by Robert Moorehead
Dave Boyle’s films (Big Dreams Little Tokyo, White on Rice, Surrogate Valentine, Daylight Savings) blend English and Japanese languages, and American and Japanese cultures. In this video, he discusses “Big Dreams Little Tokyo” with a class of International Relations students at Ritsumeikan University. Boyle talks about the roles of language, culture, race, and stereotypes in the film, and the choices he made as an actor and a director.
by Sakiko Yasumi
Every single month I buy fashion magazines to check what this season’s trend is. I recognize myself as one of the fashion industry’s consumers. The magazines I always buy are imported from US or UK to check the lovely clothing and make-up products introduced in the magazines. Of course all of fashion models appearing in magazines I have are foreigners. If someone had asked me this question before taking this class, “Are you yearning to whiteness?” I might have said “probably, because I think they are beautiful”.
In today’s Japanese society, it is no exaggeration to say that we are not watching TV programs and checking fashion magazines without seeing ‘hafu’ models (in this essay, when I say a “hafu”, it means the mixed person with Caucasian and Japanese). “Hafu” fashion models have been required for TV industries, and girls watching TV programs and checking fashion magazines started to yearn to hafu models due to their “attractive-looking”. Here are three questions: what is “hafu”?, why are Japanese yearning to whiteness?, and what is the definition of “attractiveness” for people in Japan?
According to Wikipedia, The word hafu is used in Japanese “to refer to somebody who is biracial, i.e. ethnically half Japanese”. This definition is that hafu people have two identities but each identity is forced to cut in half to fit in one person, then the person with mixed races becomes considered as a “hafu”. Because Japan is an island nation, had closed the door to foreigners almost for 200 years, and forced Ainu and Okinawa to assimilate into central Japan, there were few mixed people of Japanese and other countries’ ancestries. I think its Japan’s past foreign policy is a main cause of a stereotyped concept which many of Japanese still have.
To answer the second question: “why are Japanese yearning to whiteness?”, we have to think with the third question, “what is the definition of attractiveness for people in Japan”. I found the typical idea of attractiveness for Japanese from the reading “Seeing Faces, Making Races: Challenging Visual Tropes of Racial Difference” by Terry Kawashima, who mentions that girls with “the round eyes and shortish, smallish noses with vertical height are defined as symbols of attractiveness” in Japan. This type of thinking is sticking into our head, and it is a cause of our one-sided idea of attractiveness and having the feeling of yearning to whiteness which is applicable to our general ideal of attractiveness. This could the reason why hafu models become greatly popular in our society, especially for girls.
However, the concept of person’s attractiveness has been changed through reconsidering of Japanese beauty. From 2006 or 2007, two enterprises, Shiseido and Kracie, started to deal in the hair-care products which emphasize Japanese beauty called “TSUBAKI”and ”ICHIKAMI”. These two products stress their concept “Japanese women are beautiful” by using many famous and popular Japanese actresses and models. It has been highly effective. I think this is one of the best ways to make people to realize that Japanese beauty promotes our attractiveness.
To sum up, I don’t mean that whiteness is not attractive, but instead of claiming that, all kinds of skin color, hair style/color, face, body shape are attractive. Thus, there is no need for Japanese women to pursue and yearn to the whiteness. Being yourself and having confident of being Japanese women are the best.
by Maki Yoshikawa
In our class, we have studied about undocumented immigrants through video, and reading articles on real-life undocumented immigrants.
I think it is very difficult to make it clear that undocumented immigrants in Japan should be accepted in this society or not. There are a lot of undocumented immigrants who want to stay in Japan. My opinion is that Japan should accept undocumented immigrants. Indeed, it is true that some Japanese people might lose their job because of increasing number of workers. However I suppose that undocumented immigrants are needed in Japan. Japanese society will not be able to survive on its own without help of foreigners. Some Japanese businesses still need workers to work, for example, farming, caring for aged people, fishing, and so on. In these kind of jobs, most Japanese are not willing to take these jobs.
