Ukrainian-born model winning Miss Japan re-ignites identity debatelocked
bbc.com
"There have been racial barriers, and it has been challenging to be accepted as Japanese."
That's what a tearful Carolina Shiino said in impeccable Japanese after she was crowned Miss Japan on Monday.
The 26-year-old model, who was born in Ukraine, moved to Japan at the age of five and was raised in Nagoya.
She is the first naturalised Japanese citizen to win the pageant, but her victory has re-ignited a debate on what it means to be Japanese.
While some recognised her victory as a "sign of the times", others have said she does not look like what a "Miss Japan" should.
You are viewing a single comment
If Japan doesn't want to go into a death spiral as it's population shrinks they will need to get used to the idea of immigrants being common, and being a Japanese citizen is what makes you Japanese.
That's how it works in America, but not every country is so progressive.
Half our country still struggles with that
I am very mixed race, including 18% native american and 24% west African (slave). That's according to DNA analysis. According to my grandmother's genealogy efforts, the only member to immigrate to the US after 1776 was Irish and he married the "creole" (white+black+native+???) plantation owners daughter. Resistance was futile. He was assimilated.
So most of my bloodline has been here since the start, 18% before that, but because I am not white and my features' origins are hard to define, I get asked where I am from fairly often. I've been even told to go back to my country.
Racism and xenophobia are dumb.
The other option is "death spiral as its population shrinks", I suppose there's nothing stopping Japan from choosing that instead.
This is not progressive. It was meant specifically to end slavery.