I. Introduction
I considered it is important to think about education for immigrant children since Japanese people are aging fast while life expectancy continues to increase. One-third of the population is above 60 years old and 12.5 per cent are above 75 in 2015. Women on average live to 87 and men on average live to 80 according to the World Health Organization. World Health Organization state that the Japanese can live until 75, disability free and fully healthy. Since this issue is becoming extremely serious problem, we need future generation. Although, Japan’s birth rate is declining every year. Japan’s birth rate was 1.43 in 2013 according to Cabinet Office, Government of Japan. When we see the situation, we can understand that future generation is not enough to support all the elderly. When it comes to this situation, immigrant children will be important in a labor market when they grow up. In Japan, immigrant was 1.36 million in 1995 and has been increasing since then. Finally, in 2015, it was 2.23 million people according to Ministry of Justice in Japan. If Japan accepts more immigrants there will be lot of challenges to respond to. One of the problems which we have is education for immigrant children. So, I will focus on immigrant children’s education in Japan in this paper. I will compare with the United States since the United States has been dealing with immigrant children’s education issue for a long time.
In this paper, I define immigrant children as children who have at least one foreign-born parent or children who has come in as immigrant by themselves. I will focus on the situation of immigrant children in Japan and education support from various factor in both countries.
II. Situation of immigrant children
A. Case of Japan
At first, to explain the situation of immigrants, I consider it is important to focus on history of immigrant children so I will write briefly about the history. Since 1975, there was Treaty of Gangwa. This treaty was to open up Korea to Japanese trade but also it increased Korean immigration to Japan since it made much easier for Koreans to enter Japan. In 1980, there were not enough Japanese which want to work for small company, agriculture and in blue color jobs, so immigrants came into Japan for those jobs. They were forced to work in poor conditions and for low payment. Many of them lived below the poverty line, so many immigrant children did not have a good environment, food and education. In 1990s, Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act was amended. This amendment increased workers from China, Brazil, and Peru. In this era, since China and Korea have a similar grammar, it was much easier for them to learn Japanese. However, Peruvian and Brazilian migrants had more difficulty using Japanese since their languages are very different from Japanese. In addition, there wasn’t any language support program which was affordable and provided by government.
When we look back at the history and consider why Japan didn’t receive a lot of immigrants compared to other countries, one of the reasons is traditions. One example is kinship which was reflected in Japanese citizenship laws. Japanese citizenship law includes the strong value of kinship based on blood ties Japanese policies have emphasized social. Since there weren’t many immigrants in Japan, Japan was racially homogeneous nation. So, many of the policies and laws ignore minorities. In Japan’s educational system, immigrant children are treated as gaijin which means foreigners, whose school attendance is not mandatory, which it is for Japanese. Also, educational system in Japan is centrally administered and teachers are trained to use similar instructional styles to teach the same national curriculum from the ancient time. It is because Japan has a culture that cooperativeness and synchronism is important to protect this culture, they only provide same national curriculum. This forces immigrant children to assimilate and may increase their acculturative stress.
Next, I will focus on the situation of immigrant children. In Japan, there were 1.36 million immigrants in 1995 but in 2015, there are 2.23 million immigrants. It dramatically increased in 20 years. When we see the where immigrants come from, many people comes from China and it is still increasing these days. Although Koreans and Brazilians were once the largest immigrant groups, they are decreasing recently. Many Korean immigrants have become older and their numbers are decreasing but overall immigration has increased in the period to 2015 because the countries which immigrants come from becomes diverse. According to Ministry of Justice in Japan, in elementary school, middle school and high school, there are 70,000 foreign children in total. Among them, 30,000 children need help with Japanese since they are not fluent and knowledgeable enough to catch up with the class. However, 30,000 out of 6 thousands foreign children have not been provided any support from government and other sectors. In 2009, on average 10% of students aged 15 years old in OECD countries had an immigrant background according to OECD. However, in Japan less than 1% of students have an immigrant background. Also, OECD has organized the survey about student performance in mathematics scores at age 10 by immigrant background in 2007.The gap in mathematics literacy between children with immigrant and non-immigrant status was 44 score-points difference. In case of Japan, when both parents are born in country the children score 575 out of 600 and if only one parent born in country, the child score 525 out of 600. It is apparent from this situation that there is difference in the quality of education which immigrant children and non-immigrant children receive. The gaps in performance between migrant and non-migrant children may stem from the fact that migrant children generally are more socio-economically disadvantaged than native children.
