There aren’t many traditional Japanese left. And those who are, are under fire from non-traditional families who have catered to the Western culture. There is an old Western saying “When in Rome, do as the Romans do…” Plainly put, don’t rock the boat. Otherwise you will be always considered as the “ugly gaijin”. Just remember, you have NO rights of entitlement in Japan. Japan will always be for the Japanese first. There is no “melting pot” in Japan. If you can’t deal with that fact…”Go back to where you came from!”

He moves along this path of “activism” because it’s all he has left. By trying to make a statement, the man lost his U.S. Citizenship (which he tried to get back after his divorce, BTW) and his family. This has become his only source of positive reinforcement.

He’s a mark for seeing his face on TV and his name and his words in print whether it be in a newspaper or digitally and pulls stunts to achieve this end. Helping Saitama foreign residents protest against a seal getting a fake juminhyo?! More likely, he flew down there just to see his face on NHK later that evening. And his stunt during the G8 conference was just puke inducing in that he refused to show ID and then called a press conference about it?! Yep. David Aldwinckle is more important than 8 world leaders (rolls eyes). I’m sure if the conference was in Okinawa with U.S. Marines doing the ID checks, he would be saying “Yes sir” and three bags full.

He also intently polices any wikipedia entry that has anything remotely to do with him. Edit one of those pages and “Debito” is there literally within MINUTES to check, revert, and complain.

“Debito” is not about gaijin equality or anything that noble. “Debito” is about “Debito”…an overgrown baby and the white Al Sharpton with half the honorable intentions.

http://japanlost.blogspot.com/2004/08/gaijinurrrrg-i-despise-that-word.html

What a ridiculous statement. If you had haafu children who could be murdered on the way home from school just because they have a gaijin father, wouldn’t that be considerably more upsetting?

You can read the rest of my reaction here

you knowingly make extreme claims so that the reasonable can instead seem like compromise

That sounds good, but I don’t understand people who support the people who knowingly make extreme claim while oppressing the truth, insulting the victims and a host country.
I am afraid a lot of Japanese will despise them.

He can, on one level, definitively refute the term “gaikokujin” but gaijin is one that he can’t challenge so easily, because for whatever reason, he will often fall outside some grouping.

If he can refute the term “gaikokujin” he can refute the term “gaijin” ;for gaijin and gaikokujin are interchangeable.

In the UK, the terms “immigrant” and “asylum seeker” should be fairly neutral

(1)So I guess. you understand how it feels like if you are suddenly declared that you have been using the word”immigrant” in the same sense the word “nigger” is used based on a wacky theory.

immigrant

• noun a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country.
（Compact Oxford English Dictionary）

Gee the word signifies and emphasizes that he/she is from a foreign country, This creates a barrier around that person that is invisible.
Immigrants have been oppressed and exploited in U.K. “I hate being called “immigrants” The word is derogatory if not racial slur like ni99er”.

(2)There is no problem for the Japanese in calling gaijin/gaikokujin imin(immigrants). But the word will create more barrier around that person that is invisible because people have rarely used it in daily life.

I know that as a white Western European I am very much the “right kind” of gaijin.

I hear that story often, especially from the people who think they are “right kind” of gaijin. But I don’t think the theory holds in general.
It partially holds that there are Japanese who dimly think white western European people are the right kind just as there are white western Europeans who dimly think they are the right kind.
There are elements of xenophobia in Japan just as there are elements of Japanophobia by gaijin. There are black charisma-man as well as white charisma-man. There are white and yellow and brown and black people who have integrated successfully just as there are whites and …black people who express the animosity toward the host nation.
There are Japanese who feel some white western European people talk down to the Japanese when they tell, Japan is different (without checking the facts,) Western Europe is better (without checking the facts) she should be like western Europe.

Instead of being repeatedly blocked by the spam filter, notify me immediately by e-mail and I’ll recover your comments. Continually submitting comments that get eaten will only make the spam filter’s behavior worse.

I’ve been having problems posting from home, I keep getting blocked by the spam filter, but I know there were two posts by me that made it up late last week and were up on Saturday (the last time I checked in).

The US does not recognize dual nationality for those past the age of majority, period. The State Department “recognizes that such a condition may exist”, but very clearly does not condone it. They also do not engage in “witch hunts”, and actively try to find Americans with a second nationality, but the US position is that US citizens are that, only that, and nothing but that.

But hey, maybe I’m hopelessly old-fashioned, thinking that one’s word actually means something…

does Japan allow dual-citizenship with any country at all?

