Rethinking the Status of the Korean Community in Japan through the Current Situation of Professional Groups: The Cases of Lawyers and Scholars

Abstract

After World War II, Koreans in Japan have been attempting to improve their social status in Japanese society, facing substantial social and economic discrimination, as well as legal and institutional discriminatory barriers. They have built and taken advantage of their ethnic community by accumulating and sharing information amongst themselves. By analyzing several changes in the social status of Koreans in Japan over the last thirty years, Higuchi Naoto applied the concept of model minority to Koreans. The notion has usually been used to explain Asian Americans in whitecollar jobs and their second generations high level of education. Higuchi argued that, in the case of Koreans in Japan, they took one generation longer than Asian Americans to reach the status of model minority. If we apply Higuchis hypotheses and conclusion to Korean professional groups, what would the result be? This is the main question of my study. I assume that obtaining a professional job is one of the most important indexes that indicate the socioeconomic status of ethnic minorities. Under this assumption, this paper will shed light on the status of the Korean community in Japanese society by investigating the current situation of Korean professionals, particularly lawyers and scholars. I will address the following questions: What made Kim Kyŏng-dŭks becoming the first Zainichi Korean lawyer a huge issue, and what is the significance of this event in the history of the Korean community? What is the status of Korean lawyers in Japanese society and in the Korean community, and what insights can we draw from it? Are the characteristics of scholars similar to those of lawyers? When applying Higuchis hypotheses and conclusion to the two different professional groups, what different conclusions can we draw? In order to answer these questions, I will examine the current situation and status of the two Korean professional groups by using surveys and interviews that I conducted and my own experience in establishing the Korean Scholars Forum in Japan (Kankokujin Kenkyūsha Fōramu) in 2008. In doing so, I will argue that although the model minority approach is basically valid, the sample size is still insufficient to call Koreans in Japan model minority because they only attained such status from the early 1990s. Therefore, I argue that Koreans in Japan, especially professional groups, still need to make efforts to fight against the existing legal and institutional discriminations against them.