More Words, Deeper Hole

Imagine moving to a neighborhood and finding that suddenly, your friends and family are ashamed of you. Employers turn you down when you tell them your address, your fiancee tells you her family is threatening to disown her if she marries you.

It sounds like a literary allegory for racism, but for 2-3 million people known as burakujyumin in Japan, it’s a historic precedent. Burakumin were once part of a broader despised caste, but now refers increasingly to sections of cities where that caste once lived, and the jobs that caste once had.