Jul 16, 2018
ハーフ (Hafu): On the Fetishization and Mistranslation of a Biracial Identity
Hafu carries insinuations of otherness; of not belonging, but being fetishized. How do I carry this name and this history at once?
Nina Li Coomes is a Japanese and American writer, currently living in Boston, MA. Her writing has appeared in EATER, The Collapsar, and RHINO Poetry among other places. Her debut chapbook haircut poems was published by Dancing Girl Press in 2017.
Hafu carries insinuations of otherness; of not belonging, but being fetishized. How do I carry this name and this history at once?
Nukumori can refer to a kind of existence not dependent on physical proximity, allowing a person’s presence to linger with you even if they cannot.
How could I navigate my Japanese-language emotions in pursuit of a Western psychiatric label?
When he asked me how to say “I love you” in Japanese, I translated linguistically, but mistranslated culturally.
‘Setsunai’ implies something once bright, now faded. It is the painful twinge at the edge of a memory, the joy in the knowledge that everything is temporary.
To me, ‘daiji’ embodies the struggle to prioritize two languages, homes, and selves.
The silent retreat gives us all time away from the bewilderment we tend to experience around American holidays.
“Miyazaki tells us something about bodies in flux: There is no easy answer; only the conflict, the question.”
