ABSTRACT
Discrimination against the large Korean minority in Japan has become well known outside Japan during recent years and partly as a result of this foreign exposure, is also becoming more widely acknowledged in Japan itself. The horrendous experiences of Korean ‘comfort’ women and forced labourers during the Second World War1 have also come to national and international attention. Going back further into history, discriminatory patterns can be traced back at least to the beginnings of Korean colonisation in the early part of this century. In some views it may go back even further to the Tokugawa period when attitudes of Japanese superiority based on beliefs in Japan as a unique country with a divine emperor were fostered by nascent nationalists.2
