Tag Archives: education

Prejudice and Multiculturalism in Japan

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by Ayaka Nishizaki

In this time, I would like to bring the topic about prejudice and multiculturalism in Japan. One month ago, I saw a shocking situation that one couple of an American boy and a Japanese girl were insulted by one Japanese stranger. I was sad there is still some situations that ‘being different from others’ is not enough accepted in Japanese society. Therefore, I start to think how that situation occurs and about multiculturalism.

One big problem is that the Japanese idea of ‘egalitarianism’ sometimes causes prejudice. I learned the word ‘egalitarianism’ during class and I agreed that Japanese school and society focus on equality for everyone. Japanese school gives students the idea that we have to give same opportunity for everyone so that prejudice will not occur. However, I wondered ‘this egalitarianism is the exactly same meaning as treating people equally?’ In my opinion, Japanese school teaches how important they have to give same opportunities and rights for everyone, but they don’t teach ‘how important we accept something being different from others’. I felt strange when during discussion class, some Japanese students mentioned same opinion that I had heard before and many students agreed on. Japanese prefer ‘safety’ in society, so they unconsciously chose opinions they may feel comfortable with. I know not all of Japanese are like that and that is just one of examples, but my point is that Japanese society focus on being equal so much that it sometimes makes difficult to express ourselves and try to become similar to others in terms of fashion, hair style, even our different idea or thoughts.

‘Multiculturalism’, which is one I learned, will be very important in Japan. It is commonly said that many Japanese can’t think say their different opinion. On the other hand, American society gives people the basic idea that everyone is originally different. I don’t mean that American education is better: I think at least Japanese egalitarianism leads to some prejudice for foreigners. Therefore, Japanese needs to respect something being different, but how can Japanese society teach multiculturalism and make Japanese multiculturalism? I think it needs long time because Japan has one ethnic and they already have similar background, so students have difficulty in imaging what does being different mean. It is not easy to bring multiculturalism to Japan because of fixed environment. However, I can suggest that changing Japanese education system is one of the ways. After I came back to Japan from my studying in the U.S, I felt how few there are opportunities to share my opinion in Japan. Making more opportunities for students to discuss and share their opinion could be one step to multiculturalism in Japan.

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)

Why does the gap between poor immigrants and rich immigrants exist?

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by Ayana Nishizaki

Last week, in my post about ‘International Immigration’, I was wondering why poor immigrants stay poor while the rich get richer. Though my study, the causes are different ones than I expected. There are two main reasons: educational opportunity, and inefficient use of human capitals. I would like to discuss these reasons in terms of ‘illegal Hispanic immigrants’.

Immigrants of America are divided into two groups: legal immigrants who can speak English and illegal immigrants who can’t speak English well. Recently, increasing the number of illegal Hispanic immigrants is one of the big problems. They try to stay longer after the tourist VISA expired because it takes long time and much money to get the right of permanent residence.

The first reason of the gap is their education. According to one reading, Gross Enrollment Ratio of Hispanic is 57％ while that of American is 80％. Most illegal immigrants don’t have enough money to take educational opportunity. Therefore, they have no choice to get low income jobs. On the other hand, educational cost of the high quality school is getting higher. It means only the rich can get high quality education and tend to get high income jobs. Therefore, the gap is still not getting close.

As the second reason, human capitals of immigrants are not used effectively and correctly. Recently, new immigrants are more highly educated than old immigrants because the number of immigrants who graduated from universities is increasing. However, immigrants are still faced with a difficulty to get acceptation of a job they want. The problem comes up when immigrants enter host country and show their qualification and ability to employers. These qualifications that they got in home country are not necessarily useful in host country. Even if these qualifications of home countries are similar to those of host countries, their ability of communication, language knowledge, and adopting culture are different from those of natives. There is a fact that there are many opportunities to get jobs like house keeper and restaurant server. However, when it comes to more high-skill-required jobs such as IT manager, it seems more difficult for immigrants than natives. Therefore, some high educated Hispanic immigrants have no choice to work what they really don’t want because of unpractical use of their ability.

From this study, I realized that the problem of the gap is caused by less education opportunity and inefficient use of human capitals. I though the main reason was merely their poor economic situation. However, even if some immigrants achieved high academic ability, they can’t get jobs they really want. In my view, that point (how difficult it is for immigrants to get acceptation from employer in terms of language skills, ability of adaptation) is one of the barriers when they assimilate. Therefore, as one of the solutions, I think government should clarify what kind of skills and ability in each jobs is exactly necessary in host country and inform immigrants of the clear criteria. By doing so, immigrants can make their life plan (such as which skills is necessary to get in advance) to reach their goal and also employer can easily measure and their ability and communicate with them.