Neo-Nationalism and Identity in Japan

Over the past year I have been paying attention to a national scandal here in Japan that is centered around a kindergarten here in Osaka.  (The school is not far from where I was biking a few weeks ago along the Yodo River.)  The larger context of the scandal is the emergence of nationalist movements which are provoking debates over Japanese identity.

The Tsukamoto Kindergarten (école maternelle)  is a private school with some very public supporters including the wife of the current prime minister.  Elements of the curriculum are definitely on the very conservative side of the political spectrum and are meant to instill pride and patriotism in Japanese children.  Children stand before the Japanese flag, bow to a portrait of the Emperor, recite the Imperial Rescript on Education (1890) and learn what are called "pre-war" (World War II) values.  Here is a short video filmed at the school that shows a few of these activities.  (Note that uniforms are not something particular to this school, but are common in public and private schools.)

The scandal was not so much about the curriculum (though criticism of it abounds) as it was about anti-foreigner comments by school officials and corruption. The corruption is said to have occurred when the Japan government sold a piece of land to the school's owners at a very good (some say ridiculously low) price so they could construct an elementary school .   The bigotry was discovered in letters and pamphlets issued by the school with statements like, “The problem is that people who have inherited the spirit (of Koreans) exist in our country with the looks of Japanese people” and reports that  the school administrators were espousing belief in the "uniformity of the Japanese race."  

And for the cherry on the top, the school's principal is a member of a Far Right organization called Nippon Kaigi (The Japan Conference).  Lest you think that this is a marginal organization with few members, think again.  Nippon Kaigi is reported to have around 38,000 members but more importantly it enjoys strong support from the prime minister, members of his cabinet, and parliament. 

Here is a short video from France 24 in English about the organization which I think is fairly balanced reporting.  Looking beyond the title of the piece, The Return of Japan's Imperialists, Nippon Kaigi members are interviewed and give their side of the story.

This is a classic modern battle over national identity, one that is very similar to such debates going on elsewhere.  The tactics are also very familiar:  revising the curriculum, arguing for a different interpretation of historical events, creating a top-down movement led by political and social elites, and using religious, philosophical or ethical systems to support a return to an older (and ostensibly better) framework of national values. (And here I deftly avoid the question of whether or not Emperor worship is a religion.)  It reveals a belief that it is possible to construct a different national reality through institutions, the education of children, and persuasive efforts led by political elites.  And it makes me wonder to what extent these tactics, even in a democratic society, are a way of circumventing the wishes of the citizenry.   I do not see great enthusiasm for the prime minister's commitment to a more militarized society and yet, he seems to be moving forward anyway.

Ultimately, the big questions for me are:  How successful is this movement likely to be?  In other words, is Japanese national identity going to change significantly in the near future as a result of neo-nationalism?  (Perhaps it has already changed in some ways.)  And, if so, how might it change citizenship laws and immigration policies?  Or to put it another way do migrants and naturalized citizens have good reasons to be very concerned about where this might go?  

A suivre....

Bubbles and Ghettoes

It was in Japan that I first encountered the term "bubble" in the context of migration. Foolish literal-minded me was a bit confused at first because "bubble" in my mind is 1. what small children create with soapy water and wands; 2. extravagant prices for tulips or stock; and 3. a way to keep a pleasant reality in and an unpleasant reality out.  Using those definitions/images I could not immediately connect the term to migration.  Clearly, it meant something else to the people who were using it here.

"Bubble" in the context of the English-speaking migrants in Japan is a metaphor for what is referred to elsewhere as a "[country of origin] ghetto" or, to be more politically correct, "[country of origin] community."  Metaphor because people don't actually live in "[a] thin sphere of liquid enclosing air or another gas."

Why eschew the old and venerable term "ghetto?"  Maybe because a strict definition of the term implies extreme poverty - something that I think it's fair to say most Americans, British and Canadians don't experience in the destination country.  It may also be because "ghetto" implies spatiality;  it's a place that you can point to on a map and where the well-meaning native counsels the tourist to avoid.  The ABC's (and continental Europeans) simply aren't numerous enough in most places in Japan to completely overwhelm a neighborhood and call it theirs, though they can shape its character.

