HIEA 115 Medium Post #2
It’s been really interesting hearing the stories of racialized women who lived in the Japanese empire: an elderly buraku woman who lives in Mie Prefecture, Iha Yoneko who lives in Okinawa, and an unnamed Korean woman whose life and labor were erased from history. I feel like I can relate to them as an Asian woman myself. I have been stereotyped, but I would not go as far as saying that I have experienced racial discrimination. For example, people assume that I’m smart, good at math, or quiet just because of how I look. But thankfully I have never been the victim of verbal and/or physical abuse due to my race. My experience as an Asian-American woman does not come close to the suffering that these three women endured. And I believe that this says something about how far women’s rights have evolved and the modernism and progressiveness of American gender equality.
Just as a side note, I wanted to mention that Week 5’s Lecture, “‘Buraku’ Women and the Asama Struggle” really piqued my interest in the origins of burakumin. I was so interested in the subject that I chose to write about it for my Discussion Leader project in JAPN 130C. So far I have learned that burakumin is at the bottom of the social class system, or rather not even included because they were not even seen as human beings. Burakumin worked as executioners, undertakers, slaughterhouse workers, butchers, and tanners (Japan Encyclopedia). Even today, being of burakumin descent can make finding a partner or a job more difficult. I was surprised that a minority group in Japan even exists since Japan is so homogenous (“Japan’s hidden caste of untouchables”).
I think it is important to tell these women’s stories, but also important to be careful in the way you go about doing so. I cannot say I know what kind of historical writing is ethical or not, but I believe that Professor Matsumura went about it in a very ethical way.
To answer the question, I first want to briefly mention what type of information may be recorded in official archives. My vaccine record and the number of covid tests I took would be recorded. I got Pfizer for my first and second dose and Moderna for my booster shot. (And I am assuming there will be more booster shots required in the future as the virus mutates). I have an absurd number of covid tests because of UC San Diego’s requirement last year to get tested at least once away. If a historical look at these numbers, they would either think I got covid numerous times or was just an anxious person.
As for information that may not be recorded in official archives, I would say how the pandemic has affected the lives of everyday people on a day-to-day basis and the way it has transformed society as a whole. To provide a silly example, WFH or work from home has been added to people’s vernacular because of everything going remote.
Everyday life:
As an introvert, the pandemic has made my life easier and more difficult at the same time. Easier because I do not have to attend classes in person and do not have as many social obligations. And more difficult because it has not pushed me outside of my comfort zone. For example, I am more comfortable being alone now without feeling lonely or feeling the need to socialize. But I also find that I have more social anxiety and that I can only hang out with people for a limited amount of time before my social battery is used up.
Other than my tendency to be less social than others, the pandemic has not significantly changed my day-to-day life. I am fortunate enough to have been brought up in an upper-middle-class household and have all the resources I need to attend online school, receive treatment if I get covid, etc.
Although the pandemic has not affected me as much as it has others, I believe that it is still necessary to ethically tell the stories of minority groups who have been disproportionately affected without erasing them from history.
Society:
I listen to a podcast called The Daily by the New York Times. Since Professor Matsumura actually recommended it to me, I have been listening to it almost every day. I learned that the pandemic had changed how people think about work. A lot of people do not want to go back to work or want to work shorter workweeks. Many people also would like to work from home full-time or have a hybrid work schedule.
Even though the pandemic has affected me personally, it has not affected me as much as others. So I would be comfortable with having future historians look through my archives.
Thinking about these questions has changed the way that I think about the ethics of writing other people’s histories. It has taught me that you have to be careful when writing about other people’s stories. You have to see the names of the pages as actually people.
