Monthly Archives: June 2013

DREAM Act a solution for undocumented immigrants

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by Yurika Chiba

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Mexican Americans were 10.8% of the population of the United States in 2011. There is a huge number of immigrants from Mexico in the U.S. because the distance is very close between Mexico and the U.S. In addition to Mexican immigrants, America has more than 50,000,000 immigrants. However, it is a fact that America has also a lot of “undocumented immigrants.” One of the reasons is that the pay in America is better than that in their home countries. But, why are they “undocumented”? In America, it is hard for foreigners to get VISA.

ALBS JAPAN explains that the American government does not want to increase the number of immigrants because it thinks that undocumented immigrants cause American economy a great loss. In addition, America pays careful attention to immigration after 9.11 attacks. I think that the system of immigration intake in America has a problem to increase the number of undocumented immigrants.

Of course, they are illegal immigrants because they do not have the permission to get into America. However, some undocumented immigrants are doing jobs which American citizens do not want to like the 3Ds: Dirty, Dangerous and Difficult. In fact, their workings sustain the American economy even though some American citizens discriminate against them. It is clear that a lot of undocumented immigrants have a hard time in America.

How about their children, called “undocumented children”? They do not have their own passport. They can’t prove their nationality and can’t work legally. It is difficult for them to get their own driver licenses. Before they graduate from the high school, they can take the education. However, entering the university is difficult for them because most state university do not accept their entrance and they do not have enough money to enter the private university. That is why college-going rate of undocumented immigrants is really low. I watched the video about Jose Antonio Vargas whose parents are undocumented immigrants during the class. He hadn’t known he was an undocumented immigrant until he was 16 years old. After that, he has lived in America with hiding his citizenship. He is talented. But, he could not do an internship because he did not have American citizenship. In other word, he missed a lot of chances to do what he wanted. I think these children should be given the equal opportunity to live in America because they are innocent.

In order to help these children, the American government has suggested the “DREAM Act”, the idea of giving the right of living in America. Recently, the president of America, Obama, promotes this bill. It provides permanent residency to undocumented children. For example, the condition of application is given to people who enter into America until 16 years old and have lived in there for more than 5 years. Even though there are some more conditions to apply it, this bill is really beneficial to undocumented children. However, it has not passed yet in the U.S. If it does, undocumented immigrants who contribute to America would increase more and more. I think that this bill will give advantages to both American government and undocumented children.

On the other hand, opponents against DREAM Act insist that undocumented immigrants should get the green card by the legal process. They also explain that the opportunities of having green card should be equal to legal immigrants. However, in my opinion, undocumented immigrants do not have equal opportunities from the beginning. For undocumented immigrants, having the green card is much harder than other immigrants. I think DREAM Act has very important role to correct the gap between undocumented children and documented children because they did not do wrong at all.

In conclusion, the problem of undocumented immigrants in America should be solved as soon as possible. I do not mean that American government has to force undocumented immigrants to away from the U.S. Rather, American government should consider the policy which these immigrants can live in there at ease. As one of the solution, DREAM Act needs to pass for undocumented children. If undocumented children can have the right of permanent residency, next generation can live in America as American citizens. I believe that it would lead to a positive outcome for undocumented immigrants.

 

References

U.S. Census Bureau:

Retrieving June 23, 2013 from

http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk

ALBS JAPAN: Retrieving June 24, 2013 from http://www.usavisa.jp/howto/faq_visa07.html

NYT, Mexican Data Show Migration to U.S. in Decline: Retrieving June 24, 2013 from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/15immig.html?pagewanted=all

NYT, My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant: Retrieving June 24, 2013 from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an-undocumented-immigrant.html?pagewanted=all

Poor English Saved Japanese Banks?

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by Robert Moorehead

Japanese Finance Minister and deputy prime minister Aso Taro claimed Friday that ignorance by Japanese bank managers saved Japan from buying the subprime loan products that later collapsed in value and ushered in the Great Recession. According to Aso, bank managers’ command of English was so poor that they avoided studying the complex financial products and instead avoided them.

