Author Archives: japansociology

Borderless Culture

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by Ayaka Nakamura

When I asked foreign friends a question, “what is Japanese culture?” many said, samurai and kimono that are related to traditional Japanese stereotype, and Japanese people also often say Japan is a mono-cultural traditional country. Yet, I think Japanese culture contains many foreign origin customs and is ever-changing. However, although it is difficult to differentiate a multicultural country from a global country, Japan is not enough globalized to be capable to accept people who have different cultures.

One of the most frequent answers to the question, what is Japanese culture, might be kimono. There is no doubt the traditional clothes is a part of Japanese culture, and many Japanese wear them for festivals and various ceremonies. Yet, kimono is not Japanese original or only-Japanese culture. Similar style wears were used over Asia, and Japanese people actually imported pre-kimono clothes from China and Korea. Then, how about Zen culture? Japan has five famous Zen temples where sophisticated monks created poetry and paintings, and the word, Zen, is widely known as a Japanese culture in the world. Yet, Zen was happened in India and was brought to Japan much later. Although both kimono and Zen are not originally from Japan, they are part of Japanese culture.

In addition to these pan-Asian cultures, Japanese culture contains Western cultures, too. One will hear the Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, by a European composer, Beethoven, on the last day of every year in Japan. Playing and singing the Symphony No. 9 altogether is a Japanese ending year custom, and people eat soba noodles listening to it. Moreover, how about shaking hands? Is it not a Japanese culture? Although touching someone’s body part would not fit into Japanese polite manners, shaking hands became a common way of a greeting especially in business, and most of all Japanese know what shaking hands means. From ancient time, Japan integrated many foreign cultures into its own culture, and people are not aware of their non-Japaneseness as cultures are invisible.

However, instead of accepting foreign cultures, Japan is not capable of having people who have different cultures yet. If accepting people is about globalization, then Japan has not globalized enough. Although many companies expresses they need “global” people to work with, they would not hire a Muslim man who can do a great work but who needs to have praying time five times a day. It would still take time for Japan to stand at the global stage. Yet, I believe it is not impossible, and Japan can be a more multicultural and global country. For the change, Japan definitely has to deal with some overdue customs, such as treating women as tea servers and recruiting only Junior students, that would cause a delay in the global business race.

The immigrant issue in Japan

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by Asako Morita

Because the lecture last week by guest speaker was quite inspiring, I decided to research more about immigrant in Japan. Even though Japan has been welcoming more immigrants these days, it is still far from multicultural society compared to other countries. Therefore, as guest speaker insisted, the issues and problems of minority are easily ignored or invisible to the masses until minority in a trouble raises voice as a group. Then I would like to seek how Japanese government should make the policy to invite more immigrants.

First, I would like to demonstrate general information about immigrants in Japan. According to the statistic of national census, more than 2 million foreign workers are now in Japan. This number is still low compared to other developed countries such as the U.S. but it is almost increased twice than 10 years ago. 1.6 millions of people are from Asia and Chinese is the major immigrants in 2011. The next biggest number is from South America especially from Brazil. In the total number, almost half of them are women. However, like 75 percent of Philippines immigrants are women, the number of sex rate is quite different from each country. Because more and more immigrants or foreign workers have come to Japan, issues are getting defined.

Second, I would like to analyze what issues immigrants and foreign workers in Japan have. The one of the biggest issue is about an employment. Now, Japan is facing the issue of dwindling birthrate and an aging population. The concern from presence situation is shrinking of the labor force. On top of that, Japan is now in a depression so what enterprises in Japan have needed was the expectation of wage control. Then companies want 20 to 30 years old young simple labors and expected workers to go home before they get old. However, this turning over of young foreign workers cannot solve the issue of decreasing labor force. On the contrast, if a specific age group stays in Japan, Japanese composition of population becomes distorted.

Although if Japan succeeds in receiving numbers of immigrants, they may have hard time get used to living in Japanese society. Because Japanese life style is quite different from others, a friction might be caused and mass of immigrants would make a community by country where someone is from. Once Japanese government promotes to accelerate to receive immigrates, it is hard to stop it even though the situation changes.

Therefore, what I suggest is that Japan should make up the comfortable working environment for elderly people, women and foreign workers who are eager to work. And also, Japan has to break away from winning low cost competition model. Not only young simple foreign labors but also more and more skilled foreign workers should be welcomed. This is the way Japan survives in global economy under globalization.

