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About meHow it may have gone down
So I have decided to build more traffic for my site by writing things that outrage certain foreign Japan residents.
Speaking of outrage, how ’bout them 帰国支援金 payments to unemployed Nikkei to help them go back to Brazil, Peru, and so on? The New York Times has covered this dastardly attempt to give the boot to non-Japanese workers once their cheap labor is no longer needed, and even the local papers are looking at this as a case of cold-hearted government policy steamrolling constitutional rights (Mainichi, in Japanese and English).
There hasn’t been much coverage (in English, anyway) looking at the actual rules for this system as spelled out in this PDF file, though:
入管制度上の措置として、支援を受けた者は、当分の間、同様の身分に基づく在留資格による再入国を認めないこととする。
My quick and dirty translation: As an immigration control measure, recipients of this support will not be allowed to reenter Japan for some time with a status of residence based on the same situation [i.e. the visa exemption rule for people of Nikkei descent].
Discussion on the NBR mailing list has looked at the precise meaning of 当分の間 to decide whether it means “for a little while” or something closer to the “semipermanent” length of time mentioned in the Mainichi piece linked above. It’s hardly clear enough to be written into law as it stands, but the language here isn’t spelling out a cancellation of that Nikkei status forever.
In any case, I don’t see this situation as a clear-cut case of discrimination against those who aren’t pure Japanese. One idea for the discussions in Nagatachō/Kasumigaseki that may have led to all this:
“Hmm, the economy has gone to shit and Toyota is firing all its cheap labor. We’ve got a bunch of Brazilian citizens sitting around with no jobs.
“Who knows when those jobs are coming back . . . If they have no work in Japan, I suppose they might want to go back to their country of birth.”
“But they don’t have the money to do that! Is their only option to go homeless or turn to crime here in Japan?”
“No, nobody wants that. Let’s do a humanitarian thing and provide the money they need to get back home.”
“Sounds great—hey, but wait a minute. Won’t they just take the money and use it for a free trip back to Brazil, and then come right back? We’re back at the ‘out of work in Japan’ thing.”
“Hmm, you’re right. I guess we’ll have to add the proviso that they can’t come back.”
“Ever? They’ve learned some Japanese and may be valuable to Japanese employers again once the economy picks back up.”
“Well, all right, but let’s cancel their automatic status of residence based on Nikkei blood. If they’re coming back to Japan let’s make sure it’s on the strength of their employability, or something else that lets them obtain another SOR.”
“Sounds great.”
I have no idea about what exactly transpired, but it isn’t hard at all to think up the above as one possibility. The observers leaping to the “Japan is exploiting cheap labor and kicking people to the curb when they’re no longer needed” conclusion seem a little hot-tempered to me.
This is not to say that the government hasn’t been ham-fisted in its handling of things, of course. The newspaper coverage has been filled with quotes from local bureaucrats telling potential applicants for these funds that “no, you can’t ever come back, and neither can your children,” and the LDP’s Kawasaki Jirō, charming man that he is, has stated “I do not think that Japan should ever become a multiethnic society.” Any good intentions this program was founded on have been lost in the justified furor over these antagonistic positions. The constitutional angle mentioned in the Mainichi article is also worth examination: that the ministries spelling out these no-return rules don’t actually have the authority to make certain statuses of residence unavailable (something the Diet would have to do by amending the law) is definitely something to consider carefully.
But is it really so simple as “Oh, there goes that xenophobic Japan again?” Why is all this anger focused on a public program to give these people financial aid, rather than on the private companies that saw them as disposable factory automatons in the first place?
EDIT: The April 1 Nihon Keizai Shimbun (paper edition, no link; sorry) carried a small article on the 3/31 announcement of—wait for it—a set of policies to aid the Nikkei population, not just the “get out” money. In part (with my translation following):
厚生労働省は三十一日、失業して帰国を希望する日系外国人に対し、帰国旅費を支給する制度を四月から始めると発表した。日系人の在留資格で再入国しないことが条件 . . . 再就職を目指す日系人を対象に日本語能力などを高める研修制度も始める。
The Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare announced yesterday a new system that from this month will provide travel expenses to unemployed Nikkei foreign nationals who want to return to their countries. Funds will be provided on condition that the recipients do not reenter Japan on the Nikkei-based status of residence . . . A training system will also be launched to improve the Japanese language and other skills of Nikkei residents who are seeking new employment in Japan.
This article makes it clear that the travel funds were one among several measures mentioned in the MHLW announcement (the parent page to that PDF I linked above) on things the government intends to do for the Nikkei population. I haven’t seen any English-language coverage of this set of steps being taken, though.
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One Response to “How it may have gone down”
05/01/2009
Japan’s approach is not one I agree with, but I understand in part that’s because my notion of nationhood, nationalism and borders differ fundamentally from those making Japanese immigration policies. I can appreciate though that the policy is transparent in it’s view that immigrants are labor to serve an economy rather than future beneficiaries of a grudging and disingenous promise of citizenship and acceptance, i.e. how the U.S. handles low-wage immigrant workers.
That said, regardless of how Japan chooses to define its national identity, the reality is that it exists in and thrives in a global environment. So I find myself pretty consistently annoyed at the rhetoric of Japanese leaders and policymakers who perpetually fail to grasp both the historical and current context Japan occupies. Regardless of whether this particular policy is rooted in a history of xenophobic practices, the government should well know to anticipate and address concerns that this race-based policy raises. It’s something akin to having basic table manners. I’d like to believe that the Nagatacho conversation you sketched took place, but policies are given life and meaning as they are implemented and experienced after enactment. So justifying this policy with racially inflammatory reasoning almost makes any purposed race-neutral rationale a hard sell.
I’m looking forward to reading more of your posts.
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