Sunday, November 16, 2008

Correction on some background information about Zainichi History (on the first post: beginning of Eclipse Rising)

Correction on the following sentence in the first post:
"Although multiple generations of Koreans have been born in Japan, one was still a Korean until the 1980s when a new law allowed foreigners to apply for Japanese citizenship."

Actually, Japanese government allowed Koreans in Japan to apply for Japanese citizenship even before the change of Nationality Act in 1984. But this Act made it easier mainly by changing the way to grant Japanese citizenship to children of Zainichi from only paternal line to both paternal and maternal lines. However, this law has tighter conditions for the people to apply for Japanese citizenship.
The main purpose of this law was to have more half-Zainich children to be Japanese citizen, thus encourage assimilation to Japan rather than having them keep their Korean nationality and fight against the discrimination. Since Japanese assimilation policy and discrimination is based on nationality.

Recent trend is that more and more people in younger generation have Japanese citizenship, but cannot find their identity. Zainichi situation has become more complex than two decades ago.

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