{"id":58803,"date":"2019-09-01T01:18:34","date_gmt":"2019-09-01T01:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=58803"},"modified":"2019-09-01T01:18:34","modified_gmt":"2019-09-01T01:18:34","slug":"hachimura-japans-mixed-race-basketball-star-who-once-hid-from-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=58803","title":{"rendered":"Hachimura, Japan’s mixed-race basketball star who once ‘hid from the world’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hachimura, Japan’s mixed-race basketball star who once ‘hid from the world’<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Japan Today<\/a>
\n2019-08-26<\/p>\n

Natsuko Fukue<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
\nJapan’s Rui Hachimura<\/a> is set to star at the basketball World Cup. Photo: AFP<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

TOKYO<\/a> \u2014 Rui Hachimura<\/a> says he gets his height from his Beninese father and his work ethic from his Japanese mother — a combination that has propelled him to basketball stardom.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old made history in June when he became the first Japanese to be selected in the first round of the NBA draft<\/a>, picked up by the Washington Wizards<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And like tennis superstar Naomi Osaka<\/a>, Hachimura’s fast-growing fame is raising the profile of biracial sportspeople in a homogeneous country where mixed-race children still face prejudice.<\/p>\n

Hachimura, who is 203 cms tall, will lead Japan’s challenge at the basketball World Cup in China<\/a>, which begins on Saturday. He is also poised to be a poster boy the hosts at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics<\/a>. Big pressure for one so young.<\/p>\n

As a child Hachimura stood out in Japan<\/a> — and not just because of his height. “I inherited my body from my father and my diligence from my mother,” he said in a recent interview with the Mainichi Shimbun<\/em><\/a> daily.<\/p>\n

He now feels a sense of pride at being biracial but admits to feeling self-conscious about it when he was a child…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And like tennis superstar Naomi Osaka, Hachimura’s fast-growing fame is raising the profile of biracial sportspeople in a homogeneous country where mixed-race children still face prejudice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16,1245,8],"tags":[11052,1793,16373,23759,30187,23758,30188,7222,30189],"class_list":["post-58803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-asia","category-biography","category-media-archive","tag-basketball","tag-japan","tag-japan-today","tag-national-basketball-association","tag-natsuko-fukue","tag-nba","tag-rui-hachimura","tag-sports","tag-washington-wizards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58804,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58803\/revisions\/58804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}