American Santoka:

Racism and Translation

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"White" people in America as I experienced it are for the most not

bothered by their whiteness. Those who accept whiteness accept that
color as the way things are. As a result, the illusion they are living does not
receive much consideration in the everyday run of their lives. Their being
"white" does not usually draw attention. But for people of darker colored
skins, non-whiteness is something they are conscious of on an almost
daily basis.
Many white people consider their life experiences to be the norm. Whites
tend to imagine that white life is the universe's center and that all else is
outside that conceptually walled in place.
Riverton, New Jersey. My hometown. There was an elderly fellow who
was a respected member of our community, and he was a historian of the
area. The history he wrote of where we lived is called Tales of Three
Towns, and he distributed copies freely. He'd done a thorough job it
seemed to me at first.
Then I wondered how I would feel as an African American citizen reading
this local history, because they are, but for one part of sentence about
high school athletics, totally ignored. Those citizens live mainly in a section
of Palmyra locally known as The West End. About how they came to settle
there, about their experiences and activities living there, or about what
they have contributed to the community, about their entire existence--next
to nothing is mentioned in this local history book. This book is a sample of
the society as a whole, they way it used to be, and, as is obvious with this
book, still is.
Does a light-skinned translator think of herself or himself as white, and do
they assume whiteness for their readers? Do they think much about the
racial makeup of their audience? And, in America, with its racist past and
present, if light skinned translators do not have such things in mind is it
because we consider ourselves the norm?
*****

By racism, here, I don't mean what usually comes to mind when we think
of racist behavior. I don't mean intentional discrimination or acts of racial
violence; I don't mean race motivated immigration laws; I don't mean
internment camps; I don't mean Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I don't
mean objectionable portrayals of Japanese or other Asians found in
American media. What is meant here is that which feeds into these
behaviors. What is meant here is a racism that is absorbed, at times
unconsciously, through the experience of growing up in American society.
These are the effects of racism a translator can inherit just by the fact of
being designated as white in America's color coding society.
In a multiracial society, a person who grows up in a community where the
only color is white (meaning groupings made by skin color--not by
ethnicity) has grown up in a community constructed by mechanisms that
are racist. Each person who grows up in and lives in that community
absorbs an ethos. One element of that ethos is racism. As a result, each
person has that element within. Whether that racist dimension becomes
conscious for anyone, or becomes a priority for a person, is another
matter. But it is there.
The very act--the mental act, the social act, the language act--of labeling a
community as white--or labeling any person as white--makes it obvious
that the language mind and social mind of that nation is engaged in coding
certain dimensions of their lives according to skin color, or race.
As a result, we can only speak of this matter through a language, the
American English language, which racism has already set in a state of
confusion. We have no language with which to speak clearly about these
things. And if there were such a clear language it would have no indication
of skin color codes.
In the same way that the mechanisms (socioeconomic and psychological)
constructing a white community are racist--attempting to keep nonwhites
out--some mechanisms engaged in creating a language spoken by those
in that community are racist.
A language, an American English language symbolizing its culture, was
silently, secretly, telling me as I grew that I am a rightful, whiteful [sic] heir.
As I modulated the air I breathed to shape that language's sounds, I
became shaped by the consciousness that language embodies. That
shared social mind, which includes racism, through my act of learning to
physically manipulate language, seeped into my neurochemical,
neurological, neuromuscular, neuroskeletal, as well as my psychological
being.

In other words I became, unknowingly and inevitably, an incarnation of a

mind that is in part racist, the mind that infiltrates the language I speak.
This is how I came to walk and talk like whitey.
Light skinned ("white") translators, socialized by a color code as white,
speak--and write--a language that is white, and, so, in part, racist. To me it
seems that translations via the American English language (I can't speak
from experience about the scene in other English-speaking countries) are
unavoidably racist in part.
*****
A person's language--as with that person's life itself as that person lives
it--must seek a way, find a way, out of its white confinement. Our writing
must be aware of race before race can be seen for the illusion it is. This is
my concern here looking into the writings of two Santoka translators.
*****
The two translators are Burton Watson and John Stevens. Neither man
constructively can be called racist in the familiar sense of that word. If we
read them, though, through the wider lens that is provided here (meaning
that any individual growing up white in America has inside them some skin
color based ideology), if we view the matter from that angle, we can
maybe come to see how a racist cultural background can, even though we
may not be conscious of it, influence our writings. Instead of looking at
their actual translations, I'm going to look at them in their own words, in
what they say in their introductions to Santoka.
It should be kept in mind that this is an exploration into the matter of
writing as it may be related to racism. There will be no scrutinizing
particular translated Santoka haiku in order to prove that the translator is a
racist. This writing is not an attempt to prove anything. My purpose here is
to try to open a new consciousness for when we do read the translations,
to provide an additional dimension of awareness, to offer a new lens
through which to see things that are possibly operating in the flux out of
which a translation emerges.
Before I get into these two translators, both white" Americans, I want it
known that I respect both and admire their efforts in bringing out so many
volumes in English of things Japanese. Yet, while I respect and admire
them, there are places in their introductions where the writing is not
always as fine as it might be. My concern here is with these particular
passages, these questionable areas. It seems possible that these places
in their texts are signs that there is skin color based ideology operating in
the translators' cultural-linguistic background.

