Japanese Migrants Research Articles

Mobile Japanese migrants to the Pacific West and East: self-searching, work, and identification

Mobile Japanese migrants to the Pacific West and East: self-searching, work, and identification

Significance and Roles of Religious Facilities for Japanese Migrants: A Case Study of Christian Churches in the Republic of Korea

Significance and Roles of Religious Facilities for Japanese Migrants: A Case Study of Christian Churches in the Republic of Korea

Disparities in HIV incidence and mortality rates between Japanese nationals and international migrants before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from Japan’s national HIV surveillance data (2018–2021)

ABSTRACT Migrants often encounter heightened health risks during crises. We analysed the disparities in the burden of HIV between Japanese nationals and international migrants in Japan by comparing new HIV infections, AIDS cases, and HIV-related deaths between 2018–2019 (pre-COVID-19) and 2020–2021 (during the COVID-19 pandemic). Between 2018 and 2021, 4,705 new HIV infections were reported in Japan (2,813 Japanese nationals and 522 international migrants). Additionally, 1,370 AIDS cases (1,188 Japanese nationals, 182 international migrants) were recorded, representing 29.1% of the total. Comparative analysis of HIV incidence and mortality rates between Japanese nationals and international migrants indicates elevated disparities: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the HIV incidence rate among Japanese nationals decreased from 1.8 to 1.5 cases/100,000 people, while the rate among international migrants remained high at 12.8 cases/100,000 people. The AIDS incidence also increased for international migrants from 2.8 to 3.8 per 100,000 people, while Japanese nationals maintained a low at 0.5 per 100,000 people. International migrants living with HIV experienced a significantly younger age at death due to HIV-related illness (coefficient = −11.7, p < .01). The COVID-19 pandemic may have exacerbated the disparities with more international migrants living with HIV being diagnosed late and with less precise reporting. Investment in more equitable HIV care is warranted.

Division by countries of origin? Visualizing the spatial distributions of international migrants in Guangzhou, China

Socio-spatial segregation of immigrants or other ethno-racial groups in Western cities has been extensively investigated. In the recent decades, China has also witnessed a substantial growth of international immigrants. In the city of Guangzhou, one of the most famous destinations in China for transnational migration, the spatial presence of international migrants has received scholarly attention, mostly focusing on single racial groups. In this study, we present two cartograms using cellphone data to visualize the spatial distributions of multiple groups of international migrants, namely, the African migrants, the European and North American migrants, and the Japanese and Korean migrants, in Guangzhou. The cartograms indicate that the spatial distributions of migrants from Africa and those from the European, North American, and East Asian countries are considerably divided in Guangzhou, suggesting a possible ethno-racial segregation among the international migrants in this Chinese city. Such an issue is largely under-researched in the existing literature.

Ethnic Violence Against Japanese Migrants In California

Ethnic Violence Against Japanese Migrants In California

Gender and Family Values Among Japanese Migrants in Australia: Marital Surnaming

ABSTRACT Separate marital surnaming (fūfubessei) has been a controversial issue in Japan for many years. Although the Civil Code and the Koseki Law allow the choice of surname for a married couple to be either the husband’s or the wife’s surname, this same legislation prevents a married couple from holding separate surnames. Despite calls for change to allow freedom of choice for couples strengthening in recent years, no progress in this direction has been forthcoming. This study focusses on migrant Japanese married couples in Australia to investigate if their attitudes and behaviour relating to marital surnaming are impacted by living in country where more liberal legislation allows for diverse arrangements for couples. The results indicate that those who have acculturated to life in Australia tend to be more favourably attuned to diverse arrangements than Japanese in Japan. However, those migrant couples less acculturated to Australian life tend to hold on to traditional cultural beliefs. The research also highlights the significant role of filial piety in the choices and attitudes of migrant Japanese couples in Australia.

Douala–Bruyères/Vosges Mountains: Where Family Photographs Can Lead

Abstract: The study of two photographs from the 1950s, in the possession of a Cameroonian family, reveals little-noticed transnational flows of people from the geopolitical and national peripheries of the world, linked by the (post-)colonial relations and geopolitical alliances of their states. Bruyères, a small town in eastern France where these photographs were taken, turns out to be not only an unexpected and distant crossroads of French colonial politics, but also the site of decisive battles in World War II and, indirectly related, of US racial policies towards Japanese migrants in the US.

