Being biracial can pose particular challenges ¡ª especially if the place you call home is as monocultural as Japan is.

For Kiera Wright-Ruiz, a Tokyo-based, New York-born author of Ecuadorian and Korean descent, being biracial in Japan doesn¡¯t carry the same weight as it did when she was growing up in the United States.

¡°I didn¡¯t realize how heavy that (weight) was until it was gone,¡± says Wright-Ruiz, adding that in Japan¡¯s homogenous society, people tend to ask about her origins from a genuine point of curiosity.