The multicultural mix in Japanese society is reflected in various aspects, not only in the film and television entertainment and sports worlds, but also in the film and television entertainment and sports worlds, such as Rie Miyazawa, Erika Sawajiri, Kiko Mizuhara, Naomi Osaka, Daniel Schmidt, etc.; In the political world, this trend is represented by the Chinese-Japanese mixed Lotus Fang, who studied at Peking University and was even expected to become Japan's prime minister at one time.
The reason behind the high number of mixed-race children in Japan is that foreign immigrants who have lived in Japan for a long time intermarry with Japanese people and have offspring. These immigrants come from all over the world, but how are the native Japanese people accepting of them and their attitude towards mixed-race people?
How did mixed-race people gain a foothold in Japanese society? How did Japan transform from a country with a strict maritime ban policy to the world's fourth-largest importer of immigrants?
What kind of transformation is behind this?
In feudal Japan, the Tokugawa shogunate allowed an exodus of population due to the importance of population to taxation. At the same time, in order to prevent the intellectual, economic, and political invasion of Europe, Japan strictly restricted the scope of activities of foreign merchants.
However, the tide of history eventually forced Japan to open its doors to the threat of force from American black ships in 1853. However, Japan's rapid rise to prominence through the Meiji Restoration took only half a century to become an imperialist power, and then the capture of Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula in the Sino-Japanese War.
In the following decades, the expansion of Japanese militarism brought extremely profound disasters to the people of China and North Korea. Japan replicated the path of colonialism in its overseas colonies, abducting large numbers of Chinese and Koreans to Japan through forced labor and leaving them to work as coolies.
Over the decades, the total number of forcibly conscripted laborers in Japan has reached one million, most of whom have died in inhumane working conditions, and the rest have been discriminated against, without freedom, let alone the conditions to reproduce.
Moreover, although some international students and businessmen chose to settle in Japan, the Japanese generally looked down on Chinese and Koreans, and this discrimination was as sharp as Lu Xun revealed in "Mr. Fujino."
During the Great Kwantung Dynasty, several rumors of "Koreans taking advantage of the chaos to rob" actually caused the Japanese military and police to brutally kill 6,000 Koreans in just a few hours. During the period of militaristic rule, Japan adhered to racial nationalism, implemented discriminatory policies against other peoples of the world, and erected numerous legal obstacles to severely restrict the naturalization of foreigners.
According to statistics, in the half-century from 1899 to 1950, only 303 people succeeded in becoming Japanese citizens. In such an environment, Chinese and Koreans are naturally trembling, rarely intermarrying with Japanese, and have always been marginalized in Japanese society as a minority.
This rejection of immigrants only slightly improved after Japan's defeat in World War II.
From boycott to acceptance, after the end of World War II, China was victorious, Korea achieved independence, and Japan was forced to free its workers and abolish its discriminatory policies. In 1946, the first school in Yokohama to teach only in Chinese appeared, which was previously unimaginable.
By the beginning of the 50s of the 20th century, Japan had enacted three laws: the Nationality Act, the Immigration Regulations, and the Alien Registration Act, which together formed the "1952 System", which stipulated the elements for determining Japanese nationality and the conditions for foreigners to stay.
However, the "1952 system" still adheres to the principle of homogeneity of blood in the recognition of nationality, and the protection of the rights and interests of immigrants is far less than that of other countries in the Western camp.
Although Chinese and Koreans have lived in Japan for generations, they still cannot obtain Japanese citizenship, even though they have established their own communities and cultures.
During that period, the number of mixed-race children in Japan began to surge. On the one hand, the shackles of Chinese and North Korean immigrants were reduced, and they began to intermarry with the Japanese in general; On the other hand, Japan's increasingly close exchanges with the West, especially under the influence of the US military stationed in Japan, a large number of mixed-race children were born.
These mixed-race children, born by American soldiers, civilian personnel, and Japanese women, were called gi babies, the children of "American GIs." It is estimated that there were between 20,000 and 30,000 GI babies left behind in Japan at that time.
However, most of these babies were abandoned by their fathers and their identities were not recognized. Society sees this phenomenon as a scandal, and right-wing politicians see it as a humiliation of defeat, so they are crusaded.
Because discriminatory attitudes against babies and their mothers are prevalent both officially and civilly, even the woman's family is reluctant to participate in care. Many Japanese mothers, who cannot afford to raise their children and cannot withstand social pressure, have no choice but to cruelly abandon their children when they have no way out.
