I. Introduction
The reason I decided to join this seminar was I would like to work to support foreigners in Japan in the future, as a consequence of visiting Yokohama Association for International Communications and Exchanges, YOKE (横浜国際交流協会) last year. This organization holds life counseling for foreigner residents in Japan. Before visiting, my image of as that the current Japanese system and environment for foreigners is sufficient, so I was surprised that there were so many problems for them such as illegal work, qualification to stay in Japan, educational environment for them, undocumented people and so on. My image was changed by understanding and knowing actual situation and problems that foreigners in Japan face.
The most impressive part of the visit for me was that the staff told me the past cases of life counseling there. One of these is a foreign woman and Japanese man were married and lived together in Japan, but because her husband passed away, she lost qualification as a Japanese spouse and also because the length of her stay in Japan was less than 3 years, she could not get visa status. Like her case, there are people who have no choice but to leave Japan because of the length of stay. But on the other hand, there are also problems of increasing numbers of illegitimate refugees who aim at working illegally in Japan by deregulations of admitting them in Japan.
As a result, I thought that what we should do now for foreign residents who really need support by Japanese government is to set rules that suit the present situation in Japan, not only relax regulations thoughtlessly, and support them under the appropriate system. To consider the measures, it is necessary to think critically and logically about Japanese society and of course learn about diversity and equality in Japanese society. That’s why I chose this seminar.
In this report, I will first look at the general situation of foreign residents in Japan. I then make a case study of Icho Danchi, a public housing complex with a large number of residents who are foreigners or Japanese people with overseas cultural backgrounds, focusing on educational problems for children with foreign roots. Finally, I state my conclusion through the studies in this seminar and visiting STAND BY ME actually.
II. Basic Conditions of Foreigners in Japan
According to the Ministry of Health, Labor, Welfare, by the end of October, 2015, there were 908,000 foreign people in Japan. Three key points can be made about this. First, only 1 % of working population is foreigners in Japan. Second, the proportion is relatively lower compared to other countries especially in Asian countries. (ex. Singapore : 27.9%, Malaysia : 8.3%, Hong Kong : 6.4% etc.) Third, most of foreign workers take jobs that Japanese tend to avoid such as nurse, care worker, construction work, and so on. In addition to these, according to the research by JICTO (国際研修協力機構) in 2017, the types of business industry of foreign people in Japan are, Machine/Metal working industry (機械・金属産業 15,907peo), Textile industry (繊維産業 14,868), Food industry (6,791 食品産業), Construction industry (5,275 建設産業), Agriculture industry(4,045 農業).
There is currently a debate about whether Japan should accept more foreigners or not. Popular opinions of supporters to accept them are Japanese companies want to hire more foreigners with special skills, and there is need to hire them who take job that Japanese tend to avoid. But against these opinions, opponents said, with more foreigners entering, there would be the possibility of worsening employment conditions for Japanese.
Our common recognition in the discussion is that, what we should do is to know what is their purpose of coming Japan exactly, and we aid them to match their purpose. Moreover, we have to make current situation better such as low wages or long working hours, and prepare suitable environment to accept them.
III. Case Study: Icho Danchi Hosing Complex
Icho Danchi is a huge public, multi-ethnic housing in Yokohama. There are 3,600 households. Around 20 % are foreigners or Japanese with overseas cultural backgrounds. This is successful example of public building that Japanese and foreigner live together and understand each other, for example but there are also problems.
One of the problem is educational one. It is often difficult for foreign kids to understand classes in Japanese classes in Japanese schools. So, how to support these foreign students? In the next section, I look at some support systems both at national level and local level.
IV. History of STAND BY ME
①~１９９９ Autumn
At that time, SBM was operated by only Japanese volunteers
⇒The demand of foreign children was not reflected to the classes
②１９９９ Autumn ~ ２００１ April
Antisocial accident by Vietnam children in summer,1999 : triggered to start taking in not only Japanese volunteer’s opinion, but also foreign children’s voice
⇒「運営委員会」composed by foreign children, 「母国語教室」、「学習支援教室」、「家庭訪問活動」 was started.
③ ２００１ April ～ ２００２ January
Shimofukuda Junior High School provided some class rooms for SBM
⇒Special class 「選択国際」 was started (supported by SBM)
④ ２００２ January ～
Activities of SBM (language classes, home visiting etc…) was reorganized
⇒ started more “individual” support 個別対応・サポート to each children by considering each backgrounds, nationalities, experiences such as bullying at school
V. Solutions to Educational Problems for Children with Foreign Roots
There are a number of approaches to supporting children with foreign roots at the national level. One is the Japanese as a second language, JSL curriculum developed by the Ministry of Education. This curriculum is mainly for those who cannot follow normal classes and it shows clearly basic academic skills to get at least. Another approach is for teachers not only teach the subject itself but also support their Japanese at any time in school.
