Author Archives: japansociology

Japan’s attitude toward refugees

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by Yuuka Kageyama

According to the Ministry of Justice, in 2011, only 21 of applicants are accepted as refugees in Japan although 1,867 people have been wishing. It is clear that Japan has accepted small number of refugees compared to other developed countries and the way to support refugees in Japan need improving.

Although many countries have accepted and assisted refugees, there are still so many people who are suffering from humanitarian problems such as persecution, discrimination and abuse of human right in their countries. They don’t have house to live in because they are ejected during war or conflict. Considering this situation in the world, should Japan accept more refugees?  There are many points to consider in discussing this program. First, Japan cannot afford to help them very well because Japan’s national debt is getting larger and larger. Moreover, Japan has still many people who are living in the tent and requiring aid in Tohoku region after the earthquake. Second, Japan’s society and community is difficult to fit in because of the difference of culture and language, that is, the refugees accepted in Japan may be faced with many difference, difficulty and even discrimination

However, as Japan is often pointed out about its negative attitude toward refugee policy by other countries, I think Japan should accept more refugees and take more care of them in Japan economically, politically, culturally, physically and mentally. The reasons are as follows;

First, Japan had ratified the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which means Japan has a responsibility to protect refugees. If Japan keeps its negative attitude toward this policy, it can be said that Japan is pushing it responsibility off onto other member nations.

Second, the problems on refugees are relating to the fundamental human right. Some people may say that Japan’s government should focus on its citizen’s lives first. It may be reasonable to claim like that in part but I want to ask that which is more important and prior, to ensure human rights and the right to life, or to be better off in high standard level of life.

I don’t mean that government should make light of the life of citizen in Japan nor their lives should be sacrifices. However, it would be too late that the government starts to take measures about refugees seriously after solving Japan’s internal problem completely.

The situation of refugees in Japan

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by Akisato Fujita

According to Japan Association for Refugees, the number of people who come to Japan as refugees has increased rapidly. From 1999 to 2009, the number of the people has been more than 5,594, which is more than 6 times compared to 889 from 1989 to 1999. However, in fact, Japan does not take a positive attitude toward recognizing them as refugees and accepting them. For example, in 2009, 1,388 people made the application to refugees of Japan, but the Japanese Government recognized only 30 people as refugees. In addition, even though the government decides to accept refugees, there are not enough systems and laws for them in Japan. It is natural that they know nothing about Japanese language, society and custom. Therefore, the government has a duty to support them, but now, it cannot be said that the support is sufficient.

It is thought that Japan should improve this situation considering the international and national issues. First, Japan could be criticized by other countries because of not contributing to the international society as one of the developed countries. Japan is one of the countries which signed the 1951 UN Conventions Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. Therefore, Japan has an obligation to save refugees actively. Japan Association for Refugees reports that about 34 percent of the world’s refugees (3.82 million people) are in the Asia-Pacific Ocean region. It is considered that accepting these people could show Japan’s affirmative attitude toward the problem of refugees, and it would connect to enhancing the status of the international community. Second, the number of people in Japan has been decreasing today. Now, the population of Japan is about 120 million. However, according to Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, it is estimated that the total population would decrease to 90 million people, and the rate of aging would become close to 40% by 2060. It means that the working population in Japan would become smaller and the economy should become weak in the future. In order to solve this problem, accepting refugees as the work force could be an effective way. They would work in Japan and sustain Japanese economy and society.

There are some negative opinions about admitting more refugees in Japan, but refugees could have positive influences on Japan. In short, Japan should get ready for the laws and systems for refugees which guarantee their status as refugees and make their life in Japan comfortable, and accept more refugees.

