From Korea to Kyoto— Post-war predicaments

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During the post-war occupation, the Supreme Command for the Allied Powers (SCAP) gave the Japanese a broad control over the Korean population, a control the Americans had kept for themselves when other foreign nationals were involved. This allowed the Japanese police to monitor and suppress nascent Korean political and social organizations (including Korean leadership in labor unions) and it presaged the difficulties that the Korean residents would have in asserting their claims for recognition and compensation for war-time service.

Again, as with the aftermath of the Kanto earthquake of 1923, when more than six thousand Korean (and also Taiwanese) residents in the Tokyo area were massacred by vigilante groups, Koreans were scapegoated by Japanese authorities who faced a shattered economy and social unrest. Police reports of Korean acts of violence against Japanese individuals reinserted the difference between these populations.

This reported increase of violence and unlawful acts appears to have given the Japanese police sufficient excuse to resort again to the systematic intimidation of all Koreans, as had occurred in the prewar period. Subsequently, Koreans became frequent subjects of unreasonable search and seizure against which they had little defense. Long-held prejudices on the part of the Japanese were again overtly expressed. For example, during an anticrime campaign conducted by the police, a Korean emblem was used as background in posters illustrating a clutching hand reaching out to rob a cringing Japanese woman... (Lee 1981, 75)

In 1947, the Alien Registration Law was passed which can only be seen as a law aimed specifically at Koreans, who then comprised more than ninety-three percent of all “aliens” in Japan. This law, with some modifications, remains in effect today. The law, which is administered by the Ministry of Justice (the police), requires foreign nationals to register their residential and occupational information with the local district office (kuyakusho), to be fingerprinted, and to carry with them at all times, and surrender upon request a photo identity card.

Imposed “alien” status

While this law is similar to registration requirements imposed on foreign nationals in other states, such as the United States, its original imposition on Koreans residing in Japan occurred with another law that summarily stripped them of their status as Japanese citizens. Overnight they became “aliens” subject to active police supervision. The application of the Alien Registration Law to this population and its descendents has been challenged continuously since 1947 on the basis of international human rights, social fairness, and historical documents that question the right of the Japanese government to selectively disenfranchise citizens living in Japan. For many resident Koreans, the card they carry marks them not as “aliens” but as criminals in the eyes of the police and the public.

This recent history of enforced assimilation colors the regimes of assimilation Koreans face in Japan today with a sour patina of colonialism. Until the Japanese government addresses the cultural measures it applied to the Korean population during its colonial period, many resident Koreans are not willing to grant its authority to demand cultural assimilation as a condition of citizenship. Quite the contrary, Koreans in Kyoto look to this history of required assimilation as a history of human-rights violations, and press for a public sphere where dis-similar peoples have equal access.