by Natsuki Oshiro

France is a country that has a lot of immigrants. The population of immigrants is about 6 million. (This is about 10% of total population of France.) Many immigrants are from North Africa. From 1950s to 1960s, France was in postwar reconstruction and rapid grows. In that time, they are called into France as the workforce.

In 1970s, oil crises happened and depression became serious. Because of that, France stopped the reception of foreigner workers.  After that, many foreign workers that were in France before that time settled down in France. And they called their families into France. In other words, they became immigration.

In 1980s, immigration became visible as heterogeneous people for genuine French. And new problem happened in nonreligious republic. That is a problem of “integration” of second generation immigrants. This was the beginning of “Problem of scarf”.

In 1990s,” Suburban problem” became clearly existed. Due to changes in economic structure, the unemployment rate rose, and employment discrimination happened normally. This is, if academic background is same, a person whose name is French-style is five times as many as those whose name is Moroccan-style. This is an experimental result that was surveyed by Paris First University.

In the same times as that, Far-right political parties stating “anti-immigrant” expanded the power.

In 2001, 9.11 happened, and theory of “Islamic Threat” was often said.

In 2004, Religious symbol banning Law (anti-scarf law) was established. This law banned wearing religious things in public places. In spite of France being state separation of church and state, it is very exceptional case to establish like that.

In the next year, immigrants started a big riot against immigrant discrimination in suburbs of the big city by immigrants. And in 2010, “Burqa banning law” was established.

As I stated above, the French government set up the law that bans wearing Burqa in public thoroughfare or public spaces. Burqa is clothes for Muslim women, and that covers over head to foot. For French, that makes them associate that to Islamic fundamentalism, and gives French weird impression.

The beginning of the problem is “Scarf trouble” that happened at a public junior high school in the suburb of Paris, in 1989. Over the right or wrong of Muslim girls going to school with wearing scarf, the Raishite Hardliners and the Faction tolerance multiculturalism disputed severely. After that, the problem stayed to smolder. And in March 2004, Religious symbol banning Law (anti-scarf law) was established.

The Burqa law in 2010 is stricter than that. With the background that fear for Islam that stirred up by the mass media, it is bad law that restricts public freedom of minority.

Not only the problem like having to do with the Burqa, there are so many immigrants problems in France.　 President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, is also second generation immigrant. I think that is ironic.

Namioka, Shintaro, 2011. Hito to Bunka no kousa Part Four:Musurimu josei deari France simin dearukoto (Intersection of people and culture: That Muslim woman as a French citizen). Tokyo: Akashi syoten.

by Chika Oki

Every year, many immigrants from all around the world come to the U.S. These immigrants―legal or illegal―have a common purpose; to get a job and have a better life than they used to have in their home country. This purpose, so-called “American Dream,” has not changed since the land of the U.S. was “discovered.” Though this is still a common purpose for all people who come to the U.S., it seems that immigrant system is killing “American Dream.”

The number of immigrants who can legally come into the U.S. is 65,000 per a year. These people are so-called high-skilled workers, who are highly-educated in universities or have some professional skills. This quota seems too few because much more people come to the U.S. every year. So, even if immigrants are high-skilled, a large number of people have no choice but becoming illegal or undocumented immigrants. In addition to this, many states in the U.S. have adopted strict laws which regulate illegal immigrants. For example, in Alabama, immigrants who have no documents which certificate that they are legal may be caught by the police and forced to go back to their home country. Even if they are not found by the police, they won’t be able to get a high-paying job or have a right to require changing their bad working condition.

As you can see, American system and laws about immigration is an obstacle for immigrants who want to get a good job, raise their standard of living, and go upper class in the U.S. Nevertheless, the U.S. won’t stop accepting immigrants to keep its popularity as a land of opportunity and position as a center of the world. Also, nobody can stop immigrants’ strong desire to have a better life. So, the U.S. should change these unequal system and laws. The U.S. politicians have a bias that immigrants may bring terrorism, infectious diseases, or cultural confusion, but this opinion is totally a stereotype which has no proof. On the contrary, immigration is a good thing for both immigrants themselves and Americans. Immigrants will stir up Americans’ motivation and competitive spirit for working, bring cultural diversity, and promote international communication. In addition, more international communication may be a barrier to an outbreak of terrorism because it will strengthen international relationship. To sum up, the U.S. should revise immigration system to help immigrants achieve their American Dream, because it will lead to prosperity of the U.S. after all.

