ABSTRACT
Discrimination in hiring and employment keeps many Koreans resident in Japan from pursuing the careers of their choice. Resident Koreans face both de facto and de jure discrimination, and in at least one anecdotal case, job discrimination led to a young woman’s suicide. Yumi Lee gives some personal experience of the problems facing resident Koreans in the vocational field. Kim Il-myon gives another vivid account of one woman’s employment vicissitudes. She had attended a municipal junior high school in Kobe, where she usually topped the class. Partly because of this and partly because one-third of the pupils were Korean, she was elected every year to the head of the class committee. In other professions, Koreans have figured in the medical field since before the war. The scale of businessmen’s operations covers a wide range, from company enterprises such as joint-stock and limited companies, to independent businesses and private concerns.
