Multiethnic Japan

Ainu leaders had a variety of responses to the policies of the Japanese state. They sought assimilation in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1970s, however, a new generation of Ainu leaders rejected assimilation. Instead, they borrowed the rhetoric and mobilization strategies of indigenous movements in other countries to challenge Japan's governmental policies in the courts. In 1987 and 1991, they obtained official Japanese recognition of their minority status. In recent decades some Ainu leaders have actively pursued a separate ethnic identity through the writing of Ainu history, performance of Ainu epics, and memorialization of Ainu heroes who resisted Japanese control.

Are burakumin Japanese? The term, which was coined during the late nineteenth century period of state-building, designates individuals whose occupations-leather working, killing animals, handling corpses-caused the majority of Japanese to view them as polluted. Eta (meaning "pollution in abundance"; see "Buddhism and Shinto") performed essential tasks in creating saddles, armor bindings, and other equipment required by the warrior class, but during the Tokugawa period they resided in communities on the outskirts of castle towns, separated from the rest of the population. Regulations created in the seventeenth century made eta a hereditary status and barred them from leaving their communities.

The term burakumin appears in the 1871 Emancipation Decree which freed eta from their outcast status to become ordinary citizens. Hinin (meaning "nonhumans") were lumped with eta as burakumin. The term hinin was used during the Tokugawa period to refer to a hereditary status group who resided in castle towns and cities, who were forbidden to engage in trade, become artisans, or work at unskilled jobs alongside ordinary men. They were employed to clean execution grounds, tend patients with contagious diseases, beg, and earn a livelihood with street performances.

Even after their outcaste status was abolished, burakumin continued to suffer from discrimination in employment, marriage, and place of residence. Burakumin organizations, formed from 1903 onward, worked to improve conditions for members, but discrimination persisted even into the postwar era. Interviews conducted in the 1960s with burakumin who had "passed" into the majority society disclosed profound feelings of personal inferiority aroused by the stigma attached to their status.

Japanese official policy states that burakumin "are not a different race or a different ethnic group" but "belong to the Japanese race." A 1995 survey of individuals living in identifiable burakumin communities found high rates of out-marriage with Japanese, higher educational attainment, and rising incomes. Many other burakumin have become indistinguishable from their Japanese neighbors.

The majority of Okinawans live in Okinawa, also known as the Ryūkyū Islands, located southwest of Kyūshū. The Ryūkyū Islands were an independent kingdom until 1879, when the Meiji government formally incorporated the territory into the Japanese nation as Okinawa Prefecture. Their legal status as citizens did not protect Okinawans who moved to Tokyo and other Japanese cities from being singled out by their spoken language and treated as "members of an inferior race." From 1945 to 1972, Okinawa was under U.S. control. American military bases on Okinawa formed an important part of the American military perimeter in Asia during the Cold War. In 1972 Okinawa was returned to Japan, and became again Okinawa Prefecture. Tension between Okinawans and Japan increased over the U.S. military bases.