Mixed-race athletes reflect broader developments in Japanese society

AS THE SON of a Japanese mother and Beninese father, Hachimura Rui stood out from his classmates in Toyama, a small town some six hours’ drive from Tokyo. Other children taunted him, he once recalled to The Undefeated, a sports website: “You’re black, go away.” But his talent on the basketball court helped him gain respect. Now a star in America’s NBA, Mr Hachimura will carry the flag for Team Japan when the Olympics open on July 23rd.

Mr Hachimura’s selection as a flag-bearer reflects how attitudes about race and identity are in flux in a country where the idea of racial homogeneity has long held sway. He belongs to a cohort of prominent mixed-race athletes who are forcing Japan to reckon with its diversity—from the Haitian-Japanese tennis champion Osaka Naomi to the Ghanaian-Japanese sprinter Sani Brown Abdul Hakim and the Iranian-Japanese baseball star, Darvish Yu. “They are becoming the role models that they themselves didn’t have,” says Miyazaki Tetsuro, a Belgian-Japanese photographer who documents other hafu (half), as mixed-race people in Japan are often called.

The notion that Japan is a racially homogeneous nation has always been a myth. The Japanese originated from many parts of Asia; Japan is home to Ainu, Okinawans (both hailing from islands that were once distinct from Japan) and...