Multicultural Japan

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by Wataru Yukita

Japan should become a more multicultural country. It needs to achieve a society that beyond some ideology and controversy in Japan. In this point, two concepts are important. According to Mr. Hiroki Azuma, professor of Waseda University, combining Japan as “flow” and Japan as “stock” is significant in order to achieve multicultural society. He says that we live in the world that network is covering and man and money move across border so quickly. Even though we are welcoming to that world or not, the number of foreigners who live in Japan will increase, compared with now. On the other hand, the number of Japanese who live in other country will become widespread. It shows that Japanese culture doesn’t belong to only Japanese people and other culture come in Japan. Japan as “flow” express the current Japan that many sense of value exist and Japan as “stock” declare identity stored from past years in Japan. Therefore, we need to recognize border come to be fuzzy and reproduce Japanese culture and some legacy in the next generation in this situation.

In this context, I think that Japan should open the door for foreigners by some ways. For instance, permitting local election voting right for permanent foreign residents is one way to make multicultural country. The way is natural in modern and future society that border will be ambiguous as mentioned above.

However, these ways face opposite opinion from some people, especially conservative class. They argue that if we permit local election voting right for foreigners, they might use the right for interest of their countries (for example, permanent residents from Korea vote for candidate who say “Takeshima belong to North Korea”). It is true that there are possibilities like this case. But I think permanent residents will use right to their communities because many of them are together as a collective. In addition, permitting this right is also important when we require some right for Japanese who live in other countries.

It is difficult to achieve multicultural countries. Even United States and many European countries struggle to this problem. Thus, it is more difficult for Japan where construct of mostly a single culture. However, in history, there is aspect that Japan has accepted foreign culture and tradition. Phrase of “Wakon Yousai (Japanese spirit and Western knowledge)” shows these Japanese aspect. This spirit contributed to the great turning point of the Meiji Restoration. Today, we remind this spirit for Japan facing various problems.

What is the future for undocumented children?

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by Rina Yoshikawa

According to a survey in 2012, there were around 70,000 of illegal overstayers in Japan. In 2008, it reported about 150,000 were found illegal, which was more than twice as much as recorded in 2012. It seems like the number of illegal overstayers has declined as the survey shows, and we are able to solve this issue in few years. However, these surveys are only numbers of people who were exposed as illegal. It can be estimated that there would be around 300,000 to 400,000 illegal immigrants in Japan.

In the late 2000s, one Filipino family got a lot of attention from all over Japan since they had stayed in Japan illegally. According to the law, they were to send back to the Philippines, but their young daughter named Noriko Calderon grew up and lived her whole life in Japan and could not speak any other language than Japanese. It was a huge controversy for this family that had migrated from the Philippines to get out of poverty and to make a living in Japan, and actually made their life in Japan for long, but overstayed illegally. Their child, Noriko, has been brought up in Japan since she was born and had done nothing wrong, so she only got an exceptional acceptance to stay in Japan while her school life and her parents were sent back to the Philippines.

Even though Noriko grabbed a huge chance to stay longer exceptionally, she is not the only one who stands on the edge of border of their life. There are still hundreds of children in a same situation. Some might have already been forced to be sent back home, or some others might be scared of getting caught by immigration authorities. Moreover, they are even afraid to go to hospital when they are sick. They do not have a right to live just like normal people if they are not documented even though they migrated to make their life better and happier. For those children, they never get any choices and they have to depend on just the way they are until they are caught as illegal. Once they are found as illegal, they have no other way than to see the reality of undocumented with no power.

For this issue, I think all the children should be protected to live their life no matter what situation their parents create. Parents’ ego cannot disturb the future for children. At least I think we need to give those children education and healthcare with some condition to grab a chance of success when they get older. It should not be fully acceptable to anybody that may danger the country. However, I do not want children lose their bright future due to their unfortunate situation. All those innocent children should be able to take a chance to challenge for themselves.

Reference

Facts and details: foreigners in Japan. http://factsanddetails.com/japan.php?itemid=633&catid=18 (last seen on 2012-11-10)

法務省：本邦における不法残留者数の推移. http://www.moj.go.jp/content/000096008.pdf (last seen on 2012-11-10)

Are multi-culture and multi-ethnicity accepted in Japanese society?

