A New Epoch of Immigration for Japan: Directional Shift in Civic Organizational Support for Newcomer Settlement

Abstract

In the contemporary world various metropolitan centres, whether in highly industrialized countries or newly industrializing economies, are now readily absorbing sub-populations of foreign residential minorities. Japanese urban communities have naturally been involved in the globalization of human mobility, especially since the mid-1980s, and this can be seen in the increasing ethnic diversity of the large population centres, particularly in some inner-city areas. The major streams of newly arrived foreigners have been from neighbouring Asian countries, but since the early 1990s, another stream has come to the fore – those of Japanese descent from Central and South America. In Japan, the feasibility of Japanese and non-Japanese people “living together” has been widely disputed and the massive inflow of foreigners into urban communities since the late-1980s has provided much fuel for debate. When compared with Western Europe, North America, and Australia, the proportion of immigrant populations are not so large, but the impact of migrant inflow in Japan was quite strong and it has led to heated debate and given rise to many sociological concerns. Japan had been a notable nation of emigrants from the late nineteenth century to the first quarter of twentieth, and this persisted after the Second World War; it has produced many agrarian labourers for Central and South America. However, Japan has changed its character and has progressively become a nation with its own immigrant population, embracing an inflow of “migrant workers.” A major difference, in terms of post-Second World War economic development between, Japan and other industrially developed countries such as West Europe, North America, and Australia is seen in the intake of foreign labour force. When North America, Australia, and Western Europe nations accepted a large-scale worker intake from foreign countries for their post-war economic growth, Japan also necessitated a large-scale labour force for the infrastructure construction and maintenance of metropolitan