No.

And you’re right, I don’t think Japan and the Philippines have a dual-citizenship agreement (unlike the USA and the Philippines for example). Just out of curiosity, does Japan allow dual-citizenship with any country at all?

世帯主とは？

　世帯には、必ず１人、世帯主を定めなければなりません。１人世帯ならその人本人が世帯主になります。２人以上の世帯は誰が世帯主になるのかというと、「主としてその世帯の生計を維持している者、及びその世帯を代表する者として社会通念上妥当と認められる者」という２つが要件になります

Setainushi is the head of household, who usually supports the household.
And a guardian is still different concept.
Technically it is possible that J is a guardian of his child while his child’s last name is K.

戸籍筆頭者

戸籍筆頭者とは、、戸籍を表示するための見出しだと説明されています

http://tantei.web.infoseek.co.jp/koseki/gensoku.html

Koseki　hittousya is the title that represents Koseki

It has little to do with seitainushi.

The koseki system is just too complicated for its own good. At first I thought it was being used to keep detailed records of a family lineage, but since only around 2 generations are kept on file at any time, I really don’t see any advantages of keeping the system in place (other than to avoid confusion).

can the last name of the child be changed to the last name of the foreigner?

I called a ward office. The short answer is yes.

(Suppose the child’s last name is J. When the parent want the child to change the last name to his/her previous name K , he/she –Japanese or non-Japanese, will go through the court procedure to change the name. In case of Japanese, the child will be registered under the parent name K in Koseki. In case of a foreigner , since there is no Koseki for the foreigner, but the child has Japanese citizenship (and whatever nationality his/her parent happen to hold), Koreseki will be created for the child and the child will be 筆頭者 the head of K in Koseki.)

The only trouble I can see arising is in terms of divorce. What happens when a foreigner/Japanese couple gets a divorce and the foreigner gets custody of the child – can the last name of the child be changed to the last name of the foreigner?

Now all that being said, whether or not this is a good law is a totally different subject. The biggest problem that I see in the current system is that there are too many inconsistencies when you start to consider the changes in modern society – like, what Overthinker mentioned up above (夫婦別姓).

if the Japanese parents have to take the same last name and the child also takes the same last name, then the foreigner/Japanese system is just following those rules -

This is the case.

What happens when a Japanese couple divorces? Which last name does the child get in these kinds of cases?

As a rule, the child’s last name does not change.But the child can change the last name to the parent’s last name with whom she/he is living.
http://www.1rikonsoudan.com/12/post_91.html

( The things is more complicated than this, though. Suppose J tarou and K hanako marry and takes J’s name as a last name and have a child. Then
the child’s last name will be J. Suppose further that they divorces The child’s last name won’t change;it will be J.As a rule, hanako will have the previous last name K back,in other words, her last name will be K again, but child’s last name will be J, but if K hanako lives with her child, that is inconvenient, so the child can change the last name to K. But hanako can also keep J as a last name if she wishes(there is paper work to do). This happens for several reasons; she likes the last name, she is already known for her last name J etc.)

If the Japanese parents are allowed to keep their original last names and then choose which last name the child gets, then the current system for foreigner/Japanese is unequal, hence discrimination.

However, if the Japanese parents have to take the same last name and the child also takes the same last name, then the foreigner/Japanese system is just following those rules – the difference being that parents are allowed to keep their original last names.

What happens when a Japanese couple divorces? Which last name does the child get in these kinds of cases?

When Japanese couple, J and U, marries,and if they want their child to have U’s last name, all they have to do is to take U’s last name as their last name.
When Japanese J and non=Japanese N marries and if they want their child to have the N’s last name. all they have to do is to take the N’s last name as their last name.
Japanese and non-Japanese have an equal right to the last name, though the procedure is different.
I see no fundamental discrimination here;though, an demand to simplify the procedure may be justified.

The current system is that if J and U marries, they have to choose either J or U. Suppose they chose U and a child was born. The child’s last name will U. Suppose they want to change the last name to J. Through the court system, they can.

In your case, if you wanted your baby to have your last name by default, all you had to do was to change her name to your last name before the baby was born. Then your “last name s”” by default carried over to my children”.

I think what Jake is getting at is that he wants a system where it’s possible for the child to be named after the foreign parent without having to change the name of the girlfriend/spouse. One example I can think of is where the parents are not married. In the US, either parent can give their child their last name, and if there is a dispute, you go to court and the judge will determine the last name. In Japan it is always restricted to whomever has the koseki registration, i.e. the Japanese parent.
I don’t think it’s so wrong to want a more flexible system that allows either parent to give the child their last name independently of the other parent. Obviously it’s possible to change a wife’s name to match the husbands’, or vice-versa, but if they aren’t married yet, a name change is impossible.

