HSA1000:

THE INVENTION OF
RACE IN ASIA
Clay Eaton
17 August 2022

All images are used for educational purposes

and should not be redistributed
What do we take for granted?

“Race has divided people

since the dawn of history”
Key Points
■ How do we talk about human diversity?
– Key terms: Race, Ethnicity, Nationality
– Remember: Social construct

■ Race as we think of it today is a modern invention

– Legacy of colonialism, systems of thought that placed white Europeans above everyone
else

■ What role does state policy play in how we understand ourselves?

■ Some notes on the assignments

Key Terms
■ RACE
– Categorizes people by descent/genetic difference (but does it really?)
– Preoccupied with visible physical differences
– Came into widespread use as a result of European/Western imperialism

■ ETHNICITY
– Categorizes people by culture
– Some degree of self-recognition
– Came into widespread use after Second World War, preferred term in academia today

■ NATIONALITY
– Categorizes people by… well…
– Culture? Language? Descent?
– Now usually citizenship, but not in every context
Key Terms
Ethnicity
Race Nationality

民族 Bangsa

• Some terms in Asian languages have been used to translate all three

• These categories are ALL social constructs

 Wait, race is a social
construct?

■ Genetic differences between individuals exist

■ Some traits are more common in some communities than others
■ That does not mean that biological race exists in Homo sapiens
– The boundaries between different communities are permeable
– Always people in between!
– Individuals vary, can be harmed when a doctor recommends a treatment based on ‘Race’
■ ‘Race’ does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. If a science news article focuses
on ‘racial differences’ instead of ‘genetic differences’, watch out!
What we can say:
Multiple overlapping identities
■ Today, we use terms like “Indians”, “Malays” and “Chinese” to describe
people in the past, but that is not always how they would see themselves

■ In Southeast Asia, constant mobility meant that many people needed to

find communities away from home, but they defined these communities
in many ways

■ Social tension and violence existed, but along many different fault lines!
Multiple overlapping identities
■ 1840s and 1850s Singapore
– Intense, often violent conflict between Hokkien and Teochew groups over control of the
plantation economy
 Multiple overlapping identities

■ 1867–1874 Selangor Civil War

– Fighting between supporters of rival
Malay aristocrats
– Fighting between members of different
Chinese kongsi
– Alliances across the ‘racial’ divide

■ So where to our contemporary ideas of

race come from?
Race and Imperialism

■ Ideas of race develop over centuries, particularly among

Europeans after the Columbian exchange

■ Much of this focused on Atlantic world from 1500s

through 1700s

■ Used to justify increasingly brutal enslavement of Africans

■ Used to justify genocidal policies against indigenous

populations

■ Portraying others as less human

 Race and Imperialism
■ What about Asia?

■ European presence from about 1500 to 1800

was generally limited to a handful of cities
and trading posts
– Still politically and economically disruptive
– Uneven impact

■ Exceptions
– Spanish takeover of the Philippines
– Increasing Dutch influence in Indonesia
– Increasing British influence in India
 Race and Imperialism
■ Europe takes off economically in
1800s

■ Western imperialism goes into

overdrive in 1800s

■ 1870s are a turning point

– Much of the world is divided up
between European powers
– ‘Independent’ countries still make
concessions to European powers
 Race and Imperialism
■ Imperial powers took control of
huge, extremely diverse populations

■ Race as a strategy to organize

colonial society
– Building off experience in Americas
– British even building off experience
in British Isles

■ India as a model for British and other

imperial powers elsewhere in Asia
Shamsul A.B.
“Malayness” in Malaysia reconsidered
■ Bernard Cohn – In order to govern India, the British needed to make sense of India
– In former colonies, the frameworks that imperial powers created to understand and try to control
ethnicity, ecology, the economy, etc. often persist today!
■ Reinforcing British-made categories through various institutions – ‘epistemological
space’
– Epistemology:
■ Malay Reservation Enactment (1913)
– Creates a bureaucratic definition of ‘Malay’
– Makes it a contested category
■ Who is a ‘Real Malay’? Arguments over whether Hadrami Arabs or Jawi Peranakans
belong in the 1910s and 1920s
■ The categories were created by the colonial power to make governance easier
 And yet!

