A Sociolinguistic View of A Japanese Ethnic Church Community

Tyler Barrett

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367460396
• eBook ISBN: 9781000081596
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Arts & Humanities

Drawing on sociolinguistic approaches, this book presents unique insights into a Japanese ethnic church community in Canada and the ways in which churches mediate issues of linguistic, cultural, and religious hybridity in addressing the needs of their diverse populations.

The book integrates discourse analytic methods with ethnographic perspectives to explore the complex dynamics of negotiating their different members' preferred language practices. The volume outlines the ways in which ethnic churches in this community build themselves around intentionally preferred Japanese language practices but make accommodations for English-language speakers in their own families, in turn making further accommodations for ESL student speakers new to the country. Barrett explores the impact of church members' transcultural experiences in broader decisions around language planning and policy in these churches, shedding light on the distinct implications of hybrid identities on discourses in localized communities. // The volume will be of interest to scholars in sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and religious studies.

1
Introduction

In a recent article titled Multi-ethnic churches are not enough! Multi-ethnic churches are not the same as cross-cultural churches, and are in some measure set up for ethnic misunderstanding and conflict, Nabors (2018) discusses concerns about potential conflicts in church communities because of ethnic-oriented misunderstandings and conflicts as a result of differences between minority ethnic groups and groups who are represented by the surrounding normative cultures. In a CNN article titled Jeremy Lin emerges as emblem of burgeoning Asian-American Christianity, Almasy (2012) discusses the emergence of Asian-American Christian churches, which appear to be communities in which church members have hybrid ethnolinguistic identities. Whereas traditional ethnic churches have been aimed at facilitating first-generation immigrants, recently Asian-American Christian churches have created services specifically for second-generation Asian-Americans who often prefer to speak in English. Further, in an article titled Ethnic churches add English for 2nd & 3rd generations, Roach (2019) highlights the language shift between first and second and third generations who generally prefer English. Roach (2019) suggests, “Ethnic churches nationwide have realized they need to utilize English language worship services to reach second and third generations. For some, that has meant starting independent English-speaking churches or, for others, welcoming English speakers as a subgroup of the larger congregation.” These articles underscore some of the language and cultural challenges that tend to characterize ethnic churches in North America. In light of this, this book is about the sociolinguistics of a Japanese ethnic church community in Canada where, like other ethnic churches, church members often wrestle with beliefs about identity concerning religious beliefs, language, and culture, which influence decisions about language policies de jure and de facto. These decisions are often based upon perceived collective ethnolinguistic needs and preferences to be in a familiar community, which is what led me to this community in Canada and eventually to this project, as my wife (Yukiji) and children (Andrew Kanato and Peter Kanami) are Japanese citizens. Thus, wherever we have lived in Japan, Canada, or the US, we have lived in a Japanese household and become part of a Japanese community.

