Overcoming Bullying and Racial Identity

I was born in USA after my parents' international

marriage. When I was one year old, my parents

and I returned to, returned to Japan to

live with my grandfather.

One day, when I was two, I woke up in the morning

and found that my father had suddenly gone away.

Since then, I was raised by my mother in a

single-parent household. At the time of my father's

disappearance, my mother was pregnant with my young sister.

Life was hard. We wore hand-me-downs from

rel- the relative, the, the relatives,

and lived simple lives, without even dreaming on eating

out or going on vacations. Still, my mother

insisted that her daughters receive a proper

education, even if that meant going i-

uh, meant going into debt. Thanks to

her determination, we went to good school, and I am now

a member of the Diet.

I grew up in the countryside of Japan where there were

no foreigners or half-Japanese residents.

No sooner had I entered nursery school and started have,

starting to have social interaction with

those outside of my family that I became a target of

persecution.

Other kids at my school chased me, threw rocks at me,

and beat me up while yelling, "Dirty foreigner, go back to

America."

At first, I did not understand the reason for my

mistreatment.

I thought that maybe I had done something or offend

other people, so I just accepted it.

However, once I understood that my abuse was

fueled by racial difference, I decided to maximize

my resistance, arguing that I had not

done anything wrong. They are the ones.

We--

who were wrong.

Fortunately, I was taller and stronger than the other

kids, and I was determined to fight back

whenever I

was bullied, and it worked. The number of

kids bullying me gradually de-

decreased, but these attacks continued until

I graduated from my small public elementary school in the

countryside