On the other hand, these jobs are socially needed because the aging society is growing year by year, and the workers in the rice fields are also getting older. As everyone knows, rice is necessary in Japanese food. Who knows how to raise rice according to the changing seasons? Who will take over the technique? After all, there are many kind of jobs which will definitely need people to succeed to. In addition, from my view, foreigners or immigrants can be engaged in these jobs. This will lead the problems which Japanese society having to be known worldwide and recruit people from all over the world. This will be more effective. However, there is a wall of documents and language when recruiting people from around the world.
It is very complex issue when it comes to children like Noriko Calderon. We have laws to follow, and human rights to protect. It is difficult to put weight on both. When we try to follow the laws, human rights tend to be violated as a term of undocumented immigrants. I insist parents are responsible for undocumented children like Noriko even if they had no choice. Children have no reason to be blamed and be restricted their rights. Therefore, as following the law, parents are supposed to leave the country. There is no way to avoid separation between parents and children. On the other hand, this situation must be changed. As a student like Noriko, I would not want more undocumented children in Japan and other countries to feel like her because they are not guilty, they were just born and raised without knowing they are undocumented.
The Japanese government must do something. However, for government, as a policy it is not appropriate to accept all immigrants without limit. For the first step, the Japanese government needs to promote awareness and interest of undocumented immigrants because a friend sitting next to us who looks completely Japanese might be undocumented immigrant who lives hiding his/her problem.
by Masataka Yamamoto
Recently, the world internationalizes in everywhere and a lot of people’s exchange is going on in society. To understand the people who came from different places requires some knowledge of different cultures. Japan is one of the developed countries in the world so we have to know other cultures to play a role in international society as Japan.
I don’t think any Japanese schools teach multiculturalism so far. The word multiculturalism describes that the education of human race, ethnicity, gender, economic hierarchy, handicap problem, and sexual orientation. It is necessary to support students to realize who they are in many groups so they can understand what really they are. However, many old people try to protect Japanese culture itself from other cultures’ intervention. Also Japanese geographical features are island so it has fewer relations with other cultures, compared to countries which are located on the continent. Japan has fewer chances to touch with other cultures so Japan should more freely to know other cultures.
In my opinion, Japanese school should teach multiculturalism in every school. It is because I have an experience of living in countryside of the United States and there were many black people and fewer Asian people. White people and black people were friendly to each other, but not to Asians. They called us like narrow eyes, kamikaze, yellow monkey, whatever that describes Asian or Japanese people badly. I felt very uncomfortable by being called such discriminatory words, so I thought it needs to disappear. This happened in the U.S., and Japan has fewer chances to get with other cultures than the U.S. If many foreigners go to Japanese elementary school or junior high and Japanese students don’t have multicultural education, what will happen? I think students will have discrimination against different cultures. To prevent this from happening, every Japanese school should teach multiculturalism for understanding of other cultures. Also knowing other cultures have merits when people going to other countries. For example, people in U.S. are mixed together as German, Russian, African, Chinese, etc. so to know other cultures is important in international society.
In conclusion, Japanese school should teach multiculturalism to understand other cultures and learning multiculturalism will need when people go to another places. People are exchanging everywhere in this International society so learning of multiculturalism will be main tool to have a communication with people from different places.
by Tomoya Yamaguchi
As globalization progresses, the number of undocumented immigrants are increasing little by little and there are a lot of problems in the world, too. There are also many problems in Japan and I would like to describe how the Japanese society should do to solve problems, especially about Noriko Calderon.
