Japan: Muted in country of their birth, three women try to find their voice

2019/08/27 Leave a comment

Interesting vignettes and symbolic of some of the challenges:

As Japan’s demographic sands shift, with its graying population, declining regional communities and doors inching slowly further open to immigrant workers, three young Tokyoite women are envisioning a new way forward.

One is Korean, one is Chinese and the other is Japanese, but they all want to make the country they call home a more progressive, inclusive and representative place.

All three look like they could be any other young professional walking the streets of Japan’s capital, but when they speak they demonstrate a thoughtfulness that makes it obvious they have different motivations to most.

“I think, even like a few decades ago, it would be impossible for us to be having discussions and dialogue about how we want the future of Japan to be,” says Amy Tiffany Loo, 23.

Loo, the Chinese member of the trio, says the difficult history of relations between her ancestral homeland and those of her friends — Korean Chung Woohi, 25, and Japanese Yuka Hamanaka, 23 — means any discussion about a collective future in Japan would have been out of the question not so long ago.

“Woohi is ‘zainichi’ Korean, my family has been through a lot of upheavals through the Sino-Japanese war, and Yuka, she is a Japanese national, so when we engage in conversation we always talk about how we can think and discuss issues in a way that encompasses all three sides of us,” said Loo.

“The way we view history, it is very different. Me, coming from a Chinese background whose grandparents fought Japanese forces, it is going to be a very sensitive issue.”

Their varying ancestral histories may bring them into contrast, and even conflict sometimes, but their current shared realities in the country of their birth also gives them plenty in common.

As foreigners in their own country, the issue of representation is one that is particularly important to Chung and Loo, and it led them to evaluate the issue of voting rights for non-Japanese nationals ahead of the recent upper house election.

“There is a tendency for others to simplify us or to force us into a corner,” said Loo, a graduate of University of California Berkeley and now a consultant at a large multinational professional services company.

“But in our case, we have lived in Japan for over 15 to 20 years…And so, for us, we feel the same things that Japanese people feel. We care about gender inequality, we care about the right of disabled people, we care about children,” she said.

But as much as they care, they, like the rest of the more than 2.73 million foreigners living in Japan, have no way to voice their opinion by casting a vote for a candidate or party that represents their best interests.

“In the season of the election many people around me they always say ‘I voted’ or ‘let’s go vote,’ but my frustration was that I was unable to join that voice,” said Chung, an artist, activist and office worker.

Without a voice and with issues of great frustration at the current Japanese leadership’s attitude toward some Korea-related issues, Chung came together with her friends to start the #VoteForMe social media campaign.

“This campaign started from my personal frustration, I guess. I felt this kind of frustration because I have no right to vote in Japan even though I was born in Japan and grew up in Japan,” said Chung.

“I wanted to make a kind of bridge between the voters and those who don’t have the right to vote, so this #VoteForMe campaign is going to be the bridge between them.”

The women hoped the social media campaign would raise awareness about Japan’s disenfranchised among those who have a vote, making them realize that their vote is both valuable and has even more significance to those without a voice.

Ha Kyung Hee, an assistant professor at Meiji University who specializes in race, ethnicity and immigration, understands the motivations of the trio.

Herself a zainichi Korean, Ha says many foreign residents feel alienated from Japanese political discourse “even though they are impacted by it.”

“Election season is a painful moment as it reminds me that we are still excluded from one of the most basic civil rights,” said Ha.

“My family has been in Japan for 90 years, my first language is Japanese, and I want to call Japan my home. And yet, I hesitate because we are not treated with equality and fairness as full members of society.”

Through the process of naturalization, Japan gives foreign-born residents a chance to take the same rights as a Japanese person. They have to have lived in the country for a prescribed amount of time, and must meet a number of other conditions, but it requires they give up any other nationality and their old passport.

But many foreign passport holders do not believe they should be required to forfeit their nationality in order to have a voice in their home country.

Cognizant that a vote for “me” does not necessarily mean that vote will represent the views to which they prescribe, the three women want to make clear they are not trying to influence anyone to vote one way or another — they just want to open a dialogue about issues of importance.

“It gives us a chance to engage in a conversation. If I say ‘vote for me’ and then (someone) asks me what are your issues and they agree with it, then it is their choice,” said Loo.

“In engaging in a conversation, (someone) might change their mind, they might go the complete opposite way, but that’s their choice…but at least now I can put my picture.”

And this was the situation for Hamanaka, who, of course, does have a vote.

She was initially conflicted about being involved as she felt it may have been viewed as inauthentic.

“I wanted to support them, I wanted to do something with them, but I didn’t know how I can,” said Hamanaka, who is from Tokyo and works alongside Loo at the professional services company.

Even more frustrating for the women is that Japanese people are increasingly taking their opportunity to vote for granted, demonstrated by the poor turnout at the upper house poll in July.

At that election, in which Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner secured a healthy vote, turnout for voting for candidates standing in the electoral constituencies fell to 48.80 percent, the second-lowest on record since 44.52 percent in 1995.

In the proportional representation section, turnout was slightly lower at 48.79 percent, according to the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry.

For Hamanaka, the indifference of her fellow Japanese is annoying, but understandable.

“I didn’t go vote (in the past) because I wanted to prioritize what I wanted to do at that time over going to vote, so I understand it,” she said.

“But not going to vote means they support the current system, so I want more people to think about the consequences.”

One solution to the lack of representation for foreigners would be for Japan to extend them the vote, as in some circumstances a number of other countries, including Japan’s close neighbor South Korea and a range of European nations, do.

Meiji University’s Ha says there is no reason for that not to become a reality, as with the numbers alone — foreigners make up about 2 percent of Japan’s population — the impact the foreign community could have is very limited.

“I absolutely think (foreigners being given a vote) is realistic, particularly for local elections, because we already have many examples from other countries.”

“I think it requires discussions as to whether or not foreign residents should have a right to participate in national elections, but currently there is no such discussion because in Japan political rights are thought to be strongly connected with one’s nationality.”

Similarly, Loo sees the likelihood of her getting a vote being a long way off, but says there is good reason for local governments to want to hear from their entire constituency, Japanese and non.

Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward is a perfect example of somewhere that foreigners need a voice.

The bustling, central Tokyo hub has a total of 43,065 foreign residents as of Aug. 1, according to its ward office, making up 12.3 percent of the total population — by some way the most of any municipality in Japan.

Therefore, says Loo, the local government should be a reflection of that relatively diverse demographic.

“Let’s say it is going to be 20 percent in the future, as the Japanese population shrinks, that means a kind of big chunk of people living in Shinjuku, for example, don’t have a say in how they want their community to be, how they want their living area to be.”

“So, something has to happen to change that system.”

There was a time when Japan gave serious thought to extending the vote to permanent residents.

Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan of the now-defunct centrist Democratic Party of Japan in 2010 supported an earlier Supreme Court ruling supporting the constitutionality of granting voting rights to non-Japanese nationals, but when he and then his party were ousted from power by the LDP, the push foundered.

There are examples of where permanent residents are allowed to vote in local referendums, such as in Maibara in Shiga Prefecture which became the first local municipality to allow it in 2002.