Non-Governmental Cooperation among Immigrants and Local People

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by Hiroki Matsukura

In class, listening to the talk of Ms. Ishihara, a staff member of the Filipino Migrants Centre in Nagoya, I finally started to think that the only way to perfectly “save” immigrants is the network of host country’s local community. After all, there is no need to say, but the government is too precarious for immigrants to be faithful to and depend on it. We can say that a host developed country, such as Japan, sometimes seems not to be helpful or cooperative to immigrants especially ones without citizenship there. The government does not have an obligation to provide the immigrants with perfect service, such as welfare. Instead, it regulates and controls them. Thus when it does not like them, it will easily arrest them and send back to their home countries. These might be the governments’ opinions about one of the immigration aspects. On the international norm, the governments have to keep their security with their sovereignty and help their own national people in the world anarchy system. So, in the worst cases the governments will think the immigrants as just menace for them. Additionally, the immigrants without citizenship cannot participate in democratic politics system. Thus, they cannot reflect their desires to policies at all.

In such a reality, the supports of local cooperative network must be pragmatically helpful for immigrants. We can pick up three important points about the cooperation. The first one is being not governmental, but private. NGO and NPO are quite effective on this issue. They do not have to think legality, which the government always has to think when it does something, so they can be privately closer and more intimate to immigrants. And, they can take actions more flexibly than governments. That is also a characteristic point. The second point is being local. The local level has most contacts with immigrants, so support from the local can be the most direct and can response fastest to problems. Contra laterally speaking, the level which find most complaints about the existence of immigrant will be the local. Thus, we can understand that coping with problems among the local level is quite effective. At last the third one is both participations of the locals and immigrants. Cooperation between them will bring about their relation of trusting and relief. These points can complement the support for immigrants in short of the governmental help.

What I believe we need to aim at about immigrants issue in the local level is the inclusion of them. The inclusion is not assimilation but not being excluded. Showing the local members that immigrants can introduce advantage into the host local communities, immigrants can be the existence which the local community cannot ignore and exclude. Of course, we can point out the interactive communication, but also the participation of both sides with interactive benefits. Additionally we can think about another potential on this. After achieving the inclusive local network, they can extend the network to inter-community level, or establish a coalition of the cooperative local networks. The local power to intend including the excluded comers will intimately empower immigrants’ position.

Global Citizenship and Identity

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by Eriko Maruyama

As one society is shifting from homogenizing society to multicultural one because of the increase of immigration, the problem of language is always controversial. In the United States, the increase of Hispanic immigrants is very remarkable, so it has been worried that Spanish would replace English. However, the fear was found to be wrong (Portes, A, 2002). The fact is that the migrants have getting to manage English as younger generations grow up. Almost 3rd generation of the migrants cannot speak their mother language but they only can speak English. Thus, the assimilation to English has been proceeding, while unities of mother languages have been getting weak. Does the collapse of language unity lead to the chaotic society?

In response to the tendency of immigrants’ loss of its original culture, the immigrants’ dominant society has launched to set bilingual education to maintain their mother languages. In these bilateral schools, students have subsidiary classes in their mother languages. According to the reading, this dual language education has been successful, and students can handle two languages fluently. Moreover, some school organise this dual language education even for students whose native languages are English. I disagree with this education system because equitable education must be regarded at least in public schools. I suppose that we cannot make agreeable selection of language in the multicultural society. Therefore, I would suggest the education which will make ‘global citizenship’.

One of the authoritative international organizations, Oxfam, defines the global citizen as people who is “aware of the wider world and has a sense of their own role as a world citizen”, “respects and values diversity” and “is outraged by social injustice” (Oxfam Education). It is obviously important to have one common language, which means English, in order to communicate each other and create better society altogether. However, more importantly, we need to welcome the diversity of sense of values and respect them each other. In this context, the compulsory dual language education does not make sense at all. The objective of the dual education system is to preserve the original culture. But in my opinion, it is possible to maintain own original culture even we speak English because what makes society tied is not the language, but the common hope for the peaceful society. We can have two identities; our original culture identity and the identity as global citizen.

I have asked my European friends about their identity. They told me that they have two identities as their origin countries, such as Italian or German, and as the citizen in European Union. They speak different languages but they share the same future goals for the peaceful society. And their sense of identity has been built through the education. Therefore, I believe that it is possible to have more than two identities at the same time and to create diverse, but peaceful society. The lost of linguistic unity in the immigrants’ society does not lead to the chaotic society. It means that people create whole new identities as their original countries’ citizen and as the member of this planet. The common hope is much more important than forcing to speak fixed language. Lastly, I would quote the speech of the President Barack Obama:

“I believe we can keep the promise of our founding, the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, abled, disabled, gay or straight.” (Guardian.co.uk, 2012, cited in http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/07/barack-obama-speech-full-text)

As President Obama declared, it does not matter what kind of identity we have. The most important thing is that we respect the diversity and go forward for the creation of unified society as a member of global citizens.

