Help (Not) Wanted

Immigration Politics in Japan

Michael Strausz

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781438475530
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Emigration & Immigration
• Index: Social Sciences

In Help (Not) Wanted, Michael Strausz offers an original and provocative answer to a question that has long perplexed observers of Japan: Why has Japan's immigration policy remained so restrictive, especially in light of economic, demographic, and international political forces that are pushing Japan to admit more immigrants? Drawing upon insights developed during nearly two years of intensive field research in Japan, Strausz ultimately argues that Japan's immigration policy has remained restrictive for two reasons. First, Japan's labor-intensive businesses have failed to defeat anti-immigration forces within the Japanese state, particularly those in the Ministry of Justice and the Japanese Diet. Second, no influential strain of elite thought in postwar Japan exists to support the idea that significant numbers of foreign nationals have a legitimate claim to residency and citizenship. This book is particularly timely at a moment shaped by Brexit, the election of Trump, and the rise of anti-immigrant political parties and nativist rhetoric across the globe.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Figures and Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1 Foreign Laborers, Not Immigrants
• Chapter 2 Help Wanted: Immigration Restriction in a World of Labor Shortages, Aging Populations, and Refugee Crises
• Chapter 3 Minority Rights and Minority Invisibility: Oldcomer Koreans in Japan
• Chapter 4 The Crow Is White: Foreign Labor and the Japanese State
• Chapter 5 Asylum as Exception
• Chapter 6 Is Another Japan Possible? Public Opinion and Immigration Reformists
• Chapter 7 Japanese Immigration in the Age of Trump
• Appendix: Description of Interview Subjects
• Notes
• References
• Index