By Mei Kodama,
An internship was launched at a museum in Uji, Kyoto Prefecture, dedicated to telling the story of the Utoro district, where ethnic Koreans have historically faced discrimination, to promote the history of the community internationally through foreign students living in Japan.
Foreign students at Ritsumeikan University have been enlisted for support at the Utoro Peace Memorial Museum to relay the stories of the district, where Korean laborers and their descendants were recruited to build an airfield during World War II. Many survived despite discrimination and faced prejudice after the war.
The museum staff welcomed the students, saying, "This is a great opportunity for Utoro residents to interact with people of many different nationalities."
On June 23, a day when the Utoro Cafe inside the museum was open, residents mixed with foreign and Japanese students while they tucked into Korean food and other dishes.
"I had a tough life. Now I am happy to see so many people coming to the museum," Han Gum Bong, an 85-year-old woman who immigrated to the district with her family, said with a smile.
The museum opened in April 2022 to commemorate the history of Japan and the Korean Peninsula, and pays homage to the so-called zainichi Koreans who have long resided in Japan's Utoro district.
Nearly a dozen foreign students from Vietnam, South Korea, the United States and other countries are participating in the internship program. Their activities include acting as museum tour guides, translating exhibition panels from Japanese into English and interviewing residents of the district.
They also visited Osaka's Tsuruhashi district, known as one of the largest Koreatowns in the country, to learn the history of zainichi Koreans in Japan and post comments about their activities in English on social media.
Carlos Marquez, 21, the leader of the intern group, immigrated to the United States from Mexico City with his family when he was a high school student.
Reflecting on those days, he said, "I couldn't get a part-time job even though I was legally living in the U.S. (With my visa at the time) it was like being in a gray zone."
He focused volunteering efforts on trying to combat prejudice against Latin Americans and the disparities they face in the United States. Carlos learned about the history of Utoro, where those who moved there built their own community, and noted it overlapped with the experiences he and many Latin Americans faced.
Han Sea On, 24, who hails from Seoul, first learned about Utoro through a Korean TV program, prompting her to participate in the internship. She was impressed by the warm reception of the residents.
"I think each one of them can be a bridge for Japan-Korea relations. It is also important to appeal to the international community by using English," Han said.
Kim Su Fan, 48, the museum's deputy director, said, "Residents who have had a hard time getting along with Japanese people are now interacting with people from many different countries."
He added, "We can tell people (in English) around the world who are struggling in their own lives that there are people in Japan who are managing to get through by doing their best."
According to the museum, zainichi Koreans were subjected to "backbreaking" airport construction work during the war. When Korea was liberated from Japanese colonial rule at the end of World War II in 1945, many across Japan either could not afford the trip back to their homeland or were reluctant to return to a newly divided Korean Peninsula, remaining in the district as illegal occupants.
Despite poor conditions throughout the years, Koreans from across Japan moved to the village, seeing it as somewhere they could support each other, raise families and build a close-knit community.
Even so, conditions were bad there until recent years when significant improvements were made through negotiations with the local government for newly built housing complexes and improved infrastructure.
A real estate company sold a portion of its land, approximately 3,800 square meters, to the residents for 180 million yen ($1.2 million) in 2011. The residents acquired a total of around 6,550 sq meters, including the area purchased, making them legal occupants for the first time.
Incidents driven by anti-Korean sentiment in Utoro are still often viewed within the broader context of systemic discrimination in Japan, including a 2021 arson incident that was deemed a hate crime.
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By Mei Kodama,