Refugees and Migrants Issues in Gunma

Presentation summary Title: Refugees and Migrants issues in Gunma1. My interest is following:

How does community respond to outsiders like refugees and migrants?

Are there any difference between refugees and migrants?

Are there any gap between Japanese and outsiders?

Are there any gap between media and actual situation?

2. Research target Gunma

Since I am interested in how community responds to outsiders, I chose Gunma because it relates both refugee and migrant issue. I chose two cities, Tatebayashi city and Oizumi town.

3. Refugees issues

Rohingya is a kind of Burmese refugees. Since their culture is close to Bangladesh than Myanmar, they are persecuted by Myanmar government. Asahi newspaper said, some of them come to Japan (about 230), and most of them (about 200) stay at Tatebayashi city. And Asahi newspaper said an organization working at the field of multiculturalism is supporting them by submitting a report about refugees to the ministry of Justice, but I cannot find the word ‘refugees’ in that. So I am wondering why Asahi think they support them. But I cannot find all detail information about refugees at Tatebayashi, so I’ll try this issue at the next cycle.

4. Migrants issues

15% of Oizumi population is foreigners and most of them are Brazilians. It has many companies and it is aging society, it is suffering from shortage of labor. And then they started to accept Brazilians. At a glance, Oizumi town is kind for them, for example they provide multilingual access to the HP, education support, and making Brazilian town tourist attraction. But are these better supports for them? Some of them are suffering from feeling isolated. He is trying to fit to Japanese culture, but it is difficult for him because even if he is Japanese-Brazilian, his base is Brazil, so he is not Japanese at all. I searched the opposite side. Oizumi town officials said they try to support them but one of them said he just wants foreigners to live like Japanese, but foreigners are not. I suspect, he think he is willing to accept them when they fit Japan, and fitting is easy for them. But actually it is not easy. So I think they need more communication.

5. Discussion

I think more communication is needed for mutual understanding, but is it true? I think some Japanese think we do not have to try more to accept them because they chose to come to Japan on their will. Yuri said, we do not need to support too much, but minimum supports are needed. And we concluded too much ‘support’ is not need, but ‘activity’ which purpose is mutual understanding like to have traditional migrants lunch together is good because it is not ‘support’ but just only ‘activity’ so Japanese do not have to pay burden for them.