This situation is so common in Japan that the Elizabeth Sandas Welfare Institute has adopted more than 900 of these mixed-race orphans. The rejection of immigrants and mixed-race children in the whole of Japan has made the Western camp dissatisfied, but Japan has basically adopted an attitude of "accepting it with an open mind and resolutely not changing".
In the late 70s, the Vietnam War ended, and American pressure forced Japan to reluctantly admit some South Vietnamese refugees. However, in just a decade, Japan's attitude towards foreign immigrants has changed dramatically.
In 1990, Japan** promulgated the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, and based on this, the "1990 System" was formed. Under the new policy, immigrants from 23 different jobs can apply to live in Japan, and there are no restrictions on employment for immigrants who have defected to their relatives.
On the basis of the 1990 system, Japan has continued to relax its immigration policy and lower the threshold for the right of abode.
Since the Cold War, Japan** has always valued the Japanese origin of overseas immigrants, making Japanese-Brazilians the main immigrants**. However, in the 21st century, the situation has changed, and some industries have begun to value only applicants' Japanese language skills, without the need for Japanese ancestry.
In 2000, during the Keizo Obuchi administration, he further emphasized that "multi-ethnicity" was the strength of "multi-ethnicity", believing that ethnic diversity could expand Japan's intelligence and creativity, while also contributing to Japan's vitality and international competitiveness.
As a result, we began to actively promote the establishment of an "immigration policy" to attract foreigners to live and work in Japan. In 2013, during the Cabinet period, a plan was put forward to ensure the sustainability of Japan's economic and social development, including the introduction of foreign human resources.
*We aim to attract international students and overseas talents to Japan by providing them with a more secure environment to live and work in Japan. In general, Japan has made great changes in its immigration policy, from valuing only Japanese origin, to emphasizing Japanese language skills, and now attracting foreign talents, all of which reflect the openness to multicultural acceptance.
Japan's recent change in immigration policy is fundamentally rooted in the reality of declining fertility. The fertility rate was 2The continuous decline began in 16 and fell below 2 after 4 years, and this problem has taken a serious toll on Japanese society, especially since the labor shortage problem has become more serious after the 70s, especially in the construction industry and the lower industries, where the manpower gap is huge.
In order to solve these problems, Japan** had to make the decision to change its immigration policy under the pressure of declining fertility.
Over the past decade, Japan** has been facing a declining population and labor shortages. Since 2009, the problem has become more and more serious, and even affected the infrastructure construction of the Tokyo Olympics.
With little success in its efforts to increase fertility, Japan** has no choice but to seek solutions to increase the number of immigrants. As a result, from 1990 to 2019, the number of registered migrants grew from 1.07 million to 2.93 million, even more than smugglers and their children.
This makes Japan the world's fourth-largest importer of migrants.
In Japan, there are a large number of immigrants from China, South Korea, North Korea, the Philippines and Vietnam, and they are numerous, totaling more than 2 million. This diverse immigration background has led to the emergence of a large number of mixed-race children who work in all walks of life.
In particular, Japanese-European people are very popular in the entertainment industry because of their unique appearance, which is neither East Asian nor European.
According to industry estimates, the proportion of mixed-race people in the Japanese modeling industry is as high as 30 to 40 percent.
Although some mixed-race stars only enter the entertainment industry because they are lucky, this does not represent the true situation of all mixed-race groups. Nor can the Japanese equate their pursuit of mixed-race celebrities with their attitudes toward mixed-race and immigrant families in general.
Although Japan began to gradually relax immigration restrictions in the 80s, successive cabinets did not dare to publicly publicize its immigration policy, and even needed to explain that they were only "making reasonable and full use of foreign talents".
However, the numbers don't lie, and the number of immigrants in Japan is growing steadily and rapidly. The caution in the rhetoric of Japan** is mainly to take care of the feelings of the local people, which also reflects the real attitude of the Japanese people towards immigrants from the side.
Historically, due to its geographical location, Japan has been isolated overseas, and foreign exchanges have not been smooth, which has led to a conservative mentality in Japan.
A survey in 1995 showed that there were 35Two percent of Japanese people believe that "immigration should be reduced," but by 2003 that number had risen to 425%, which indicates that the attitude of Japanese society towards immigrants is gradually shifting towards exclusion.
Despite Japan's acceptance of the forced transformation of the United States, the chauvinism of "Greater Japan" still lurks in the hearts of ordinary people. Against the backdrop of more than 30 years of economic stagnation, Japan is more prone to xenophobia and racism, and this situation is likely to worsen.
