i. homING — In this class, it has been used as a verb rather than just a noun, as the process of internalizing several external factors into our lives
When we travel or live abroad, we are closely observed by the people in those places, just as we learn from and adapt to their cultures. Over this course of time when we are abroad, we often come across the question: what is home? For 1.5 or second-generation migrants, they are often asked, “where are you from?” or “where are you from, really?” For them, it is a question that disguises as curiosity about the ethnic background of the person being asked. How is the process of homING done for them? How has the identity of child migrants been formed by their parents, who were also migrants in a foreign country? For this paper, I have interviewed a GDP student and took his case to probe into the literature review of the course readings.
My interviewee, Junayeed Matin, is a 22-year-old second-generation migrant from Bangladesh to Japan, where his parents moved for work purposes thirty years ago. In our conversation about his experience living in a foreign country, he shared about how his parents shaped his identity, how he formed his own definition of home, and how the constant changes in his environment affected his sense of belonging.
Jnifar G. Yumi: To start with, what was the initial reason behind your parents’ migrating to Japan specifically instead of having other options?
Junayeed Matin: My father wanted to pursue his higher studies, PhD, with a scholarship. Since he found that opportunity in Japan, he completed his degree in Dentistry here and he went back to Bangladesh to open a clinic to practice his dentistry. Not being successful in that attempt, he thought he would find better opportunities in Japan, so he moved here with my mother, after which my brother and I were born.
JGY: Did you visit Bangladesh with your family often, or have you stayed there for a long time?
JM: When I was in the third grade, my parents moved back to Bangladesh for about two years, and we settled again in Japan after that. Since then, I have been visiting Bangladesh every year with my parents, but the last time I went back home was in… 2018… Woah, I just realised it’s already been so long!
JGY: Time flies, doesn’t it? Talking of time, your mother must have faced difficulty following your father to a foreign country, right?
JM: For sure. She’s very close to her family and made many sacrifices to migrate overseas, accompanying my father. She sometimes used to complain that if she had gotten her college degree, she would have had a professional life too and wouldn’t find it so hard to make friends in the local society, and she doesn’t really have close Japanese friends here. Not knowing the language was a real struggle for her initially. I realised my mother gradually learnt to hide her feelings, which was how I think she was changed by migration. My father is more expressive compared to her.
JGY: I agree, it must have been so hard. Moving on, do you feel like how your parents made you learn your mother tongue has shaped your identity?
JM: Of course. Though I was born in Japan, you know there are issues with citizenship procedures here, and I always feel like Japan is not my home and Bangladesh neither, but at the same time, I feel both are my homes. It’s a weird feeling, you know? Like a tug of war. Also, if my parents hadn’t supported me in learning Bengali, I wouldn’t feel connected to my roots, culture or my family there.
JGY: Hmm, I wouldn’t have understood this before but since I came to Japan, I also have been feeling this tug of war. Where do you find yourself in a scenario where you are told that home should grow from inside out, not outside in?
JM: Well, I’m a mixture of both; that’s what makes me unique, hahaha… I was introduced to my culture by my parents, and a strong emphasis was put particularly on religion by my mother, who read the Quran regularly to both of us. In contrast, my father never said anything that we MUST follow Islam strictly. He believes in his religion but prefers not to make it a big issue. He is more into other social activities like cricket and he introduced me to it, which is why I’m a devoted fan of cricket. You know it’s a big part of our culture in Bangladesh. So, religion and culture make up my social identity. As for living norms and abiding by society’s values, I go with the flow here, adopting the societal values from my surroundings.
JGY: Nicely worded. So has migration made you a stronger person?
JM: I would say yes. It taught me to be emotionally very strong. I never grow a strong attachment to one particular place.
JGY: Is that a positive thing?
JM: Hahaha… if you see it that way, then yes. It’s easier for me to move around without growing much attachment to one place. But not having any solid attachment for any place makes me feel weird. The hardest part is leaving behind the people in your life, but I overcome that after a few days. Right now, the place I’m most attached to is Okayama. (laughs!)
