The following is the introduction to my Stanford University Master’s Thesis in Cultural Anthropology. As a part of my ethnographic fieldwork in Japan, I spent a year in Tokyo, Yokohama, and Chiba studying the community patterns of Filipina entertainers. While I do not have a Filipino background, I chose to research this community to help provide a more accurate and fairer portrayal of this minority group, which is often misrepresented and misunderstood by the Japanese media, government, and public. I would like to thank Stanford University Professor Emeritus Harumi Befu, Sophia University Professor David Slater, and the many social workers I interviewed for their insightful feedback, guidance, and support. 

In June of 2008, Hidenao Nakagawa, former Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) secretary-general, boldly proposed a multicultural immigration policy for Japan. The plan envisioned the foreign population to increase from 1.7% (2.2 million) to 12% (10 million) over the next half century. Since the 1980s, Japan’s economy has been in a state of transition as it moved from a largely domestic workers base to one relying on immigrant workers to meet labor demands. The latter has been seen as a solution to alleviate the country’s aging population and declining birth rate, which are causing the shrinking of Japan’s workforce. In 2005 Japan experienced its first population decline. Although the 2008 recorded birthrate was 1.37, the sub-replacement level needed for developed economies is 2.1. As a Reuters’s article notes, “Japan’s fertility rate remains among the lowest in the developed world and compares to 2.12 in the United States and 1.84 in Britain” (Reuters). At this rate, Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MOHLW) projects that the population could decrease as much as 25% from 127.8 million to 95.2 million by 2050. Lie notes, “The pressing need for low-wage labour usually in times of economic expansion and corresponding labor shortage, is frequently a necessary pre-condition for states to relax immigration restrictions” (Lie pg. 8). However, while there is a demonstrated economic need, immigration laws have not been loosened. Despite the vital role foreign workers have in compensating for labor deficits, they are seen by Japanese as a source of social instability for they threaten the mythic pride of Japan’s monoethnic culture (Lie pg. 7). Because many Japanese perceive the homogeneity of their population as fact, the existence of non-Japanese is overlooked in order to maintain the illusion of monoethnicity. In other words, the communities of foreign workers ironically reinforce the ideology rather than provide evidence of its falsehood. Regardless, if Japan is to retain its status as the second largest economy, a growth in the foreign population is inevitable. To anticipate how the concept of being Japanese will change in the future it is vital to assess the realities of its current multicultural demographics. To understand the pervasiveness of a homogenous identity and the struggles experienced by immigrants, this paper will examine the lives of foreign workers and their communities.

The MOHLW’s 2004 Vital Statistics in Japan recognizes the four principal foreign groups as Koreans (zainichi kankokujin), Chinese, Japanese (nikkei) Brazilians, and Filipinos. While each community has its own unique histories and challenges that deserve attention, this paper will examine female Filipinos (Filipinas) who immigrate and become married to Japanese husbands. In particular, I intend to investigate the elements of a successful and unsuccessful marriage between a Filipina and Japanese husband, and how marriage relations affect a Filipina’s integration into home life and the broader Japanese community. In an international marriage between a Filipina and a Japanese male, the wives’ culture is compromised in order to live in Japan’s perceived monoethnically country. Monoethnicity is the belief that being Japanese is determined by blood (not location of birth) and is supplemented by the attitude that Japan is for the Japanese. As Yamamoto notes, “Even if the [foreign born] person can speak fluent Japanese, adapts well in Japanese society and has ancestors who lived in Japan, he or she is not accepted as Japanese” (Yamamoto pg. 2). However, while the presence of foreign workers intellectually challenges and reinforces a homogenous identity, in reality their communities are creating new images of what it means to be a Japanese family and to be Japanese. Thus, this paper attempts to describe these emerging phenomena

The paper consists of three parts. Part I examines the historical origins of monoethnicity and its meaning by addressing 1) different definitions of monoethnicty, 2) the origins of the definitions, and 3) emergence of the concept in the postwar period. Despite varying arguments of monoethnicity’s beginnings and evolution, most academics would agree that its postwar ascendancy was propelled by the high economic growth era exposing peace and capitalistic fervor. Regardless of the time period, though, Japanese identity is partly defined by the presence of the “other”. As Japan’s contacts with other nationalities expand and change, Japanese identity is shaped according to historical forces and thus never remains static. In Part II, a brief account of Philippine immigration history is interwoven with the appearance of monoethnicity to understand its relevancy to the Filipino community. While Philippine-Japanese relation goes as far back as the 1800s, emphasis is on the postwar era and Filipinos who reside in Japan. I breakup the postwar period into four sections: 1) 1945-1960, 2) 1960-1970, 3) 1980s and 4) 1990 to the present. Also, Filipina entertainers have attracted much attention since the 1970s in the Japanese media and international community. While the paper will discuss the impact on Japanese society, it is important to bear in mind that Filipinos arrive in other capacities as well, such as IT workers, nurses, and construction workers. Filipina entertainers, therefore, do not necessarily represent the multitude of experiences of the Filipino community in Japan.

To balance the theoretical and historical analysis, Part III examines the impact of monoethinicity at the grassroots level. Through interviews of Filipino social workers living in Tokyo, Chiba and Kawasaki, the first section describes the difficulties of an intermarriage between a Japanese husband and a Filipina wife. Using theories of cultural psychology, this section examines 1) Japanese husbands’ expectations for the Filipina wife to conform to the Japanese ideals of ryosai kenbo (good wife, wise mother, 2) the assumed inferiority of Filipino culture to Japanese, and 3) the elements that determine a successful intermarriage. Seven interviews were conducted within a two-month interval in 2008. Due to Institutional Review Board constraints interviews were limited to social workers and did not include Filipina wives. To protect the identities of the social workers, their names and names of the organizations have been replaced with pseudonyms. Despite the nature of social work to handle and solve problems, the paper does not suggest that all international marriages are laden with strife or are doomed to fail. As many of the social workers also have a Japanese spouse, they discussed the elements that repair and nurture a healthy marriage in light of the cultural difficulties. This section, however, does not aim to provide a solution or a “how to” guide to international marriages. Emphasis is on analyzing how foreigners adjust to the myth of a perceived homogenous culture; the circumstance of international marriages provides one perspective for this examination.

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