I know that the immigrant countries with birthright citizenship are the outliers here, but when you tell me that the largest minority group in Japan faces discrimination, calls for their death, and exclusion from citizenship despite having lived in Japan for generations, speaking Japanese, taking Japanese names, and only being there in the first place due to Japanese colonialism… I dunno, man, that sounds kinda racist and xenophobic!
you mention Brazilians several times in your article. You should expand on that and explain why these Japanese-descent Brazilians are there in the first place, namely an explicit policy back in 80s-90s (when Japanese industry needed workers not yet because of low birth rates but because of booming economy) to import these "Japanese-blooded" people as guest workers on the (mistaken) assumption that because they looked Japanese that they were also culturally etc. similar. They could've imported labor more cheaply from nearer but went across the world to hunt for these hopefully more racially compatible imports. Can't think off top of head of another similar example. It's like Germany in 70s deciding to get workers from US citizens with German ancestry rather than from Turkey, or something.
nitpick: "Yep, you read that right. Japan’s government doesn’t go around asking people what race they are. A curious behavior for a country that’s supposedly obsessed with racial purity, no?"
actually can be totally consistent with a monoracial country! For the same reason the US census doesn't ask respondents whether they are human or klingon.
I think this recording race thing is mostly an American (ie, North and South American) phenomenon. I grew up in a Scandinavian country, and I remember being both confused and offended the first time I had to fill in my race on a visa application (why is it called "Caucasian" again?).
Germany is similar, they only record country of origin. So if your grandparents were forcibly resettled in Kazakhstan after the war, you're considered to be Kazakh if you return to Germany.
One out of three Swedes was born abroad or has at least one parent who was. Most recent immigrants to Sweden aren't European, either, so there are plenty of non-white "visible minorities," too. And Norway and Denmark aren't far behind Sweden, when it comes to diversity.
Like in Australia, Canada, and the United States, economically successful societies attract immigration. Go figure!
Being in Japan these days, it feels like the refusal to measure race is only unusual compared with the hyper race conscious countries of the west. I agree that there is a growing minority in Japan that also has racial diversity as a goal for the country but don't see it being a focus
People don't just handwave about Scandinavia (and Japan) being culturally/ethnically homogeneous — they do it with Europe as a whole! (To defend the gaping holes in the US welfare state, for instance, or to argue that integrating immigrants is intrinsically easier/harder in Europe.) Which is bullshit! You can point to cultural and national splits in one European country after another!
‣ Belgium: pillarization
‣ Netherlands: pillarization
‣ France: widely recognized north v. south divide
‣ Italy: widely recognized north v. south divide
‣ Spain: Catalonia v. the Basque Country v. Galicia v. the rest of Spain
‣ Germany: (ex-)FRG v. (ex-)GDR
‣ Switzerland: 3 official languages
‣ Kosovo v. Serbia (and Serbia's own internal split between central Serbia and rich, Hungarian-influenced Vojvodina)
‣ Albania: north v. south divide again
‣ Poland: Poland A v. Poland B
‣ UK: 4 countries in a trenchcoat
‣ Bosnia and Herzegovina (and Northern Ireland): school segregation by ethnicity/"nation"
‣ Estonia: about 1 in 4 Estonians are Russian
‣ Latvia: about 1 in 4 Estonians are Russian
‣ across Europe: de facto/de jure segregation of Roma
I agree that Japan is slowly opening up, but to imply that it pursues homogeneity less heavy-handedly than France or Denmark? Well, if we're cherry-picking statistics, the following:
--Japan: 1.5 million foreign workers on a population of 126.8 million (both 2018): 1.18%
--France: 6.5 million foreigners of which about 58% is employed on a population of 67.17 million (all 2018): 5,63%
--Denmark: 380,000 foreign workers on a population of 5,794,000 (also 2018): 6.36%
France and Denmark have 5 to 6 times the amount of foreign workers in comparison with Japan. Also, implying that France is about as homogenous as Japan? Have you ever been to France?
TL;DR: yes, Japan is opening up. But it's still very far away in diversity in comparison with countries like Denmark and France, thank you very much.
Do westerners mistakenly believe that Japan is more homogenous than it is, because most ethnic-minority people in Japan are of other East Asian ethnicities, not the ethnicities that westerners are most likely to see as problematic (chiefly African and Middle Eastern)?
There are many other marks of heterogeneity besides "race" but that would require multiple articles. Noah sticks to things amenable to measurement, which is my own predilection. Here I drop the "must be quantifiable" mindset.
