She is Black and Representing Japan But People Are Angry About It: Do They Have A Point or Are They Utterly Ignorant?

Born to an African American Father and a Japanese mother, On March 8, Ariana Miyamoto made history by becoming the first Afro Asian to be crowned Miss Japan. Ariana Miyamoto was born and raised in Nagasaki, speaks fluent Japanese, and has been selected to represent Japan in the Miss Universe pageant but the 20-year-old beauty queen has come under intense criticism from her own country for not being Japanese enough.

After her win and subsequent selection to represent her country Japan in the Miss Universe pageant, she used her first television appearance to apologetically explain to reporters that while she doesn't 'look Japanese' on the outside, on the inside, there are 'many Japanese things about her'. There is a pervasive feeling in the country, one of the least ethnically diverse in the world, that mixed-race people are not fully Japanese. In Japan, Miyamoto is called a 'hafu', a Japanese term used to refer to someone who is biracial.