Race is too much with us everywhere it seems. Japan is buzzing about the mixed racial heritage of Miss Japan Universe, Ariana Miyamoto. Her mother is Japanese, her father a black man from Arkansas. She spent two years in high school in Arkansas.

She says her mixed heritage made her an object of bullying in her childhood in Japan. Today, many Japanese are objecting to the representation of the country in a beauty pageant by a mixed race person, called “hafu” in Japan.

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She’s almost six feet tall and striking. Her father Bryant Stanfield, then a Naval officer, met her mother while in service. They divorced, but Ariana spent two years later at Jacksonville HIgh School learning English and also worked for a time in the state. Lots of family background here.

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