In Japan, a lot of undocumented immigrants exist and they are often deported by the Japanese government. This is international standard and natural stream. However in Noriko’s case, many factors are connected with the problem of whether the government should deport her parents and her or not. Many people claim their opinions and thoughts. People in liberal side often claim that they have lived in Japan for more 15 years and have the basis of their life is in Japan. About Noriko, her identity is Japanese, and the Philippine is a foreign country to her. As the result of it, Japan is her mother country. Noriko has a lot of friends in Japan. It is said that even if Noriko goes back to the Philippines, she cannot assimilate into the society. As a premise, Japan ratifies “the Convention on the Rights of the Child” and “the International Bill of Human Rights”, so deporting them to the Philippines infringes on these treaties and deporting is incorrect way. In Europe, if undocumented immigrants have children, the governments overlook that the governments force them to leave there. Moreover, people in the liberal side claim that after they come to Japan, they don’t commit any crimes, so Japan should admit them to continuing to stay in Japan.
However people in the right wing also have a lot of opinions against Noriko’s case and undocumented immigrants. First one is that to forgive them results in the disorder that the number of undocumented immigrants increases quickly. To admit them means that once they come to Japan and rearrange the basis of their life, they can continue to stay in Japan forever in their lifetime. This results in the disorder of Japanese jurisdiction and becomes a beginning of proliferation of undocumented immigration. Japan is a constitutional nation and if people commit a crime, people must be banished. This forms a trend that to make a child and free from their crime is triumph. This is not an argument based on emotion. Second is that the Japanese constitution is the highest one in Japan and treaties is the second highest, so international society should not blame Japan. Furthermore, it is unfair for the foreigner which legally came to Japan to admit them.
In conclusion, I think the undocumented immigrants commit a crime when they enter into Japan, but the Japanese government should also rearrange the laws about immigration because the government should take a responsibility that the officer of the Japanese government would kept not to arrest undocumented immigrants. According to it, the Japanese government needs to enact a new law in order not to increase misery children like Noriko. For example, the government punishes immigrants that spent 15 years after came to Japan for the illegal immigration. However the government doesn’t punish more about post entering Japan because they live in Japan for a long time. However the extent of this law is limited toward only immigrants that have already stayed in Japan for more 15 years. Japan faces the time to change the immigration laws. The Japanese government should respond to those problems flexibly. In my opinion, to admit those undocumented immigrants distorts the Japanese jurisdiction and it is an illegal conduct. However Noriko hasn’t committed a crime and has had no choice. According to it, the Japanese government should conducts flexibly in this case though the government also has to take steps in order not to increase the number of the undocumented immigrants.
by Noriyuki Tanaka
There are many immigrant problems in America, for example the Flores family, whom we saw in the documentary The New Americans, had hardships from being immigrants. At first, Pedro worked hard for his family to live in Mexico. He earned money in America to support his family, but their family wanted to live with their father. This is a love of family. This is only documentary video, but there are many immigrants who cannot live with their families.
For each country, receiving immigrant has big merits and demerits. The merit is that a public estimation from various countries become good, so many immigrants want to go to the countries and the level of the country, as one state rises because the country tries to deal with the problems of increasing foreign people, for example language education, labors, and taxes. On the other hand, a big demerit is that a country leans to ignore original people in the country. Like an unknown man coming in your house, increasing immigrants in own country makes original people anxiety. They may lose jobs, the security may become bad, own culture may be reigned by immigrant cultures.
I am going to think about specific countries according to immigrants. Japan isn’t positive to receive immigrants or refugees because Japanese people consider Japanese carefully. Of course, it is also important that people treat own countries importantly, but important to live with world people. I think that Germany has good measures to protect immigrants and original people. Germany had many Turkish immigrants after World War Ⅱ. The German government received immigrants positively, so now the percentage of immigrants in German is 19%. However, there are many problems because immigrants are not German, for example difficulty of employment of people who cannot speak German, incidents by immigrants, and women problems. The German government reflected these problems with education. It improves language education, and Germany doesn’t have enough laborers that have special knowledge. By raising the level of education, it tries to solve the difficulty of employment. Plus, to avoiding conflicts of national citizens, the German government made sport activity active to improve sportsmanship, which is the spirit of helping each other. I think these solutions to immigrant problems by German are good. Japan should receive immigrants and think original solutions.