At the local level, there are volunteer groups who provide different kinds of educational support for children with foreign roots. Stand By Me is an organization that gives educational support to foreign children living in the Icho Housing Complex mainly, and it was built in 2001. They not only have Japanese classes, but also play sports and have various events sometimes.
At the beginning(in 2001), there were only 10 newcomer children, but they gradually expanded the content of activities, and by 2004, there were over 200 members. Today, the number is too many to count. Children join SBM’s class are from 13 countries. (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, China, South Korea, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Argentina, Iran and Japan) I was surprised to know that, in Icho danchi, the signs with traffic regulations and instruction are posted in a lot of languages such as Japanese, Khmer, Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and English. The reason why I surprised that is because although I often see multilingual signs in my daily life, for example in public place such as electric bulletin board in Tama monorail, but in Tama monorail’s case, that is indicated in only Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean.
Instead of the government, the organization like Stand By Me can give children caring and warm support, so we should set up more this kind of organization, and Japanese government should support these organizations. By the way, you aisesd the issue of undocumented migrants in the discussion, but i think the foreign residents of Icho Danchi are all or mainly documented residents, many of whom were granted refugee status when they came to Japan.
VI. Visiting STAND BY ME actually
In this seminar, I have learned mainly about basic conditions of foreigners in Japan, Icho Danchi Housing Complex as a case study,( and solutions to educational problems for children with foreign roots so far,) but these my studies were basically based on only my research by my own such as reading books, essays or websites concerning these issues. Moreover, I had never visited visiting organizations like STAND BY ME or done fieldwork actually after entering this university. But finally we got the opportunity to visit STAND BY ME actually, so I thought I want to ask them what is the “real” of the environment and supporting system for foreign children live in there. Before visiting, we prepared the lists of questions for the interview, then we did that actually based on the lists. We talked with the secretary-general, Ms Tuppsalern and the staff.
Firstly, they have 3 main current activities.
① Japanese Language Class 「日本語教室」
It started from last year,2016. Parents can also join this class, because not only children, but also some of their parents cannot speak or understand Japanese well. And beecause of that, some parents face the difficulty to get job they want to. Furthermore, sometimes it is hard for them to just keep living in Japan for economical issues.
② Native Language Class 「母国語教室」
This class was started from 2006. Recently, there are the demands of Vietnamese and Chinese especially and they have instructors for each native language classes. For participating, children have to pay 100 yen per 1 class by their own to their teacher when the class is over.
Actually we observed Vietnamese class on that day, and there were about 20 participants. I was surprised that they took class so aggressively than we expected, also we can see there are trust and deep communication between the instructor and children.
③ Study camp: (野島青少年センター：Kanazawa,Yokohama city）
The purpose of the camp is to be relaxed and study at other place. In 2017, they’ll go to 野島青少年センター at Kanazawa, Yokohama city.
By visiting them, we were able to ask them lots of things, and find many interesting points. I summarized important points of this visiting like following sentences.
・Differences between STAND BY ME and Public Schools
SBM is not duty, and more free, flexible “ゆるい”
・The reason why STAND BY ME does’nt welcome to lots of volunteers
Because there are differences between the demand by foreign children and the motivation by volunteers and teachers. Although SBM think it is good for accepting people who want to join as a volunteer or special instructors of for example Japanese language, however, SBM is the not the place to do “自分探し” for teachers.
・Most of children have narrow-minded for their future
But they also easily affected cause they don’t know there are lots of choices in the future. Most of foreign children living and growing up in the area of Icho Housing Complex have less chance to know jobs that is needed for outside of their place of residence because their community have been established and fixed inside of the area. They don’t need to go outside and live. Therefore, most children tend to think that Garbage disposal plant(ごみ処理場), factory etc is good place to work in the future like their parents.
Through the visiting, as I stated before, I found that most children, who have foreign backgrounds living in the area of Icho Danchi Housing Complex, don’t know or don’t have chance to outside of their community in that Danchi area. In my opinion, what we need to do for them for now is, to give them opportunities to learn about such as “what is a job”, “why you need to choose your job after thinking deeply about it”, and “how important that you strive to realize the future by getting the job that you want to work in”.
VII. References
・The Japan Times (Feb.15,2014), More foreigners working in Japan
・The Japan Times (May 18, 2014), Icho’s ethnic vitality poses future model for Japan by Tomohiro Osaki
・外国人技能実習生が働く業種（２０１５年国際研修協力機構調べ）
・横浜市国際局 社会データ実情実録 外国人労働者の推移
Tsuneyoshi, Ryoko、Okano, Kaori H. and Boocock, Sarane (Eds) (2011), Minorities and Education in Multicultural Japan : An Interactive Perspective (多文化社会日本におけるマイノリティと教育), London: Routledge.
・「いちょう団地発！外国人の子どもたちの挑戦」 清水睦美・「すたんどばいみー」編著 岩波書店
・外国人労働者問題に関する資料（平成１７年５月 厚生労働省職業安定局）