2 Multicultural Coexistence in Japan: Follower, Innovator, or Reluctant Late Adopter?

Despite the reasoned claims and detailed research of many social scientists that much of humanity lives in an increasingly multicultural world, the ever-present threat of a set of partitions between “us” and “them” transnationally (but also within countries), seems certain to linger for some years forward. While there is no final answer to the question, “Can’t we all just get along?,” so seemingly simplified by Rodney King in the aftermath of his beating by Los Angeles police in 1991 and subsequent riots (which led to the deaths of more than 50 people three months later in 1992, when those officers who had brutalized him were acquitted of crimes of excessive force (National Public Radio, 2008)), the incommensurability on multiple levels of such a plea still haunts the supposed naive proposal of tolerance and respect for difference, let alone celebration of diversity, embedded in a normative liberal multiculturalism.


Introduction
Despite the reasoned claims and detailed research of many social scientists that much of humanity lives in an increasingly multicultural world, the ever-present threat of a set of partitions between "us" and "them" transnationally (but also within countries), seems certain to linger for some years forward. While there is no final answer to the question, "Can't we all just get along?," so seemingly simplified by Rodney King in the aftermath of his beating by Los Angeles police in 1991 and subsequent riots (which led to the deaths of more than 50 people three months later in 1992, when those officers who had brutalized him were acquitted of crimes of excessive force (National Public Radio, 2008)), the incommensurability on multiple levels of such a plea still haunts the supposed naïve proposal of tolerance and respect for difference, let alone celebration of diversity, embedded in a normative liberal multiculturalism.
In this chapter, I discuss the development of multiculturalism in Japan against the background of global retrenchments over and to multiculturalism, visible as a fragile project. Such a project is set against a background of global events that can make theorizing about the future of tolerance and respect for difference appear to be embedded in a hopelessly optimistic utopian dream at any moment, when periodic renewed calls for retribution against the perpetrators of terror attacks, to name just one instantiation of a globalized political event that recurs in the contemporary post 9/11 world, unfolding at a rapid pace, highlighted by targeted drone strikes and invisible communications monitoring, and channeled by media spectacularization of cultural difference as the prominent causal agent of conflict.
The focus of this chapter is multiculturalism in Japan and Asia more generally. This is not because Japan is the best or most dynamic example of a multicultural society in Asia or even that there are relatively straightforward connections between other Asian countries and Japan directly linked to multiculturalism. At the conclusion of the chapter, I will briefly review a case that has been made that Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan share similar trajectories in multicultural policies and trends, despite rather distinct histories and resident groups of minorities. More specifically, however, in connection with the global future of multiculturalism as a vision of 21st century society, the case of Japan offers some corrective to the prominent mainstream discussions of multiculturalism which are taking place currently in Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. Is Japan belatedly following immigration trends seen earlier in other places, or is there something new about Japan's contribution to multicultural policies and multicultural nation-building? Or is Japan simply a late adopter of policies, under duress of demographic pressures, which are increasingly under attack elsewhere?
In the first part of the chapter, I place the discussion of multiculturalism's end firmly as a hegemonic Eurocentric discourse. In the second part, I turn to a discussion of multiculturalism in Japan. Certainly this is an expansive topic, so I will simply point to some exemplary trends in Japanese society that suggest that multiculturalism is not moribund, if not exactly thriving, requiring a discussion of the need for many kinds of qualifications and criticisms: political, economic, and otherwise. In terms of sheer numbers, Japan cannot be considered particularly diverse by the standards of large immigrant countries such as Canada and Australia. Moreover, the diversity that does exist is masked in many ways by the presence of large minorities of phenotypically similar ethni cities, in particular Chinese and Koreans and indigenous peoples. I argue that the Japanese case provides a well-balanced, if tenuous, example by which to track the development of multicultural coexistence (in the Japanese phrase tabunka kyōsei) in a large economically advanced democratic society of the 21st century. This phrase for the understanding of Japanese multicultural society, more widely circulated in the aftermath of the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake of 1995 and the cooperation that developed between ethnic communities in Kobe (Okano & Tsuneyoshi, 2011;Takezawa, 2008), who came quickly to the understanding borne of necessity that mutual aid and cooperation would hasten their survival and recovery efforts, is not without its detractors and drawbacks, as I will note below. However, it offers an alternative view to where we, as a human community, find ourselves in the 21st century, learning to get along with each other in the world. 1 Japan's version of multiculturalism, I will argue, has something to suggest not about the end of multiculturalism, but a possible new direction for multicultural understanding or post-multicultural coexistence.

