Immigration and Citizenship in Japan

Abstract

Japan is currently the only advanced industrial democracy with a fourth-generation immigrant problem. As other industrialized countries face the challenges of incorporating post-war immigrants, Japan continues to struggle with the incorporation of pre-war immigrants and their descendants. Whereas others have focused on international norms, domestic institutions, and recent immigration, this book argues that contemporary immigration and citizenship politics in Japan reflect the strategic interaction between state efforts to control immigration and grassroots movements by multi-generational Korean resident activists to gain rights and recognition specifically as permanently settled foreign residents of Japan. Based on in-depth interviews and fieldwork conducted in Tokyo, Kawasaki, and Osaka, this book aims to further our understanding of democratic inclusion in Japan by analyzing how those who are formally excluded from the political process voice their interests and what factors contribute to the effective representation of those interests in public debate and policy.

History matters: the long-term impact of historical immigrant size on current xenophobia in Japan

“…These immigrants were not forced to migrate to Japan and migrated voluntarily. Since 1940, because of the wartime labor shortage, Korean immigrants and some Chinese immigrants were forced to move to Japan to work in "3D" (dirty, dangerous, and demanding) jobs (Chung 2010).…”

“…The immigration policy did not change until the 1980s, when the internal migration strategy, which was implemented in the 1960s, could not fill the labor shortage (Lie 1 Since North and South Korea has not been divided into two states until 1945, Korean immigrants before 1945 refer to immigrants from Korea Peninsula. 2 Some researchers report that there were approximately 2 million Korean immigrants in the 1940s (Chung 2010).…”

Civil Society Volunteers Supporting Japan’s Constitution, Article 9 and Associated Peace, Diversity, and Post-3.11 Environmental Issues

“…Since communities were established by the end of World War II, these Koreans-many by then already the first and second generation born in Japan-stayed, and current Resident Koreans are their descendants. Thus, they are members of a community which has existed in Japan for over 100 years, while technically they are there as ''foreigners'' (Creighton 1997(Creighton , 2014Weiner 1997;Lie 2001;Chung 2010).…”

Temporality, Civic Engagement, and Alterity

“…5 The shift from intercultural to multicultural or global encounters expressed here confirms claims of civic engagement with ethnic and cultural others advanced in a number of recent studies. 6 From claims about Japan's originary multiethnicity forged in its imperial moment to the suppression of domestic minorities, 7 the presence of nearly two million foreign nationals (less than 2 percent of Japan's total population and relatively small compared to Euro-American figures, but a record high for Japan historically) has been the subject of much debate in recent years. Citing instances of civic activism on behalf of economic migrants, advocacy to endow denizens with municipal voting rights, 8 and recent efforts to support foreign workers hard hit by the fallout from the financial crisis, current discourse on an emergent multiculturalism in Japan draws attention to a shift in Japan's orientation to and engagement with a world of others.…”