Immigrant Identity in a New Destination: The Case of Metropolitan Tokyo

• In Event: 50260 - Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 1: Belonging, Mobility, and Racialization in Transnational Asian Contexts

Abstract

As an emerging nexus for international migration in Asia since the 1990s, Japan has experienced a rapid inflow of immigrants over the past several decades. Drawing on interviews and field work in the Tokyo metropolitan area, the present research explores ethnic identity and immigrant incorporation in this emerging, immigrant-receiving society. What are the patterns of immigrant integration set within a national construct remarkable for its virtual absence of immigrants until recent years? What are the terms of separation and boundary-crossing between Japanese and non-Japanese within a social context characterized typically by racial homogeneity and ethnic nationalism? Research reveals a marked tendency among immigrant-origin informants to Japan to preserve their ethnonational identity. They do not tend to consider themselves Japanese, nor do they intend to “become” Japanese. The identity of immigrants in Japan is formed intersubjectively—by the immigrants themselves and through their internalization of the sociocultural structuring of a host ordered by the binary of “Japanese/foreigner.” This dialectic perpetuates an antinomy of toleration and structural exclusion, enacted through a boundary-making by both immigrants and Japanese. The present research suggests the possibility for exploration of comparative global variations in immigrant identity formation, with a view to expanded models of immigration and integration in contemporary societies.

Author

• Noriko Matsumoto, University of Vermont