The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 5 | Issue 3 | Mar 01, 2007

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Multicultural Japan? Discourse and the 'Myth' of Homogeneity[Indonesian Translation Available]

Chris Burgess

Multicultural Japan? Discourse and the‘Myth’ of Homogeneity [1]

[Indonesian Translation Available Here(http://japanfocus.org/data/indo.multiculturaljapan.pdf)]

Chris Burgess

It is not sufficient to fight against mythsby destroying one myth and replacing itwith another, as in, for example,criticising the myth of the homogenousnation by replacing it with the myth of themixed nation (Oguma 2002: 349)

Introduction

Recent years have seen a trend towards thestabilisation of global migration flows (OECD2005: 17/53). One factor behind this trend maybe the growing atmosphere of global anxietyand fear, fuelled by media reports of terroristatrocities, bird flu, and nuclear proliferation.Such an atmosphere exacerbates the process ofexclusion, opposition, and hierachisation that isknown as Othering (Cahoone 1996: 16). This isparticularly evident in attitudes and policiestowards migration, specifically in theimposition of much stricter immigrationcontrols and the emergence of extremist anti-immigrant movements in many nations.

Japan, an economic superpower with asophisticated media infrastructure, has hardlybeen immune to these global currents. Bycontrast, the dominant academic discourse on

Japan has, in general, continued to frame itselfin a political ideal of a ‘multicultural Japan’,one which dismisses the popular discourse of‘homogeneous Japan’ as myth and which drawson ‘factual’ demographic and economic data toargue for the inevitability of further migration.This paper examines the discrepancy betweenan increasingly negative global discourse onmigration and an unwaveringly positive‘multicultural Japan’ discourse. I argue that afailure to acknowledge popular discourse as acrucial element in the construction of Japanesesocial real i ty can lead to a distortedunderstanding of migrants and migration inJapan.

1. Nihonjinron and ‘Multicultural Japan’

In the field of Japanese Studies, one prominentdiscourse is that of a ‘multicultural Japan’.Much of this can be traced back to a number ofcritiques (e.g. Aoki 1990; Befu 1987; Dale1986; Mouer and Sugimoto 1986; Yoshino1992) of Nihonjinron, a genre of writingdiscussing Japanese cultural uniqueness.Mouer and Sugimoto (1986: 406) defineNihonjinron as having two central tenets: (a)Japanese society is 'uniquely' unique and (b)group orientation is the dominant culturalpattern which shapes behaviour. A centralpremise of Nihonjinron is that the Japanese area homogeneous people (tan'itsu minzoku) whoconstitute a racially unified nation (tan'itsuminzoku kokka). Ironically, it has been pointedout (Revell 1997: 74) that the origins of thispost-war discussion on national identity are notJapanese but rather American, specifically RuthBenedict’s (1946) The Chrysanthemum and theSword.

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Although Nihonjinron is a convenientshorthand, writings are diverse and variedcovering a number of major themes. Forexample, Fujiwara’s (2005) best-selling ‘Styleof a Nation’, which emphases, bushido-style,the importance of individual (rather thangroup) feeling or spirit (jyocho), advertisesi tsel f as ‘epoch-making’ (kakkiteki )Nihon(jin)ron. In an often cited 1978 survey bythe Nomura Research Institute, writings onnational character, desire and satisfaction,work ethics, saving, time, and even foreigners’views on Japanese economic activities were allsubsumed under the Nihonjinron label(Wikipedia 2006a). Revell (1997: 74) notes thatin the Nomura survey, often used as evidencefor the pervasiveness of the genre, any bookwhich had ‘Japanese’ in the title or whichdiscussed ‘obviously Japanese concepts’ wasclassified as Nihonjinron (see also Yoshino1992: 227). In fact, Revell (1997: 74) arguesthat most Japanese are not even aware thatthey are reading a definable body of literature,and may need reminding. Thus, what oneexpert (Befu, 2001: 14) characterises narrowlyas a species of cultural nationalism which ispresumably found everywhere,[2] has, foracademics and publishers, come to broadlyencompass almost any text – rarely state-originated, sometimes academic or pseudo-academic, mostly popular, occasionallycrackpot – on Japanese society or identity. AsClammer (2001:10/66) points out, Nihonjinronhas come, for bet ter or worse , to berepresentative of all indigenous thinking;almost all Japanese social thought has come tobe seen through the lenses of Nihonjinron and"anything remotely nativist is immediatelyclassified as (in a negative sense) Nihonjinron."

Although typically referred to as a ‘discourse’,Nihonjinron appears to lack the unity orinternal coherence to qualify as a single systemof knowledge. Nevertheless, the publication ofthe Nihonjinron critiques listed above wasfollowed by a large number of books placingthemselves in direct opposition to – and seeking

to refute – the Nihonjinron ‘discourse’. The firstwave of writings in this mould were primarilyby Japanese scholars (e.g. Komai 1992; Oguma1995; Onuma 1993) who were almost uniformlyconcerned with ‘overcoming’ the ‘myth ofhomogeneity’ (tan’itsu minzoku no shinwa). In1995, two books, both jointly edited by JohnMaher (Maher and Macdonald 1995; Maherand Yashiro 1995), focussed on the linguisticand cultural heterogeneity in Japanese society,combined in Japanese as Towards a New Order:Language and Cultural Diversity in Japan(Maher and Honna 1994). Like the first wave ofJapanese writings, Maher’s project was framedlargely as a response to a ‘dangerous’Nihonjinron:

The purpose of this volume is toaccelerate the burial process that willfinish off a chronic dependency on theinvented tradition of monolingualismand monoculturalism (Maher andYashiro 1995: 2)

Michael Weiner (1997), in Japan’s Minorities:The Illusion of Homogeneity, continued in thisvein, challenging the ‘dominant paradigm’ ofhomogeneity by emphasising the diversity thatexists in Japanese society. Weiner (1997: xiii)argued that Japan was home to diversepopulations despite “a master narrative of‘racial’ and cultural homogeneity whichprecludes the existence of minorities.” We arerarely told who has actually said that Japan ishomogenous, as evidenced by the lack ofreferences. Yet, today, writers queue up todebunk the ‘myth’ of homogeneity, which hascome to represent a straw man par-excellence.

From the mid-1990s, a number of books aboutmigrant settlement in Japan began to appear(e.g. Komai 1995b; Miyajima and Kajita 1996;Weiner and Hanami 1998). Soon after, theword ‘multicultural’ became quite common inwritings on Japan. In a volume which promisedto offer a ‘multicultural perspective’ on‘Nihonjinron at the end of the Twentieth

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Century’, Mouer and Sugimoto (1995: 242), thefirst to critically examine the Nihonjinron genresystematically, titled a section of their paper‘Multicultural Japan’. Although they seemed tobe pointing to nothing more than the existenceof social variation in Japanese society, itmarked the start of a ‘multicultural Japan’boom. For example, in 1996, Denoon et alpublished Multicultural Japan, a book whichpurported to challenge the ‘conventional’ viewof Japanese society as being monocultural andhomogenous (McCormack 1996). Like Mouerand Sugimoto, the term ‘multicultural’ wasused in order to stress the variation anddiversity present in Japanese society, adiversity which, they were keen to stress, had along history. Sugimoto (1999: 93) defines the‘multicultural paradigm’ as one that:

embraces all ethnic minorities of theu n d e r l y i n g J a p a n e s ep o p u l a t i o n … M u l t i c u l t u r a l i t yhere…comprises the so-cal ledsubcultural groupings, including forexample, female culture, part-timeworker s ’ cu l tu re , phys i ca l l yhandicapped people’s culture, youthculture, homosexual culture and so on.