Since then, a number of other places have similarly allowed permanent residents a say in referendums on limited local matters, but no more than that.

Ha says much of the current thinking on the subject posits that there are only intangible reasons for major change being little more than a pipe dream.

“I see it as a symbolic refusal to treat foreign residents as equal partners in our society,” she said while pointing out that in many other countries, foreigners have a say.

“People in Japan really must start asking themselves what is so wrong about allowing foreign residents to vote instead of giving up on critical thinking and automatically equating voting rights with nationality.”

With universal suffrage realistically out of reach, at least for the foreseeable future, the #VoteForMe three have plans to make an impact elsewhere.

They plan to prepare a bigger and better campaign for the next Japanese poll, a general election that has to be held by October 2021, but also to expand their activities to encompass more activism.

Their next target is establishing a program to use performance art to highlight some targets of discrimination that hide in plain sight.

They want to bring attention to a range of issues of importance to them, with the treatment of Japan’s so-called burakumin population one such area of concern.

Hamanaka says that by using performance to highlight discrimination, it illuminates the reality faced by those suffering from in an accessible way: so that is the plan.

The meat-packing industry is particularly problematic, she says, because Japan’s burakumin, an outcast group traditionally rooted to the bottom of the social strata and restricted to working in jobs widely — and without any basis — considered “dirty” such as meat-processing, undertaking or as hide tanners, are a people whose plight should be more widely understood.

“In our daily lives it is very invisible, that process, but they are people who work in it and they are discriminated against in Japanese society, historically,” said Hamanaka.

“We are trying to make performance art in the place, and organizing a study tour to make the discrimination visible in a creative way.”

With impressive young women like Chung, Loo and Hamanaka trying to make their voices heard in Japan, the country is very likely moving in a positive direction.

However, the question remains whether the country’s leadership, or wider population, have any interest in listening.

Source: Muted in country of their birth, three women try to find their voice

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Japanese firms resist hiring foreign workers under new immigration law – poll

2019/05/24 Leave a comment

Significant culture change:

Only one in four Japanese companies plan to actively employ foreign workers under a new government immigration scheme, a Reuters poll found, complicating Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to ease the country’s tightest job market in decades.

And the bulk of the firms that may hire these immigrants do not plan to support them in securing housing, learning Japanese language skills or getting information on living in Japan, the Reuters Corporate Survey showed.

The survey results underscore the challenge for Japan to cope with its dwindling and ageing population that has put pressure on the government to relax tight foreign labour controls. Immigration has long been taboo here as many Japanese prize ethnic homogeneity.

The lack of language ability, cultural gap, costs of training, mismatches in skills and the fact that many foreign workers cannot stay permanently in Japan under the new system were among factors behind corporate wariness about hiring foreign workers, the Reuters poll showed.

The law, which took effect in April, creates two new categories of visas for blue-collar workers in 14 sectors such as construction and nursing care, which face a labour crunch. It is meant to attract up to 345,000 blue-collar workers to Japan over five years.

But the survey suggests the government may struggle to get the workers it needs to ease the country’s labour shortage where there are now 1.63 jobs available for every job seeker, the most since the beginning of 1974.

“Taking education costs, quality risks and yields into account, costs will go up” by hiring foreign workers, wrote a manager at a rubber-making company, who said the firm has no plans to hire foreign workers.

“We have failed in the past by employing foreign workers who could not blend in with a different culture,” a manager of a metal-products maker wrote.

Some 41% of firms are not considering hiring foreigners at all, 34% are not planning to hire many and 26% intend to hire such foreign workers, the survey conducted from May 8-17 showed.

Of those considering hiring foreign workers, a majority said they have no plans to support them in areas such as housing, Japanese language study and information on living in the country, it showed.

The survey, conducted monthly for Reuters by Nikkei Research, polled 477 large- and mid-size firms, with managers responding on condition of anonymity. Around 220 answered the questions on foreign workers.

Under the new law, a category of “specified skilled workers” can stay for up to five years but cannot bring family members. The other category is for more skilled foreigners who can bring relatives and be eligible to stay longer.

While foreign workers are generally viewed as cheap labour in Japan, 77% of firms see no change in wage levels at Japan Inc as a whole, when hiring specified skilled workers. Some 16% expect wages to decline and just 6 percent see wages rising.

Foreign workers “will help ease the labour crunch, bringing down overall wages,” a steelmaker manager wrote in the survey.

Abe, whose conservative base fears a rise in crime and a threat to the country’s social fabric, has insisted that the new law does not constitute an “immigration policy.”

Japan has about 1.28 million foreign workers – more than double the figure a decade ago but still just 2% of the workforce. Some 260,000 of them are trainees from countries such as Vietnam and China who can stay three to five years.

Source: Japanese firms resist hiring foreign workers under new immigration law – poll

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As Japan Tries Out Immigration, Migrant Workers Complain Of Exploitation

2019/01/17 Leave a comment

Some interesting, if disturbing, comparative data on trainees and some of the exploitation that some are facing as Japan slowly opens up to “guest workers”:

The wind howls and snow drifts around a house in Koriyama, in northeastern Japan’s Fukushima prefecture. The town is inland from Fukushima’s coastal areas that were devastated by the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant meltdown.

Inside the home, several Vietnamese laborers prepare dinner. The house is a shelter, run by local Catholics, for foreign workers who are experiencing problems in Japan.

One of the workers is surnamed Nguyen. He came to Japan in 2015 as part of a government program for technical trainees. He asked to use only his last name, as he doesn’t want his family in Vietnam to know what he’s been through.

He says he paid the equivalent of about $9,200 to a Vietnamese broker and signed a contract with a private construction company in Koriyama, Japan, to get on-the-job training as a rebar worker.

“I expected to come to a country more developed, clean and civilized than my own,” he recalls. “In my mind, Japan had many good things, and I wanted to learn professional skills to take home.”

Instead, he says he was ordered to do jobs such as removing radiation-contaminated soil from land around the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

“We were deceived,” Nguyen says, referring both to himself, and technical trainees in general.

He would not identify the company by name so as to avoid undermining negotiations he and a workers union are holding with the firm to get compensation.

He says the company issued him gloves and a mask, but not the kind of gear that would protect him against radiation. He did receive a radiation detector to wear, but only before safety inspectors paid a visit. He complained to the company, which ignored him.

Complicating matters, he had borrowed money from a bank and family members in Vietnam to pay the broker who helped him get to Japan.

“I wanted to sue my company, but I didn’t know how,” Nguyen explains. “I didn’t speak Japanese, or understand Japan’s legal system. So all I could do was be patient, and keep working to pay off the debt.”

Technical trainees like Nguyen now account for about 20 percent of the 1.3 million foreign laborers in Japan, according to government data cited by local media.

The Japanese government intends to bring in 345,000 more foreign workers in the next five years, to staff sectors including restaurants, construction, agriculture and nursing. Many will come from nations such as China, Myanmar, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Japan has both the world’s third-largest economy, and fastest-aging population. It also faces an acute labor shortage. Now, it is doing something previously unthinkable: allowing immigration — even as its prime minister denies it.