I will begin with John Stevens. In his introduction Professor Stevens

writes:
"In addition, he [Santoka] is considered to be a great Zen master much
like Ikkyu, Hakuin, and Ryokan. How is it that such an eccentric, drinkloving haiku poet came to be so highly regarded? From a literary
standpoint, Santoka's poems are generally admired for their unadorned
style, representative of the "new haiku movement," but this does not
explain his great popularity with all types of people, not only poets and
scholars. Whatever the literary merits of his work, far more important are
the special Zen qualities of simplicity (wabi), solitude (sabi), and
impermanence (mujo)".
In this passage, with "whatever the literary merits of his work" Professor
Stevens can be read as trying to distance himself from--if not actually
dismiss--Santoka's poems AS poems. Stevens makes the poetry
subordinate to the qualities of Zen Buddhism, which seem to be his
fixation throughout his introduction.
It makes me wonder if Stevens isn't being a bit overly zealous in
emphasizing, or over-emphasizing, the Zen qualities of Santoka's poetry
at the expense of the poems themselves. Let us not forget that Stevens is
a professor of Buddhist studies at a Soto Zen Buddhist social welfare
university, and let us not forget that, in the title of Stevenss translation,
Santoka's poems are called not simply haiku but "Zen haiku".
Yet, while Stevens is so very concerned with the Zen aspects of Santoka,
he neglects to tell us anything about the nature of Zen practice in Japan
during the time Santoka was supposedly a Zen master. He doesn't
mention at all the various ways the Japanese Zen establishment
supported Japan's militaristic, imperialistic behavior, which was the Zen
scene's main thrust in Japan at the time. Not only Zen but other Buddhists
sects were getting behind the imperial states program. There were a few
who chose not to hop on the war wagon; they can be counted with one
hand's fingers. Where was Santoka? In Maruya Saiichi's novelette
YOKOSHIGURE, the Santoka character is a warmonger. But that is a
work of fiction.
Stevens tells us that Santoka's haiku express special Zen qualities. Even if
we give Stevens the benefit of the doubt and accept for the moment that
Santoka's haiku do indeed express what Stevens says they do, the
question that comes to mind is "HOW (do the poems convey these)?
Stevens doesn't tell us.

What is it about Santoka's poems that make them different from, for
example, Santoka's prose entries in his journals? Stevens doesn't go into
this at all. We the readers are just supposed to accept that this is Zen
poetry we are reading or listening to. Is it because a reader can come to a
sense of solitude without the poet using the word, the old "show don't tell"
dictum so popular in poetry workshops? But, still, how does the poem
accomplish this? What is it in the guts, in the nuts and bolts of a poem,
that conveys the solitude, the simplicity, the impermanence? (The grave
digger in Hamlet conveys impermanence too; was Shakespeare really a
Zen Buddhist?) Then, if we can answer that question about nuts and bolts,
let us ask ourselves if what we found in the nuts and bolts is indeed Zen.
Or is it in fact something else, something that was in our human condition
even before Zen appeared on the scene in India, China, Japan, or
elsewhere?
Voice--not Zen or anything else--is what makes Santoka's poems the way
they are. Voicelife [sic] is what makes a Santoka haiku different sounding
than an Ozaki Hosai haiku or a Basho haiku or one by Shiki.
I have no idea what Santoka sounded like in his physical voice. No
recordings exist that I know of. But, because Santoka's poems share with
us a heightened sense of life, we sense his words are coming from his
own depths to do so. This is his heartvoice we sense, this is the voice that
activates a physical voice. It is his spirit voice, a voice of life, and a voice
of death. It is the voice of voice.
It is doubtful that Santoka was consciously trying to convey Zen qualities
in his poems. This is not to say that Zen or Buddhism in general did not
influence Santoka's life and work its way into his writing, but did he say to
himself "now I'm going to make a poem that conveys the quality of
impermanence"? No; no serious writer I know of works that way.
Instead of entering into Santokas poems, instead of engaging a poem as
an element, embracing it, or attempting to, in all its fecundity, Stevens
chooses to talk about the Zen.
Next I ask myself, getting back to the theme of this exploration, if there
might be racism (skin color based ideology) operating in Stevenss writing.
I'm wondering about Stevens giving such prominence to the Zen aspects
of Santoka's poems, about his highlighting of Santoka as a Zen master.
Stevenss silence about wartime Zen and about some of Santoka's
arguably pro-imperialist journal entries (entries which Stevens does not
mention in his introduction) also makes me wonder.
A "white" American translator: does he or she even want to see a Santoka
who could very understandably have been pro-(Japanese) imperialism/