The problem was that while some writers (e.g.Sugimoto 1997: chapter 1) continued to use‘multicultural society’ as a simple shorthand forvariation in society, which has always existed,others began to use it to describe theemergence of the kind of political ideal in Japanwhich originated in countries like Australia,Canada, and the United States in the 1970s. Inthe case of Japan, the emergence of‘multiculturalism’ as a political ideal is oftentraced to the influx of racially distinct – that is,visually foreign – Asian workers in the late1980s (Lie 2001: 18). Examples of work in thisgenre include the edited volume by Douglassand Roberts (2000), subtitled ‘the advent of amulticultural society’, Hiroshi Komai’s (2006)G u r o b a r u j i d a i n o N i h o n - g a t aTabunkakyoseishakai (Japanese Style

Multicultural Society in the Global Era), andGraburn et al.’s (forthcoming) edited volumewhich looks at the ‘growing and contestedforms of multiculturalism’ as newcomerstransform Japan at the grassroots level. Here,multiculturalism refers not so much to a stateof society but rather to ‘the adoption of an idealform of public policy’ (Graburn and Ertlforthcoming) in response to increased numbersof foreign workers and other migrants. Below, Ianalyse the two senses in which ‘multiculturalJapan’ is used, namely as variation, which hasalways existed (1.1) and as a new political ideal(1.2).

1.1 ‘Multicultural Japan’ as SocialVariation

The idea that social variation exists in Japanesesociety is uncontroversial. As Morris-Suzuki(1998: 156/192) notes, if culture is taken tomean the possession of the same knowledge,values, and experiences then any nationalsociety is by definition multicultural: culture isalways ‘multi’ by its very nature. Nevertheless,the focus on difference, which has alwaysexisted in Japan, can perhaps be taken too far.Ryang (2005: 10/201) calls for caution in whatshe calls the ‘recent and powerful trend ofrepresenting Japan from a…pluralistic angle’with its ever-increasing celebration of diversity,marginals, and minorities. In the first place, theoverriding concern with ethnic minoritiestends, as Clammer (2001: 7) points out, toocclude other dimensions of difference such asgender and class,[3] as well as drawingattention away from the ways difference itselfis maintained. But even the inclusion ofmultiple forms of difference has its pitfalls.Citing Maher and MacDonald’s (1995) Diversityin Japanese Culture and Language as anexample, Ryang highlights the danger inconflating (and ignoring internal differenceswithin) highly diverse subcultural groups, suchas anorexic women, returnee children, theAinu, and ‘Koreans’:

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Terms such as ‘d ivers i ty ’ and‘marginalization’ need to be placed inproper perspective…a mere lumpingtogether of the marginals as anappendix to the mainstream can becounterproductive, as it obscures thehistoric and social specificity of thediscrimination and oppression eachgroup has experienced (Ryang 2005:202/3)

A further problem is that the ‘multiculturalJapan’ discourse, by framing itself in directopposition to the Nihonjinron ‘discourse’, tosome extent legitimises and reinforces thelatter genre and opens itself up to some of thesame problems found in the very ideology itseeks to debunk:

[Mouer and Sugimoto] still choose toframe their argument in terms of adebate with the Nihonjinron eventhough it is the (false) assumptions ofthis that they are supposed to beattacking…so the Nihonjinron is kept inthe foreground of academic debate,especially internationally, by those whodeny its legitimacy…Paradoxically theconcentration by scholars on theNihonjinron…has actually succeeded instrengthening rather than underminingthe view of Japan as a culturally andsociologically monolithic entity(Clammer 2001: 67)

Clammer (2001: 25/96) goes on to note thatmuch work in Japanese Studies is stilldominated by a ‘categorical mode’, a focus on‘classificatory principles’ which are supposedto somehow capture the ‘reality’ that actuallyconstitutes Japan. Thus, just as Nihonjinronwritings use key words, such as amae ,kanjinshugi, bokashi, ganbari, to encapsulatethe essence of Japanese society, so tooavowedly anti-Nihonjinron writers continue toattempt to explain Japanese society throughconcepts such as ie, seishin, wrapping, and

uchi/soto:

[T]he attempt to propose a model ofJapanese society as a counterpart to thenihonjinron premise is wrought with asmany flaws as is nihonjinron itself, inthat it basically remains within thesame dead-end generalization (Ryang2005: 220)

Ryang (2005: 158/84) further remarks thatwhile it would be intellectually risky, indeednonsensical, to present a view of, say, USsociety under one all-embracing principle thisdoes not seem to be the case for writings aboutJapan. One can speculate that the recentemphasis on ‘diversity’ in Japan, because of theway it is framed in contrast to a dominantmainstream ‘homogeneity’, has merely servedto reify so-called ‘minorities’, tacitly reaffirmingthe monocultural image of Japan andencourag ing fur ther s tereotyp ica lgeneralisations.

1.2 ‘Multicultural Japan’ as Political Ideal

As pointed out earlier, whereas some writersuse the term ‘multicultural Japan’ as a simpleshorthand for social variation, which has longexisted, others use it to refer more specificallyto a new political ideology – and the policieswhich accompany it – that has apparentlyarisen in response to the growing visibility ofmigrants in Japanese society. Multiculturalismdescribes both an ideal (an ideology) and theactual official policies adopted by thegovernments of ‘settlement’ countries from the1970s. While different versions exist, mostmulticulturalisms are at root a celebration of –and a lesson on the importance of maintaining –equal i ty and cultural d ivers i ty . In amulticultural society, co-existence, tolerance,mutual respect, and cultural exchange are seenas bringing great benefits to the nation as awhole. Although support for multiculturalism isnot necessarily the same thing as support forimmigration, in practice a belief in the doctrineof multiculturalism underlies a belief in the

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value of migration.

In testing the validity of the term ‘multiculturalJapan’ as used in this latter sense, we may askthree questions. First (1.2.1), does there exist apopular ideology in Japan that sees ethnic,cultural, and racial diversity together withmigration as positive? Second (1.2.2), inconcrete terms what kind of ‘multicultural’policies have been adopted in the country,particular in terms of treatment of non-citizensand ethnic groups? Third (1.2.3), are there alarge number of migrants present in (andtransforming) Japanese society and is thisnumber growing?