The end of multiculturalism
The idea of the end of multiculturalism has been much discussed in recent years, particularly in Europe, where dissatisfaction with the integ ration of Muslim minorities has led to a significant backlash against open-ended immigration and tolerance (Alexander, 2013). 2 Despite this generalized reaction to the negative aspects of 30-40 years of multicultural policies, there is little agreement as to what should come after it. As Kymlicka (2010, p. 97) puts it, "there is a surprising consensus that we are indeed in a post-multicultural era," with near uniform disdain for the reductionism of multiculturalism parodied as the "panoply of customs, traditions, music, and cuisine" (also known as the three Cs: customs, celebrations and cuisine, or the four Fs: folklore, food, fashion, and festivals). I give a further definition of multicultura lism below, but it is important to point out from the outset that there are numerous "multiculturalisms," from conservative to liberal to critical, with the versions parodied above by the pithy reduction to identifiable characteristic material aspects of foods and clothes serving as a shorthand for symbolic multiculti. 3 Mishra (2012), writing about why what he calls the "crisis" of liberal multiculturalism signals that multiculturalism is a problem itself that needs to be continuously redefined, suggests that a key question is the incommensurability of the universality of rights clashing with the problems of what he and others refer to as the politics of redistribution. In other words, there is an inherent insolubility to the problem of recognition versus the political and economic policies that can be promoted to facilitate and enhance justice for minorities, especially newcomers who more often than not come to a society with little capital-economic or social. Either recognition is seen by the politicians, majorities, and ordinary citizens of a given community as sufficient in itself, in place of solving other pressing problems, or even worse, it leads to a backlash among the majority and other communities (including minorities themselves) who do not feel they gain (or in some cases fear that they will lose their own jobs and positions) from such a form of politics, tied as it often is to demands for equal opportunities.
Within four months of each other at the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011, the prime ministers and president of Europe's three most powerful countries declared multiculturalism a failure. Angela Merkel stated that multiculturalism in Germany had "failed utterly," David Cameron argued that in Britain "the doctrine of state multiculturalism" had failed to give "a vision of society," and Nikolas Sarkozy said that France had been "too concerned with the identity of the person arriving and not enough with the identity of the country receiving" them. Multiculturalism as a state policy (or set of policies) has been judged by many, including these conservative leaders, as a finished affair, and the time was ripe for new ways to deal with minorities, who are, it is argued, not cooperative enough in adjusting to the society in which they seek to live, either temporarily or for the long term. Such blaming of the "other" for not fitting in has a long trajectory in conservative European politics, intersecting with and growing out of seminal mediated "events" such as the Danish cartoon crisis of 2005 and l'affaire du foulard: bans on schoolgirls wearing head scarves in France and other countries. 4 Multiculturalism has been increasingly attacked by liberal and radical critics as well (Kundnani, 2012;Murphy, 2012). It goes without saying that a comprehensive term such as multiculturalism has been easily critiqued from all corners as it can serve as a proxy for whatever is ailing 21st century societies and causing lack of solidarity among citizens who find themselves less and less able to appeal to so-called common identifiable values. Kivisto (2012, p. 853) writes of the claims of conservative multiculturalism critics, "that diversity inevitably undermines a more universalistic form of solidarity-that the solidarities of particular groups impede or undermine national solidarity." This implies a zero sum game in which people must choose one or the other identity (the particular or the national/cosmopolitan/universal), not both, and that there cannot be a collective identity that embraces both. But in order to examine this question we first need a working definition of multiculturalism.

Defining multiculturalism
While there are many versions of multiculturalism, from liberal to critical, 5 a prime distinction needs to be made between multiculturalism as philosophy and policy (Murphy, 2012, p. 4). Reducing philosophies to more concrete foci, Murphy (2012, p. 62) lists the following seven types of multicultural arguments: (1) liberal multiculturalism; (2) tolerationist multiculturalism; (3) the value of cultural diversity; (4) the politics of inclusion; (5) deliberative multiculturalism; (6) democratic multiculturalism; and (7) the politics of recognition. Many of these nuanced differences revolve around the "classic" liberal question of freedom versus the prevention of harm and address central political questions such as equality, accommodation of minorities, and social cohesion (Murphy, 2012, pp. 7-9). A critique of this type of distinction could be made that that the particular policy framework and the philosophy on which it is based are not always identifiable in a singular fashion. In other words, policies can be derived from many sources, problems, ideals, and everything between.
Perhaps a single definition is impossible, but Vertovec (2010) lists the many areas of "institutional objectives" that have come to define multicultural policies. These included providing opportunities for group representation to local and national government authorities; restructuring institutions towards pluralistic public service provision; putting in place measures to promote equality, respect, or tolerance, particularly among the dominant population towards minorities; and providing resources to support continuity of traditions and identities among immigrant groups (as opposed to assimilation) (Vertovec, 2010, p. 84).
Another distinction is made by Kymlicka (2010), who argues that three patterns related to multiculturalism have emerged in Western democracies: (1) new forms of empowerment for indigenous peoples; (2) new forms of autonomy for sub-state national groups; and (3) new forms of citizenship for immigrants. One repeated question is whether these groups with different histories, different aspirations for belonging to the mainstream society, and different motivations for seeking recognition should be considered together by policy makers or separately. For example, some authors argue that the inclusion of "voluntary" immigrants with other groups involves diluting the focus of multiculturalism ( Joppke, 2004), leading to hostility and disorder. The rights and benefits in many societies obtained by indigenous and sub-state national groups have been much greater than those of immigrants, partly due to recognition of their "blood sacrifice" in the face of the historical hegemony of the dominant national group, as well as international recognition received from the United Nations (UN) and other organizations (Mishra, 2012, pp. 53-54). With regard to Japan, indigenous groups have applicability as a category (Zainichi Koreans, 6 Ainu, and Okinawans) as do immigrants.
Critiques of multiculturalism have often asserted contradictions through conflations in theorizing about who and what is multicultural. Modood (2007, p. 119) points out five levels of what he refers to as "multi family resemblances." Differences that affect specific policies in specific spatial domains (place and time) are: (1) differences between groups (as alluded to above); (2) labeling based on different types of attributes (such as race or religion); (3) groups not acting the same; (4) groups having different priorities; and (5) individuals within groups differing.
