Ainoko. The bad word is a photobook with which I return to the years of my childhood, in the eighties, through images. In my childhood, the word “ainoko” haunted me like a ghost. “Ainoko” was a word that referred to mestizos like me, to the children of the union of Japanese descendants with people from other cultures.
Ainoko . The bad word is the sum of photos from the family album and texts about the fears of a “ girl who cannot be seen.” No retouching of photos or correction of words. Ainoko has some photos of a creepy animal.
I thank the communicator David Salamanca Mamani who gave me the photos of the turtles that appear on the cover and inside because, for the purpose of “ do it your self” , I would never have been able to take photos of them myself. In Ainoko I am afraid of turtles, I think it is the fear of the unspeakable. They remind me of those who have to move with little on their backs. Having to flee with the home from the looting of the stores in Lima in the forties, which my grandparents lived through 1 . The unspeakable. They have seen it all, they were there before us.
Ainoko. The bad word raises questions, among other things, because it does not include a glossary of the Japanese terms mentioned there. He does not need it. Growing up in a home founded by non-hegemonic mother tongues is growing up surrounded by silences to complete. My paternal family silenced Quechua, just as my maternal family silenced Japanese, which silenced Uchinaaguchi before. Language is our family.
The word
The word ainoko according to dictionaries means “mixed race, mulatto, hybrid son” (Daigakusyorin, 1939; Sanseido, 1963). The Japanese Hyoue Okamura, in his article “ The language of 'racial mixture' in Japan: How ainoko became haafu, and the haafu-gao makeup fad ”, addresses the evolution of words that refer to the miscegenation of the Japanese. It identifies the word ainoko as the most used to define mestizos, although in a pejorative way, during the 19th century. XIX.
In the first decades of the s. XX also begins to use konketsuji (child of mixed blood) or konketsu (混血, mixed blood) without the derogatory connotation of ainoko .
Haafu , the Japaneseization of the English word half, began to be used in the 1960s and 1970s, replacing ainoko, because for some it is better to be half than hybrid . Already into the nineties, some propose using doburu, a Japaneseization of the English term double (Okamura, 2017), bearers of two traditions, because for some it is better to be double than half .
The beginning of the official arrival of the Japanese to Peru in 1889 may explain why the use of the word ainoko prevails among Peruvian Nikkei . This is how the writer José Watanabe Varas (Trujillo, 1946) explains it in his glossary of Japanese terms:
“Many of these words have fallen into disuse in Japan. This is a very common phenomenon in all ancient immigration. The language is more dynamic in the homeland of origin, while immigrants tend to keep it as they learned it. Their distance does not allow them to confront the subsequent changes.”
(Watanabe, 2010)
The ainokos were also called “crossbreeds” or “grafts”, alluding to the world of zoology or botany. Regarding the word “graft”, the artist Tetsu Tokumine Palomino (Ica, 1994) 2 reflects:
“ Graft and Ainoko are two pejorative words to describe the Nikkei Hafu. Having grown up in an agricultural city, I have always understood the word graft as the formation of different species to improve a plant.”
(Tokumine 2020)
There are several ways to write ainoko : 間児, 間子, 間の子, 合の子, 合いの子, あいのこ. Ainoko is composed of three parts: ai (間 or 合) as a prefix (between or related to); no as a particle (de) and ko (子) as a noun (child). Before, the kanji間 was used more for the word ainoko , now it is used more (合) (Okamura, 2017, p. 71).
Listening to ai-no-ko and thinking that it means “child of love” is a mistake, the result of thinking that the “ ai” of ainoko alludes to the “ai” that means love. The kanji for love is another 愛. Some have also linked the word to the expression "son of error."
As ainoko may sound similar to Aino (Ainu), an indigenous people of Japan historically discriminated against, some have associated both words, something linguistically unsustainable (Okamura, 2017, p. 71). About the Ainus, the archaeologist Requena reflects:
“Dojin is a word that was officially used by the Japanese government from 1878 to 1997 to describe the native inhabitants of Hokkaido, the Ainu. At first it seems that it did not have a negative meaning, but as time went by it came to imply that the natives were ignorant, lazy, backward and other similar adjectives. All of these concepts were “exported” by Japanese immigrants to Peru and applied to the dojin [natives] of the country.”
(Rolando Requena Minami, 2013)
The Ainokes
“The Ainokos are considered Nikkei, but they are not completely Nikkei either, they belong and do not belong to Nikkei society. They are between the limbo of two worlds.”
(Rolando Requena Minami, 2013)
The ainokos who have been closer to schools, recreational spaces and Nikkei groups may have experienced ainokés more than those who have not. Ainokés understood as awareness of having to legitimize Japanese ancestry before the Nikkei community. This is not the case for the ainoko further away from the institutions or the capital. Thus, for some Ainokos the concern would be more to demonstrate their Peruvianness:
“My father is Japanese and my mother is Peruvian, Chola Peruvian, so I have lived in these two worlds. Of course, one says 'I'm Peruvian', but in reality I had to become Peruvian.”
(Interview by Alonso Rabí with José Watanabe. January 25, 2009)
The artist Patssy Higuchi Fernández (Lima, 1972) gives us an account of Ainoko subjectivity, who, pointing out her eyes to the interviewer, mentions: “I have round eyes and hair like that,” and answers the question about not looking too Nikkei:
“[Indeed] No. And that was always very strong for me since I was a child. That someone recognizes me within the Nikkei community makes me feel like I belong. And that's funny because I've always had that contradiction with me since I was a little girl. And part of my job is also to deny that because apparently I'm not, that's why I felt that it was important. 'Belonging' was very important to me.”
