“There have been racial barriers, and it has been challenging to be accepted as Japanese.”
That’s what a tearful Carolina Shiino said in impeccable Japanese after she was crowned Miss Japan on Monday.
The 26-year-old model, who was born in Ukraine, moved to Japan at the age of five and was raised in Nagoya.
She is the first naturalised Japanese citizen to win the pageant, but her victory has re-ignited a debate on what it means to be Japanese.
While some recognised her victory as a “sign of the times”, others have said she does not look like what a “Miss Japan” should.
Culture is place-based. It’s about how the geography and food and local population and local religious practices shape you and it is constantly evolving because all of those things change over time. It is not genetic. As japan welcomes more immigrants those immigrants will indeed shift the culture in certain ways because there is a new group of people. Pageants are about cultural celebration, and Japan is celebrating their culture with this beautiful woman who calls it home.