As reported in the Japan Times, Aso told a seminar in Tokyo “Many people fell prey to the dubious products, or so-called subprime loans. Japanese banks were not so much attracted to these products, compared with European banks.”

“Managers of Japanese banks hardly understood English. That’s why they didn’t buy,” he said.

Other explanations would be more encouraging. For example, “Japanese bank managers avoided the products because they saw them as too risky,” or “Japanese bank managers showed keen insight into the global economy and recognized that these products were a poor investment.” But praising bank managers’ ignorance of English?

Aso is well-known for his verbal gaffes, including saying that the elderly should “hurry up and die” to save the government money on end-of-life care. “Heaven forbid if you are forced to live on when you want to die. I would wake up feeling increasingly bad knowing that [treatment] was all being paid for by the government,” said Aso in January. “The problem won’t be solved unless you let them hurry up and die.”

Aso has also referred to people unable to feed themselves as”tube people,” made quips about Alzheimer’s Disease, and said that poor people should not get married. “It seems rather difficult to me for someone without means to win people’s respect.”

Maybe Aso’s comments could fuel new advertising slogans for banks …

“Bank of Tokyo, where the only English we know is our name.”

“Globali-what? Come to Bank of Osaka, where we put your money under a mattress.”

“At the Bank of Kyoto, we make sure none of our employees has ever left the country.”

Submit your own slogans!

Are You Kidding Me? Toshiba’s New Stereotype Maker

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by Robert Moorehead

UPDATE: Toshiba has removed the video from both YouTube and from its own website. The video is still available at Kotaku.com, and has been uploaded to YouTube by user “xbatusai”: We’ll see if Toshiba releases a public statement in response to this issue.

Toshiba promotes its SuiPanDa bread maker by dressing up a Japanese woman in a blond wig and fake nose … because eating bread changes your appearance and makes you speak Japanese with a fake foreign accent. Rice is Japanese, she says, but bread is Western. You can add rice when making your bread … to make hafu bread?

Maybe they should have Becky or Shelly advertising the bread maker … use rice to make hafu bread—hafu Japanese, hafu Western. As much as that would essentialize and reify racial categories, it would still be better than having a Japanese person dress up in gaijin-face and speak accented Japanese.

Just to make sure that viewers know that this woman is gaijin, they also use katakana for her subtitles. (Katakana is used in writing foreign words in Japanese.) Oddly enough, despite the racialization of bread as non-Japanese, Japan is filled with specialty bread shops. It seems half the shops in Japan are either boulangeries or hair salons. So maybe bread isn’t all that foreign after all …

An equivalent commercial in the US would have a sad white woman eating a sandwich, but who longs for some rice for lunch. A white woman in yellowface (who speaks English with a fake Asian accent) would then tell her that making rice is too hard for Westerners. Think of Mr. Yunioshi from Breakfast at Tiffany’s selling a rice cooker.

Heaven help us if Toshiba expands its devices to include other types of food, like fried chicken, tortillas, or anything else “foreign.”

Here’s the now-dead link to Toshiba’s original video:

No Way To Run From The Influence Of The Media

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by Emilie Hui Ting Soh

Reading Evelyn Nakano Glenn’s “Consuming Lightness: Segmented Markets and Global Capital in the Skin-Whitening Trade” brought back my memories on the first time I went to the drug store looking for a suitable skin care product to use. I was a young girl, at thirteen years old, with no prior experience or knowledge, was instantly bombarded with the wide range of brands, functions, benefits. I had no idea where to begin. A sales lady then came up to me and asked if I needed any help. I replied yes, and she began introducing the range of products that she was selling. Words such as moisturizing, radiating, whitening, and beauty were used as she explained in detail about the products and how they are used. I, on the other hand, had no idea and did not understand any of what she was talking about. I was just looking for a product to wash my face with, and did not know that I have to consider so many other problems that I possibly have. That made me felt very troubled and I left. Now looking back, I look at this incident as part of a vicious cycle that is hard to get out of once you get sucked into the industry.

