In his Sept. 2 article, "Once a 'gaijin,' always a 'gaijin,' " Debito Arudou seems beside himself with the prospect that he, a naturalized Japanese who adopted Japan as his home and who made efforts to learn the language and customs, will likely never be fully accepted by the Japanese as a Japanese. So he has resorted to a crusade to stamp out the word "gaijin" (foreigner), or make it "obsolete" as he prefers to phrase it.
True, Arudou is no gaijin, but he doesn't appear to acknowledge the key difference between him and the rest of the Japanese population. I'm not speaking of DNA, but of native quality. Cultural exposure in later life does not equal the effect of cultural immersion in the formative years of childhood.
Instead of faulting the Japanese, who upon observing his nuance in manner and speech peg Arudou as a gaijin regardless of his physiognomy (another Asian's cover would be blown, too), he might blame his parents. After all, they were the ones who raised him in the States, depriving him of acquiring that native quality during the formative years. Perhaps he would be happier if he applied for a green card and returned to his roots, where no one would ever again mistake him for a foreigner.
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