Acknowledgments
As this book is being published, I wish to express special thanks to all of my Buraku brothers and sisters who have told me details of their lives that they did not wish to recall and provided me with various evidence, such as documents and photographs. I regret that I cannot introduce each and every one of them by name. Brothers and sisters of my Buraku, and the Buraku Liberation League Hiroshima Prefecture Federation, have contributed helpful perspectives not only for this publication but for my entire research, despite the difficulties they have faced. I would like to tell each and every one of them that this book was brought about by the good fortune of those encounters.
Another stroke of good fortune was brought to us by Dr. David Fasenfest. The authors of this book are profoundly grateful to him for this invaluable opportunity to contribute to Buraku studies. The authors also thank his staff for their precious support. Although we never have met them, their work was absolutely essential to this project. The authors are also very grateful to Brill’s editorial team for their meticulous attention to book design and layout, which made this work even better.
I would also like to acknowledge my gratitude to Mr. Kyle W. Brink from Canada, for his language instruction and inestimable encouragement. Our serendipitous meeting was a stroke of good fortune.
Finally, there remains one more individual to whom I owe my deepest gratitude. That person is Hiroko Kobayakawa, my wife and comrade, whom I encountered 58 years ago through the Buraku Liberation Movement. Our meeting was not a mere coincidence, but a destined and inevitable bond.