Buddhism, Empire and the JA Diaspora
By Devon Matsumoto | He/Him/His | IBS Student
July 28, 2022
“the rising sun flag is the equivalent to the Nazi flag for the people’s of Asia. Japanese Americans need to understand our global identity and not perpetuate an imperial Japan.”
- a simple cow
A few years ago, I tweeted this in response to a retweet by the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation which was promoting a book that utilized euphemisms for the rise of a new Japanese Empire and imagery that many associate with the horrors committed by the Japanese Empire. Within minutes, dozens of Twitter accounts began responding to my tweet defending the use of the Japanese rising sun flag while simultaneously using Chinese and other Asian communities as scapegoats to further the idea that Japan was an innocent victim of Western imperial powers’ fight for control over the world. A common narrative amongst Japanese nationalists is that Japan was fighting for the liberation of Asia from the West and that Japanese soldiers suffered greatly at the hands of Chinese, Korean and other Asian nation states that were allied with the West. It is unclear whether or not these Twitter users were Japanese Americans, other Japanese people in diaspora, or Japanese nationals themselves. However, what was clear from a superficial search of their Twitter profiles, was that most of these accounts spent a lot of their time finding and replying to tweets similar to mine.
This encounter offered an opportunity for me to reflect on my identity as a yonsei Buddhist.
What does it mean to grow up as a Japanese American when our history is intertwined with being both the oppressor and the oppressed?
On the one hand, throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth-century in the US and the Americas, Japanese Americans and other communities of color were the targets of white supremacist policies, like the exclusion of Japanese immigrants to the US in 1907, anti-miscegination laws, secret surveillance of communities, incarceration and much more. To this day, Japanese Americans are suffering at the hands of white supremacy as our communities continue to be displaced by gentrification, our history erased by the public education system, and our elders put in danger by companies who prioritize profits over people. But, on the other hand, Japanese people who moved to Japanese colonies perpetuated gender-based violence, racism, and in many cases, forced “authentic” Buddhism onto the original inhabitors of the land that they occupied. When the Meiji government introduced state Shintoism, Buddhist schools were forced to comply or suffer the consequences. Many Buddhist institutions, like Nishi-Hongwanji, removed critiques of the government from their doctrinal histories and propagated that Japanese schools of Buddhism were superior through the Buddhist belief of Bukkyō tōzen, the natural tendency for Buddhism to move eastward. Even in the US and Hawai`i, Japanese Americans continue to contribute to settler colonialism which has stripped indigenous peoples of their land, sovereignty, and rights all the while being caught in a racial caste system where violence is enacted both by and on Japanese Americans.
IG: Black and white photo of Nakano family in front of a wood-paneled house. 5 Nakano children are pictured wearing 1900s clothing and Mom and Dad Nakano are wearing farming clothes. Picture is from the early 1900s. Picture courtesy of Nakano Family.
As I continue to deepen my understanding of the Japanese American experience and how it relates to my own identity, I have come to realize how complicated of a history I inherit. Like other Japanese Americans, my great-grandparents were forced to leave Japan due to the rapid industrialization under the Meiji government which created immigration policies that off-loaded the economic burden of the peasant class by sending them abroad to work as laborers. Although these laborers did not emmigrate with the intention of expanding Japan’s empire, the Japanese state framed their emmigration as an opportunity to build soft colonies in the West and spread the empire’s reach. During WWII, some of my family members were incarcerated, some fled inland and lived under martial law. Some were undocumented and deported, while some were undocumented and lived in fear of deportation for most of their life. But at the same time, some were capitalists in the Philippines profiting off of the occupation and some were drafted by the Japanese Imperial Army. Some were the proletariat while others the bourgeoisie.
This is the history of the Tajima, Inokuchi, Nakano, and Matsumoto families. This is my family history.