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by Naoko Yoshida

In 2007, Taro Aso, the then Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, made a statement that Japan was the only racially, linguistically, and culturally homogeneous nation. Throughout the history, many politicians and celebrities have said that Japan is a mono-ethnic and mono-cultural country, and those statements have caused a lot of disputes. Although there have been some other races and cultures besides Japanese ones, why so many people consider that Japan is mono-cultural or mono-ethnic nation? I believe this fact shows that Japanese society tacitly has not accepted multi-culture and multi-ethnicity.

There are several minority races in Japan, two of them are Koreans with permanent residence of Japan, who are called Zainichi Koreans, and the Ryukyu race in Okinawa, who are also called Okinawans.

Zainichi Koreans are people who moved to Japan in search of work and as forced labor before and during World War II, and the offspring of those people. Although their nationalities and races are Korean, many of them have Japanese family names. That is because they can adapt to Japanese society more easily with Japanese family names. For example, one of my friends has her Japanese family name “Nakamura” as well as her Korean name “Kim.” She almost always uses her Japanese surname except when she is abroad. In addition, Koreans in Japan usually speak Japanese instead of their mother language, Korean. Those facts show that although they are proud of their own culture, they should follow Japanese customs not to stand out in Japan.

Also, Ryukyu race is a minority in Japanese society. Although Okinawa is one of the prefectures in Japan, it is seen as unique in Japanese society. That is because they show off their indigenous culture. Here, we can say they have strong pride for their culture. And, indeed, Okinawan society is sometimes considered to be separate from Japanese society. That is also shown throughout the history. Japanese government offered Okinawa as a hostage to the US soon after World War Two.

In summary, Zainichi Koreans had tried to be inconspicuous in Japanese society with using Japanese family name and speaking Japanese, and Okinawans had hard time probably because of their too strong pride of their own culture. By considering those facts, multi-culture and multi-ethnicity are not accepted in Japanese society. Since we are in the world of globalization, Japanese people should be more acceptable for other races and cultures.

Reference

Tai, E. (2004/9). Korean japanese. Asian Studies 36 (3), 355-382. doi: 10.1080/1467271042000241586

Hoffman, M. (2012/6). Okinawa: a long history of hardship. The Japan Times, 14.

麻生総務相「一民族の国はほかにない」九博開館式で発言. (2005/10/16). asahi.com. http://web.archive.org/web/20051018033046/http://www.asahi.com/politics/update/1016/001.html

Immersion school for multicultural society

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by Sungryoung Yoon

In 1960s, public schools in Canada started to introduce “immersion schools” where children can study French, and in 1970s public schools in US also started to introduce a new education system, “immersion schools” to public school. Today, children in the US and Canada can study a second language or third language in public schools by this system. We did discussion about “immersion school” for children to be bilingual by the end of elementary school. However, I think that this system is one of important roles for multicultural society. I would like to write about what background made US to introduce this system and how Japanese society can change to be multicultural society by using this system.

We generally think that the US is one of big countries of multicultural society. However, almost people of immigrant encouraged dropping their native language. For instance parents don’t teach their native language to children and making them to study English. Why these actions happen to the society? I guess it is disadvantage for people who don’t have an English ability to live in the US society for education and job. It is necessary for people to get to full English skill and I think this action does not lead multicultural society anymore. Not dropping native language and knowing other language are one of the big ways to be multicultural society. Today, in the US, many public schools have “immersion school” and give a lot of opportunities to children to learn their native language and also to know other culture of countries. I think this system has been helping the US society to coexist with different countries and it has been a big role for multicultural society in the US.

While the US society has struggled to introduce the new education system for multicultural society since 1970s, I think that children are limited to learn language in Japanese society. For example, we could not get to chance to study English when I was an elementary school. At last Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology introduced English education system to elementary school in 2008 but it is not enough to say Japan is multicultural system. For instance, how children who came to Japan as immigrant learn their native language? Today, Japanese society has to try to coexist with languages and culture of each country like the US since a lot of immigrants live together in Japan and I think it will be one of a big role for Japanese society to be multicultural society.

I think that children could get know their identity, and they could understand about cultures and language of other countries by introducing “immersion school” to Japanese society. We need multicultural society since more immigrants would come to Japan in the future. “Immersion school” will help Japanese society to be multicultural society.

