Comment by Klockan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Klockan | Hacker News Reader

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> the fact that they were Japanese in this instance is more related to the fact that they were born and brought up in Japan

Those two are the same, if you are born and brought up in Japan then you are Japanese. Similarly if you are born and brought up in America then you are an American even if you happen to look like most people do in Japan. Do you disagree with this? Can immigrants from Japan never become true Americans? Or have you accepted Japanese racism to such a degree that you think it is impossible for a white person to become Japanese?

Also, the fact that you see someone who lived in Japan for 10 years as anything other than Japanese is a sign that this is a larger problem and not just something in his mind. Would you call someone who have been integrated in American culture for 10 years anything other than American?

I'm with you on national, racial and cultural identity being fluid imprecise concepts. It's tangential to the point I was making in this post. But there's only so much appending of extra information/editing I can do and still communicate reasonably well in a reasonable amount of time.

The simplified version of there being eight permutations of being racially/nationally/culturally Japanese are lost on a lot of people. Here I was referring to the shorthand version where all those things are unquestionable ticked boxes.

In general aren't people only referred to as American in America when they have the nationality box ticked?

> I'm with you on national, racial and cultural identity being fluid imprecise concepts. It's tangential to the point I was making in this post. But there's only so much appending of extra information/editing I can do and still communicate reasonably well in a reasonable amount of time.

I know. Now that you are aware that this is a problem could you extend the same courtesy to the author of this article?

I've been integrated in the U.K. For over a decade and I don't identify as British. People should be free to self identify. At the same time I don't disagree with your point either.

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