My wife was born in Japan, she speaks Japanese as her first language, and she speaks English fluently. She became a Christian in Japan and was a member of a Protestant Japanese church in Hiroshima. After we married and our first son Andrew Kanato was born, we moved to a predominantly English-speaking community of people with predominantly English-speaking churches in Western Canada. After attending an English-speaking church in the area, certain language and cultural differences became evident to the degree that her experience as a potential member of the church was lacking because of feeling misunderstood and culturally underrepresented. For example, one of the elders of the English-speaking church, who had nothing but good intentions, after being told she was Japanese, told her that he would like to introduce her to another “Asian” person from Hong Kong who attended the church. His good-intentions were received with discretion for various reasons and the importance of being part of a culturally familiar Japanese ethnic church community became apparent. Additionally, another member of the church whose daughter-in-law was Japanese recognized the value of being culturally familiar in a church and (without being asked) connected my wife with the wife of the pastor of a Japanese church in the city. Experiences such as these resulted in our family eventually becoming members of a Japanese ethnic church in the city: a culturally familiar church community. After becoming a part of the Japanese ethnic church in the city, we came to realize challenges shared by other church members, who, like us, were often families that included spouses of “international marriages” with “mixed” children (e.g., my sons Andrew Kanato and Peter Kanami), from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who were the subjects of many discussions concerning language and cultural needs. As we became familiar with members from other Japanese ethnic churches within the community, it became apparent that each person had particular language and cultural needs that were usually attributed to family dynamics, such as “nissei” and “sansei” children (i.e., second and third generations of ethnically Japanese Canadians), spouses, and personal experiences. For example, first-generation Japanese church members often had strong beliefs about being Japanese, while second- and third-generation Canadian-Japanese church members often had beliefs of their own. With differences between church members, it was difficult to understand the language and cultural preferences that dictated the policy and practice of Japanese ethnic churches since the term “Japanese ethnic church” was such a surface-level term based upon the assumptions that Japanese communities speak Japanese and Japanese ethnic churches were created for Japanese people. But, who are “Japanese people” in Canada? Furthermore, it was even difficult to distinguish the identity of church members in terms of who was “Japanese” or who was “Canadian” and who identified as being someone else since these terms of identity are often determined by the individual and based upon complex cultural, linguistic, religious, and political contexts and experiences. As a result, it became relevant to ask, what is a Japanese church community in terms of language, cultural practices, and identity? This is a sociolinguistic question as it concerns language and cultural practices in society. This is the cultural, linguistic, and religious, and policy landscape of Japanese ethnic churches in Canada that people must consider when organizing and subscribing to membership of Japanese ethnic churches.

As I began attending a Japanese church (about 30–40 people), “City Japanese Church”, and participating in the Japanese church community in Western Canada, I became acquainted with individuals who identified themselves and other church members as being Japanese (often in contrast to Canadians and others who also identified themselves as being Japanese) in addition to other language and identity markers. Also, I was occasionally asked to teach the “next generation” service in English in a separate room of the church during the main Japanese service. The “next generation” service consisted of about five to ten young adults, including the pastor’s children, who were “issei” and “nissei” (i.e., first- and second-generation) Japanese and Canadian people, some of whom had been in Canada since they were children, and all of whom were expected to leave the main service and attend the “next generation” service because they could understand English. This meant that the “next generation” service members, many of whom identified themselves as being speakers of Japanese as a first language, and whose parents were often first-generation immigrants to Canada, were expected to attend a Japanese ethnic church and learn in English and I wanted to know why. It became apparent that Japanese ethnic churches in Canada were perhaps not simply “Japanese” church communities where Japanese language and culture is practiced. Monolingual language practices of Japanese in Japanese ethnic churches and monolingual English accommodations in the “next generation” service seemed to indicate the potential for tension between Japanese and English language cultures (e.g., English and Canadian culture) and eventually “de-ethnization” as second and third generations proliferated into Canadian English speakers. According to Mullins (1987), de-ethnization refers to the loss of cultural, religious, and linguistic identity markers and the transformation of ethnic organizations into multiethnic organizations. In order to understand this potential transformation linked to complexities concerning aspects of cultural, religious, and linguistic identity markers and subsequent decisions and contexts that concern language policy within Japanese ethnic churches, I wanted to conduct research to understand the views of the people who constitute the Japanese ethnic church community and make the decisions that result in organizations known as Japanese ethnic churches. This research is aimed at understanding this problem.