Do foreign immigrants threaten public security?

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by Chika Yamamoto

When we are talking about foreign immigrants, the discussion always goes to the anxiety of increasing crime by foreigners somehow. In this case, I don’t know why but criminals are always foreigners and therefore victims are Japanese. So, my question is why. Why do people assume that crime will increase if foreign immigrants increase? Is it really true?

As for my first question, I think people don’t worry about just foreigners in Japan. In other words, people don’t care or feel anxious about, for example, lots of foreign tourists coming to Japan. Rather, mostly Japanese people welcome foreigners to come to Japan. Also, if a foreign couple becomes our neighbor, we would be nice to them, help them if necessary, and we wouldn’t feel afraid of them. But when it comes to foreigners accounting for the majority in our neighborhood, the situation and people’s reaction would be different. People don’t know how to communicate with them if they don’t speak fluent Japanese. People feel worried about being minority and replaced by them. The foreigners get visible and influential by the growth of number. I think that just comes from people’s mind. It is easier for them to label foreigners as unknown and uncanny people because people mostly don’t try to know them and decide the impossibility of communication with them. Also, people can put emphasis on Japanese safety by associating foreigners to crime even though Japanese of course commit crimes mostly in Japan. I think this idea is just for escaping and hiding the fact of crimes by Japanese.

My next question is whether this relation between foreign immigrants and crimes is true or not. According to Shakai Jitsujyo Deta Zuroku, the rate of crime by foreigners has not really increased since 1992. Of course comparing to 1980, the rate increases from 0.2% to 2.4% in 1992. As of 2010, it even decreases to 2.0% according to this statistic although number of foreign people is increasing day by day. So, from this result, I think the increasing number of immigrants doesn’t correspond with increasing number of crime. In addition, Omae says that this idea that crime will increase because of increasing number of foreigners is very one-sided. He criticizes the opinion Ishihara, mayor of Tokyo, saying all over Japan would be like Shinokubo if we accept huge number of immigrants. Shinokubo is one of the diverse cities in Tokyo and even called as ethnic town. Foreigners living in Shinokubo account for almost 40%. However, Omae says this is biased by showing the example of immigration in Singapore. Singapore accepted huge number of immigrants for the economic demand and population increases from about 3,000,000 to 5,000,000. But, nothing changed in public order. They maintain the security in Singapore because they put requirements for immigrants such as their academic career and job qualification. Thus, the increasing number of immigrants and foreign crime are not really corresponded.

In this aging society, Japan needs huge number of labor to maintain Japanese economic. Immigration from foreign countries is probably significant to make up this labor shortage. But if people believe that crimes will increase and society will not be safe by having foreign immigrants, it would be very difficult to have foreign immigrants. There will be serious problem such as the problem in America that we learnt in the class. Therefore, as Omae points out, I think people should know that this view is one-sided and there is another way to have immigrants and maintain the security in Japan. That will be at least first step for being immigrant-friendly country.

Reference

Shakai Jitsujyo Deta Zuroku. “Transition diagram of crime by foreigners in Japan” (Dec 28,2011) http://www2.ttcn.ne.jp/honkawa/2794.html

Omae Kenichi. News Post Seven (Nov 14, 2011) http://www.news-postseven.com/archives/20111114_67639.html

Great effects of second language

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by Mayu Uehara

Language is one of a given tool for people to communicate. It can show our emotion, identify ourselves and also built relationship. First three months of my life in Canada, I had been stressful because only English was spoken there and couldn’t speak Japanese. Now I can speak English but this is because my friends and many people there tried hard to understand me and also taught me English. In Japan, there are lots kinds of immigrants who are struggling with their life. They are isolated and also tend to gather together with common race. There should be necessity of community project to teach people second languages for not only immigrants but also local people. There are three reasons for supporting my opinion. First, the numbers of immigrants has increased. Second, community should make better society for citizens. Third, bilingualism can make numbers of chances for every people.

