TOKYO — Ariana Miyamoto was born and raised in Japan and speaks fluent Japanese. But she said most people in her homeland see her as a foreigner.

“My appearance isn’t Asian,” she said, “[but] I think I’m very much Japanese on the inside.”

Miyamoto, 21, was born to a Japanese mother and an African-American sailor who left Japan when she was a child. In Japan she’s considered a hafu, or half-Japanese. Some people prefer the term daburu to signify double heritage, but Miyamoto said she’s not offended by the word hafu.

“I don't think the equivalent word for hafu exists overseas, but in Japan you need it to explain who you are,” she said.

In March she became the first half-black, half-Japanese woman to be named Miss Universe Japan. Many people in Japan cheered, tweeting messages such as “She represents Japan! Being hafu is irrelevant.”

But others complained on social media that she didn’t deserve the title.

“I don’t mean to discriminate,” one post read, “but I wonder how a hafu can represent Japan.”

Another person tweeted, “I didn’t know Miss Japan doesn’t have to be pure Japanese ... What a shock!”

“I ran for Miss Japan expecting some criticism, so it wasn’t such a big surprise for me,” Miyamoto said. “But of course, those kinds of comments don’t make me feel good, so I try my best to turn them into positive motivations.”

She said she has heard those kinds of comments since childhood, when she was constantly bullied and even called kuronbo, the Japanese equivalent of the N-word. Some children threw garbage at her or refused to swim in the same pool.

“I didn’t cope at all,” she said. “I didn’t tell my parents or my friends. I was the type to just keep it inside me.”