Who are Burakumin? One possible answer is: I. I am one. I am a man. Without any marked talents, I learned to work reasonably well, and ran a modestly successful business on my own. I was able to retire. I am happily married. We have two daughters. I love jazz. I play the double bass. I like classical music too. I learned the cello. Fly fishing attracted me, and finally took me to rivers abroad. I am not an especially righteous man. I am weak-willed. I grieve when I lose someone I care about. I get carried away at neighborhood association meetings, and grumble about it later. I was a BLL activist.

My identity, such as it is, is an indecisive man, a husband, a father, a retired business owner, a jazzman with no sense of rhythm, a bad cello player, an expert fly fisher, and, tangled in and around this bundle of attributes, and more, I am a Burakumin. This last facet component of identity is often a self-image constituted by negative memories of being forced to be a Burakumin. Because of it I, like others, have been forced to suffer severe discrimination on several occasions. Until my two daughters got married, I was extremely worried about them. And even if that concern has passed, it is impossible to relieve the frustration and sadness of discrimination. This is one of the driving forces behind my immersion into Buraku research.