Osaka's US Open win re-opens identity discussion in Japan

YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) — Naomi Osaka's victory in the U.S. Open has added her to a growing list of athletes, Nobel Prize winners, and beauty pageant contestants who have raised the issue of what it means to be Japanese.

The daughter of a Japanese mother and a Haitian father, Osaka was born in Japan but raised in the United States. But she is being lauded in Japan as the first from the country to win a Grand Slam singles tennis title, which has upstaged most questions about her mixed background.

Some children from mixed race families in Japan often get bullied and demeaned, called "hafu" — from the English word "half" — and are chided that they aren't fully Japanese.