BTW I for one　think that the duty to carry ID for non-Japanese is not necessary in Japan. People have other ways to prove his/her identity.

This is true of me. I had always assumed, coming from a country built on immigration and one which has many different races, that Japan was far stricter and tougher. However, after meeting people who had needed to get visas for my country, I know that is not necessarily the case at all, and that often Japan is remarkably liberal and open – I was never asked to get an AIDS test for a student visa, for example….

Ponta: “Most foreign nationals living in Britain will have to carry a card” – I think this refers to a potential future rather than the actual current state.

but that my last name s not by default carried over to my children

The current system is that if J and U marries, they have to choose either J or U. Suppose they chose U and a child was born. The child’s last name will U. Suppose they want to change the last name to J. Through the court system, they can.

In your case, if you wanted your baby to have your last name by default, all you had to do was to change her name to your last name before the baby was born. Then your “last name s”" by default carried over to my children”.

Your standpoint is quite clear. Japan is a great place for a foreigner to visit, live for a short time, and then return to his or her home country,

I’ve never talked about how japan is like as a place to visit,live for short time. I wonder why my standpoint is quite clear.

as I have discovered first hand, it is definitely not a place for a foreigner to make a permanent home.

That is your opinion, and I respect your opinion.

by that time I will be long gone.

It is regreatable you will be long gone, But if that is your decision, I respect it.
By the way don’t get me wrong, I am not the one who disagrees with every thing Debito says. He sometimes gives a good advice.

–If you’re becoming emotionally or psychologically impacted, I suggest you get out of here as soon as possible. Meanwhile, consult with International Mental Health Professionals Japan at http://www.imhpj.org/ (also refer to Handbook page 168-9)

debito.org/?p=1861#comment-16612

This is called “institutional discrimination”. The demands placed on the NJ are different and result in a status that doesn’t really place the family on equal footing with wholly Japanese families.

The demands on the NJ concerning the record of the family is different but result in the status that place the family on equal footing with Japanese family. The law of family and the law of the　inheritance applies equally to Japanese and non-Japanese No?
Dan said:

She took my name when we married, out of tradition

So　she was deprived of Japanese last name. Why couldn’t she keep her last name?
Is it not institutional discrimination by your logic?
Dan said:

- she could have kept her own, or taken mine in the UK and kept her maiden name on her passport or we could hyphenated the two if we so wished.

When Japanese get married, one of them takes the partner’s last name. They’ll use that last name on the passport.
According to Jake, he was able to keep his name because he was a foreigner. Doesn’t that mean he has his name on his passport?
Suppose he changed his last name to his wife’s. They will use that last name on the passport just as any other Japanese couple.

She never has to carry any id with her

She might be breaking the UK　law.

The current government maintains that the identity cards are necessary not only for security, but that they will up to halve identity fraud in the United Kingdom. Most foreign nationals living in Britain will have to carry a card, and the government has said it wants the cards to eventually become compulsory in order to fight terrorism and identity fraud
http://www.workpermit.com/news/2007_04_14/uk/biometric_id_card_progress.htm

FYR
In U.S.

Permanent Resident Card
The Permanent Resident Card, Form I-551, is issued to all Permanent Residents as evidence of alien registration and their permanent status in the US. The card must be in your possession at all times. This requirement means that you are not only required to have a currently valid Form I-551 at all times, but also that you must carry your currently valid Form I-551 on your person at all times
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=fe17e6b0eb13d010VgnVCM10000048f3d6a1RCRD&vgnextchannel=4f719c7755cb9010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a1RCRD

And she was lucky that she was not black in the U.K. even if she gets U.K.citizenship,

black people are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched – as opposed to made to “stop and account” – three and half times more likely to be arrested, and five times more likely to be in prison
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jul/08/police.uksecurity

Dan said:

She receives government payments payable since the birth of our son. She appears on the register of who is at this address.

You do have gaiji cards on which your address is written, don’t you?
And sorry could you be more specific on government payments payable she receives?

Dan said:

She has no worries about inclusion on any family registries as the UK ended any similar records hundreds of years ago.

I am curious, if there is no legal record, how do you legally prove that she is member of your family? Is polygamy legal in U.K?
Dan said:

She is fully eligible for all health-care

Actually a foreigner intending to stay in Japan over a year has to subscribe to the national health insurance just as Japanese have to.