Japan has facing educational challenges associating with diversifying immigrant students since the government opened the door to unskilled immigrant workers. There is a large academic gap between Japanese and immigrant students and immigrant children doesn’t have educational opportunities. Since Japanese government are opening the door to unskilled immigrant, their children don’t get the type of education they should get. In Japan, there are not many multicultural schools and there aren’t any specific supports from school for immigrant children. Japan does not have well-made laws and policies for immigrant children as well as immigrants. Academic gap between Japanese and immigrant students suggests unequal distribution of educational opportunities. Also, immigrant children don’t have multicultural education in school. Japan was racially homogeneous nation for long time and still has not caught up on multicultural education compared to other developed countries. Many children have difficulty identifying themselves and they are more likely to stop going to school. They also can’t escape from poverty, since they haven’t had enough education compared to other Japanese people. Also, half of immigrant children don’t go to high school since they were not good at studying because they were not able to get enough support at school., or because they are struggling with poverty. Since their parents are low paid, many immigrant children have to work to support family too.
To see the situation of immigrant children in Japan, I went to the organization called Kalakasan. In Japan compared to other countries, there isn’t much support from government. This organization helps Filipino children and women in Japan and is supported by volunteers and the community. They do counseling, advocate to make new law which helps Filipino children’s education, and provide culture lessons and language lessons. They also open free space for Filipino children. I have volunteered in this organization before and I notice that almost all of the Filipino children grew up in Japan but since their parents and people in their environment talk Tagalog, they can’t write or read ordinary Japanese. This situation happens because school doesn’t provide enough education for minorities especially immigrant children. Also, kids seemed to have difficulty finding their space in school but also since parent can’t speak English, they seem to be having difficulty in the relationship with their parents.
B. Case of the United States
At first, I will discuss the policies and laws which have affected immigrant education in United States. In 1906, The Naturalization Act of 1906 was an act of the United States Congress and it was signed into the law by Theodore Roosevelt. He revised the law which was made in 1870 and required immigrants to learn English in order to become naturalized citizens. In 1923, there was Meyer v. Nebraska’s case. Mr. Justice McReynolds delivered the opinion of the Court. It was error to a judgment of the Supreme Court of Nebraska affirming a conviction for infraction of a statute against teaching of foreign languages to young children in schools. This was the first US Supreme Court case that debated the education of foreign languages in the US. The Court ruled that a 1919 state law restricting foreign-language education violated the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. In 1947, there was case called Mendez v. Westminster. The US Court challenged racial segregation in Orange County, California schools. This was significant because it ruled that segregating Mexican and Mexican-American students into separate "Mexican schools" was unconstitutional. In 1964, the most significant law is introduced. It was Civil Rights Act of 1964 and this prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, national and origin in all federally assisted programs. In 1968, Bilingual Act of 1968 was introduced. The Bilingual Education Act (BEA) was amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). This is the United States federal legislation that recognized the needs of Limited English Speaking Ability (LESA) students. This laws purpose was to provide school districts with federal funds to establish innovative educational programs for students with limited English speaking ability. In 2002, No Child Left Behind law has introduced. It replaced the Bilingual Education Act, which expired in 2002 and put control of bilingual education at the state and local level. From these laws, which government has been providing to immigrant children, it is apparent that it is becoming much better education for immigrant children. They are able to get more rights than they used to be. Also, from this history, multicultural education is more progressed in United States. Multicultural education relates to education and instruction designed for the cultures of several different races in an educational system.
