History of Resistance to Discrimination by Koreans Living in Japan: Focusing on the Labor Movement in the 1920s and 1930s / 1920~30년대 일본 거주 조선인의 노동운동과 차별 저항사

This book examines the social movements undertaken by Koreans who migrated to Japan from the Korean Peninsula to seek employment or study before August 1945, resisting discrimination there, focusing on the labor movement of the 1920s and 1930s. In August 1945, just before the end of World War II, the population of Koreans living in Japan¹⁾ was approximately 2 million.²⁾ Among them were many who were forcibly mobilized due to Japan's "wartime general mobilization system" during the Asia-Pacific War. According to the 1949 edition of the "Chosun Economic Yearbook" compiled by the Research Department of the Bank of Korea, 1,407,000 Koreans returned home from Japan to the Korean Peninsula south of the 38th parallel north from August 15, 1945, when Japan was defeated, until the end of March 1948. On the other hand, there were approximately 600,000 Koreans who were unable to return home for various reasons and remained in Japan; they are the prototype of the current Koreans in Japan.