外国人登録を行っていて、日本に1年以上滞在(たいざい)する予定の人は、この保険に加入しなければなりません。

http://www17.ocn.ne.jp/~lgis/web2006omura/health6.html
A foreigner is fully eligible for all health-care. No?
Dan said;

Apart from not being able to vote since she has never applied for citizenship,

By your logic, isn’t this institutional discrimination?
Dan said:

she is treated exactly the same by the authorities as any other person in the city,

　You said she couldn’t vote. She is not treated exactly the same by the authorities.
A Japanese will be fingerprinted at the airport in the UK. He is not treated exactly the same by the authorities.

I have an impression that some foreigners are ignorant —-I am sorry —of the minority issues on their own country and of the system in a host country and demand the majority in a host country should know better, talking as if his mother country was better.
This attitude is exemplified and amplified on Debito org.

Adam Says:
February 19th, 2008 at 5:42 pm

Thank You for great article. After reading this I really consider to move back to Europe…..People who will eventually come here will be from 3rd countries. This “Nazi State” called Japan is better for them than Africa……Who are the top countries learning Japanese? Africans, and I tell you they are very good, better than us white. They learn quick and won`t mind to have ID Chip under their skin inserted
Adam Says:
April 15th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
・・・・・
The real countries of freedom are Europe and US,

debito Says:
January 31st, 2008 at 10:45 am

FEEDBACK FROM ADAM:・・・・Japan is a country without law, is worse (I`m sorry) than third world. Police, Court and first of all Lawyers are useless!!! Are they charging for “help”? which case is likely to be lost.・・・・

17 K.A. Says:
June 9th, 2008 at 7:56 pm・・・・
But this is not the case here. I am very disappointed and not without any reason and there’s no way I would ever trust them or I would ever believe them again・・・・

I want to point out that the majority of Japanese are ignorant of the minority issues just as people on Debito org are ignorant of the minority issues in their own mother country. Unless they talk to Japanese in Japanese, they cannot raise consciousness.

When some people on Debito org talk as if their country was better on a certain problem without checking the facts when in fact there are serious problems , that shows that he is biased, coupled with a sense of superiority, he may be racist. What is worse, when the comments to balance it are blocked, the doubt will be deepen. Because some people talks as if their counrty was innocent, some black people intervene and comment, “Huh?”

It is much easier to talk to the Japanese if foreigners tell that we—Japanese and non-Japanese share the similar problems in Japan and in their mother country and suggest to work together to tackle the problem together . Foreingers can tell the Japanese how they have tackled the issues in their own country so that the Japanese may learn from it and the Japnese can clarify the misunderstanding of J system by the foreingers if there are any.
Through that, you understand your own country and Japan better;we can understand each other’s country better change them for better together..

For some reason, Debito org shut down the oppoutunity while allowing the hateful comments on Japan.

I am glad Dan R talked frankly. I am very curious of UK system for Japan to learn from it and you can discuss the issue further
with posters with more knowledge, more open mind if Japan probe allows it, or you can discuss it on my blog, or on your own blog. But unfortunately that oppoutunity is not given on Debito org.

If you want to compare treatment, you need to compare Japanese with Japanese, not Japan with Random First-World Nation.

Others have addressed your other points sufficiently, and I don’t have the time to argue with you any further. Your standpoint is quite clear. Japan is a great place for a foreigner to visit, live for a short time, and then return to his or her home country, but as I have discovered first hand, it is definitely not a place for a foreigner to make a permanent home. Hopefully the immense need for large-scale immigration over the coming decades will remedy this, but by that time I will be long gone.

Contrast that with the situation of my wife in the UK. She has a visa granting her indefinite leave to remain. She never has to carry any id with her. She took my name when we married, out of tradition – she could have kept her own, or taken mine in the UK and kept her maiden name on her passport or we could hyphenated the two if we so wished.

She is fully eligible for all healthcare that is afforded to me by virtue of my having been born here and paid taxes, without having ever had to prove it (or pay). She receives government payments payable since the birth of our son. She appears on the register of who is at this address. She has no worries about inclusion on any family registries as the UK ended any similar records hundreds of years ago. Apart from not being able to vote since she has never applied for citizenship, she is treated exactly the same by the authorities as any other person in the city, irrespective of the fact she has never paid a penny in tax (often held up as being the reason that people should be afforded greater rights in Japan – not so if the same does not apply to Japanese I would argue).