Bibliography

Guardian.co.uk (2012), Barack Obama’s victory speech – full text, [online]. Available: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/07/barack-obama-speech-full-text [2012, November 11]

Oxfam Education, What is Global Citizenship?, [online]. Available: https://www.oxfam.org.uk/education/gc/what_and_why/what/ [2012, November 11]

Portes, A (2002) ‘English-only triumphs, but the costs are high’. SAGE Journals, vol. 1, February, pp 10-15.

Japanese Education Systems’ Ignorance of Muslim Migrants Children

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by Akie Kuwano

Although Japan used to be referred to as ethnically homogeneous, the number of immigrants reached more than 1.5% of Japanese population in 2005. Despite this shift in immigrants’ population, Japanese education system is reluctant to change. In order to keep Japan as secular nation, Japan persists in its principle of separation of religion and education. However, this attitude often creates problems between Japanese schools and migrants parents/children. The problems are mostly evident in the case of Muslim migrants because their religion, Islam, rules not only the realm of their private life, but also their behavior in the public sphere. The main problems those Muslim migrants are facing in Japanese public schools is about school lunch.

One example of Muslim faith conflicting with school lunch in Japanese school is Ramadan. Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, provides that the ninth month of the Islamic calendar as Ramadan, the month of fasting. Many Muslims start Ramadan at the age of 7, just about the time when children start going to elementary school. Although it is medically proved that Ramadan does not cause any medical illness to healthy individual, without having any knowledge some teachers feel it abuses children.

The other instance is Halal food. Islam regulates what followers can eat and cannot eat, according to Qur’an. Food that is compatible with Islamic teaching is known as Halal food, while the others are called Haraam. The most frequently used Japanese condiments like soy sauce or mirin are Haraam because they usually contain alcohol. Accordingly, many of the lunch that Japanese schools provide are Haraam to Muslim children. In order to avoid Haraam foods, Muslim children often bring their own lunch box from their home. Some school view this as unequal to other Japanese children, some school urge Muslim parents to pay for school lunch.

To sum up, it is the lack of knowledge which preventing Japanese schools from handling problems correctly and flexibly with Muslim migrants children. It is understandable that Japan wants to eliminate religion from public sphere because in Japanese sense religion is what governs people’s private life; however, Japan also needs to understand that religion is sometimes inseparable from their public life and is even forming their culture, in which the society needs to pay respect to accommodate population from foreign countries.

References

Mina, Hattori. (2007). “Development of Religious Value for Indonesian Muslim Children in Japan: A Case Study of Voluntary Educational Activities in Nagoya City”, Intercultural Communication Studies, Vol.19

樋口直人、丹野清人「食文化の越境とハラール食品産業の形成―在日ムスリム移民を事例として―」、徳島大学社会科学研究弟13号、p99-p.131

Multiculturalism in South Korea

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by Youngim Kim

Unlike the U.S, South Korea tends to be a homogenous country and just permitted the overseas tip in 1981. However, since South Korea became a member of OECD, the migration of people from China and Southeast Asia in pursuit of better living has increased. I found the situation described from the US articles is somewhat similar to multicultural issues in Korea. South Korea has intensely developed intellectual and high skilled industry through immersion education system. Koreans consider many undocumented Chinese and Southeast Asian dayworkers as potential criminals. Most of them are rejected by Koreans and also experience discriminative treatment in terms of human right and basic wages. In spite of the multicultural policy by Korean government, immigrants and Koreans are hostile to each other.

Unlike the US-Mexico example, one growing part of immigrants in Korea can be classified as intercultural marriage between Korean men and foreign women from elsewhere in Asia in the country side. Korean men living in a rural community who are the majority of Korean women try to avoid marrying with, cannot help marrying through an arranged match with women from poorer country to carry on a family lineage. Though foreign women who married with Korean men can have Korean visa, the children born through such kind of international marriages usually feel a sense of alienation and have an identity crisis. The government policy also still does not support them even after the settlement. Most of foreign women living in the countryside of Korea have been forced to assimilate to traditional Korean culture, which is supporting husband’s parents and also doing traditional women’s work. The people who try to maintain and teach their culture to their children are still a minority. Moreover, the majority of Korean is against multicultural policy because they think foreigners disturb public peace and order, even though they know nobody of immigrants who committed a crime.