colonialism and, parallel to that, anti-Western, anti-American, and anti the

racist reasoning used by the West to justify their own wicked and greedy
colonial ventures? Knowing that Santoka might have not liked them, might
not have thought they are "good" people, likely will not sit well with the
ladies and gentlemen of America's haiku circles.
The Zen master bit, though, is for many American readers another way of
saying exotic otherness, which seems to be one version of the Japanese
experience that white America finds tolerable--and marketable--thanks to
its romantic eccentricity. Would Stevens really care much about Santoka if
he were not, as Stevens tell us, enlightened? Is it only dressed up as a
Zen master that Santoka merits attention?
It is likely that Stevens had his reasons for ignoring what Maruya sees as
Santoka's pro-(Japanese) colonial/imperialist--and therefore antiWestern--journal writings--though he does quote from entries that are
more in line with the Zen master pitch and, from white America's
viewpoint, less ideologically dangerous. Whatever those reasons were, his
decision to not address those matters can come off as racist because one
of racisms many guises is a denial of what in others might disturb us or
threaten. Please remember here that the West historically has assigned
those particular others an inferior place due to their skin color. Please
remember too that this man Stevens describes as an eccentric, drinkloving poet can also be described as a manic-depressive suicidal
alcoholic. Stevens is trying to dress up Santoka to make him more
palatable.
*****
Nowhere in his introductory writing does Stevens seem aware of the fact
that he is white or that he is translating into a language spoiled with
racism, a language which smacks of white man's rule through their control
of grammar, testing, the awarding of degrees, etc. Is that because white
people are brought up to take it for granted that they are the norm? A
black American translator certainly would have been made aware of race
and language long before coming to Japanese literature. In American
society it is an awareness that is forced upon him or her from childhood.
White people are, for the most, kept sheltered by society there, by its
media, its schools, its politicians, and by all the perpetrators of this illusion.
*****
Next under consideration is Burton Watson. Quoted below are the
passages that disturb me:

p.2: ... the Japanese have a marked fondness for people who in one way
or another have made a mess of their lives. And, as we will see when we
come to a discussion of Santoka's biography, he was a prime example of
the "messy" type. Much of the popularity that his works now enjoy is due
to their undoubted literary worth, but much of it is also attributable to the
highly unconventional and in some ways tragic life he led."
p. 8: "In 1932, weary of the hardships of itinerant life, he attempted to
acquire a small an (hermitage) in Kawatana, a hot-springs town in
northern Kyushu that had greatly taken his fancy. But he was apparently
too much of an oddity for the local inhabitants to stomach, and his plans
got nowhere."
p.15: "But because of the very formlessness of the free style, it is at times
difficult to say whether what he has produced is in fact a real poem or
merely snippets of language strung out on the page".
p.16: "But that in his difficult later years he continued to labor away at his
poems seems to me deserving of great respect. From a life marked
otherwise largely by failure, he managed to salvage something of real
value".
In the quote from page 8, Professor Watson uses the words "too much of
an oddity." "Oddity," here, appears to be the translator's own word. Is that
how Watson sees the poet? It is hard to say whether the translator's
description of Santoka here is different from the way "respectable" (white)
society might see him. There is no indication that the word oddity is
translated from a Japanese word or that Watson is borrowing from a
Japanese commentator.
We are told too, in the quotes above, that Santoka's life was "messy" and
that Santoka was in most ways "a failure."
Watson the translator, long a university professor, has taken a position of
authority and has graded for us most of Santoka's various endeavors as
"failure." He does not tell us what the basis for this grade is. Is the basis
pre-World War II Japanese social conformity? Is it an upright white
American Ivy League professor's values? Or is it just pure unexamined
convention? We are not told. Who decided that Santoka is somehow a
less than satisfactory human being because he had nervous breakdowns
and couldn't finish college, had to leave a job, hit the bottle too much, and
was possibly genetically bipolar as well as suicidal? The translator has
already evaluated Santoka for us.

