From structured invisibility to visibility: is Japan really going to accept multiethnic, multicultural identities?

Abstract

Recent changes to immigration and registration laws represent a profound shift in official imaginings of the relationship between Japanese and non-Japanese residents point to the possibility of real change occuring in the way that with those with different nationalities/ethnicities live together in the same physical and cultural space here in Japan. In this paper, I focus on and offer an interpretation of these changes in the light of hitherto less inclusive positioning of ethnic minorities. I will consider their likely impact on the identities of both minorities and the majority Yamato Japanese. I will argue that in the context of a shift away from the dominant post-war discourse of homogeneous nation to multicultural coexistence society, a space is opening up for greater acceptance of, and thus freedom to express, difference in Japan. Yet there are also moves towards an ever harsher position on undocumented migrants and greater centralised control of all foreign residents.

Keywords:

• Japan
• ethnic minorities
• immigration
• household registration
• alien registration
• multicultural coexistence

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to Scott North and Richard Siddle for commenting on an earlier draft of this paper.

Notes

1. It is difficult to get accurate estimate of those who have Japanese nationality but minority status as census and other official documentation have no sub-categories of Japanese nationals. We are largely reliant on estimates made by the different groups of their own members; however, this is also problematic as those who can ‘pass’ as mainstream Yamato Japanese often do so. The estimates given here were compiled by John Lie and relate to the early 1990s (Lie 2001, p. 4).

2. This figure has declined from a peak estimated figure of 30,000 in May 1993 after a get-tough policy on visa overstayers was instituted in the 1990s and especially from 2004 with the implementation of The Plan to Halve the Number of Illegal Foreign Residents. The MOJ also attributes the decline in undocumented immigrants down to the introduction of fingerprinting and facial imaging on entry to Japan for all foreign nationals except those with Special Permanent Resident status from November 2007 (MOJ 2010, p. 15).

3. Along with Japanese nationals I can now pick up this documentation at a branch office rather than go to the main City Hall some distance away. I now only need one registration document to identify my household for official purposes.

4. The requirement that all foreign nationals carry a card (formerly Alien and now Resident's card) is based on the assumption that a law enforcement agent can distinguish between those who are Japanese and those who are not. With increasing diversification in the physical and ethnic background of those taking Japanese nationality, this presumption is fundamentally flawed. If you do not look Japanese but a Japanese national and you are stopped, the law enforcement office generally has to take your word that you are not foreign and therefore not obligated to carry a card.

5. International schools are similarly downgraded to the miscellaneous category and were not recognised for university entrance until August 2003 even if an internationally recognised qualification such as a GCE A level or IB diploma was obtained.

6. The word comes from the derogatory ‘half-caste’, but has been reclaimed by young people of mixed heritage in a celebration of their difference.

7. Many were well qualified and underemployed in terms of their skills.

8. I am indebted to Richard Siddle for this insight.

9. I am indebted to Scott North for insights gained from discussion about the self-referential outlook of many Japanese. What I mean by this here is that any new information is gleaned in order to understand better what it means to be Japanese. Thus the positioning of the ‘other’ is always in relation to and as a means of further discovering what is Japanese.