I am bringing this up because I think it is important for Japanese American Buddhists to reflect on our history and positionality in the US and abroad. We have all inherited, whether we choose to accept it or not, a very complex history which we cannot ignore. In many ways, by not taking the time to reflect on what it means to be a Japanese American Buddhist, we become pawns of US-Japan imperialism.
Furthermore, while it is critical to reflect on our past history we must also consider current events and our position within them as Japanese American Buddhists.
In particular, as many people are aware, former prime minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated two weeks ago at a campaign rally. Although his death is shocking, it should not give us reason to glorify his life or deify him by placing him on a pedestal. In Jōdo-Shinshū Buddhism, we are taught that through the power of Amida Buddha’s Primal Vow, which does not discriminate between good or bad, all beings shall be liberated from the cycle of suffering and be born into the Pure Land. While Abe has crossed to the other shore, his death, through my perspective as a Jōdo-Shinshū Buddhist, provides an opportunity to reflect on the legacy he leaves behind and the impact his actions had on others.
IG: Black and white photo of Shinayo Baachan and some of her children sitting on a house and buggy in front of a barn. Picture courtesy of Nakano family.
Reflecting on Shinzo Abe’s life and his administration's policies, I am reminded of the Twitter exchange I shared earlier in this article. Like Abe, many of those Twitter users who replied to my tweet extol Japan’s imperialist history and perpetuate harmful stereotypes and conspiracy theories against non-Japanese people. Abe and his administration were notoriously known for being right-wing nationalists and Abe himself was even a part of nippon kaigi, a group that praises Japanese colonialism and claims that Japan’s war crimes were fabricated or exaggerated. Abe’s politics mirrored that of his grandfather’s who was suspected of being a Class A war criminal but was never charged because the US handpicked him to be the post-war prime minister of Japan and serve as a puppet to the US. On multiple occasions, Abe has also visited Yasakuni Shrine which enshrines Japan’s war criminals and has blurred the line between the separation of church and state that was established in Japan’s post-war constitution after state Shintoism aided Japan’s imperial rise. He has also taken action to disavow the 1993 Kono Statement which acknowledged and apologized to the women who were sexually enslaved as comfortant women and had retaliated against South Korea with a trade war for their demand that Japanese corporations pay reparations to enslaved Korean labors. Abe’s administration conveyed their stance against Koreans in Japan by defunding Zainichi Korean schools and furthered US-Japan imperialism by building new US military bases in Okinawa. In many right-wing Japanese circles, it was even assumed that Abe’s assassin was Zainichi or a foreigner which they used to perpetuate racist and xenophobic ideologies in the name of justice.
IG: Black and white photo of Nakano family in front of a wood-paneled house. 5 Nakano children are pictured wearing 1900s clothing and Mom and Dad Nakano are wearing farming clothes. Picture is from the early 1900s. Picture courtesy of Nakano Family.
These are just a few examples of the legacy that Shinzo Abe leaves behind. Although he may be born into the Pure Land, which does not discriminate between good and bad, Jōdo-Shinshū Buddhism teaches us that we should constantly reflect and be mindful of the violent impact he and his administration had across the world. Jōdo-Shinshū Buddhist are almost always told to act with wisdom and compassion. For me, wisdom is to see the true reality of this world and compassion is the true reality. In Jōdo-Shinshū, compassion is to understand that all beings are interconnected and intertwined with one another and that our existence is dependent on our relationship to others. When we encounter the Great Compassion of Amida Buddha, even our foolish, fallible, and imperfect selves are able to see the interdependent nature of this world even if only for an instant. From my understanding, to encounter Great Compassion is to understand that true compassion is a collective desire for all beings to be liberated from suffering. As we engage in self-reflection, we do so not because we want to make ourselves feel better or out of any obligation, but because we feel compassionantly having encountered the nembutsu teaching. Because of this we are able to reflect on ourselves, our community, and the complex histories we hold.
This article was edited by Cori Kumamoto, Dr. Jean-Paul deGuzman, KC Mukai, and Marissa Wong.
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