At that time, I did not think that being fair or white was beautiful. I was considered to have dark skin and did not have any issues with my own skin until I began having influenced by consumerism thinking that dark skin is a problem that I need to fix with the use of a skincare product. The media, through advertisements and posters, act as constant reminders to the consumers that we have to do something about the ‘problem’ we have. If not for media portrayal and influence made by businesses and the society, I believe the majority of us would definitely not think that dark skin is anything negative or inferior. It is in fact, through our life we have been constantly ‘programmed’ to think this way, thus it creates such an issue in this present day.

In addition, as I was reading this chapter, I could not help but feel very annoyed and was seriously questioning the reason why are women always the one being objectified by the media and the society? It is ridiculous to compare how much women and men spend per month on their own cosmetic skincare products respectively for themselves. Why should women be made to comply with the beauty standards set by the people trying to sell us the products that they claim can make us beautiful? If we look at some of the tribes in the mountainous regions, who have limited exposure to the media, their standard of beauty is very different from the standard of beauty that we have.

Beauty, I believe, is when you learn to appreciate what you have and not to remake or alter the way you look to try and become someone else whom you are not.

Lighter skin as an escape from discrimination

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by Chris Leung

In Hong Kong, it is also popular for women to lighten their skin. Since in the old days, having lighter skin has meant a woman did not have to work, so she was more noble than those who had darker skin. As the result, lighter skin signifies higher social status and eventually it lead to the definition of beauty.

However, in most cases, no matter where you are, I think that instead of saying lightening your skin is a choice, it is more appropriate to say that it is just an exit door in order to escape from discrimination. Let’s say if you have dark skin and you were discriminated against, can you say that skin lightener is a choice for you? Or is it a path towards salvation for you? Can you proudly say that you chose these products ‘freely’? People who want to have higher social status lighten their skin. Although there are exceptions that some dark skin people could also enjoy higher social status, or some of them chose to keep their darker skin even if they would have a poorer life, the outcome of having darker skin and lighter skin are obviously different because of colorism. If most of the people think that lightening their skin could benefit them, can it still be called as a choice?

Further, I think that money cannot justify everything especially moral values. It is true that because of development, we might have to lose some of our traditional stuff in order to fit into society. For instance, we have to give up building traditional architectures in which few people can live, instead we build skyscrapers because of increasing population and limited lands. But lightening our skin is definitely not because of evolution or development, but to fit into a society which is full of discrimination.

In conclusion, I think that reducing the yearning of lightness is not because keeping diversity is important, but the values of everyone living equally is essence. Even though there are people who are rich and people who are poor, the way to wealth you have should be based on your own efforts and abilities, but never should be based on your racial appearances. The main issue about skin lightening is not the huge industry that many people live from it, but fundamentally, it is devaluing certain skin color, which is an act of discrimination.

Osaka Against Racism

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Osaka Against Racism

How black Americans have been distanced from other black people

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by Miho Tanaka

From two articles, “Not black, but Habasha: Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrants in American society” by Habecker and “Ethnic and racial identities of second-generation black immigrants in New York City” by Waters, I found how black Americans were distanced from each other because of tension with other ethnic groups. Though second generation immigrants sometimes fit into black American culture if they interact with black American friends, many black immigrants de-emphasize their ascribed black racial identification and try not to be categorized as black Americans in the US (Habecker, 2011, p.1206). However many other ethnic groups cannot distinguish them from black Americans since their appearance is very similar to black Americans; therefore they tend to be treated just like black Americans even if they have strong identity of not being like them. In addition it is impossible for black immigrants to reform the “apparently immobile structures of America’s racial hierarchy” even though they make efforts on maintaining social distance from black American (ibid, p.1215).

I suppose how much they experience discrimination, and how much less opportunity they have are deeply connected to the darkness of their skin of color. In the Black community, the tradition of lighter skin and straighter hair are often considered to be in ‘better’ status (Williams, 2013). In this sense I can see colorism pretty much prevails in US society and the world, and their social or economic levels are often determined by how dark they are. I feel Japan is not an exception. For example Okinawan or Ainu people in Japan have been discriminated from the dominant group. Okinawan have darker skin compared with Japanese living in Honshu island and I saw Ainu people when I was in a junior high school and went to school trip, they had darker skin, too. Okinawan people are often suffering from noisy airplane of U.S. military and sometimes Okinawan girls or women are raped, and Ainu people had been segregated and now they are disappearing. I can see that Japanese society also adopts colorism.