Another key argument used against multiculturalism is to look for the most extreme case of minorities' failure to integrate or even criminal misbehavior and suggest that it is sanctioned by multiculturalism itself in its emphasis on freedom based on cultural rights, in effect conflating ideas advocated by some multicultural theories of epistemological anti-foundationalism with radical relativism, which is advocated by relatively few (Murphy, 2012, p. 24).
Despite the negative reception for multiculturalism recently in academic and popular discourses, there is an irony in the widespread success of multicultural policies (Kymlicka, 2010;Modood, 2012;Vertovec, 2010). Thus, even as the leaders and mainstream media of many countries deem multicultural policies a failure, the policies, plans, implementation, and acceptance of multiculturalism in everyday life continues more or less as it did at its high point in the 1990s.
In a different way, multiculturalism has been boosted by the simple fact of increased levels of diversity in many countries that have accepted immigrants. Not only is immigration increasing, 7 but the types of immigration and routes are changing, and there is more frequent and short-term movement, instead of permanent migration. In addition, families with multiple ethnicities, and individuals with multiple and hyphenated identities, are also increasing. Vertovec (2010) has proposed the term "super-diversity" to describe these developments.
The best that one can conclude at the current juncture about multiculturalism is to suggest that it is in a crisis moment. This is inherent in recent analysis, using terminology such as "panicked multiculturalism" (Noble, 2013) and "ambivalent multiculturalism" (Bygnes, 2012). While the immigrant countries of Western Europe and North America (as well as Australia and New Zealand) seek to contain their overdone stresses to the social fabric and resultant distress over policies that were beneficial to their economies at one time, but now require more attention (both economic and political), it is not surprising that interest in diversity, migration, and multiculturalism would have spread to new places. In the next section, I turn to a discussion of Japanese multiculturalism.

Japan as an exemplar
Japan's history of accepting immigrants is a long and varied one. 8 As Oguma (2002) has shown in his well-cited study of the flexibility of inclusivity of "Japanese-ness", which extended to Taiwanese and Korean peoples in the Japanese colonial period, a much more porous image of what was a "Japanese" was prevalent than the one that has dominated in contemporary Japan as "one nation, one civilization, one language, one culture and one race" ( Japan Times, 2005) until recently. 9 Similar research by Morris-Suzuki (1997 and others shows the deep interconnections with and movements of peoples between the Korean peninsula and Japan both over historically long periods of time and in the modern era in the periods before and after the Second World War. In particular, much of the assumption of a period of little or no immigration during the 35 years after the Second World War (until roughly 1980) can be challenged as masking what she calls the "invisibility" of illegal immigration, along with the growing institutional architecture of detention facilities and courts for deportation (Morris-Suzuki, 2006).
The rise of tabunka shugi (multiculturalism) or tabunka kyōsei shakai (multicultural existence society) 10 can be said to have commenced in the 1990s as the total number of foreign residents topped one million. 11 This is not to suggest that activism over the human rights of foreign residents (Koreans in particular) in Japan had not existed before this period, 12 but that a level of consciousness in the wider society was attained following the pattern of increased numbers and increased diversity among minorities (including foreigners) in Japan in the 1990s. Several years after this, in approximately 1995, the number of Japanese residents of Korean nationality dropped for the first time since the end of the war to less than half of the total foreign resident population (Tsuneyoshi, 2011, p. 128), and has continued to descend to its current total of 530,048, or 26.1% of the total number of foreign residents as of 2012, falling behind the number of Chinese, who have occupied the top position of total numbers of residents in Japan (by nationality) since 2007. This is explained by a continuous rate of naturalization of long-term Korean residents since the mid-1980s, when Japanese law was changed (roughly 10,000 per year), as well as the increasing numbers of new immigrants from China (and elsewhere). For the past four years the overall number of foreign residents has been decreasing to a total in 2012 of 2,033,658, approximately 1.7% of the total population in Japan. 13 Much of this decline can be attributed to that of a single nationality, Brazilians (the third highest national group until 2012, when Filipinos surpassed Brazilians for the first time), many of whom lost employment opportunities in the economic downturn since 2008, while other groups (with the small continuous decline in Korean numbers as noted above) have either declined or risen only slightly. The number of Chinese residents continued to rise even after 2008, reaching a high or 678,391 in 2010, but then declined slightly in the subsequent two years. The number of Filipino residents, as of 2012 registering 202,974, third after Koreans, has risen every year (except 2004) until 2012, when there was a small decrease. The number of Vietnamese has also risen almost every year and even further in 2012 to attain the position of the fifth highest at a total of 52,364. Of the top 11 foreign resident nationalities, eight of them are Asian (the exceptions being Brazil, Peru at number six, and the USA at number seven).
