Kiko Mizuhara — Identity, Idiosyncrasy and Love

Identity, Idiosyncrasy and Love

A conversation between Kiko Mizuhara and Yoon Ahn

Photography Stefan Dotter Styling Shotaro Yamaguchi
Art Direction Kevin Pfaff

Growing up between Japan and Europe, where I lived in predominantly White environments, I often found myself unable to “fit in” in either cultures. I clung onto this identity of being Asian woman; but while it gave me great comfort and a sense of belonging, it also left me unable to see the world without categories. And yet, upon returning to Japan, that identity as an Asian woman I had held proudly for so long was largely taken away, as I now became the ordinary Japanese woman. It liberated me from racial oppression, but also left me wondering about what other minority groups are experiencing in Japan. I started looking into their stories, to let their voices be heard, as this was something that I wish someone had done for me, and diasporic others.

We, human beings, innately belong to a group since birth and our identities are constructed through our relationship to the world. But how does one’s identity form when one is unable to belong to such a group, or when one must wrestle with the historical and political meanings of one’s own ethnic background?

What Hannah Arendt, one of the most prominent political theorists of the 20th century and a survivor of Holocaust, had to say in response to her presumed “love for the Jewish people” may hint at an answer to this question. As Arendt states in a letter to Gershom Scholem, her friend and another renowned Jewish intellectual: “I have never in my life ‘loved’ any nation or collective — neither the German people, nor the French, nor the American, nor the working class or anything of that sort. I indeed only love my friends and I am totally incapable of all other love.”

— Lisa Tanimura

Yoon Ahn: Where did you go for your holiday? It looked so nice.

Kiko Mizuhara: I went to Mexico. It was worth it. Beautiful. I have so much to talk to you about, Yoon. Whatʼs up?

YA: I am good! So what are we gonna talk about today? Identity, right? We got a list of questions. Letʼs get into it — what was it like growing up between different cultures?

KM: As a child, I was always confused about my identity. I was born in Dallas, but I was just there for two years. I grew up in Japan and I went to a Japanese school. But for summer holidays and Christmas, I went back to Texas, and it was hard because my English was not perfect. But I would stay there for a month, and start picking it up. Then that would be the time that I had to leave again. It was really confusing. When I was back in Japan, I was the weird one in school because I was the only American kid in the neighbourhood. There were people from the rest of Asia, but I was the only American. In Kansai, kids can be really harsh. They were not trying to bully me, but I was just the one that was fun to pick on. They would always tell me to speak in English and so on, and I would be shy because I felt really different.

In the Japanese culture and mentality, everybody should be the same. I didnʼt know who I was. I still donʼt to some extent, Iʼm just a human.

If somebody asks me about my identity, I really donʼt know how to answer. But now, I would say I am just me. No one can choose what kind of a person you are born as. I am just gonna live with this, and I feel happy. What about you?

YA: I think the same. I was born in Korea, but my dad was in the US Army, so we were moving around so much. I lived in Hawaii with my parents for a few years, back to Korea, and then we moved to California, and then went back to Korea, and then we settled in Seattle after that. So pretty much until middle school, I changed school a lot. When you start to form your identity, you start to question your identity and your place and who makes you what, through your peers and your environment. We moved to Seattle so it was a lot of adapting that I had to do because there were no Asians in my neighbourhood so I was pretty much the only Asian girl in my class. I had to relearn English and it wasnʼt the easiest. I thought I was going to die, for years. Not understanding everything, I had to graduate and go to high school. I have to say it wasnʼt easy.

KM: But how do you feel about that now? I guess we both had a confusing time because we were moving around and being in a different environment and surrounded by different cultures and people. But how do you feel about yourself now? Are you happy? I mean, Iʼm sure youʼre happy, but ...

YA: I am happy that my experiences make me a unique person because I have a good understanding of how the world works. And because I had to adapt so much to different environments and different people, it became much easier for me to have more empathy towards different cultures and people. I actually get bored if Iʼm just stuck, because I want to learn more and absorb things. Because there are very few people who have the same background as us, I think that a little bit of loneliness is still there. Iʼm starting to see more people from different backgrounds now that we can live in different places more freely. It makes me feel not as awkward as I used to. But everyone likes to think in box terms because they need to marginalise others to understand their own existence and belonging. When people donʼt understand you, and they want to know you, but they only look at you a certain way, how do you deal with that?

KM: You canʼt really change other peopleʼs perspectives, so I wouldnʼt get hurt by it. I even feel like maybe I do the same, too. Sometimes it is hard to understand or get to know other people because we have just lived in completely different environments. But for my work or interviews, I try my best to be myself as much as possible. I just try to be honest and not simply answer what somebody wants to hear. I think we just have to keep doing what we want to do, and maybe, 10 years or 20 years later, people will understand. But when I was posting a photo of me not wearing a bra, the Japanese media went crazy. But when I donʼt want to wear a bra, Iʼm just going to not wear a bra. Whatʼs the problem? I didnʼt do it to hurt anyone, I was just trying to be me. I just kept doing that, and now nobody cares what I do, or who I date. How do you feel about it?

YA: Itʼs definitely society. If you look at how the Japanese entertainment system expects girls to behave, their understanding of a model or a “joyu” 女優 (actress) is based on examples in the past. Donʼt conform to that. Youʼre just being you. For me, Iʼm always outside, so I see that itʼs not a big deal. There are worse things than nipples popping out. Things like this for me are trivial. Things like that are desensitised. Youʼre always being yourself and you always put that first, so eventually people start to see how genuine you are. Genuineness is not something you can fake.

