Yakuza - Constituent Member - Ethnic Koreans

Ethnic Koreans

While Ethnic Koreans make up only 0.5% of the Japanese population, they are a prominent part of yakuza, despite or perhaps because they suffer severe discrimination in Japanese society alongside the burakumin. In the early 1990s, 18 of 90 top bosses of Inagawa-kai were ethnic Koreans. The Japanese National Police Agency suggested Koreans composed 10% along with 70% of burakumin in Yamaguchi-gumi. Some of the representatives of the designated Bōryokudan are also. The Korean significance had been an untouchable taboo in Japan and one of the reasons that the Japanese version of Kaplan and Dubro's Yakuza (1986) had not been published until 1991 with deletion of Korean-related description such as the component of Yamaguchi-gumi.

Although Japanese-born people of Korean ancestry are a significant segment of the Japanese population, they are still considered resident aliens because of their nationality. But Koreans, who are often shunned in legitimate trades, are embraced by the Japanese yakuza precisely because they fit the group's "outsider" image.

Prominent individuals of Korean descent in the world of the yakuza have included Hisayuki Machii, the founder of the Tosei-kai, Tokutaro Takayama, the president of the 4th-generation Aizukotetsu-kai, Jiro Kiyota, the president of the 5th-generation Inagawa-kai, Hirofumi Hashimoto, the head of the Kyokushinrengo-kai (a powerful Yamaguchi-gumi affiliate), and the bosses of the 6th / 7th Sakaume-gumi. Oddly, prominent individuals of Korean (and many other foreign) origin in the world of yakuza tend to be known for their intense Japanese nationalism, which is not an inherent tendency of the yakuza itself, often founding their own uyoku (right-wing) organizations.