Unlike many other rich countries, Japan has resisted multiculturalism with assiduousness. It’s foreign-born population accounts for only about 2% of the total. In contrast, some 14% of the U.S.’s population and 15% of Germany’s are of foreign origin. The idea of a homogeneous racial and cultural identity has long been central to Japan’s sense of itself, which in part explains why it’s been loathe to receive immigrants. In many polls, people have expressed a preference for robots over foreigners to fill the labour shortages that the nation’s demographic decline has caused.
But increasingly, sport is challenging the idea that a Japanese identity must be ethnically determined, allowing for new and more inclusive definitions of “Japaneseness”. The most visible case in point are the Brave Blossoms, Japan’s squad at the ongoing Rugby World Cup tournament that the country is hosting. The team made it to the quarterfinals against the odds. Legions of fans, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, could be seen literally leaping with noisy joy every time a team member scored a try. If social media threads are a barometer, the Brave Blossoms and their fight as the underdogs have stirred up heightened feelings in even usually passive spectators.
The catch is that about half of the Japanese rugby team is either ethnically non-Japanese or biracial. A picture of the Brave Blossoms is almost like an ad for the United Colours of Benetton, suggestive of the kind of rainbow nation Japan has never been and seemed determined not to become. The 31-strong team includes 16 players originally from foreign countries, including Tonga, Samoa, New Zealand, Korea and South Africa. The captain, who is the face of Japanese rugby, is Michael Leitch, a player of mixed New Zealand and Fijian heritage, who has lived in Japan since he was 15.
The multiracialism of the Brave Blossoms is possible because of international Rugby’s unique rules, wherein players are not required to be a citizen of the country they represent. To qualify, a player must be born, or have a parent or grandparent who is born, in the country, or have been resident in the country for 36 consecutive months immediately preceding the tournament.
There are widespread criticisms of these rules among rugby-playing nations. Some feel they allow weaker teams to “unfairly” become stronger by poaching foreigners. But in Japan, the nation has pulled behind the Brave Blossoms, with a majority of the media defending the team’s diversity. That Japanese fans are waxing patriotic about a squad that looks un-Japanese, points to a new – in Japan — acceptance of the idea that identity is not just skin deep.
A diverse mix
Brave Blossoms team member Toshiake Hirose summed it up in a quote to The Guardian , “Maybe if our team was just Japanese, it wouldn’t be so successful. Outside the sport, our population is shrinking so we need foreigners to immigrate. It’s an important lesson... for Japan, because we can show people how you can make a successful team from a diverse mix...”
On Twitter, the focus has been on the enthusiasm with which the Blossoms sing the national anthem before the start of each game. Takeshi Kato, a middle-level manager at a large corporation, told The Hindu that the foreign players had committed to Japan beyond just the sport. “They speak our language and respect our customs.”
In fact, all the “foreign” team members of the Blossoms speak Japanese and many have studied in Japan. Some have even become naturalised citizens. There is talk of how despite their racial diversity the team plays a “Japanese-style” of rugby with an emphasis on strategy rather that physical heft.
There is a danger in reading too much into the rugby team’s multiracialism. An ethnic definition of Japanese-ness is unlikely to be dispensed with any time soon. But increasingly, sport does seem to be aiding a positive spin on difference.
Beyond rugby, the mixed race Haitian-Japanese tennis star, Naomi Osaka (who has renounced her U.S. citizenship and now plays as Japanese), has been embraced. And a number of Japan’s top athletes at next year’s Olympic Games will not be of “pure” ethnicity. Sprinter Asuka Cambridge, for example, has a Jamaican father. Ace basketball player Rui Hachimura, the first Japanese to make the NBA draft, is half Beninese.
Unity in Diversity is one of the core concepts of the Tokyo Olympics. And it is just possible that the Olympics might be the first step for an, admittedly distant, future in which it becomes the motto for Tokyo itself.
(Pallavi Aiyar is an author and journalist based in Tokyo)
