Japanese officials responded by converting a wartime policy of cultural genocide into a peacetime system of apartheid. Where We Were Born Under the ARL, about 700,000 Koreans are still treated as aliens though most of us were born in Japan and have lived there all of our lives. We have to register with the Ministry ofJustice, be photographed, carry a computerized card identifying us as foreigners at all times and, as recently as this past January,be fingerprinted. Becoming a naturalized citizen allows us to escape some ofJapan's institutionalized discrimination. But naturalization is itself a process rooted in racism.
Naturalization requires total assimilation, the total destruction of our ethnic identity.
Though the law doesn't require it, administrative guidelines force applicants for naturalization to show proof of assimilation to demonstrate that we are sufficiently Japanese. To prove assimilation, we are pressured to take Japanese names, forced to speak only Japanese, and must demonstrate that we have adopted Japanese beliefs and customs. Naturalization removes some legal barriers to equality, but it doesn't eliminate the social discrimination that afflicts those of us with Chinese or Korean blood. Our children are taunted at school and taught to revile their ethnic origins. Intermarriage is frowned upon.