Yesterday Sono Ayako contributed an opinion piece to the Sankei Shimbun, “‘Tekido na kyori’ tamochi ukeire o,” that has made serious waves on Twitter and elsewhere online for fairly obvious reasons. A rough translation is below:
Let Them In, But Maintain “Appropriate Distance”:
Labor shortages and immigrants
When viewing recent problems like the rise of the Islamic State, I can only think about how difficult it is to understand the emotional and cultural backgrounds of people from different ethnicities. In Japan, meanwhile, where younger generations make up an ever-shrinking portion of the population, we are being pressed into a need to admit immigrant laborers to maintain the nation’s labor force.
In particular, in the field of nursing care for the elderly, Japan must do away with barriers to the …show more content…
There are young women in nearby countries who want to come to Japan to earn a living; we have to let them come and ease the labor difficulties our nursing care sector now faces.
At the same time, though, we must create a system that strictly maintains these people’s legal status as immigrants. There is nothing inhumane about insisting that people who come to Japan to make money abide by the terms of the contract that allows them to do so. Unless we prevent the problem of illegal immigration, no policy of increasing immigration will last for long.
Now, this may seem like it flies in the face of what I have written so far, but it is next to impossible to attain an understanding of foreigners by living alongside them.
Ever since I learned of the situation in the Republic of South Africa some 20 or 30 years ago, I have been convinced that it is best for the races to live apart from each other, as was the case for whites, Asians, and blacks in that
Let Them In, But Maintain “Appropriate Distance”:
Labor shortages and immigrants
When viewing recent problems like the rise of the Islamic State, I can only think about how difficult it is to understand the emotional and cultural backgrounds of people from different ethnicities. In Japan, meanwhile, where younger generations make up an ever-shrinking portion of the population, we are being pressed into a need to admit immigrant laborers to maintain the nation’s labor force.
In particular, in the field of nursing care for the elderly, Japan must do away with barriers to the …show more content…
There are young women in nearby countries who want to come to Japan to earn a living; we have to let them come and ease the labor difficulties our nursing care sector now faces.
At the same time, though, we must create a system that strictly maintains these people’s legal status as immigrants. There is nothing inhumane about insisting that people who come to Japan to make money abide by the terms of the contract that allows them to do so. Unless we prevent the problem of illegal immigration, no policy of increasing immigration will last for long.
Now, this may seem like it flies in the face of what I have written so far, but it is next to impossible to attain an understanding of foreigners by living alongside them.
Ever since I learned of the situation in the Republic of South Africa some 20 or 30 years ago, I have been convinced that it is best for the races to live apart from each other, as was the case for whites, Asians, and blacks in that