Admittedly anecdotal but I recall when my brother went on a school trip to Japan, him and his school mates were expected to do an embarrassing dance number akin to the Haruhi Suzumiya dance for the students of a Japanese school; I also recall folks who went to teach English in Japanese schools who were merely hired as aides to repeat what the teacher was saying but in a goofy manner. I was like “What a racist cult- oh wait we do that too”.
I remembered Ken Jeong and hearing him speak in an interview and was shocked he didn’t have that accent he puts on in his movies. I then remembered some Asian Americans who said you have to sell out deeply to be accepted in America, and if you say one thing that can be interpreted as pro-China (even calling out Japanese war crimes against China), you lose everything. We like our non-white Americans to be stereotypes and we get scared when we can’t otherize them; we’re also quick to distrust them.
do they apply the
filter for defining someone as “gaijin”
They are much stricter over there, white boys are dirty gaijins too, same if you’re Asian but not Japanese.
japan never denazified either it seems
They haven’t. They are still denying their warcrimes commited during world war II, and they have a shrine in Tokyo in honor, amongst others, of the people responsible of the Nanjing massacre.