You don't have to go too far back to find Japanese who only spoke their local dialect and couldn't understand each other. The spread of TV helped erase most of that, but you can still find Osaka-ben (dialect) on TV, and in schools in (duh!) the Kansai region (actually, Kyoto is a bit different). Diets vary by region. Generational gaps are large. A whole generation migrated from the countryside to cities from the 1950s into the late 1960s, boys and girls leaving home and school at age 16 to live in boarding houses and employer dormitories. Those cohorts are now dying out, but their socialization is very different from both earlier and later generations. Rural versus urban, suburban versus city center, all the "normal" demarcations.
And subcultures of every sort! Musicians, artists, academics, surfers, dropouts of many sorts, members of religious cults (the largest of which is large company careerism). LBGTQI+ communities. The deaf. Old elite descended from the Edo-period ruling families. Residents of small business districts who go to different colleges and seek spouses who value the family-centered lifestyle (though the growth of modern retailing has eroded that culture). There are many more.
Note I've lived in Japan off and on over a 50 year time span, as someone who can read and speak Japanese. In the vein of Noah's article, I've been in restaurants in Korea where the wait staff were ethnic Koreans from China who couldn't speak Korean. My recollection was that it was easy for them to immigrate, similar to the Brazilian-Japanese case.
I got back from my first trip to Japan about two hours ago to find this article at the top of my email list - suspicious or propitious. I was in Osaka and Kyoto with my Malaysian wife and youngest boy on a 'food tour' - they're massive fans. As a late boomer Brit I grew up with lots of prejudices and preconceptions about Japan. There were lots of Korean, Chinese, Malaysian and SEA tourists, quite a few Americans and a number of Europeans - no Brits/Aussies - but still the overhelming sense was very Japanese. Nobody in the restaurants we visited spoke English - google translate kinda works - and it was wonderful to be cut off in adifferent culture with no bloody KFCs, and very few McDs or Starbucks. After 30 odd years in Asian I've had ixed reports about being a foreigner in Japan, but my first taste was very positive. Thanks for the article.
I certainly agree about greater homogeneity over time. Today, there are more foreign-born residents than ever before, and I don't think that number is going down due to demographic pressure.
“The Japanese 95% majority isn’t homogenous or worthy of a nation state but Israel being 60% Jewish is a Jewish state that deserves apartheid” classic pilpul chutzpah
I know that the immigrant countries with birthright citizenship are the outliers here, but when you tell me that the largest minority group in Japan faces discrimination, calls for their death, and exclusion from citizenship despite having lived in Japan for generations, speaking Japanese, taking Japanese names, and only being there in the first place due to Japanese colonialism… I dunno, man, that sounds kinda racist and xenophobic!
you mention Brazilians several times in your article. You should expand on that and explain why these Japanese-descent Brazilians are there in the first place, namely an explicit policy back in 80s-90s (when Japanese industry needed workers not yet because of low birth rates but because of booming economy) to import these "Japanese-blooded" people as guest workers on the (mistaken) assumption that because they looked Japanese that they were also culturally etc. similar. They could've imported labor more cheaply from nearer but went across the world to hunt for these hopefully more racially compatible imports. Can't think off top of head of another similar example. It's like Germany in 70s deciding to get workers from US citizens with German ancestry rather than from Turkey, or something.
nitpick: "Yep, you read that right. Japan’s government doesn’t go around asking people what race they are. A curious behavior for a country that’s supposedly obsessed with racial purity, no?"
actually can be totally consistent with a monoracial country! For the same reason the US census doesn't ask respondents whether they are human or klingon.
I think this recording race thing is mostly an American (ie, North and South American) phenomenon. I grew up in a Scandinavian country, and I remember being both confused and offended the first time I had to fill in my race on a visa application (why is it called "Caucasian" again?).
Germany is similar, they only record country of origin. So if your grandparents were forcibly resettled in Kazakhstan after the war, you're considered to be Kazakh if you return to Germany.
Also, Scandinavia isn't homogeneous.
One out of three Swedes was born abroad or has at least one parent who was. Most recent immigrants to Sweden aren't European, either, so there are plenty of non-white "visible minorities," too. And Norway and Denmark aren't far behind Sweden, when it comes to diversity.
Like in Australia, Canada, and the United States, economically successful societies attract immigration. Go figure!
Wait it’s 90% ethnic Japanese and...
Being in Japan these days, it feels like the refusal to measure race is only unusual compared with the hyper race conscious countries of the west. I agree that there is a growing minority in Japan that also has racial diversity as a goal for the country but don't see it being a focus
People don't just handwave about Scandinavia (and Japan) being culturally/ethnically homogeneous — they do it with Europe as a whole! (To defend the gaping holes in the US welfare state, for instance, or to argue that integrating immigrants is intrinsically easier/harder in Europe.) Which is bullshit! You can point to cultural and national splits in one European country after another!
