Immigrants' Urban Lives and Their Common-Villagers' Association in the High-growth Period

Abstract

In the modern city, immigrants organize various social groups. The common-villagers' association (dokyo-dantai) is one of them. Some studies show that many such associations were organized for mutual support in the common-villagers' concentration area that formed in the process of their chain migration. Those studies have focused on the prewar city. But many of common-villagers' associations were organized in the high-growth period in the 1950s to 1970s. This paper presents a case of the Kagoshimaken-Eishikai, which consisted of emigrants of the Eishi settlement of Kamikoshiki Village, Kagoshima Prefecture, and which was established in Amagasaki City, Hyogo Prefecture, in 1967. The following summarizes the main findings.i) Through chain migration, Eishi emigrants concentrated in a particular area and in particular companies in Amagasaki City. However, due to intra-urban residential mobility and job changes there was a gradual tendency towards dispersal. ii) Many of them were (are) factory workers, and some of them worked on a two- or three-shift basis. Working hours were longer than now, especially in the high-growth period. In general, they were busy. iii) In Japan, the rate of private telephone ownersip was low before the 1970s. This was also true with these migrants. iv) Thus, the relationship among them in the period was somhwhat distant. They couldn't meet neighborhood friends frequently in their everyday lives. However, they wanted to reconstruct “intimate secondary relationships” and so class reunions were often held before the establishment of the Eishikai. But it was difficult for them to organize the common-villagers' association by themselves, because they didn't have the means to manage an association composed of hundreds of households. v) In 1963, an Amagasaki city council member, who was an immigrant of the same Koshiki-Shima islands, was elected. He wanted Eishi emigrants to support him in the next 1967 election, and so he helped them to organize the Eishikai. But the Eishikai didn't become an integrated supporters' organization, because some of the Eishi emigrants held alternative political view.