Category Archives: Class Pages

The Melting Pot: Nabe

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We learned in class about “The Melting Pot.” Simply put, this is a metaphor to represent when large amounts of immigrants move to a new country or environment. This metaphor was particularly used when analyzing the immigration wave that struck the United States, but can be used for any country with the same situation.

*What I would like to find out is everyone’s opinion on how this affects society. *

Multiculturalism is hard for most people to adapt to. What effect do you think it has on jobs and the outlook on those jobs? If you look at the United States for example, there are so many cultures being mixed together in one place, and some people just cannot get used to it. When you take a good look at America, it is a country made up of foreigners. Japan is the complete opposite. Japan is a heterogeneous society that holds true to their traditions and culture. The United States is a homogenous society, and because of this there will always be racial tension.

So, after thinking about the main aspects of the melting pot, I think that when someone immigrates to a new country they can choose to do three things: conform to the new culture, keep their old culture, or try to maintain a balance between blending in with the new and keeping the old culture as well. One of the most important aspects of this is being able to speak the language. If people cannot understand you or you cannot understand them, there will always be conflicts.

In my opinion, immigration is like a double-edged sword. It can help and hurt societies. For example, it helps keep the society growing, but then also leaves fewer jobs for the native people. This could in turn have people leaving the area in search of jobs. What other situations from immigration can you think of that would greatly affect the society?

by Aaron (AJ) Glass

Cultural Capitalism and today’s apathy

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In ancient years, people devoted themselves to gods. They went to worship what they believe in, attended mass, made sacrificial offerings and tried to please their God to achieve enlightenment.

Nowadays, as the influence of religion is decreasing all over the world, we created new gods to find a meaning of life. It seems to me that one of the most powerful gods is capitalism. It is all about “fun” and to achieve this enlightening status, we visit department stores, which do not only sell products but a certain life spirit. We sacrifice hours after hours in part time jobs to be able to pay the price of branded clothes, buy the stylish Starbucks Coffee and other luxurious goods. But the flip side of the coin is that in order to maintain this lifestyle, our products must be produced cheap and workers only receive low wages. While we live in abundance, others suffer. And of course, most of us are aware of this, which is why capitalism needed to recreate its image in order to appear more “human”.

The so-called cultural capitalism tells us that while we are consuming, we can do something for the environment, for the future of poor children in South America or help to buy new furniture for the coffee shop. It gives us the opportunity to continue our lifestyle and feel good at the same time. However, all this will not change the fact that we are still consumers. Maybe the South American children will receive food today, but their parents must work in a factory all day long anyhow. The system in which we live in does not support long-term help for the poor coffee plucker simply because it does not have to. Letting us think that we are already doing something good is enough to stop us from questioning it. As long as our ethnical duties seem to be fulfilled, our social self is satisfied. We do not want be the cause of others’ misfortune. However, if we think we changed something, we will keep quiet and continue consuming obediently.

Furthermore, as people have the impression that no matter what they do, the situation will not change, they experience some kind of helplessness. As a result, they gladly accept the hand of capitalistic companies and numb themselves through buying frenzies. It is easier to close one’s eyes to injustice, which is the reason little people question why Starbucks of all cafés is the one standing for fulfillment of ethnic duties.

I have the impression that a part of my generation including myself is apathetic about a lot of these problems. Not because we do not care, but because we either do not want to change or because we do not know how. But this is exactly one of the reasons why things will not change: apathy. I am not sure what is worse, doing something which has no effect or not doing anything at all. I am sure, however, that we must start thinking and consuming critically and stop being fooled by the happily-ever-after-image which is displayed by those who want us to stay numbed.

by Julia Semineth

Mosh

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Around the world, we can see lots of Social movements happening now including OCCUPY MOVEMENT. While some activists use excellent and other use not-so-good frame which let ordinal people think in certain way, as a matter of fact, a rapper did his social movement in 2004.

