{"id":12621,"date":"2014-09-04T20:44:55","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T06:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=12621"},"modified":"2014-09-08T12:01:06","modified_gmt":"2014-09-08T22:01:06","slug":"sneak-preview-my-next-japan-times-just-be-cause-column-79-on-visible-minorities-sept-4-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=12621","title":{"rendered":"Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE column 79, on Japan’s Visible Minorities, Sept. 4, 2014 (version with links to sources)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. \u00a0Thanks as always for reading, and for putting this column once again at #1 for two days at the Japan Times Online:<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

\u201cVISIBLE MINORITIES\u201d ARE BEING CAUGHT IN THE DRAGNET<\/strong>
\n By Dr. ARUDOU, Debito<\/strong>
\n Column 79 for the Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Community Page, September 4, 2014<\/strong>
\nCourtesy http:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/community\/2014\/09\/03\/issues\/visible-minorities-caught-police-dragnet\/<\/a>
\nVersion with links to sources, previous discussion on Debito.org about this issue here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Around noon on Aug. 13,<\/a> in Ushiku, Ibaraki Prefecture, a local apartment manager notified the police that a \u201csuspicious foreigner\u201d was hanging around the nearby JR train station.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Cops duly descended upon someone described by the Asahi as a \u201c20-year-old male who came from the Philippines with a Japanese passport<\/a>\u201d (sic). [archived here if dead link<\/a>]<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

When asked what he was doing, he said he was meeting friends. When asked his nationality, he mentioned his dual citizenship. Unfortunately, he carried no proof of that.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

So far, nothing illegal here: Carrying ID at all times is not legally required for Japanese citizens.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

But it is for foreigners. So the cops, convinced that he was really a foreigner, took him in for questioning \u2014 for five hours. Then they arrested him under the Immigration Control Act for, according to a Nikkei report<\/a>, not carrying his passport, and interrogated him for another seven.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In the wee hours of Aug. 14, after ascertaining that his father is Japanese and mother foreign, he was released with verbal apologies. That hardly suffices. If any of you have ever undergone Japan\u2019s \u201cvoluntary questioning\u201d and\/or 23 days of interrogation after arrest<\/a>, you know how harrowing it can be.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

And this isn\u2019t the first instance.And this isn\u2019t the first instance. On Feb. 25, 2006, a 28-year-old foreign-looking Japanese woman was arrested in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, for not carrying a foreign passport.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Grounds for suspicion? According to the Mainichi Shimbun<\/a>, she was carrying an envelope with Portuguese writing on it. Unable to talk because she was reportedly \u201cnot good at speaking to strangers,\u201d she was released when they finally contacted her family after more than a full day of interrogation.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Milder cases are more commonplace: The New York Times (July 8, 2010)<\/a> featured the account of a Japanese writer-translator who had been pulled aside repeatedly by Tokyo police officers for being \u201ctoo tall and dark-colored,\u201d and had even been asked to show the contents of her purse.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I too have been stopped and asked the personal questions reserved only for criminal suspects<\/a> (shokumu shitsumon) on numerous occasions, but fortunately talked my way out of getting arrested for being a Japanese without a \u201cgaijin (alien registration) card.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As The Japan Times has been chronicling for years, the people particularly vulnerable during Japan\u2019s perennial mission to smoke out \u201cillegal foreign visa overstayers\u201d are those who \u201clook foreign.\u201d That leads us to the point of this piece: Japan desperately needs a new concept to account for Japanese who don\u2019t look it. How about visible minorities?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This concept and term has gained currency in minority studies. For example, the Canadian government uses it<\/a> when referring to the treatment of people who may not at first glance \u201clook\u201d like the majority population.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s tough to discuss minority issues in allegedly \u201chomogeneous Japan.\u201d Our government has long denied any domestic minorities exist (see www.debito.org\/japanvsun.html<\/a>) You still get the occasional politician doing so (such as a Sapporo city assemblyman on Aug. 11<\/a>), despite Japan\u2019s parliament formally recognizing the Ainu as one in 2008<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But that hasn\u2019t deterred Japan scholars from studying the Ainu, as well as the Okinawans, the burakumin historical underclass, Zainichi Korean and Chinese generational foreigners, South American workers of Japanese descent, and the 2 million registered foreign residents.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet Japanese studies have generally overlooked how physical appearance plays a part in Japan\u2019s racialization dynamics. Even recent work, such as Kyle Cleveland\u2019s insightful chapter on ethnic minorities in the 2013 book \u201cCritical Issues in Contemporary Japan,\u201d does not mention physical appearance or skin color as an issue in discrimination. He describes minorities in Japan as \u201cinvisible.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I disagree. And those detained for looking foreignly suspicious, singled out for bullying for being \u201chalf\u201d or \u201cgaijin\u201d in schools, and denied entry to \u201cJapanese only\u201d establishments, might also.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Moreover, unlike other minorities, visible ones cannot \u201cpass\u201d as Japanese in terms of physical appearance, and thus face different forms of discrimination. Further, visible minorities also include Japanese citizens, bringing in issues of guaranteed equal protection under the law.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It also leads to the fundamental question of \u201cWhat is a Japanese?\u201d As my doctoral research demonstrated, \u201cJapaneseness\u201d is linked to physical appearance by Japan\u2019s laws, law enforcement, public policy, jurisprudence and media messages. And as seen in the Ushiku, Tokyo, Sapporo and Saitama cases above, you have to \u201clook Japanese\u201d to be treated as such.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Overlooking the existence of Japan\u2019s visible minorities must stop. Thousands of Japanese children have been born to international marriages. Thousands have naturalized. Nearly half of Japan\u2019s entire registered non-Japanese population are permanent residents. Well over half of those again (the regular permanent residents, as opposed to the Zainichi) are people who came from overseas<\/a>. There is enormous diversity that is being under-analyzed.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In fact, let\u2019s go one step further: Permanent residents should claim their minority status themselves. After all, if you can stay here as a permanent part of a society, you can qualify as a minority. That includes the foreign scholars of minority issues, who despite decades living in and researching in Japan, don\u2019t appear to consider themselves members of a minority.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the big-picture stuff for this month. Now let\u2019s turn to some concrete policy measures the government can take to reduce the chances of people getting wrongfully detained.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