From this brief and necessarily cursory statistical overview, one can state two things. First the range and degree of diversity has been increasing steadily, illustrating, albeit on a somewhat limited scale, the proposition of superdiversity noted above. Notwithstanding the drops in overall numbers, the countries involved each have different patterns of increases and drops that correspond to historical, economic, and social issues that affect ethnic groups differently. This is even more apparent when the rates of different prefectures are examined, a discussion which I will bracket due to space limitations. However, the pattern of immigration throughout Japan shows a great deal of variation, with the percentage of Chinese immigrants largest in Tokyo, Koreans largest in Osaka, and Brazilians largest in Aichi. Second, the use of numbers of immigrants statistics is deceptive in that if one considers only these numbers, much of the growing diversity in Japan in the past two decades will be overlooked. There are, for example, sizeable populations of indigenous minorities, Okinawans and Ainu, as well as increasing numbers of individuals who have two ethnicities-for example mixed Japanese heritage or hyphenated Japanese. 14 While it is also true that some have argued that, phenotypically, the majority of non-Japanese in Japan (also including the indigenous minority populations) closely resemble Japanese and are often indistinguishable, there is surely an increase in the awareness of Japan as a multicultural society. Important edited volumes in English on multiculturalism in Japan have been published in succession in recent years (Graburn, Ertl, & Tierney, 2008;Tsuneyoshi, 2011;Willis & Murphy-Shigematsu, 2008; the latter calling its field transnationalism as opposed to multiculturalism), each utilizing a wide range of case studies to make the case for an increase in multiculturalism as an indisputable reality, while reaching varying conclusions about its greater acceptance. Certainly there will be a great divergence in this acceptance across Japan, as variation will exist with almost no sign of diversity in many rural prefectures (but see below for a counter example), and much higher diversity in some urbanized areas (up to 20% minority populations in some parts of Shinjuku Ward in Tokyo). This has led at least one critic to maintain that the positive recognition and conceptualization of multiculturalism as a "new" reality, albeit based on a policy discourse regime that has roots in government initiatives, is a reaction by (mostly) foreign scholars to the persistent discourses of Nihonjinron in the 1980s and later into the 1990s (Burgess, 2007). 15 Many other critics have agreed that at the national policy level there is little in the way of aggressive support or legislation for multicultural society, 16 while at the local level there exists, in some places, a growing movement for expansion of rights and inclusion of minorities and a concomitant flow of policy influence from the local to the national (Flowers, 2012;Green, 2013;Lovell, 2010;Nakamatsu, 2013). I discuss these trends at greater length below.
Other edited publications in Japanese have also been published recently foregrounding the concept of tabunka kyōsei (Fujimaki, 2012;Kagami, 2013;Satake, 2011), documenting the diversity that exists primarily in prefectures in urban areas with the largest concentrations of non-Japanese (in absolute numbers and percentage of the total of foreign residents, the order is Tokyo, Osaka, Aichi, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Hyogo, and Shizuoka, each with large cities except for Shizuoka, which does not have a city larger than one million people). 17 Earlier publications had used the term tabunka shakai (Ishii & Yamauchi, 1999;Komai, 2003). Whether there is now a consistent agreement in the past decade on the preferential use of tabunka kyōsei is beyond the scope of analysis here. However, Graburn and Ertl (2008, p. 8), point out, as have others, that the concept of kyōsei, or coexistence, tends to allow differences to remain as unsettled and not melded. 18 In researching this topic, clearly there are valuable studies on many individual minority groups, relating their struggles for recognition and equal rights to the theme of a multicultural Japan, which due to space limitations I will not review. In analyzing the problem of multiculturalism from a holistic and comparative perspective, there is a danger that the important details that separate different groups are left unstated and underanalyzed. Multiculturalism, through its terminology, draws analysis away from the specific to the general and categorical. To cite just two compelling recent studies, Cotterill (2011) writing about the Ainu 19 notes a government survey of 23,782 self-acknowledged Ainu in Hokkaido. However, the actual numbers are far greater, with many having intermarried with other Japanese, many living in metropolitan areas such as Tokyo, and a large number becoming more interested in reclaiming some part of their long submerged identity, but not necessarily "coming out" to their neighbors, and even in some cases family members. In a similar manner, Hankins (2012) in doing research on Buraku 20 minorities, suggests a new interest in "authenticity" of identity. One of the strategies used is the display of suffering, which exists in a dialectic fashion, i.e. by displaying marginalization, one has more authentically "suffered" discrimination, which serves to increase pride in self-identification for those who are part of the group, but also among affirming groups in Japanese society such as progressives, social activists, and others who take interest in multiculturalism.
However, persistent doubts remain about the extent to which Japan can be considered multicultural in any recognizable sense at all, and similar to other countries, mediatized events can produce understandings that conflict harshly with the idea of Japan as multicultural. Perhaps it is not surprising given the aforementioned politicians' comments on Japan as one nation that the perception exists among some internationally of Japan as a "monoethnic" enclave. After Norwegian far-right extremist Anders Breivik was arrested for killing 77 people in Norway in July 2011, his manifesto of more than 1,500 pages, which he had uploaded to the Internet shortly before he carried out his massacre, was examined, and numerous references praising both Japan and South Korea as "monocultural" and for having rejected or avoided multiculturalism were discovered ( Japan Probe, 2011; Reuters, 2011). 21 On a more serious level are critiques such as Kashiwazaki's analysis that immigrants are incorporated into Japan first and foremost as "foreigners," and not as "ethnic minorities," or "hyphenated Japanese" (2013, p. 32). Given the movement towards greater recognition of Japanese national minorities noted above, albeit incremental and still in the face of hardships and discrimination, a question that is inevitable is whether, as in Kymlicka's inclusive definition above, progressive thinking about multiculturalism benefits from more generalized inclusion of all minorities (including, but not limited to, sexual minorities, victims of environmental disasters, atomic bomb victims, and people with disabilities) as opposed to strategic focus that may allow for some coalitions, but not one that includes everyone on all issues. It is clear, whichever way this question is answered (and it is unlikely that a single answer will be appropriate for every context; in other words, multiple types of coalitions between minorities are likely to emerge in different regions and over different issues), the observation of Htun (2012, p. 19) that focus on "diversity and agency within minority groups" means less demand and interest for displays of suffering. The younger members of minority groups, especially, in contrast to previous generations, feel more entitled to be open about their identity both as minorities and as members of a Japanese society moving towards the future, not dwelling on past injustices.