1.2.1 Discourses of Multiculturalism

In terms of the first question, it is important toremember that a discourse is not ‘true’ or‘false’,[4] and that discourses themselvesbecome social reality or conventionalknowledge as they are internalised, circulated,and utilised by a population. For example, asRyang (2005: 29/chapter 2) and Goodman(1992:5) point out, Benedict’s Chrysanthemum,which sold something like 2.3 million copies inJapanese, has been so widely disseminated andinternalised by ordinary Japanese that itcontributed to the creation of a particularworldview. It is therefore disingenuous forNihonjinron critics to describe it, in one breath,as a ‘master narrative’ or ‘overarchingdiscourse’ (Weiner 1997) which ‘continues tobe both dominant and pervasive’ (Sugimoto1997: ix), and then in the next to dismiss it as a'myth', 'illusion', or ‘empirically false’ (Clammer2001: 3). It is crucial to recognise thatdominant ideologies are not something ‘false’that are separate from the ‘real’ Japaneseculture but rather make up a system of thoughtthat reflects and constitutes everyday reality.

One illustration of the importance of not seeingdiscourse as 'true' or 'false' comes from thecontent of and reactions to comments bymainstream politicians regarding Japan’s‘homogeneity’. In 1986, then Prime-Minister

Nakasone remarked that Japan’s high standardof education was due to its racial homogeneity,in contrast to America where the presence ofblacks and Puerto Ricans resulted in lowstandards. Almost twenty years later, inOctober 2005 , In terna l A f fa i rs andCommunications Minister, and later ForeignMinister Aso Taro, described Japan as having‘one nation, one civilisation, one language, oneculture, and one race’ (Daily Yomiuri 2005b).[5]Finally, in February 2007, the EducationMinister, Ibuki Bunmei, praised Japan’s racialhomogeneity. What was notable about all thesecomments i s that they were large lyuncontroversial domestically. The commentsreceived little attention in the mainstreamJapanese language press, and the complaints ofthe Ainu organisation Utari Kyokai went largelyunheard. In Nakasone’s case, the Japanesepress only picked up the story after it hadstarted making waves in the American media.Other comments, such as those in April 2000 byTokyo Mayor Ishihara, suggesting thatforeigners could start riots if the capital was hitby a big earthquake, garnered considerablymore domestic media attention, but mainlybecause of his reference to sangokujin, aderogatory term to refer to people from Taiwanand Korea living in Japan. Later, a UK reporternoted in front of a bemused Ishihara that if aBritish politician had made such a remark therewould have been a big outcry (Asahi Shimbun2000). However, in none of these cases wasresignation ever mooted as a serious possibilitysince all three were speaking within aconventional popular discourse[6] which viewsJapan as homogeneous and foreign crime as athreat to public security.

Turning to contemporary public attitudestowards migration, recent surveys consistentlyshow Japanese as conservative on this issue.Opinion polls show that the number of peoplewho feel anxious about pubic security (chian)has doubled since 1998 (Sekai 2004: 147). In arecent Cabinet Office survey (2006), 84.3%thought public safety had worsened over the

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past ten years, with the largest number (55.1%)putting this down to ‘a rise in crimes byforeigners visiting Japan’ (see also YomiuriShimbun 2005). In another Cabinet Office poll(Daily Yomiuri 2004b) designed to gauge publicopinion on whether to accept more foreignlabour in the near future, only 16.7% thoughtJapan should unconditionally accept foreigners,though a majority did support the acceptanceof more skilled foreign labour. However, eventhis support was largely conditional, with manystating that Japan does not yet have theappropriate infrastructure to deal with aninflux of foreign workers. Similar results werefound in polls sponsored by Keidanren [7](Japan Times 2004a) and the Ministry of Justice(Homusho Nyukoku Kanrikyoko 2005), whichfound support for more skilled labour, cautionabout an influx of unskilled labour, and a desirefor stricter immigration controls. Overall, thephrase that one hears most often in thesediscussions is the need for more public debate(kokuminteki giron) before any consensus canbe reached, a finding which suggests that theabsence of any popular d iscourse onmulticulturalism. This is not to deny theexistence of alternative discourses, such as thekokusaika of the 1980s, or to disparage theexcellent work of many local NGOs who,engaging in the tabunka shakai discourse, worktirelessly to help and support non-Japaneseliving in Japan. The point is that, given risinganxiety around the world, increasingly negativeglobal attitudes towards migration andmulticulturalism, plus widely-publicisedincidents such as the autumn 2005 ethnic riotsin France, media-savvy mainstream Japaneseseem highly unlikely to adopt multiculturalistideology anytime soon.

1.2.2 Policies of Multiculturalism

If multiculturalism as a discourse at thenational level is largely absent in Japan, thenone might expect concrete policies to beequally absent. Policies that have been adoptedi n ‘ s e t t l e m e n t ’ c o u n t r i e s w h e r e

multiculturalism was, in the past at least,promoted as official government policy include:

dual citizenshipgovernment support for newspapers,television, and radio in minoritylanguagessupport for minority festivals, holidays,and celebrationsacceptance of traditional and religiousdress in schools and society in generalsupport for arts from cultures around theworldprograms to encourage minorityrepresentation in the larger society, inpolitics, education, and the work forceliberal immigration policy, admission ofrefugeesrespect for international law

Source: Adapted from Wikipedia (2006b) [8]

First, Japan does not officially recognise dualcitizenship. Since 1985, children of oneJapanese and one non-Japanese parent havebeen able to obtain dual nationality, but theyare required to choose one or other when theyreach twenty. Second, there is little evidence ofgovernment support for ‘ethnic’ media.Moriguchi’s (1997) ‘Ethnic Media Guide’ listsaround 160 publications in 15 languages, whileShiramizu (2000; 2004) puts the number ataround 200, mostly in English, Chinese,Korean, and Portuguese, often accompaniedwith Japanese translations. However, whilesome publishers do boast a full-time staff withsales in the tens of thousands, the majority ofpublications are small local affairs run byvolunteers or NGOs with small circulations.The key point is the lack of nat ionalgovernment support, and the correspondinglack of national ethnic media, although localgovernments do put out mult i l ingualnewsletters, magazines, and brochures. “Localgovernments in the regions most affected bythe new immigration are filling the gap”, writesPak (2000: 244), “left by the nationalgovernment’s unwillingness to consider what is

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to be done with foreign migrants living inJapan.”

The theme of national government laissez-faireextends to other potential multiculturalistpolicies. Support for minority festivals,holidays, and celebrations is practicallyunheard of, though most localities, often withNGO support , do hold kokusai koryu(international exchange) events where foreignculture is introduced. There is certainly anintense grassroots interest and activity aroundall sorts of foreign cultural practice (music,food, language) which may, ironically, bemotivated by a sense of the constraints of arelatively ‘homogeneous’ Japanese society andculture. Moreover, since 2002, Kokusai RikaiKyoiku (Educat ion for Internat ionalUnderstanding) lessons have been a commonfeature in sogogakushu (general studies)classes in schools. However, critics of what issometimes termed ‘multicultural education’(Fukatsu 2003: 24; Mitsuaki and Akuzawa2001: 104/5; Nukaga 2003: 89/90) and‘international exchange’ (Nakamatsu 2002;Suzuki 2000) both see these school andcommunity ‘events’ as more likely to reinforcestereotypes than dispel them.[9] Finally, as faras acceptance of traditional and religious dressin schools and society in general goes,continued incidents of verbal and physicalviolence towards students wearing thetraditional Korean Chima-Chogori (Song 2003)exemplify the lack of tolerance in the publicsphere.