But advocates for the foreign workers warn that without an overhaul of the technical training program, many of the newcomers could be subjected to the same sort of exploitation Nguyen says he has experienced. Critics equate the training program with “slavery,” and deride it as the creation of labor without a labor force.

Most trainees are paid below minimum wage. They die of work-related causes at twice Japan’s overall rate, according to an analysis of government data by The Japan Times.

The problem of labor brokers using debt to enslave would-be immigrants is an element in human trafficking in many countries around the world.

The Japanese government has promised to crack down on unscrupulous brokers, establish 100 “consultation centers” where trainees can report abuses, increase Japanese language training for enrollees and generally strengthen oversight of the program.

But the U.S. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons report for 2018 says that, so far, Japan has failed to prevent brokers from holding technical trainees in “debt bondage,” and sometimes the authorities arrest trainees who escape from “exploitative conditions,” instead of helping and protecting them.

Many conservative opponents of immigration would prefer that foreign workers don’t stay in Japan after finishing the program.

Speaking before the Diet, Japan’s parliament, in October, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denied that the country is opening its door to immigration.

“We are not considering adopting a so-called immigration policy,” he insisted. “To cope with the labor shortage, we will expand the current system to accept foreign workers in special fields. We will accept foreign human resources that are skilled and work-ready, but only for a limited time.”

Japan’s parliament, which is controlled by the ruling right-wing Liberal Democratic Party, passed Abe’s plan last month.

Shiro Sasaki, secretary-general of the Zentoitsu Workers Union, which represents some of the foreign workers, rejects Abe’s argument, and adds that Japan’s government is not facing up to the reality of immigration.

“Abe’s definition of an immigrant is someone who lives in Japan long-term, with family,” he says. “But by international standards, the trainees are immigrants. In this sense we can say that Japan is already an immigrant society.”

Sasaki says that opening Japan’s door to immigrants even a tiny crack is better than tricking them into coming.

He says Japan has never experienced mass immigration in modern times, and it has failed to assimilate those few immigrants it has taken in. He sees the whole issue as a test of character for this island nation.

“Japan has never been able to examine itself and define itself in terms of diversity,” he argues. “Now we must live with diversity, and every single Japanese person must think about it.”

Then again, Robert Dujarric, director of the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at Temple University in Tokyo, argues that Abe may have no choice but to reform by stealth.

“Immigration is unfortunately not popular even in countries like the U.S. … which historically have been nations that have been built on immigration. So obviously he’s not going to say: ‘Vote for me, I will bring in 10 million foreigners.'”

Many analysts compare the technical training program to Germany’s gastarbeiter or guest worker program of the 1950s-70s. It too took in laborers from poorer neighboring countries — particularly Turkey — but tried to limit workers’ stay in order to prevent immigration. But the cost of hiring and training temporary workers was too high.

Many workers stayed on, paving the way for Germany to see itself as a de facto immigration nation.

Current trainees like Nguyen may be eligible to remain in the country for up to five years on a new class of visas.

But Nguyen says that without decent pay and a chance to learn new skills, he has no interest in staying on.

Source: As Japan Tries Out Immigration, Migrant Workers Complain Of Exploitation

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An Excel error could delay Japan’s massive immigration overhaul

2018/11/21 Leave a comment

As someone who works a lot with data, this can happen. But it shouldn’t, given government validation and checking processes:

Japan’s government seems to be in need of some tech support.

Its plans to pass a crucial immigration bill that could open the country’s doors further to as many as 340,000 foreign workers from next year might be stymied due to data input errors.

Japan’s government had given lawmakers an analysis of why foreign workers in the country are dropping out of an existing work training program, as it argues for the country to create create two new categories of work visas. The justice ministry admitted last week that the data on those workers was incorrect, and blamed the problems on the handling of an Excel spreadsheet, Japan Times reported yesterday (Nov. 19). For example, the analysis exaggerated the number of foreign workers who left their jobs because they wanted higher-paying positions, rather than to escape poor wages or working conditions.

There are some 1.3 million foreign workers in Japan as of 2017, a 17% increase from the previous year, as businesses try and fill positions in industries ranging from construction to food preparation to nursing amid a shrinkage in Japan’s working population. Right now, foreign workers filling run-of-the-mill jobs are often in the country on temporary “trainee” visas that lock them into employers.

The proposed work-visa categories, approved this month by prime minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet, would allow those with “specified skills” in the most labor-starved industries to live and work in Japan under for up to five years. The new visa status would also allow such workers more flexibility in changing jobs, which would make them less vulnerable, proponents of greater immigration to Japan say.

Though Japan’s justice ministry has said that the errors were the result of mistakes in data processing—the latest IT mishap after Japan’s newly appointed cybersecurity minister admitted that he had never used a computer—opposition lawmakers have accused the government of glossing over the problems with the current trainee program in order to rush the bill through.

In the revised data, the government said for example that 12.6% of trainees said that they left their jobs because of harsh working conditions, up from the previous 5.4% presented by the ministry. Opposition legislators boycotted a debate over the immigration overhaul in the Diet last week in protest, but deliberations could resume this week.Many of those currently working as trainees are expected to switch over to the new visa status once the bill becomes law.

Calling foreign workers technical trainees or interns was a workaround for the government to keep it from having to admit that more people from overseas are living in Japan—a country where many remain deeply apprehensive about immigration, even as it struggles with a severe labor shortage. But it’s also a workaround that has left thousands of workers vulnerable to exploitation by employers and the brokers who bring them over, as many of these trainees told lawmakers earlier this month.

Source: An Excel error could delay Japan’s massive immigration overhaul

And public opinion appears sceptical regarding the proposed changes:

Sixty-four percent of respondents said there is no rush to revise the immigration control law to expand the acceptance of foreign workers from next spring, according to an Asahi Shimbun poll released on Nov. 20.

They said it is not necessary to pass the revisions in the current extraordinary Diet session, while 22 percent of respondents believe it should be.

The nationwide poll was conducted Nov. 17 and 18.

The government and the ruling parties are seeking to pass the revisions to the immigration control law in the current Diet session.

However, even among supporters of the Liberal Democratic Party, the main force of the ruling coalition, 57 percent said that it is not necessary to do so. Only 31 percent replied that the revisions should be passed in the current session.

The survey also asked respondents about whether they support the expansion of acceptance of foreign workers. Forty-five percent, down from 49 percent in the previous survey in October, said they support it. Forty-three percent, up from 37 percent, expressed opposition.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said that accepting more foreign workers into Japan is not a policy of accepting immigrants. As for Abe’s comment, 52 percent of respondents said that they don’t accept the explanation while 29 percent replied that they agree with it.

In the latest poll, the support rate for the Abe Cabinet stood at 43 percent, up from 40 percent of the previous survey, while the nonsupport rate was 34 percent, down from 40 percent.

The latest number means that the support rate for the Abe Cabinet recovered to the levels recorded in January and February polls, which were taken prior to the revelation of the alteration of Finance Ministry documents.

Respondents also were asked about the four islands off eastern Hokkaido that were occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II in 1945. The islands, called the Northern Territories in Japan, are Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and Habomai.

Abe agreed with Russian President Vladimir Putin in their summit on Nov. 14 to accelerate peace treaty negotiations based on the 1956 Japan-Soviet joint declaration that stipulates the return of two islands, Shikotan and Habomai, to Japan after concluding a peace treaty.