Of course, Chinese and Southeast Asians are not all of immigrants in South Korea. However, the discrimination toward foreigners depends on their race and language. Like Japan, Caucasians speaking English are the most welcomed people. In the global society, I think we cannot change this current flow, what is international mobility. Korean should change their attitude toward foreigners from a dichotomy or prejudice like “the foreigner” and “Korean” to cordial cultural exchange for the development of both countries.

Undocumented Children

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by Yurino Kawamura

All children have equal rights. All children must have opportunity for education, access to medical care, and right to realize their dreams. Doesn’t this apply to undocumented children?

According to Lee et al, the number of undocumented children of undocumented or illegal immigrants in Japan is estimated to be 20,000 to 30,000. Some of their parents have moved to Japan in illegal means, but others are so called over-stayers, whose visas have already been expired. In most cases, children themselves had no choice but to live in a country where their parents have chosen to work. Current Japanese law says elementary and middle schools are to offer education to children if they asked for it, regardless of their nationality, and regardless of their state of documentation. However, according to Lee’s case study, many undocumented children were still unable to go to school. Some parents simply didn’t know that undocumented children can go to public schools. Others needed their 9-year-old daughter to take care of her younger sisters when they were working in the daytime. There is no doubt that similar cases may take place in the case of Filipinos. Also, some cases are reported that educational committees refuse undocumented children. Although the law admits the children’s right, more effort should be exercised to widespread that idea into schools and committees.

It seems unbelievable, but 20 years ago, children of Japanese Brazilian workers were refused to enter elementary school by education committees, because they could not comprehend Japanese. This kind of problem roots in the attitude toward foreign people. Not only by making laws, but also by changing these people’s attitudes toward emigrants should eliminate prejudice and unequal treatments toward undocumented children. What’s even worse, even if the children are raised in the Japanese community and society, once their parents are put into custody, children are exposed to the risk of being deported. In many cases, children have to choose either to “return” to their parents’ homeland or to stay in Japan apart from their family. This is a crucial and tough choice for teenagers. Although they themselves had no choice but to survive and make a good community in the environment they were brought to, they have risk of being torn apart from it all of a sudden. Could it be said that undocumented children are treated equally?

Living in a foreign country where you cannot communicate fluently may cause a huge stress upon children. Even the children of legal emigrants face some risks such as discrimination. Facing many kinds of risks, undocumented children have much tough time to grow up. We have to think about at better way to let undocumented children live better lives.

Reference

Lee et al, “A study about a non-attendance at school / the life reality of a child in a statelessness state in Japan －From a viewpoint of International Human Rights law”, Bulletin of Social Medicine, No.23 2005 (in Japanese)

Does the DREAM Act bring benefits to America?

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Kaori Isobe

On August 1, 2001, the U.S. Senate introduced American legislative proposal which is called the DREAM Act, stands for “Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors”. It gives opportunities to get the permanent residency in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants who suit requirements. There is a serious background to come up this bill.

In the United States, there are 11.5 million of undocumented, illegal immigrations in 2011. And about 20% of undocumented immigrants are under 18 years old. They were born in the U.S. or they came to the U.S. from other countries. However, their parents illegally came to the U.S., therefore they are also illegal residence in the U.S. It means that they don’t have the U.S. citizenship and nationalities, even they look like totally American, such as they live their most entire lives in the U.S. and they speak English, have American way of thinking and so on. However, due to migration law, they cannot go to colleges, and have a lot of difficulties to find jobs. Also, they cannot get identifications such as ID card. To come to the U.S. is not their choices. They are forced unstable lives without choice.

This bill is not approved because the Republican Party rejected. However, as of November 2012, 11 states have their own DREAM Act, for example in New Mexico, California, New York and other states, undocumented immigration who meet requirements, are eligible to pay in-state tuition for colleges and universities at New Mexico. It seems to have been improved. But in fact, it is said difficult to pass this law because of political situation of recent days. So, let suppose that this bill would be passed, this DREAM Act would be able to bring benefits for America?

In my opinion, as long as I have studied, I would say YES. There are two reasons.