References
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16040476
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12925299

by Naoya Suizu

Immigrants often become the factor of many problems for some countries.  Particularly, the trigger for the problems is the differences of culture.  If culture is different, various aspects such as the way of life, thoughts and so on are sometimes very different.   Although immigrants have their own culture of their country where they were born, the country they immigrated exists culture all their own.  As a result, by bringing about the gap between the two cultures, big problems are likely to happen.  To avoid such cultural frictions, some countries try to assimilate immigrants with themselves as policies.  Assimilation is the process becoming a part of a country or group and some countries aim at enhancing national safety and unification by the policies of assimilation.

As the typical country carry out the policies of assimilation, we can mention France.  In France, a presidential election hold just now and Sarkozy and Hollande battle as powerful candidates for president.  This election will decide the direction of French policies from now on and many problems such as dealing with Europe crisis and nuclear power will start to argue. At the same time, French think the problem about immigrant as one of the big problems.  In these days, French become more interested in this problem because a French man killed some Jews by gun. By this case, French begin to think racial prejudice and the relationship with immigrant and pay more attention to policies each candidate declares about immigrant.

Originally, since the founding of France, France has practiced the policy of assimilation for immigrants.  By this policy, immigrants are given the equal right with French based on French ideas such as freedom, equality and philanthropy.  As a result, immigrants gradually increased in France and after two world wars, more immigrants settled down because France opened the door positively to get immigrants for labor.  However, this stream has changed and French started to regard most immigrants as the robber of French jobs and the existence of bringing about bad incidents.  Also, immigrants, especially Muslim immigrants, complained of French discrimination and inequality and it happened many riots to protect their own culture in France.

by Daisuke Matsumoto

Do you think the immigrants should be assimilated with another nation?  In my opinion, they should be assimilated. It is said that when in Rome, do as the Romans do. When I was a primary school student, I belonged to a soccer club of my local area. I enjoyed playing soccer with a team mate from Sri Lanka. He is a native Sri Lankan, so he studied Japanese harder and had to be assimilated with Japanese culture not to be in trouble with team mates. Finally I think he had a great successful soccer life together.  I know that his family also spent a usually life in Japan. If one kept his or her culture in other country, they would be more likely to feel bad all the time than he or she didn’t keep. In addition to this topic, international migrations, you know, have to do with voting rights, welfare, human rights, and international marriage.

First, voting right especially can make migrants annoyed because not having voting right becomes discrimination.  In Japan, there are many cases that Japanese government doesn’t allow migrants to vote though they want to have the voting right. It is called on “地方選挙権”. However, some city like Kawasaki have allowed them to have “地方選挙権”. To sum up, voting rights is hardly expanded in japan although it is very natural to have migrants have voting rights in Europe countries. Second, I think daily life and health of migrants depend on welfare. In japan immigrants to Japan can’t register for health insurance until they have lived in Japan for more than one year. Third, when the world war Ⅱ started, Japan brought Korean to around Japan to force them to work and to be prostitute. At the same time, Korean culture was denied. It means that they have not human rights, so Korean made up a Korean town each place to protect their dairy life. Finally, when Japanese people got marry with other country’s people, they will have to consider whether the child gets Japanese or another citizenship.  According to the Constitution of Japan, when father is Japanese and mother is another, the child has to be Japanese. However, when this couple divorced, rights to bring up the child and the citizenship depend on international law. Nevertheless there is no force on international law, so ultimately this problem is decided by argument over the couple.　After all, I think it is the best not to migrate.

by Kensuke Kubo

In the lecture of International sociology, we learned about the transnational migrants in the United States. We Japanese people have no interests about such a problem of immigrants because Japanese government was having not approved receiving them officially. But, in fact, it was started that immigrants from Philippine and Indonesia has been received officially since 2008. I would like to talk about this and describe some point at issue.

In the 2006 and 2007, Japan concluded the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Philippines and Indonesia. EPA is an economic arrangement that eliminates barriers to the free movement of goods, services, and investment between countries. When Japan concluded EPA with Philippines and Indonesia, Japanese government decided to receive the immigrants working as caregivers in Japan. Last year, my professor told us the reason why Japan received immigrants officially in that time. His name is Mitoji Yabunaka, who was the vice minister of ministry of Foreign Affairs Japan. When he was in the ministry of Foreign Affairs, he decided receiving immigrants because of Japan’s present state about the problem of aging society with fewer children.

