Inside North Korea's bubble in Japan

For the third Vox Borders documentary, I visited an elementary school in Japan. The kids were well-behaved and lively, exactly what you’d expect. But these kids face hostility in their birth country because they’re not ethnically Japanese. Their heritage is Korean and they identify with North Korea.


In the early 20th century, thousands of Koreans were brought to Japan to serve as laborers and, worse, “comfort women,” a euphemism for sex slaves. After Japan’s defeat in WWII, some returned to the Korean peninsula. But many of them stayed and set down roots. And a subset of these Koreans became loyal to the newly formed North Korean regime. Today, their descendants are born in Japan, speak Japanese, but are not Japanese citizens.