Watson does not mention at all the possibility that Santoka, from his
poem-making, from a heightened sense of life that comes from living as a
poet, was a richer, fuller, more wholesome person, had a deeper
appreciation of life, than many of those who may be considered a
"success" by conventional reckoning.
On page 15 of Watson's introduction we read: "it is at times difficult to say
whether what he has produced is in fact a real poem or merely snippets of
language strung out on the page."
Here again is the underlying notion that Santoka has somehow failed.
Professor Watson doesn't choose to say that he himself was unable to, or
failed to, appreciate certain poems Santoka made. The blame is placed
with Santoka.
Much of course depends on how we read Watson, but one way to look at it
is that in his writing, in his mind, Watson subtly grants a reader
membership into his imaginary club of those who are neither oddities nor
failures. He's writing for those who are "the norm." Yes, in this sense
Watson is a "white" man, writing for other users of this white man's
language, writing for those told by that language/mind that they are the
center. Through Watson's writing readers are presented with a proprietary
claim to the text, a text that will reinforce in them a belief in their own
goodness, a text that will make them secure in the make believe lives they
live.
Watson's introduction can leave us with the feeling that we are somehow
better off than poor Santoka, superior to him, more fortunate than he was,
a better kind of people. If that is in fact the case--and I think it is possible
to read Watson this way--it seems to me that this might be writing that has
racism as an ingredient.
I'm wondering--despite the liberal biographical material presented in his
introduction--how much Watson wants to touch Santoka's life. Is Santoka-with his messiness and failures--someone Watson doesn't really care to
embrace? Doesn't Watson, with these words he writes in his introduction,
try to distance himself from this other, this failure of a human being? Isn't
Watson a bit afraid of this Japanese other?
This is not a general fear of a good writer because that writer will show us
that our sense of security in our niche in life is a lie and will in other ways
discomfort us. This is something else. It is a fear of nonwhites. And it is
ages old. It goes back to Europe's worldwide explorations, to their
conquest and colonization of territories inhabited by darker skinned tribes,
and it goes back to a need to feel secure by keeping those others under
control, a need for power over them. It goes back America's opening

Japan at gun point, to Perry and his black ships, and to further bringing
the Japanese under control with atom bombs.
Watson is not to "blame" for any of this paranoiac conditioning. No more
than I am or anyone is. And yet we all are in the sense that it is all of us
who create these worlds, these words. We are responsible if we do not--to
begin with--wake up from our sleep.
*****
Another question that comes to mind is how can any translator who does
not or cannot himself or herself come out with writing that is fecund--and I
don't mean a display of book-learning--whose words are not breathing to
capacity, whose words are not the life they say themselves to be, how can
these people be published by a reputable company? And what publisher,
where there is racism, can be wholly reputable? Or is it because a
translator is white and is certified by the famed American academic
institution? Is it because a translation is secure in its whiteness, because it
reinforces an other-color-phobic power structure, because it perpetuates
an illusion, that a book can find its way to market?
I recall a scene in a movie in which a white movie director makes a black
actor do lines over because the actor did not sound "black enough" (=
ghetto talk or jive). Is it a fact in America that a writing's whiteness, its
conformity to white-sanctioned ways of seeing (or not seeing)--I mean the
world as white power will have it--is the prime agency of what merit a work
is seen to possess, a merit that overrides more vital connections? If so, it
means that skin color is a dominant factor in that nation's aesthetic. The
degree to which skin color operates as an aesthetic is a measure of that
culture's delusion. Those works of art a corrupted aesthetic (the corrupted
people) finds excellent are fraudulent. They are part of the same
"goodness" fantasy with which the entire scene--the schools, the
government, the lily white churches, the news and entertainment industry-are saturated. The same goes for translations, insofar as they play to that
aberration.
Scott Watson
Sendai, Japan