Search - discrimination-in-japan

 
 
Reader Mail
Aug 31, 2008

What does the government mean?

The news that the Japanese government is making "every conceivable effort" to eliminate racial discrimination makes me wonder -- as a foreigner who has lived in Japan for more than six years -- what the word "conceivable" means.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 20, 2008

Kawasaki's Filipinos form support base

KAWASAKI — When Rosemarie Salvio began taking care of children at the Fureai-kan public welfare facility in Kawasaki in 1997, Filipino mothers started showing up to talk with her.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 19, 2008

Readers respond: Once a 'gaijin,' always a 'gaijin'?

The Community Page received a large number of responses to Debito Arudou's last Just Be Cause column on the use of the word "gaijin." Following is a selection of readers' views.
Reader Mail
Aug 10, 2008

Rising to India's energy demands

The Aug. 6 editorial, "Nonproliferation Spluttering," contains discrepancies with regard to India's civilian nuclear-use agreement with the United States. First, India has, since the inception of the Nonproliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, opposed discrimination against nonnuclear...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 16, 2008

Filipinos visit lawmakers in quest for citizenship

Sixteen Filipinos whose fathers or husbands were Japanese men who had moved to the Philippines before and during the war asked lawmakers Tuesday in Tokyo for help obtaining Japanese citizenship.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 24, 2008

Not everyone is celebrating the Ogasawara Islands' anniversary

It is one of Asia's earliest and oddest ethnic melting pots, with citizens boasting names like Savory, Webb, Gonzales and Chaplin. The first piece of Far East territory to fall under U.S. control, local landmarks include the Yankeetown, the Charlie Brown and the Church of St. George, and old-timers speak...
Japan Times
JAPAN / RETRACING ROUTES
Jun 19, 2008

'Nikkei' craft own unique ethnicity, samba to manga

Igor Inocima's face filled with contentment as he described the achievement of introducing the culture of manga to Brazil, where his grandparents emigrated to some 80 years ago.
EDITORIALS
Jun 10, 2008

Reintroducing the Ainu

Both chambers of the Diet unanimously passed a resolution last week urging the government to recognize the Ainu as an indigenous people. It says the fact that many Ainu people suffered discrimination and poverty during Japan's modernization should be taken seriously. Noting that the Ainu have their own...
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jun 3, 2008

Good news from grass roots

Reader Rodney in Vancouver recently e-mailed: "I've often found your articles informative and useful, but they tend to take a tone of complaint. Please tell us about some face-to-face, grassroots efforts that have helped make Japanese more considerate and respectful of those who are different."
Reader Mail
Jun 1, 2008

Steps to encourage immigration

Recent news tells us that the Japanese government is finally waking up to the fact that we need more immigrants. Great. But how about encouraging more people to come to Japan by establishing laws that explicitly make discrimination on the basis of race and nationality a crime.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 23, 2008

Ainu press case for official recognition

Hundreds of Ainu from all over Japan and their supporters staged a protest Thursday in Tokyo's Nagata-cho political district, demanding the Diet and the government recognize them as indigenous people.
JAPAN
May 3, 2008

DPJ weighs voting rights for all permanent residents

A group of Democratic Party of Japan lawmakers is drafting a bill that would give foreign nationals with permanent residence status the right to vote in local elections. They plan to gear up after the Golden Week holidays and submit the bill during the current session of the Diet.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 15, 2008

Method in the madness?

In November, Japan became only the second country in the world (after the United States) to introduce mandatory fingerprinting and photo-taking at all international entry points, as part of beefed-up "antiterrorism" measures by the Ministry of Justice.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 10, 2008

Foreign workers rally in Shibuya for equal rights

Foreign workers staged a rally in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, on Sunday as part of their annual spring labor offensive, calling for proper and equal treatment on par with Japanese working conditions.
Japan Times
LIFE / THE SKY'S THE LIMIT
Feb 24, 2008

Top techie programs change

When Kayoko Sugahara started working as a systems engineer 25 years ago, she sometimes stayed in her office late into the night running performance tests on computers, and often went there on weekends to use the computers there.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Dec 4, 2007

Skin-deep success

It started with an e-mail from my editor: "Get yr (sic) camera ready. Online Dating Minus Ugly People is coming to Japan. Thinking Lifestyle page trend piece. Ready for the money shot?"
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Nov 27, 2007

Re-entry for PRs; rent-a-gran

New 'Yokoso' measures Robert inquires about the changes that started Nov. 20.
Reader Mail
Nov 15, 2007

SPRs have suffered enough

Regarding Donald Seekins' Nov 11 letter: Ignorance leads to arrogant notions that one rule should apply to all. The term "Special Permanent Resident" denotes special circumstances regarding how the status was giveNorth Koreans in Japan are descendants of men and women who suffered greatly under Japanese...
Reader Mail
Nov 6, 2007

Fingerprinting not so stupid

In his Nov. 1 article, "Not so welcome to Japan any longer", Kevin Rafferty dwells on the fingerprinting and photographing of most aliens when entering or returning to Japan, to begin later this month, as "tedious" and "discriminatory." He wonders if Immigration Bureau officials are "so shallow and...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 11, 2007

Volunteering: How to start making a difference this fall

First in a two-part series
COMMUNITY
Sep 11, 2007

Have your say

The scapegoating of Asa Two thumbs up for James Eriksson and Debito Arudou on their article (Zeit Gist, Sept. 4), the first and only in Japan that actually looks at the facts of the whole (Asashoryu) situation and doesn't just follow the bandwagon of "Asa-bashing."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 6, 2007

Japanese tattoo art carves its mark in the mainstream

"It seems like every two or three days we are doing a koi (carp) half-sleeve or a dragon tattoo. People in the States are going nuts for Japanese. It's really blown up over the last two years," says American tattoo artist Lewis Hess of Atlas Tattoo in Portland, Oregon.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 6, 2007

'Merchant' for modern times

One of the world's foremost directors of Shakespeare, one of Japan's most outstanding translators of the Bard and a star-studded Japanese cast have teamed up to bring "The Merchant of Venice" to Tokyo this month.
MORE SPORTS
Aug 19, 2007

Moses trying to help less fortunate hurdle obstacles

Edwin Moses was an untouchable, unbeatable performer as a track and field superstar during his heyday in the 1970s and '80s.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 19, 2007

Osamu Tezuka: Fighting for peace with the Mighty Atom

The Astro Boy Essays: Osamu Tezuka, Mighty Atom, and the Manga/Anime Revolution, by Frederik L. Schodt. Stone Bridge Press, 2007, 248 pp., $16.95 (paper) When legendary manga and anime artist Osamu Tezuka visited the 1964 New York World's Fair, he met a man he had long idolized, Walt Disney. Tezuka...

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past