Japanese Racism: Some further thoughts
I’ve been sitting on these thoughts for a while now. It takes a while to walk out to the end of the pier and stare into a sensitive issue that is likely to provoke a very strong reaction from so many people.
On February 3, Joi Ito published a snippet that opened some people’s eyes to racism in Japan. [here]
My in-laws are more than familiar with this. In the early 1970s, they spent a year and a half living in Japan while my father-in-law covered the World’s Fair for the Globe and Mail.
My brother-in-law was born in Japan. But before they allowed my mother-in-law into the delivery room, they made her sign a form stating that the child that was about to be born would never claim to be Japanese and would never seek any of the benefits of Japanese citizenship.
From Joi’s article, things haven’t improved much in 40 years.
