Kibei Nisei

The Nisei were second generation Japanese Americans who were born in the United States to Issei parents. Due to the fact that many Nisei were born or raised around the time of World War II, many felt the discrimination directed towards them and their families from the general American public. The Nisei born and raised in America were much more assimilated into American culture than their Issei parents, many of whom only spoke English and thus believed themselves to be more American than Japanese. Many Nisei felt the need to prove to their white American counterparts that they were just as American, as patriotic to the U.S. as any other, with many enlisting in the armed forces to fight in the war as a way to stop the discrimination towards themselves.

The Kibei Nisei were a particular group of Nisei. They had been born in the United States, but sent back to Japan for education, and later returned to America. The Kibei, out of all the Japanese immigrant groups, received the most amount of discriminations, whether from Japanese Nationals in Japan, from other Niseis, or the American public. As Americans returning to Japan for education, many Kibei were looked down upon and marked as symbols of American individualism, opposite of the Japanese imperialism that was being taught there at the time. Even as the Kibei returned to America, they once again found themselves as misfits among the general public and even their own people. To white Americans, the Kibei were treated the same as all Japanese people, harsh and unfairly. But where Niseis find safe haven among their own community, the Kibei cannot because they were often viewed as being “too Japanese”. The Kibei often spoked English with a thick Japanese accent, and behaved accordingly to the Japanese culture they are more accustomed to, and thus became the very thing the “pure” Niseis were trying to turn away from.

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