Japanese Authorities and the Buraku Issue: Was it Really 130 years of ‘Conniving'?

In Japan today, one burakumin (Japan's discriminated ethnic minority, historically linked to the Tokugawa eta and hinin outcast groups) family in three claims at least one family member who has suffered anti-burakumin prejudice or discrimination (Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūsho 1995: 131), and almost 15 million Japanese still refuse to have any contact with burakumin citizens (Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūsho 1991: 112). In marriage, employment, education, income and social welfare in particular, but in most other areas as well, burakumin citizens remain seriously and disproportionately adrift of their mainstream counterparts (McLauchlan 1999: 1-29). Burakumin activists consistently claim that political opportunism during the Tokugawa Period gave rise to their current circumstances and remain equally critical that, since the Meiji Restoration in 1869, governments have not moved with the social commitment necessary to solve their problems (Kitaguchi 1999: ch. 6).