The survey asked respondents if they expect an agreement to lead to a resolution of the long stalemate over the Northern Territories issue.

A total of 60 percent replied that they don’t expect that at all or very much. Thirty-eight percent responded that they very much expect it or at least to some degree.

The survey also asked about how Japan should deal with the Northern Territories issue.

Fifty-one percent replied that the government should first seek the return of Shikotan and Habomai and continue to hold negotiations on the return of the remaining two islands.

Meanwhile, 25 percent said Russia should return the four islands at the same time, and 11 percent said that Japan should conclude the Northern Territories issue with the return of the two islands. Six percent replied that Japan should not seek the return of any of the four islands.

The Asahi Shimbun conducted the survey through land-line telephones and mobile phones of eligible voters chosen randomly by computer.

Of 2,048 households contacted with land-line telephones, 991 people, or 48 percent, gave valid responses. As for mobile phone users, 949 of 2,022 people, or 47 percent, gave valid responses.

Land-line telephones do not include those located in a part of Fukushima Prefecture.

Source:  Poll: 64% say not necessary to rush revisions to immigration law November 20, 2018 Sixty-four percent of respondents said there is no rush to revise the 

 

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The changing face of Japan: labour shortage opens doors to immigrant workers

2018/11/09 Leave a comment

More on changes to Japan’s immigration policies:

One by one, Mohammad and Munadi thread scallop shells on to thin metal rods, breaking the monotony with quiet chatter in their native Javanese. The shells will soon be used to cultivate oysters, a speciality in this region of western Japan.

Neither of the men, crouching on the floor of a shed overlooking Japan’s Inland Sea, had even seen an oyster before they came to Akitsu, a tiny port town in eastern Hiroshima prefecture, in April this year.

They are part of a growing foreign workforce that policymakers see as a solution to Japan’s shrinking, ageing population and a stubbornly low birthrate.

Under pressure from businesses battling the tightest labour shortage in decades, Japan’s government has finally been forced to relax its tough immigration policy.

Last week, the administration of prime minister Shinzo Abe approved legislation that will open the door to as many as half a million foreign workers by 2025, in what some are calling the end to Japan’s traditional opposition to large-scale immigration. The bill is expected to pass by the end of the year and go into effect next April.

Japan – one of the world’s most homogenous societies – has long resisted foreign labour, with exceptions made for those in professions such as teaching, medicine, engineering and the law. Mohammad and Munadi are part of a government-run foreign technical trainee programme that is supposed to provide workers from developing countries with skills they can take back to their home countries after five years.

Critics say employers abuse the scheme for cheap labour, with many failing to pay proper salaries and forcing interns to work long hours. In addition, the programme, which employed just over 260,000 foreign workers last year, does not include enough people with the specific skills required in sectors of the economy that are suffering from a labour shortage.

There were 1.28 million foreign workers among Japan’s workforce of 66 million in 2017 – double the number in 2012. But many are university students or technical trainees who, like Mohammad and Munadi, are not permitted to stay indefinitely. Unemployment dropped to at just 2.3% in September and there are 163 job vacancies for every 100 job seekers – the highest job availability for more than 40 years.

‘Not a conventional immigration policy’

Under the new legislation, foreign workers will be divided into two categories. Those with skills in sectors experiencing labour shortages will be allowed to work for up to five years but cannot bring their families with them. Those with more advanced skills will be able to bring family members and renew their visas indefinitely, and may eventually apply for permanent residency. Members of both groups must pass a Japanese-language exam.

Abe denied he was abandoning Japan’s tough immigration policy. “Please don’t misunderstand,” he said, warning that labour shortages risked obstructing Japan’s return to modest economic growth.

“We are not pursuing a conventional immigration policy,” Abe told MPs, adding that most foreign workers would stay in Japan for limited periods and that the policy would be reviewed in the event of an economic downturn or easing of labour shortages in particular sectors. “It would be wrong to force our values on foreigners. Instead, it’s important to create an environment in which people can happily coexist.”

But some experts disagree. “I think this is a de facto shift to an immigration policy,” said Hidenori Sakanaka, the former head of the Tokyo immigration bureau.

The prospect of a significant rise in the number of immigrant workers prompted a backlash from opposition parties.

The rightwing Japan First party complained that an influx of foreign workers would place intolerable pressure on welfare services and lead to higher crime rates.

Yuichiro Tamaki, leader of the centrist Democratic Party for the People, voiced concern over pressure on wages and social services. But he became the first party leader to support a European-style immigration policy that, he said, should ensure equal pay for equal work and allow foreign workers to bring their families to Japan.

The current edition of the rightwing magazine Sapio features a series of articles warning of a rise in violence, sex crimes and cultural clashes, while the private broadcaster Fuji TV was criticised for a recent programme about visa overstayers that demonised immigrants.

The public appears more tolerant, however. A survey by the TV Tokyo and the Nikkei business newspaper showed 54% of Japanese voters favoured allowing in more unskilled foreign workers, with 36% against. Support for the move was particularly high among younger people.

The liberal Asahi newspaper said Abe had failed to address “a slew of concerns about its hasty initiative to drastically increase the number of foreign workers”.

“Whether they are called immigrants or not, the government has a responsibility to lay out a viable and convincing vision of the future of Japanese society where foreign workers and Japanese citizens can live together in harmony and feel secure,” the newspaper said, adding that the change was “bound to have a far-reaching effect on Japanese society”.

Those changes are already being felt in Hiroshima prefecture’s fisheries, where one in six workers is foreign – the highest rate in any industry in Japan. Among fishermen in their 20s and 30s, the ratio is one in two.

‘Places like this can’t survive without foreign workers’

In Akitsu, young fisheries workers from overseas now outnumber their ageing Japanese counterparts 33 to 30.

Takatoshi Shiba, head of the Akitsu fishermen’s cooperative, jokes that at 67, he is relatively young compared to his Japanese colleagues. “It feels like a wasted opportunity because the trainees spend time learning the job and getting used to life here, and then they have to go home after a few years,” says Shiba. “I don’t think the government has any choice but to act soon. Places like this can’t survive without foreign workers.”

Mohammad and Munadi say they have adapted well to life in rural Japan, although neither has plans to stay more than three years. They spend their days off shopping in nearby Hiroshima and playing badminton, and can now buy halal meat from the local supermarket. In just a few months they have acquired enough conversational Japanese to communicate with their neighbours and other trainees from China, the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam.

“We get on well with our Japanese colleagues and bosses,” says Munadi, 27, who left Java in April just after his wife gave birth to their first child. “And we get paid a lot more here than we would back in Indonesia.”

Mohammad agrees. “The work is no problem, but we miss our families,” he says as he removes another scallop shell from the pile in front of him. “But we are happy here.”

Source: The changing face of Japan: labour shortage opens doors to immigrant workers

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Japan’s New Foray into Immigration Policy

2018/10/02 Leave a comment

Interesting overview on the degree of change:

Japan has traditionally imposed one of the most stringent immigration policies among developed nations. But with aging demographics, its increasingly critical labor shortage is prompting more radical approaches, including relaxing a virtual ban on unskilled workers.

