Koreans in Japan

Abstract

Until recently, ethnic minority in Japan meant predominantly those Koreans and their descendants who had settled in Japan during the colonial period (1910-1945). From the post-World War II period onward, however, the Korean population has remained steady at around 680,000 due to increasing naturalization and decreasing childbirth rates.The history of Koreans in Japan distinguishes them from recent labor immigrants, including newcomers from South Korea. Koreans during the first half of the twentieth century were colonial migrants who moved from the periphery of the empire to the imperial metropolis. After colonial rule they found themselves stranded in Japan due to the partition of their homeland (1945), the rise of mutually antagonistic regimes in the peninsula (1948), the insecure politico-economic situation, and the eventual civil (and international) war (1950-1953) that made the partition appear more or less permanent. The subsequent Cold War polarization in Asia and in the world deeply affected the ...