Political and Cultural Perspectives on Japan's Insider Minorities

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

Insider · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · China's Ethnic Minorities and Relations · Japanese History and Culture · Korean Peninsula Historical and Political Studies · Law

• The Social Construction of Race and Minorities in Japan

  Open Access•Jane H Yamashiro•Sociology Compass•2013

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