In this dissertation I analyze literature and grassroots struggles by people of Korean heritage in Japan (hereafter Resident Koreans). My particular focus is the era between the late 1960s and the late 1990s. While both the literary and political texts I examine challenge the common presumption that Japan is a homogeneous nation, this is by no means their primary objective. More importantly, they almost invariably question ideologies of gender and paradigms of modernization and economic development. Many texts are preoccupied with defining the relationship of the individual to the social and with locating spaces for historical agency. Formulations of ethnic identity (Japanese, Korean, hybrid), while present, are often subsumed into these concerns.

As I read fiction, poetry, and autobiography with trial transcripts and newsletters of grassroots organizations, I trace the mutual influence among these different sorts of texts. I also suggest ways in which both the political and the literary are affected by economic shifts. Literary works take up political issues that have already emerged, articulate concerns that have not yet found their way into politics, and raise others that may never do so. They suggest the social and historical significance of ordinary lives and, because they do not always seek practical resolutions, have the potential to complicate the way readers conceive of political issues. The social movements, in turn, have most obviously affected the literature by altering the world in which its authors live; specifically, by forcing certain legal changes. At the same time, they have provided inspiration for artists with their success in inducing the modification of things that seemed immutable---not simply laws, but corporations and even ideologies.

Many people who do not possess the formal training necessary to write academic works or even journalistic histories have written fiction and literary autobiographies. This is particularly true of women. I therefore contend that a history of Resident Koreans that does not include literature is inadequate. My point, however, is not only to make this argument but to introduce the remarkable history of a community little known outside the part of the world in which it exists.