Embedded racism: Japan's visible minorities and racial discrimination

379 Pages·2015·5.567 MB·English

by  Arudou, Debito

Embedded Racism

Embedded Racism
Japan’s Visible Minorities
and Racial Discrimination
Debito Arudou
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Arudo,Debito,1965-
Embeddedracism:Japan'svisibleminoritiesandracialdiscrimination/DebitoArudou.
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Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-1-4985-1390-6(cloth:alkalinepaper)--ISBN978-1-4985-1391-3(electronic)
1.Japan--Racerelations.2.Racism--Japan.3.Minorities--Japan--Socialconditions.4.Aliens--Japan-
-Socialconditions.5.Racediscrimination--Japan.6.Racediscrimination--Lawandlegislation--
Japan.7.Physical-appearance-basedbias--Japan.8.Socialisolation--Japan.9.Nationalism--Social
aspects--Japan.I.Title.
DS832.7.A1A782015
305.800952--dc23
2015033991
TMThepaperusedinthispublicationmeetstheminimumrequirementsofAmerican
NationalStandardforInformationSciences—PermanenceofPaperforPrintedLibrary
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PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
Contents
PrefaceandAcknowledgments vii
Introduction:WhySuchaLongIntroduction? xi
I:TheContextofRacisminJapan
1 RacialDiscriminationinJapan:ContextualizingtheIssue 3
2 HowRacism“Works”inJapan 15
II:“JapaneseOnly”:ExamplesofRacialDiscrimination
3 “WeRefuseForeigners”:CaseStudiesof“JapaneseOnly”
ExclusionaryBusinesses 37
III:TheConstructionofJapan’sEmbeddedRacism
4 LegalConstructionsof“Japaneseness” 79
5 How“Japaneseness”IsEnforcedthroughLaws 129
6 A“Chinaman’sChance”inJapaneseCourt 167
7 FromForeignFetishizationtoFearintheJapaneseMedia 183
IV:ChallengestoJapan’sExclusionaryNarratives
8 MaintainingtheBinary 247
V:DiscussionsandConclusions
9 PuttingtheConceptof“EmbeddedRacism”toWork 271
10 “SoWhat?”:WhyJapan’sEmbeddedRacismMatters 287
Glossary 307
v
vi Contents
AppendixA:Sakanaka’s“BigJapan”vs.“SmallJapan” 313
AppendixB:ThisResearch’sDebttoCriticalRaceTheory 321
References 325
Index 339
AbouttheAuthor 351
Preface and Acknowledgments
This book is the product of nearly thirty years of researching and living in
Japan—fromaroundthetimeIfirstvisitedin1986tothepresentday.Ihave
always been intrigued by how some normalized images of Japan did not
squarewithwhatIwasexperiencingineverydaylife.Despitebeingfriendly
and hospitable to guests, very progressive in unexpected ways, and open
enoughtooutsidethingstoco-optthem(eventhemusicforJapan’snational
anthem was written by a foreigner), Japan has a palpable undercurrent of
exclusionism. It is both subtle (e.g., ideas and proposals dismissed due to
their “lack of precedent”) and overt (e.g., “No Foreigners Allowed” signs—
the subject of my related book “Japanese Only”: The Otaru Hot Springs
CaseandRacialDiscriminationinJapan).AsIstayedlonger,becamefluent
inJapanese,andfeltacculturatedandcomfortableinJapanesesociety(tothe
point of taking Japanese citizenship and giving up my American), I saw the
exclusionismmoreandmore—andwantedtounderstandit.
As a social scientist, I like figuring out why societies behave in patterns,
i.e., “why people generally do this and not that.” I eventually arrived at
answers that transcended thetautological “Japanesedothisbecausetheyare
Japanese,” i.e., something “cultural.” I never liked “culture” as an explana-
tion, since a) “culture” is hard to define, and eclipses individual choice and
foible,b) it isoften a “blackbox”that encagesresearchercuriosity,andc) I
assumethatpeopleanywherearegenerallyrational:theydothingsthatarein
their own best interests. I do not think people are unthinking “prisoners of
culture.” In most cases there is a system—a collection of logics and incen-
tives—that occasions behavior. In this research, the system encourages peo-
pletobehaveinclusivelyorexclusively.Evenifthosebeliefsystemsinitially
made no sense to me, they made sense to someone. My quest in this book
vii
viii PrefaceandAcknowledgments
was to findout howtheymadesense, andto quantifyhowtheywereunder-
pinnedbyrules,customs,mores,andprocedures.
Exclusionism in Japan (especiallythat of theracialized ilk)has beenone
big puzzle, taking me decades to deconstruct, then reconstruct as a coherent
pictureofwhyasocietyaskindasJapan’scanbesounsympathetictowards
people perceived as outsiders. One conclusion I would like readers to inter-
nalizefromthisbookisthatJapanshouldnotbetreatedas“special”—again,
that“JapanesedothisbecausetheyareJapanese”thing.1Succumbingtothat
narrativeinvitesallsortsofexceptionalismthatisungrounded—anditcauses
enormouscognitivedissonancewhenJapaniscalledupontoobserve(while,
asweshallseeinthisbook,officiallyclaimingexceptionfrom)international
standards of human rights under the international treaties it signed. This is
not just a matter of normative principle. As I argue in the last chapter,
Japan’s racialized nation-state membership processes are so exclusionary
thattheyareunderminingtheveryfabricofJapanesesociety:Japanisstran-
glingitselfdemographicallyonitsEmbeddedRacism.
In sum, Japan is no exception, especially to the world’s racialization
processes, andit deservessimilar critiqueforracism. I believethat Japanese
society behaves like any other—it just does it with an internal logic that is
“special”and“unique”inwaysthatallsocietiesarespecialandunique.This
book seeks to unspool the internal logic that justifies and embeds racism. I
hopeyoufinditsargumentscompelling.
I would like to express my gratitude to the many people who have been
helpful in this research. Deservedly first, I would like to thank my doctoral
dissertation committee at Meiji Gakuin University: Dr. M. G. Sheftall, Dr.
Sven Saaler, Dr. Ōiwa Keinosuke, Dr. Ōki Akira, and most of all Dr. Tom
Gill for never giving up on me even when the project was in its (several)
embryonicstages.
Next,therearecolleagueswhooverthedecadesprovidedassistancerang-
ing from the palliative (thanks) to the ego-bruising (ouch, but thanks): Ivan
Hall, Chris Pitts, David Johnson, Eric Johnston, Sakanaka Hidenori, Yuma
Totani, Mark Levin, Christine Yano, Chalmers and Sheila Johnson, Mark
Selden, Ben Stubbings, James and Kumiko Eriksson, Karen Stafford, Chad
Edwards,MichaelH.Fox,BernMulvey,“Rube”Redfield,GoetzHeermann,
Nick Hill, Tim Greer, Christopher and Amy Savoie, Paul Toland, Eric Kal-
mus, Paul Kallender-Umezu, Steve van Dresser, Mark Schreiber, Kaoru
Miki, Jeff Kingston, David Edgington, Okamoto Masataka, Ōmura Satoshi,
Dave Spector, Higashizawa Yasushi, Shiba-ike Toshiteru, Moro-oka Yasu-
ko, Doudou Diene, Ana Bortz, Tom Goetz, Pat O’Brien, Robert Aspinall,
Kirk Masden, FarrellCleary, Joe Tomei, AlanRosen,CynthiaWorthington,
Daniel Kirk, Paul Beaufait, Gavin Anderson, Shawn Clankie, Simon Jack-
son, Richard Hopkins, Shouya Grigg, Mark Rosa, Ben Goodyear, Steven