974 Koreans in Japan Koreans in Japan Sonia Ryang ALTERNATIVE NAMES Resident Koreans in Japan; zainichi Koreans. LOCATION Japan; in all prefectures, but more concentrated in urban areas such as Tokyo and Osaka; Osaka has the largest population of about 200,000, which is roughly one-third of all Koreans currently living in Japan. HISTORY The majority of Koreans who live in Japan consist of first- generation colonial immigrants from the Korean penin- sula and their descendants. Korea was under the Japanese colonial rule for the years between 1910 and 1945. Earlier colonial immigrants consisted of students and seasonal workers. Total numbers of Koreans staying in Japan shifted from 2,527 in 1911 to 38,651 in 1921, and to 311,247 in 1931 (Morita, 1996, p. 33). Starting in 1939, the Japanese government began forcefully recruit- ing Korean labor force to the mines and other industrial locations in Japan proper. This drastically increased the number of Koreans in Japan to a total of 1,469,230 by 1941 and 1,936,843 by 1944 (Morita, 1996, p. 33). In 1941, Korean men from the colony became eligible for conscription. It was during this time that hundreds of Korean women were recruited to work as sexual slaves for the Japanese military. By the time war ended in 1945, there were 2.4 million Koreans living in Japan (Wagner, 1951, p. 95). With the end of colonial rule, Koreans in Japan returned to Korea en masse. This repatriation was accom- panied by multiple difficulties including the lack of help by the Japanese government and restriction on the cash that could be removed from Japan. Japan was under United States occupation, and U.S. authorities were concerned about the loss of capital by way of former colonial subjects' repatriation. Nevertheless, the repatria- tion zeal was strong and by 1948, the number of Koreans in Japan had fallen to 588,170 (Wagner, 1951, p. 95). The war's end was the beginning of another, more complex war--the Cold War. In 1945, Korea was divided into north and south, occupied by Soviet- and U.S. military-sponsored governments, respectively. By 1948, separate regimes were founded, each declaring the inten- tion of building a nation that was completely opposed to the other half of the Korean peninsula. The antagonism culminated in a bloody civil war that lasted from 1950 to 1953. By the time the Korean War ended, what was seen as a temporary measure of partition was looking more permanent against the background of the Cold War confrontation and memories of the atrocities committed by both sides during the conflict. Koreans in Japan mirrored the division of their homeland; starkly divided into supporters of the northern regime and those of the southern regime, they confronted each other with contesting claims over national authentic- ity and political legitimacy. This division, however, was not based on regional origin. The majority of the first- generation immigrants originally came from provinces that belonged to the southern regime. However, the popu- larity of left ideology in general and Communism in particular during the years immediately following the end of the war in Japan influenced Koreans, too. With the Occupation's initial liberal measures, including the amnesty of political prisoners who had been jailed in the prewar period, well-known Korean Communists were released from prison. They were, in fact, more renowned as anti-Japanese fighters than as Communists, and in this way they were able to secure vast support for the northern regime, as Koreans in Japan were more thoroughly nationalist than Communist. For those nationalist-minded expatriates, the south- ern half under the American military government looked