Of the world’s developed economies, Japan has shown the most resistance to accepting immigrants into its labor force. The number of working foreigners in Japan has more than doubled in the past decade to 1.3 million, but that remains below 2 percent of the labor force, compared with 13 percent in Britain and 39 percent in Singapore.

Japan long ago adopted a policy to accept just high-skilled foreign workers, and only as non-immigrants. But chronic labor shortages, especially in construction, shipbuilding, agriculture, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing, have caused the Japanese government to liberalize its immigration policy.

In June, the Cabinet announced plans to create a new, five-year permit system, based on the proposal of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, chaired by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It is reported that this system would accept 500,000 low-skilled non-Japanese laborers by 2025.

The era of “Abenomics” – referring to the economic policies enacted since 2012 under Abe’s second prime ministership –has seen remarkable developments regarding Japan’s immigration policy. These have occurred against a background of falling birth rates and an aging population, as well as globalization. Japan’s points-based system has been newly revised by the government; and the discussion on immigration has, for the first time, embraced the possibility of accepting unskilled workers, such as foreign domestic helpers and agricultural laborers.

New to the Notion of Immigration

Generally, national immigration policy determines how many foreign workers a country admits, and under what conditions, while labor policies determine what protections are provided after foreigners are admitted. The two aspects influence each other, as well as realize the ideas of “selection,” in terms of immigration, and “integration,” whereby foreign workers are absorbed into the host country’s domestic labor market.

Japan is a relative newcomer to the global debate on migration. One important but as yet unresolved issue is whether the country should accept immigrants who are given open-ended permission to stay (i.e., permanent residency) or accept foreigners only as non-immigrant guest workers who are allowed to stay temporarily.

Until recently, Japan had not taken the policy to accept foreign workers as immigrants. Nowadays, however, it is becoming easier for a foreigner who once entered Japan as a non-immigrant to acquire permanent resident status after a certain period of time.

A second issue for Japan is the qualitative assessment of foreign workers: should it accept only workers with special talents in professional fields, or include unskilled workers as well, to address labor shortages? Japan has tended to promote acceptance of foreign workers in skilled or professional fields, and reject acceptance of non-skilled workers. However, the program that the government is reportedly introducing would open a door for substantial numbers of unskilled workers.

Changes for Skilled and Unskilled Workers

In May 2012, a points-based system for highly skilled professional (HSP) workers was introduced in three fields: advanced academic research, advanced specialty/technology, and advanced business management. Points are assigned according to various criteria, such as education, work history, annual income, age, and research record. A foreigner who earns 70 points or more is recognized as an HSP and thus receives preferential treatment for entrance into and residence in Japan.

In subsequent years, the government has eased HSP requirements. The most significant change has been resetting the annual income minimum requirement at ¥3 million (US$26,773). This requirement is even waived for advanced academic research professionals. One downside to this is that this loosening of requirements may negatively impact HSPs’ work prospects.

Building upon this, the government introduced a faster-track points-based application process in April 2017. Under this system, HSPs who earn 70 points or more can apply for   apply after only one year. Although the government says that this is not a policy to accept immigrants, there is not much difference between giving permanent resident status at the time of entry and giving such status soon after entrance.

The situation is similarly changing for foreigners who are not recognized as skilled or professional workers. Given a rapidly aging workforce, several sectors are experiencing labor shortages. A third of Japan’s construction workers are at least 55 years old and the demand for construction workers is intensifying before the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games. The increasing number of Japanese citizens over 65 years of age has intensified the need for caregivers for the elderly. Foreign caregiver qualifications are not recognized in Japan and migrant nursing workers must pass a certification course.

Furthermore, foreign domestic helpers are being admitted under the National Strategic Special Zones Act, covering Tokyo, Kanagawa prefecture, Osaka prefecture, and Hyogo prefecture. Revisions to that act in 2017 are likely to open the doors to foreign agricultural workers being allowed to work in Kyoto prefecture, the city of Niigata, Aichi prefecture, and Okinawa prefecture.

There has been much recent debate on the Technical Intern Training Program, which was originally established to transfer skills acquired at Japanese companies to developing countries. But it has been criticized as a backdoor route for Japanese entities to acquire cheap labor from poorer countries. In order to improve the program, the 2016 Technical Intern Training Act was enacted to ensure the proper implementation of the program as was intended.

The Future of Immigration in Japan

The Japanese government is currently moving toward amending the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act. This could lead to major changes in immigration policy; specifically, wider acceptance of unskilled workers. While some stakeholders see unskilled foreign workers as a source of cheap labor, others worry about the cost of educating and managing them, citing cultural and language barriers. Further concerns include “integration” factors, such as welfare costs, as well as public safety and social stability.

The Japanese government is moving toward wider acceptance of unskilled workers.

Although Japan has toughened some aspects of its immigration policy—such as the rules of the Technical Intern Training Program—this will be offset by the possibility of more relaxed requirements for HSPs and greater immigration by unskilled workers. At the same time, it is becoming easier for foreigners who have entered Japan as non-immigrants to acquire permanent resident status.

Recent pushback from the domestic labor market indicates that the government might need to conduct more extensive consultations. It might become necessary to introduce certain labor market tests, such as requiring employers who plan to hire foreign workers to show they have attempted to recruit domestic workers beforehand. In addition, the idea of “integration,” which should be considered within the framework of labor and employment policy, is not being given enough thought currently. In order to avoid negative impacts on the domestic labor market and problems regarding working conditions and foreign worker unemployment, it is necessary to integrate and adjust these policies with a long-term perspective.

Chizuko Hayakawa is a researcher at Saga University. Her research focuses on Japan’s foreign worker policies.  This article was written for AsiaGlobal Online, the website of the Asia Global Institute at Hong Kong University.

Source: Japan’s New Foray into Immigration Policy – Asia Sentinel

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Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors – Nikkei Asian Review

2018/06/01 Leave a comment

Good long read on this shift albeit with temporary worker focus:

The Koto area of Tokyo is just waking up when Dang Ngoc Hoang and his four Vietnamese colleagues arrive at the construction site at 6:30. Along with a group of Japanese colleagues, they will spend the day moving heavy wooden pilings and pouring concrete for the foundation of a seven-story condominium block.

It is demanding work, but the 22-year-old Hoang sees it as a stepping stone toward a white-collar job in Japan, where he has lived for the past two years.

“I’ve chosen the construction industry because the work involves lots of communication and helps improve my Japanese,” Hoang said, in fluent Japanese. He eventually wants to work as a translator in Japan, and hopes that his fiancee will be able to join him there one day.

His employer, Yasutake Maeda of Saiseki Katawaku Kogyo, said trainees like Hoang are indispensable for his company of 32. “Foreign trainees learn faster than Japanese,” Maeda said. “They are more serious, more hardworking, and take fewer days off. They are keen to learn and work hard for money. Few young Japanese show such guts these days.”

Foreign construction workers like Hoang are becoming a familiar sight in Japan. Like other industries in a rapidly aging Japan, the construction business is desperate for labor. A third of the country’s construction workers are 55 or older, with those aged 29 or younger totaling just 11%. As baby boomers retire, the labor shortage — in construction and in the wider economy — is bound to become more acute.

