ainu. However, it differs in the sense that it begins by including old descriptions of the Ainu (by white people) that rely on their facial features to distinguish them from Japanese people; then, the article discusses how some wajin consider themselves Ainu (if adopted or raised by/in Ainu an Ainu community) even though they look Japanese and continue preserving the Ainu culture because that’s how they were raised (Ito & Crutcher 138). Upon reading this section, I thought of two things: the first was my classmate Kahna’s meme about white people telling her she doesn’t “look Indian” and her response being ‘you don’t look Polish either Susan,’ and the second being the American blood quantum laws used to identify people as Native American. The blood quantum reminds me of how problematic DNA tests to “prove you’re Native American” are simply because not only can no DNA test genetically prove that someone is Indigenous, but using a DNA test to try and do so ultimately “proves” that you don’t actually care about Indigenous peoples or issues – you just want the “Indigenous card” to use as a party story. These wajin raised in Ainu communities may not be Ainu themselves, but they feel a deep connection to the community and the people and want to continue preserving Ainu traditions – in a sense, they’ve experienced the Ainu way of life and grown up with the issues and want to help their people, which is, for lack of better words, what being an Ainu is really about. The reason I explain this to you is because I want you to remember that someone’s culture is not your costume or conversation starter – stop telling people you have an “Indian grandma” when you’re European. Stop it.

I’d now like to move on to Fujiwara-san; I thought that her testament to life growing up was both interesting and terribly, terribly sad. I say sad because even though she notes that she never experienced the discrimination and hardships that some of her peers or even her parents did, she still felt the need to change her sense of self according to what other people might think of her if she was openly proud of her Ainu heritage. Fujiwara-san and her family all claim that they are proud of their Ainu heritage, yet she was constantly given mixed signals about how to feel about it as she grew up. For example, when he father would use Ainu words in conversations at home, Fujiwara-san said she and her sisters would laugh and question why he used the words, noting that she uses Ainu words “for fun” (Ito & Crutcher 145). Even at home, Fujiwara-san had become ashamed of her Ainu identity; this was mostly due in part to her parents encouraging her to, in a sense, assimilate. Fujiwara-san noted, “My parents have a pride in their heritage, but did not want me or my sisters to marry an Ainu” (Ito & Crutcher 149). Specifically, Fujiwara-san’s parents not only did not encourage her to marry an Ainu man, but they also warned her that if she did, her children and grandchildren could have trouble because of it. Her upbringing at home, coupled with her thoughts that she could become an outcast if she displayed pride in her Ainu heritage (which became more prevalent the older she got), caused Fujiwara-san to grow up with doubts about herself and conflicting identities. She claims that she wants to help her people, but is scared to do so because it would mean revealing herself as an Ainu.

Clearly, Fujiwara-san’s testimony further reinforces that the Ainu people are still here and are still experiencing social injustices. Luckily, this has not stopped her from wanting to pass the culture down to her own children. Her story is just one of many in the Hokkaido community that will continue to be a part of the Ainu cultural revival, even if it is only indirectly.

Work Cited

Ito, Kinko and Paul A. Crutcher. “An Oral History of a Young Ainu Mother: Tomoyo Fujiwara Talks about Her Experiences in Contemporary Japan.” Japanese Studies Review, vol. 22, 2018, pp. 137-154.

The Ainu and Academia Pt. 1

Instead of examining another newspaper article pertaining to Ainu issues, I want to instead explore the Ainu in academia for my next two posts. I found an amazingly informative and thorough peer-reviewed article by Tessa Morris-Suzuki, a professor of Japanese History at the Australian National University, titled “Performing Ethnic Harmony: The Japanese Government’s Plans for a New Ainu Law.” This article both addresses the build-up to the law that was passed in February, as well as echoes the concerns of Kano and Shimizu (Ainu individuals) from my previous blog post.

