What does it mean to belong to a country where you were born, but never legally claimed?

In this episode of the Zainichi Music Project Podcast, Yukimi explores statelessness as lived reality: not as a single legal definition, but as a shifting condition that shaped generations of Zainichi Koreans in Japan.

From the collapse of the Japanese empire after 1945 to the long decades of legal ambiguity that followed, this episode traces how Zainichi legal status changed repeatedly—stateless, foreign national, South Korean citizen on paper, Special Permanent Resident—without ever fully resolving questions of belonging.

Along the way, Yukimi examines:

* Why statelessness extended beyond the first generation

* How postwar Japan’s emphasis on homogeneity intensified exclusion

* Why North Korea–affiliated organizations attracted many Zainichi in the 1950s by offering dignity and recognition amid severe discrimination

* How South Korean nationality became a pragmatic—but limited—path in the 1970s and 1980s

* What Special Permanent Residency in the 1990s actually meant, and what it did not

Woven into this legal and historical narrative are moments from everyday life that reveal how policy became practice—and how children, families, and identities were shaped by systems that operated quietly and systematically.

This episode is not about assigning blame or promoting ideology. It is about understanding how statelessness functioned, how dignity was deprived and sought, and why Zainichi identity often feels adaptive, conditional, and unresolved.

Episode 4 lays the groundwork for what comes next: silence—not as absence, but as something learned, inherited, and normalized.

I share how this unfolded in my own childhood—moving between Hyun Mi Song, Yukimi Noyama, and Yukimi Okawa—and how those layers eventually led to the name I use today: Yukimi Song, my American name, the one I finally got to choose for myself.

Featuring a poem by Chuwol Chong, this episode offers a window into identity shaped by history, paperwork, and the search for dignity. It also sets the foundation for the deeper themes ahead: statelessness, silence, and why this history has remained hidden.

Last week, I shared publicly for the first time that I am a third-generation Zainichi Korean. Many listeners told me they had never heard this history before. So today’s episode focuses on the essential facts: how Japan’s control over Korea began long before 1910, how Koreans were incorporated into the Japanese Empire as imperial subjects rather than immigrants, and how the end of World War II left hundreds of thousands of Koreans in Japan without a clear legal status.

I also touch on what daily life looked like for Zainichi families in the decades after the war — from employment restrictions to documentation requirements — and how these practical realities shaped identity across generations.

This episode is not about blame or judgment. It’s about clarity. Understanding where this story begins is the key to understanding everything that comes next: the two names many of us carried, the social pressures, the silence, and the ongoing questions of belonging.

Next week, we’ll move into the heart of everyday identity: the question of names, and why so many Zainichi Koreans grew up navigating two of them.

Thank you for listening — and for taking the time to learn this history with me.Please support my project, Zainichi Music Project, via NYFA.

Most people know me through The Piano Pod, my long-running interview show that explores the evolving world of classical music. But the Zainichi Music Project is different. It’s personal. It’s something I’ve circled for decades but finally stepped into after receiving sponsorship from the New York Foundation for the Arts — a green light I didn’t know I’d been waiting for.

In this episode, I talk about:

* What the word Zainichi actually means,

* How Japanese colonial rule, not immigration, brought our community into Japan.

* How postwar restructuring and the San Francisco Peace Treaty left our community stateless,

* What it meant to be born and raised in a country that never fully recognized us as citizens.

* And why this project is my way of honoring our history, our resilience, and our creative legacy.

If you want to read more about my background, including the two names all Zainichis carried and my experience with statelessness, please read my Substack essay “Behind the Mic: Reclaiming Voice Through Sound.”

Thank you for being here. More soon — and welcome to the beginning of the Zainichi Music Project.