ABSTRACT
In my efforts to understand the educational challenges facing low-income youth in Japan, I was encouraged by every Japanese colleague, activist, business person, and homemaker I knew, or to whom I was referred, to focus on the feudal outcaste group, the Burakumin. It was as if all the characteristics I have found ascribed to families living in low-income households in both the United States and Britain were laid upon the Burakumin, not on low-income “Japanese.” Never did someone mention that these could also be the traits of the men who hang out at the local parks, the woman who lives on top of the tofu shop down the street, or the young child who brings an obento (lunch) of rice and pickles to school for her lunch. No, the Burakumin must remain different in the Japanese mind if for no other reason than to justify the ludicrous nature of centuries-old patterns of discrimination concerning antiquated views on purity and pollution.