In general, rappers state ‘What’s going on in reality’ and critical view to the reality. Eminem, a Detroit rapper, launched ‘Do not vote Bush’ campaign in 2004 election through his song and its video. In this song ‘Mosh’, Eminem points out various important factors in America such as, 9/11, Iraq War, conspiracy of Al-Qaeda, racial profiling, KKK, single mother, tax policy and non-violence.

In the video, people experienced the problems like above and got to join Eminem’s Mosh Movement (march). What’s interesting here is that when people join the movement they all wear black cloth their hoodies up. This ‘hoodie’ is said to be a symbol of rebel in America. At the same time, it is a symbol of crime hence, in some areas, people are not supposed to wear hoodies or otherwise they may be arrested.

Anyway, story goes on in the video, and the gathering of mosh activists becomes bigger. He yells:

How could we allow something like this without pumping our fists?
Now this is our final hour
Let me be the voice in your strength and your choice

Finally, Mosh activists reached the Capitol-like building and Eminem leads them into the building. He takes off his hoodie and looks like responsible grown man. We can see documents saying Sign in to VOTE. Then Eminem signed his ‘voice’ and the others are lining behind him. After the scene, the message “VOTE TUESDAY NOVEMBER 2” was emphasized and the video ends there.

What I think is feasible is his way of adopting a frame in this social movement. He shows us lots of things and acts like “Please follow me if you agree with at least one thing in the song and video.” I think this point should be thought highly of.

Eminem sings with strong voice:

Mosh now or die
If I get sniped tonight you know why,
Cause I told you to fight.

I thought his movement would succeed, however “video screed against President Bush that has been racing around the Internet, may not have prompted a groundswell of youth voting” (David Carr).

We are now facing new social movement like OCCUPY MOVEMENT, which might mean that      – this is the time for everybody to Mosh again.

Mosh Video

references

“The Week Ahead”, By DAVID CARR (November 7, 2004), The New York Times

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00C11FC39580C748CDDA80994DC404482&scp=1&sq=mosh%20eminem&st=cse

by Yuki Atsusaka

Undocumented People In Japan.

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In Japan, the definition of “Undocumented People” is not always unified, and it varies with the law. One definition is provided “people don’t have nationality of Japan” by immigration control law and refugee recognition law. The other definition is “people don’t have nationality of Japan except those who have permission of a landing in transit, permission of crew member landing, permission of temporary landing and permission of landing at port of call”. In this way, the definition of Japan may be give loose impression comparatively. According to this definition, the child who hasn’t done “alien registration” can go to public school.

In the case of Japan, record of a social position act is recorder by the family register system and a resident card. A foreigner is recorded by the alien registration system. After the common Japanese takes out a marriage registration form and a birth certificate on the assumption that family register system, it has an image which has parents’ entrance to a child’s public school. People hold the image often “alien registration system” like this. As a result, misunderstanding “an illegal immigrant child hasn’t gone to school” is produced. For example, the girl who parents are illegal alien was forced to leave school in Tokyo. She was born and to live in Japan. She speaks Japanese only. However, she was dismissed from school because her parents are illegal alien by trial. And they were commanded to deport. When the children who ask for “special permission for residence” are introduced, the question “why the child goes to the public school that parents haven’t done alien registration” comes out. So, the government of Japan should inform nation and immigrant people “a just right of undocumented people in Japan” properly.

However, “Illegal immigrant reduction by half campaign” is performed from 2003 in order to send a child to a public school a condition. The illegal immigrant performs alien registration. But the cases that the staff of the city reports this act are occurring frequently. On the other hands, the illegal immigrant tries to avoid the alien registration which was being performed in the idea of “making alien registration a child’s education for health insurance”. It’s the latest tendency that it’s difficult for an illegal immigrant child to receive education as the result. How do you think about that illegal immigrant child should education in Japan or not?

 

by Saki Uetsuji

Homosexual Marriages and How People Treated Homosexuality

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Recently, homosexual marriages seems to be okay since being homosexuality no longer seems to be the strangest phenomenon in our society. And even in some countries and regions, homosexual marriages are allowed in the local laws. But how many of us can say that they can accept people around them being homosexual and even being homosexually married? Because so far as I know, there are still people who cannot accept that behavior since it is against our common gender norms. So, let’s have a look at how people treat those who got homosexual marriages and what do people think about them.

