Japan's War Memories - Amnesia or Concealment? Japan's Hidden Apartheid: The Korean Minority and the Japanese Both by George Hicks Both Ashgate, each $380 Although the seeds of these two books are rooted in World War II, the material presented is made relevant to Japanese society now.
George Hicks, known for his ground-breaking study of women enslaved for sex by the Japanese during the war, puts Japan's Korean minority and the country's role in the war in historical perspective and, through contemporary problems such as discrimination against third- and fourth-generation Koreans and censorship of textbooks, examines the issues as they have developed today.
Japan's Hidden Apartheid is the better of the two, as it comes to firmer conclusions and contains more illustrative anecdotes that personalise the Koreans' battle for recognition within Japan. However, the book is overly reliant on the work, research and thoughts of Korean activist Yumi Lee.
The Koreans comprise about 700,000 descendants of the hundreds of thousands of Koreans who were forced to Japan in the 1930s and 1940s, during Japan's colonial rule, to work as virtual slaves in mines and factories. Later generations grew up speaking Japanese, but many feel out of place both in Japan and Korea.
Many have remained and fought for their rights, with some success. Many can now become Japanese citizens, compulsory finger-printing has been eliminated, and Koreans have spearheaded the movement to expose Imperial Japan's forced sexual slavery of Asian women. But the Korean minority is not a cohesive unit. Some have opted for assimilation by using Japanese versions of their Korean names and becoming Japanese citizens - partly to avoid facing prejudice at school and in the workplace - while others have tried to retain their links to their past by attending autonomous Korean schools. There are also deep divisions within the Korean community based on alignment with North Korea, South Korea or groups independent of both.
Japan's War Memories examines how many aspects of the country's role in the war were conveniently ignored during the Cold War. It deals extensively with litigation on the censorship of Japanese textbooks.