At best they live in a part of town that caters to the "international community" or apartment complexes that are "foreigner-friendly" but even there they are rarely a majority.  In 2008 there were 152 Americans per 100,000 residents in Tokyo which meant about 18,000 Americans in a city of 13 million people. In Osaka there is a neighborhood called "Little America" (Amerika-mura) which is 99% Japanese, other Asian and African youths.

"Ghetto" is also pejorative;  it's a place where we imagine that people are trapped and can't easily leave but there is a certain ambiguity introduced when the people in that space are a culturally and linguistically homogenous community of migrants.  There are arguments for and against their agency: choice versus forced segregation.  I note that when such an area becomes an area of interest for the cultural tourist it is elevated to a "town" ("Koreatown" or "Chinatown.")

"Bubble" when used in the context of migration here is combined with a not very nice word for foreigner.   Added together these two terms become "gaijin bubble."  Unlike "[country of origin] ghetto" a "gaijin bubble" is mostly disconnected from physical space and describes a combination of actions and intent on the part of a migrant in Japan and both concern integration.  A migrant living in a "gaijin bubble" is one who has not integrated - much or most of their daily life is spent speaking their home country language and having very little contact with Japanese and Japanese life - and chooses to remain unintegrated.   The notion of agency here is powerful - there is no ambiguity as with the word "ghetto."  A "bubble" is a choice and with a little or a lot of   effort (I've heard both) a migrant/expatriate can step out and be an active integrated member of Japanese society.

Is the term more descriptive or prescriptive.  I would make an argument for the latter.  When I hear an Anglophone in Japan use the term " gaijin bubble" they aren't talking about themselves, they are referring to how other people live.  They are making a moral judgment that says "my way of living in Japan is superior to yours."  Put that way it doesn't sound like very attractive behavior - it smacks of a sort of puritanical policing (as does, I would admit, the accusation that some Americans in France are living in an "American ghetto.")  And, yet, I can see why they would do it.

The fact that such terms as "ghetto" and bubble" exist as epithets says to me that those migrants who consider themselves integrated are paying attention to those who they perceive as unintegrated. They claim to be on the outside looking in and yet (unless they have no direct experience with such people) they do have connections to them - some window into their lives which leads them to believe that they know and can judge them.  However, outside of one's immediate circle of colleagues and friends the Japanese are likely to make no distinction between those who have integrated and those who haven't.  Those who are integrated find this to be extremely frustrating and I can understand that.  There is an argument to be made here that the behavior of those who don't integrate does affect the lives of those who do.

How can one change this situation?  Well, asking the Japanese to approach migrants/expatriates differently would be one possibility, but is it realistic?  Given the numbers, probably not.  Asking 100,000 people to be more open to the possibility that some gaijins are fluent in Japanese so as not to hurt the feelings of the 152 foreigners is unlikely to work.  As minority migrants and citizens they just don't have that kind of power or influence, and that's not likely to change anytime soon.

Another possibility which is easier and may seem more likely to produce results is to go to work on those who persist in living their "gaijin bubble" lives.   Alas, this usually means: insinuating that their manner of living in Japan is all wrong; criticizing them for not speaking Japanese well enough or being illiterate; whispering, "he/she is still  teaching after 10 years in the country" and so on.  There are several reasons why this doesn't work.

First of all there is the lack of a clear and common definition of integration.  The Japanese themselves don't seem to have an integration policy with regard to this population. (Perhaps it would be easier if they did.)  So it's a very subjective thing.  Since most migrants are on some sort of integration continuum just about anyone can point to some things they do which would make "bubble" or "ghetto" inapplicable to them.  So when they hear those words they assume that the article or comment is referring to other people.

Another difficulty is that, frankly, there are migrant/expatriates who are not integrated and refuse to do so and those who are integrated have no real leverage to convince them otherwise.  They don't care one whit about the good opinion of the integrated foreigners and are inclined to say that it's none of their business how they choose to live in Japan.

Last possibility I see is to simply let it go. In the schemes of things this is hardly the most important issue of the day.  As they say, keep your own side of the street clean, live in accordance with your principles, negotiate your own integration in your community, and don't worry too much about what other people do.

That's how I see it.  Feel free to disagree in the comments section.  I will end this post by making three suggestions to those who can't/won't let this one slide.