by Mei Satoi
In the documentary film of our class (The New Americans), we could see an immigrant family from Mexico. This family’s father worked in the United States separated from his family in Mexico. This situation made the Mexican family feel sad and uncomfortable life. Therefore they decided to move on the legal way to the U.S. On the other hand, the number of immigrants from Mexico is decreasing. As Mexico has been developing its economy and the U.S.’s development has slowed. So, Mexicans choose to get job and life in their homeland. It shows that economic development helps decrease immigrants. When you and your country want to decrease immigrant number, you should support the economic development.
In the Japan, there are some troubles between Korean schools and the government, or Korean schools and citizens. One example is that the Japanese government decided public high school in Japan will be free. However some people have insisted that Korean school do not have to be free and do not need support from the Japanese government. The reason why is that Korean school has settled under the North Korea system. So Japanese government said to make an exception so that Korean high schools will not be free. It means that only Korean school cannot get support from the Japanese government. However, the purpose of the free of high school law includes Korean schools. In the human rights view, Korean schools also should be free. However a lot of citizens have rejected this. This idea comes from discrimination, misunderstanding, and prejudge. The purpose of the free of high school law is protecting and respecting the children’s right to study. The Japanese government and citizen do not have the right to take the opportunity of education from children because of prejudice. In addition, the Japanese government is trying to produce more multicultural and global talented people in the Japanese educational system. Korean people help to feel and think what is multicultural to children.
There are some immigrant and Zainichi people in Japan. If Japanese wants to eliminate them, they should support their homeland’s economic situation. Then the number of immigrants would decrease. In the now, Japanese government has stopped economic support to the North Korea. Before Japanese complain about free Korean schools, they should help the North Korea situation. In addition, Japanese should protect and respect immigrant. To establish brush up education system with Japanese, immigrants, and Zainichi each other, talented people and high quality people are given from Japan.
by Kentaro Sakamoto
Is it OK to treat someone unfairly for something that is not his/her fault? Most people will probably answer “No” to this simple question, but in reality, many children of undocumented immigrant families are treated differently for something that they are not responsible for. Let’s see the case in the United States, where it has roughly 1 million unauthorized children (Passel and Cohn, 2011). Most of them were brought to America by their adult family members (Poe, 2012). They go to American schools and they are part of American society, but since they do not have American citizenship, they cannot do things that regular Americans can do, such as getting a driver’s license, getting a passport, getting scholarship for their education, and getting a job legally. Some of them had not even know that they were undocumented until they decided to get a job or a driver’s license. However, undocumented immigrants raised in the United States are now starting to stand up for their rights. Many organizations demanding equal rights for them have been formed, calling America to change its laws (Immigrant Youth Justice League, 2013). Thanks to their effort, President Obama announced that he will stop deporting certain young undocumented immigrants. He also supports giving them a chance to officially become legal residents if they go to college or serve for the military for 2 years, which can give them the qualification to apply for U.S. citizenship (Poe, 2012). The situation of undocumented children are starting to change, and more people are starting to recognize their rights.
However, they still cannot fully enjoy the rights that other ordinary Americans do. Their rights to family life are not guaranteed. Moreover, this right is not only a problem for undocumented children, but also for children with American citizenship who have undocumented parents. Families have been divided due to the difference of legal status within the family; the parents are deported while their children are allowed to stay in the country (Cave, 2012). These children have to make a very difficult decision, either to stay in America without their parents or to follow them to a country they do not know much about. This is not merely a problem in the United States, but it also became a sensation in Japan when the situation of Calderon family was reported in the news. They were forced to be separated because of the father and mother’s undocumented status. Noriko Calderon, the daughter of the family who was allowed to stay in Japan due to special measures, had two choices: staying in Japan by herself, or going to the Philippines with her deported parents. She eventually decided to stay in Japan, where she was born and raised and where she had all her friends, and in compensation, she had to make her farewell to her parents. Her right to family life was violated.