On a more positive note, Japan’s support forarts from cultures around the world is notable.For example, the Agency for Cultural Affairsspends considerable amounts on promotinginternational cultural exchange, as well aspromoting indigenous Ainu culture. Nationalexchange years see performers, artists, and‘cultural specialists’ invited to come to Japanfrom overseas, while upcoming artists ofexceptional talent are sponsored to come andstudy in Japan. In particular, the 2005 Expo in

Aichi Prefecture was a resounding success,introducing some 22 million visitors to cultureand organisations from around the world.

The next example of multiculturalism inpractice was official support for programs toencourage minority representation in the largersociety, in politics, education, and the workforce. Taking the largest minority population inJapan – Koreans – as an example, the record isnot good. Many observers (Komai 2001:chapter 1) have noted the existence of aninstitutionalised racism against Koreans inJapan, resulting in discrimination in areas likeschooling, employment, marriage, and housing.At the political level, Fukuoka (2000: xxiv/253)highlights three key areas. The first relates tothe issue of giving Special PermanentResidents (most of whom are Korean) the rightto vote in local government elections (Fukuoka2000: 258/9). Although many ‘settlement’countries do not give non-citizens voting rights,zainichi individuals represent a uniquehistorical case. Indeed, the South Koreangovernment has consistently pushed Japan onthis issue. However, the matter has beenregularly put off in the diet where bills have notbeen presented due to ‘lack of time’ (YomiuriShimbun 2004b). Given growing resistance toKorean suffrage (Yomiuri Shimbun 2004c),particularly against the background ofworsening ties with both North and SouthKorea, dwindling political will means thatlegislation is becoming more and moreunlikely.[10]

The second area highlighted by Fukuokaconcerns the issue of graduates of Koreanethnic private schools being unable to sitentrance examinations for Japanese nationaluniversities without first taking a separatequalifying test (Fukuoka 2000, 254/5).Currently, Korean schools are classed as‘miscellaneous’ and there is no accreditationscheme to give these students equal status withJapanese school graduates, limiting theiraccess to higher education and ultimately

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career choices. In actual fact, as Japaneseuniversities compete for a shrinking pool ofstudents, they have been more willing to acceptgraduates from different kinds of schools. Thishas prompted MEXT to officially recognise asmall but increasing number of ‘Western style’international schools. Nevertheless, this may beviewed more as a reaction to circumstancesthan any active multicultural policy; the fact isthat, until 2003, the government did notrecognise any non-Japanese schools asaccredited educational institutions and stilldoesn’t recognise Korean (or other) ethnicschools (Morris-Suzuki 2003; Arita 2003).

The third area relates to the employment offoreign residents as public officials. InNovember 1996, the Ministry of Home Affairschanged the nationality clause in publicemployment laws to allow local governments tohire non-Japanese health workers, maternitynurses, and nurses (Gurowitz 1999: 441). Thatsame year, the Tokyo District Court rejected acase brought by Chong Hyang Gyun, the firstforeigner to be employed as a health careworker in the metropolitan government, whose1994 application to take a promotion exam hadbeen refused (Daily Yomiuri 2005a). Thefollowing year, the Tokyo High Court reversedthe judgement and ruled that there was noconstitutional reason to deny non-Japanesenationals access to public positions aside fromthose involved in the direct exercise of publicpower (see also Kagawa 2001: 101; YomiuriShimbun 1997). However, in 2005 the SupremeCourt ruled that it was constitutional to denyher the opportunity to take the test on thegrounds that she was not Japanese (DailyYomiuri 2005a). The ruling reportedly shockedother local governments, such as Kochi,Kawanashi, and Kawasaki, who had begin torelax regulations on foreigners in managerialpositions.

Against these moves to limit non-Japaneseaccess to public positions, the decision byJapan to accept (up to) 1,000 Filipino nurses

and caregivers from April 2007 suggests, atfirst glance, a more liberal immigration policy(Daily Yomiuri 2006d). The decision, part of arecently signed FTA, echoes the proposal of akey government panel on deregulation to allowforeigners to work in the area of social welfareand nursing to cope with the ageing population(Yomiuri Shimbun 2006). On the one hand, thedecision represents a practical reaction toeconomic factors, namely a growing demand inthe welfare sector and a shrinking domesticlabour supply. However, the same law imposedrequirements – such as becoming fluent inJapanese and passing state-supervised examsor related courses within a certain period – thatare sufficiently severe to raise doubts as towhether many Filipinos will actually be able tosettle in Japan as workers. Other developments,such as pre-clearance immigration checks(Yomiuri Shimbun 2004a), tougher penalties forillegal aliens (Daily Yomiuri 2004a), a newonline database on foreigners (Daily Yomiuri2005d), the fingerprinting and photographingof foreign entrants (Daily Yomiuri 2006a), andthe introduction of a new ID card system forforeigners (Daily Yomiuri 2006e) all suggest, inline with recent global movements, tougheningof an already strict immigration policy.

Japan’s tough immigration policy is alsoillustrated by the number of refugees andasylum seekers it accepts. In the period from1982 – when Japan first started acceptingrefugees – until 2004, Japan processed 3,544applications for refugees status, but acceptedonly 313, less than 10% (Japan-Almanac 2005:90). Although conditions for recognition wererelaxed in April 2004, in 2005 only 46individuals were awarded refugee status (JAR2006: see also Iwasaki 2006). In contrast, theUS admitted 53,813 persons as refugees and25,257 as asylum seekers in 2005 alone(Statistics 2006).

Another example of Japan’s less thanmulticultural policy framework is its attitudetowards international law. For example, it was

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not until 1995 that Japan became one of thelast countries to ratify the InternationalConvention on the Elimination of All Forms ofRacial Discrimination (ICERC) which went intoeffect in 1969 (Sugimoto 1997: 189). InOctober 1999, the ICERC was applied for thefirst time by a domestic court when awarding aBrazilian journalistï¿¥1.5 million after beingthrown out of a shop because she was a‘foreigner’(Yomiuri Shimbun 1999). However,more recent lega l ru l ings on rac ia ldiscrimination cases have denied that localgovernments have a duty to meet therequirements of the ICERC (Arudo 2004). Thegovernment has shown no inclination to createa domestic version of the Convention,something that ratification obliges it to do.Consequently, Japan may be the only developedcountry in which racial discrimination is notillegal.