At the same time, however, discussion of the lived reality of multicultural consciousness in Japan reveals problematic lacunae that require critical attention. First, what is the understanding that the mass of average Japanese citizens have about Japanese society being multicultural? Numerous scholars have suggested that even if a plurality of Japanese citizens accept Japan as multicultural, there is still little understanding or acceptance of diversity beyond a division between Japanese and foreigners, leading to models of "coexistence" (read as assimilation) in the simplest form, between the "Japanese" and the "others" (Graburn & Ertl, 2008, p. 4;Ishiwata, 2011;Kashiwazaki, 2013;Nagayoshi, 2011;Nagy, 2012;Okano & Tsuneyoshi, 2011, p. 2;Yamamoto, 2012), sometimes as a homogenous group of non-Japanese and sometimes as their own ethnic group. In other words, the acceptance of a multicultural Japan (i.e. a Japan with a small percentage of resident foreigners), entails a reinforcement of the uniform identity of Japanese-ness, which in turn serves to exclude foreigners and other minorities as (not more than) residents, and not as part of a project for a dynamic and changing multicultural Japanese identity and society of the 21st century.
In an example of empirical work to investigate such a claim, Nagayoshi conducted research utilizing public opinion polls and verified that acceptance of a Japanese homogeneity coincides with support for "endorsement of multiculturalism." This positive affirmation of diversity, however, is coupled with the conclusion that "Japanese people regard minorities as just 'exceptions' within a culturally homogenous society" (2011, p. 574). The question remains, however, what people think they are endorsing when they conceptualize multiculturalism, operationalized here as government assistance to minorities to "preserve their customs and traditions." Some critics argue pessimistically that this leads to a vision of Japanese society that Morris-Suzuki (2002, cited in Nakamatsu, 2013 3) has termed "cosmetic multiculturalism," a discourse that "allows expression of cultural diversity only under strict conditions … mak[ing] no demands for changes in the existing structure." Or to follow this binary logic to its concluding point, "the positioning of the 'other' is always in relation to and as a means of further discovering what is Japanese" (Yamamoto, 2012, p. 437). Such arguments recall the problem raised by Mishra, at the outset in this chapter, that multiculturalism was (and is) always a problem in need of redefinition. "'Multiculturalism' as theory comes as a challenge to an earlier definition of it as an empirical fact," in short "cultures were part of the nation, without the nation itself sensing the need to theorize itself in terms of multiplicity of cultures" (Mishra, 2012, p. 23). The degree that this challenge to a prior status quo is now taking place in Japan then is open for debate.
Nonetheless, such a critique may underestimate the potential for change in consciousness that is occurring among the majority of Japanese, particularly young people, not only in their recognition of documentation and representations of otherness in Japan, but in relation to issues of education, political representation, and discriminatory practices (elaborated on below). Each of these offers only a starting point for discussion and can be framed as much as problems as they are hopes for the future. A point that is made clear, however, is that they are problems that are mostly dealt with on the local level.
There has been quite a lot of forward movement regarding local policy initiatives connected to multiculturalism in Japan, though not all of it is readily visible to the ordinary citizen. One reason is that the diversity in Japan is localized in some areas and relatively invisible (or much less) in other places, mostly (but not only) rural regions. However, from the central government's side, the 2006 Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) report, "Research Group concerning the Promotion of Multicultural Coexistence," also triggered discussion about implementation at the local society level (chīki shakai). A number of researchers have looked at the effect of this national governmental policy on local policies. Shortly after the national policy report was produced, a letter was sent to local authorities asking them to investigate "guidelines and plans for the promotion of multicultural coexistence in keeping with the circumstances of their respective regions" (MIC letter cited in Aiden, 2011, p. 215). Thereafter (and shortly beforehand in some cases) a number of prefectures, cities, and wards made such plans (for example, Shinjuku Ward in 2005, Kawasaki City in 2005, Hiroshima City in 2006, and many more; see also Nagy, 2012). The original policy document from the central government divided the type of help that could be provided into four areas: (1) communication (language); (2) lifestyle (housing and employment); (3) coexistence systems in local communities (exchange and organizations); and (4) a more general coexistence promotion system (linkages with business, government and other agencies).
