Why the difference between “foreigner” and “immigrant” matters
移民か外人か Immigrant or “Gaijin”?
“There are so many foreigners that it is almost hard to spot a Japanese person!”
Am I the only one who gets annoyed whenever a reporting crew goes to a tourist trap and narrates in this manner?
How is he able to look at crowds and know everyone’s nationality? Analyzing the "gaze" of the camera in these shots, the answer is simple — racial discrimination. The camera gaze brings your gaze to shots of people with European features and South Asian features. An East Asian face means Japanese (probably) so the camera never pans over or focuses on a family or group of people with those features. Is it not possible that those individuals are immigrants at the very least or actually Japanese citizens as well? Certainly.
Therefore, this type of broadcast demonstrates the rigidity of the assumptions about who belongs to the moniker of “Japanese.”
As the example of the video demonstrates “foreigner” paints all residents and visitors of foreign nationality with the same single color — from foreign tourist to 20 year resident to the child of an immigrant — all are gaikokujin. In other words, unlike immigrant 移民, “foreigner” does not signify inherently any connection at all to Japan or Japanese society. Foreigner merely refers to one’s nationality as if that explains the entirety of one’s possible relationships to the community around them. When used so excessively without nuance, it inherently invites othering for one is reduced to a perpetual state of “just visiting” — the eternal tourist. Taking this othering to an explicit level is the word, gaijin, best translated as “outsider,” which according to the Daijizen dictionary has the nuance of someone, who is not a friend, an other, and therefore should be used with caution. Yet, albeit with little negative intention, almost all Japanese speakers use this term. Even many of us immigrants and weebs do.
But Is “immigrant” better?
A couple of months ago, I was invited to a gathering of ALTs (assistant language teachers). The topic of future plans came up. When asked about my plans, I remarked that I am an immigrant and I intend to stay. Then I added we should all be using the word 移民 immigrant, not ex-patriot, not 外国人 gaikokujin, and definitely not 外人 gaijin to refer to ourselves. Most understood my intention in this differentiation. After nodding in agreement, one individual responded, “Well, I do not intend to stay so I am ok with using gaikokujin.” Begrudgingly, I had to accept his point, since, after all, the Miriam-Webster’s definition of immigrant is a “person who moves to a country to take up permanent residence.”
Yet, after this conversation I began reconsidering my own thoughts and developed an interest in diving deeper into the terms available in Japanese. What are the terms available and what words make sense to the average Japanese speaker?
In Japanese law, the official term for immigrant is 入国移植者 and the term for migrant is 移住者 or 移民. According to the UN, migrant refers to those who are foreign-born residents of any given nation, whereas in the Webster dictionary and US parlance it refers to those who move regularly for work. It is commonly used to refer to those from a foreign country, especially from S. America, who move to the US for work. However, in Japanese common parlance 移民 seems to be foreign-born but 移住者 can be both; i.e. a national moving about domestically or a foreign national who has taken up residence in Japan (as most easily demonstrated by the NPOs that are tackling this social issue). Lastly, I have never heard anyone use the term 移植者.
Who Belongs?
It comes down to this question, “who belongs to the Japanese community?” During Golden Week, I went on a short filming trip to Kobe with my friends for their skateboard company. One of the pros is a mixed race Japanese-Brazilian, who has lived in Japan since he was 14 years old. I’ll call him “S.” He brought his son (I’ll call him “Z”) along with him too. A considerably friendly local, who showed us around to all the spots and offered us canned coffee after the long day (gotta love Kansai people!), asked me “where y’all from?” while we were skating at a particular spot.
I smirked and said, “The filmer and I are from Gifu. And the others are from Aichi.”
Realizing his mistake, he changed his question and asked again what were my and the others nationalities. Pointing to the skate team manager and filmer, I explained Japanese, and then the team riders, S and Z, Brazilian. Finally, I mentioned that I was originally from the US. But I added that Z is Japanese through and through to me since he was born here, has never lived anywhere else, and is culturally and linguistically Japanese. Yet, because of Japan’s nationality laws and the binary thinking, he is often neither seen as, nor accepted as “Japanese.”
A particularly heartbreaking example of how this affects the lives of immigrants is beautifully and painfully portrayed in the film, マイ・スモール・ワールド My Small World, about Kurdish refugees in Japan.
Clearly, given the kaleidoscopic diversity of experiences, background, and identity of each individual, binary thinking is always problematic and, mostly, simply irrational. But as permanent residents we are contributors, participants, and supporters of the local community. Humans yearn for community; it is one of our most basic needs and desires. Using words that do justice to the inherent diversity of each individual and to our human needs seems like the best approach to me.
