Incorporating immigrants as foreigners: multicultural politics in Japan

Abstract

With the growth of immigrant population over the past couple of decades, a ‘multicultural’ discourse has emerged in Japan. A notable point is that immigrants are expected to be incorporated into the host society primarily as foreigners rather than as Japanese nationals with full citizenship rights. The purpose of this article is to understand this prevailing mode of immigrant incorporation and to consider the comparative implications. By examining the discursive aspects of claims-making on behalf of both old-timer and newcomer immigrants, I argue that the underlying opportunity structures have been reproduced in each phase of immigration-related development in Japan, facilitating the use of the ‘foreigner’ category in advocacy efforts. Official recognition of the category has also helped to further institutionalize it as the main target of immigrant policy. In comparative perspective, ‘incorporation as foreigners’ can be understood as a variant of the ethnic model of immigration regimes in that it tends to reinforce the dominant ethnocultural conception of Japanese nationhood.

Keywords:

• citizenship
• claims-making
• politics
• immigrant
• legal status
• identity

Notes

 1. In the town of Oizumi, Gunma Prefecture, foreign residents, mostly Brazilians, accounted for 15.2% of the town's population of 41,000 as of April 2011 (Gaikokujin Shūjūtoshi Kaigi 2011).

 2. Examples of national-level initiatives include support programs funded by the educational ministry for immigrant children who are not native Japanese speakers, and the establishment of a section within the Cabinet Office to oversee policies and programs for long-term foreign residents, mainly Nikkei South Americans. See Kondō (2008) and Surak (2008) for an overview of Japanese immigration policy in comparative perspective.

 3. See ‘Canadian multiculturalism: an inclusive citizenship’, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (2008) < http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/multiculturalism/citizenship.asp>; ‘The people of Australia: Australia's multicultural policy’, Department of Immigration and Citizenship (2011) < http://www.immi.gov.au/living-in-australia/a-multicultural-australia/multicultural-policy/>

 4. In this article ‘nationality’ refers to formal legal citizenship.

 5. See Milly (2006) and Yamanaka (2011) on the limited ability of citizens' groups in Japan to bring about significant change in national-level policies.

 6. As Germany introduced the principle of jus soli in 1999, the acquisition of nationality is no longer more ‘difficult’ than in other countries; however, the description here should hold for the Japanese case.

 7. The proportion of Koreans among foreign nationals gradually decreased from 90.1% in 1959 to 85.3% in 1974 and then to 72.0% in 1988 (Nyūkan Tōkei Kenkyūkai 1990, pp. 13–17).

 8. Under the Japanese Foreigner Registration Law (to be replaced by a new registration system in July 2012), foreign nationals wishing to stay in Japan for more than three months are required to register with the local government of their place of residence. The total numbers of registrations are used as the basis for the official immigration statistics. No statistics are available for the ‘foreign-born’ population as opposed to ‘foreign nationals’; neither are there any statistics on the breakdown by ethnic origin of Japanese nationals.

 9. Hōmu nenkan, various years.

10. As discussed below, Japanese civic groups have mainly engaged in claims-making activities more than immigrant organizations, especially with respect of newcomer immigrants.

11. The Japanese term for migrants (imin) had the connotation of emigration, so it used to be applied only to the Japanese migrating overseas, for example to North and South America or Manchuria.

12. A notable exception was the Ainu, the indigenous people, but their presence had little impact on the conception of a monoethnic Japanese nationhood due to their marginalized position in society.

13. The Hitachi employment discrimination case (1970–1973) was a major turning point. It brought together young-generation zainichi Koreans and Japanese activists who continued to tackle the injustices experienced by ethnic Koreans in Japan (Chung 2010, pp. 97–100).

14. Initial advocacy was by citizens' groups. The Mindan, an ethnic Korean organization officially affiliated with South Korea, followed suit and began an organized campaign to gain citizenship rights in the late 1970s (Mindan 1997, pp. 56–58).

15. A small proportion of Korean students attended ethnic Korean schools, which have also been a site of ethnic struggles (Ryang 1997). The Japanese government refused to recognize the majority of ethnic Korean schools as public educational institutions, thereby bringing many disadvantages to their students.

16. Except for established ethnic organizations, such as Mindan, groups engaged in ‘zainichi Korean activism’ tend to be relatively small. Examples include grassroots citizens' networks such as Mintōren (formed by local groups fighting against ethnic discrimination), Christian groups such as RAIK (Research-Action Institute for the Koreans in Japan) and Gaikikyō (a network of Christians that focuses on tackling the problem of the foreigner's registration law), and groups based in public sector labor unions that demand the abolition of nationality-based inequality.

17. Both North and South Korean states defined Koreans in Japan as their overseas citizens; however, for some zainichi Koreans, the homeland meant neither North or South but a unified Korea.

18. For example, a senior zainichi Korean opinion leader has written that Korean nationality was ‘the last bastion of the proof of one's Korean identity’ (Kan 1996, p. 178).

19. This partly explains why the scope of tabunka kyōsei programs is mostly limited to immigrant groups, with less attention to nonimmigrant minority groups such as the Ainu.

20. Definitions of the term, with some degree of variation, can be found in the policy guidelines announced by different local governments.

21. ‘Immigrant rights NGOs’ include faith-based organizations, community workers' unions, women's support groups, lawyers' association NGOs, and concerned citizens' groups (Shipper 2008, Chap. 4).

22. In a high-profile case, a zainichi Korean nurse working for the Tokyo Metropolitan government was not allowed to seek a managerial position because, according to the government, such posts involve the exercise of public authority and hence should be filled by Japanese nationals.

23. Bodies like this have been launched in municipalities or prefectures with significant size of foreign resident populations and/or in localities where activism on behalf of immigrants is well-developed. One of the earliest and well-known examples is Kawasaki City's Representative Assembly for Foreign Residents < http://www.city.kawasaki.jp/25/25zinken/home/gaikoku/assembly/index.htm>

24. In 1995, Japan ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The Ana Bortz case was the first in which a Japanese court recognized discrimination on the basis of the convention. Ana Bortz, a Brazilian resident in Hamamatsu City, had been denied service at a jewelry shop (Gurowitz 2006, p. 164).

25. Gaikokujin shūjūtoshi kaigi homepage < http://homepage2.nifty.com/shujutoshi/index.html>

26. A parallel can be drawn between multicultural incorporation of this kind and the German use of the term ‘auslndische Mitbrger (foreign fellow citizens)’. Both have progressive connotations and emphasize local-level political participation (Brubaker 2001, p. 538).

27. Although Nikkei South Americans are descendants of ‘Japanese’ emigrants, Brazilian communities in Japan exhibit a high degree of ‘foreignness’, since they have Brazilian linguistic and cultural traits and contain non-Nikkei family members.

28. The pattern of incorporation identified here is similar to Christian Joppke's ‘postnational immigrant integration’ in the context of German multiculturalism (Joppke 1999, pp. 191–192). In the case of Germany, however, there has been a notable shift from the ‘denizenship model’ to the ‘naturalization model’, according to the terminology of Hammar (1990). See Chung (2010, pp. 56–57) for the comparison between Germany and Japan in the development of citizenship and multicultural policies.

29. On this score, the South Korean case offers an interesting comparison because the term ‘foreigner’ is salient in its immigrant integration policies. However, a larger proportion of marriage migration (by women marrying Korean men) means that the incorporation of immigrants into the citizenry is more readily anticipated for the second generation than in Japan (Lee 2008).