On a large scale, we should notice how colorism forms the structure or hierarchy of this world. I feel the darker skin people have, the more poor area they live in. When we think of black immigrants who rarely assimilate into the other culture which white or lighter skin colored-people control we should think about how colorism effects on their lives and their opportunity and how it is sustained in the world.

References

Habecker, S. (2011). “Not black, but Habasha : Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrants in American society” (pp.1200-1219). In Ethnic and racial studies. London : Routledge.

Waters, C. M. (1994). “Ethnic and racial identities of second-generation black immigrants in New York city” in International Migration Review. Vol.28, No.4, pp.795-820

Williams, C. (2013). Colorism : The war at home. Retrieved on June 13th 2013 from http://www.ebony.com/news-views/colorism-the-war-at-home-405#axzz2W6aYYoEN

Invisible Immigrants

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by Ayano Tsukada

New York City is a city of minorities and immigrants. Unlike other cities like Los Angeles or Miami where one ethnic group makes up majority of the immigrant population, New York receives immigrants from all over the world. Their identities vary among the ethnic groups as well as within the groups. Here I would like to focus on second-generation Black Immigrants in New York City because they become invisible in two ways:

  1. The government does not track the second-generation of immigrants (They become Americans officially);
  2. The second-generation immigrants lack their parents’ distinctive accents and they look very similar to native-born Black American.

If they don’t tell their ethnicity, they can easily be seen as native-born Black Americans or act like native-born Black Americans.

But they don’t react to this situation in a same way. They adopt different types of racial and ethnic identities. Mary Waters, in her survey in New York City, found that there are three types of racial and ethnic identities adopted by Black immigrants: Black American identity; Ethnic or hyphenated national origin identity; and Immigrant identity. These identities are related to different perceptions and understandings of race relations and of opportunities in the United States. Second-generation immigrants with Black American Identity tend to see more racial discrimination and limits to opportunities for Blacks in the United States and disagree with parental judgements that there are strong differences between Black Americans and Immigrant Blacks. Those with Ethnic Identity tend to see more opportunities and rewards for individual effort and initiative and agree with their parents’ idea that Immigrant Blacks are better than Black Americans. Those with Immigrant Identity take a more neutral stance, but they are more like visible immigrants since they are likely to have immigrated recently and have distinctive accents and styles of clothing.

The interesting fact revealed by Water’s study is that these second-generation immigrants are aware of the generalized negative view of Blacks in the United States and yet some choose to be part of them while others try hard to differentiate themselves from Black Americans. What we can see from the fact is that they are helping to maintain the structure of racism in the United States. Second-generation immigrants with Black American identity are doing so by accepting the stereotypes of Blacks and those with ethnic identity do so by differentiating themselves from Black Americans.

So they are not challenging the current system.

They are making racism and colourism in the United States craftier and more invisible.

Reference

Waters, Mary C. 1994. “Ethnic and Racial Identities of Second-generation Black Immigrants in New York City.” International Migration Review 28(4):795-820.

Are Zainichi Koreans “foreigners”?

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Anonymous student post

There are lots of ethnicities in Japan, such as Zainichi Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Ainu, Okinawan, and more. In spite of the existence of plural cultures for a long time, Japanese government had ignored their existence until the 1980s when globalization came into Japan. The Ainu and Okinawans had maintained their culture and language since 18c or 19c though the Japanese government prohibited them from using their language and sought to assimilate them.

On the other hand, Zainichi Koreans came to Japan as a result of Japan’s colonization of Korea from 1910 to 1945. During the colonization, Koreans were referred to as Japanese subjects. However, After Japan got independent in 1952, Koreans lost their legal rights as Japanese subjects and became ‘foreigners’. Some went back to their home country, but others decided to stay in Japan because of the confused situation of Korea such as Korean Separation or Korea War. Due to this, they stayed in Japan as ‘foreigners’ with permanent residence status, so-called ‘Zainichi Koreans’.