Unlike the newspaper articles released when the law was passed, this article examined exactly what the law is intended to do, as well as fully expanded upon the government’s plans for a new Ainu museum. Naturally, what I found was absolutely infuriating, and I hope it infuriates you, too. Take the very first few pages of the article, for example, which detail an interview with Ainu activist Ryoko Tahara. Tahara noted the Ainu “called for education and culture, the elimination of discrimination, employment measures, an autonomy fund and many things. But the law that has been passed is an Ainu culture law. This is not a law that Ainu alone can make use of. Rather it benefits wajin [non-Ainu Japanese]” (Morris-Suzuki 2). Just like Kano and Shimizu, Tahara was rightfully concerned that the law did not benefit the Ainu people themselves. The law does not prevent any non-Ainu from receiving government support for conducting research or events on the Ainu, which is a major problem because there’s no point in having an Ainu law if it’s going to benefit everyone else and their mother. The government is only focusing on parts of Ainu culture that can bring in revenue; naturally, the Ainu people themselves can’t do that because they themselves need economic help. How is this bill going to help strengthen the economies of the Ainu communities? Newsflash: it’s not.

The article also notes in multiple places that most government Ainu representation, like the Advisory Council for Future Ainu Policy, include little-to-no Ainu members, with the former organization having “just one Ainu member” (Morris-Suzuki 3). What’s worse is that even in organizations run by Ainu people, the overall Ainu population are not properly represented, especially considering the fact that Karafuto Enchiw and Chishima Ainu are not included at all. One of the ugliest statistics in the entire article was “some 80-90% of the recognized Ainu population do not have any input into the policies of the [Ainu Association of Hokkaido]. It is, therefore, not a representative body for the community as a whole, and there is indeed no overall representative body for the Ainu community” (Morris-Suzuki 5).

The Ainu Association of Hokkaido was the only Ainu organization involved in the government process leading up to the creation of the bill and the museum plans, which is terrifying considering those statistics. All conversations about the bill took place behind closed doors with only 286 Ainu in attendance (Morris-Suzuki 6), which is indicative that the government doesn’t actually care about the Ainu people – only about how much money it can make off of the Ainu culture. This new museum, which will consist of a complex housing four concrete buildings that will stand on the former Porotokotan museum (which is infuriating in itself, no?!), will be under the control of the Japanese Government. Morris-Suzuki comments, “It is worth noting that [Porotokotan], which had been created in the 1960s by the local community itself, operated under a more flexible set of rules, while the new National Ainu Museum is firmly under state control and will be subject to higher levels of government scrutiny” (5). Once again, the Japanese government is swooping in, taking the Ainu community’s livelihood away from them, and rebranding it in order to make themselves look better and bring in revenue. I was further appalled once I realized the grand opening timeline for the museum: April 2020, right in time for the 2020 Olympics being held in Tokyo. I originally suspected that the Ainu law and new museum would be a tourist trap not intended to benefit the Ainu communities, and I’m disgusted that I was right. Of course, none of these details are in popular media article, so anyone reading about this will not realize the true intentions behind the museum.

While I like that academia is focusing on these issues since they’re important, the only downfall to them is that articles in academic spaces is the lack of accessibility to non-academic readers. People looking into this new law and the Ainu people will generally only encounter news articles from major media outlets, which (as I’ve examined in my earlier posts and you can see in this article) do not give them the “big picture” and tend to be derogatory in nature, even if unintentionally. That’s why I’m bringing this article and the article in my next blog post to the table – to show my readers that they should dig deeper than Smithsonian Mag and The Japan Times. It’s okay to love Ainu culture, but if you’re going to do that, you should recognize the people (any issues they’re having) and show your support for them, not just their craft. (I strongly recommend that you read the full article and post about it too! There’s so much to cover in it, but I didn’t want to talk your ears off today!)

To end this post on a lighter note, I do want to point out that Morris-Suzuki notes “the National Ainu Museum will not present a single static ‘Ainu culture’, but will try to link the past to the present…the museum will highlight ways in which traditional Ainu culture is being refashioned in new media through creative works” (8). This aspect of the museum sounds promising, as the goal of many Indigenous peoples is to let others know that they still exist, which seems to be the goal of this museum. While I’m still suspicious of the plans and how the museum will benefit the Ainu community, we may just be able to hold out some hope that this truly is a step in the right direction. However, we need to remember that this museum is not a means to an end; rather, it should be the beginning of the Japanese government’s path to the apology and reparations they owe the Ainu.

