Why is Maku mixed race?

A criticism I received about the protagonist of the "Maku" novelettes is the character is mixed race. Hiro "Maku" McGill has a Japanese Mother and a Scottish Father, a deliberate choice that places him between cultures. Perhaps it would be helpful if I were to explain why.

For those new to the series, the stories are set in Kobe a few minutes in the future and one universe over. They're set in this location because it happens to be where I live. Write what you know and all that.

I wanted my protagonist to be detached from the normal workings of Japanese society. An outsider without being too outside. Gaijin would create too many problems, "haffu" sat in a sweet spot where I could project enough of my foreigner view into the character and his world, while also tempering the gradual assimilation of Japanese culture underway as I live out the rest of my life here (immigration policy permitting).

But what right do I, as a mostly stereotypical white dude, have to tap into the mixed race experience?

My twins are British Asian, a wonderful mix of Indian Marathi and British whatever-the-hell-I-am. As their father I helped them navigate growing up across cultures, where their mother fought a running battle to preserve some of the Indian in them against a dominant and often unforgiving London one. I appreciate the tension that can exist between parents and their cultures. Indeed I had some first hand experience of it through the way different sides of my ultimately doomed marriage behaved. So yes, Maku carries some of that fight in him.

Japan is also fighting a demographic shift where increasing numbers of children are mixed race - haffu in the derogatory slang. My research into the trials and tribulations this community's experience has also informed some of what happens to Maku. Within the stories there are echoes of the current attitudes towards mixed race people, particularly how he was shipped of to Dundee as a "secondment", and his forced "resignation" from his role as a Police Detective.

Let's not forget these are fast paced pulp thrillers. The deeper meanings and interactions behind Maku's character are there in notes and surface in a way that some of us who have lived, worked or stayed here for any length of time might find familiar. To put it bluntly, Maku experiences the kind of passive-aggressive, almost naive racism that many "non-pure-Japanese" will have come across. This doesn't happen to offer a social commentary; rather it gives him a means to act outside of convention without it seeming odd. Afterall, he's haffu and what do you expect?

Japan is a deeply conservative nation and rapidly heading further right as it grapples with its many social and economic problems. While the "Makuverse" will reflect this in its stories and setting please never lose sight of my primary motivation:

to write pulp thrillers that entertain with fast paced action, twists and a satisfying conclusion to this story this time (maybe).