First, if the Japanese police must go gaijin hunting, then train them properly in immigration law.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Any Immigration Bureau official knows that: a) foreigners are not required to carry a passport at all times (that\u2019s why gaijin cards exist) unless they are unregistered tourists; b) naturalized Japanese exist; and c) dual nationality is legally possible until the day you turn age 22 \u2014 and, in any case, it is not grounds for suspicion, detention or arrest.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Ushiku police in particular should have known all this. Ushiku hosts one of Japan\u2019s biggest foreigner prisons, the East Japan Immigration Control Center. Then again, conditions there are so harsh that detainees carried out hunger strikes and even committed suicide there in 2010<\/a>. So maybe this is how Ushiku police are trained.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Law enforcement also needs to let go of the narrative that \u201cforeigners are suspicious.\u201d If some old crank busybody calls the cops on some kid waiting for his friends, officers should demand more grounds than just his or her \u201cforeignness.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But, above all, the authorities need to acknowledge Japan\u2019s diversity by accepting the concept of visible minorities, and start making policies to protect the Japanese who cannot \u201cpass.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Once again, that means creating that Holy Grail of a racial discrimination law. However, we can start off small by officially depicting Japaneseness as a legal status, not a bloodline-determined mystical concept entwined with racial purity. Fat chance under the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe<\/a>, I know, but it must happen someday.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ultimately, Japan\u2019s visible minorities are the canary in the coal mine. How they are treated is a bellwether of how Japan will handle its inevitably increasing diversity. Otherwise, if you \u2014 or your kids \u2014 happen to be too tall, dark or scary, you had better start carrying your Japanese passport around.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

==================================
\nDebito Arudou\u2019s \u201cHandbook for Newcomers, Migrants and Immigrants to Japan\u201d is available on Amazon as an ebook. For more details, see www.debito.org\/handbook.html. Twitter @arudoudebito. Just Be Cause usually appears in print on the first Thursday of the month. Your comments: community@japantimes.co.jp<\/em>
\nENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cVISIBLE MINORITIES\u201d ARE BEING CAUGHT IN THE DRAGNET
\nBy Dr. ARUDOU, Debito
\nColumn 79 for the Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Community Page, September 4, 2014<\/p>\n

Around noon on Aug. 13, in Ushiku, Ibaraki Prefecture, a local apartment manager notified the police that a \u201csuspicious foreigner\u201d was hanging around the nearby JR train station.<\/p>\n

Cops duly descended upon someone described by the Asahi as a \u201c20-year-old male who came from the Philippines with a Japanese passport\u201d (sic).<\/p>\n

When asked what he was doing, he said he was meeting friends. When asked his nationality, he mentioned his dual citizenship. Unfortunately, he carried no proof of that.<\/p>\n

So far, nothing illegal here: Carrying ID at all times is not legally required for Japanese citizens.<\/p>\n

But it is for foreigners. So the cops, convinced that he was really a foreigner, took him in for questioning \u2014 for five hours. Then they arrested him under the Immigration Control Act for, according to a Nikkei report, not carrying his passport, and interrogated him for another seven.<\/p>\n

In the wee hours of Aug. 14, after ascertaining that his father is Japanese and mother foreign, he was released with verbal apologies. That hardly suffices. If any of you have ever undergone Japan\u2019s \u201cvoluntary questioning\u201d and\/or 23 days of interrogation after arrest, you know how harrowing it can be. And this isn\u2019t the first instance…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,18,33,5,12,4,60,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anti-discrimination-templates","category-academia","category-fingerprinting-nj","category-human-rights","category-immigration-assimilation","category-japanese-government","category-nj-voices-ignored","category-unsustainable-japanese-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}