One of them is that if the DREAM Act would give opportunities to get the permanent residency for undocumented immigration, a huge economy impact would be occurred in the U.S. in a good way. According to a video from “dreamact.info”, an average of 30-years old Mexican immigrant woman who graduated from college pay more than $5,300 in taxes, then at the same time, it costs the government less $3,900 in taxes. Then, total annual fiscal contribution would be $9200 per person.  It means that the DREAM Act would be able to bring a good fiscal influence. Furthermore, if immigrants would be able to get legal residency and get legal jobs, economy in the U.S. would be better because they would be able to buy stuff they want. So, influence on economy is one of benefits.

The other one is that undocumented immigrations’ talents would become a huge impact on education and research field. Because of migration act, many undocumented immigrations who have great record have to give up to go going to college or higher institution. However, if the DREAM Act would be passed, undocumented migrants would be able to go to college, then they would be learn and some of them would be specialists as American do. Do not desert their abilities. Also, I think every child has right to get education. The society have responsibilities to get children have education not only at high school, but also at college and universities if they want to go. So, this is another benefit that I’ve considered.

However, there are some criticisms. For example, this act would give unfairness to legal immigration parents and children because they have to pay full tuition, but on the other hand, undocumented immigrations can get scholarship to go to college.  The other is that this act would encourage and reward illegal immigration. Also, if injured accidentally during the 2-year military service which is one of the requirements, the DREAM Act applicant cannot get permanent residency.

As a conclusion, whether the DREAM Act would be passed or not, I think there are some aspects that the society relies on immigration, which means that immigration do what American usually do not, such as 3D jobs, house keeper, and so on. Immigration is one of important thing for the society. Therefore immigrant problem should be considered seriously, and deeply in many ways. I hope everything will be better for undocumented people who are forced to have unstable lives without their own choices.

References

Dream act info http://dreamact.info/

Undocumented shadows – A dream act infographic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXnqhG2h9QA&feature=related

 

Muslim Migrants in Austria

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by Kaoru Inoue

Austria is a multiethnic and diverse country where the the population, as of July 2012, is 8,219,743 – 91.1% of that is Austrians, 4% are Yugoslavs, 1.6% are Turks, 0.9% is German, and followed by some others; the official language is German but there are Turkish, Serbian, Croatian minor speakers. The biggest religion is Roman Catholicism, accounting for 73.6% of total, followed by 4.7% of Protestants. There are 4.2% Muslims. Bell (2012) states, “In Vienna, Islam is the second-largest religious grouping, after Roman Catholicism”, and she silently argues Muslim migrants in Austria live in far better conditions compared to other European cities. This short paper will explore Muslims in Austria by focusing on the Law of Islam.

Dr. Marik-Lebeck (Janda, Vogl, Marik-Lebeck, & Kreisky, 2010) analyzed the Muslim population in Austria. He maintains that the number of Muslims is increasing recently and interestingly, half of the Muslims had the Austrian citizenship in 2009 and in 2001, there were only 28% of Austrian citizenship holders. He analyzes the reasons, “the growth of Muslim population was rather due to births than to migration in 2001-2009” (Janda, Vogl, Marik-Lebeck, & Kreisky, 2010) Clearly he says how migration influx is declined while the number of births is increased. On this context, the number of Muslim migrant could have boosted because something else in the meantime has stored, allowing harmonization of Muslims and Roman Catholics.

Islamgesetz, the Law on Islam, was enforced in 1912, it is 100-year-old this year. Bell (2012) introduces the Law, “the law gives Muslims the same rights as other officially recognised religions in Austria.” Kreisky (2010) gives the background of the law; first it was a tool to allow Muslim soldiers of Bosnia-Herzegovina to be integrated; secondly, it became “the legal foundation for the integration of the Muslim population as a minority” (5); thirdly, it was used to annex Bosnia-Herzegovina into Austria-Hungary. Muslims since then have been granted the equal rights like the rest of people have.

The number of Muslims migrated to Austria in the 1960s and because of the law, Bell notices how harmonization has been processed well. Austrian Muslims identify themselves as Austrians. At a recent ceremony, Fuat Sanac clearly stated how Austrian Muslim law is a model and Islam is not viewed as danger (Bell 2012).

In conclusion, Austrians and Muslims are all Austrians – harmonization is going well up until now because the impact of the law is immense.