The first is that with all this angst about whether or not a migrant/expatriate is integrated (enough) perhaps  it might be worth asking the Japanese what their definition is and requesting some sort of official policy.  Here is what we expect and if you do these things you are integrated to our satisfaction. At that point I think we could safely say that the debate amongst the migrants/expats would be over.

The second is that who feel they are integrated and are frustrated by those who aren't might want to consider moving the discussion away from talk of "bubbles" and superior versus inferior integration and toward a discourse that sounds like this: "Look, folks, things would be much better for all of us if, say, we all spoke, wrote, and read Japanese more fluently." Make a case.  Make it here if you like.

And thirdly, complaining incessantly about and slapping labels on other people is like moving air - it accomplishes nothing. Or if it accomplishes anything it is the accumulation of resentment and the sparking of contentious debates. I'd take another look as well at the "choice" because, yes, there are those who refuse to integrate but I suspect there are many more who want to and are struggling. Personally, I would have much more respect for the position of those who talk of "gaijin bubbles" if they were actually doing something concrete to help people get out of them.  My .02.

Some thoughts about integration

A few years ago here in Japan a friend and I were standing outside a bus stop in Kyoto trying to orient ourselves in order to find the temple we wanted to visit.  My friend is a fluent speaker of Japanese and has lived in Japan for over 20 years.  A Japanese couple came over and, in English, asked if we needed help.  My friend replied in Japanese, but the couple continued to speak English.

Fast forward a few months to another continent where another friend and I were in a restaurant in Paris.  We are both fluent French speakers but now matter how many times we replied in French, the French waiter insisted on using English.

Oh, the shame, the horror, of being taken for a tourist.

These may appear to be trivial examples (the native citizens were just trying to be kind and helpful) but the underlying message they convey is not trivial at all:  you are not culturally competent and you are not one of us.

Some might say that the problem is our attitude.  Shrug it off, let it go, focus on the intention and not on the personal feelings it provokes.  There is some merit to that.  A migrant cannot spend her life in a state of anger and resentment if she is to stay sane and find happiness in her host country.

Nonetheless, it's asking a lot to accept it for 10, 20, 30 years.  Attitudes are followed by actions with real consequences:  not being able to rent an apartment just anywhere you like or not getting a raise because, well, you should be grateful we hired you at all given that you are a foreign woman with a family.  To ask a person who experiences these things to just swallow it and move on is to ask us to be saints. (For the record, I didn't take it; I quit.)

With time and experience I've come to see such things in a broader perspective.  These interactions (the trivial and the not so trivial) are negotiations.  We, the long-term residents are asserting our right to belong to the society in which we live.  We use the language, know the culture, own property, marry nationals and raise our children in the host country.  These things, we say, show a desire to belong and give us a moral claim to acceptance in the societal waters in which we swim.

For many of us who come from countries of immigration that is the way it works back in the home country (or is supposed to work).  Integration is not necessarily easy but as Milton Gordon said of America a person is said to be integrated once he can "get along in the country."  He can speak the language and do the day to day things required of everyone. And it's OK if he wants to belong to the Sons of Norway club and speak Norwegian at home.  This is not to say that integration works perfectly in the US or any other country of immigration, but that is more or less how citizens from multicultural countries see the ideal process of integration.  If the migrant has the will and makes the effort, all will be well.

Not all countries see it that way.  True belonging in some places is based in part on what Clifford Geertz called "primordial ties."  It's not so much about how many years you've been in a country, but how many generations.  It's not the fact that you've mastered the language and cultures, it's the fact that you had to learn what a child born in this society learned far earlier than you and from her parents and local schools no less.  It's not that you look different (there are differences in phenotypes in all societies) but that you are different in a particular way (you are a European or African in Asia or an Asian in Africa or the Middle East) and it's easy for native citizens to point a finger and say, "Aha! Not from here."

This is frustrating for those who come from countries of immigration because the answer to "What does it take to belong here?" is a shrug and a "Well, nothing. And why is that a problem?  You chose to come here, and if you don't like it you can go home."  That's a pretty cruel response.  Leaving the country can mean leaving minor children behind or a spouse or a business.  These may not be "primordial ties" but they are important connections, maybe the most important connections in a person's life.   To ask someone to cast those off is, in my view, unrealistic and immoral.  That's not a fair choice that anyone should be coerced into making.

