Hostname: page-component-669899f699-2mbcq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-24T15:49:15.190Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Political and Cultural Perspectives on Japan's Insider Minorities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Joshua Roth
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Non-Japanese often see the Japanese as an ethnically homogeneous group, but there are actually a number of different groups constituting the whole, including minority communities in Japan that have robust cultures and interact dynamically with the Japanese majority. The Chinese and Korean migrants who came to Japan during Japan's colonial period (late 19th to early 20th centuries) and their descendants constitute the two largest minority groups in Japan today. As many of them have connections overseas, however, this article categorizes them as “outsider minorities” and distinguishes them from “insider minorities.” The Ainu are one of several “insider minorities,” and this article serves as a useful introduction not just to the Ainu and their modern predicament but also to the challenges facing these other groups. As Roth explains, the “Ainu had a distinctive language, clothing, material culture, and social organization that set them off from other Japanese. A century of assimilation programs, however, [have] destroyed much of what made [the] Ainu distinctive.”

Type
Part I- The Ainu People: A Minority in Japan
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 14 , Special Issue S15: Course Reader No. 15. The Ainu People: Indigeneity, Culture and Politics , January 2016 , pp. 11 - 32
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2016

References

Reference List

Balibar, Etienne, 1991 Racism and Nationalism. In Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities. Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Caron, Bruce, 1999 On the Downtown Side of Japan's Old Capital. Public Culture 11 (3): 433439.Google Scholar
Nipo-Brasileiro, Centro de Estudos, 1990 Pesquisa da População de Descendentes de Japonêses Residentes no Brasil. São Paulo: Centro de Estudos Nipo-Brasileiros.Google Scholar
Ching, Leo T. S., 2002 Becoming “Japanese”: Colonial Taiwan and the Politics of Identity Formation. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Christy, Alan S., 1993 The Making of Imperial Subjects in Okinawa. Positions 1 (3): 607–639.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chujo, Kazuo, 1986 Genbaku to Sabetsu. Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha.Google Scholar
Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 1981 Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ishikawa, E. and Swain, D. L., trans. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Creighton, Millie, 1997, Soto Others and Uchi Others: Imagining Racial Diversity, Imagining Homogeneous Japan, In Japan's Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity. Weiner, Michael, ed. pp. 211–238. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
De Ferranti, Hugh, 2000 The Spirit of Tsugaru. Yearbook for Traditional Music 32: 186–189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Vos, George A. and Wagatsuma, Hiroshi, 1995 Cultural Identity and Minority Status in Japan. In Ethnic Identity: Creation, Conflict, and Accomodation. 3rd edition. Romanucci-Ross, Lola and De Vos, George A., eds. pp. 264–297. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.Google Scholar
di Leonardo, Micaela, 1984 The Varieties of Ethnic Experience: Kinship, Class, and Gender among California Italian-Americans. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dietz, Kelly L., Ainu in the International Arena. In Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People. Fitzhugh, W. W. and Dubreuil, C. O., eds. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Douglas, Mary, 1966 Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Purity and Taboo. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Dower, John, 2003 “Foreword”. In Were We the Enemy? Rinjiro Sodei. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Engle, David, 2003 Law in the Domains of Everyday Life. In Law in Everyday Life. Sarat, A. and Kearns, T., eds. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Field, Norma, 1993 In the Realm of a Dying Emperor. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Figal, Gerald, 2003 Waging Peace on Okinawa. In Hein, Laura and Selden, Mark, eds. Islands of Discontent. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Fowler, Edward, 1993 Minorities in a “Homogeneous” State: The Case of Japan. In What Is a Rim? Critical Perspectives on the Pacific Region Idea. Dirlik, Arif, ed. pp. 211–233. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Figal, Gerald, 1996 Sanya Blues. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Gladney, Dru, ed., 1998 Making Majorities: Constructing the Nation in Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia, Fiji, Turkey, and the United States. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodman, Roger, 1990 Japan's “International Youth”: The Emergence of a New Class of Schoolchildren. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Gottlieb, Nanette, 1998 Discriminatory Language in Japan: Burakumin, the Disabled and Women. Asian Studies Review 22 (2): 157–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hannerz, Ulf, 1989 Culture between Center and Periphery. Ethos 54(3-4): 200–216.Google Scholar