Part of the problem is that previous descriptions seem to fall short of characterizing the complexities of Japanese ethnic churches. For example, Mullins (1987, pp. 324–326) suggests Japanese ethnic churches are potentially, “characterized by monolingual language practices, goals of de-ethnicization, and transformation into a multiethnic organization.” However, characterizing Japanese ethnic church communities as “monolingual” does not acknowledge the ongoing fluid and negotiated English language practices of ethnically Japanese church members, English accommodations for English-speaking family members, and English-speaking affiliates who attend Japanese ethnic churches. In addition, Mullins’ (1987) description of Japanese ethnic churches as “multiethnic organizations” seems to fall short of capturing the fluidity of the transrealties of Japanese ethnic church communities because the term “multi-ethnic” implies separate “multi” parts put together. Instead, transcultural descriptions (Pennycook, 2007) are perhaps more useful because they come closer to capturing the existential fluidity and movement between essences of identities and practices. Additionally, Mullins’ (1987) reference to “de-ethnization” as the “loss” of cultural, religious, and linguistic identity markers that assist in the transformation of ethnic organizations into multiethnic organizations might be more accurately described from a transcultural perspective. In other words, “loss” might be better described as “shift” or at least both “loss” and “shift”, but not simply “loss” particularly since the term “de-ethnization” seems to imply an either/or scenario in support of notions of language, culture, and ethnic “purity”, although languages, cultures, and ethnicities are never “pure”, such as in the concepts of “monolingualism” or “monoethnicity.” Put differently, like any sociolinguistic community, Japanese ethnic church communities are more accurately described as transcultural communities where church members experience and embody hybridity because of mixing, meshing, take-up, and exchange.

Further, Mullins’ (1987) point of view seems to imply that movement away from “mono” or homogeneous conceptualizations and toward a “multiethnic organization” is a negative result. However, this is not always the case since there are instances, as shown in this study, when first-generation Japanese-speaking and second-generation English-speaking church community members evolve and decide to remain together in the same building as two churches, Japanese and English, and one “congregation.” Additionally, in light of the “sociolinguistics of globalization” (Blommaert, 2010) and the emergence of transcultural theories (Penny-cook, 2007), both of which came to the fore in academia nearly 20 years after Mullins (1987, 1988), transgressing the limitations of traditional sociolinguistic theories is a means to more accurately describe Japanese ethnic church communities. Japanese ethnic church communities exemplify cultural and linguistic hybridity that may represent “transgressions” of secular epistemologies as developing scholarship seeks to “give new impetus, as far and wide as possible, to the undefined work of freedom” (Pennycook, 2007, p. 42). Thus, subjects in this study demonstrate awareness of either/or/and hybrid complexities beyond binary of oppositions typically characterized in developing secular epistemologies concerning language, culture, and nation as they re-imagine their identities and communities in the midst of transcultural flows (Blommaert, 2010; Pennycook, 2007). For example, Kiko describes herself as “not too Japanese” because she has lived in Canada for several years, yet initially she suggested her culture is “Japanese culture.”

Kiko: I’m not too Japanese cause I live in Canada for almost 10 or 11 years, so I think I have half Canadian culture and half Japanese culture, but hmmm.

Kiko describes a deterritorialized and re-localized hybrid cultural identity as she sees herself as “half and half” with uncertainty that points to fluidity expressed in the phrase “but hmmm”, as a result of living in Canadian society for several years. In our conversation, this territorialized bifurcation became evident as she indicated her “Japaneseness” and “Canadian-ess” are legitimized by her roles in different sociolinguistic spaces as she indicates Japanese is her first language and the language and culture she speaks at home with her parents while she uses English in Canadian society when she works at the hair salon and with English-speaking friends on Facebook (Barrett, 2019). While examining ethnic church communities through a transcultural lens with respect to language policies de jure and de facto (Barrett, 2016) may be a relatively new phenomenon in socio-linguistics, the trans-realities of Japanese ethnic church communities and community members such as Kiko are not.

