1. Ethnic Discrimination in Japan: Go to and read the interview with Nadamoto Masahisa on his work as a Buraku abolitionist (http://www.nancho.net/kyoto/nadamoto.html). - Who are the burakumin? How far do they go back in history? What kind of jobs have they traditionally performed?
- How have the burakumin been treated since World War II? How have conditions changed?
- How are burakumin treated today? What steps has the Japanese government taken to improve the status of burakumin?
- Why is it important to view the burakumin as a socially constructed category?
2. Eugenics: Go to the Image Archives of the American Eugenics Movement hosted by the DNA Learning Center of the Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory at http://vector.cshl.org/eugenics/. Read the chapters, and view the images to answer the questions below. - What was the Eugenics movement? What was its social and scientific basis?
- What were the scientific flaws in the eugenics research?
- In which three areas of law did the eugenics movement seek reform? How successful were they? What kinds of eugenics-based laws have been passed in the 20th century?
- Do you think that eugenics is just a thing of that past? How does an anthropological understanding of race undermine the assumptions of the eugenics movement?
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