Reference

Austria [The World Factbook]. (2012, November 6). Retrieved November 10, 2012, from Central Intelligence Agency website: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/au.html

Bell, B. (2012, July 3). Austria celebrates ‘model’ law on Islam. BBC. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18675493

Janda, A., Vogl, M., Marik-Lebeck, S., & Kreisky, M. J. (2010). The Muslim population in Austria. Islam in Austria. Retrieved from http://www.integrationsfonds.at/fileadmin/Integrationsfond/5_wissen/Islam_Reader/Islamreader_Zsfg_E_Bearbeitung.pdf

Japan needs to recognize immigrants as members of our society

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by Miki Imamura

What is multiculturalism? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of multiculturalism is “The characteristics of a multicultural society; (also) the policy or process whereby the distinctive identities of the cultural groups within such a society are maintained or supported.” (Press) My understanding for the definition is that multiculturalism is recognizing those who have different identity or norm that has different language, appearance or religion as a member of a community.

In my opinion, the base concept of multiculturalism can be seen in Japanese fashions. We have some established fashion style such as Gal, Lolita, Otaku style and Harajuku style. Each fashion style established their own culture, which consists of their unique languages that some of them are only understandable within each style. They also established fashion industries and their own fashion media. I see the base concept of multiculturalism in the Japanese fashion society. Even though they hardly get together to hang out cross the style, they do not deny each other and they recognize each other as a member of Japanese society.

However, this can be seen only within the society consists of Japanese. Historically, Japanese have been good at dealing with different culture or religion if only it can be assimilated in Japanese society.  For adaption of different culture or religion, Japanese assimilate those elements into Japanese culture. The basic concept of multiculturalism is available because at the bottom of the each fashion difference, we share the same Japanese norm and the concrete notion of assimilation. Even though people who are not Japanese can perfectly speak Japanese, Japanese norm has prejudice for “foreigner”. It does not really matter if they have Japanese nationality or not. The prejudice for foreigner comes from different appearance, language or religion, or culture unless they are not “real” Japanese whom born in Japan from Japanese parents.

It is because we do not recognize them as a member of Japanese community. I think Japanese people tend to think that “foreigner” in Japan as temporary residents, and if they will live in Japan for rest of the life, they have to be Japanese. This is the crucial problem we are facing in Japan. This idea is creating misunderstanding and hostile or social vicious cycle for immigrants in Japan. We have to admit that immigrant who has different norm is our member of a community.

Recognizing them as a member of our society is creating the environment for them to live as they are.  Just like Japanese fashion styles, Japanese society has to admit their own language, business and norm. I believe the terms to create such environment is changing the early childhood education and for immigrant to take part in the planning of local authority.

Actually, there are some changes already happen government level and civil level. In 2005, Japanese government has established the committee for promoting multiculturalism claiming for local authority to promote multicultural policy. (Yujiro) Some of the local authorities such as Shizuoka, or Shiga already act to involve immigrants in local policies. Taking immigrants to be part of decision making process will make not only local Japanese but also immigrant to recognize immigrants as a member of community. Additionally, Director for Policy for Foreign Residents was established and they promote policies for a wide range such as education, employment, and housing. (Society) However, this is just only for a Nisei, or Sansei and their policy of education only focuses on providing opportunity leaning Japanese and Japanese society. They do not provide any policy to enhance their original identity.

At the civil level, there are some NPO to provide educational service for immigrant children in not only Tokyo, but also suburban areas such as Shiga. The NPO “Minna no ie” in Oumihachiman, Shiga, is one of the good example of such an NPO. This is a bilingual (Japanese and Portuguese) day care center. (Shinbun, 2010) Their concept is providing an environment where immigrant children can enhance not only Japanese culture but also their original.

We should promote these services in all the place of Japan. I believe those service will contribute the environment where immigrant can live as a member of the community even thought they have different norms. Multiculturalism is not assimilation. It is admission and recognition for immigrant as a member of Japanese society. It is the environment where all the member of community lives as they are. Japanese society needs to understand the real meaning of multiculturalism.

Bibliography

Press, O. U. (n.d.). multiculturalism. Retrieved 11 5, 2012, from Oxford English Dictionary : http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/234921?redirectedFrom=multiculturalism#footerWrapper

Shinbun, A. (2010, 7 1). 〈はぐ〉ニッポンに暮らす――就学前から「多文化」実践. Retrieved 11 8, 2012, from The Asahi Shinbun Digital : http://www.asahi.com/special/hug/TKY201007010200.html

Society, P. o. (n.d.). 日系定住外国人施策. Retrieved 11 8, 2012, from 共生社会政策: http://www8.cao.go.jp/teiju/index.html

Yujiro, M. The Regional Actions to Progress of Multicultural ―By the International Policy and Multicultural Activities in Shiga Prefecture―. Seisen University .