Emily Itami: “I don’t know how else to be – I cannot exist any other way”
The author on being one of the crowd, interrogating mixed identity and language as the root of thought
Hi, welcome back to Mixed Messages! This week’s guest is Emily Itami, who is of mixed-Japanese and white English heritage. Emily is the author of 2021’s Fault Lines, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award 2021, while her second book, Kakigori Summer, was released in June. The book follows sisters Rei, Kiki and Ai, whose lives took very different paths: one working in finance in London, another a frustrated single mother in Tokyo and the third a free-spirited J-pop idol caught in a scandal. The story unfolds over one summer on the Japanese coast, exploring loss, sisterhood and hafu identity. I loved it, and I was so excited to speak to Emily for this newsletter. Read her story below.
How do you define your identity?
I am half Japanese and half English. My mum is Japanese, my dad is English. I’ve always called myself hafu, which is what we were called in Japan. It never occurred to me as being an issue, it’s just the descriptive term.
Only recently have I heard an argument that people don’t like it. When people say “I'm not half, I’m both,” I see where they’re coming from. Some people see it as a loaded term. I think the parents of new kids are asking themselves, “what do we want for our kids?” Obviously, people should describe themselves however they want to.
When I wrote Fault Lines, they asked me how I describe myself, Anglo Japanese or Japanese English? I said Anglo-Japanese, I don’t know why.
Having grown up in Tokyo, do you think being surrounded by Japanese culture helped you feel solid in your identity when you moved to the UK?
I went to an international school, so my community was a lot of hafus, but also quite American culturally. We spoke in a pidgin mixture of Japanese and English, but my mum spoke to me in Japanese. The neighbourhood that we lived in wasn’t an expat neighbourhood, it was locals.
At school, I didn’t question myself. But outside of school, I was told that I was an outsider. It didn’t upset me. My sister and I are really close, so in a way I always felt like it was us against them, a team against the world.
I did feel like I had a super Japanese upbringing. I’d see my Japanese grandma and aunt a lot. The thing I didn’t have was an English upbringing – that came when we moved when I was 11.
How did you feel after that move?
The first school I went to was super English. On my first day there, these girls got me to stand on this wall and told me my accent was funny. That wasn’t even about my Japanese-ness, it was my American accent. I was so used to everyone being international and it being a non-issue where you came from. But then I moved to a secondary school, which was really diverse. I was one of the crowd again.
Still, I kept to myself for a few years. I used to be really gregarious, loud and overconfident in Tokyo – I think I was quite quiet in England.
Throughout Kakigori Summer, you bring up the idea of untranslatable words in Japanese and English. How do you engage with Japanese and English language when writing?
I speak Japanese fluently. I don’t feel nervous about speaking it, even if I don't understand certain words. My vocabulary is probably that of a 12-year-old; fluid, but not sophisticated. It’s natural to me to use both languages.
A philosopher once said that language is the root of thought, that you can't really form a thought until you've got the language. If you can’t get across a feeling with the words in another language, you wonder if that feeling exists for them. That also teaches you about the mentality of a culture.
Did you set out to write a book that’s so much about sisterhood and mixed identity?
My natural instinct when I was starting to write was to write about hafu. Write what you know, right? It became increasingly interesting to me as I wrote. I met a hafu group and started thinking about it with more distance, not just as my experience, but intellectually and analytically. Then the story grew a lot.
Life is so difficult, crazy, dreadful and difficult, hard things happen all the time to everyone. Sometimes it just seems extraordinary that we can navigate it at all. I believe in connection and love. All we can have is hopefulness. I think that the world is a beautiful place and that there's so much good in it. I wanted to marry those two things.
You read to not be alone. When there’s a book that talks about dark things but in a way that makes you feel able to go forward, that's the kind of book that I love the best. That’s what I set out to write.
Are you conscious about how you’re raising your own children to stay connected to their Japanese identity?
I have sons who look really white. I’m raising white men. That’s mind-blowing to me. I’m massively conscious, even though it’s difficult because of COVID. We were lucky enough to live in Japan when they were small, but during COVID we couldn’t go.
The last couple of years, we’ve made a big effort to go and stay with my family. I made them have Japanese lessons, which was really important to me. It made me feel so sad to think I wouldn't have anyone to talk to in Japanese, especially about fun songs that my grandma used to sing.
How do you want the conversation around mixed identity to develop?
It doesn’t matter what direction the conversation is going in, it just needs to not stop. Everyone needs to pay attention to it. Some people think they don't need to be part of it, and they don't realise all the things that they're doing that are potentially offensive.
We want to keep the conversation as open as possible. Sometimes there can be a culture of everyone rushing to be as offended as they can. That’s very counterproductive. We don't want to get to the place where we're so afraid of offending people that we say nothing. I think that's already happened in quite a lot of other areas.
What’s the best thing about being mixed for you?
I feel so fortunate and lucky to have access to both cultures – there’s so much great food. I have an expanded world experience, a wide view. Even though that means I've got more places where people can kick me out or tell me I don't belong, I've also got more places where I have a home. Even the yearning you feel all the time if you come from two places in itself is a nice feeling, because that means that you're longing for something that you love.
Can you sum up your mixed experience in one word?
Home. Both places are home. I don’t know how else to feel or be, because I cannot exist any other way. My sister, my family, they're all wrapped up in my mixed identity.
Get your copy of Kakigori Summer at Amazon and Bookshop.org. Next week, I’ll be taking a break as it’s my birthday! The following Monday, I’ll be speaking to artist Karimah Hassan. Subscribe to get Mixed Messages in your inbox on Monday 15th September.
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Mixed Messages is a weekly exploration of the mixed-race experience, from me, Isabella Silvers. My mom is Punjabi (by way of East Africa) and my dad is white British, but finding my place between these two cultures hasn’t always been easy. That’s why I started Mixed Messages, where each week I’ll speak to a prominent mixed voice to delve into what it really feels like to be mixed.