Minority Groups and Racial Discrimination in Japan

History of Race in Japan

Japan is often perceived as a racially homogeneous country, but this perception needs further examination.
According to 2018 statistics, almost 98% of the Japanese population is of Japanese descent.
The concept of race was introduced to Japan in the late 19th century during the age of imperialism.
European and American nations viewed the Japanese as part of the broader, and according to them, lesser Asian race.
The Japanese responded by asserting their distinct Japanese race, claiming it was superior to the general Asian race.
This assertion helped justify Japanese imperial activities and dominance over other Asian nations and indigenous minority groups like Okinawans and Ainus.
Shintoism, with its belief in the divine origin of the Japanese race, may have reinforced the concept of racial superiority.

Minority Groups within Japan

Japanese literature traditionally considers the Japanese people to be of ‘unmixed’ or pure blood.
The construction of the state in Japan was based on the idea of the nation as a family.
During the Meiji era, efforts were made to promote a ‘sense of nation,’ and Japan was represented as a ‘family-state.’
In 1937, the Ministry of Education stated that ‘Our country is one great family nation, and the Imperial Household is the head family of the subjects’.
Minority groups in Japan are viewed through the lenses of the perceived homogeneity of Japanese society and the view of the nation as a family state.
Historically, minority groups such as the Okinawans and Ainu have been oppressed and considered racially different from mainland Japanese.
The ‘pure’ Japanese race is a culmination of several groups with differing ethnic and cultural makeups.
Research suggests these groups came to Japan via mainland Southeast Asia over land bridges.
These groups included the Ryukyuans (Okinawans), the Ainu, and groups that no longer exist separately, such as the Yayoi and Jomon people.
Invasions and migrations from China and Korea led many foreigners to stay in Japan, leaving cultural and ethnic footprints.
Despite this, the mono-ethnicity of Japanese society has been emphasized by cultural and historical narratives.
The Kojiki, a mythical book of Japanese origins, portrays the Japanese people as descending from a single divine lineage.
Japan’s geographic isolation as an island nation has fostered a sense of cultural and ethnic distinctiveness.
Japan’s isolation during the Tokugawa era and the government’s focus on national identity also strengthened the country’s sense of ethnic distinctiveness.
Historically, the presence of minority groups has been suppressed due to historical narratives, cultural factors, and government policies.

Shift Towards Multiculturalism

In the 1980s, Japan experienced a labor shortage, which led to the arrival of many foreign workers and increased awareness of globalization.
Plans were made for the integration and assimilation of foreign residents, but these were largely unsuccessful.
A deep-rooted Japanese-vs-non-Japanese binary still exists.

The Ainu People

The Ainu people are officially considered Japanese citizens but are culturally distinct.
Most Ainu people live in Hokkaido or Enzo islands.
The 1899 Law for the Protection of the Native Hokkaido Aborigines placed restrictions on the traditional Ainu way of life.
The law banned traditional Ainu practices like deer hunting and salmon fishing.
It also banned Ainu cultural practices and languages, facilitating the decline of Ainu culture.
The traditional way of life of the Ainu people has largely disappeared in the last 100 years.
The Ainu people have historically been subject to discrimination and prejudice.
Interviews revealed that people of Ainu ancestry did not express a desire for their children to learn about Ainu culture or investigate their own Ainu ancestry.

The Okinawan (Ryukyuan) People

The Okinawan people are the largest minority group in Japan.
A long time ago, a large part of the archipelago between Kyushu and Taiwan was ruled by the kingdom of Ryukyu.
The islands were annexed by the Meiji state and incorporated into the Okinawa prefecture.
The Ryukyu culture continues to survive on these islands.
The indigenous people of the Ryukyu islands are ethnically and culturally separate from mainland Japanese.
Discrimination against Okinawans has decreased in modern times but has not fully disappeared.
Okinawans continue to have a harder time building their careers due to their accent or different appearance.
Okinawa prefecture is one of Japan’s poorest prefectures, with fewer economic opportunities than in mainland Japan.
Many Okinawans who try to assimilate into Japanese society fail to adjust.