This overview of the existence – or ratherabsence of – multicultural policies at the statelevel, suggests that, in practical terms, there islittle concrete evidence of multiculturalism atwork in contemporary Japan. Indeed, one of theironies of the ‘multicultural Japan’ discourse isthat proponents typically spend many pagespainting a very un-multicultural picture ofJapan seemingly without realising that thiseffectively undermines their 'multiculturalJapan' argument. Befu's (2006) chapter inJapan's Diversity Dilemmas is a case in point:the chapter details a litany of discriminatorypractices in housing, employment, education,medical services, and citizenship law enough toshatter the 'multicultural Japan' image manytimes over. Often, after a long l ist ofcomplaints, critics make a volte-face and citean example of some modest - and almost alwayslocal - development which is then hailed as asign of Japan’s transformation into amulticultural society. Williams (1993: 93), forexample, sees the 1992 decision by the OsakaCity Government to allow non-Japanesegraduates to sit the entrance examinations forlocal government employment as signalling a

seismic shift in the concept of Japanesecitizenship. Similarly, Clammer (2001: 31) citesthe example of the discontinuation of therequirement to f ingerpr int fore ignresidents[11] as a sign that "Japan, like it ornot, is becoming an increasingly plural society."In fact, what Japan is becoming or will becomeis not clear: what is clear is what these writerswant it to become.

1.2.3 Migrants and Multiculturalism

In testing whether Japan is multicultural in thepolitical sense, my third and final questionreferred to the continued and growingpresence of migrants. Here, migration statisticsare the obvious place to start. In fact, despite anumber of tomes focusing on ‘multi-ethnicJapan’ (e.g. Lie 2001; Murphy-Shigematsu2004), the ‘multicultural Japan’ discourse maycome as something of a surprise to scholars ofmigration who typically view Japan, whenconsidering it at all, as an exceptional or‘negative’ case (Bartram 2000). Statistics seemto support the fact that Japan is one of the fewindustr ia l ised countr ies not to haveexperienced the tremendous inflow ofinternational migrants characteristic of otherdeveloped countries:

Table 1: International Migration in G8Countries plus Australia, Korea[12]

Migrant Stock (2005)(estimate)

Number ofRefugees(2004)

Net Migration(2000-2005) (averageannual)

Number % of pop. Number Rate per1000

Canada 6106 18.9 141 210 6.7France 6471 10.7 140 60 1.0Germany 10144 12.3 877 220 2.7Italy 2519 4.3 16 120 2.1Japan 2048 1.6 2 54 0.4Russia 12080 8.4 2 80 0.6UK 5408 9.1 289 137 2.3US 38355 12.9 421 1160 4.0Australia 4097 20.3 63 100 5.1Korea 551 1.2 0 -16 -0.3

Source: (United Nations 2006)

Note: Numbers in thousands. Migrant stockrefers to those born outside the country, except inthe case of Japan and Germany, where the datarefers to non-citizens. Net migration is the annualnumber of immigrants minus the annual number

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of emigrants.

Some problems exist with regard to thecomparabi l i ty of the data in Table 1,particularly regarding the definition of‘migrant’. In the so-called settlement countries(Australia, US, Canada), only ‘permanent’migrants are counted in the of f ic ia limmigration statistics, while in others anyoneenrolled on a municipal population register(compulsory after staying a minimum period) iscounted (OECD 2005: 116). Thus, in the formercase, international students would not beclassed as migrants while in the latter theywould. Moreover, in the ‘settlement’ countriesimmigrants are considered to be persons whoare foreign-born, regardless of nationality,while in other countries immigrants areconsidered to be persons of foreign nationality.Thus, we see a difference in the concept of‘foreigner’, this being someone outside thecountry in the case of ‘settlement’ countries butincluding those inside the country in the case ofthe ‘non-settlement’ countries.

In light of the above qualifications, the data inTable 1 requires re-evaluation when looking atJapan. In the first place, numbers for migrantstock and net migration include all non-permanent residents (hi’eijusha), such asstudents, trainees, and ‘entertainers’, whoregistered within the designated ninety-dayperiod (NPR in Figure 1). In Japan, this groupof migrants far outnumbers eijusha orpermanent residents (GPR and SPR in Figure1). If non-permanent individuals were includedin data for the settlement countries, thedifference between Japan and these countrieswould be even more pronounced.

Second, because the Japanese data in Table 1refers only to non-citizens, those born abroadbut who later naturalised are absent from thestatistics. In practice, because Japan has arelatively low number of naturalisations, thevast majority of these being Japan-bornKoreans, this doesn’t distort the figures toomuch. Indeed, in the absence of place-of-birth

data, the OECD assumes that the country ofnationality is the country of birth (OECD 2005:119); however, they point out that this newmethod o f ca lcu la t ion wi l l “ tend tooverestimate the number of foreign-bornrelative to other countries because personsborn in Japan…to foreigners will tend also to berecorded as foreign and thus be classified asforeign born.”[13] Given such statisticalinconsistencies, in July 2003 the OECD (2005:120) unveiled what they claimed to be the firstinternationally comparable data set. Here, thepercentage of non-citizens in Japan iscalculated at just 1.0%, even lower than the1.6% figure for ‘migrant stock’ in the UnitedNations data above.

The statistics suggest that, at the present time,Japan is a relatively homogenous country interms of migration and ethnicity. Polls back thisup. For example, in a (2000) Cabinet Officesurvey, only 9.7% of respondents said they hadopportunities to speak or interact withforeigners; over 40% said they hardly ever hadthe chance to even see foreigners. Of course,some foreign residents, such as second or thirdgeneration Koreans and Chinese, are physicallyand culturally indistinguishable from Japanese;however, of interest here is the degree ofassimilation and the perception of relativemonoculturalism. This suggests that it is tooearly to claim, as some have (for example,Douglass and Roberts 2000), that the‘multicultural age’ has already come to Japan.However, is it possible to say, as Yamanaka(2002, 2/22) does, that “Japan stands at thecrossroads of becoming a multiculturalsociety…the dawn of becoming a multi-ethnicsociety”? Has the country reached what Brody(2002:107) calls ‘a crisis of multiculturalism’, acrisis in which Japan “must reconciletraditional ideas of ethnic membership with thereality of a large population of culturallydifferent ‘co-ethnics’”? Certainly, althoughJapan is currently a country of low migration, inrecent years numbers have risen:

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Figure 1: Changes in Numbers of ForeignResidents in Japan,1992-2005

Source: The 2005 figure for illegals is fromHomusho (2005: 7/20). Other 2005 data is fromHomusho Nyukoku Kanrikyoku (2006). Non-2005data is taken from Burgess (2003: 16).

Notes: GPR=General Permanent Residents andSPR=Special Permanent Residents: togetherthese two make up the permanent resident(eijyusha) category. NPR=non-permanentresidents (hi’eijyusha) The figure for illegals is agovernment estimate.

Figure 1 shows that since 1992 the totalnumber of foreign residents (combining bothlegal and illegal[14]) has grown by 40%, from1.29% of the population in 1992 to 1.76% in2005. But the percentage increase is largeprecisely because the numbers start from avery low base. Moreover, with the totalpopulation entering a long period of decline,the percentage of foreigners in the totalpopulation will continue to rise even if theirnumbers stabilise.