In 1965, the central government prohibited schools from teaching Korean culture and language to the Korean children, and the government policy was that teachers were to treat Korean children in the same way as Japanese kids. Because of this policy, later generations of Zainichi Korean were assimilated more and more. Now, most descendants of Zainichi Koreans were born in Japan and speak Japanese as their first language with little Korean language skill and many of them use their Japanese name not Korean name. However, they are referred to as ‘foreigners’. In this case, the question what does ‘foreigners’ mean?

Most Japanese people see ‘foreigners’ as someone born outside Japan and come and stay in Japan temporarily. Japanese government had been speaking out that Japan was a monolingual and monoculture state by making the ethnic minorities ‘foreigners’. That is the reason why Zainichi Korean were invisible ‘ethnic minorities’ for a long time. However, this situation changed from 1970s to 1980s.

In 1970s, Dowa problem rose widely in Japan and ethnicity became ‘human rights’ issue. Also, a lot of immigrants came to Japan as guest workers and ‘foreigners’ education were acknowledged in 1980s. These things had impacts on the Zainichi Korean policies. In 1991, the central government finally allowed schools to teach Korean culture and language though lots of policy changes had already occurs in local levels.

Due to these movements, Zainichi Korean were ‘discovered’ as ‘ethnic minority’ in Japan. By becoming ‘visible’, Zainichi Korean got explicitly identity as a Zainichi Korean not Japanese or foreigners. However, whether they chose which identity is their problem. Fortunately, I think they are easy to assimilate into Japanese society more than African people or European people because our culture is similar to each other and physical features are also similar. However, it is not only identity issue but also their legal statement issue. They haven’t got the citizenship and have been discriminated against in terms of education, housing and work. Even though the existence became visible, there are still a lot of difficulties for Zainichi Korean in reality.

References

Hokkaido Ainu Kyokai.http://www.ainu-assn.or.jp/about03.html

Lie, John. 2008. “Zainichi Recognitions: Japan’s Korean Residents’ Ideology and Its Discontents.” The Asia-Pacific Journal >http://japanfocus.org/-John-Lie/2939

Okano, Kaori. 2006. “The Impact of Immigrants on Long-lasting Ethnic Minorities in Japanese Schools: Globalization from Below.” Language and Education 20(4):338-354.

Dark and light skin as fashion

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by Emina Miki

From this week’s presentation, I realized interesting similar situation between South Africa and Japan. In South Africa, they tried to have lighter skin by using skin lightener, in contrast, in the past in Japan a lot of young girls tried to have darker skin by using cosmetics. Their ideal skin colors are different from each other, but it is same that they try to be different skin color from their natural skin color.

In about 2000, there were a lot of young people especially girls with darkened skin and white lips in Shibuya, Tokyo. They changed their hair to gold, burned dark their skin again and again at the tanning salon and put on almost same figures because that style was the vogue at that time. Japanese young women would think darker skin is more beautiful as same as that South Americans have thought lighter skin is beautiful. Moreover, Japanese women painted their eyes using pens. In general, young Japanese girls with dark skin have been called “yamanba” ironically. “Yamanba” means the ugly old woman who lives in the heart of a mountain. However, they didn’t change their figures. On the contrary, they made a community and one culture at that time. The center of the trend was absolutely people with dark skin. So this age ended cause of the current of the time, but in South Africa they banned to use skin lighter because that was bad for face and they might lose pride in being black. I think this is a big difference between them. In Japan, though there were some people who don’t like their looks and their looks caused a lot of fuss, it wasn’t punished. Actually I thought they lost their natural identity because the face after making up and tanning was too different from the face without makeup. Also they didn’t want to make appearance in natural face, but people with dark skin were some of Japanese, so it might not ban their behavior.

In conclusion, I think the use of skin lighter in South Africa was considered as bad thing to face and the product which was promoted of hating the color of their skin, so many opposition movements occurred there. In contrast, young women’s behavior such as tanning their skin and painted their face by pens was considered as just the vogue. So I thought many people have thought that it would end in the near future though their behavior affected their healthy bodies.