Nagy (2012, p. 5) has described this system critically as a "social integration system," an attempt to fill in "gaps" rather than fostering respect for diversity, promotion of cultural pride, or encouraging steps towards citizenship. Aiden's (2011) analysis of 22 local "multicultural coexistence plans" (MCPs) on the other hand is slightly more optimistic, citing the effect of the MIC document on local governments, urging them to utilize cooperation with NGOs, NPOs, and International Exchange Associations to further the goals of multicultural policies. Lovell's (2010) research on Nagata Ward (with an estimated 10% minority population) in Kobe argues that, indeed, the use of policy drivers (kokusaika or internationalization, and tabunka kyōsei) has been important in moving the discussion forward and creating policy documentation to address the varying needs of oldcomer and newcomer minority populations. But other research suggests that both local staff and NGO workers have relatively low impressions of tabunka kyōsei policies and their implementation from the top down (Nakamatsu, 2013). They questioned both the lack of ideological support and detailed concrete measures. "The government's sudden adoption of a multicultural framework and of the categorization of their work as part of this official discourse" was deemed opportunistic and not an attempt to "bring about cultural, social and political equality," exemplified by the unfamiliar naming involved in the term kyōsei coupled with the more understandable tabunka (Nakamatsu, 2013, p. 11).
Case studies of local area implementation fill in some of the gaps in understanding what may (or may not) be taking place with regard to action at the local level in various locations in Japan. Flowers' (2012) study of Shinjuku Ward, in particular the town of Ō kubo, which contains up to 20% of non-Japanese residents (many of them Korean) and has been renamed an "ethnic town" by the local government, illustrates both the active aspects of multicultural policy making on the ground and the risks that are concomitant. She describes Ethnic Town Ō kubo as "an entertainment destination" for the consumption of culture, e.g. food and other ethnic goods.
While urban areas are rightly the predominant focus of multicultural activities, in Japan, as elsewhere, the rising number of foreign female spouses in rural areas due to the inability of farming household males to be able to find marriageable Japanese women as partners has led to tabunka kyōsei centers and support services in prefectures such as Yamagata. In addition to language education, the centers provide various information about health services, employment, and visas, and serve as spaces for socialization for the women, many from the Philippines, China, and other Asian countries (Kwak, 2009).

Three areas of contestation
While there are many other areas worth mentioning in regard to multiculturalism and multicultural policy in Japan, including the connection between integration and employment (Kibe, 2011), immigration reform (Yamamoto, 2012), the relatively "extensive usage" of the term "foreigner" as opposed to other terms such as "citizen," "immigrant," "ethnic," or "minority," with the implication of there being impoverished models of citizenship opportunity structures (Kashiwazaki, 2013), I turn in this section to three critical areas of implementation and contestation that will have strong effects on the long-term success (or lack thereof) of multiculturalism in Japan. These are (1) education; (2) local political participation; and (3) anti-discrimination legal frameworks.
Education and multiculturalism is a well-researched topic and many frameworks for understanding different and varied developments have been advanced. If one includes the pioneering efforts in both Korean and Burakumin communities to promote education for human rights, multicultural education can be considered to have a long history in Japan. Tai (2007) documents the many nuances of Korean ethnic education connected to civil rights, particularly in Osaka City, home to the largest number of Koreans in Japan. Koreans' campaign for ethnic classes (which include language, music, history, and other topics) in mainstream schools was partly inspired by the notions of "liberation education" that had been developed previously by Buraku activists (Tai, 2007, p. 8). While placing great emphasis on human rights and the struggles that have achieved them to date, such education is also somewhat limited by its separation into the majority/minority communities (Tsuneyoshi, 2011; see also Okano, 2006).
In contrast, a framework of internationalization for education is used for newcomer education (as well as Japanese returnees from abroad). Much of this education focuses on Japanese language learning. In public schools there is no special budget for teachers who can teach in students' native languages. Research on Brazilian and Peruvian schoolchildren (many Nikkei 22 and some with mixed ethnicity) shows some of the problems of education in a multicultural Japan. Moorehead's (2013) examination of the "Amigos Room" at an elementary school in central Japan shows that teachers are sometimes unenthusiastic (they are not specialized, but chosen to staff the room in rotation) and the room is not well supplied and serves not as a place for supplementary Japanese language instruction so much as a space for students to overcome their feelings of isolation by being with immigrants like themselves.
Next, I turn to local political participation. Kawasaki City in Kanagawa Prefecture became the first city in Japan to establish an assembly for foreign residents in 1996. This was followed by other cities: Tokyo (1997), Kyoto (1998), Mitaka (1999, Atsugi (2002) and others (Green, 2013). Kawasaki also became the first city in Japan to abolish the requirement of Japanese citizenship to work for the municipal government. In 2009, Kawasaki passed a resolution to allow foreign residents to vote in local elections and referenda. Both Kwak (2009) and Green (2013) make a strong case for the effect that local policy initiatives have made on the larger national policy perspective. "The significance of the foreigners' assembly may be trivialized because of a lack of political power. In reality, however, the activities of the assembly have a meaningful influence on decision making through propositions" (Kwak, 2009, p. 173). Even in the absence of central government leadership, cities like Kawasaki "found it in their interest to try and incorporate their immigrant populations into the decision making process. What began as a means of dialogue with foreign residents in Kawasaki gradually spread throughout the country, eventually turning into codified local voting rights for a variety of cities" (Green, 2013).