There is one famous example of homosexual marriage. Every single person who has watched “The Big Bang Theory” surely knows who Sheldon is. And those who like Sheldon should have known the actor who plays the role of Sheldon. Yes, he is Jim Parsons. And he is a homosexual. And it was reported that he proposed to his boyfriend after he got the Amy Award on 10th of September, 2010. And they planned to have there marriage in Massachusetts where homosexual marriage is allowed. As most people like to watch “The Big Bang Theory” and like Jim’s performance in that TV series, it seems there is nothing strange to accept the truth that Jim has a different choice on sexual orientation. And the audience still likes him even though he is a gay. Moreover, some of the female audience sighed that they lose the chance to marry Jim Parsons. So, homosexual marriage and homosexuality seems to be more acceptable nowadays than past time.

One of my friends who are now studying in the U.S. has a gay roommate. When he told us about this news, we suddenly burst into laughter and told him to be careful in order to avoid becoming a gay after staying in the same room with a gay roommate. But we were totally wrong. He told us about his days living in the same room with a gay roommate. He said his roommate was not that bad, except sometimes his roommate took his homosexual friends into the dormitory, it makes my friend embarrassed. But anyway, my friend’s roommate is a good guy in general. Sometimes we feel strange about gay people because we simply think that they are different from us due to their sex orientation. But, homosexual people have their own social circles; they choose to be homosexuality just as naturally as we choose to be heterosexuality; Although homosexual marriages are becoming more acceptable nowadays, we could still see homosexuality being discriminated. But I think one day in the future, considering humanity, homosexuality can be treated equally by this society.

For me, I think homosexual people are the same as us. We all have our rights to choose our way of behaving, and we have nothing different except our choice in sexual orientation. So, we should respect them although we know that their sexual orientation is against our sexual norms.

 

by. Harry  Xu

Why could it be that people are afraid of immigrants?

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When people talk about their opinions on immigrants, the first things that come to mind are: they steal our jobs, the men are violent, the women are promiscuous, and their children are a bad influence on our kids.

This may be because the changes immigrants can cause can be very sudden and challenging. To go a step further, it may be even natural, because every animal reacts aggressively when unknown individuals from the same species approach their territory.

So I think it is may be a natural reaction, but people should not keep this mentality because we are human and have the ability to think logically. The first point is that they don’t steal our jobs. They are nothing that can belong to anybody to begin with and people who have lived in the area for a long time don’t want to do certain jobs like rubbish collection etc., so immigrants only try to benefit from this situation.

Besides this, because they are individuals just like the long-term residents, not every immigrant is violent or sex-crazed. So there may of course be immigrants who kill people or prostitute themselves to get some money, but them being immigrants is not the main reason for that.

Lastly, immigrant children are not a bad influence on the other children. The behaviour of the parents can have more of a bad influence on their offspring than the immigrant children themselves. The children of parents, who genereally dislike immigrants, would come to hate everyone different from them without trying to learn or accept anything about them.

Why do people discriminate against immigrant children in the first place? There are fewer and fewer children in so many countries all over the world, so we are in need of those children to support our countries in the future.

And as to why people are afraid of immigrants, I think it is because people who are affected by their presence cannot be bothered to take the second step to think about this topic logically. This may be because they react too emotionally, but in my opinion that is still no reason to discard the human ability that distinguishes humans from animals.

What do you think about this?

by Julia Lohmann

“Sabetsu to Nihonjin”

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Shiomi Maeda

Today I would like to introduce a book titled “Sabetsu to Nihonjin” – Discrimination and Japanese people” in English – published by Kakugawa, written by Hiromu Nonaka and Shin Sugok.

Mr. Nonaka was born and grew up as a Buraku child, while Ms. Shin, as you can guess by her name, is Zainichi Korean. Despite of their different status in society, there is something they share – the experience of unfair treatment due to what they were born with.