The demand for construction workers is intensifying before the 2020 Olympics, and Hoang is one of the 274,000 foreign workers in Japan on a government-backed trainee program that has become a back door for foreign unskilled workers who would otherwise not be allowed in. Started in 1993, the program has boomed in recent years — and is one reason that the number of foreign workers in Japan has nearly quadrupled over the last decade.

Led by an influx of workers from China, Vietnam and the Philippines, Japan is in the midst of a quiet revolution when it comes to immigrant workers. Though the total number of foreign workers in Japan is small compared to the more than 3 million in the U.K. and Germany, it is catching up rapidly — a remarkable shift for a nation famous for resistance to immigration.

Without fanfare, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has steadily loosened Japan’s once tightly controlled visa policy, resulting in an almost doubling of the number of foreign workers in Japan to 1.28 million over the last five years. In its latest move, Abe’s government is expected to create a new class of  five-year work permits for unskilled workers in hopes of attracting more than 500,000 new overseas workers by 2025. The new guidelines, to be finalized in June, will ease language requirements for foreign workers in construction, agriculture, elderly care and other sectors that are suffering the most serious labor shortages. It will also be possible for trainees to extend their stay for up to 10 years.

Immigration remains a politically charged issue in Japan, with some in Abe’s party warning that allowing more immigrants into the country will cause economic and social problems. So Abe has been left trying to ensure that companies can get the workers they need while also signaling that he is not opening the door to immigrants. “My government has no intention of adopting a so-called immigration policy,” Abe said in February.

Yet the total number of foreign residents in Japan has grown 20% in the last three years, reaching 2.6 million in 2017, or 2% of the total population. In Tokyo, one in eight residents who came of age this year were foreigners.

“Anyone wandering around Japan, from Hokkaido to Tokyo to Okinawa, knows that there is growing diversity in schools and the workplace,” said Jeff Kingston, a professor at Temple University Japan. “Employers know just how essential [foreign workers] are and this recognition is spreading. Japan is a new immigration destination … and more is necessary to boost its future economic prospects.”

While foreign workers are now part of everyday life in Japan — making ready-to-eat foods in convenience stores, growing fruits and vegetables on farms and sorting packages for delivery companies — public debate has been limited. So far discussions have centered around issues such as how many temporary workers should be allowed in and for how many years, rather than the longer-term question of whether Japan needs permanent immigration to cope with a shrinking population. As a result, Abe’s position — despite its apparent contradictions — has faced no strong pushback from the public or politicians yet.

Many Japanese look at the deep divisions in the West over immigration and conclude that a more open policy should be avoided. Yet the steady relaxation of migration rules has not led to the social fissures seen elsewhere.

“Japan, like all other countries, does have racist problems, but hate crime and hate speech are relatively uncommon and the issue has not been politicized. No party has embraced xenophobia,” Kingston said.

With Japan facing its tightest labor market in decades, the business community would like Abe to go further. The unemployment rate stands at 2.5%, the lowest level in 25 years. There are now 1.59 jobs for every job seeker, the highest ratio since 1974.

Given Japan’s demographics — it is the world’s oldest advanced economy — the labor shortage is only going to intensify. The nation’s working-age population, defined as those aged between 15 and 64, is expected to decrease more than 40% to 45 million over the next 50 years. By contrast, those aged 75 or older, dubbed the “super-elderly,” are projected to make up more than a quarter of the population.

Cabbages and car parts

No industry is feeling the effect of aging more than the farm sector, where the average worker is 67, and 60% are 65 or older. Most of their children have left for the city in search of better-paying office work.

For many in Ibaraki, the nation’s second-largest farming prefecture, the government’s trainee program has allowed them to hold on to their livelihoods.

Among them is Kota Hirohara, 56, who raises cabbages on his small farm. On a recent May day, two Indonesian trainees were harvesting Hirohara’s cabbages by hand with large nakiri, or vegetable knives. Hirohara says his farm is not big enough to need an expensive cabbage harvesting machine.

The two men, Muhamad Irvan Gustian and Farruq Fahlevi, both 21, can pick as many as 4,000 cabbages during their eight-hour workday. They also weed the fields, spray insecticide and look after cherry tomatoes in a greenhouse, where the temperature can reach 40 C in summer.

Gustian joined the program because he did not have a job back in Indonesia other than helping with his parents’ farm. He speaks basic Japanese, which he picked up watching anime series such as “One Piece” and “Detective Conan.”

The farm is in a fairly remote community with little entertainment around, so Gustian has few things to do other than work, study or meet fellow Indonesian trainees in the area. “I have no girlfriend,” he said. “I want to do more work.” He says he wants to run a big farm in Indonesia one day, perhaps growing rice or coffee.

Though the labor shortages are acute in Japan’s rural areas, they are not confined to them. Shigeru, a Subaru parts supplier in the city of Ota, Gunma Prefecture, has hired 93 foreign trainees to work among its 1,040 regular Japanese workers.

The workers at Shigeru make instrument panels used in the Outback, Impreza and other models. The company hires Japanese part-timers in response to changes in demand, but Masayoshi Tabata, general manager, says foreign trainees are more dependable. “Part-timers quit when they find better-paying jobs. Trainees stay for three years.”

They have no choice: The government’s program requires trainees to stay with the same employer for three years. The fact that they have no other place to go can strengthen the hand of the employer — and in some cases result in abuses, such as unpaid overtime or underpayment, said Kosuke Oie, a lawyer with experience in labor issues facing foreign residents.

Trainees are discouraged from going back to their country before finishing the three-year term or from having a child, and they cannot bring their spouse on the visa.

In the past, the trainee program was marred by recruiting organizations in the countries of origin who charged exorbitant commissions — sometimes  $10,000 or more, according to Oie — to trainees, including huge deposits from them in case they quit. The U.S. State Department warned in 2017 that such tactics could contribute to forced labor.

International pressure and media reports led to a law change in November 2017, allowing only certified organizations to participate in the trainee program. Criminal penalties were introduced for mistreatment of workers while a new government agency has been given a legal mandate to conduct random inspections. A whistleblower system has also been created that allows cases of abuse to be reported via email, a telephone hotline or a dedicated website. Most trainees have smartphones with them and have Wi-Fi access in their dormitories.

Fast-track system for tech workers

After Abe’s government realized Japan faced an acute shortage of IT workers — a 2015 estimate put the shortfall at 170,000 — his administration introduced a fast-track permanent resident visa program for them in 2017.

Japanese industrial leaders such as Toyota are feeling pressure from U.S. technology companies like Google and Uber in the emerging fields of autonomous driving, artificial intelligence, ride-sharing and the internet of things. In these new fields, the flow of ideas — and people — is vital.

“It is impossible for Japanese to create a very competitive technology-based company unless we globalize internally, meaning we need to bring the best and brightest from all over the world,” said Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO of Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten, at an in-house seminar last year.

At Rakuten’s Japanese headquarters in a Tokyo suburb, a quarter of its roughly 6,000 employees are foreigners. The company hires about 400 engineers every year, of which 70% are non-Japanese, mainly Indians and Chinese.