Next, I will talk about immigrant children’s situation briefly. According to the latest federal education data, there were more than 630,000 immigrant students nationwide in the 2013-2014 school year. There are lot of children who is illegally crossed the border by themselves in United States. Because of it, they are all undocumented immigrants. Many illegal immigrant children are forced into the children welfare system and some of them are separated from their family because of this system. They have more risk of exposure to gangs in United States too. Also, many immigrants from Mexico has different face as white American so they are arbitrarily forced to prove their documented status by police. They have risk of deportation too. The Obama administration deported a record 438,421 unauthorized immigrants in 2013 and it included lot of children. Without going to court, 7000 immigrant children were ordered to be deported in 2013. Because of these stressful experiences which immigrant children had experienced, there are lot of children with negative emotion and behavior. Children who have been separated from their families have lot of trauma and social isolation. For children whose parents is undocumented, the fear and anxiety will be very stronger because they are afraid of being deported. Researchers have found that they often experience in the short term, frequent crying, withdrawal, disrupted eating and sleeping patterns, anger, anxiety and depression. Over time, these can lead to more severe issues like post-traumatic stress disorder, poor identity formation, difficulty forming relationships, feelings of persecution, distrust of institutions and authority figures, acting out behaviors and difficulties at school.
I will explain two problematic aspects of the education system in United States. There are challenges in school district system and voucher system. First, I will describe about school district system. Children who are living in certain district, have to go to school in the school district. Also, each school districts have a lot of power and the quality of the school verify by the school district. This makes gaps between poor and rich people. Also, it divides the places they live by race and by their background. Many white parents tend to prefer to make their children to live in the school district which provides good education and they can do this since white parents are more likely to be rich the parents immigrated from other countries. This makes good schools become even higher level schools and bad school become even lower level schools. So, immigrant children tend to not be educated as well as others. Another systematic problem is voucher system. A voucher allows parents to use public funds to pay for some or all of their child’s school tuition. It is state-funded scholarships. Also, school vouchers are referred to as opportunity scholarship. The statistics show that because of the voucher system in education there is a bigger gap between poor and rich. More immigrant children tend to be in poor condition. So, with or without vouchers, the majority of the immigrant children will continue to attend public schools because many of the children tend to be poor. Though there is a common public perception that all public schools are inadequate, many public schools, especially those in wealthy and white neighborhoods, offer excellent academic opportunities. Public schools are not inherently flawed, but they are grossly unequal.
To see the situation of the immigrant children, I am now volunteering in Children First, the organization which helps all children to reach their full potential by surrounding children and their families with supports that help them succeed in their schools, communities and homes. This organization helps Latino families by giving them emergency assistance like food pantry, clothing closet, emergency financial assistance, providing school-based Student Support Specialist to make the safe and better place for Latino children, and organizing afterschool program. I have been working in afterschool program which provides a healthy snack, homework help and enrichment activities to over 40 children living in vulnerable conditions. This organization’s services are completely free and it provides holistic assistance to the families through emergency assistance and parenting classes and workshops. I have been working in Woodridge apartment Learning Center, and there are 20 children in that organization. All of them are younger than 10 years old and they are all Micronesian, Latino and Bulgarian immigrants. I found out they need more special attention than other children since many of the children’s parents are both working, some has experienced domestic violence, or they grew up in fatherless family. Also, since their parents doesn’t educate their kids and they don’t have enough place to study, they are having the lower score then other kids.
III. Conclusion
Researching for this paper, it seems to be there is lack in education for immigrant children. In both society and structure, they have problems. By comparing and analyzing the case of Japan and United States, I noticed that Japanese government should try hard to develop the the system for immigrant children. Also, individual should change the consciousness toward immigrant children and try to provide better education for immigrant children. These children seemed to be having the difficulty in both countries so I found one of the important thing we can do is not only going to volunteering but also speaking out what the situation are like. This research is beneficial since it has revealed the problem which children are facing and given some hint how to provide better education for immigrant children. Immigrant children’s future affects more than before from now, since the population is decreasing