ALFP e-magazine issue 4: Culture and Identity

The Man-Made Construct of Nationality and the Multilayered
Nature of Cultural Identity
Lee Soo im (Japan)
Professor, Faculty of Business Administration, Ryukoku University / ALFP 2008 Fellow

Who are the “Japanese people?” What defines a “Japanese” person? The Nationality Law spells
out formal distinctions between “foreign nationals” and “Japanese citizens,” but people are apt toperceive nationality as a god-given attribute, one akin to gender. In reality, though, nationality is nonatural endowment; a closer look at Japanese history shows just how artificial the entire construct
is. Koreans were “imperial subjects” of Japan during the colonial era, for example, and the 1985
revisions to the Nationality Law expanded the scope of eligibility for acquiring Japanese nationality.
Prior to those 1985 amendments, Japan’s Nationality Law espoused a patrilineal principle. Any
child born to a Japanese father and a non-Japanese mother was Japanese by birth, automaticallyinheriting the father’s nationality. When Japan signed the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 1980 and officially ratified the document in 1985,
however, that embrace of gender-egalitarian principles spurred amendments to the country’sNationality Law, which promptly incorporated bilineal nationality principles. This became an
examples of how an international law strongly influenced Japan’s domestic policies.
While the new Nationality Law may have broadened the definition of Japanese nationality, therevisions did little to stem the tides of the country’s dwindling population. On June 20, 2008, theLiberal Democratic Party’s “Caucus for the Promotion of Foreign Human Resources” and “ProjectTeam for a Japanese-style Immigration Nation” submitted a report to then-Prime Minister YasuoFukuda. The proposals at the heart of the report centered on compensating for Japan’s shrinking
labor force with an influx of immigrant workers via a variety of measures, including initiatives tooverhaul the rather closed-off, inward-looking policies of the past, enact a new Immigration Law,and set up an Immigration Agency, but in-party deliberations on the terms of the proposals quickly
fell to the wayside in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011. With that,Japan’s immigration policy quickly took a big step backward—and that retreat has left a dearth ofmuch-needed activity on the front lines. However, without making radical transformations in its
immigration policies, Japan cannot stand any chance against the labor shortages looming 50 or 100years down the road, and thus has no bright future. The government’s priorities need to be in theright place, too: in confronting the question of who will support Japanese society into the future,
the discourse should focus on building relationships with a commitment to appreciating the richcultural dimensions so vital to people’s individual identities—a cultural component bothinternational and domestic in nature—before seeking radical changes in the Japanese mentality.
Japanese law essentially makes dual nationality an impossibility. The media likes to cover as broada scope as possible with its “Japanese triumph!” headlines, of course, bestowing nationality-infusedacclaim on athletes like tennis player Naomi Osaka, baseball players Yu Darvish and Rui Okoye,
track runners Asuka Cambridge and Julian Walsh, as well as intellectuals like Nobel Prize winners
Shuji Nakamura (the researcher responsible for the invention of blue light-emitting diodes) and© 2019 International House of Japan and Japan Foundation

ALFP e-magazine issue 4: Culture and Identity

Kazuo Ishiguro (an acclaimed author). The fact of the matter, though, is that some of those bigname “prides of Japan,” like the ones above, have dual nationalities—or have even renounced their
Japanese nationality altogether. In the West, there are so many citizens with dual nationality that
touting one as the “triumph” of a specific citizenry or ethnic group would be problematic; given
the context, media outlets stay away from playing up an individual victory as a “national”
achievement and instead frame the success as a personal accomplishment. In Japan’s system ofcultural values, nationality tends to overwhelm the notion of individual identity—and areas ranging
from law and economics all the way to politics are susceptible to the pull of that powerful culturalcurrent.
Moving Away from the “Foreigner” LabelWith globalization constantly churning forward, the idea of “immigrant integration” has become avital cog in the formulation of immigration policies. The word “immigrant” has never had muchcurrency in Japanese society, however; the black-and-white dualism of “Japanese” and “foreigners”
is still the accepted mindset. While countries around the world are exhibiting more and more signsof exclusionist attitudes toward immigrants, in Japan, the “foreigner” phrasing is what betrays anexclusionary stance against non-Japanese nationals and is used against a perceived “other” insociety.
That said, the tides do seem to be shifting. The phrase “foreign residents” has broken into theJapanese lexicon, for one, and the government did away with the long-standing “Alien Registration
Act” in July 2012 as the idea of non-Japanese nationals being just as important as Japanesenationals—fellow residents, not “aliens”—has gained traction. Immigrant nations have systems bywhich new entrants can proceed through a series of status stages, from “foreign resident” to“permanent resident” until ultimately acquiring the nationality of their adopted country. In theUnited States, for example, immigrants can get “Green Cards” (permanent residency cards) withno work-related restrictions in around three years’ time, provided that they meet certainrequirements. The system enables eligible immigrants to secure official US citizenship, as well, afterliving in the country for around five to ten years. Immigrants in the United States can, if they sochoose, follow a set path—a step-by-step life plan—to membership in the nation. While immigrantsocieties may see their share of discrimination in a variety of forms, countries with immigration
systems like the ones in the United States rest squarely on the conceptual foundation of treating
immigrants and native citizens on a level plane, a commitment to the principle of equality between“nationals” and “foreign nationals.”
The Multilayered Nature of Cultural IdentityDue to the rise of antiforeignism against immigrants, the European Union is dealing with a host ofcomplicated issues at the moment, but the flow of people needs to remain open and free as longas the area can maintain peaceful conditions. There will inevitably come a time, I think, whenAsians, too, will need opportunities to travel throughout the continent, free to encounter othercultures, without a passport. Japan can lead the Asian community forward by taking a new positionon the nationality issue, one that abandons jus sanguinis (the “right of blood”) for the jus soli (“right© 2019 International House of Japan and Japan Foundation

ALFP e-magazine issue 4: Culture and Identityof soil”) principle that Western countries abide by. People hold their homes close to their hearts,and those geographical roots have an enormous impact in shaping people’s individual identities.
To establish better immigration policies and give a sliver of light to people hoping to make Japana better place, the first step for Japan will be to align its Nationality Law with the jus soli principle.
Take a closer look at all the foreign residents and the people with foreign roots that homogeneous
society tends to obscure, and you can see that Japan is actually a multicultural state. For instance,
Zainichi Koreans (long-term residents of Japan who trace their roots to Korea under Japanese rule,along with their descendants), who have traditionally struggled to find work, have consistently
shown an entrepreneurial drive—and those among them with business skills and a desire for
upward mobility have sought self-realization through their commercial pursuits. And thoseentrepreneurs have often outperformed the majority in terms of business success. While the UnitedStates might be what people imagine when they think of immigrants making their own successes,
especially considering the ideal of the “American Dream,” Japan is also home to a substantial
amount of entrepreneurial activity by residents with non-native nationalities.
In the case of Zainichi entrepreneurship, however, Koreans in Japan who started their own
businesses did so in their Japanese aliases. Thus, even if they proved successful, their Korean roots
remained under the surface, “invisible” to the public. When Masayoshi Son appeared atop theForbes ranking of Japan’s top taxpayers in 2007 (a rare occurrence when a Zainichi name made anappearance in the ranking), however, Japanese society had to come to grips with the factuality ofmultilayered identities. The coming years will see the traditional concepts of individuality growblurrier and blurrier, as it has become harder to identify someone based on the traditional
distinguishing attributes, such as skin color, nationality, race and location. In that changing milieu,
Japan, too, is expected to change.

The contents of this article reflect solely the opinions of the author.
© 2019 International House of Japan and Japan Foundation