Work Cited

Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. “Performing Ethnic Harmony: The Japanese Government’s Plans for a New Ainu Law.” The Asia-Pacific Journal, vol. 16, is. 21, no. 2, 2018, pp. 1-18.

The Trope of the “Vanishing” Ainu and Oki Kano: They Are Still Here

For this post, I’d like to introduce a news article that’s the opposite of the two I’ve previously reviewed, as it doesn’t appear to try to cover up or downplay the atrocities and injustices associated with Ainu-Japanese relations. It mentions the conflicts and revolts that erupted between the 1400s and 1800s, only refers to the Ainu in the past tense when discussing possible early Ainu origins, and uses words like “forced” and “conquered” when discussing how the Japanese treated the Ainu once they began the process of colonizing and then assimilating. It too seems skeptical about the new Ainu museum, as it is one of the very few articles I’ve seen that acknowledges not only that the Ainu (and ally) opinion that the museum has the possibility for “turning the Ainu into a cultural exhibit,” but also that no Ainu were consulted by the Japanese government as they drafted the bill.

Perhaps the reason for this change in wording that the article comes from Hong Kong’s CNN; with Hong Kong only recently being released from Britain’s lease (in 1997, to be exact), it’s possible that the Chinese people living there have a deeper compassion for and understanding of the Ainu struggle against settler colonialism. Regardless, it was refreshing to see an article that not only talks about the new bill and its problems (like I’ve pointed out in my other posts), but also references the Ainu in the present tense.

What I immediately found interesting about this article was the headline “Japan’s ‘vanishing’ Ainu will finally be recognized as indigenous people,” with the author explaining that “for decades, researchers and conservative Japanese politicians described the Ainu as ‘vanishing’.” Once again, this sounds pretty familiar, doesn’t it? The trope of the “vanishing Indian,” in which people refer to American Indigenous peoples in the past tense (like they’re extinct), has been prevalent in American society – and still is even today –, despite various Indigenous attempts to demonstrate that they are still here. Due to decreasing numbers in the Ainu population caused by to colonialism and cultural stigma, it is no surprise that the Japanese have taken up a similar way of referring to the Indigenous group of Hokkaido, even though people like Oki Kano are attempting to demonstrate otherwise.

Upon connecting with his Ainu heritage, Kano took up learning the tonkori, a traditional Ainu instrument. However, Kano was forced to learn how to play by listening to old cassette tapes, as it was difficult to find a tonkori master among the dwindling Ainu population. According to the article, only 13,000 Ainu people comprised the group’s population in 2017. Only two of those people are fluent native speakers of the language. Two. Because the Ainu never had a written language system, it was easy for the Japanese to come in and erase their language, their entire heritage, because the Ainu relied on oral tradition. Let that sink in.

However, Kano prevailed in his ability to learn the tonkori, as he started the Oki Dub Ainu group in 2005 and even created his own record label specifically for Ainu music. Although their website is in Japanese, you can see their extensive discography and feel their hope for the future (on in which the Ainu are included) through their music, which can be found on both Spotify and Youtube. Kano uses Ainu, English, and Japanese in his lyrics, and his love for reggae music is heavily apparent in his music. This blending of styles is further indicative of his hopes to bring Ainu music to the forefront and let people know that the Ainu are a people of the past.

Kano, just like Mai Ishihara from the Smithsonian Mag article in my last blog post, became inspired by Indigenous people in America taking pride in their heritage and decided to connect to his Ainu roots. Unsurprisingly, Kano notes that his mother only told him of his Ainu heritage when he was 20 due to shame and lasting cultural stigma; however, even among the Ainu, Kano met with resistance. He recalled that when he first visited his father in Hokkaido, “some Ainu rejected [him] for having grown up outside of the community, saying he would never fully understand the suffering they had endured under Japanese rule.” This intra-prejudism is disappointing, but comprehensible due to Kano’s Japanese upbringing, and is also prevalent here in the US among some Indigenous peoples.

Tribe elder Yuji Shimizu recalled that he faced heavy discrimination and bullying from Japanese children growing up, with many of them calling him a dog. It’s understandable that other elders and Ainu did not accept Kano because he could’ve easily participated in this discrimination, as he had no sense of the Ainu until he became an adult. I’d also like to point out that the Japanese word for dog, “inu,” exists within the word Ainu (with the word Ainu obviously being older since the Ainu are Indigenous to Japan), which makes me wonder if the Japanese didn’t develop “inu” on purpose after colonizing the Ainu in the fourteenth century. It’s something that I’ll definitely be looking into in the future.