The Location of Migrants’ Political Culture: A Large-Scale Survey-Based Study of the Japanese Community in Contemporary Australia

Drawing on data from a large-scale sample survey conducted in 2016 within the contemporary ethnic Japanese migrant community in Sydney, Australia, this article focuses on demographics and the political culture of this community to determine the context for Japanese migrants’ attitudes, with a focus on gender. Findings suggest that the Japanese community is statistically less politically involved than the wider Australian population, possibly reflecting general attitudes towards politics in Japan, and unique social profiles within the Australian community. Superficially, the lack of interest in political commitment appeared to signify less integration into Australian society. However, our triangulation of the data, combined with follow-up interviews found a new form of political engagement within the Japanese community in contemporary Australia. This article contributes to a deeper understanding of the Japanese ethnic community in Australia and overseas, as well as broadening scholarship about the political awareness and activities of ethnic communities in settler societies.

Anti-Japanism as a strategy for reshaping national identity in post-liberation South Korean fictions (1945–1948)

AbstractThis article argues that South Koreans' anti-Japanism in the post-liberation period can be regarded as an ideological construction, which was inevitably required to reshape their national identity, rather than as a reasonable and serious critical consideration of colonial Japan. Anti-Japanism functions as an identification framework in an era when Koreans needed to develop a new discourse which reflects the rapid politico-socio-cultural changes of that period. Under military control of the United States and the Soviet Union, Koreans made Japan the other in a number of ways in order to unite their nation state and national identity, relying specifically on racial difference and hierarchy. First, Korean intellectuals, who once cooperated with colonial Japan in the political sphere or in their ordinary lives, explicitly revealed their anti-Japanese sentiments in their writings right after liberation. Second, after liberation, anti-Japanism emerged from a process that Koreans would exploit, after demarcating the moral difference between themselves and the remaining Japanese migrants, to exclude the Japanese from their community. Finally, anti-Japanism in the post-liberation period can be detected in Koreans' tenacious attitude, as they tacitly restricted the articulation of filial or cultural hybridity with the Japanese people in order to reconfigure their national identity.

Memories, relationships and identity: food-related narratives and memory among Japanese descendants in Broome, Western Australia

ABSTRACT This article addresses how food cooked by Japanese first-generation migrants, both its making and meaning, is remembered and re-interpreted by their descendants in the remote coastal town of Broome, northern Western Australia. From the 1880s to the 1960s Japanese migrants flowed into Broome for its pearl-shelling industry and related businesses. Some, mostly men, intermarried with local Indigenous people, resulting in mixed heritage descendants who now live dispersed among their non-Japanese family members, seemingly assimilated into the multicultural society that constitutes Broome. In conversations with these Japanese descendants, memories related to food cooked at home by their Japanese first-generation ancestors often surfaced despite these foods being rarely eaten. Though these memories are not of the food itself, but of the family meals and social relations accompanying them, mentioning “food” helps them express their diverse relationships with their Japanese ancestors, support their nuanced identification with Japanese heritage, as well as respond to various images of “Japanese-ness” they encounter in the globalized world. A key finding of the research is that these Japanese descendants utilized food-related memories to articulate and position themselves in different contexts, despite not exhibiting strong Japanese cultural traits, including eating or cooking the aforementioned “food.”

Forced displacement and migrants' location choices: Evidence from the Japanese-Canadian experience during World War II

This paper examines whether a forced displacement of an ethnic group can lead to long-run changes to their spatial distribution and whether this shock can also lead to changes in where new migrants settle. I use the Canadian government’s internment of Japanese Canadians during World War II, as well as their post-war forced resettlement, as a natural experiment. I find that the policy led to dramatic resettlement patterns; areas where Japanese Canadians were removed from had far fewer Japanese Canadians after World War II, with this effect persisting for decades. Despite these displacement patterns, I find that both the pre-war and post-war settlement patterns drive where new Japanese migrants settle within Canada, suggesting that the disruption of the connections and networks formed by Japanese migrants before World War II were not fully dismantled by the Canadian government’s wartime policies. Reinforcing this mechanism, I show using Facebook’s social connectedness data that Japanese population shares from both 1931 and 1951 predict whether a Canadian Census Division is more socially connected with Japan today. The results from this paper show that, despite Canada’s forced dispersal of its Japanese population across the country, networks and forces that connect Census Divisions to Japan and draw in new migrants continued to persist.

