Reflections on structural inequality, struggle and the meanings of citizenship: a zainichi Korean teacher narrative

Abstract

Teachers across the globe engage in day-to-day struggles for justice, often with support from unions and community-led groups. Teacher narratives reveal opportunities forbuilding an inclusive theory and practice of education for social justice. I profile one teacher, a third generation zainichi Korean permanent resident in Japan, employed to teach ethnic studies. Her account highlights teachers’ political and moral responsibilities, and ways in which professional and political commitments may coincide. Her work is contextualisedwithin historical and ongoing struggles for equality in Japan. Despite structural inequalities , she empowers students to claim their rights. Through the curriculum, she challenges asymmetrical power relations and hate speech, presenting a complex narrative of twentieth century Japanese history. She presentsa cosmopolitan vision, to meet the challenges of global citizenship. I argue teachers need to recognise both ethical and political dimensions of their role, to provide a solid foundation in empowering youth to work for justice and human rights. .

Keywords:

• Global citizenship education
• ethno-nationalism
• social justice
• cosmopolitanism
• Japan
• human rights

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank those colleagues in Japan who made this research possible and who provided stimulating opportunities for dialogue: Dr Yoriko Hashizaki, JSPS host at Nara University of Education; Dr Mariko Akuzawa and Jeff Plantilla at the Asia-Pacific Human Rights Information Center (HURIGHTS OSAKA); Professor Ryoko Kimura at Osaka University; and Dr Satoshi Adachi. I am especially grateful to Dr Yuka Kitayama for support in preparing the JSPS visit; interpretation and assistance with Japanese language sources; and feedback on an earlier draft of this paper. I am also indebted to the Helen R. Whiteley Center and the East Asia Library of the University of Washington for providing a peaceful retreat and access to academic sources for the writing of this paper.

Notes

1. A pseudonym, used to ensure anonymity.

2. Zainichi is a term reserved for permanent ethnic Korean residents in Japan, who trace families’ arrival in Japan to the colonial period. Later migrants from the Korean peninsula, for example, those who came in the 1980s, tend to have a different formal status (Hester, 2008).

3. Korea was brought under Japanese rule in the first decade of the twentieth century. In 1905, Korea was first made a protectorate of Japan and, two years later, officially deprived of the administration of internal affairs. Finally, under the 1910 Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty, Korea was formally brought under the control of the Japanese state, officially becoming part of the Japanese empire from 1910 to 1945. Disputes over the legality of the treaty processes by which Japan sought to justify its colonial expansion hindered the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Japan until the mid-1960s.

4. On previous visits to Japan, I had visited Korean-led community projects, such as a day-centre for the elderly, and learned something of the ethnic Korean community in Osaka and Kobe and the challenges they had faced.

5. As I do not speak Japanese and Min-Ji does not speak English, one complication in recounting her story is that I cannot draw directly on her actual words, to help construct her meanings. I took extensive notes in English, and a colleague also took notes in Japanese. Min-Ji’s account is her interpretation of her family’s and her own history. I verified data relating to the status of ethnic Korean teachers by reading research papers and checking both official and community-based sources.

6. It was only in 1993 that the Japanese government halted the practice of fingerprinting Koreans and other permanent residents during alien registration procedures.

7. It was not until 1965, when Japan and South Korea normalised diplomatic relations, that this question of statelessness for non-naturalised zainichi Koreans began to be addressed. From this point, if they pledged political allegiance to South Korea, regardless of their geographical origins (North or South), they secured South Korean nationality. Those who have geographical origins in the North and have neither pledged allegiance to the South nor become naturalised Japanese citizens remain stateless.

8. Today, Kyoto University of Foreign Studies has an admissions policy which gives priority to students with a high proficiency in a non-Japanese language. https://www.kufs.ac.jp/en/index.html.

9. Ms. Chung-hae Park, working at Nagahashi elementary school (Tai, 2007, pp. 11–12).

10. Younger students study local history and generally do not address national and international history within their social studies programme until the final year of elementary school. The national social studies programme of study specifies that at 4th grade students focus on the local community; at 5th grade turn to the national community (addressing geography, industry, international relations, etc.); and finally, at 6th grade they study ‘major historical events’.

11. These organisations, originally established to support a minority group facing acute discrimination and disadvantage, continue to act as providers of social capital among members (they may provide support in finding work, and services forthe elderly, as well as supporting schools).

12. Fukuoka (2000, p. 284) notes: ‘Before 1992, the education committees at a number of local authorities were already employing non-nationals as kyoku (the regular teacher status applied to Japanese nationals] in defiance of ministry policy. For these rebel authorities, the 1992 reform was a powerful call to abandon their defiance and redesignate their non-Japanese teachers as jokin koshi’. This placed them on a special contract and prevented them from being promoted to principal or vice-principal. The ruling remains in place, non-Japanese nationals are thus excluded from all forms of power and decision-making (p. 20).

13. The 1992 announcement on the employment of foreign nationals was made in the context of an international agreement between South Korea and Japan about the legal status of Korean residents that had been unclear following Korea’s independence from Japan at the end of World War Two. It enabled zainichi Koreans to access certain welfare services (pensions, health insurance, state housing) and be employed in all local authorities as teachers or civil servants, subject to certain conditions, without giving up their Korean nationality.

14. This is considered a more aggressive and controversial symbol, because of its association to Japanese imperialism and pre-war militarism.

15. This arrangement had been made with the local authorities because the school lacked its own playing fields.

16. Shiki Tomimasu and Sangyun Kim, a parent at the school, can be seen in a YouTube video, at a press conference hosted by The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan explaining why they judge the Osaka High Court’s judgement to be a ground-breaking ruling in Japanese legal history. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG91QF8dkfc.