■ The British are

not the only
ones shaping
identity in
colonial Malaya

■ Before WWII:
Contestation and
flexibility!
■ Ibrahim bin Haji Yaacob

■ Leader of Kesatuan Melayu Muda

– One of the few Malay nationalist
organizations that was explicitly anti-
British

■ “Ibrahim Yaacob complained in 1941 that

there were still too many who thought of
themselves as Minangkabau or Boyanese,
or as subjects of a particular raja instead of
as members of the Malay bangsa pure and
simple.”
Reid, Anthony. 2001. Understanding Melayu (Malay) as a source
of diverse modern identities. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies
32, no. 3 (October): 308.
The diversity of the Overseas Chinese
experience
■ Wang Gungwu (more in Lecture 4) has spent his
career as a historian describing the different
ways that Overseas Chinese have adapted to life
outside of China
■ Before WWII, the Nationalist government in
China attempted to mobilize the large and
wealthy Chinese population of Southeast Asia,
‘Nanyang Chinese’
■ But there was no unified ‘Nanyang Chinese’
– Straits-born vs. xinke ( 新客 ) in Malaya
– Malaya vs. Thailand vs. Philippines
■ Some Overseas Chinese receptive to the
Nationalists, others were not
The diversity of the Overseas Chinese
experience

Even in colonial Singapore, there is much

variety! Chinese Singaporeans at the time
define themselves by dialect group, place
of origin, religion, even as “imperialists”
(pro-British)

“The Letter-Box” Malaya Tribude,

29 Nov. 1919
 Returning to Shamsul

Authority-Defined Reality Everyday-Defined Reality

Recap
■ Race is a category used by imperial administrations to make sense of and
rule colonized peoples

■ Race shapes everyday life through colonial policy, some colonized

peoples appropriate these categories for their own use
– Optional reading: actually, some colonized peoples helped to define
them!

■ Before WWII, not everyone in Malaya paid attention to the British racial
categories. Many opportunities to shape your own identity independent of
them.
Japanese newsreel – Singapore in 1943

■ https://www2.nhk.or.jp/archives/shogenarchives/jpnews/movie.cgi?das_id=D00013005
27_00000&seg_number=002
Japanese imperialism and
theories of race
■ 1940s Japanese imperialists:

– Minzoku ( 民族 ) is most basic division of human

societies

– Japanese ( 大和民族 Yamato Minzoku) as the

leader of Asia

– If a group did not recognize Japan as leader 

Irrational, Backwards, justification for Violence
The Second
World War in
Asia:
Recentering
China
‘Racial’ lines harden
■ War of Resistance against Japan leads to new unity among Chinese
both in China and abroad
– National Salvation Movement in Southeast Asia

■ Continuing resistance leads to increasingly racist attitudes among

Japanese imperialists and justifications for violence

■ Col. Watanabe Wataru, future Malayan Military Administration chief:

– “The Chinese, accustomed to foreign rule, are prone to maintain a false
obedience, and they are as crafty as anything and hard to control. They out
to be dealt with unsparingly.”
Planning the invasion of Southeast Asia:
The Overseas Chinese

■ Despite increasingly racist views

against them, Overseas Chinese are
central to Japanese occupation
plans in Southeast Asia

■ Seen as key to controlling the

regional economy and winning the
war
 The Sook Ching Massacre

Ensuring Chinese will

submit to Japanese
rule through terror,
justified by saying
”Chinese race” must
be ruled by force
The $50 million donation
■ Demanded by Japanese
administration almost as soon
as occupation begins, coerce
the same figures who led the
National Salvation movement
to collect the money

■ The Sook Ching Massacre and

the forced donation unite
Chinese community in
victimization
 Who made these decisions?

Col. Watanabe Wataru

Takase Tōru
Lt. Col. Tsuji Masanobu
A more conciliatory approach?

Mayor
Ōdachi Shigeo
Maj. Fujiwara Iwaichi Shinozaki Mamoru
The ‘Chinese’ and the underlying
assumptions of the Japanese occupation
■ The conciliatory approach follows the same basic assumptions as the coercive
approach!