‣ Belgium: pillarization
‣ Netherlands: pillarization
‣ France: widely recognized north v. south divide
‣ Italy: widely recognized north v. south divide
‣ Spain: Catalonia v. the Basque Country v. Galicia v. the rest of Spain
‣ Germany: (ex-)FRG v. (ex-)GDR
‣ Switzerland: 3 official languages
‣ Kosovo v. Serbia (and Serbia's own internal split between central Serbia and rich, Hungarian-influenced Vojvodina)
‣ Albania: north v. south divide again
‣ Poland: Poland A v. Poland B
‣ UK: 4 countries in a trenchcoat
‣ Bosnia and Herzegovina (and Northern Ireland): school segregation by ethnicity/"nation"
‣ Estonia: about 1 in 4 Estonians are Russian
‣ Latvia: about 1 in 4 Estonians are Russian
‣ across Europe: de facto/de jure segregation of Roma
I agree that Japan is slowly opening up, but to imply that it pursues homogeneity less heavy-handedly than France or Denmark? Well, if we're cherry-picking statistics, the following:
--Japan: 1.5 million foreign workers on a population of 126.8 million (both 2018): 1.18%
--France: 6.5 million foreigners of which about 58% is employed on a population of 67.17 million (all 2018): 5,63%
--Denmark: 380,000 foreign workers on a population of 5,794,000 (also 2018): 6.36%
France and Denmark have 5 to 6 times the amount of foreign workers in comparison with Japan. Also, implying that France is about as homogenous as Japan? Have you ever been to France?
TL;DR: yes, Japan is opening up. But it's still very far away in diversity in comparison with countries like Denmark and France, thank you very much.
Do westerners mistakenly believe that Japan is more homogenous than it is, because most ethnic-minority people in Japan are of other East Asian ethnicities, not the ethnicities that westerners are most likely to see as problematic (chiefly African and Middle Eastern)?
Noah, random Q: do you speak Japanese?
There are many other marks of heterogeneity besides "race" but that would require multiple articles. Noah sticks to things amenable to measurement, which is my own predilection. Here I drop the "must be quantifiable" mindset.
You don't have to go too far back to find Japanese who only spoke their local dialect and couldn't understand each other. The spread of TV helped erase most of that, but you can still find Osaka-ben (dialect) on TV, and in schools in (duh!) the Kansai region (actually, Kyoto is a bit different). Diets vary by region. Generational gaps are large. A whole generation migrated from the countryside to cities from the 1950s into the late 1960s, boys and girls leaving home and school at age 16 to live in boarding houses and employer dormitories. Those cohorts are now dying out, but their socialization is very different from both earlier and later generations. Rural versus urban, suburban versus city center, all the "normal" demarcations.
And subcultures of every sort! Musicians, artists, academics, surfers, dropouts of many sorts, members of religious cults (the largest of which is large company careerism). LBGTQI+ communities. The deaf. Old elite descended from the Edo-period ruling families. Residents of small business districts who go to different colleges and seek spouses who value the family-centered lifestyle (though the growth of modern retailing has eroded that culture). There are many more.
Note I've lived in Japan off and on over a 50 year time span, as someone who can read and speak Japanese. In the vein of Noah's article, I've been in restaurants in Korea where the wait staff were ethnic Koreans from China who couldn't speak Korean. My recollection was that it was easy for them to immigrate, similar to the Brazilian-Japanese case.
I got back from my first trip to Japan about two hours ago to find this article at the top of my email list - suspicious or propitious. I was in Osaka and Kyoto with my Malaysian wife and youngest boy on a 'food tour' - they're massive fans. As a late boomer Brit I grew up with lots of prejudices and preconceptions about Japan. There were lots of Korean, Chinese, Malaysian and SEA tourists, quite a few Americans and a number of Europeans - no Brits/Aussies - but still the overhelming sense was very Japanese. Nobody in the restaurants we visited spoke English - google translate kinda works - and it was wonderful to be cut off in adifferent culture with no bloody KFCs, and very few McDs or Starbucks. After 30 odd years in Asian I've had ixed reports about being a foreigner in Japan, but my first taste was very positive. Thanks for the article.
I certainly agree about greater homogeneity over time. Today, there are more foreign-born residents than ever before, and I don't think that number is going down due to demographic pressure.
Well... learned something today... thanks
“The Japanese 95% majority isn’t homogenous or worthy of a nation state but Israel being 60% Jewish is a Jewish state that deserves apartheid” classic pilpul chutzpah