Hayashi, Reiko, and Okuhira, Masako, 2001 The Disability Rights Movement in Japan: Past, Present and Future. Disability & Society 16 (6): 855–869.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayashida, Cullen T., 1975 The koshinjo and tanteisha: Institutionalized ascription as a response to modernization and stress in Japan. Journal of Asian and African Studies 10(3-4): 198–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hein, Laura, and Selden, Mark, 2003 Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howell, David L., 1994 Ainu Ethnicity and the Boundaries of the Early Modern Japanese State. Past and Present (142): 69–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howell, David L., 1996 Ethnicity and Culture in Contemporary Japan. Journal of Contemporary History 31: 171–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hudson, Mark J., 1999 Ruins of Identity: Ethnogenesis in the Japanese Islands. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
Ishida, Takeshi, 1998 “Doka” Seisaku to Tsukurareta Kannen toshite no “Nihon” (Part 1). Shiso (892): 47–75.Google Scholar
Ishida, Takeshi, 1998 “Doka” Seisaku to Tsukurareta Kannen toshite no “Nihon” (Part 2). Shiso (893): 141–174.Google Scholar
Ivy, Marilyn, 1995 Discourses of the Vanishing: Modernity, Phantasm, Japan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaizawa, Koichi, 1999 Shishirimuka: A Saru River Tale. In Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People, Fitzhugh, W. W. and Dubreuil, C. O., eds. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Kano, Masatada, 1997 Kindai Nihon ni okeru “Minority” - Okinawa no Keiken. Rekishigaku Kenkyu (10): 2–35.Google Scholar
Kayano, Shigeru, 1994 Our Land Was a Forest. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Kikumura-Yano, Akemi, 2002 Encyclopedia of Japanese Descendants in the Americas: An Illustrated History of the Nikkei: An Illustrated History of the Nikkei. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.Google Scholar
Kogawa, Joy, 1981 Obasan. Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys.Google Scholar
Law, Jane Marie, 1997 Puppets of Nostalgia: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of the Japanese Awaji Ningyo Tradition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lesser, Jeffrey, 1999 Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities, and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Lesser, Jeffrey, ed., 2003 Searching for Home Abroad: Japanese Brazilians and Transnationalism. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Lie, John, 2001, Multiethnic Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Linger, Daniel, 2001 No One Home: Brazilian Selves Remade in Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Maeda, Ai, 2004 [1981] Utopia of the Prisonhouse: A Reading of In Darkest Tokyo, In Text and the City: Essays on Japanese Modernity. Durham: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maeyama, Takashi, 1996 Esunishiti to Burajiru Nikkeijin. Tokyo: Ochanomizu Shobo.Google Scholar
Maeyama, Takashi, 1997 Iho ni “Nihon” o Matsuru. Tokyo: Ochanomizu Shobo.Google Scholar
Mathews, Gordon, 2000 Global Culture/Individual Identity: Searching for Home in the Cultural Supermarket. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Matsubara, Iwagoro, 1980 [1893] Saiankoku no Tokyo (In Darkest Tokyo). Tokyo: Koten bunko, Gendai shinchosha.Google Scholar
Matsubara, Yoko, 1998 The Enactment of Japan's Sterilization Laws in the 1940's: A Prelude to Postwar Eugenic Policy. Historia Scientiarum 8 (2): 187–201.Google Scholar
McCormack, Gavan, 1996 Kokusaika: Impediments in Japan's Deep Structure. In Multicultural Japan: Palaeolithic to Postmodern. Denoon, Donald and McCormack, Gavan, eds. pp. 265–286. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mihashi, Osamu, 1987 The Symbolism of Social Discrimination: A Decoding of Discriminatory Language. Current Anthropology 28 (4): 19–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ministry of Health and Welfare, 1999 White Paper Annual Report on Health and Welfare. http://www1.mhlw.go.jp/english/wp_5/vol1/p2c4s2.html (last accessed March 15, 2005). Mogi, Toshihiko, 1992 The Disabled in Society. Japan Quarterly 39 (4): 440–448.Google Scholar
Molasky, Michael, 2003 Medoruma Shun. In Hein, Laura and Selden, Mark, eds. Islands of Discontent. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Molasky, Michael, and Rabson, Steve, eds., 2000 Southern Exposure: Modern Japanese Literature from Okinawa. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Mori, Koichi, 2003 Identity Transformation among Okinawans and Their Descendants in Brazil. In Searching for Home Abroad. Lesser, J., ed. Durham: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris-Suzuki, Tessa, 1998 Re-Inventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Nakamura, Karen, 2002, Resistance and Co-optation: the Japanese Federation of the Deaf and its Relations with State Power. Social Science Japan Journal. 5 (1): 17–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nakason, Ronald, 2002 Okinawan Diaspora. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Neary, Ian, 1989 Political Protest and Social Control in Prewar Japan. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Ninomiya, Shigeaki, 1933 An Inquiriy Regarding the Origin, Development, and Present Situation of the Eta in Relation to the History of Social Classes in Japan. Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 2nd ser 10: 47–152.Google Scholar