As for equating gaijin and nigger, yes, it may be a bit extreme, but as someone I know says of his work in promoting disabled people’s right in the UK, you knowingly make extreme claims so that the reasonable can instead seem like compromise. Whether Debito sees this as his function is doubtful, but it is nonetheless the role he is fulfilling.

Let’s not forget that gaijin is a word that does away with the part of the word “gaikokujin” that refers to what we all take it is being referred to, namely nationality. Gaijin reduces the person to being “outside”. This creates a barrier around that person that is invisible. In the case of Debito I rather suspect that part of his ire is related to the fact that he is likely called gaijin fairly frequently, when he is a naturalised citizen. He can, on one level, definitively refute the term “gaikokujin” but gaijin is one that he can’t challenge so easily, because for whatever reason, he will often fall outside some grouping.

In the UK, the terms “immigrant” and “asylum seeker” should be fairly neutral – meaning as they once did a person who has moved in to the country from another, and someone who is seeking freedom and safety from unjust threats to their life or liberty in another country. Instead, at the hands of the press, unpleasant politicians and mindless chatter they have gathered pejoritive connotation and become synonyms for thief, rapist and murderer, among others.

What this whole bruhaha serves to do is at least open the debate, and while I am minded to follow the Tarantino doctrine expounded above for undermining the power of the word “nigger”, it is only realistically possible to do that now because of all of the work done in the past to confront and challenge the attitudes that brought it about in the first place.

I love Japan and have never had a bad experience that I can put down to racism in all my visits there, but on my last visit I happened to be taking in a football game in a bar local to where I used to work and I got chatting to an African guy who lived one city over. I was shocked by the animosity he expressed toward his host nation – he was well educated, skilled and capable, but he would never, he felt, be anything other than a black foreigner. Once he made his money he wanted to leave.

Gaijin is not a word I am in the least bit worried about when it is applied to me because I know that as a white Western European I am very much the “right kind” of gaijin. For others it may hit with far greater force, so I think it is right to accord it a degree of seriousness in accordance with the harm it can be perceived to have.

So for having kickstarted this degree of debate, irrepsective of some of the shortfailings of his method, I think there is still value in having Debito out at the far end of the spectrum of voices for “gaijin” in Japan.

*For those not familiar with the term, “spacker” is derogatory slang derived from “spastic”, a term for disabled people that itself has been dropped from use, having become so loaded with negative connotations that even the charity bearing the name had to drop it (it was a once “serious” word so that the main charity was “the Spastic’s Society” – much in the same way that negro was a “scientific” classification but is now widely decried just as nigger is). “Spacker” is, needless to say, considered extraordinarily rude by almost everyone.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20080810a3.html

READERS IN COUNCIL

Tokyo

Let me add a little historical context to Debito Arudou’s ludicrous comparison of the white man in Japan with the black man in the United States. Long-standing racism in America begat the civil rights’ marches and Martin Luther King, the Black Panthers, the Watts riots, the Last Poets, etc. As well, we have the achievements of Arthur Ashe, Ralph Ellison, Maya Angelou, Jimi Hendrix, Arrested Development, Oprah Winfrey and, now, Barack Obama, surely the next U.S. president.

So if Arudou sees himself as a “black man” in Japan, where is the rich culture and groundbreaking achievements of his oppressed brothers and sisters? Are the Japanese-speaking foreigners on TV the best he has to offer? And where are the Gaijin With Attitude? I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

Arudou may be free to scribble about it in his column, but due to a clear lack of news value, his oppressed white man’s revolution will definitely NOT be televised.

Ponta. Your sarcasm aside, that was basically my point.
Foreigner:

Thanks no sarcasm intended. Eigo ga warui, eigo ha muzukasii.
If that is the case, what they should claim is that GOJ should change the name for the card;otherwise, few Japanese understand the
claim.

There is a difference between being granted a privilege and merely falling through a loophole

Sorry, I understood your point.I was going to rewrite my comment after re-reading it.
What I wanted to say was, “Kekkateki ni tokken wo moratta notto guuzen onaji koto ni natta.” The loophole happens to give them the same result as they were given a privilege.

Yes, marriage records are different, not the legality of the union. Sorry for the confusion – since we were talking about the records of it in the koseki, I thought it was clear. I have no doubt that according to Japanese law both my wife and I are married (and to each other). Otherwise I would never have got my spouse visa….

Just look at Debito on ‘juuminzei’ to see some of the ideas of non-Japanese people regarding the conflict between the demands for residents tax and the lack of ‘official’ recognition as ‘residents’.