by Yuuki Tashiro

These days, in Japan, the topic of international migration is discussed eagerly. I think that there are two reasons about it. It is a declining number of children and a tide of globalization. Compared with the US and western countries, the population of migrant is very low. But in Japan, government tries to add to not only foreign workers who engage in white-collar work but also foreign workers who engage in blue-collar work. If a present migrant low in Japan is changed and it becomes more relaxed than this of now, of course, this decision will have big effects on the people in Japan and the international migration.

In this class, I studied the case of Boston about international migration. In Boston, many foreign people came to there depending on the same countries’ people. As a result, colonies where these people live together appeared. Besides, the little Tokyo and The China town is same case. If Japanese government make a low which allow foreign migrant to live in Japan, the same colonies will appear as The US. However, it is also said that such colonies had already existed. For example, I can give the instance of chuukagai, China town and Korean town. These towns were made by Chinese and Korean. I think that there are two problems about this issue. Firstly, it is the coexistence between their culture, language and these of Japan. Japanese society is often said that quite exclusively. There is one proverb which shows this Japanese nature. “gou ni haireba gou ni sitagae ”. This words mean that if you live in other region you should follow the region’s customs. I guess the proverb show Japanese nature well. So some conflicts will occur. However , as China town in Yokohama and Koube, the conflict will become reconciliation as the years went by. Secondly, public services and facilities for migrants is also issue. A lot of these service and facilities deal with them in English or Chinese, Korean. Although, if migrants who can’t speak these language live in Japan, they will be not able to take these services quickly. I think that this problem is related to Japanese education system. Ordinary Japanese are not proud of other language. Besides, multilingualism is not firmly established in Japan because the population of foreign people is low. So it is also important to established multilingualism in Japan to add to migrants.