Finally, regarding anti-discrimination and legal frameworks, numerous authors have pointed out the lack of such protections in Japan. In 2006, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance filed a report on his Mission to Japan in which he criticized discrimination of both a social-economic and political nature. He also "note [d] with concern that there is no national legislation that outlaws racial discrimination and provides a judicial remedy for the victims" (Diène, 2006). This report was followed up in 2010 by another, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights Special Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants (Bustamante, 2010), reiterating the lack of legislation to "address the persistence of racial discrimination," especially as related to migrants and their difficulties in securing education. Most notable as well was the declaration that there was an "overall lack of a comprehensive immigration policy that respects the human rights of migrants and ensures their integration into the Japanese society." This illustrates the distance that is still necessary to be traversed toward ensuring durable structures that will protect foreign residents not only in good situations but bad situations as well. Space precludes lengthy discussion of examples of recent discriminatory acts directed at minorities, but hate speech directed at Korean schools has been slowly increasing ( Japan Times, 2013). A recent court ruling declared that such rallies were not protected by constitutional free speech statutes. Whether the ruling will lead to parliamentary action is not clear, but such changes in the law outlawing discrimination could certainly do much to address some of the concerns of the UN reports cited above.
On reviewing these three areas of contestation, the conclusion is that there are both positive and negative evaluations of the sustained commitment to multiculturalism by the national government and down to local levels. As with the previous discussion, which showed that movement in local areas is at the moment more expeditious than in national policy areas, these three foci-education, political participation, and anti-discrimination legislation-show the most dynamism at the local level (particularly with the case of political participation). However, here too the story is mixed, since educational opportunities are also quite variable depending on the locality.

East Asian multicultural societies
Comparative work done to assess the level of multicultural policy making across national contexts in Asia has shown that Japan has some affinities with other East Asian countries, South Korea and Taiwan in particular. Both Nagy (2013) and Kim and Oh (2011) found commonalities across these three countries, with low fertility rates, increasing but selective immigration, and "passive multiculturalism" policies. In contrast to the low evaluation for educational policies and anti-discrimination legislation, Kim and Oh argue that the mass media representations of foreignness vary between assimilationist and some activism in all three countries (2011, p. 1575). Watson (2012, p. 99) states about South Korean multiculturalism, similar to the critiques regarding homogeneity in Japan above, that the core identity of Korean society is maintained along ethnic lines, with foreigners simultaneously excluded, but representing the diversity of global progress: a "global Korea," as such.
A more nuanced discussion of the convergences as well as divergences of ethnic immigrants (Korea accepting Chinese and Korean-Chinese, while Taiwan accepted larger numbers of Indonesians, Vietnamese and Thais) would suggest that regional effects of multicultural policy making are not insignificant. However, it is clear that multicultural policies in East Asia should be examined further in the near future with respect to regional policy comparative analysis to break down the obsession with borders that hinders the development of more dynamic multicultural models. Miller (2011, p. 808) has written that the "gradations of inclusion and exclusion are far more subtle and varied in Asia" and "the boundaries between formal and informal rights are often blurred" based on less legalistic conceptions. He and Kymlicka (2005, p. 2) wrote about Asian multiculturalism that "appeals to international human rights instruments and Western policies of multiculturalism are interspersed with appeals to local traditions, national mythologies, regional practices, and religious practices." Each of these dimensions would benefit from more research, but it is certainly true that just as provincialized as Asia is in this statement, so too is the backlash of multiculturalism now visible in the so-called West: fierce in certain European contexts, while not so apparent in others, like North America. Whether it is really Western multiculturalism or Japanese tabunka kyōsei that is being appealed to, the point remains that the universality of human rights and the local, regional, and national issues that affect their acceptance and valorization are contentious, no matter the context. Learning from those who have made some contributions to creating communities that broaden participation to those beyond only the majority in any context is useful for application in other contexts. In any case, it can be argued, in the case of these three East Asian countries, that there is significant overlap in societal diversification, and while there is no universality of multicultural policy, there is at least a set of commonalities. At the same time we can note, as above, that much of the leeway that has been afforded with regard to local policy making has taken place in the absence of robust policy making at the national level.

Conclusion
Do the cases presented by East Asian countries, Japan in particular, as have been examined here, lead us to be more optimistic about the possibility of multiculturalism first of all here in Japan and Asia, but also in relation to the rest of the world? Probably that depends on what work one expects to be done in the name of multicultural policy and to what degree multiculturalism can be removed from limitations of its idealistic liberal usage and reduction to tolerance of diversity. Tolerance is no doubt a quality with much to offer, but it does little to solve the problems of mutual understanding and cooperation that are necessary in communities in many places in Japan. More attention to the dimensions of education, political participation and representation, and anti-discrimination frameworks and laws are necessary to improve the basic conditions of a society for and of tabunka kyōsei. This chapter offers no final answer to the question of whether Japan is leading the way forward or struggling on its own terms. If anything, I would argue that is doing both, and that Japan, never having been definitively multicultural, can possibly offer a vision of the post-multicultural, but only by squarely facing the problems that it is confronting from increased diversity in localized pockets across Japan.

