The images of Korea in Meiji Japan were complex and varied. There were strategic representations—Korea as Japan’s first line of defense against China and Russia. There were "civilizational" ones—a barbarian Korea versus a civilized Japan. And there were also racial ones—the Koreans as the racial brethren of the Japanese. Together, these conceptions reflected the centrality of the Korea issue and the different possible responses to the challenges of modernization.

Among all of these, one of the most startling views is the nostalgic image of Korea. The neighboring country was apprehended as the incarnation of a past Japan, before Westerners arrived and modernization began. Korea became the reflection of a lost paradise and symbolized aspirations to or regrets about an extinct past.

This image of Korea was used for various purposes. Some used it to justify their appeal for a policy of non-involvement in the peninsula. Others grounded their aspiration to reform Korea in a nostalgic sympathy awakened in their hearts by the young Korean reformers. The paper will consider these, as well as other uses of this image: from the writings of quite unknown figures such as Tayama Masanaka, through travelers’ stories like those of Yamaji Aizan, to the worldview of some of the greatest Meiji thinkers, such as Fukuzawa Yukichi or Fukuda Tokuzô. This journey in Meiji thought will show that, like many other views of Korea, the nostalgic one constituted as much discourse about Japan and its place in the world as about the Korean peninsula.

Chisato Hotta, University of Chicago

This paper will focus on "race" relations in the ethnically diverse community of Osaka between 1920 and 1945. I will challenge an insular approach which overlooks the relationships of Koreans to other marginalized populations, such as the burakumin (outcasts), Okinawans, Chinese, and Taiwanese, and thereby help to reveal the whole fabric of city life in Osaka, including its unique racial hierarchy. The relationship of Koreans with burakumins is especially important here. Korean migrants began to settle in neighborhoods where burakumin had been a majority of the population during the 1920s. They huddled together in industrial regions where small and medium-sized factories were located. Facing discrimination in the labor market, they become concentrated in labor intensive, low-wage industries such as textile and glass production and in the traditionally exclusively-burakumin occupations of leather tanning and shoemaking. With the growth of the Korean population during the 1930s, tensions between Koreans and Japanese increased through labeling (for example, Koreans are "lazy "or "‘unhygienic" or "dangerous"). In addition, tensions between Koreans and burakumin increased. By examining race relations in the context of labor and socialization issues, I will show the dynamics of inter-ethnic relations in Osaka in this period.

Katherine Tegtmeyer Pak, University of South Florida

Contrary to conventional popular and scholarly portrayals of Japan, it was only in the latter half of this century that racial and cultural homogeneity came to dominate the images of Japan promoted by the Japanese state. Meiji-era nation-building efforts ignored minority populations by seeking to unite the country behind a national identity stressing family and community. I argue that despite these beginnings of an official exclusionist identity, the idea of the Japanese as a "unified people" (tan’itsu minzoku) only became the dominant collective identity after the loss of WWII. E. Oguma (1995) shows how Imperial Great Japan was constructed as a multi-ethnic political community, which sought to assimilate conquered Asian peoples into a hierarchical family-state. When the Empire collapsed with the end of the war, the government of Japan and Japanese intellectuals alike were left struggling to replace it with a new image of Japan. Drawing on government documents, newspaper articles, and secondary accounts, my paper shows how postwar national identity was crafted through decisions about who qualified for Japanese citizenship and the adoption of new restrictionist immigration control and foreigners’ registration legislation.

This research is part of a larger project on Japanese responses to international migration since the 1980s. The treatment of colonial subjects in the wake of the lost war constitutes an historical legacy that continues to fundamentally shape current political discourses and policies. This research further substantiates my claims elsewhere that the national government is committed to maintaining a homogenous Japan in the face of global economic forces such as immigration.

Ayako Mizumura, University of Kansas