The Japanese American National Library will hold a free program Sunday, March 6 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Union Bank Hospitality Room, located at 1675 Post St. in San Francisco’s Japantown to discuss contemporary ethnic minorities in Japan.

In this panel, entitled “The New Ethnic Identity for Sustainable Citizenship in Japan: Searching for the Meaning of ‘Belonging,’” experts on Japan’s three major ethnic minority groups — Ainu, Latin American immigrants and Vietnamese refugees — will examine the emerging ethnic identity within each community and its efforts to claim its place and rights in Japan.

Mitsuhiro Fujimaki, Takahito Sawada and Keiko Nakayama will represent the Center for Global Studies, University of Shizuoka, and be joined by Yuko Okubo of International and Area Studies at University of California, Berkeley as the panelists. Keiko Yamanaka of UC Berkeley’s ethnic studies department will moderate the panel. There will be a discussion with the audience.

The event is co-sponsored by the Center for Global Studies, University of Shizuoka (Shizuoka Kenritsu Daigaku) and the library.

For more information, call the library at (415) 567-5006 or contact Yamanaka at yamanaka@berkeley.edu.