Nikkei Diaspora Solidarity Statement on the 103rd Anniversary of the Great Kanto Earthquake Korean & Chinese Massacre

August 31, 2026

We, representatives of Nikkei diaspora groups across North America, join you in gathering here today to remember the victims of the Kanto Massacre, and to oppose the Japanese government’s ongoing disavowal of responsibility. We will reiterate some key points, before discussing the relevance of the memory of the massacre to our transnational movement for memory and justice.

We have indisputable evidence that the government was involved in the spread of fake news that exposed Zainichi Chinese and Koreans to violence: a director of the Ministry of Home Affairs, for example, sent a telegram to regional directors asking them to crack down on Koreans who “possessed bombs and were setting fires.” We also have indisputable evidence that state military and police forces collaborated directly with vigilante groups to produce the corpses of what is estimated to be six thousand Zainichi Koreans and eight hundred Zainichi Chinese residents of Japan. Together, the state and “civil society” carried out this massacre whose horrifically graphic scenes one could describe as a grotesque nightmare, if only they didn’t actually happen.

The atrocity of the situation is not only the state’s refusal to take an active role in investigating or discussing this violence, refusing dignity to victims of the massacre, but that such violence has not stopped. Similar structures of gratuitous racism continue to be imposed on Zainichi communities and “new” immigrants—the Kurds, the Vietnamese, the Nepalese, the list will go on. The preferred torture tools remain the same: fake news paired with police, state, and civilian impunity. We stand with you all today in solidarity, demanding the ongoing investigation and discussion of the crime of genocide. We hope to create conditions of a world where murderous nationalism, racism, and extremism are not possible. The first step for this is to refuse to ignore them or to forget their historical instances. The second step is to continue connecting the dots between groups, time, and across geographical distance.

What we are best positioned to contribute to this gathering today, is a discussion of the relevance of the memory of the Kanto Massacre today for the Nikkei diaspora, notably those who reside in what is often referred to as North America—an occupied settler-colony. Part of the practice of our group is redefining what Nikkei means, who it refers to. Our movement traces its lineage to the decades-long organizing work of Zainichi Koreans in North America. In North America, Nikkei history is over-represented by the history and narratives of Ippan Japanese Americans, at the exclusion of histories of Zainichi Korean Americans and Burakumin immigration. The tragedy of the wartime incarceration of individuals of Japanese descent is a major part of our historical memory. In addition to this memory of trauma and humiliation, many of us have first-hand experiences of the violences of racism, Orientalism, and White supremacy in North America. However, in contrast to these familiar tragedies, we receive little education in our schools and in our communities, about the victims of Japanese colonial aggression, the violence Japan inflicted and continues to inflict upon Zainichi communities and immigrants, and the histories of violation and resistance of Zainichi communities in Japan. What our efforts at redefining the term “Nikkei” have taught us, is that there can be no genuine understanding of the Nikkei diaspora—its diversity of experiences, histories, and traumas—without a confrontation with Japanese colonialism, racism, feudal systems, and interconnected histories of Japan and its East Asian neighbors. Prior to joining politicized communities, it is likely that many Nikkei diaspora of whatever ethnic background have never heard of the Kanto massacre. We hope to ensure that this is not the case for future generations of the Nikkei diaspora, and continue in our efforts to further educate and activate our Nikkei communities.

We understand the de-politicization of Nikkei communities in North America as a political strategy to separate diasporic communities from the historical memory of transnational imperialism, un-even East Asian history, and US imperial involvement in post-war East Asian geopolitics. It is part of an unspoken counter-insurgency operation to prevent the production of global anti-imperialist, anti-colonial movements for justice. History is separated for this reason. For example, in our Nikkei communities, it is often disregarded that in 1952, the same historic year that racial bans were lifted in the United States for immigrant naturalization, allowing Japanese immigrants to become American citizens, in Japan, Zainichi Korean and Taiwanese were stripped of their Japanese nationality and were effectively rendered stateless. Whereas in the aftermath of Japanese internment in the US, anti-Japanese racism would be repurposed through the trajectory of pacification and redress as “model minority,” across the Pacific, in the aftermath of Japanese imperial defeat and the beginning of US occupation, Zainichi Koreans and Taiwanese, as well as indigenous groups whose histories were subsumed by Japan’s mono-ethnic narrative, experienced instead, the abandonment of responsibility. 

Against the post-cold-war US imperial world order, we, the Nikkei diaspora, are positioned in history to resist both the American model minority myth and the Japanese mono-ethnic myth. For us, the memory of the Kanto massacre is a reminder that as committed Nikkeis, we cannot fight for justice in North America without connecting those struggles with the fight for justice for marginalized communities in Japan and East Asia. The truth we dare the Japanese government to face is that the Kanto massacre is not just a memory. It continues in the living, breathing far-right movements of Japan today, and in the accelerating collaboration between the Japanese state, race ideology, global empire, militarism, and capital. 

We would like to express our gratitude for the work that organizations and individuals in Japan continue in their tireless effort to demand responsibility from the government of Japan. From across the Nikkei diaspora, we stand with you, working towards a world inhospitable to genocidal hate directed against any group. Last, but not least, we wish to convey our condolences to the families of the victims. May the souls of your ancestors rest in peace, and may their memory serve as a source of our collective continuation and strength. 

In solidarity,

Past and current participants of Nikkei Decolonization Tour, allies and friends