Or more so than I am, at least?  I know I’ve got him beat on these things:

-Time spent living here

-Language

-Cultural fluency

-Interest in Japan

And maybe a few more I haven’t the sociological state of mind to come up with.  On any criterion besides the one with immutable physical manifestations, I win the Japaneseness race with my dad and probably any of my other “pure-blooded” relatives under the age of 60.  I suppose I might lose on self-identification too, but of course my self-identification as an American, and theirs as Japanese, would probably change if we weren’t all living in the societies we’re living in now.

I know I say this a lot, but I don’t keep bringing this up because I want my legitimate membership in club Japan recognized by a greater percentage of the population here.  I rather want to use my family as an example of just how useless “race” is as a determiner of one’s personal characteristics.  It’s not true at all that I devalue my Japanese-American family – I just don’t value much at all the fact that they’re Japanese.  They’re my family in California, and have practically nothing to do with my connection to this place.