Yuko, Nishikawa, 1997 Josei wa mainoriti ka. Rekishigaku Kenkyu (10): 11–20.Google Scholar
Oguma, Eiji, 2002, A Genealogy of ‘Japanese’ Self-images. Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press.Google Scholar
Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko, 1984 Illness and Culture in Contemporary Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oguma, Eiji, 1987 Monkey as Mirror: Symbolic Transformations in Japanese History and Ritual. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Oguma, Eiji, 1998 A Conceptual Model for the Historical Relationship between the Self and the Internal and External Others: The Agrarian Japanese, the Ainu, and the Special-status People. In Making Majorities. Gladney, Dru, ed. pp. 31–51. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Ooms, Herbert, 1996 Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ota, Yoshinobu, 1997 Appropriating Media, Resisting Power. In Between Resistance and Revolution: Cultural Politics and Social Protest. Fox, R. G. and Starn, O., eds. New Brunswick: Rutgers Press Press.Google Scholar
Otsubo, Sumiko and Bartholomew, James R., 1998 Eugenics in Japan: Some Ironies of Modernity, 1883-1945. Science in Context 11(3-4): 545–565.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roberson, James, 2003 Uchinaa Pop. In Hein, Laura and Selden, Mark, eds. Islands of Discontent. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Roth, Joshua Hotaka, 2002 Brokered Homeland: Japanese Brazilian Migrants in Japan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Selden, Kyoko and Mark, , 1989 The Atomic Bomb Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Siddle, Richard, 1996 Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smits, Gregory, 1999 Visions of Ryukyu: Identity and Ideology in Early-Modern Thought and Politics. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
Sodei, Rinjiro, 1998 Were We the Enemy? American Survivors of Hiroshima. Junkerman, J., trans. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Social Security Administration, Office of Disability Programs, 2005 Disability Evaluation under Social Security http://www.ssa.gov/disability/professionals/bluebook/2005%20Part%20A.pdf (last accessed March 15, 2005).Google Scholar
Takagi, Hiroshi, 1993 Fashizumuki, Ainu Minzoku no Dokaron. In Bunka to Fashizumu. Akazawa, S. and Kitagawa, K., eds. Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Hyoronsha.Google Scholar
Takaki, Masayuki, 1992 Sabetsu Yogo no Kiso Chishiki. Tokyo: Doyo Bijitsusha.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles, 1992 Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition.” Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Toby, Ronald, 1984 State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan: Asia in the Development of the Tokugawa Bakufu. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toby, Ronald, 1986 Carnival of the Aliens. Monumenta Nipponica 41 (4): 415–456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treat, John Whittier, 1995 Writing Ground Zero: Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Tsuda, Takeyuki, 1998 The Stigma of Ethnic Difference: The Structure of Prejudice and ‘Discrimination’: Toward Japan's New Immigrant Minority. Journal of Japanese Studies 24 (2): 317–358.Google Scholar
Tsuda, Takeyuki, 2003 Strangers in the Ethnic Homeland: Japanese Brazilian Return Migration in Transnational Perspective. New York: Columbia Press Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Upham, Frank, 1987 Law and Social Change in Postwar Japan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
U.S. Census Bureau, Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division, 2003 Imputation of Disability Items for the Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population 5 Years And Over http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/disability/disability.html (last accessed March 15, 2005).Google Scholar
Ventura, Rey, 2003 Underground in Japan. London: Jonathan Cape.Google Scholar
Walker, Brett, 2003 The Conquest of Ainu Lands: Ecology and Culture in Japanese Expansion, 1590-1800. Berkeley. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Masako, Watanabe, 1996 Kyodo Kenkyu Dekasegi Nikkei Burajirujin. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten.Google Scholar
Weiner, Michael, 1994 Race and Migration in Imperial Japan. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Weiner, Michael, ed., 1997 Japan's Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Yamaguchi, Masao, 1977 Kingship, Theatricality, and Marginal Reality in Japan. In Text and Context: The Social Anthropology of Tradition. Jain, Ravindra K., ed. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues.Google Scholar
Yamashita, Karen, 2003 Circle K Cycles. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press.Google Scholar
Yoneyama, Lisa, 1999 Hiroshima Traces: Time, Space, and the Dialectics of Memory. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Yoshida, Teigo, 1981 The Stranger As God: The Place of the Outsider in Japanese Folk Religion. Ethnology 20 (2): 87–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar