{"id":15883,"date":"2019-12-16T08:49:12","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T16:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15883"},"modified":"2021-03-14T10:27:36","modified_gmt":"2021-03-14T17:27:36","slug":"my-sna-visible-minorities-column-5-local-governments-classifying-japanese-citizens-as-foreigners-dec-16-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15883","title":{"rendered":"My SNA Visible Minorities column 5: “Local Governments Classifying Japanese Citizens as Foreigners”, Dec. 16, 2019 (full text)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Visible Minorities: Local Governments Classifying Japanese Citizens as Foreigners<\/strong>
\nShingetsu News Agency, Dec 16, 2019. By Debito Arudou\u00a0<\/strong>
\nhttp:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2019\/12\/16\/visible-minorities-local-governments-classifying-japanese-citizens-as-foreigners\/<\/a><\/p>\n

SNA (Tokyo) \u2014 According to the Japanese government, our resident Non-Japanese (NJ) population reached yet another new record, at 2.8 million last June. Last April, Japan started offering new visa regimes to greatly expand the NJ labor force, in response to Japan\u2019s aging society and shrinking population. This, plus steady numbers of permanent residents, international marriages, and naturalizing citizens, are expanding our multicultural and multiethnic communities.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In response, local governments have been trying to accommodate the diversity through new concepts and policies. It started in earnest as far back as 2001 with the Hamamatsu Declaration<\/a>, where multiple cities and towns near Shizuoka Prefecture called upon the national government to assist them in providing their NJ residents with education, welfare benefits, and streamlined administration. Since then, local governments have generally made positive proposals in good faith.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But sometimes they get it wrong. Last month, Debito.org reported how the city of Nagoya uses a very problematic term in their documents: Gaikokujin Shimin.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The closest translation would be a \u201cforeigner city resident\/citizen\u201d (as opposed to, er, a gaikokujin kokumin, the contradictory \u201cforeigner Japanese citizen\u201d?). But the point is that people covered by this term officially belong in the city as dwellers and participants.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The concept sounds inclusive until you see how it\u2019s officially being defined. According to one of Nagoya city\u2019s \u201cGeneral Plans,\u201d dated August 2018, a Gaikokujin Shimin is, as I translate it from the text:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition to people with foreign nationalities with an address within Nagoya city, people like those who obtained Japanese citizenship, children born from international marriages, people with foreign cultures in their backgrounds, and people who have foreign roots.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

(Original Japanese<\/a>: \u540d\u53e4\u5c4b\u5e02\u5185\u306b\u4f4f\u6240\u3092\u6709\u3059\u308b\u5916\u56fd\u7c4d\u306e\u4eba\u306e\u307b\u304b\u3001\u65e5\u672c\u56fd\u7c4d\u3092\u53d6\u5f97\u3057\u305f\u4eba\u3084\u56fd\u969b\u7d50\u5a5a\u306b\u3088\u3063\u3066\u751f\u307e\u308c\u305f\u5b50\u3069\u3082\u306a\u3069\u5916\u56fd\u306e\u6587\u5316\u3092\u80cc\u666f\u306b\u6301\u3064\u4eba\u306a\u3069\u3001\u5916\u56fd\u306b\u30eb\u30fc\u30c4\u3092\u6301\u3064\u4eba\u3002)<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s mull that over: This definition stretches \u201cforeigner\u201d far beyond the basic legal definition of someone with foreign citizenship. It also means Japanese citizens are foreigners.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As explicitly stated in Nagoya\u2019s definition, even if you naturalize you\u2019re still a gaikokujin, regardless of Japan\u2019s Nationality Law. You can\u2019t escape.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

How about if you\u2019re born in Japan to a Japanese but have one foreign parent? A \u201cone-drop rule\u201d seems to apply. You\u2019re still a gaikokujin. It\u2019s the same for all your descendants in perpetuity, what with \u201croots in a foreign country.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

What if you have any foreign cultures in your background? Such as a stint living overseas as an exchange student or as a kikoku shijo (returnee child)? Gaikokujin, now and forever.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Further, couldn\u2019t you stretch \u201cbackground\u201d into \u201cexperience,\u201d e.g., being acculturated through foreign friends with or having a romantic relationship with a foreigner? This is what you get when you stray from The Tribe: You get officially gaikokujin-ized.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But Nagoya city isn\u2019t alone in this careless alienation. Google \u201cGaikokujin Shimin\u201d in Japanese and you\u2019ll find oodles of others: Tokyo Hachioji, Saitama, Kawasaki, Hiroshima, Kitakyushu, Toyohashi, Kofu, Sakai\u2026 Even Aichi Prefecture has tweaked the term into Gaikokujin Kenmin (foreign prefectural citizen).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

That degree of legitimacy means the term was probably handed down from the national government, and that further explains its shortsightedness. I\u2019ve written extensively elsewhere how national committees making policies for \u201cforeigners\u201d generally don\u2019t include any<\/a>, or any member who knows much about Japan\u2019s diversity. So that\u2019s what you get: official terms so staggeringly oblivious to reality they become exclusionary epithets.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

If policymakers wanted to be inclusive, how about a term that doesn\u2019t allude to legal status? For example, how about \u201cmulticultural citizen\/resident\u201d (tabunka shimin\/jumin)? Or \u201cinternational citizen\/resident\u201d (kokusai shimin\/jumin)? These terms have been circulating for decades, and they allow you to belong to a place while being simultaneously diverse and Japanese.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Instead, by reinforcing a binary of \u201canything not 100% Japanese must be foreign,\u201d Gaikokujin Shimin goes beyond issues of nationality and into eugenics.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Have we learned nothing from history? By making \u201cforeigner\u201d status inescapable even across generations, Gaikokujin Shimin toes the same path that ultimately led to officials forcing people to wear a Star of David. It is a profound step backwards in the face of Japan\u2019s inevitable multiethnicization. Its use should be immediately abolished.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

ENDS<\/span><\/p>\n

More information and sources at https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15820<\/a>.<\/p>\n

======================<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you like what you read on Debito.org? \u00a0Want to help keep the archive active and support Debito.org’s activities? \u00a0Please consider donating a little something. \u00a0More details here<\/a>. Or if you prefer something less complicated, just click on an advertisement below.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SNA (Tokyo) \u2014 According to the Japanese government, our resident Non-Japanese (NJ) population reached yet another new record, at 2.8 million last June. Last April, Japan started offering new visa regimes to greatly expand the NJ labor force, in response to Japan\u2019s aging society and shrinking population. This, plus steady numbers of permanent residents, international marriages, and naturalizing citizens, are expanding our multicultural and multiethnic communities.<\/p>\n

In response, local governments have been trying to accommodate the diversity through new concepts and policies. It started in earnest as far back as 2001 with the Hamamatsu Declaration, where multiple cities and towns near Shizuoka Prefecture called upon the national government to assist them in providing their NJ residents with education, welfare benefits, and streamlined administration. Since then, local governments have generally made positive proposals in good faith.<\/p>\n

But sometimes they get it wrong. Last month, Debito.org reported how the city of Nagoya uses a very problematic term in their documents: Gaikokujin Shimin. The closest translation would be a \u201cforeigner city resident\/citizen\u201d (as opposed to, er, a gaikokujin kokumin, the contradictory \u201cforeigner Japanese citizen\u201d?). But the point is that people covered by this term officially belong in the city as dwellers and participants.<\/p>\n

The concept sounds inclusive until you see how it\u2019s officially being defined. According to one of Nagoya city\u2019s \u201cGeneral Plans,\u201d dated August 2018, a Gaikokujin Shimin is, as I translate it from the text: \u201cIn addition to people with foreign nationalities with an address within Nagoya city, people like those who obtained Japanese citizenship, children born from international marriages, people with foreign cultures in their backgrounds, and people who have foreign roots.\u201d (Original Japanese: \u540d\u53e4\u5c4b\u5e02\u5185\u306b\u4f4f\u6240\u3092\u6709\u3059\u308b\u5916\u56fd\u7c4d\u306e\u4eba\u306e\u307b\u304b\u3001\u65e5\u672c\u56fd\u7c4d\u3092\u53d6\u5f97\u3057\u305f\u4eba\u3084\u56fd\u969b\u7d50\u5a5a\u306b\u3088\u3063\u3066\u751f\u307e\u308c\u305f\u5b50\u3069\u3082\u306a\u3069\u5916\u56fd\u306e\u6587\u5316\u3092\u80cc\u666f\u306b\u6301\u3064\u4eba\u306a\u3069\u3001\u5916\u56fd\u306b\u30eb\u30fc\u30c4\u3092\u6301\u3064\u4eba\u3002)
\nLet\u2019s mull that over:
\nRest at http:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2019\/12\/16\/visible-minorities-local-governments-classifying-japanese-citizens-as-foreigners\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,18,36,34,33,12,4,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-academia","category-bad-social-science","category-exclusionism","category-fingerprinting-nj","category-immigration-assimilation","category-japanese-government","category-problematic-foreign-treatment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15883","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=15883"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16503,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15883\/revisions\/16503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}