Regarding the prospect of a significant rise inthe number of newcomers, many observershave cited a number of factors – a rapidlyageing society, a plummeting birth-rate, a low-wage service sector, income disparities – whichmake the future large-scale import of foreignlabour ‘inevitable’. For Arudo (Japan Times2004b), a strong critic of the ‘homogeneousJapan’ discourse, arguing for or against moremigration 'is like arguing for or against the

sunrise':

Japan's future as a multiethnic society isinevitable…not only is cheap foreignlabor an intrinsic part of the Japaneseeconomy, but also, as the regionaleconomic superpower, Japan is still byitself about the same size as all theother Asian economies combined. Theeconomic pull for immigrants isirresistible. Immigration to Japan isalready happening and it will notstop…the trends favoring immigrationare irreversible. (Arudo 2006)

Murphy-Shigematsu takes a similar position:

While Japan remains one of the leastdiverse industrialized nations withethnic and national minoritiescomprising 3%[15] of the totalpopulation, monumental change isimminent. A massive inf lux offoreigners in the coming years will benecessary to meet the needs of arapidly aging population. Justmaintaining the size of the workingpopulation will require 600,000immigrants a year. In this scenario,immigrants will comprise more than30% of the Japanese population by2050.(Murphy-Shigematsu 2004: 51)

Arudo's conviction and Murphy-Shigematsu’sprojections are in line with an oft quoted UNreport (2000a) entitled Replacement Migration:Is it a Solution to Declining and AgingPopulations? The report offers five scenarios.Murphy-Shigematsu refers to scenario 4, whichsees the working population remain constant atthe 1995 level. Scenario 3, in which thepopulation remains at the 2005 level, wouldrequire 381,000 immigrants a year between2005 and 2050. Scenarios 1 and 2, whichassume no net migration to Japan from 1995 to2050, forecast a doubling of the populationaged 65 or older and a drop of more than halfin the ratio of the working-age population to

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the retired population, resulting in a significantannual drop in GDP.

There are a number of problems with the UNreport. First, the study is based on 1995fertility levels and assumes zero net migrationafter 1995. In fact, fertility rates are likely torise according to government (Japan Times2007; Daily Yomiuri 2004c; 2006c) and UnitedNations (2004: 209) forecasts and, as Figure 1showed, migration has been increasing since1995. Chapple (2004: footnote 27) also pointsout that the UN figures are only estimates andsuch labour projections are vulnerable tochanges in economic cycles, technology and thelike, citing past government forecasts of labourshortages which were way off the mark (Komai1995a: 213). “It should also be noted”, Chappleadds, citing Koshiro’s (1998: 168) analysis of agovernment study of the social costs ofallowing in half a million foreign workers, “thatthe financial burden involved with increasingmigration would exceed 1 trillion yen.” A laterUnited Nations (2000b: 9) document points outthat while the calculations found in the originalreport are demographically valid they are (1)economically unrealistic and, more significantlyin the context of this paper, (2) politicallyunacceptable/infeasible.

The key point is that although the practical,logical, and rational answer to ageingpopulations in developed countries may bemore migration, both the local and the globaldiscourse on migration limit the kind ofpolitical solutions actually possible. Indeed, theUN report itself (2000a: 50) recognises that thekind of figures being talked about are ‘unlikely’for Japan, a country with no post-war precedentfor admitting and assimilating large numbers offoreigners. Indeed, the May 2006 interimreport of the Justice Ministry's panel discussinglong-term policies for accepting overseasworkers recommended that the ratio of foreignresidents to the total population should notexceed 3% (Japan Times 2006b). In otherwords, talk of 17%, 30%, or (in scenario 5) 87%

of the total population of Japan being migrantsis not only unrealistic but also, in a number ofsenses, politically and popularly ‘unsayable’and unthinkable. Sometimes this grasp ofdiscursive reality is more apparent injournalistic than academic writing. Forexample, in an article in the New York Timestitled ‘Insular Japan Needs but ResistsMigration’, Komai Hiroshi, probably Japan’sleading expert on migration, is quoted asfollows:

The kind of figures the demographerstalk about are unimaginable forJapan…In a quarter-century we haveonly absorbed one million immigrants(Komai, quoted in French 2003)

Komai’s belief that Japan cannot absorbnewcomers is based on a realistic appraisal ofthe country's social limitations, including thoseof its workplace culture and educationalsystem.

A final claim frequently heard in the 'Japan isbecoming multicultural' argument is that thatnewcomers 'threaten' or 'challenge' the idea ofhomogeneity (e.g.,Clammer 2001: 177;Ishiwata 2004). However, this is by no meansobvious; as Tsuda (2003) points out in his workon the Nikkeijin, 'Japan's newest ethnicminority', the increasing presence of migrantscan, conversely, serve to maintain andreinforce local ethnic identities and nationalistdiscourses. I would also argue that the ideathat the presence of a foreign population has'spurred fierce debate about human rights' and'promoted reflection on the nature of Japanesesociety and ethnic attitudes' (Clammer 2001:133) has more currency in the English-language than the Japanese language press.One finding that emerged from my (Burgess2003) study of international marriage migrantsin Yamagata was that while the migrantsthemselves were active in transforming heartsand minds at the grassroots level, theirchildren were growing up, almost without

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exception, as monolingual and monocultural,assimilated within a generation.

1.3 Multicultural Japan?

To sum up the preceding discussion, we cansay that, on balance, Japan does not appear tobe particularly multicultural in terms of eitherdiscourse (1.2.1), policy (1.2.2), or people(1.2.3). Moreover, even a brief consideration ofthe way the wind is blowing, both domesticallyand globally, suggests that Japan, despite thepresence of substantial numbers of NGOs andmany local governments working forprogressive causes, is unlikely to become‘multicultural’ any time soon. This begs thequestion of whether those writing in the‘multicultural Japan’ vein are not beingdescriptive but rather prescriptive: not sayingwhat Japan is like but what it should, ought to,or must be like.[16] This may be partly due tothe fact that many non-Japanese writers onJapan are from America, Australia, the UK orother countries with a multicultural traditionwho either consciously or unconsciously believein the multicultural ideal. On a broader level,there is also the danger that those in the westwho write about the east will slip into asuperior/inferior binary. The influence ofOrientalism on the western tradition ofJapanese studies has received far too littleattention to date (Minear 1980; Susser 1998).As Clammer (2001:10) points outs, dismissingall Nihonjinron, parts of which representgenuine indigenous epistemology, outright as' n a t i o n a l i s t n o n s e n s e ' s m a c k s o f'ethnocentrism, neo-colonialism, and evenracism'. Indeed, carrying the multiculturaldiscourse to its logical conclusion risks,according to Sugimoto (1999: 94), researchthat is insensitive to Eurocentric or other formsof cultural imperialism.[17]

Aside from the dangers of prescription andOrientalism creeping into research, the factthat scholars are often based in metropolitanareas may also introduce an element of ‘urban

bias’ to their research. As I have writtenelsewhere (2007a), a great deal of the researchon migrants and minorities in Japan has tendedto focus on what have been called ‘diversitypoints’ (Tsuneyoshi 2004: 56) or shuju toshi,urban areas with large visible concentrations ofnon-Japanese, such as Kanagawa Prefecture(Kawasaki City), Shizuoka Prefecture(Hamamatsu City), Gunma Prefecture (OtaCity), as well as Tokyo and Osaka. Because theliterature disproportionately focuses on suchhigh migration localities, Japan will inevitablyappear more ‘multicultural’ than it actually is.This is not to say that such work does not haveimportance; rather, in order to construct abroader, more balanced, picture of Japanesesociety it is also important to look at what ishappening (or not happening) outside of suchareas. In particular, it is important toacknowledge the real differences between ruraland urban experiences. As polls (e.g. Cabinet-Office 2000) show, there is a growing gapbetween the cities, where more people say theyhave opportunities to interact with foreigners,and towns and villages, where respondents sayforeigners are hardly ever seen.