Japan's Ministry of Finance is also called the Ministry of Finance, the name of the Ritsuryo system learned from the Tang Dynasty more than 1,000 years ago, which is unthinkable in other countries.
It turns out that the Japanese are for"Immigration should be increased"Attitudes are gradually changing, from the past 131% down to 10 now8%。Moreover, modern Japanese still attach great importance to "Japanese ancestry" as they did in the days of the old Japanese Empire.
According to the 2013 International Social Survey Project, there were 317% of people believe that it is important to have Japanese ancestry in order to become a Japanese citizen, and 448% of people think that Japanese ancestry is very important.
However, due to the high importance attached to bloodline by the whole society, mixed-race children often face various light and dark pressures in society. In Japan, there is a special term for mulatto called " which means "half" in English, which means half.
In modern Japanese, mulattos are often referred to as "huffs." However, this designation, combined with the importance of blood in the hearts of the Japanese, seems to have a discriminatory connotation.
It seems to silently remind all half-breeds: "You, half of whom are not Japanese." This makes "alienation" a common feeling among mixed-race people in Japanese society.
Although most mixed-race people were born, raised, schooled, and worked in Japan, they still feel like they are separated from mainstream society by an invisible veil of cultural and national identity.
A prime example is Ariana Miyamoto, who won the title of Miss Japan in 2015. Her father was African-American, which made her a little deeper.
At school, she was bullied a lot. Despite being Japanese in both culture and nationality, she still felt out of place in mainstream society.
After she became Miss Japan, she was wildly attacked by Japanese netizens. Some people questioned whether "Huff" was enough to represent Japan, and some people sarcastically ridiculed: "It turns out that Miss Japan is not Japanese!" ”
Also under cyberattack was Naomi Osaka, who served as the torchbearer at the Tokyo Olympics. Japanese officials originally hoped that Naomi Osaka would show the country's pluralistic and open side, but it backfired, and the world saw the undisguised racial discrimination of Japanese netizens.
Many comments expressed the unacceptability of a "Huff" as Japan's torchbearer, and Naomi Osaka's support for the "BLM" movement was also seen as the focus of attacks by netizens, but in fact BLM has nothing to do with Japan.
After Naomi Osaka's defeat in the Olympic competition, the accusations and invective against her by netizens reached a new climax, and as one observer put it, the Japanese had a completely utilitarian attitude towards her: "I accept that you become Japanese – but you have to win the Olympic gold medal!" ”
It's really a kind of black humor: for racists in Japan, winning an Olympic gold medal is half the way to proving that you have pure Japanese blood. Wouldn't it be better for those of mixed race who are clearly different in appearance and who are often discriminated against and isolated, but for those of mixed Chinese, Korean, and Japanese races who have no obvious differences in race?
The answer is no. Due to historical feuds and current geopolitical struggles, Chinese-Japanese, Korean-Japanese mixed race are also discriminated against in Japan.
The Korean-Japanese mix is at the bottom of the chain of discrimination, stemming from Japan's derogatory treatment of North Korea and the racism of right-wing politicians. They are forced to hide their Korean background, disguise themselves as Japanese, or choose to return to South Korea.
1.The Japanese attitude is the main reason for the decline in the number of immigrants from South Korea and North Korea, while Chinese-Japanese immigrants and Chinese immigrants are better at integrating. 2.Japan's hostile attitude has led to a decrease in the number of inter-Korean immigrants, unlike immigrants from other countries, while Chinese-Japanese immigrants and Chinese immigrants are more adaptable.
3.Inter-Korean immigrants are the only group of immigrants from the country whose numbers have declined because of Japan's hostile attitudes. In contrast, Chinese-Japanese immigrants and Chinese immigrants are easier to integrate.
4.Japan's hostile attitude has led to a decrease in the number of inter-Korean immigrants, while Chinese-Japanese immigrants and Chinese immigrants have adapted more easily to the new environment.
Although Japan is not as extremely discriminatory against Chinese as it is with South Korea, there is still a certain prejudice and exclusion, which makes it easier for immigrants and mixed-race people to identify with Chinese identity.
On the one hand, mixed-race children can better adapt to Japanese society, and on the other hand, they still belong to the Chinese cultural circle. Therefore, it is expected that the number of mixed-race children in Japan will gradually increase as the number of immigrants increases.
This is undoubtedly a great test and challenge for Japanese society, which has long been dominated by a single culture. However, Japanese society is clearly not ready to accept them, so for a long time, both sides will need to slowly find a way to live in harmony through friction and disagreement.