Yasushi Kawaguchi
Story teller

" I was born and raised in a Buraku district in Uwajima-city, Ehime Prefecture, which was discriminated against. I first felt the negative look of society against Buraku in my bones when I began studying at a college in Osaka.

I kept it secret -- the fact that I came from a Buraku -- during my college life.  I wrestled with the contradiction between “the real self” and “the sham self”. But I learned the thoughts and feelings of my Grandma, Dad, and people in my community who carried on their lives through the harsh discrimination, and I came to think I had nothing to be ashamed of.

Since then, I decided to live my life again without hiding my nativity.
Now, I give lectures at schools and in communities all over Japan, to let many people know the reality of this “invisible discrimination”. "