Adams (2014) classifies identity as personal, social, and relational. One’s identity is simultaneously shared and singular, which is what I uncovered through the interview. Migrants carry values and beliefs to the places they go, especially second-generation immigrants, who become walking social remittances and living connections between different cultures and nations. Hence, the challenge of travel is learning how to import and export culture and identity with tenderness at the delicate point of adolescence. With this, I got a glance at the perspective of transnational mothers (a rhetoric by Kačkutė, 2016) as Junayeed’s narrative represented a mother who followed her husband to a foreign country and faced a crisis between her traditional mothering practices back home and in the host country.
One notable characteristic was how Junayeed made attachments, particularly with people, but only temporarily; his experience justifies Kelley’s theory that a full commitment to a specific home is not possible, too painful or undesirable (2013). My interviewee has recognized that this experience made him emotionally stronger. Just like Boccagni mentioned in his interview with Les Back (2017), my interview revealed that people truly are archives of their past, which plays a significant role in their version of HomING and how their identity is formed. For my interviewee, he was not losing himself more to others and identified a stronger character within himself. When asked whether home should grow from the inside out or outside in, he stated he is a mixture of both, forming cultural hybridity – a mixture of two cultures – of identity (Asadu, 2018), which made him mentally and emotionally stronger in that process. This hybridity does not force him to choose one singular identity, but rather settle in a rational and compatible sense of himself. He had unconsciously talked about the concepts of identity and belongingness, and although these two terms are often used with the same meaning, they are different in theory.
According to Anthias (2006), one may identify with the society or culture that surrounds them, but not feel that they belong in the sense of being truly accepted or being a full member of such. Alternatively, one may feel they are accepted and ‘belong’ but may not fully ‘identify’, as in the case of Junayeed in Bangladesh. The term belonging is a vast and nuanced concept. Whether through tangible or intangible means, people can establish a sense of ‘belonging’ in various ways; it is normally related to emotional connections and the feeling of being ‘at home’, which often indicates a sense of comfort and security (Yuval-Davis, 2006).
Additionally, how Junayeed talked about his father and his passion for cricket helped me relate back to the idea of social connection and social remittance in gardening mentioned by Hondagneu-Sotelo (2014). Junayeed indicated how he and his family transferred new ideas and knowledge in the form of cricket, food, and mother tongue from their communities of origin in Bangladesh. He even opened a circle at Okayama University, where he closely engages with social remittance, adding up to construct his social identity. Lastly, he shared he is not in conflict with his identity, but with his attachments and where he belongs. He seems to be quite experienced in the act of embracing something new and the art of letting go. I hope and wish that once he grows into an adult, he would find a deeper meaning of home and belongingness in the years to come.
To conclude, this interview has been enlightening for me, hearing about experiences from someone close to me. Never having travelled before coming to Japan, he broadened my view on the ambivalence of home from the perspective of an immigrant. The insight from this interview proves that it is possible to have a transnational identity in a satisfying sense. My conversation with Junayeed highlights that it is indeed possible to cultivate a fulfilling transnational identity, which involves the capacity to adapt to diverse environments and navigate the experience of being an outsider. It also entails constructing a strong sense of home and identity through social connections, feelings of belonging, and a high level of adaptation to various cultures and societies.
References
Adams, B.G. (2014). ‘I Think therefore I Am… I Think On the Diversity and Complexity of Identity’. Tilburg University.
Anthias, F. (2006). Belongings in a Globalising and Unequal World: Rethinking Translocations. The Situated Politics of Belonging. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265280705_Belongings_in_a_Globalising_and_Unequal_World_rethinking_translocations/citation/download
Asadu, P. A. (2018). Identity construction and belonging of second-generation Ghanaian immigrants in the Netherlands. Social Justice Perspectives (SJP). Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2105/46582
Boccagni, P. (2017). Migration and the Search for Home: Mapping Domestic Space in Migrants’ Everyday Lives. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan.
Kačkutė, E. (2016) “Mother Tongue as the Language of Mothering and Homing Practice in Betty Quan’s Mother Tongue and Hiromi Goto’s Chorus of Mushrooms”: Survival Strategies and Identity Construction of Migrant and Refugee Mothers” (56-74). Toronto: Demeter Press.
Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. (2014). Paradise Transplanted: Migration and the Making of California Gardens. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Kelley, C. E. (2013). Accidental Immigrants and the Search for Home: Women, Cultural Identity, and Community. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Yuval-Davis, N. (2006). Belonging and the politics of belonging, Patterns of Prejudice, 40(3), 197-214. Retrieved from https://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/document-7.pdf
The Polyphony 