Burakumin

Since the early twentieth century, the burakumin have had strong liberation movements that have won many concessions for the group, but which have also, through their sometimes quite violent activism, further alienated many mainstream Japanese.

Before it was levelled, Nagata was home to about half of Kobe’s 20,000 Korean residents, as well as Japan’s largest ghetto of burakumin. The word means ‘hamlet people’ though its mere mention usually draws instant embarrassment.