In a recent H-Japan posting (29/6/06), EarlKinmonth refers to statements in an article inThe Guardian (2005) on the lack of visibledifference in the street in Japan as ‘utterlymoronic’ and ‘bordering on the racist’.Kinmonth then goes on to describe the highvisibility of foreigners in his own area, Kita-ward in Tokyo. This kind of aggressive,emotional response to any suggestion of ethnichomogeneity in Japan is characteristic of whatClammer (2001: 49/96) calls the ‘vigorouspolemics’ and ‘hostility’ typically showntowards Nihonjinron. Such polemics illustratethe danger of replacing one discourse –homogeneity – with another – multiculturalism– without first having an understanding of howdiscourse itself functions. As Oguma pointedout in the quote at the very start of this essay,destroying one discourse and replacing it withanother is insufficient. Certainly, as Ryang

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(2005: 201) warns, caution is required beforecelebrating this new direction in Japanesestudies, since assuming an image of a‘multicultural, multiethnic Japan’ can be asessentialistic as the image of a monoculturalJapan.

In the literature on invented tradition – atheory concerning the social construction ofreality – it has been pointed out (Notehelfer1999: 436/7) that ideologies can never be 100%pure fabrication: in order to be successful theyneed to ‘resonate with inherited experience’among the general populace, be ‘deeply rootedin the lives and experiences of ordinary people’.As it turns out, Japan is, ethnically speaking, arelatively homogenous country and visiblephysical difference in daily life, at least outsidethe ‘diversity points’, remains low. For Oguma(2002: 348), the main reason for Japan’srelative homogeneity lies in the internationalconditions of the past century. Certainly, weare obliged as scholars to empirically identifyand critically – and objectively – assess thephenomenon we look at. But ultimately,debat ing whether Japan i s or i s not‘homogeneous’, whatever that may mean, isless interesting than the question of how andwhy people have come to believe this: “theprocess of formation”, writes Ryang (2005: 45),“is a more important object of analysis than thetrue-or-false verification of its content.”

Conclusion: The Changing Face(s) ofMigration

In their (1986) work, Mouer and Sugimotoidentify two competing images of Japanesesociety: the ‘great tradition’ of ‘homogenousJapan’ and the ‘little traditions’ that mighttoday correspond to the label ‘multiculturalJapan’. Twenty years on it is not too much tosay that the dominant academic discourse onJapan is not of ‘homogeneous Japan’ but of‘multicultural Japan’. Just as a discourse makesit possible to construct a topic in a certain way,it also limits the other ways in which the topic

can be constructed (Hall 1992: 292/3). Thus, itis difficult – if not quite taboo – to challenge theconventional wisdom or ‘common-sense’ viewin academia that s ta tes that e thn ichomogeneity is a ‘myth’ and that Japan is – or isat least will inevitably become – multicultural.This discourse contrasts not only with thepopular local discourse in Japan, whichgenerally sees the country as homogenous, butalso with the dominant global discourse onmigration, which in recent years has becomeincreasingly negative.

This paper was an attempt to (1) encouragereflection on the way academic discourserestricts and shapes what we do – and even can– write as academics and (2) show how localand global popular discourse, far from being‘false’ or ‘myth’, has a central role in theconstruction of Japanese social reality. In thestudy of migration in Japan in particular, futurework would benefit from a consideration of howpopular discourse can put up psychologicalbarriers, override ‘rational’ argument, andcreate its own social reality, even when theresult is seemingly detrimental to the nationalself-interest.

Chris Burgess took his PhD at MonashUniversity, Melbourne. Since April 2004, hehas been a full-time lecturer at Tsuda JukuUniversity (Tsuda College), Tokyo, where heteaches Japanese Studies and AustralianStudies. His research focuses on migration andidentity in Japan and includes papers oninternational marriage and 'newcomer children'in Yamagata Prefecture. See also his JapanTimes article of March 27, 2007, 'MulticulturalJ a p a n ' r e m a i n s a p i p e d r e a m(http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070327zg.html).

This is a revised and condensed version ofBurgess “The Discourse(s) of Migration:Changing Constructions of the Other since9/11”, Kokusai Kankeigaku Kenkyu (The Study

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of International Relations, Tsuda College), 33(March). Posted on Japan Focus, March 24,2007.

Notes

[1] This is a revised and condensed version ofBurgess (2007b), which contains much moredetail on the concept of discourse in generaland global discourse(s) of migration inparticular. I would like to point out that theauthor’s own publications have, until now, beenfirmly located in the ‘multicultural Japan’discourse. It is only recently that I have cometo question my position. I would like to thankMark Selden and Joshua H. Roth for commentson earlier drafts. Japan Focus is unable tohandle macrons; I apologise for anymisunderstandings that may arise in the textbecause of this.

[2] “It is by no means established”, concludesRevell (1997: 74), “that discussion of culture isany more prevalent in Japan than thediscussion of the importance of culture in anyother country.” The difference is of course thatin Japan the discussion has a label whileoutside Japan it does not.

[3] These ‘other’ dimensions of difference maybe equally, if not more important, thanethnicity in understanding the position ofminorities in Japan. “The low status of most ofJapan’s minority groups”, writes Goodman’s(1990: 9), “can be more closely related to theirclass marginality than the cultural or ethnicreasons normally cited.”

[4] Usually discourse is distinguished fromideology because of the latter’s traditionaldistinction between true (‘scientific’)statements and false (‘ideological’) statements(Hall 1992a: 292/3). However, this definition isdifficult to maintain. As Ryang (2005: 45)argues, ideology is better seen not as ‘falseconsciousness’ but rather as a real system ofthought which creates its own reality. For

example, by treating the concept of ‘nationalcharacter’ as an (state) ideological discursiveformation or field “in which scholars and laypeople alike widely participate” she emphasisesthat the concept is not somehow separate fromthe ‘real’ Japanese culture but rather has realsubstance (Ryang 2005: 45/60).