In reality, globalization can’t be avoided. Now the numbers of immigrants has increased and as social changes in Japan, numbers of elderly people will be twice as much as youth, therefore we need more hands from overseas. In addition, in the aspects of business, it’s hard enough to pursue profit only inside of Japan so that there are lots of Japanese corporate progressing overseas and compete with global corporate. This means language especially English is important to success and also sustain Japanese society.

Second, though globalization is inevitable social change, local people is not used to be with immigrants yet. There are some racial difficulties such as Korean resident in Japan, Brazilian workers in Japan and so on. There are Korean or Brazilian communities in some parts but they are isolated from community mostly. For instance, Brazilian who come to Japan for working can’t read Japanese of course so they don’t know about social rules such as how to wrap garbage and when they should put them on the road. Only if there are any languages to communicate, they don’t have to have troubles. It’s difficult to make country to regulate bilingualism, however; community should be flexible to those community changes. If the community has lots of Brazilian residents, it should have some chances to provide citizens of the community to learn Japanese, English or Portuguese so that they can communicate each other to make their society better. These community movements also tie not only between local people and immigrants but also between local people themselves. If the bonds become tight in community, we’ll deal with current problems such as DV, crime, and urgent disasters.

Third, bilingualism can provide us many effects. If we speak only Japanese, we can communicate with Japanese speakers but it’s seldom to speak with foreigner because Japanese speaker of foreigners are not so many. If we have second language such as English, Spanish, and Chinese and so on, we can travel overseas, use it in business occasions, make foreign friends, and learn other cultures or sense of values. These effects can make our choices of life styles way broad. If numbers of communities, which support learning second language increase, lots of Japanese can have global senses and also choices of their life styles.

In conclusion, it’s necessary for Japan to live with immigrants and we need to protect them not only for them but also for ourselves. Second language can be great supporter to live our own life better and also it must need to keep up with other countries. Community can provide great impacts by progressing bilingualism for tie of citizenship, activation of society and broad choices of citizen’s life styles.

 

The Benefits of Being Bilingual

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by Sayaka Umei

Bilingualism is the ability of people to speak in two languages fluently. If this “fluency” would be defined as “to be able to speak, understand, read, and write well in a language (“English-only triumphs, but the costs are high” by Alejandro Portes),” most of the bilinguals were born in the different country from their parents’. There are the arguments whether the bilingualism is good or not, and in my opinion the bilingualism is good for their career and ability. I will begin with the positive points and negative points, and lead the new problems through these points

According to Portes, the strong points for bilingualism are that it is good for the brain, which is good for cognitive development, enhances the cohesion of the family unit or culture of the home country, and keeps or establishes self-esteem well. On the contrary, the negative points of it are that it might get children confused or it is hard for them to acquire two languages at the same time. However, these negative points are not true. Scientifically learning two languages at the same time is good for their brains because they develop differently through learning.

Here, new three problems are coming up through expansion of the multiculturalism and bilingualism. First, the idea of “English-plus” by Portes is that people can speak in one language except for English and “plus” they can speak in another language. If these people do not have parents who speak in different language from the language where they live, they cannot get the environment to speak in English. So they need the environment for it, such as school system. However, this kind of school system is not common. Just some special schools have this English-another language system.

Second, bilingualism can enhance family or culture cohesion, but it could threaten the unit of the host country. That means people keep their home countries’ language so they also keep the home culture as well. Some people would get together and make community. If it might get bigger and have a certain mind or idea, it could threaten the host country.

Third, there is the idea of “cultural capital” by Portes. This means the United States leads this world and the most spoken language around the world is English. Socially and politically people whose first language is English do not need to speak other languages because most people can speak in English or try to learn English to have communication. That also means most people who are bilingual or who want to speak in one more language can speak in English. That cannot be really said “multiculturalism” according to Portes because it just English culture plus other cultures.

In conclusion, there is misunderstanding for bilingualism among many people all over the world and some people do not know the benefit from it. After children growing up, then they realized the benefit, but it is too late to be bilingual. Or some country would be worried about their unity against this global society. What people need in this society, where the bilinguals are getting common, is that they have to understand what bilingualism is well and what is needed as career in this global society in order to solve these problems.