Chinese and Korean People

Chinese and Korean people make up about 70% of foreign residents in Japan.
Many were born or have lived in Japan for a long time but are ineligible for Japanese citizenship due to their parents not being Japanese.
These foreign residents continue to experience social alienation.
Japanese people are more likely to accept growing numbers of foreigners from American or European countries than those from other Asian countries.
Many Chinese and Korean foreigners in Japan experience negative discrimination and have trouble reaching the same social and economic level as Japanese residents.
Korean residents in Japan are paid lower wages and experience everyday discrimination.
The public’s dislike of Korean and Chinese minority groups is closely linked to politics and Japan’s relations with their countries of origin.
Difficulties in assimilating into Japanese society are seen as the foreign residents' problem, not that of the Japanese people.

Nikkejin (Brazilian-Japanese) People

Nikkejin are Brazilian-Japanese people who have moved from Brazil to Japan.
These foreigners often look Japanese but often do not speak Japanese and have different societal norms.
Many migrated for economic reasons, as they can earn more money in Japan than in Brazil.
They are often employed in manual labor jobs and are seen as less of a threat to job security by Japanese people.
Japanese people tend to find ‘having Japanese blood’ more important than ‘cultural similarities’.
Brazilian-Japanese foreign residents who don’t speak Japanese and have only lived in Japan for a short time are often considered to be ‘more Japanese’ than Chinese or Korean foreign residents who may have been born in Japan.
Less ethnic prejudice is shown towards Brazilian-Japanese foreigners than to other foreign residents.
However, Brazilian-Japanese foreigners still experience negative prejudices and social evaluations.
They may experience negative prejudice due to their socioeconomic positions.
Japanese people who emigrated from Japan to Brazil often already occupied below-average socioeconomic positions.
These Japanese people who left Japan, and their descendants, are considered to be ‘social failures’ or ‘social dropouts’.
Brazilian-Japanese migrants in Japan may also be prejudiced against because of their differing cultural behavior.
Many do not speak Japanese and dress and act differently from Japanese people.
Due to their Japanese phenotype, it is often assumed that Brazilian-Japanese foreign residents also share the same culture as Japanese people.

Racial Discrimination in Japan

The prevalence of discrimination of foreigners in Japan has been widely discussed.
The size of foreign resident populations that are in a competitive position career-wise with the host residents influences the host residents' views.
If Japanese residents do not share a competitive position with a foreign residents group, they are likely to have a neutral or less-negative perception towards them.
Examples of such foreign residents groups are English teachers or South American foreign residents who tend to do physical labor.
Having more foreign residents of the latter type has been shown to improve views on foreign residents.
Korean and Chinese foreign residents tend to be more career-focused and ambitious, posing a greater threat to the job market.
Low or no Japanese language skills has been found to be a predictor of xenophobia.
Contact with foreigners tends to have the opposite effect.
People with significantly different physical characteristics than Japanese people more often reported feelings of discrimination.
The darker a person’s skin was the more discrimination they would report.
In Japan, fair skin is often associated with cleanliness and preferred over darker skin.
Japanese language skills were also found to be a determinant.
Other variables that have been found to correlate with attitudes towards foreigners are age, education, and relative household income.
Older Japanese citizens tended to have a more negative view of foreign residents than younger Japanese citizens.
Negative views toward foreign citizens also tended to decrease with someone’s level of education as well as relative household income.

Discrimination in Japan Compared to the USA

Having a Chinese or Korean name decreases one's chances of receiving an affirmative response to an inquiry regarding the availability of rental housing by 13%.
Minorities both in Japan and in the USA tend to have less success in the job market and tend to pay more for housing.
Minorities in Japan tend to experience more covert discrimination than minorities in the USA, who tend to experience both covert and overt discrimination.
Overt discrimination includes blatant acts of prejudice such as verbal abuse, physical violence, or unequal pay.
Covert discrimination tends to be more subtle or unintentional, such as social exclusion or microaggressions.
Discrimination in Japan tends to be expressed more subtly and is often expressed through systemic barriers or cultural norms.
Examples are Japanese-only establishments or being denied housing rentals.

