Being biracial can pose particular challenges — especially if the place you call home is as monocultural as Japan is.
For Kiera Wright-Ruiz, a Tokyo-based, New York-born author of Ecuadorian and Korean descent, being biracial in Japan doesn’t carry the same weight as it did when she was growing up in the United States.
“I didn’t realize how heavy that (weight) was until it was gone,” says Wright-Ruiz, adding that in Japan’s homogenous society, people tend to ask about her origins from a genuine point of curiosity.
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