The right to family life is determined in Article 9 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) ratified by 193 countries and regions (Tanaka et al., 2013). The article says all children have the right to live with their parents unless it creates an environment that is bad for them, such as child abuse (Ibid). America hasn’t ratified this treaty yet (Ibid). Japan ratified, but it declared to interpret Article 9 from its own viewpoint to justify family separation caused by deportation (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, n.d.). This attitude is criticized by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, asking Japan to change its distinctive interpretation of the article (Ibid). Unfortunately the two major countries that call themselves the ‘champion of human rights’ are violating this right while many other countries are protecting it.
Since the right to family life is an internationally recognized right, countries such as the U.S. and Japan should protect this by ensuring children to stay with their family in the place where they are raised, regardless of their legal status. Children themselves are not responsible for what kind of legal status they or their parents have. Laws in general are made to protect human rights and ensure fairness, and this general principle of law should be applied to all community members contributing to the society, especially if they are raised in the community. Therefore, I think laws violating the community members’ rights (in this case, the rights of children who are raised in the community by their undocumented parents) should be changed immediately. Japan anyway needs more immigrants to support its economy, and the government is actually trying to accept more of them from outside of the country (Gi, 2000), but I think it will be much smoother if we accept those who are already living in Japan, those who know how to live in this country, and those who have their friends, husband, wife and even children here. Why can’t we protect the rights of our community members?
References
Cave, D. (2012, June 18). American children, now struggling to adjust to life in Mexico. The New York Times. Retrieved June 27, 2013, from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/world/americas/american-born-children-struggle-to-adjust-in-mexico.html?pagewanted=all
Gi, H. (2000, June 9). Nippon de kurashitai: Huhou taizai kazoku tachi no kizuna [We want to live in Japan: The bonds of illegal immigrant families]. Fuji Terebi [Fuji Television]. Retrieved June 27, 2013, from http://www.fujitv.co.jp/b_hp/fnsaward/backnumber/back/00-167.html
Immigrant Youth Justice League. (2013). About us. Immigration Youth Justice League. Retrieved June 27, 2013, from http://www.iyjl.org/about-2/
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. (n.d.). Dai ikkai houkokusho shinsa: Jidou no kenri ni kansuru iinkai kara no shitsumon ni taisuru kaitou [Examination of the first report: The answer to the question asked by the Committee on the Rights of the Child]. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. Retrieved June 27, 2013, from http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/gaiko/jido/9605kaito/
Passel, J. S., & Cohn, D. (2011). New patterns in US immigration, 2011: Uncertainty for reform. University of California, Davis. Retrieved June 27, 2013, from http://migrationfiles.ucdavis.edu/uploads/cf/files/2011-may/passel-new-patterns-in-us-immigration.pdf
Poe, C. (June 16, 2012). DREAM Act: Obama stops deportation of children of illegal immigrants. The Washington Times. Retrieved June 27, 2013, from http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/ad-lib/2012/jun/16/dream-act-obama-stops-deportation-children-illegal/
Tanaka, N., Yakushiji, K., Sakamoto, M., Asada, M., Kiriyama, T., Obata, I., & Shibata, A. (2013). Beshikku Jyouyakushu [Basic documents of international law]. Tokyo: Toushindo.
by Satomi Tanaka
This spring I traveled around South East Asian countries and I was surprised at a lot of different cultures from Japan. We Japanese judge which person is in a socially high position by their belongings or behavior. The skin color does not matter in Japanese society among Japanese. However, in other countries have each mark to judge class. I’d like to describe about my opinion and experience, and then figure out how culture and common sense are created and changed.