In other words, Japanese immigrants have been immigrating to Canada bringing their languages and cultures with them and engaging in the normative languages and cultures since 1877. According to 2016 census data, more than 120,000 ethnically Japanese people were living in Canada. Previously, according to 2011 census data, the population of ethnically Japanese people in Canada reached about 110,000, the ninth largest non-European population in a country of about 34 million (Canadian Nikkei, 2015), of which about 45 percent identified as persons with ethnically “mixed” identities. Most of this population lived in Western Canada, which is the location of communities of the people in this study. Additionally, according to Statistics Canada (2011), ethnically Japanese-Canadian people were most likely to have non-Japanese partners. Also, more people in this population identified as being Christian than Buddhist, which is significant for at least two reasons. 1) It demonstrates movement away from traditional Japanese religious beliefs (e.g., Shinto and Buddhism) that are inherent in Japanese cultural practices and toward Christianity from a people group who have traditionally rejected Christianity even into the present time as less than one percent of the country identifies as Christian (Kanagy, 2013). 2) It provides us with the opportunity to consider epistemological differences that inform perspectives of the “secular” and the “sacred” (e.g., Biblical Christianity). In other words, in addition to presenting sociolinguistic complexities of this community that result in transcultural hybridity that impact language policies de jure and de facto, broadly, this study is also about complex differences between social scientific and Biblical perspectives that tend to inform the views of Japanese ethnic church members in this particular community. Put differently, this book deals with perspectives concerning differences between epistemologies concerning the “secular” and the “sacred” in the contexts of ethnic church communities and epistemological hybridity.

To illustrate the effect of sacred/secular epistemologies upon individuals as they relate to “transcultural orientations/realities”, it is useful to consider the concept “returnee” (JCFN, 2019), which refers to a Japanese person who becomes a Christian while living abroad, and then returns to Japan to experience “reverse-culture shock.” Reverse-culture shock tends to occur as a result of groupism expectations that cause the individual to consider re-appropriating Japanese beliefs and practices rooted in Shinto and Buddhism and/or to turn toward or away from the teachings of Christ. This negotiated movement between beliefs is a transcultural negotiation in which individuals negotiate between belief systems that inform their identities. This negotiation is fluid and continues over time as individuals are influenced by both secular and sacred epistemologies.

It is important to mention that Japanese people do not perceive their customary practices as religious or “sacred”, although some who practice Shinto and/or Buddhism do, such as one of the subjects in this study who grew up in Shintoism and whose grandfather was a Shinto priest. In other words, many do not often consider the origins as to why they do the things they do each day. For example, as elementary school students, children in Japan are taught to put their hands together before a meal and say “itadakimasu” (often translated as “I humbly receive”) to thank the people involved in providing the meal all the way back to the farmer. This practice of recognizing origins before receiving a meal is rooted in Buddhism where everything is perceived as being spiritually connected. Since saying “itadakimasu” is similar to saying a prayer of thanks before a meal in Christianity, the phrase is often detached from its original meaning in Christian contexts and I have seen many Japanese Christians perform a Christian prayer before a meal and then say “itadakimasu” in unison with one another before eating.

Another customary cultural practice linked to religion is thoroughly cleaning the house on New Year’s Eve/Day. This custom has its origins in Shinto where it is believed a god enters the house at the beginning of a New Year and thus, it is customary to clean the house from top to bottom to welcome the god (Shiota, 2019). Similar to the daily practice of receiving a meal, most Japanese people do not explicitly perceive house cleaning at this time during the year as a Shinto practice. In addition, “matsuri” or “festival” is an important part of Japanese culture where many matsuri occur during a given year. There are several matsuri throughout Japan in which the gods of each city or town are celebrated by the people of the town. Many are televised and broadcasted throughout the nation. These gods often live in local shrines built on street corners, in alleys, and on large plots of land. While these festivals are clearly religious in nature, Japanese people do not often see them as rooted in Shinto or a particular religion. Rather, in these customary practices and many others (e.g., weddings, funerals, the birth of a child), religious behavior and Japanese culture is “too close to daily life to notice”, as one person stated in a forum (Japan-guide.com, 2019), and so Japanese people ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Permissions
• 1 Introduction
• 2 A Sociolinguistic Theory of Ethnic Churches
• 3 The Study: A Community of Japanese Ethnic Churches
• 4 Are You Japanese Christian, or Christian Japanese, or …?
• 5 Transcultural Realities of a Japanese Community in Canada
• 6 Perceptions of Language Planning and Policy in Japanese Ethnic Churches
• 7 Unintentional Accommodations for ELLs
• 8 Conclusion
• Appendix: Interview Questions
• References
• Index