The Evolving Use of Zai as Marker of Location andIdentity in Japanese Diasporic Communities:A Case Study Using the Hoji ShinbunDigital Collection

How were shifting identities of border-crossing diasporic figures and communities located in Japanese-language print media during the era of the Empire of Japan and overseas migration? Specifically, what terms did the Japanese-language vernacular press use to refer to ethnic Japanese people residing outside the boundaries of Japan? How did the use of such terms evolve over time as the perceived distance from Japan changed? In this essay, I examine the wax and wane of terms containing the locating Japanese prefix zai (在) in prewar Japanese American newspapers available in the Hoji Shinbun Digital Collection (HSDC) in connection with shifts in attitudes within the Japanese diaspora toward the prospect of return to Japan, permanent settlement abroad, and various positions in-between.¹ Zai is a location marker, with the literal meaning “to be in.” However, when it is linked to a specific geographical location, as in the compounds zai-Nichi (in Japan) or zai-Bei (in the United States), the marker often carries connotations of impermanence and othering that imply that the people so labeled are out of place in the space they occupy. Today the term zainichi is often used to mark non-Japanese foreign residents of Japan and employed alone (at times derisively) can serve as shorthand to refer to the multi-generational Korean diaspora residing in Japan (Zainichi Kankokujin/Chōsenjin/ Korian), many of them descendants of people who migrated during the colonial period (1910-45). The Zainichi Korean poet Kim Shijong (b. 1929) reminds us that zainichi is not a simple location marker of presence in Japan, as ethnic Japanese people residing in Japan do not use it to refer to themselves.2 Japanese people assume that Japanese who live in Japan do not require any such locating prefix, along the lines of Zainichi Nihonjin. Kim argues that their presence in Japan is taken as a natural given, and a key part of what makes them Japanese.