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Japan Foreign Residents
If Japanese society is reluctant to readmit returnees,
it is
even less willing to accept as full members of society
those people
who are not ethnic Japanese. In 1991 there were 1.2
million foreign
residents in Japan, less than 1 percent of Japan's
population (if
illegal aliens were counted, the number of foreigners
might be
several times higher than the quoted figure). Of this
number,
693,100 (about 57 percent) were Koreans and 171,100 (some
14
percent) were Chinese. Many of these people were
descendants of
those brought to Japan during Japan's occupation of Taiwan
(1895-
1945) and Korea (1905-45) to work at unskilled jobs, such
as coal
mining. Because Japanese citizenship was based on the
nationality
of the parent rather than on the place of birth,
subsequent
generations were not automatically Japanese and had to be
naturalized to claim citizenship, despite being born and
educated
in Japan and speaking only Japanese, as was the case with
most
Koreans in Japan. Until the late 1980s, people applying
for
citizenship were expected to use only the Japanese
renderings of
their names and, even as citizens, continued to face
discrimination
in education, employment, and marriage. Thus, few chose
naturalization, and they faced legal restrictions as
foreigners, as
well as extreme social prejudice.
All non-Japanese are required by law to register with
the
government and carry alien registration cards. From the
early
1980s, a civil disobedience movement encouraged refusal of
the
fingerprinting that accompanied registration every five
years.
Those people who opposed fingerprinting argued that it was
discriminatory because the only Japanese who were
fingerprinted
were criminals. The courts upheld fingerprinting, but the
law was
changed so that fingerprinting was done once rather than
with each
renewal of the registration. Some Koreans, often with the
support
of either South Korea or the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea
(North Korea), attempted to educate their children in the
Korean
language, history, and culture and to instill pride in
their Korean
heritage. Most Koreans in Japan, however, have never been
to the
Korean Peninsula and do not speak Korean. Many are caught
in a
vicious cycle of poverty and discrimination in a society
that
emphasizes Japan's homogeneity and cultural uniqueness.
Other
Asians, too, whether students or permanent residents, face
prejudice and a strong "we-they" distinction. Europeans
and North
Americans might be treated with greater hospitality but
nonetheless
find it difficult to become full members of Japanese
society.
Public awareness of the place of foreigners
(gaijin) in
Japanese society was heightened in the late 1980s in
debates over
the acceptance of Vietnamese and Chinese refugees and the
importing
of Filipino brides for rural farmers.
Data as of January 1994
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