“There have been racial barriers, and it has been challenging to be accepted as Japanese.”
That’s what a tearful Carolina Shiino said in impeccable Japanese after she was crowned Miss Japan on Monday.
The 26-year-old model, who was born in Ukraine, moved to Japan at the age of five and was raised in Nagoya.
She is the first naturalised Japanese citizen to win the pageant, but her victory has re-ignited a debate on what it means to be Japanese.
While some recognised her victory as a “sign of the times”, others have said she does not look like what a “Miss Japan” should.
She grew up in Japan. All her friends are Japanese. Her life experience is of Japanese society and culture. She’s been through it all. What is she if not Japanese? Get over it.
I am part Japanese myself and the language is literally my mother tongue, but when I go to Japan to visit family, I always feel alienated because I don’t look the part. Don’t get me wrong. People are very polite to foreigners, but you will always be a foreigner. Even when I spent a year at a Japanese elementary school, I felt this persistent sense of not belonging.
But maybe things are starting to change? I admittedly have not been back in a couple of decades. I hope so.
My neighbor who was born in Pakistan and moved to the USA in 3rd grade, and now has a kid going to school with mine, is more American than I’ll ever be tbh.
his moms brisket samosas are dope as fuck and ought to be enshrined in a immigrant fusion cookbook
Japan has had a long history of being insular, putting it lightly, so this is big regardless of how you look at it