Japan's Minorities

The illusion of homogeneity

Michael Weiner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040895238
• Subtopic: Emigration & Immigration
• Index: Social Sciences

Based on original research, Japan's Minorities provides a clear historical introduction to the formation of individual minorities, followed by an analysis of the contemporary situation.

This second edition identifies and explores the six principal minority groups in Japan: the Ainu, the Burakumin, the Chinese, the Koreans, the Nikkeijin and the Okinawans. Examining the ways in which the Japanese have manipulated historical events, such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the contributors reveal the presence of an underlying concept of 'Japaneseness' that excludes members of these minorities. The book addresses key themes including:

• the role of this ideology of 'race' in the construction of the Japanese identity
• historical memory and its suppression
• contemporary labour migration to Japan
• the three-hundred year existence of Chinese communities in Japan
• mixed-race children in Japan
• the feminization of contemporary migration to Japan

Still the only scholarly examination of issues of race, ethnicity and marginality in Japan from both a historical and comparative perspective, this new edition will be essential reading for scholars and students of Japanese studies, ethnic and racial studies, culture and society, anthropology and politics.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series Title page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures
• Contributors
• Editor's introduction
• 1 ‘Self’ and ‘other’ in imperial Japan
• 2 The Ainu: Indigenous people of Japan
• 3 ‘Mixed-blood’ Japanese: A reconsideration of race and purity in Japan
• 4 Burakumin in contemporary Japan
• 5 The other other: The black presence in the Japanese experience
• 6 Creating a transnational community: Chinese newcomers in Japan
• 7 Multiethnic Japan and Nihonjin: Looking through two exhibitions in 2004 Osaka
• 8 Zainichi Koreans in history and memory
• 9 Okinawa, ambivalence, identity, and Japan
• 10 Japanese-Brazilian ethnic return migration and the making of Japan’s newest immigrant minority
• Index