How to be an Outsider by Noah Takeda

Author’s bio: Noah Takeda, MSW, is an alumnus of EWU’s MSW program. His interest is in clinical work with diverse populations from humanistic and trauma-informed perspectives. His self-care routine involves playing music, walking, reading, or drinking a cup of tea. 

I remember when I was an undergrad student as a psychology major, my professor in ethics in counseling class told the class, “If you want to be in this field, go to a foreign country. And experience being an outsider. This is so important.” I was born in Japan and moved to a rural and conservative part of the US when I was 20 years old. As a Japanese man in Japan, I was the majority. I was “normal.” In America, that is not the case.  I did not speak the language. I did not understand the culture. I did not look like most people around me. As an outsider, my frequent emotional experience was anxiety that stemmed from a sense of inferiority. For a while, I felt like a 5-year-old boy who was thrown into the world without much protection. There was a feeling that I was the one who had to face this life alone. Albert Camus described this feeling of being in a foreign land that resonates with me very well:

Here I am defenseless in a city where I cannot read the signs… without friends to speak to, in short, without diversion. In this room penetrated by the sounds of a strange city, I know that nothing will draw me toward the more delicate light of a home or another cherished place. Am I going to call out? Cry out? Strange faces would appear… And now the curtain of habit, the comfortable tissue of gestures and words, wherein the heart grows sluggish, rises slowly and finally unveils the pale face of anxiety. Man is face to face with himself: I defy him to be happy… (Yalom, 1980, p.358)

And here is where I first encountered and realized the existence of racism as a receiving end. Being a minority made me more self-conscious. When I was with a group of people, thoughts often went through my head; will I be taken seriously? Am I a threat to others here? But these people may not have any bad intentions toward me. Am I being irrationally insecure? And to this day, I cannot say I have overcome this thought process even if I feel much more comfortable than when I first moved here.

 As a gay man who was born in 1892 and studied the interpersonal and cultural forces in developing mental illnesses, American psychoanalyst Harry Stack Sullivan explains that anxiety arises when one is faced with a situation in which others can disrespect him/her based on characteristics that he/she cannot fix. Sullivan captures the feeling in simple words, “‘I am inferior. Therefore people will dislike me and I cannot be secure with them.’” (Goffman, 1963, p.13).

Although the discomfort of being an outsider cannot be understated, the same experience taught me to be more empathetic and compassionate. I now know what it feels like to be a minority: the uneasiness of being the other. Refugees and immigrants or anyone whose life has dramatically altered may share the feeling that Camus was describing. Regardless of the type of discrimination or prejudice, I assume the emotional experience of being on the receiving end to be similar to what Sullivan noted above. Knowing this feeling, I hope I can connect to others who may feel the same. Knowing this feeling, I hope to make the other person feel safe. Knowing this feeling, I hope it makes me a better social worker.

However, for many, it may be unrealistic to move to a foreign country and start a new life. I am one of the lucky ones. And there are costs: leaving my family and friends, a sense of guilt that comes with it, lost opportunities in my motherland, grief, and the discomfort of being an outsider, etc. I sometimes wonder what my life would look like if I remained in Japan. I don’t regret coming here. I think I am having a great experience. I feel fortunate to have met people here. My life became more interesting. But, sometimes, I wonder, what if?

              Expanding our sense of empathy seems like a daunting task to do. I only have one life with this one body. I can’t experience what everyone would go through. You may ask, “I know it’s important to be open to other cultures, but what if I want to stay in my hometown for the rest of my life?” Can we still increase our sense of empathy and compassion for someone who is different from us? Is there a way?

As it turns out, reading novels is a good way to glance at another person’s worldview and perspectives. A study has shown that reading a novel could improve attitudes toward out-group members, such as immigrants, refugees, and sexual minorities. This is due to perspective-taking and identification with a character. Exposure to out-group members in media has similar effects produced by real-life experiences in terms of cognitive and affective aspects of the experiences (Vezzali et al, 2015).

Jamil Zaki, a psychologist at Stanford University, states in the book The War for Kindness that those who read fiction frequently can read others’ emotions more sensitively than those who don’t read. When interacting with outsiders seems too difficult, reading fiction allows readers to give a sense of outsiders’ lives without actually interacting with them (Zaki, 2019). In the world of fiction, we can glimpse the lives of slaves in plantation houses, a mixed-race woman who lived in the era of segregation, Christians in 17th-century Japan, a sensitive artist struggling in Germany, a Japanese woman considering having a baby without being in romantic relationships, a Russian college student who committed murder, a hard-working family man who transformed into a cockroach, etc.

Reading fiction actually makes people care about real outsiders as research has demonstrated. Zaki says, “Fiction is empathy’s gateway drug. It helps us feel for others when real-world caring is too difficult, complicated, or painful. Because of this, it can restore bonds between people even when that seems impossible.” (Zaki, 2019, p.82).

Well, I guess I didn’t have to move to a foreign country to learn what I have learned here. But that is a good thing. If I encounter someone to whom I have a hard time relating, I can just grab a novel and read. Traveling to someone’s mind is like going to a whole other universe. And we can still find some common ground. We can find something universal in our human experiences. We realize we are part of the larger whole.  And that is the beauty of diversity;  we are all different, but we all share something in common. As philosophers in aesthetics would say: “unity-in-diversity” is a definition of beauty (Diessner, 2019).

P.S.

I know it’s very hard to read anything while in school. Personally, audiobooks have been amazing. Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to read anything. I listen to audiobooks while commuting, walking, or doing house chores. If you live in the Spokane area, Spokane County Library and Spokane Public Library offer Libby and Hoopla apps that allow you to borrow audiobooks on your phone. All for free!

References

Diessner, R. (2019). Understanding the beauty appreciation trait: Empirical research on seeking beauty in all things. Palgrave Macmillan.

Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Vezzali, L., Stathi, S., Giovannini, D., Capozza, D., & Trifiletti, E. (2015). The greatest magic of Harry Potter: Reducing prejudice. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 45(2), 105–121. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ewu.edu/10.1111/jasp.12279

Yalom, I. (1980). Existential psychotherapy. Basic Books.

Zaki, J. (2019). The war for kindness. Broadway Books.