Japan is now faced with the huge problem which is population aging. Last year, Economist, the UK’s magazine, made a feature titled “Japan’s burden”. The article said Japan is the fastest-ageing society on Earth and the first big country in history to have started shrinking rapidly from natural causes. As the article said, old people are more and more increasing in Japan. However, to support those old people, it is required that people who supports them as a caregiver or a nurse. Against the increasing of old people, caregiver is decreasing little by little. Now, in Japan, the number of caregiver is about 2 million, but it is required about more 400 thousand people until 2020. The reason why the scene of nursing is suffering from a shortage of workers is the environment of the work. Some people said it is the 3K work which means きつい(hard work), 危険(danger) 給与が安い(cheap income). So, people do not want to engage or cannot continue working as a caregiver.

Since 2008, receiving immigrants were started. According to the agreement, in fact, Japan had to receive them at least 1,000 immigrants from each country within 2 years, but now, 2012, the target cannot achieve yet because of the language barrier, and the system of receiving. Almost Pilipino and Indonesian can speak English, and there are many immigrants receiving programs in the world. For example, Canada has same program as working caregivers. Wages are almost same, and Canada is an English-speaking country, so it is natural for them to choose Canada because they can speak English. The system I said above is that when they want to stay more than 2 years, they must pass the state examination for the license to work as caregivers. If they fail the exam, they cannot work in Japan.

As you see, Japanese government is not serious about receiving immigrants. Vice minister of Foreign Affairs I said before think that Japan has to solve the ageing society to receive foreigners. But some minister like ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare think that receiving foreigners is bad for Japanese unemployment people. There are bad confrontations in government, so actual immigrants are caught in a dilemma now. I think government has to integrate their opinion and make unify policy about immigrants.

References

Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the report of care insurance policy. http://www.mhlw.go.jp/topics/kaigo/osirase/jigyo/m10/1001.html
Mitoji Yabunaka, Kokka no meiun(Fate of a nation).Tokyo:Shinchosya,2010.

by Chinatsu Kitamura

In recent years, a lot of people which move to the world are increasing. Above all, the foreign workers are increasing.

According to investigation of the Ministry of Health, in 1990, the foreign workers are 260,000 people in Japan. However, in 2007, they are 920,000 people. That is about 3.5 times as many increases.

At first, I want to tell about the cause of producing the foreign workers.The foreign worker consists of an unskilled labor and a skilled labor. Unskilled labors are people who work in the field which needs neither capability nor experience, and skilled labors are people who play an active part in the specialist-skills field.

And the factor of the increase in a foreign worker is economic discrepancy between developed countries and developing countries. Economic condition is different from both countries, for example, in developed countries, workers are running short and in developing countries, workers are surplus.

Thus, a lot of countries, people move around the world to get jobs. And the countries which need to workers are called “pull country” and the countries which oust many workers because there are no jobs are called “push country”.Like this, the foreign workers was born and spread in the world.

Second, I want to tell about the reason of increasing foreign countries. First, there are developments of transportation and communication network. By development of such technology, travel time can be shortened and can move now comparatively easily. And also, with progress of globalization, each country came to perform development of laws which an engineer enter others countries easily, in order to strengthen global competitiveness.

On the other hand, while foreign workers increase in number, there are some persons who oppose. That is because the fall of the wage level in a foreign country and the increase in involuntary unemployment feel uneasy as the reason. Moreover, they are concerned that the crimes are increasing by foreigner workers, for example, smuggling of drugs and weapons and theft. And also a lot of offender move to the countries not get a job but commit a crime. However, recently, there is a case that ordinary people carry drugs and weapons while they are not notice.

So more and more foreign workers work around the world. However, A lot of problem occurred to accept the foreign workers. Thus, it is important how it is deal with to a problem. I think that probably, many tolerant hearts need to be required in order to live together in globalization.

References
Goro Ono. 2009. Gaikokuzin roudousha no ukeire ha nihon wo dame ni suru (Taking in of a foreign worker spoils Japan). Yousensha.
Shakai zitsujou deta zuroku. 2012 http://www2.ttcn.ne.jp/honkawa/3820.html
Takashi Yamasaki. 2006.”Gaikokujin roudousha no syuurou, koyou, shakaihoshou no genjou to kadai” http://www.ndl.go.jp/jp/data/publication/refer/200610_669/066902.pdf
Wikipedia. 2012. http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%96%E5%9B%BD%E4%BA%BA%E5%8A%B4%E5%83%8D%E8%80%85

by Tomotaka Isono

It goes without saying that we should learn about the history of Japanese emigration before thinking today’s international emigration. Once Japanese people also went to foreign countries like America, Brasil etc. to work there. So, have you ever heard of the ladies they called “Karayuki-san” (からゆきさん)?

