Carolina Shiino, who was chosen as Miss Japan, received the country's citizenship last year. The choice goes against the country's traditionally conservative views on immigration.
in Ukraine born and moved to Japan at the age of five Carolina Shiino, 26, was crowned Miss Japan on Monday. The choice has caused a dispute about who can be called Japanese, say the British public radio, for example BBC and a US news channel CNN.
Shiino, who gained citizenship last year, is the first winner of the Miss Japan pageant born outside of Japan. He said after the coronation that he has had to face racism on his path.
“It has been challenging to be accepted as Japanese,” Shiino said, according to the BBC.
Conservative Shiino's background has been criticized in the country's social media, as both her parents are Ukrainian. According to some, the victory would have been more acceptable if at least one of the parents was Japanese by birth.
Others say Shiino doesn't look like what Miss Japan should look like. One commenter said that Shiino's selection as the pageant winner “sends the wrong message” to Japanese people, as she is “European-looking”.
The choice has also been accused of being political. Someone born in Russia could not have won the race, another wrote.
Others have compared Shiino's choice to sports: even in international sports competitions, Japan is represented by people who were not born in the country.
For example, a tennis star Naomi Osakan one of the parents is Haitian and the other is Japanese. Grand Slam victories have not led to full acceptance either: Osaka has also received criticism for her background, says one of Japan's largest newspapers Asahi Shimbun.
of Japan out of about 124 million inhabitants, only about 3.2 million – 2.5 percent – are immigrants, said The Japan Times in October. Compared to other countries with a high standard of living, it is remarkably low, but in Japan the number has risen to a record high.
The country is plagued by a low birth rate and decades of weak economic growth and an aging workforce, which immigration has only last years started patching.
However, the anti-immigrant sentiment visible even in the dispute has kept its surface in the island nation, and the country has had no real immigration political strategy at all.
“In Japan, ethnic unity is valued, and they don't want to break it by letting outsiders into the country,” said the leading researcher of the Foreign Policy Institute Bart Gaens for HS last February.
Miss pageant organizer Oh Wada told the BBC that the competition judges chose Shiino as the winner with “full confidence”. According to Wada, Shiino was chosen because she is “a hard-working and yet humble Japanese woman who cares deeply about others”.
“He speaks and writes beautiful and polite Japanese. He is more Japanese than we are,” Wada said.
Shiino, on the other hand, has said that the victory is the fulfillment of his dreams.
“Being accepted as Japanese in this competition has filled me with gratitude,” Shiino said.
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