Crucial to any public discussion is defining the terms of debate. However, often those terms must be redefined later because they don't reflect reality.
One example is Japan's concept of "foreigner," because the related terminology is confusing and provides pretenses for exclusionism.
In terms of strict legal status, if you're not a citizen you're a "foreigner" (gaikokujin), right? But not all gaikokujin are the same in terms of acculturation or length of stay in Japan. A tourist "fresh off the boat" has little in common with a noncitizen with a Japanese family, property and permanent residency. Yet into the gaikokujin box they all go.