Rakuten’s push for global talent began in 2009, the year after the company opened its e-commerce site in Taiwan in 2008 in its first overseas expansion, and accelerated with the official adoption of English as the company’s primary language in 2012.

Mikitani’s revelation came during a lunch session with Indian engineers. They were able to talk with him in Japanese after just a few months’ stay, leaving a deep impression on the executive.

Amit Agrawal, a 35-year-old engineer from India, is one of those who were hired by Rakuten.

“Most Japanese companies don’t accept non-Japanese speakers. Rakuten is one of the companies that accept non-Japanese-speaking people,” said Agrawal, who works in a massive open room that is almost entirely filled by foreign workers. His engineering team helps bring together Rakuten’s sprawling array of businesses, from banking and e-commerce to travel and mobile phone, via a loyalty point system.

“Rakuten is basically an e-commerce company, but we are moving into other businesses also. I wanted to work in the latest technologies,” Agrawal said.

Family ties

But IT workers are an exception. Most others, even skilled workers, face significant hurdles to settling in Japan.

One of the biggest difficulties has to do with restrictions on allowing family members to accompany workers — a move designed to prevent permanent immigration. Though they are starting to loosen for a small number of the most skilled workers, such restrictions may limit Japan’s allure as a destination for people with sought-after training.

Among those whose skills are in great demand is Marliezl Abud, a 33-year-old who has worked for the last seven years at an elderly care facility, Care Port Itabashi.

Japan faces a serious shortage of workers to look after its rising elderly population. To ease this, it entered economic partnership agreements with the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam that would allow up to 900 caregivers a year to come work in the country for up to four or five years each.

Abud was able to come to Japan through this program, but the hurdles were high. Only those with a four-year-college degree and a Philippine qualification as a caregiver were accepted. Once in Japan, she also had to pass a local licensing exam to be able to stay beyond the trial period.

She sends most of her salary to her parents and sisters back in the Philippines. Her younger sister has a daughter who is going on to private school, and Abud’s earnings contribute to her niece’s education.

Abud felt a crushing homesickness at first. But after she had passed the local exam, she got married in the Philippines and brought her husband to Japan. Abud says she likes Japan because it is safe and the people are hardworking. She likes the shopping, too.

But she and her husband see possible obstacles ahead for their lives in Japan. Her visa allows her husband to work only up to 28 hours a week, which could pose problems if they start a family.

“I want to have a child next year,” Abud says. “Our life will become tough if I go on a maternity leave.”

via Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors – Nikkei Asian Review

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Japanese abroad plan first lawsuit demanding dual citizenship：The Asahi Shimbun

2018/02/27 Leave a comment

Given the large number of multinational Japanese companies and thus Japanese expatriates, surprised that this has not become more of an issue earlier:

Japanese residing in Europe plan to file a lawsuit demanding the right to dual citizenship, arguing that the Japanese law that forces people to pick only one nationality are outdated, unconstitutional and invalid.

The lawsuit, to be filed against the government at the Tokyo District Court next month, will be the first litigation of its kind, according to the legal team of the eight would-be plaintiffs, who include Japanese living in Switzerland and France.

Six of them have been granted foreign citizenship and want to restore their Japanese nationality.

However, Section 1 in Article 11 of the Nationality Law stipulates that if “a Japanese citizen acquires the nationality of a foreign country at his/her choice, he/she loses Japanese nationality.”

The remaining two want to confirm that they can keep their Japanese citizenship even if they obtain a foreign nationality.

Teruo Naka, a lawyer for the group, says it is unreasonable for Japanese to lose their nationality at a time when they have growing opportunities to live and work regardless of national borders.

“The plaintiffs are hoping to keep their Japanese nationality out of an attachment to Japan and ties with their relatives living in Japan,” he said.

The plaintiffs are expected to argue in court that Section 1 in Article 11 was originally established to prevent the granting of multiple citizenship from the perspective of compulsory military service when the 1890 Constitution of the Empire of Japan was in effect. That clause was automatically passed into the current Nationality Law, which became effective in 1950, after the postwar Constitution took effect in 1947.

Sovereignty rested with the emperor under the previous Constitution, known as the Meiji Constitution. The current Constitution upholds sovereignty of the people.

They will also argue that a wide disparity has grown between the ideal of a single nationality, championed since the Meiji Era (1868-1912), and the current realities of globalization.

The group will also contend that the right to retain Japanese nationality is guaranteed under articles of the current Constitution.

Article 13 of the postwar Constitution, for example, guarantees the right to the pursuit of happiness, they said. Paragraph 2 of Article 22, they noted, states, “Freedom of all persons to move to a foreign country and to divest themselves of their nationality shall be inviolate.”

Unlike in the United States and some European countries, where residents can hold more than one citizenship, the Japanese law still pushes for a single nationality.

Individuals with dual or multiple citizenship, such as children born to Japanese and foreign nationals, are required to select one nationality by the age of 22 under the Nationality Law. Their numbers have increased in recent years with the rise in international marriages in Japan.

If Japanese citizens obtain a foreign nationality through, for example, an international marriage, they are legally obliged to renounce either the foreign or Japanese nationality within two years.

But there is no clause that penalizes those who do not come forward to announce their decision.

“Only those who honestly declare their selection in compliance with the law lose their Japanese nationality,” one of the plaintiffs said.

It is common for Japanese families overseas to acquire the citizenship of their host country for business or employment opportunities.

Hitoshi Nogawa, 74, who leads the plaintiffs and serves as head of the Japanese community in Basel, Switzerland, said he needed Swiss citizenship to enable his company to participate in defense-related public works projects in the country.

Another plaintiff said it is common practice for Japanese expatriates to use their Japanese passports only when they return and leave Japan. Inside their host country, they use the citizenship they have acquired there for business.

It is widely believed that many Japanese with dual citizenship have not declared their status. But not coming forward can lead to problems.

In 2016, questions arose about the nationality of Renho, an Upper House member who then headed the main opposition party. She was born in Japan to a Taiwanese father and Japanese mother, and doubts were raised that she had renounced her Taiwanese citizenship under the Nationality Law. She produced documents showing she did so in 2016.

According to the Foreign Ministry, about 460,000 Japanese with resident status were living overseas as of October 2016. It was not clear how many of them actually held more than one nationality.

Justice Ministry statistics showed that the number of Japanese who renounced their Japanese nationality after selecting a foreign citizenship or for other reasons ranged from 700 to 1,000 annually between 2012 and 2016.

via Japanese abroad plan first lawsuit demanding dual citizenship：The Asahi Shimbun

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Douglas Todd: Joy Kogawa’s many shades of Japanese-Canadian shame

2016/10/22 Leave a comment

Interesting and disturbing:

Joy Kogawa has noticed reviewers of her new bookof memoirs have not touched arguably the most controversial section of her intimate exploration of betrayal and hope.

Reviewers have focused instead on the way the Vancouver-raised author of Obasan and The Rain Descends dealt with her Japanese-Canadian family being sent to an internment camp, the bombing of Nagasaki and how her father was a pedophile.

However, Kogawa, 81, has been publicly forthright for decades about those shame-filled realities.