[5] Aso later clarified his remarks saying thathe had meant that Japan was relativelyhomogeneous. However, because Nihonjinronis framed as diametrically opposed to the'multicultural Japan' discourse, the weakerposition is buried and we only hear of'strenuous government and nationalist ledattempts to argue that Japan is a totallyhomogeneous culture' (Clammer 2001: 146).This creates something of a demon, disguisingthe fact, to paraphrase Clammer (2001: 53),that Nihonjinron is, most of the time, 'littlemore than nostalgia writ large.'

[6] The statements on Japan’s homogeneity do,I believe, possess a coherence sufficient toqualify as a discourse. I would argue that thisdiscourse on homogeneity is not the same thingas the much broader and internally disparateNihonjinron, which is more like a series ofvaried and sometimes contradictory discourses.

[7] Nippon Keidanren, Japan’s most powerfulbusiness lobby, has been one of the loudestvoices calling for more foreign workers. Theprevious chairman, Hiroshi Okuda, called forworkers of all occupations to be admitted.However, the new chairman, Mitarai Fujio isthought to be less open to the idea of bringingin large numbers of foreign workers, mirroringthe global shift in the discourse(s) of migration(Japan Times 2006a).

[8] This is not, of course, intended as anexclusive or even inclusive list. For example,not all societies considered (now or in the past)to be ‘multicultural’ accept or accepted dualnationality (See Scalise and Honjo 2004).

[9] For more of the problems of terms like

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kokusaika (internationalisation), kokusai koryu(international exchange), ibunka (differentculture), kyosei (co-existence), and tabunka(multiculturalism) see Burgess (2004b). Giventhe centrality of these terms in discussions ondiversity in Japan – for example, tabunka kyoseiis the official slogan of Kawasaki City – it isdisappointing to see them so often accepted atface value with little or no critical analysis.

[10] Again, it is local governments who aretaking the lead in this area. For example, in2005 Osaka Prefecture granted foreignresidents who have lived in the nation for morethan three years the right to vote in a localreferendum, reportedly the first such move inthe nation (Daily Yomiuri 2005c). Moreover,other ‘diversity points’, such as Kawasaki andHamamatsu, have already established foreignresidents’ assemblies to give these individualsa voice in local affairs (Pak 1998; 2000).Finally, recent moves by Miyagi Prefecture toe n a c t a s e t o f b y l a w s t o p r o m o t emulticulturalism are reportedly a first for anybranch or level of Japanese government (J.F.Morris, H-Japan, 29/1/07). Clearly, it isimportant not to dismiss these developments inthe direction of multiculturalism; my concern isthat often too much importance is attached tosuch these ‘baby steps’.

[11] Compulsory fingerprinting was abolishedfor all foreign residents from April 1st 2000.However, in the May 2006 revision of theImmigration Control and Refugee RecognitionLaw, fingerprinting was re-introduced for allbut Special Permanent Residents as a counter-terrorism measure.

[12] The question of whether these particularcountries provide a good comparison is a validone: there are many possible bases forcomparison. Certainly, it is true that the‘settlement’ countries are, thanks to highmigration, ‘unique’ in their high levels of ethnicand racial diversity (Sugimoto 1997: 30).Sugimoto (1997: 8) puts Japan somewhere in

the middle band of countries in terms of‘estimated proportions of ethnic and pseudo-ethnic groups’ (without defining 'pseudo-ethnicgroups'). Earl Kinmonth (H-Japan, 2/7/06) alsoargues that comparisons of migrants incountries that share common borders (likeEurope) with countries that are geographicallyisolated (like Japan) are unfair. However, thepoint that these critics miss is that countrieslike Austria, Bangladesh, Denmark, theDominican Republic, Greece, Iceland, Libya,and Portugal (Sugimoto’s 'bottom' band) orKorea, Mexico, Hungary, or Slovakia(Kinmonth) make a poor comparison with aJapan which boasts the 9th largest populationand the 2nd largest economy. If we accept thatwage differentials between home and hostcountries are a key ‘pull’ factor for migrants,then the best comparisons for Japan, which interms of net wealth per head has by far therichest citizens in the world (Daily Yomiuri2006b), lie with the G8 countries whichrepresent about 65% of the world economy.

[13] Certainly, the situation of zainichi Koreans,as the largest ethnic minority in Japan, needs tobe considered carefully; however, for thepurpose of a comparison of internationalmigration only first generation Koreans can beconsidered migrants. In other words,something like a quarter of Japanese migrantstock consists of zainichi 2nd, 3rd, and 4 th

generation individuals who are, in general,highly assimilated.

[14] The estimate for illegal migrants – mostlyoverstayers – has fallen significantly in recentyears, from 323,090 in 1992 to 240,000 in2005. This is interesting, as it contradicts oneof the central tenets of the ‘foreign crime’(gaikokujin hanzai) discourse, namely thatrising numbers of illegals has made Japan lesssafe. This is one case when a statement in aparticular discourse can be shown to beempirically false. Nevertheless, the discoursecontinues to have social reality; the perceptionthat illegals are rising remains strong (Ellis and

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Hamai 2007). The Japan ImmigrationAssociation position that the presence of illegalforeigners is “the big threat for the Japanesesociety to be dealt with immediately”(Nyukan-Kyokai 2005: 60) continues to drive policy. Thismeans that to some extent the government isforced to maintain a policy targeting a groupwhich, statistically, is rapidly shrinking.

[15] Murphy-Shigematsu’s estimate thatnational and ethnic minorities make up 3% ofthe total population translates into 3.8 millionpeople. The main ethnic groups in Japan arethe Ryukyujin (1.3 million), Korean and Chinese‘oldcomers’ (451,909), and the Ainu (24,000),giving a total of 1,775,909. Even factoring inthe 300,000+ Koreans who, according toShipper (2002: 55) have become naturalisedJapanese citizens since 1952, and perhapsanother 50,000+ non-Korean naturalisations,the total still only comes to 2,125,909. Only byincluding non-permanent and illegal residentsdo we get a figure approaching 3.8 million.

[16] For Befu (2006:7), it is the Nihonjinronassumption that Japan should (his italics)remain mono-e thn ic and cu l tura l l yhomogeneous that lies behind discriminatorypractices against foreigners. It is thereforeironic that his own argument relies on anequally prescriptive premise of what hepersonally thinks Japan should be like.

[17] Oguma, who has shed much light on theemergence of the discourse of homogeneity, isalso critical of ‘idealised’ multicultural models.“The idea that the shortcomings of the EmperorSystem and Japanese society will be overcome”,he (Oguma 2002: 346) writes, “only if Japan isinternationalised, the consciousness of pureblood is destroyed, and Japan becomes a multi-national state, is based on a misunderstandingof the Great Japanese Empire. This idea is notonly wrong, but dangerous”. Oguma’stranslator, David Askew (2002), concludes thatwhat is required is an historical understandingof the various concepts of what “Japanese”

means: “[M]any criticisms of the myth of ethnichomogeneity have been developed from thebaseless optimism that the destruction of thismyth will serve as a panacea for Japan’sproblems.”

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