Go-betweens and competitors. The Japanese residents in Southeast Asia at the crossroads between communities (17th century)

Abstract During the 17th century, the unprecedented opening of Japan to the outside world drew hundreds of Japanese to travel to and settle in Southeast Asia. These Japanese residents, some of whom continued to maintain a strong connection with Japan, acquired a privileged position in their host societies, as merchants, officials, or soldiers. This position enabled them to occupy the central function of go-betweens in the relations that the Southeast Asian states sought to establish with foreign merchants. This paper aims to demonstrate, through a careful analysis of sources and the use of modeling, that the Japanese in Southeast Asia crossed borders in multiple ways. Not only did they move outside the borders of Japan, but through their role as go-betweens they were also at the interface between social, ethnolinguistic, and religious groups. They used this favorable situation to facilitate communication as well as to erect barriers, according to their own interests. Although migrants imported practices from Japan when they settled there, this paper argues that in order to understand the solidity of their settlement and the success they and their children experienced they should be seen as frontier actors rather than Japanese migrants.

Intimate mobilities—International (transnational) marriage and migration: Japanese marriage migrants floating between Japan and Korea

AbstractIn the past decade, intense mobility within Asia has led to increased international marriage (kokusai kekkon) in the region. A growing number of scholars have explored this phenomenon—called the intimate part of Asia—with a focus on foreign brides from emerging economies. Concerning international marriage between Japanese and Koreans, most research focuses on the Korean wives of Japanese husbands who reside in Japan, and little research has been conducted on the Japanese wives of Korean husbands. In this study, the postmigration experiences of Japanese marriage migrant women in South Korea are explored. Semistructured interviews were conducted in Korea with 13 participants. Drawing on the interview data, this article elucidates the trajectories of Japanese marriage migrants, focusing on subjective elements. The participants' accounts demonstrate that their experiences were intertwined with the media, politics, gender roles, parenting ideologies, and family relations. Their various emotional responses underline the ways such factors have shaped their lives.

Migrant transnationalism and time: divergent trajectories of diasporic political engagement in early 20th century São Paulo

ABSTRACT Why and how do some migrant groups demonstrate greater engagement with homeland politics than others at particular historical moments? Research has examined both individual-level factors such as migrants’ resources and institutional factors such as contexts of incorporation. Less theorised, however, are the ways in which factors are mediated by temporal contexts such as timing and sequence. Drawing on the notion of path dependence, this study analyses how the temporal orders of four institutional factors – 1) the socioeconomic context of reception, 2) incorporative policies of the receiving state, 3) diaspora policies of the sending state, and 4) migrant networks – resulted in divergent levels of diasporic engagement between Italian and Japanese migrants in early twentieth century Brazil. My findings show that the socioeconomic context of reception provides the initial condition on which migrants develop their networks. Second, the timing of when diasporic policies – relative to incorporative policies – reach out to migrant networks affects the breadths of social class involvement in diasporic engagement. This study contends that timing plays a critical role in producing divergent levels of diasporic engagement at the group-level.

A Narrative Inquiry into Educational Decision-Making in Thai-Japanese Families in Thailand

In the past decades, marriage migrants in Asia, including Thai-Japanese couples, have increased. Previous literature predominantly focused on issues related to adaptation and integration for foreign wives into the host society underlining the hypergamous (marrying a spouse of a higher status) nature of their marriage, which renders the majority of husbands and non-hypergamous marriages understudied. Therefore, the current study focuses on a population that includes husbands and wives, Japanese migrants, and Thai spouses. This study is exploratory and employed a qualitative approach with snowball sampling, which resulted in the inclusion of five Thai nationals and three of their Japanese spouses raising children in Thailand as participants. The study aims to examine their educational decision-making, including the language used in each family and school choice, since the parenting process is a succession of adjustments in response to the conditions of society, where values are explicitly manifested. Data were collected through face-to-face or online interviews, and content analysis was used to clarify themes. Analysis revealed factors that relate educational decisions to preconditions, such as the place of the first encounter, socioeconomic status, and location of their home. Another prominent issue is the strong belief in the English language. All participants claim that their decisions were made unanimously, while their characteristics, high levels of education and overseas experience, the preference of Japanese spouses to live in Thailand, and their lack of knowledge about educational options in Thai society contribute to the rational recount of their decision-making process.

'Care-ful' boundary negotiation: Curating translocal subjectivities among Japanese women in London.

This paper explores the everyday experience of Japanese female migrants in London. Asking how culture can offer us a lens through which to understand the diversity and heterogeneity of care in this globalised world, the Japanese concept of omoiyari, as curation of landscapes of care, is used as an analytical lens to unpack the interplay between culture, care and identity, illuminating the boundary-drawing aspects of ethics of care with which people make ongoing distinctions between self and others, and constructing translocal subjectivities. Understanding care as a form of communication, this paper uncovers the contextual and relational formation of care and self, and how this is enabled as well as constrained by culture. It contributes to an understanding of the relational formation of care in which caring practice is neither static nor embedded in place and culture, but is rather shaped through relationships dynamically, while social relationships in turn also shape the meaning of care.