In Cambodia, most of all women are attached to lighter skin. When I went to a village, many Cambodian women envied my skin color and it happened again and again. At first I was surprised because I don’t mind about getting a tan so my skin color is darker than other Japanese. But my skin color was accepted as light skin by them. I didn’t know why they were stuck to lighter skin. I asked a woman about it through an interpreter. She answered “Because light skinned woman is beautiful.” I thought that they are affected by TV shows. Actresses, singers and models in Cambodia have lighter skin tone and they are known as socially high position people. Their skin color is completely different from women in the villages but they are also Cambodian. Because they use skin lightening products and foundation. In short, lighter skin tone means not only beautiful but also high class in society.
This idea is almost the same in the Philippines. Tanned skin means labor class and light skin means high class. I think this phenomenon is unconsciously related to colonial history and mass media carried the idea from European countries to other region countries. It plays a big role in every country’s standard of beauty or common sense. I guess globalization make the world smaller and more complicated because each culture affects each other and creates new one.
In Vietnam there was an interesting trend among young people that is thickly dressed fashion. The weather in Vietnam is hot and humid throughout the year. Sometimes it is chilly but wearing a short-sleeved shirt is fine. However, a down jacket and a knitted sweater were sold in many shops. I couldn’t understand why it is sold and who wears that one. My friend taught me the reason of it. “The reason why is that wearing a down jacket or a knitted sweater means high class or rich,” she said. Because wearing thickly dressed means you work in an office with an air conditioner, so young people think that being thickly dressed is seen as rich and cool. I thought they are very sensitive to appearance. They want to be treated and accepted as a high positioned people. So not only skin color but also cloths can be a mark in Vietnam.
In conclusion, a lot of countries are affected by European culture but today’s common sense were added each countries’ standard and created new one. That’s why more and more culture or common senses were born and it will be changing in the future.
by Kensuke Ikeda
I saw a documentary movie about young boy as undocumented immigrants on TV called “Nihon de Kurashitai: Huhou Taizai Kazoku no Kizuna” (We want to live in Japan: the bounds of family who are undocumented and overstay). In the movie the young boy said “please leave me in Japan, I cannot speak other language and I don’t have any friends in another country”. I realized uneasiness of the undocumented immigrants because his speech is so honest and so direct.
In Japan there are many undocumented immigrants, and some of them are children. They don’t have decision to leave in Japan or to return to “home” country where they have never lived. They should return home country by legal steps. Also, they force to return the country instantly. Japanese government takes care of undocumented people because they will do terrorism and have relation to group of drug peddler. I understand the stance of the Japanese government, but the legal steps are too tactless to ignore other undocumented immigrants who are useful for improving the Japanese economy.
These ineffective legal steps have the room to improve. I suggest that these legal steps are used by the Internet. If undocumented immigrants get approval of stay, they can stay in Japan as have been the way until now. However, they need long process to take the approval because the official apply is tiresome. If they can get temporary approval by the internet apply, they may need not to immediately return home county and they can submit their official document for immigrants. Also, if they cannot stay in Japan, they have some time for preparing to live other country, for example children can learn other language and adult can find the job in other country. The internet gives undocumented immigrants time to pass the legal steps.
However, the use of the internet for apply is dangerous because the apply may be not appropriate on legal. For instance, terrorist can make the stay time in Japan long, and then they can plan the terrorism without haste. In short, the crime people also have time to prepare next crime and escape. For this problem, the governments should strict for immigration by passport. To begin with, these crime people should not come in Japan. It is important that people who come in Japan are terrorist or not and drug peddler or not. Young undocumented immigrants deliberately make crime as overstay. I think the Japanese government should give them the room to think next life. They don’t need to lose their friends and their country.
References
“Nihon de Kurashitai: Huhou Taizai Kazoku no Kizuna” (We want to live in Japan: the bounds of family who are undocumented and overstay).2000. Fuji TVstation. http://www.fujitv.co.jp/b_hp/fnsaward/backnumber/back/00-167.html
HP of Kayamori Office. http://www.geocities.jp/a_kayamori/index.html
JAPANsociology 