Legal and Governmental Perspectives

Discrimination is not punishable by law in Japan.
In America, discrimination based on race, colour, religion and such is punishable with, fines or even imprisonment.
The constitution of Japan explicitly guarantees protection against racial discrimination, but no criminal of civic code exists that make discrimination a criminal offense.
This allows businesses and organizations to refuse service or membership based on someone’s ethnicity or race.
Japan only recently started to include foreign residents in their official population counts and did not officially recognize foreign denizens with valid visas as ‘residents’ until 2012.
People of Japanese ancestry are automatically assumed Japanese citizens and members of Japanese society.
People that are not of Japanese ancestry are assumed to be unknowledgeable of Japanese culture and society.
Japanese citizenship is based on the nationality of the parents of a person, not on where they are born.
In the USA, citizenship can be acquired by virtue of the person’s birth in the USA.
There seems to be little push from the Japanese government to stop discrimination.
A 2006 UN report concluded that ‘minority population in Japan are left out of society and ignored by the government’.
The Japanese government does not recognize that Japan has any issues of a discriminatory nature which cannot be restrained by the existing legal system.
Without this push against racism from the government, discrimination is more likely to normalize and embed itself into everyday systems such as housing and public services.

Cultural and Societal Factors

Japanese people tend to be more conflict-avoidant than Americans, which explains why discrimination in Japan tends to be covert.
In a country with few foreign residents, such as Japan, people are less likely to get used to foreigners, and there is less incentive for the government to act in ways to prevent discrimination.
The USA has a rich history filled with slavery, segregation, and institutional racism.
In the 1950s and 1960s, civil rights movements aimed to dismantle discrimination and segregation.
Research revealed that about 75 percent of American people believe that there is a lot or some discrimination against black, Asian, or Hispanic people.
The same history filled with discrimination and the discussions around the topic has led to ongoing tension around discrimination in the USA.

Global Comparisons and Research Findings

According to research done by the World Justice Project (WJP Rule of Law Index), discrimination across the world is on the rise.
According to the same research, there is little discrimination in Japan compared to many other parts of the world, such as the United States of America of the middle east.
An organization called the World Population Review investigated which countries in the world contained the most racial discrimination.
They reviewed a number of scientific papers and ended up giving Japan a ranking of 40 and the USA a ranking of 73.

Methodological Considerations

The Japanese government and politicians largely deny the existence of much discrimination within their country, and little is done to prevent racism.
Discrimination within Japan is largely covert in nature and has perhaps been more normalized and embedded within everyday systems than within other countries.
Japanese society is largely homogeneous, meaning that there are relatively few foreigners or other racial minority groups within Japan.

Survey Data and Minority Experiences

Other studies that specifically surveyed minority groups in both the US and Japan have found comparable levels of racial discrimination in both countries.
A large-scale survey involving over 4000 respondents conducted by the Japanese government itself in 2017 found that about 30 percent of foreign residents in Japan have experienced discrimination in the past five years.
About three percent of foreign residents even claimed to be frequently targeted with discriminatory remarks.
A different study involving around 2000 respondents conducted by Julio and colleagues found that, depending on the specific racial minority group, between 25 and 30 percent of minority persons in the US have experienced racial discrimination.

Conclusion

Comparing racial discrimination in Japan to racial discrimination in the US reveals complex dynamics shaped by each country’s history, cultures, and policies.
The importance that Japanese people place on homogeneity and the concept of ‘Japanese blood’ has its roots in Japan’s history as a nation and long-standing governmental policies.
These policies have contributed to the racial discrimination that many minority groups in Japan face nowadays.
Although Japan’s discrimination tends to be of the covert kind, it has proven to be persistent in normalized within its society.
The US continues to struggle with the problem of racial discrimination just as much if not more than Japan.
Though both countries seem to have comparable levels of racial discrimination, the nature and perception of racial problems in the two nations seems to be completely different.
Addressing Japan’s racial problems might not only need legal reforms but also cultural shifts toward the acceptance of foreigners as Japanese citizens.