(Interview for Transpacific borderlands with the artist Patssy Higuchi Fernández, 2017)
Within the Nikkei family space, the use of the word ainoko is often given in a descriptive way, without the pejorative load. It is in its use outside the family, where identity can come into conflict.
A self-definition of ainoko is that of the writer Carlos Yushimito Del Valle (Lima, 1977), in the interview he gave to the journalist Alfredo Kato Todio for the newspaper Peru Shimpo , recovered by Ignacio López-Calvo in The Affinity of the Eye: Writing Nikkei in Peru :
"Yushimito describes himself as what the Japanese call an Ainoko (a negative term describing a 'half-Japanese' or mixed-race person). […] The author has no ties to any Nikkei institutions and has described his heritage Japanese as an affective memory..."
(López-Calvo, 2013, p. 136)
The writer Augusto Higa Oshiro (Lima, 1946), in his book “Japan does not give two chances”, where he narrates his experience in Japan as a dekasegi in the nineties, leaves us the literary presence of an ainoko :
“'You Nisei are racist,' he said. At that moment I had the exact notion that Pakistan Silva suffered bitterly from his condition as a mestizo or ' ainoco' , that is, he could not hide his contradictory feelings of inferiority. Small, lean, sharp Andean face, lustrous chancaca skin, at first glance he reminded us of street market vendors in Lima, unless we carefully examined his eyes, then we discovered that he was no stranger to Asian features. (…) Since I was a child I experienced the contempt of those who considered themselves the 'legitimate descendants of the Japanese' (…) And yet, 'the legitimate descendants' (…) had the same status as the ragged ' ainoco ', that is, all We were upstart foreigners. And Pakistan Silva showed in his reproach a certain amount of joy with a taste of revenge.”
(Higa, 1994, pp. 144, 145)
From the description of Pakistan Silva, we can find the subjectivity “ nihonjin ” 3 , embodied in the narrator, for which the ainokos would be: 1) Carriers of negative characteristics (bitter, self-conscious, vengeful), 2) Unattractive (small, lean, greasy), 3) Racialized ( chancaca skin ), 4) Illegitimate.
There is, within the Peruvian Nikkei society, heterogeneity within the perception of the ainoko that makes reflection more complex. For example, the way they are named according to the side from which the ancestry comes: Ainoko from a Nikkei paternal family and a maternal family without Japanese ancestry (Angélica Harada Vásquez, Venancio Shinki Huamán); Ainoko from a paternal family without Japanese ancestry and a Nikkei maternal family (Carlos Runcie Tanaka, Juan de la Fuente Umetsu).
To refer to people in the first group, many people only use their first and last name to name them. However, to refer to people in the second group, they tend to be named with both surnames more frequently.
The position of the surname of Japanese origin can determine its “loss” to the next generation, and since this is one of the markers of Nikkei identity, the “new ainoko” could feel its Nikkei symbolic capital reduced, without implying loss of ancestry . The proper name of Japanese origin, whether registered or in family use, in some cases has been placed taking into account the position of the surname as a reinforcement of identity. There could be some prevalence between the Japanese names of the ainokos and the order of their surnames.
Factors of gender, ethnicity and social class must be taken into account when thinking about Ainokés (Could Ainoko descended from Okinawa have experienced Ainokés differently than Ainoko descended from other prefectures? Are traditions cultivated more by descending through the paternal or maternal line ( homes that carry butsudan [ancestor altar], consultations with the yutaa [ritual guide], for example) along with enrichment with the tradition of the other line of ancestry?
Generational changes and changes in rhetoric account for assertive integration processes while remaining complex. Reflecting on the recognition of the Ainokés and generating spaces for intergenerational encounter between subjectivities born in the 1980s and earlier with the new generations, prepares the Peruvian Nikkeis to strengthen and honor the identity inherited from their ancestors.
Grades:
1. When Peru absurdly decided to take sides in World War II.
2. In his work “Injerto”, Tokumine uses augmented reality in selfies of eight young Nikkei “ ainoko ”, making self-identification visible.
3. Peruvian Nikkei self-identification term “no ainoko” , used in past decades.
References:
Peruvian Japanese Association. 2020. “IV Young Nikkei Art Salon .”
Higa, Augusto. 1994. Japan doesn't give you two chances . Lima: Editorial Generation 94
Higuchi, Pattsy. 2017. Transpacific borderlands . Artist Profile [video].
Hyoue, Okamura. 2017. “ The language of 'racial mixture' in Japan: How ainoko became haafu, and the haafu-gao makeup fad .” Asia Pacific Perspectives , Vol. 14, no. 2, 41-79.
López-Calvo, Ignacio. 2013. The Affinity of the Eye: Writing Nikkei in Peru . Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Neira, Tania. 2022. Ainoko. The bad word [digital photobook] Lima; author's edition.
Rabbi, Alonso. 2009. “ Interview with José Watanabe ”. La República newspaper .
Requena, Rolando. 2013. “ The reproduction of the Nikkei Society in Japan .” Discover the Nikkei.
Watanabe, José. 2010. “ Glossary of Japanese words used in Peru .” Discover the Nikkei.
© 2022 Tania Neira Uejo
