Editing Demographics of Japan (section)

==Ethnic groups==
<!--all accounts of alleged discrimination-->
{{Main|Ethnic issues in Japan|Ethnic groups of Japan}}

Naturalized Japanese citizens and native-born Japanese nationals with a multi-ethnic background are all considered to be Japanese in the population census of Japan.<ref name="xvq" />

===Discrimination against ethnic minorities===

{{Main|Burakumin}}
Three native Japanese minority groups can be identified. The largest are the ''hisabetsu buraku'' or "discriminated communities", also known as the ''burakumin''. These descendants of premodern outcast hereditary occupational groups, such as [[butcher]]s, [[leather]]workers, [[funeral director]]s, and certain entertainers, may be considered a Japanese analog of [[India]]'s [[Dalit (outcaste)|Dalits]]. Historically, discrimination against these occupational groups was based on [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] prohibitions on killing and [[Shinto]] notions of pollution, and it was also a feature of governmental social control.<ref name=loc/>

During the [[Edo period]], such people were required to live in special ''buraku'' and, like the rest of the population, they were bound by [[sumptuary law]]s which were based on the inheritance of social class. The [[Meiji period|Meiji]] government abolished most of the derogatory names which were applied to these discriminated communities in 1871, but the new laws had little effect on the social discrimination which was faced by the former outcasts and their descendants. However, the laws eliminated the economic monopoly which they had on certain occupations.<ref name=loc/> The ''buraku'' continued to be treated as social outcasts and some casual interactions with the majority caste were perceived [[taboo]] until the era after World War II.

Estimates of their number range from 2 to 4&nbsp;million (about 4% of the national population in 2022). Although the members of these marginalized communities are physically indistinguishable from other Japanese, most of them live in urban [[ghetto]]es or they live in the traditional special hamlets which are located in rural areas, and as a result, membership in a marginalized group can be surmised from the location of a family's home, a family's occupation, the dialect which a family speaks, or the mannerisms which a family uses when it communicates with people. Checks on the backgrounds of families which were designed to ferret out ''buraku'' were commonly performed as a condition of marriage arrangements and employment applications,<ref name=loc/> but in Osaka, they have been illegal since 1985.

Among the ''hisabetsu buraku'', past and current discrimination against them has resulted in lower educational attainments and it has also resulted in a lower socioeconomic status, by contrast, the majority of Japanese have higher educational attainments and they also have a higher economic status. Movements with objectives which range from "liberation" to the encouragement of integration have attempted to change this situation,<ref name=loc/> with some success. Nadamoto Masahisa of the Buraku History Institute estimates that as of 1998, between 60 and 80% of burakumin married a non-burakumin.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nancho.net/kyoto/nadamoto.html |title=Kyoto Ijin: Nadamoto Masahisa |website=Nancho.net |access-date=2017-04-17 |archive-date=2016-07-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160719133637/http://www.nancho.net/kyoto/nadamoto.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Ryukyuans===
One of the largest minority groups among Japanese citizens is the [[Ryukyuans|Ryukyuan people]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=The international handbook of the demography of race and ethnicity|last=Saenz|first=Rogelio|last2=Embrick|first2=David G.|last3=Rodriguez|first3=Néstor|isbn=9789048188918|location=Dordrecht|oclc=910845577|date = 2015-06-03}}</ref> They are primarily distinguished by their use of several distinct [[Ryukyuan languages]], though use of Ryukyuan is dying out.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Matsumori |first=Akiko |date=1995-01-01 |title=Ryûkyuan: Past, present, and future |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.1995.9994591 |journal=Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development |volume=16 |issue=1–2 |pages=19–44 |doi=10.1080/01434632.1995.9994591 |issn=0143-4632}}</ref> The Ryukyuan people and language originated in the [[Ryukyu Islands]], which are in Okinawa prefecture and [[Kagoshima Prefecture]].

===Ainu===
[[File:"Ainus in national Gala-Costume, married women with tattooed mustache." Department of Anthropology, Japanese exhibit, 1904 World's Fair.jpg|thumb|Japanese Ainu group in 1904]]
The third largest minority group among Japanese citizens is the [[Ainu people|Ainu]], whose language is an [[language isolate|isolate]]. Historically, the Ainu were an indigenous [[hunting]] and gathering population who occupied most of northern Honshū as late as the Nara period (A.D.&nbsp;710–94). As Japanese settlement expanded, the Ainu were pushed northward,<ref name=loc/> by the [[Tokugawa shogunate]], the Ainu were pushed into the island of [[Hokkaido]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Shinichiro|first=Takakura|title=The Ainu of Northern Japan: A Study in Conquest and Acculturation|year=1960|publisher=The American Philosophical Society|location=Independence Square|pages=24–25}}</ref>

Characterized as remnants of a primitive circumpolar culture, the fewer than 20,000&nbsp;Ainu in 1990 were considered racially distinct and thus not fully Japanese. Disease and a low birth rate had severely diminished their numbers over the past two centuries, and intermarriage had brought about an almost completely mixed population.<ref name=loc/>

Although no longer in daily use, the [[Ainu language]] is preserved in epics, songs, and stories transmitted orally over succeeding generations. Distinctive rhythmic music and dances and some Ainu festivals and crafts are preserved, but mainly in order to take advantage of tourism.<ref name=loc/>

===Hāfu===

[[Hāfu]] (a kana rendition of "half") is a term used for people who are [[biracial]] and ethnically half [[Japanese people|Japanese]]. Of the one million children born in Japan in 2013, 2.2% had one or two non-Japanese parents.<sup>[[Marriage in Japan#cite note-70|[70]]]</sup> According to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, in 2016 one in forty-nine babies born in Japan ware born into families with one non-Japanese parent.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://hafufilm.com/en/about/ |title=About the film {{!}} Hafu |publisher=hafufilm.com |access-date=2016-09-14 |archive-date=2016-10-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161015121235/http://hafufilm.com/en/about/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Most intermarriages in Japan are between Japanese men and women from other Asian countries, including China, the Philippines and South Korea.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/9/9/hafu-in-japan-mixed-race.html |title=Being 'hafu' in Japan: Mixed-race people face ridicule, rejection |publisher=[[Al Jazeera Media Network|Al Jazeera]] |access-date=2017-05-01 |archive-date=2017-05-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170520110100/http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/9/9/hafu-in-japan-mixed-race.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Southeast Asia too, also has significant populations of people with half-Japanese ancestry, particularly in [[Japanese settlement in the Philippines|the Philippines]], [[Japanese migration to Indonesia|Indonesia]], [[Japanese migration to Malaysia|Malaysia]], [[Japanese expatriates in Singapore|Singapore]] and [[Japanese migration to Thailand|Thailand]].

In the 1940s, biracial Japanese children (Ainoko), specifically [[Amerasian]] children, encountered social problems such as poverty, perception of impurity and discrimination due to negative treatment in Japan.<ref name="japantimes1">{{cite news| last = Kosaka | first = Kristy |url=http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20090127zg.html |title=Half, bi or double? One family's trouble |newspaper=[[The Japan Times]] |date=2009-01-27 |access-date=2011-11-20}}</ref> In the 21st century, discrimination against [[hāfu]] occurs based on how different their identity, behavior and appearance is from a typical Japanese person.<ref name="models">{{cite web |title=What it means to be a mixed-race model in Japan |date=October 25, 2018 |website=CNN |url=https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/rina-fukushi-japanese-hafu-models/index.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220505191001/https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/rina-fukushi-japanese-hafu-models/index.html |archive-date=May 5, 2022}}</ref>