This book is very easy to read. 80% of the book is written in conversational style based on their experience of discrimination, with 20% of explanation to make it easier for readers to understand the background and history.

Among all the stories they tell, there is one story that shocked me the most. It is a story about 1923 Great Kanto earthquake and discrimination associated with it.

In the panic of the quake, there were many Koreans who were killed not by the quake, but by Japanese people.

In that time period, there were so many cases of thefts – there was a huge shortage of food and goods; people were struggling to survive after their properties were all broke down or lost; some people had stolen things from broken houses. (Maybe some had no choice but to do so against their will?) Japanese made all of these cases Zainichi’s fault. Japanese said “it’s no one but Zainichi who do such things.” And in the end, those who believe the story DID kill innocent Zainichi Koreans.

This story is not well-known particularly among the younger generation of Japan. But I believe this is the story we should tell from generation to generation.

This year, we had 311 – the Great East Japan earthquake. I haven’t heard any sad stories like the one above. But there might have been victims of discrimination even if no one was killed – we don’t know yet.

Earthquake is a tragedy – it can kill many people. Why do we make it more tragic by killing innocent people who survived the quake? We have to look back at the reality and rethink about it.

This untold tragedy of Great Kanto earthquake is just one of the stories discussed in the book. I really recommend this book since it provides many opportunities to reconsider the issue of discrimination against social minorities. If any of you would like to read further, you can buy the book online or at most of bookstores.

Nonaka, Hiromu, and Shin Sugok. Sabetsu to Nihonjin. Tokyo: Kakugawa Group Publishing, 2009. Print.

Why we do not learn much about Zainichi Koreans at school?

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Sae Tamagawa

Japan annexed and colonized Korea in 1910. After that, a lot of Korean people were forcefully brought to Japan as labors from the Korean Peninsula. Japan made Korean people change their nationality to Japanese one, and they were even forced to change their name.

Japan made use of Korean people during the war; however, on losing the war, Japan took their Japanese nationality and forced them to go back to their country. What is worse, their country also tended not to accept them, so they confused where to go. I do not know whether Japanese government regarded as they are disposable, but they are not a robot, they are human like us. Nevertheless Japan changed Zainichi Korean’s life completely, and hurt them, Japan force them to go back after the thing went. Moreover, Zainichi Korean were ousted their franchise. As for franchise, there is no progress until now and not only Zainichi but also foreigner living in Japan do not have right to vote in Japan. Japan ignored Korean people’s human right completely, but Zainichi Korean did not just passively observe.

In April 1948, Monbu-sho decided to close school for North-Korean, and Zainichi Korean resisted fiercely against it. A lot of Zainichi Korean who participated to the resistance were arrested, and surprisingly, 16-year-old boy was killed in Osaka. This incident is called “Hanshin Kyoiku Tousou”.

Furthermore, Zainichi Korean resisted to a lot of unfair system that Japanese government forced them to obey, and insisted their right. As a result, the situation became better and better step by step. For example, All the Zainichi Krean people had to register their finger print despite they do not commit a crime. In the late 1980’s, anti- fingerprint movement became hot, and it came up as a diplomatic problem. Zainichi Korean did not give up, and registration of finger-print was amended finally. They were struggling in order to survive in Japan.

As I wrote above, what Japan has done to Zainichi Korean was unbelievably irrational. However we did not learn much about them in school as if the government hides the fact. If I did not learn about them voluntarily, I might not know exactly who they are. I said the situation is getting better now, but still, there is discrimination against them. It might be difficult to teach it at school, but it has to be taught. Otherwise, young generation will not have proper knowledge, and they may just discriminate Zainichi Korean because other people do so.

Multicultural country: Japan?!

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Shiori Miyake

Even today, some people think Japan is as a homogenous ethnic country but in reality, is it? We have the Okinawans, Ainus, Buraku, Zainichi and others as we learnt in class, and also many immigrants from foreign countries willing to move into Japan. Putting aside the argument of either a multicultural society is good or bad, as international population migration becomes more active and as the problems of ethnic minorities stand out, Japan may not keep its status quo. It is time for Japan to accept a diversity of ethnic groups inside and also coming from abroad.