I have seen different reactions in France and Japan to this.  They range from:  a denial that there are any barriers to belonging at all; a weary acceptance that this is just the way things are; or assertions of belonging in the face of every perceived attempt small or large to deny it.

I don't have an answer for which strategy is the most successful and I certainly won't make any recommendations.  What I will say is that I dislike intensely efforts by migrants to put the blame for barriers to belonging back on their fellow migrants.  Well, if other migrants behaved better or learned the language more quickly or did this or that, then we would be accepted.  It's always those vague "other people," isn't it?  This is a very egotistical perspective.  It presumes that belonging is all about the individual who has control over what the native citizens think and believe.  In my wildest alcoholic-driven dreams I never had the illusion that I could control the feelings of 60+ million Frenchmen and women.

There is no easy answer here.  Only the day to day lives of migrants trying to carve a place for themselves in a new land as best they can.

Other Ways of Looking at Integration

In a previous post I talked about migrant integration and I asked readers to help me with a thought experiment that went like this:

Think about your home country and the immigration/integration debates going on there.  Determine what you think successful integration by immigrants would look like in or back "home".  For example, you might agree with the following statements "they should learn the local language"  or "they should not have a negative impact on the natives" or "they should be respectful of the people who already live there" or "they should avoid conspicuous expressions of religiosity." 

And then turn around and apply the exact same standards to a fellow citizen from your home country who lives as part of a migrant/expat community outside that home country.  Do you find that you can apply your integration standards equally to immigrants in your home country versus emigrants from your home country living abroad?  Or do you feel that you can't because the situations are simply not the same?

A few brave folks were kind enough to comment and it made for a very interesting discussion, though I note that no one really directly answered the question.  

Back in 2013 I wrote this piece which was my take on migrant integration from the perspective of a migrant (me) in France.  I reread it this morning and, frankly, I wouldn't change a thing.  I still have the same questions - I still feel that sense of confusion.  Here it is again for your reading pleasure this morning.

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In all the countries I've lived in there is an on-going discussion about the migrants and their integration into the host country.  It's a hard discussion to have because "integration" is a very broad term and a moving target.  When a native argues that the migrants must conform (or at least give lip service to) to his values that begs the question of which ones?  All of them or just the ones that particular native at that point in time thinks are important?  People change their minds (and their values) all the time.   Societies are not static.

Saying that migrants should act like natives, talk like natives, and share their values is a nice general principle but often breaks down in practice.  When a society is at war with itself over certain issues, migrants are left not knowing which foot to dance on.

Take something like the "Mariage pour tous" in France (know as Gay Marriage in the U.S.)  So what do the natives think about this?  Well, some are saying that this is going to literally change French civilization for the worse and that nothing less than the French Family, the composition of which is a strong part of traditional French culture, is at stake here.  Talk to others and they'll tell you that this about equality, fairness and the separation of Church and State and that it is against the values of the French Republic to not allow gays full marriage rights.

However a particular migrant comes down on this issue, when talking about it with the natives one must summon all one's powers of diplomacy so as not to offend.  Why?  Well, if the native in front of you disagrees with you he's very likely to tell you, "Well you're American/Algerian/Brit/German and we don't care what you think, you immigrant.  If you don't like our values, you should go home."  Of course, there is a completely different reaction if you agree.   Then they congratulate you on how well you've integrated because you clearly understand "true" French values.  It makes for an interesting conversational dance.

So when natives talk about values, all I can say is that the day you all agree on what French values you truly share, send me the memo.

As for behavior, may I gently suggest that people need to be very careful what they ask for because they just might get it.  There are circumstances where clearly the natives do not want immigrants to act like them.  In fact the whole reason that many got in the first place is because they offer something the host society wants and needs.

A good example of this would be a highly qualified migrant from a very entrepreneurial culture with a strong work ethic and a high level of educational achievement for him or herself and high expectations for his children.

Do they really want this person to act like a native?  Let's say he decides to not start a business and be a taxi driver or a public intellectual instead.  Or he decides to go on unemployment or disability because he sees that an awful lot of the natives are on it.  If he qualifies, why shouldn't he?  He may have a STEM diploma (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) but since the natives don't get those degrees in high numbers, he might as well go with the flow and encourage his kids to do something else.

