Here are two publications by Nikkei Australia member Dr Yuriko Yamanouchi based on her ongoing work with the descendants of Japanese migrants in Broome, Western Australia.
This is a statement by Dr Yamanouchi about her research:
‘I obtained permission from my interviewees to conduct the interviews and use the transcripts in my research. Additionally, I reviewed the transcribed interviews with them to confirm accuracy and to ensure they were comfortable with the content. I also shared the article links with some of the participants to maintain transparency and respect for their contributions.’
Yuriko Yamanouchi
Article 1: Memories, relationships and identity: food-related narratives and memory among Japanese descendants in Broome, Western Australia
Citation: Yamanouchi, Y. (2023). Memories, relationships and identity: food-related narratives and memory among Japanese descendants in Broome, Western Australia. Food, Culture & Society, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2023.2211485
ABSTRACT: This article addresses how food cooked by Japanese first-generation migrants, both its making and meaning, is remembered and re-interpreted by their descendants in the remote coastal town of Broome, northern Western Australia. From the 1880s to the 1960s Japanese migrants flowed into Broome for its pearl-shelling industry and related businesses. Some, mostly men, intermarried with local Indigenous people, resulting in mixed heritage descendants who now live dispersed among their non-Japanese family members, seemingly assimilated into the multicultural society that constitutes Broome. In conversations with these Japanese descendants, memories related to food cooked at home by their Japanese first-generation ancestors often surfaced despite these foods being rarely eaten. Though these memories are not of the food itself, but of the family meals and social relations accompanying them, mentioning “food” helps them express their diverse relationships with their Japanese ancestors, support their nuanced identification with Japanese heritage, as well as respond to various images of “Japanese-ness” they encounter in the globalized world. A key finding of the research is that these Japanese descendants utilized food-related memories to articulate and position themselves in different contexts, despite not exhibiting strong Japanese cultural traits, including eating or cooking the aforementioned “food.”
Keywords: Japanese migrants; Australia; mixed heritage; ancestral relationships; food; memories; identity
(To read this article in full, please contact us to request a copy from Dr Yamanouchi).
Article 2: Japanese ancestors, non-Japanese family, and community: Ethnic identification of Japanese descendants in Broome, Western Australia
Citation: Yamanouchi, Y (2018). Japanese ancestors, non-Japanese family, and community: Ethnic identification of Japanese descendants in Broome, Western Australia, Coolabah, No.24&25, ISSN 1988-5946, Observatori: Centre d’Estudis Australians i Transnacionals / Observatory: Australian and Transnational Studies Centre, Universitat de Barcelona
ABSTRACT: This paper explores the ethnic identity formation of the descendants of Japanese migrants in Broome, Western Australia. From the 1880s to the 1960s,Broome had an influx of Japanese migrants seeking work in its pearl shell industryand related businesses; one of the longest continuous Japanese migrations to Australia. Although the history of Japanese migration and mixing with the locals of Broome has been researched, and descendant experiences of being ‘mixed’been portrayed in music and the performing arts, the internal dynamics of their ‘mixedness’has not been investigated. This paper addresses the diversity of Japanese descendant identity by focusing on the complex transmission of their Japanese identity. Case studies reveal thattheir sense of being a Japanese descendant is transmitted and supported not only by their Japanese ancestors and the local Japanese community, but also by non-Japanese family members and the larger Broome community, operating in the background of Broome’srich history as part of Australia’s ‘polyethnic north’.
Keywords: Japanese migrants; ethnic identity; inter-ethnic relationship
Yuriko Yamanouchi is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Global Studies, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan. She received her PhD (anthropology) from the University of Sydney. Her current research focus is Indigenous Australian-Japanese mixed descendants in Broome, Western Australia, their ethnic identity, and how it intersects with local history, memory, and kin relationships.
Photo of Broome Japanese Cemetery by Mayu Kanamori, 2008
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