First of all, what is a multicultural society? A multicultural society is said to be a society based on a multiculturalism principles, meaning a country consisting of multiple ethnic groups having their own culture and nationality valued, and coexistence is done. Now, I would like to look at the countries that are said to be a successful example and a model of a multicultural society; Canada and Australia.

Canada in its history, was a country consist of habitan (French immigrants) and Britain immigrants. Difference in language, culture and lifestyle has provoked a split in the country, so in order to maintain Canada; there was the need to unify the two big groups together and Canada installed multicultural policies.

ForAustralia, it is similar but they wanted to break away with the strong white supremacy they had and accepted Asian immigrants inside for integration with Asia. As a result, Australia had to assimilate the Asian immigrants they had accepted, and seek for multicultural measures. For both examples, the care for other ethnic minorities was only a by-product.

I only explained briefly, but Canada and Australia have accepted a diversity of ethnic groups inside their countries, partly concluding in their policies. However, to the question, “can Japan be like these two countries?”, the answer would be “no.” The circumstances for enact of policies and state configuration is different. There are points that could be helpful, but unlike Japan, both countries had multicultural policy clearly stated and developed by the government leading. Japanese government has long time not been able to dispel the homogenous principle attitude, and hasn’t established any measures even it has been over thirty years since massive influx of foreign people.

What I wanted to say in this blog post, is a simple thing; this is only one way of thinking, but Japan has to create its own model and method of a multicultural society. There are still prejudice and discrimination against non-Japanese ethnic groups inJapan, since it has been a closed community for a long time. However, there are already ethnic minorities, and also immigrants coming from abroad. Japan is in need to transfer from the state of ethnic groups “living in divided areas” to “coexistence,” and it is important for us Japanese to think of a way to create a better society for us all.

Thinking about the US Military Bases problem in Okinawa

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Miyake Shiori

As we know, there are US Armed Forces stationed in Okinawa, which refers to 75% of US military in Japan. Five years ago, in summer, I went to Okinawa with my friends for the school’s field trip, and had a chance to participate in a backstage tour of the Kadena Air Base, which was held about twice a month. This summer, I again went to Okinawa but the tour was not done anymore. So, I would like to show how it was, and hope this blog post can be a helpful piece of information to think about the base problem!

Kadena Air Base has two runways and said to possess more than two-hundred battle planes. Inside the military area was like a small town and people can live staying inside the base. The spaces are separated into military area and residence area, and I heard that there are approximately 20,000 people living. In the residence area, there are fast food chain stores, shopping malls, clubs and also universities.

In some parts of the area, the currency was in dollars and we were to communicate in English, so it was just like a town in America. As we entered a restaurant and there were many navy crews eating lunch. Just for sure, the food was “American size” and was definitely impossible to eat all. In the tour, we moved by car and the guide explained us about the facilities. The tour ended by going out the base, entering the museum of Okinawa postwar.

Seeing the news broadcasts, citizens of Okinawa are against the US military bases. This is because of the problems or negative effects caused by the existence of military bases; such as environmental concerns including water and air pollution, accidents and crimes caused by the soldiers, noise problem and so on. In the past,US military helicopter crashed at Okinawa International University, and many incidents such as rape and robbery, car accidents has occurred. However, because of the treaty between Japan and the United States, these incidents have not brought to any conclusion, or the criminal escaped from Japan and haven’t been punished. To say with the noise problem, I actually heard the noises made by the aircrafts during the tour and it was extreme; if I were to live close to the base, I can’t bear to stay.

It is unfair for only the people in Okinawa to bear a heavy burden and be the hosts to the US military forces. However, there is the fact that the US military base is creating economic effects, and I saw a community developed inside the base, having many people living their ordinary lives. There isn’t a effective or practical solution but the only thing that is clear, is that there needs to be a movement in this problem.

For additional information about the base,
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/kadena.htm