(Re)constructing Identities: International Marriage Migrants as Potential Agents of Social Change in a Globalising Japan¹1

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Asian Studies Association of Australia's (ASAA) Biennial Conference in Hobart on 1 July 2002. I am grateful to Ross Mouer, Robyn Spence-Brown, Lyn Parker, Penny Kinnear, Tomoko Nakamatsu, and in particular Elise Tipton and the two Asian Studies Review referees for comments on earlier drafts. I would also like to acknowledge the support of the Monash University Postgraduate Publications Award in the preparation of the manuscript. This paper is adapted from a larger work (Burgess, 2003).

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Notes

Source: Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare (Japan Almanac, 2002, pp. 36–37)

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Asian Studies Association of Australia's (ASAA) Biennial Conference in Hobart on 1 July 2002. I am grateful to Ross Mouer, Robyn Spence-Brown, Lyn Parker, Penny Kinnear, Tomoko Nakamatsu, and in particular Elise Tipton and the two Asian Studies Review referees for comments on earlier drafts. I would also like to acknowledge the support of the Monash University Postgraduate Publications Award in the preparation of the manuscript. This paper is adapted from a larger work (Burgess, 2003).

The phrase “seeds of social change” comes from the two-day conference on ‘Gender, Migration, and Governance in Asia’ that was held at the Australian National University on 5–6 December 2002. A key argument was that female migrants constitute a new force for “civil activism, democratic governance, and increasing multiculturalism.” Using a similar metaphor, Nelson Graburn has suggested that the “seeding” of migrants in local communities is an important yet under-researched area of work (personal communication).

Japan does not officially recognise dual nationality for adults. However, in the case of a Japanese securing, say, Australian citizenship, as long as the individual does not inform the Japanese government there is no need to surrender their Japanese passport. Similarly, a child of an international marriage holding dual citizenship, who must ostensibly choose or forfeit Japanese citizenship before the age of 22, can simply make the necessary declaration to the Japanese government [nihonkokuseki no sentakusengen] without necessarily losing the other citizenship, since this is a matter for the legal system of that country (KKKK, 2000, pp. 48–49; Nakamatsu, 2002, p. 232; Murphy-Shigematsu, 2000, p. 206). For more on dual citizenship in Japan see www.gcnet.at/.

The term “infiltrate” is taken from one of my interviewees, who used the Japanese shintō to describe the gradual entry of foreigners into Japanese society.

The process of assimilation or “Japanisation” is particularly clear in the case of Burakumin. The official use of the term dōwa (as in terms such as dōwa kyōiku or “levelling” education) to describe the Burakumin does not suggest recognition as a minority but rather (as the Chinese characters signify) becoming indistinguishable from “Japanese.”

Iwabuchi (2002a, p. 4) has noted how the development of media globalisation, particularly transnational satellite broadcasts, in the 1990s was likened by the Japanese mass media to the opening up of Japan by Commodore Perry a century and a half earlier: “The implication is that Japan can no longer enjoy a self-contained domestic market, but rather is now under threat of being forced to open its doors to the world.” Conversely, Japanese TV dramas are also enormously popular in places like Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Source: Posting on H-Japan 27.1.03 by Howard Gilbert. Although there has been foreign participation in sumo since the 1930s, today's recruits are “legibly” shifting from the Hawaiian and South American trends of the 1970s to more Asians and even East Europeans. “[T]heir existence within the most traditional part of Japanese society”, notes Tierney (forthcoming), “offers a unique re-conceptualization of what it means to be Japanese.”

Visibility is not only a cause of empowerment but also a reflection of increased power. It is the subaltern, those less powerful minorities, who are invisible.

In February 1995 the Supreme Court ruled that providing voting rights to foreign residents was not prohibited by the constitution ( Japan Times, 1996). As Kajita (1998, p. 137) notes, in contrast to the situation in France and Germany, where a constitutional amendment would be required to grant foreigners voting rights in local elections, in Japan this can be achieved by enacting a law. In this sense, Japan can be seen as more progressive than other countries with a longer history of migration.

Although brought into effect in 1969, Japan became one of the last countries to ratify the Convention when it did so in 1995 (Sugimoto, 1997, p. 189).

“International marriage” or kokusai kekkon – an original Japanese concept – includes marriages involving a non-Japanese who was born and brought up in Japan but has not naturalised. Although such marriages are technically “international”, they do not involve migration. Consequently, in this paper I adopt the narrower term “(international) marriage migration” to exclude such cases. For more on the history and present day reality of kokusai kekkon see Koyama (1995), Takeshita (2000) and Kamoto (2001).

This is a translation and home teaching service set up by Jane in October 2000 at the local international salon. Jane recruited a number of other foreign-born women in the locality, including Soo-Min, Huiyung and Meilin. The group provides fee-based services such as home language teaching for students and translation for the local authorities in Chinese, English, Tagalong and Korean.

The organisations were the Association for International Relations in Yamagata (AIRY), a prefectural government body, and the International Volunteer Centre Yamagata (IVY), a private NPO. More information can be found on their respective homepages, www.jan.ne.jp/∼airy/and www.dewa.or.jp/IVYama/.

One obvious limitation of the sample is that the subjects were more educated than the average migrant and were markedly successful. Many others are not as successful, returning home, divorcing, or disappearing. The aim is to illustrate that those who come to have an impact on Japanese society – who do overcome their initial difficulties and acquire linguistic and cultural competence – are often motivated by the desire to recover and accumulate social capital.

The Western reader may assume that this applies to most women, not just migrants. Certainly, traditional gender divisions in Japan are shifting and Japanese women are increasingly looking to the non-domestic sphere in order to express their goals, desires, and sense of self (Morley, 1999; Rosenberger, 2001). For example, the number of wives who worked exceeded the number who stayed at home as full-time housewives for the first time in the mid-1990s (Kōseirōdōshō, 2002, ch. 2, section 2). Nevertheless, postwar gender stereotypes of the “good wife, wise mother” remain strong. In a 2002 gender equality survey conducted by the Cabinet Office, 47 per cent of respondents still supported the statement that “husbands should work outside the home and wives should take care of their families.” Figures for 1997 and 1992 were 57.8 per cent and 60 per cent respectively. In the 2002 survey, 36.6 per cent of respondents considered that women should only return to work once their children had grown up (www.glocom.org/special_topics/social_trends/20020924_trends_s8/index.html).