Rob Sipkens | ロブ•スィプケンス

Manako Maddison says:

You can find your identity without your nationality because you can find your identity in other ways like your hobbies, age, gender, the colour of your skin, and your likes or dislikes of TV shows.
For me, I have always felt home in Austria even though I only go there for skiing and not from there. I think it’s because they see me as both English and Japanese, not one way or another as I find myself in Japan and in England.
So, even though I knew of my parent’s lineage and proud of it, it didn’t deepen my pride in my identity, but travelling to another country constantly have awakened my acceptance of my nationality. Before I used to call myself Japanese in England and English in Japan as people in those countries saw me as fit. So I conformed myself in those social view of my looks. However, because I went to Austria and the people were always curious about my identity and was always asking questions, I reorganised my thoughts on my identity and fully accepted myself as Anglo-Japanese.
The acceptance of your identity varies to everyone. Most Half-Japanese I’ve met at school always accepted one of their nationality over the other. Simply because they were born and grew up in either Japan or in England and didn’t touch or be concerned of their other nationality. I was born in Japan and grew up there till I was nine and I moved to England. So I had enough absorption of the Japanese language, culture, and History.