Fraudulent Marriage and Japanese Society

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by Rina Terasaki

Today, I would like to write about fraudulent marriage in Japanese society. The reason why I took my interest in this topic is a little long story but simply it comes from a story I heard from my friend. My Filipina friend living in Japan told me that she is not able to invite her close relatives from the Philippines even a several days trip due to the Japanese immigration-control reason. So at first, I was interested about the immigration-control system in Japan and I was willing to write about this, but while searching, I came across to another interesting topic which is‘fraudulent marriage.’ Fraudulent marriage (false marriage) happens in various reasons but generically is transnational and many of those are at criminal situations.

According to the national police agency, the number of fraudulent marriage crushed in Japan last year’s first half (January-June) was 88 times, and that was about 50 percent more than the prior year. Fraudulent marriage is not the same with normal marriage, it often includes organized illegal acts, so that the issue is quite serious and being urgent priority. Though marriage is a precious experience for one’s whole life and meant to be an act which would realize between two who are loving each other, however many people still choose this form of false marriage only for their profit even they are doing not a very right thing. I would like to focus on the false marriage in terms of immigrants, and explain what are behind this situation, and what problems would this cause, with using some stories that I found on the Internet.

First, when do people make fraudulent marriage? With the expanse of globalization, more and more people in developing countries want to go abroad for a job. Filipina hostess in Japan is also one case, and the imminent big problem for them is the right of residence. It is not easy at all for them to stay in Japan, or even to enter the country, if they have no relatives in Japan. It means many people are hoping to go abroad but in reality chances of entering legally are very less. Then, some people choose to get married with the local man or woman, and will get a visa. EU is having a problem nowadays over this. Many people make false marriage with an EU local resident to get whatever rights and citizenship. I guess on the background of increasing of southasian woman getting married with a Japanese man, also has a little similar point with EU’s case in terms of ‘getting rights.’ When there is love between two people who marry, this would be wonderful, but if there is not, then it becomes a problem. Next, I would like to explain what I call a ‘problem’ in two reasons.

The first reason is a governmental reason. In Japan, (and may be in other countries too) the law prohibit false marriage. If a couple married and a foreign woman enter country, but then they soon get apart and not having contact, it cannot call a family essentially, and the office do not allow this kind of situation to be happened. The immigration office control strictly about new marriage between Japanese and foreign pairs. It has been concerned that after recent year’s detection of false marriage, the office made it more and more strict, and now it effects on the people who really want to marry properly. Moreover, a complex problem is that there are black market organizations that help women in the developing countries and men in Japan for fraudulent marriage. The negotiations are being conducted behind the scenes with a large amount of money.

The second reason is that fraudulent marriage are often connected with swindling. (kekkon sagi= being swindled out of one’s money under a false promise of marriage) I found a story on the internet that a Japanese man was engaged to a Chinese woman, and was going to marry soon, but he one day happened to hear that the woman was willing to do fake marriage, not loving him very much but for a chance of working in Japan legally. I found this story interesting and also ironic at the same time. Though their marriage was going to be a proper one, depending on a thought he was kind of deceived by his most dearest woman. Just to get a citizenship, is it necessary to exploit a person in a bad way? In reality, yes, for those few people. As above, most false marriage happens through two people’s agreement, but sometimes he or she does not really notice and just get involved. This is an ironical case in those marriages.

To conclude my essay, I strongly feel the importance of stop this fraudulent marriage ‘system.’ Those institution needs to be regulated and penalized by the government, to avoid more people to get involved into this bad system. Also, I am feeling something complex about Japanese immigrant system. It seems to be very strict about foreigners. As I mentioned in the very begging also, even foreign residence’s close relations cannot reach them in Japan. The government in one side needs to strengthen unlawful entry but on the other hand I believe they need to reconsider our national immigrant system.

Reference

http://www.recordchina.co.jp/group.php?groupid=53957