Editing Ainu people (section)

===Assimilation after annexation===
[[File:Sakhalin ainu men.jpg|thumb|[[Sakhalin Ainu]] in 1904]]

The Ainu have historically suffered from economic and social discrimination, as both the Japanese government and mainstream population regarded them as dirty and primitive barbarians.{{sfnp|Walker|2001|p=233}} The majority of Ainu were forced to be petty laborers during the [[Meiji Restoration]], which saw the introduction of Hokkaido into the [[Empire of Japan|Japanese Empire]] and the privatization of traditional Ainu lands.{{sfnp|Siddle|1996|p=45}} During the 19th and 20th centuries, the Japanese government denied the rights of the Ainu to their traditional cultural practices, such as hunting, gathering, and speaking their native language.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.tigweb.org/youth-media/panorama/article.html?ContentID=3609 |title=Will the Ainu language die? |date=May 31, 2004 |access-date=December 13, 2015 |website=TalkingITGlobal |last=Shim |first=Karen |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222095803/http://www.tigweb.org/youth-media/panorama/article.html?ContentID=3609 |archive-date=December 22, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>

The legal denial of Ainu cultural practices mostly stemmed from the 1899 [[Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cheung |first=S. C. H. |date=November 1, 2003 |title=Ainu culture in transition |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001632870300051X |journal=Futures |series=Futures of indigenous cultures |language=en |volume=35 |issue=9 |pages=951–959 |doi=10.1016/S0016-3287(03)00051-X |issn=0016-3287 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> This law and its associated policies were designed to fully integrate the Ainu into Japanese society while erasing Ainu culture and identity. The Ainu's position as manual laborers and their forced integration into larger Japanese society have led to discriminatory practices by the Japanese government that can still be felt today.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/bjrenquan/190878.htm |title=Human Right Issues on the Ainu People in Japan |date=n.d. |access-date=December 13, 2015 |website=China.org |last=Yokoyama |first=Yuzuru |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304034543/http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/bjrenquan/190878.htm |archive-date=March 4, 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Intermarriage between Japanese and Ainu was actively promoted by the Ainu to lessen the chances of discrimination against their offspring. As a result, many Ainu today are indistinguishable from their Japanese neighbors, but some Ainu-Japanese are interested in traditional Ainu culture.{{Citation needed|date=November 2023}} For example, [[Oki (musician)|Oki]], born as the child of an Ainu father and a Japanese mother, became a musician who plays the traditional Ainu instrument, the {{transliteration|ja|[[tonkori]]}}.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hmv.co.jp/news/article/605230042/ |script-title=ja:アイヌ⇔ダブ越境！異彩を放つOKIの新作 |title= |trans-title=Crossing the borders between Ainu and Dub! OKI's distinctive new work |language=ja |website=HMV Japan |date=May 23, 2006 |access-date=March 26, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121021211935/http://www.hmv.co.jp/news/article/605230042/ |archive-date=October 21, 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref> There are also many small towns in the southeastern or [[Hidaka Subprefecture|Hidaka]] region of Hokkaido where ethnic Ainu live, such as in [[Nibutani]] ({{transliteration|ain|Niputay}}).

From the early 1870s, Christian missionary work was conducted among the Ainu. The [[Anglican Communion]] missionaries included the [[Rt. Rev.]] [[Philip Fyson]], [[Bishop of Hokkaido]], and the Rev. [[John Batchelor (missionary)|John Batchelor]]. Batchelor wrote extensively in English about the beliefs and daily life of the Ainu in Yezo (or [[Ezo]]), and his publications are a source of photographs of the Japanese and Ainu close to the missions.<ref>In particular, Sea-girt Yezo : glimpses of missionary work in North Japan by Batchelor, John (Church Missionary Society 1902) digitised by Google and uploaded to the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/seagirtyezoglim00socigoog</ref>