In closing, I want to focus on Kano and Shimizu’s arguments that the bill lacks “atonement,” “grants too much power to Japan’s central government,” and supports Ainu heritage more than it does the Ainu people (which isn’t surprising since the government is trying to turn the Ainu into a tourist attraction). Shimizu in particular is adamant about increasing the number of Ainu who finish high school and go onto higher education, as he laments, “if that doesn’t happen, the Japanese will always control our culture.” What Shimizu says is both terrifying and accurate. Unless the Ainu cultural revival gains more support, the Ainu risk becoming nothing but public displays for the Japanese to show off and claim when it’s convenient while continuing their social degradation of the group. In order for this not to happen, we need to start holding the Japanese accountable and supporting Ainu wherever we can. We can start by supporting musicians like Kano, examining bills as they’re written, and bring Ainu culture into the light. Don’t let the Japanese hide it again. I know I won’t.

Work Cited

Jozuka, Emiko. “Japan’s ‘vanishing’ Ainu will finally be recognized as indigenous people.” CNN, 22 April 2019.

Ainu in the Spotlight: Smithsonian Mag’s Article and the Problems with It

For this post, I’ve decided to focus solely on the Smithsonian Magazine’s article because there’s so much to learn from it. Of course, the article is problematic in spots, which I’ll get to in just a bit, but it also demonstrates that the Ainu are actively participating in rhetorics of survivance despite declining population numbers.

Now, to begin with venting my frustrations. The language in this article and the explanations given by some of the (white) people interviewed feel so contradictory at times that I can’t stand it. It’s like they’re walking on eggshells trying not to offend anyone. One of the worse examples is when the author talks about the “physical diversity” of her students and starts naming different countries (even referencing American indigenous groups) as she recalls the faces of her students and what their features reflected. Disgusting. You don’t get to look at a person and decide their heritage or ethnicity based on their facial features. That’s not how it works. Naturally, it’s unsurprising that the author makes comments along those lines and tries to recount her experiences from teaching and compare it to what’s going on now, even though they’re not related. That’s what colonizers do – make it about them instead of about the people being hurt by their settler colonialism. She neglects to acknowledge that this isn’t her story. It’s not her place to talk about herself and her experiences when she’s writing an article that’s supposedly trying to bring light to a group of people who have little-to-no voice.

In favor of moving on to more direct problems involving the Ainu, I’ll cap my rant about settler colonialism for now in favor of illuminating another injustice that has occurred (and is most likely still occurring to some degree) in Hokkaido that affects the Ainu. This such injustice is the lack of history textbooks that include Hokkaido itself, let alone the Ainu. Kato, one of the researchers interviewed in the article, grew up in Hokkaido but said school only taught him about Honshu because the Japanese school curricula used one history textbook that did not include much about Hokkaido. My immediate thought upon reading his account of his schooling was, ‘You’re living in Hokkaido, but only learning about Honshu? That’s like living in America and only learning British history!’ It makes no sense! Learning about where you’re from is crucial both to having a well-rounded, less biased education of your country (know both its triumphs and dark conquests) and fostering a deep connection with your roots (be it learned via history book or passed down stories from elders). However, since Japan has always tried to keep the Ainu out of history and remove accountability from their shoulders where settler colonialism is concerned, it makes sense that the history books would focus only on the main island.

This focus on the Honshu and subsequent erasure of the Ainu people brings me back to more of the terrible wording within this article. Shortly after Kato explains his experience, the author writes, “On the surface, there is nothing about Hokkaido that is not Japanese. But dig down—metaphorically and physically, as Kato is doing—and you’ll find layers of another class, culture, religion, and ethnicity.” Oh man, did this strike a nerve. We shouldn’t have to dig down to discover that the Ainu people exist. They’re there, helping with the archeological dig, running the ‘Porotokotan’ museum, interviewing for this damn article. They still exist. They have never not existed. They are not remnants of the past, and what’s on their land now is not “Japanese.” The trees, the soil, the animals, the spirits in the air – all of that is Ainu, yet people classify Hokkaido as Japanese because Japanese people like to maintain that they’ve “always been here.”