Karayuki-san were Japanese women who travelled to East Asia and Southeast Asia in the second half of 19th century to work as prostitutes (sex workers). The Chinese character for Karayuki-san is written “唐行きさん”. And the word of Karayuki-san means “People who go to Overseas”. (唐 is foreign countries, 行き is going.) Many of woman who went to work in overseas brothels as Karayuki-san were the daughters of poor agricultural or fishing families. Because of poor, the parents sell them to the mediators, and they become prostitutes. Some went to by themselves. But many of parents and daughters were told only that “There are many good jobs in overseas. You can get to be rich enough to send  money your parents home and country!”, they didn’t know working as prostitutes. Moreover the mediators made them own debts of about 5 million yen as secret transportation to overseas from Japan. So they were forced to work in brothels in order to pay back their debts and send money to their families in Japan.

As well as Karayuki-san, there are the women ,called “Japayuki-san” (ジャパゆきさん) in Japan. The word Japayuki-san is created in 1970s by Tetsuo Yamatani (山谷哲夫) who is documentary movie director, but now everyone don’t call like that. Japayuki-san is women from the Philippines, Thailand and so on come to Japan to work as prostitutes.  Some of them are deceived by honeyed words “You can work as model in Japan!”. There are many damages for them such as unpaid wages, illegal overstay or something. However, because they are illegal immigration, they can not call the police. So they don’t have human rights in Japan.

At last, I consider about the common things between Karayuki-san and Japayuki-san. One of the common things is “Poverty and No Education”. Karayuki-san don’t know English, Malay, French, Indonesian. They know only a little sexual words. So they can not take other jobs. Japayuki-san also can’t speak Japanese fluently. Education of foreign languages is very important for people lives in another country. We should address fulfillment of language education in order not to force to work as sex workers.

References

1. Tsuneo Ayabe and Yoneo Ishi .1997. Motto shirttail Malaysia (want to know more about Malaysia). Kobundou.
2.  Japanese School of Kualumpur .2004. Shiryoushuu Malaysia (The Document Collection of Malaysia). Japanese School of Kuala Lumpur

by Hana Iwaki

Globalization has become big issues to all over the world since 1970s.  Globalization means that many things like human, information, money and stuff move over the countries and a political, economic, and cultural boundary line and a barrier become borderless.  As a result, information network and market on a global scale are formed and then information and capital move freely. That means all over the world receive its impact at the same time.  At first glance, the globalization has a good influence to the world.  But is that so?  In this blog, I want to give an example, Hong Kong which is one of the global cities.  Global city is the center of the global economy, there is a trade with various cities around the world, and it has developed enterprise services (consulting, legal, financial, etc.) particularly.  In the global cities, managers and administrative post, a service industry increases to provide services to them.  Because of that, the ratio, rich and poor, rises and the middle relatively fall.

In Hong Kong, many skyscrapers are crowded.  There is famous as center of finance so many enterprises have a company in there.  They need workers.  Many Chinese people immigrated to Hong Kong so that they can earn money.  People in Hong Kong welcomed them because there were duty and hard work.  Many people didn’t want to do hard work such as building cleaning and construction.  However, Chinese people were willing to do it because they needed money to survive.  So many people immigrated to Hong Kong and it is a small town, so the price of land got high by the immigration and globalization.  A real estate agent built high-class high-rise condominium for a high price so that they can earn money.  Of course, the immigrants have no money such as buying the condominium, much less rent it.  Where do they live?  They live in “beehive apartment”.  It is the apartment separated 7 to 8 spaces in a room.  A space for a person is too small and there are many fleas and lice.  They live inferior environment.

This also happens elsewhere in the world.  To save such people, the government and enterprise should take steps to cope with the situation.  For example, training poor people for taking a good job or guarantee the place where people live more comfortably. They must something take measures, otherwise poor people’s living going down and they might pass away.

References
HARVESLIFE HONG KONG.The reason why steps for poor don’t improve. Retrieved from HARVESLIFE HONG KONG: http://www.harveslife.com/blog/item_3775.html
Maruhaku, T. Inspecting the hypothesis of Global city: polarization of social strata of Hong Kong. Retrieved from BLOGOS: http://blogos.com/article/8477/