Hard to see how anyone could complain about this since the migrant is simply conforming to the behavior he sees on the part of the natives.  He's not doing anything different.  In fact he's made a decision to be just like them.  Can we say then in that case that he is "well integrated?"  Or would everyone be much happier if he held onto the values and behavior that he brought from his native land?

Migrants can't fix what ails a society.  If a society cannot produce a sufficient number of people who know how to do X and are willing to do it, then that's not a problem with immigration, it's an internal problem.  Where natives use social welfare networks, can't balance their national budgets, and then refuse to have enough children to keep it going, that's solely within the power of the native population to change.  It's a bit cheeky to say to the recent arrivals, "Integrate or else" but "Do as we say, not as we do."  And it's a really unfair to ask immigrants to take sides in the "culture wars" and then get angry with them when they give an answer the natives don't like.

What migrants can do is to add their human talent to the pool and offer a different perspective that might further the debate.  I'd even argue that everyone has an interest in considering some of the values migrants bring from their homelands like, for example,  a strong sense of family or deep respect for elderly people.  The French might be really surprised to know that these two things are deeply held values that some North Africans and Japanese find a bit lacking here in France compared to where they came from.  Might be worth having a conversation with them to know why they feel that way and why they don't want to integrate a French interpretation of those values into their worldview.

Just a few things to think about from where I sit.

Integration: They Will Change Our Way of Life!

A Flophouse reader responded to yesterday's post where I talked about fear of migrants and migration with some arguments of his/her own:

"I don't think people are afraid of migrants. They're afraid migrants will change their way of life if too many of them come. It's all about integration and respect of the people who were there before you. It's also about the fear that they're taking the local's jobs or have a negative impact."

A great comment and a very good place to start talking about migrant integration which is a very sensitive topic everywhere that migrants go.  Migrants negotiate the terms of their acceptance into the host country and culture.  They have to because even if they come in large numbers there is no guarantee that the "people who were there before" (the majority) will accept them and to some degree migrants' happiness and economic success depends on that acceptance.

"They Will Change Our Way of Life!"

Absolutely they will and I think it's very human to fear this.  In a sense migration is one of the great Cosmic Crapshoots of Life because neither the host country citizens nor the migrants themselves can know what will come out of the encounter.

Chiang Mai, Thailand, for example, has a large "international community" (code word for "migrant population from the West") estimated at around 30,000 people in a city with a population between 300,000 and 400,000.  The foreign community is clearly a minority so one would think that some sort of negotiation had to occur.  It's worth asking the question  How has life in Chiang Mai changed because of the presence of these people?  And how do the people of Chiang Mai feel about that?  Is there a minimum level of integration into Thai society that the local community expects or can impose on these migrants?  Or is it the other way around where the migrants have the power to decide to integrate (or not) as they like?

These are fascinating questions for which I have no answers.  I used this case deliberately because 1. I knew an American who lived there long-term and died there not too long ago and in our email conversations he admitted that he was not as integrated as he would have liked to be and 2. it seems to me that an awful lot of the conversation about integration is about people from the Global South moving into the Global North which completely ignores the presence of large communities of Europeans and North Americans living in Latin America, Asia and Africa.  

Why is it normal for us to question the motives and the capacity to integrate of immigrants to OUR countries, while at the same time idealizing our very own migrant communities abroad (often referred to as "expats" even when they have lived in those host countries 20+ years):  French in Tokyo,  Americans in Kenya,  Canadians in Cambodia, British in rural France?

So, Flophouse readers, let's do a thought experiment just for fun.  Think about your home country and the immigration/integration debates going on there.  Determine what you think successful integration by immigrants would look like in or back "home".  For example, you might agree with the following statements "they should learn the local language"  or "they should not have a negative impact on the natives" or "they should be respectful of the people who already live there" or "they should avoid conspicuous expressions of religiosity."

And then turn around and apply the exact same standards to a fellow citizen from your home country who lives as part of a migrant/expat community outside that home country.  Do you find that you can apply your integration standards equally to immigrants in your home country versus emigrants from your home country living abroad?  Or do you feel that you can't because the situations are simply not the same?

Please let me know what you come up with and leave a comment.  There are no right or wrong answers here, folks, it's just a thought experiment. No grade and no pressure. :-)