Japanese medical practices in the Amur Governorate-General (1884–1917)

The article reviews the activities of Japanese doctors in the Amur Governorate-General. Archival research allowed us to observe a whole range of Japanese migrants’ private medical practices authorized by the local administration, as well as examples of their illegal medical activities. The founders of Japanese medical institutions in the Russian Far East were private individuals acting either on their own initiative, or at the invitation of the leaders of the local diaspora. The commercial efficiency of their hospitals was one of the main indicators of success of their medical practice. The medical work of Japanese residents was concentrated in cities and was not common in rural areas. The daily activities of Japanese doctors were based on the principles of Western medicine and were aimed primarily at meeting the healthcare needs and providing pharmaceutical drugs to their compatriots, but this did not exclude the provision of medical care to the locals due to the lack of medical organizations and private practitioners. The services provided by Japanese doctors and paraprofessionals (paramedics, obstetricians, dentists, nurses, pharmacists) included pre-hospital, primary medical, and specialized medical care, medical examinations of certain contingents of the locals, a number of laboratory diagnostics, nursing care, disinfection and sterilization. In everyday medical activities, in addition to conservative therapy, operations on the abdominal organs, amputations, trepanations, incisions, extractions, and abortions were performed. Prevention, sanitation, and other public health issues were out of their scope. The provision of medical care was carried out both at the inpatient and outpatient levels. The large demand for medical services and special competitive advantages ensured high earnings for Japanese medics. But these activities were ambiguously assessed in Russian society, both due to the low level of medical education of the immigrants, and due to the existence of the discourse about the so-called “Yellow Peril”.

Voluntary Underclass?: Globalism, Temporality, and the Life Choices of Japanese Working Holiday Makers in Australia

Abstract The working holiday (wh) program is a cultural exchange program that offers youth ‘global experiences’ including short-term employment, travel, and/or study. Australia is the most popular destination for Japanese working holiday makers (whm s): over 10,000 Japanese whm s were in Australia before the pandemic hit the country in March 2020. Despite the fact that most had held secure white-collar jobs in Japan, they moved to Australia and voluntarily took precarious jobs in agriculture, hospitality, and childcare. What made them decide to accept such significant downward mobility and acquiesce to unfavorable conditions such as underpayment, non-payment, and sometimes even harassment? How did the covid-19 pandemic affect their lives in Australia? Based on data from surveys and qualitative interviews, this article analyses the relationship between globalism and a willingness for Japanese youth migrants to join the ‘underclass’ in Australia.

Becoming Asian: Asianness as the Counter-Power Among Japanese Migrants

The complexity of connectivity is reflected in the migrant’s socialization process. Whilst the socialization process in transnational spaces often leads to further ethnic divisiveness, Japanese migrants who had opportunities to encounter Asian Others gradually embraced an overarching Asian identity in Dublin. The shared liminal status of migrants in the local society contributed to the forging of an emotional pan-Asian solidarity and acted as a form of migrant identity against hegemonic whiteness. By ethnographically examining the identity construction patterns of Japanese migrants in Dublin, this article aims to unfold how the idea of Asianism plays out in the shifting racial dynamics.

The maintenance of Japanese as a heritage language in Mexico: evidence from Japanese pre-war migrants and newcomers

Abstract This article reports the first sociolinguistic investigation of heritage language maintenance in two distinct types of Japanese migrant community in Mexico City – pre-war labour migrants and recent self-movers. We investigate which social factors most strongly contribute to the preservation of Japanese oral language ability in these two communities. The results confirm the significant effects of languages used in the home and educational domains upon the maintenance of their heritage language in both old and new migrant communities, while highlighting the community-specific effects of both age and languages used in the workplace among the old community and those of contact with relatives and friends in Japan in the case of the newcomer community. We argue that these differences indicate that in the older community, where a strong solidarity network has been developed but where contact with relatives in Japan has been mostly lost, the use of Japanese in the workplace is most likely to help them maintain it, whilst in the more recent newcomer community with more loose-knit Japanese networks within Mexico, frequent interaction with their relatives and friends in Japan serves to strongly support the retention of their high language ability. This article concludes that heritage language use in both home and school is indeed the fundamental determiner of migrant heritage language survival, whereas different factors, such as the use of the heritage language in the workplace and contact with relatives and friends in the homeland, may aid in its preservation, depending upon the recency of the community’s arrival as well as the strength of community’s network.