Many in Japan have been slow to accept the fact that international labor migration does not stop at Japan's doorstep. But in recent years, the presence in Japan of workers from various Asian and Latin American countries has become a fact of life that cannot be overlooked anymore.
The flow of labor across borders is one aspect of globalization that has begun to affect social reality in Japan -- later than in many other highly industrialized countries but in many comparable ways nonetheless. The steady increase of foreign workers, both legal and illegal, shows no sign of abating, despite more than a decade of economic stagnation and growing unemployment.
Over the past decade, a sizable body of literature about immigrant communities in Japan has been produced. The present volume, although it takes up many themes that have been dealt with at great length before, is a welcome addition to this new field of scholarship.