Notes
1. I acknowledge that recourse to a "common" humanity is always problematic, especially from the perspective of epistemology and that here it is necessary to acknowledge one's own privilege and position. Mine, in this case, is as a Caucasian North American who holds a tenured position in a Japanese university. My view of humanity and its struggles is no doubt different from those who have suffered multiple and repeated instances of discrimination, to problematize the standpoint in just one way. 2. The contents of the following two sections are derived in part and rewritten from a longer version of the argument I have made elsewhere (Bradley, 2013). See Alexander (2013) for extended examples of the attacks made on multiculturalism by both politicians and academics in Europe in the past decade. 3. Also spelled multikulti, the term was popularized especially in Germany and was referenced in Angela Merkel's 2010 speech regarding the failure of multicultural integrationist policies in Germany. It has been used in English to imply a sarcastic stance towards multicultural policies and events. 4. In France, wearing headscarves resulted in the school expulsions of three girls in 1989 and 23 girls in 1996. 5. According to May and Sleeter (2010, p. 3), critical multiculturalism differs from the liberal varieties by systematically accounting for "structural inequalities, such as racism, institutionalized poverty and discrimination" in contrast to emphasizing liberal multiculturalism's "politically muted discourses" of "culture and cultural recognition." 6. Zainichi refers to "residents," and has been used often for "oldcomer" Koreans (but also some Chinese and others) whose families have been in Japan for three to five (or even six) generations. 7. Modood (2012, p. 19) estimates that in most of the largest cities in northwest Europe the population is 20-35 percent non-European; many cities in North America have large percentages of immigrant populations, with Toronto and Miami, for example, both around or exceeding 50%. 8. The terminology of "oldcomers," consisting mostly of Koreans, and "newcomers," consisting of many other nationalities, is not uniform. I use "foreign resident" and "immigrant" interchangeably in this chapter, using the former to emphasize long-term status (particularly of Koreans, many of whom are long-term residents and non-citizens in Japan) and the latter to emphasize the evolving and changing nature of many foreigners' stays in Japan from temporary to settled and finally permanent. 9. This quote is attributed to former Prime Minister Aso Taro, at a time when he served as Minister of Internal Affairs in Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet and gave a speech at the opening of the Kyushu National Museum in Daizufu, Fukuoka. This is but one of a series of similar comments in the last several decades by cabinet ministers regarding the homogeneity of Japanese ethnicity. 10. I discuss these terms at length below. 11. Statistics in this section are derived from the Japanese Ministry of Justice homepage statistics; Ministry of Justice 2013 and previous years). 12. A notable example was the decade long resistance against fingerprinting begun in 1980 and ended in 1991. For some of the history of Korean human rights movements, especially in relation to Korean ethnic education, see Okano (2006) and Tai (2007). 13. An exact percentage is hard to derive, given the discrepancies in counting who is foreign or not. See also footnote 8. 14. Japanese law does not allow dual citizenship, so there are many Japanese (exact numbers unknown) who might be considered as having multicultural backgrounds due to a parent of non-Japanese nationality. The term haafu is sometimes used for such individuals, but is controversial for several reasons. First, it is used mostly for those of half European and half Japanese ethnicity, and second because some suggest that it implies a less than whole identity. 15. Nihonjinron are theories of Japan and Japaneseness and have been critiqued by many for their cultural exclusivity. 16. This claim is sometimes made, policy documents notwithstanding, such as the 2006 Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) report, "Research Group concerning the Promotion of Multicultural Coexistence," detailed below. 17. Shizuoka has large concentrations of Brazilians who emigrated to jobs in the auto industries and factories in smaller cities such as Hamamatsu; the only city of more than a million residents in a prefecture not in this list is Sapporo in Hokkaido (Ministry of Justice, 2013). See also Hirasawa (2009). 18. The term tabunka kyōsei is widely attributed to origins in discussions of biological phenomena in phrases like shizen to kyōsei: coexistence with the environment. According to Lovell (2010, p. 5) some have translated it as "multicultural symbiosis" or "symbiotic multiculturalism," maintaining the biological roots. He also writes of the phrase tomo ni ikiru (living together) which was used from 1965 onwards by the Japanese government in commitments to improving civil rights for resident Koreans. Chapman (2006, pp. 98-99) also describes the use of tabunka kyōsei for disparate groups such as children with disabilities and to address gender inequities. According to Hirasawa (2009, p. 165) the term tabunka kyōsei was used by a policy document in Kawasaki City in 1993 for the first time. Nakamatsu (2013, p. 5) also cites 1993 as the first newspaper mention but in relation to development education. Some have argued that tabunka shakai is a more sociological and inclusive term. 19. Ainu people, whose origin was in northern Japan and Hokkaido, were acknowledged as an indigenous people by the Japanese government in 2008 (unlike Okinawans who have not been formally recognized). They have also used the name Utari to refer to themselves. 20. Buraku, or more formally Hisabetsu Burakumin (people of the hamlet subject to discrimination; a discrimination based on ancestry, dating from the Edo Period, 1603-1868, in which a caste system was prevalent in Japan, which is now illegal) are non-identifiable by names or physical characteristics. They number from 2 to 3 million, and similar to the previous discussion of Ainu, it is difficult to arrive at an exact figure due to stigma of self-identification and intermarriage. However in recent years, a number of well-known politicians and public figures have made their Buraku background open.
21. In preparing this chapter, I was able to find Breivik's manifesto online. I deliberately chose not to cite it, so as not to give further publicity to a racist polemic. However, it is instructive in that he clearly believes that the East Asian countries ( Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) have achieved their successes through maintaining traditional societal patterns of monoethnicity and patriarchal relations. 22. Nikkei refer to people with Japanese ethnic heritage who have settled predominantly in North and South America, a number of whom returned to Japan in the last 20 years. A number of them were forced to leave after the economic downturn of 2008, in some cases receiving money from the Japanese government for repatriation, stipulating that they would not return to Japan for a minimum of three years.