Modernization and industrialization have ensured that the traditional lifestyle of the Ainu has been destroyed as thoroughly as the traditional customs of their Japanese neighbours.
-- by Ainu historian Richard Siddle, in "Japan's Ainu: Refusing to Fade Away," in the EastAsia@Sheffield newsletter, June 2002
The Ainu of Hokkaido, the northern island transformed into an internal colony of Japan from 1869, have yet to be recognized as indigenous people by the Japanese government. The lack of an international definition of "indigenous peoples" has been cited as a reason for the government's inaction. Amazingly, the Ainu Cultural Promotion Act, passed in May 1997, manages to make no direct reference to Ainu people.