The most cutting-edge section of her book, titled Gently to Nagasaki, digs into horrors most Canadians and ethnic Japanese want to deny — Japan’s war atrocities.

The peace activist’s memoirs describe her painful relatively recent discovery of the extent of the slaughters and mass rapes committed by the Imperial Japanese army.

It was while Japanese troops were killing millions of Asians and others that Canadian governments in 1942 sent many Japanese-Canadians, most of them from B.C., to internment camps.

Following her family’s ordeal in camps in the Kootenays and Alberta, Kogawa gained wide attention for helping lead the campaign that culminated in Ottawa’s 1988 apology and compensation to 20,000 Japanese-Canadians.

The many honours eventually bestowed upon Kogawa included the 2006 establishment of Vancouver’s Kogawa House, where the family had lived until 1942. It’s now a residence for writers.

But Kogawa has not allowed adoration to stop her pursuit of the authentic. Her mission seems to be to move beyond denial on all fronts: regarding internment camps, racism, global warming, her priest-father’s sexual crimes and her relatively recent discovery of Japanese war monstrosities.

“Love and truth are indivisible,” Kogawa says.

Her wise aphorism has had unpleasant consequences, though. Since most Canadians who don’t want to offend ignore Japan’s grisly war history, Kogawa acknowledged in an interview from her residence in Toronto that she’s had to “face the rage” of many.

“It’s cost me some really good friendships.”

Whether in Toronto, Vancouver or Japan, Kogawa said, many people, including ethnic Japanese, “just don’t believe” the atrocities occurred. They’d “rather die” than have the reality exposed.

“Or they feel I’m betraying them by talking about it. But it takes the truth to get to reconciliation.”

Source: Douglas Todd: Joy Kogawa’s many shades of Japanese-Canadian shame | Vancouver Sun

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A Japanese multicultural society still far off | East Asia Forum

2016/10/15 1 Comment

Interesting article on Japan, which remains relatively homogenous and closed to immigration:

Earlier this year I was asked by a group of non-Japanese global business leaders to talk about Japan’s immigration situation. The participants were remarkably well informed about Japan’s ‘dire’ demographic state of affairs — its declining and ageing population — and were interested in how Japan was planning to handle a labour shortfall. They were incredulous when I explained that Japan has no plans to open its doors to migrants any time soon. For them this was economic suicide made possible only through some kind of cognitive dissonance. For a long-term resident of Japan, the interesting thing about this conversation was the disconnection between the sense of crisis felt by outsiders and the lack of action in Japan itself.

Indonesian nurses study Japanese culture in Jakarta before leaving to work in Japan. Nursing is included in a bilateral economic partnership agreement. (Photo: Crack Palinggi/Reuters).

That is not to say that there has been no discussion in Japan about immigration reform. Political committees and media commentators seem to be engaged in never-ending kentō (consideration) over whether or not to open the door to migrants, especially foreign manual workers.

A similar debate at the end of the 1980s resulted in Brazilians and others of Japanese descent gaining working rights in 1990. In 1993, Japan also extended the length of time that technical trainees were allowed to stay. These two groups continue to make up the largest source of ‘backdoor’ labour — ‘backdoor’ because even today Japan does not, in principle, accept blue-collar workers.

Japan’s ‘no immigration principle’ can be seen as an institutionalisation of the ‘homogeneous people’ conception of the Japanese nation that continues to play a key role in structuring its identity. The term ‘migrant’ tends to be studiously avoided or replaced by euphemisms such as ‘entrants’ or ‘foreign workers’. The implication is that foreigners should not stay long or settle down.

While some more revolutionary immigration reform proposals have emerged recently, such as establishing a guest worker program, the steps that have been taken are very much within the conventional framework. For example, the inclusion of health workers — nurses and caregivers — in economic partnership agreements with Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam attempted to address critical labour shortages in particular areas. But, again, the need to maintain the ‘no immigration principle’ saw strict conditions attached that resulted in many of these workers returning home after just a few years in Japan.

Other recent reforms — such as accepting foreign housekeepers in special zones, a ‘point system’ to attract highly skilled foreign professionals and further extension of the trainee system period to fill the construction worker gap in the run up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics — merely highlight the fact that the word ‘migrant’ remains taboo.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe himself has taken pains to avoid the ‘m’ word. In a joint meeting of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy and the Industrial Competitiveness in 2014, Abe stressed that ‘we should be careful not to mistake the “utilisation” of foreign workers in nursing care and house-keeping as immigration policies’.

Political caution reflects public sentiment. Two out of three Japanese are against accepting more foreign workers, let alone manual workers. Underlying this is what is known as the ‘foreign crime’ debate, the fear that allowing in greater numbers of foreigners will harm public safety. These fears have only been heightened in recent years by terrorist atrocities in Europe and other countries with high migration levels.

The continuing reluctance to open the door to migrants challenges the ‘multicultural Japan’ idea that is popular among some academics. The numbers suggest that Japan is neither becoming more ethnically diverse nor more ‘multicultural’. For example, 2009 saw the first fall in the foreign resident population since 1961, and even that was from a very low base of only 1.7 per cent of the total population. This figure also includes third- and fourth-generation Korean residents born and raised in Japan.

International marriage, another key marker of diversification, peaked in 2006 at 41,000 and is only slightly more than half that figure today. Japan continues to accept only a handful of refugees (27 in 2015) and this is likely to decline further after work restrictions were introduced in a recent revision of the refugee recognition system.

On the surface, these numbers would seem to contradict the growing visibility of Japanese-style multiculturalism known as tabunka kyōsei (multicultural coexistence). Tabunka kyōsei emerged in the mid-1990s when it began to be widely used by local governments and NGOs to refer to Japanese and foreigners living harmoniously together. In 2001, 13 municipalities formed the Committee for Localities with a Concentrated Foreign Population and called on the government to develop a coordinated and coherent integration policy. While the central government has been slow to respond, it has published a number of reports since 2006 and established committees to discuss tabunka kyōsei issues.

The main criticism of tabunka kyōsei is that it defines boundaries that reaffirm foreigners’ non-membership in Japanese society. By reinforcing cultural differences in the name of multiculturalism, the privileged position of the Japanese majority is maintained. ANU Professor Tessa Morris-Suzuki calls this ‘cosmetic multiculturalism’, which celebrates diversity ‘but only under certain tightly prescribed conditions’.

Tabunka kyōsei is more concerned with social cohesion — converting foreigners into ‘law-abiding, locally-functioning well-adjusted residents’ — than empowerment Tomoko Nakamatsu suggests. Kikuko Nagayoshi finds that those with a strong ethno-national identity also tended to support Japanese-style multiculturalism. This suggests that tabunka kyōsei is not in opposition to, but rather is compatible with the belief in a unique and homogeneous ethnic national identity. Interpreting the popularity of tabunka kyōsei as evidence that Japan is becoming more multicultural is risky.

In sum, however unfathomable it may be to outside observers, Japan is not likely to become multicultural anytime soon. Despite some support for opening up, especially in business circles, many if not most Japanese seem resigned to a smaller economy if that is the price that has to be paid for maintaining social cohesion and public safety.

Source: A Japanese multicultural society still far off | East Asia Forum

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