■ Chinese Singaporeans are seen as a one unified community

■ Overseas Chinese are seen as key to controlling Southeast Asia

■ Overbearing attention from Japanese military administration as soon as the

occupation starts, solely on the basis of their ‘race’
 Raising ‘minzoku
consciousness’

■ Not just about the Chinese, administration organizing all

communities by ‘minzoku’
■ Saitō Shizuo (civilian administrator in Java):

26 April 1943, The Syonan Sinbun

– “Our major objective in the war was to acquire the
natural resources of the land, and this was impossible
to achieve without the cooperation of the natives.
Accordingly, we thought that cooperation with the
people was compatible with our war aims. We felt we
could get them to cooperation by encouraging their
minzoku consciousness”
■ Oversea Chinese Association, Malay Welfare Association,
Indian Independence League, Eurasian Welfare Association,
etc.
Gaps in knowledge

■ Early Japanese planning documents generally describe

non-Chinese as “natives”

■ Obvious confusion among Japanese soldiers about

Indians and Eurasians, etc.
Reliance on local allies to define
‘Malays’ and ‘Indians’

Ibrahim bin Haji Yacob Maj. Fujiwara Iwaichi Capt. Mohan Singh
Kesatuan Melayu Muda S.C. Goho
Shutting down alternatives

■ Appearance and Rapid Disappearance of

1 April 1942, The Syonan Times

Syonan Muslim Consultative Council

■ KS Anwari and the short-lived Syonan

All-India Muslim Club

■ Uneasy outreach to the Tamil-speakers

(majority of South Asians in Singapore)
Emerging from the Japanese occupation:
Unprecedented racial division

■ Full-scale ethnic violence breaks out in 1945, particularly in

Johor

■ Japanese administrators did not want this, constant fear of

instability behind the front lines

■ Japanese racial policies meant to unite Malaya behind them.

Completely backfire!
 Returning to Shamsul

Authority-Defined Reality Everyday-Defined Reality

In what circumstances does authority-defined reality have a

stronger or weaker influence?
What do we take for granted?

“Race has divided people

since the dawn of history”
Conclusions
■ How do we talk about human diversity?
– There are many options, but we must think carefully about the terms we choose to use

■ Race as we think of it today is a modern invention

– It is not an eternal part of the human condition. People have been divided from each
other along many different lines, but we should not project the racial categories that
we use today back on the past.

■ What role does state policy play in how we understand ourselves?

– More on this as we continue next week. Why did racial divisions become more
pronounced under the Japanese?
Next Week
■ Race & Ethnicity 2
– What is the role of contemporary states in managing racial or ethnic
divisions? What can a state control, and what is out of its control?
– How do our authors incorporate evidence from interviews into their writing?

■ Rocha, Zarine L. and Brenda S.A. Yeoh. 2021. Managing the

complexities of race.
– What are some ways in which individuals have navigated the racial categories
used in Singapore today?
– What are some other groups with deep roots in Singapore that might find
themselves in a similar position as the Eurasian community?
Thinking about the Group Presentations

■ Start in Tutorial 2 (Weeks 5 & 6), more detail in Tutorial 1

■ Primary task: Connecting the assigned text for the tutorial to the
lectures and lecture readings for that unit
– Your group will also start off discussion on your topic

■ Takeaway for now: Don’t skimp on the readings! You will be

expected to chip in during discussion, even if you aren’t presenting.
Thinking about the Individual Assignment

■ Due Friday evening, Week 6

■ Writing your own personal narrative, relate your own history to the themes of
the class
■ You will need to conduct interviews for this, so it would be a good idea to start
thinking about who you would like to interview
– Many will interview family, but we have also had excellent papers based on
interviews with teachers, mentors, etc.
– We’ll ask you to submit your interview questions with your assignment.
While you need to include them, these will not be marked.
– Think about how Rocha and Yeoh use interviews
■ Much more discussion of this assignment in Lecture 4
Thinking about the Field-Based Project
■ Group poster due in final tutorial, individual
essay due Friday evening of Week 13
■ Groups same as presentation, must choose a
neighborhood in Singapore
■ Poster contest!
– Theme: What do we take for granted
about… ?
■ After groups are assigned in first tutorial, set
up a way to communicate about presentations
and neighborhoods
■ Tips on field visits in Lecture 4