ABSTRACT
The political transformation of Japan from a multi-ethnic empire to a mono-ethnic nation-state in August 1945 most significantly played out in the (re)racialization of Korean residents in the social, political, economic and legal realms of Japan’s early postwar. The nascent racial boundaries of the postwar Japanese nation-state dictated Japan’s colonial (Zainichi) Korean minority function as new markers of racial and ethnic difference, despite the fanfare of wartime proclamations of imperial unity as indicated through slogans such as naisen-ittai (Japan and Korea as one body). Furthermore, this chapter examines the historical structures of exclusion that have continued to render the colonial Korean (Zainichi) diaspora as the most prominent internal “other” and primary target of contemporary xenophobic/exclusionary rhetoric and practices. While Zainichi Koreans as an ethnic minority in Japan are by no means a homogenous group, their legal status (for those who have not naturalized) renders them outside the boundaries of the nation since they do not possess Japanese nationality and in most cases merely possess the “special permanent resident” or tokubetu eijūsha permit. Therefore, this chapter historicizes colonial (Zainichi) Korean legal, economic and social status as “aliens” and argues this is especially significant since relegates them to a political, legal and social position “outside” of the nation, and acts to legitimize and obfuscate ongoing discrimination, racism and exclusionary practices.