What’s even worse is that the author goes on to claim that the Ainu at one time had a “balance” with the Japanese before the 1800s because they struck up a trade system. I immediately thought, ‘Honey, did you forget that the Edo period was filled with forced dependence on Japanese goods, the introduction of smallpox, illegal land leases to third parties, and Ainu revolts against assimilation and eradication?’ You can tell that the author taught in japan in the 80s, as her wording in this article is indicative of the Japanese influence in her way of viewing Ainu-Japanese relations. Her historical account in this article minimizes their struggle by asserting that they had some sort of equality to the Japanese when that was never the case. I was ecstatic, then, when I read that the “Ainu call ethnic Japanese Wajin, a term that originated in China, or Shamo, meaning colonizer. Or, as one Ainu told a researcher: people whom one cannot trust.” They’re absolutely right not to trust any non-Indigenous people that they encounter, regardless of how the terminology makes the Japanese feel. The most important thing to take-away from this terminology is that Japanese opinions about the subject don’t matter (just like white people’s opinions about Indigenous peoples in America don’t matter) because they’re the ones who caused the problems the Ainu now face in the first place. Ultimately, yes, you can be an ally; but, don’t try and take over to advocate for Indigenous peoples of any kind. Let them have their own voice since it was stripped away from them during colonization. If Indigenous peoples don’t want non-Indigenous (read: white) help, then accept that and leave them alone. Why is that so hard for people to understand?

Now, I’d like to draw attention to some similarities between the Ainu and American Indigenous peoples for those of you having a hard time understanding why acknowledging the struggles of the Ainu are so important. These similarities include “the government forc[ing] the Ainu into Japanese-speaking schools, chang[ing] their names, t[aking] their land, and radically alter[ing] their economy.” Does any of this sound familiar? I know it does. I immediately thought of the Carlisle School, among others, and the various Indigenous accounts of life after colonization that describe the horrors of being forced to assimilate after being torn from your family and stripped of everything that made you, you. If we don’t make an effort to bring attention to injustices against all Indigenous peoples instead of just the ones in our own country, we’re no better than the Japanese ourselves. We’re no better than fake people who say ‘we have to focus on problems in our own country instead of helping other countries in need.’ Why not do both? In many Indigenous rhetorics of survivance, authors use a “both/and” method of getting their points across. We should be applying that both/and method in our own activism and accountability to simultaneously support the voices of Indigenous groups in our country and bring attention to Indigenous groups in other countries who don’t have voices.

But, even if we don’t do that (which I hope will not turn out to be the case), the Ainu people aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. They’ve been surviving this long against economic, political, and social odds, and they will continue to do so. The article gives us two examples of Ainu women who are actively involved in the Ainu cultural revival, one being Yahata-san, museum official of ‘Porotokotan,’ and the other being Ishihara-san. Yahata-san is proud of her Ainu heritage and regularly incorporates Ainu rituals into her everyday life, such as when she performed a welcoming ceremony on her car. Ishihara-san, who has just discovered her Ainu heritage due to her mother hiding it from her out of embarrassment, is making every effort to uncover more about her people and who she is, inspired by Yahata-san and other Indigenous peoples around the world who are happy and proudly represent their tribes.

My favorite part of the article was when Yahata-san and Ishihara-san were joking about “how Japanese people tend to think the 16,000 self-identified Ainu live only on salmon and food from the forests in rural Hokkaido. ‘Ainu people can go to Starbucks and have coffee and be happy!’ says Yahata.” Yahata-san and Ishihara-san echo the We Are Still Here notion that can be found in many Indigenous works even today, which indicates that they will continue to thrive in their heritage and spread information about it to those who wish to listen. Even though ‘Porotokotan’ is now closed in favor of a new museum being built that is scheduled to open in 2020, I am hopeful that she will be involved in the new museum and will keep the spirit of ‘Porotokotan’ alive in Hokkaido in the meantime.

Work Cited

Isabella, Jude. “How Japan’s Bear-Worshipping Indigenous Group Fought Its Way to Cultural Relevance.” Smithsonian Magazine, 18 October 2017.