KM: Have you ever been judged or misunderstood in Japan or elsewhere?

YA: Yeah, many times, but I have this philosophy in my head. Iʼm my own thing, right? My coping mechanism is not to live by other peopleʼs rules. Iʼll make my own rules. And as long as I abide by my own rules, Iʼm not going to die by it. It tends to be group thinking thatʼs the problem. Especially in Japan. Koreans are like that too. And Iʼve never been a huge fan of that. So I didnʼt pay attention to it, and I didnʼt really have issues when I got discriminated against.

KM: Thatʼs what I love about you, because youʼre such an “unnie” 언니 (older sister), a strong “unnie”.

YA: Oh, we had to be. Our background made us so strong. Because we never had to be part of something or somewhere. We had to survive. We had to fight to be where we are. The beauty of people who grew up in so many different cultures is that we can adapt. We have that mental strength to us. But what does it take to live and work in Japan as someone of Korean descent? Has that ever bothered you?

KM: It never bothered me. Actually, when I was a kid, having a White American dad bothered me more. Because I looked different. But growing up, that became a strong tool for me, because in Japan, everybody loves mixed girls. And there were magazines mostly using models of mixed roots. This one time when I appeared on a live TV show, I was talking with the host and he asked me, “So where is your dad from?” And I was like, “My dad is from America” and “where is your mom from?” And I was like, “sheʼs Korean”. People freaked out. But my mom never explained because Iʼm a third generation “Zainichi” 在日 Korean1 and obviously itʼs not a bad thing, but I didnʼt know that I was not supposed to say it in public. And all the Japanese people started freaking out.

YA: Is it because they thought you were half Japanese?

KM: I think so. And I think that my name was maybe a little confusing, which I get. But using a Korean name for me is even more confusing. And my parents are divorced, so Iʼm not going to use my American name. Actually, “Mizuhara” is interesting because my mom didnʼt want to use her family name and decided to make our own one. She went to this fortune place and searched all our names in Kanji; she gave us a few options and “Mizuhara” was one. A lot of people were like, “Sheʼs hiding it because sheʼs using a Japanese name”. But Iʼm not hiding. I said that Iʼm Korean live on national television. Honestly, it can sometimes be heartbreaking because I just want to live peacefully. But my existence is already political for a lot of people. And they would try to ask me all these questions. But I donʼt have the answer.

Itʼs so difficult to face the history. So when I was a kid, having Korean roots didnʼt bother me. But recently, in the last five years or so, a lot of conservative people would just bash me because Iʼm Korean. They would say, “go back to your country” and stuff like that.

Iʼm proud to be Korean but itʼs not that I like myself just because I am Korean. I like myself because I have a lot of different cultures inside me. I know Japanese, Korean and American culture.

YA: I didnʼt know conservative people were going after you. Donʼt get me wrong, Iʼm a foreigner living here too. But Japan is so forward in one way and also quite behind in so many others, because weʼre not really letting a lot of outside influences in as much. Iʼm sure they go home and eat kimchi, so who cares?

KM: Exactly! And what can you do? You canʼt really change those people. And I was just born this way, and Iʼm not lying. I have a “Zainichi” Korean mom, and I have an American dad, and I live in Japan, thatʼs me. Period. But now I kind of know the reason why a lot of people hide that they are Korean, because it is going to be messy.

YA: But now youʼre setting a good example for the younger ones to remind them that you are who you are.

KM: I did a book signing in Osaka recently. In Osaka, there are a lot of Korean people. Many girls came to my event, and they were crying, and they were like, “when I see you, I feel proud of myself”. I really wanted to cry when I heard that. It was so beautiful. And I was so happy that I made them feel that way. It is not that I want to be a role model for these kids. But the fact that just being myself and doing my thing made them proud of themselves was the best thing to hear. So Iʼm just going to keep doing what I want to do. I hope that will make not only “Zainichi” people, but a lot of girls too, happy and confident about themselves.

YA: Thereʼs two types of people, right? A group of people driven by fear and a group of people driven by love. And I think your life and your existence and who you are isnʼt the easiest, but itʼs always driven by love, right? Finding love for yourself, your background, love for other people, appreciation for different cultures. And I think that is a strength. People who resist change are usually driven by fear. And I think that happens everywhere in life. It doesnʼt even matter what background you have. It could be your “kachikan” 価値観 (personal values), it could be idea, looks or whatever. So I guess the one lesson that I can share with people from my life is that life isnʼt easy. Thereʼs a lot of things you go through, especially if you are not from that background and you donʼt live in the same town that you were born and grew up in. Just remember, you have a choice: are you going to be driven by love or fear?

Iʼm sure thereʼs a lot of people that, even if theyʼre Japanese and grew up in Japan, donʼt fit into society. If they read this interview, I want them to know that itʼs okay. At the end of the day, it doesnʼt matter, race or name or anything. We all — as human beings — question identity, our place in the world, why we are here, where we are going. But think about it with love rather than fear. I think that will liberate a lot of people.

Make-up Kanako Yoshida Hair Kazuhiro Naka
Production Babylon Producer Taka Arakawa Coordinator Azusa Nozaki
Post Production Sheriff Projects Paris

Styling assistant Mizuki Hirano Make-up assistant Shumari Takabayashi
Hair assistant Shuna Nagise Production assistant Ino Yu

DOP Atsuki Ito Video assistant Hazuki