This panel aims to look at the postwar phenomenon of women migration.

Shizuko Suenaga will discuss the "Japanese War Brides"—Japanese women who married American military men during the U.S. occupation of Japan after its defeat in World War II. The paper will examine the motivations and expectations behind the intermarriages, the process of acculturation, and the transformation of these Japanese women as they leave behind their own culture.

Yolanda Alfaro will discuss the "Japayuki"—the Filipino women migrants to Japan. They currently are the top marriage partners (among non-Japanese women) to Japanese men. The paper will trace the roots of Filipino migration to Japan. It will also deal with the process of ethnic community building in a country that still has yet to resolve many problems with regards to its treatment of its first layer oldtimer migrants.

Chen Tien-shi will discuss the Chinese (zainichi chugokujin) situation in Japan by looking at the Japanese legal system. The paper will examine the naturalization laws and its impact on Chinese in Japan. It will especially focus on the situation of the Japan-born Chinese women since they suffer from double discrimination as Chinese and as women in Japan.

This panel will look at how these three groups of inbound/outbound/homeward bound women transform themselves from temporary to permanent settlers. It will probe into the dynamics of acculturation of Japanese women in the United States, the Filipino women in Japan, and the double struggles of the Chinese women in Japan.

Shizuko Suenaga, Harvard University

Soon after the end of World War II—September, 1945—the Allied troops entered Japan and established military occupation bases all over the country. One of the unintended consequences of the Occupation was that it eventually gave birth to thousands of intermarriages between American GIs and Japanese women, or the so-called, war brides.

This paper examines the motivations behind the intermarriages: Why did thousands of Japanese women choose American men, rather than Japanese? What made these women decide to marry men who do not share their culture or language? It explores a number of complex and controversial topics concerning the marriage motivations of Japanese war brides. An analysis of my interviews with twenty-nine women reveals that their motivations were more complex than their initial explanations, "I was in love." Economic aspects certainly played a part for marrying American servicemen. But more interestingly, noticeable number of women referred to a liberation from the ie, or the Japanese family institution, that had long placed women at the bottom of hierarchy, as one of the reasons to marry non-Japanese. The marriages with American men meant, to a certain extent, that they would no longer be bound to the ie system. The paper will also point out commonality between Japanese war brides and much younger generation of women in Japan. The war brides’ decision for choosing American men as their husbands seems to echo Japanese women today who decide to live without marrying.

Yolanda Alfaro, Harvard University

Officially, there are now 1.75 million registered foreigners in Japan, a figure that excludes an estimated 100,000 undocumented foreigners. The bulk is comprised of "oldtimers"—the Koreans and Chinese, and "newcomers"—Brazilians and Peruvians of Japanese ancestry, Filipinos and other people from developing countries.

Among the newcomers, the Filipinos were the earliest, and their migratory experience exhibits unique characteristics. First, unlike other groups, the Filipinos do not share colonial or ethnic ties with Japan. Second, the percentage of women migrants is the highest (68%). Third, this gender-specific migration was also work-specific: from a few hundred Filipino women who entered Japan in 1975 and peaked to 40,000 in 1988—most were absorbed into the entertainment industry sector. Third, by 1990, a new phenomenon started to emerge: women entering Japan to work as entertainers started to taper off, and increasingly began to marry Japanese men. What was thought of as a temporary migration of Filipino women has increasingly transformed itself into a permanent settlement by virtue of marriage.

This paper is divided into two parts: the first part will trace the roots of Filipino migration to Japan by looking at the diplomatic relationship between the Philippines and Japan from the 1970s and the ensuing conflicts in Japanese policymaking, both at the national and local levels. The second part will deal with the process of ethnic community building in a country that still has yet to resolve many problems with regards to its treatment of its first layer oldtimer migrants.

Tien-shi Chen, University of Tsukuba

This paper studies the legal aspects of the treatment of minority groups in Japan and focuses on the country’s resident Chinese (zainichi chugokujin). Under the Japanese legal system, many ethnic Chinese, no matter where they are born and/or despite living most of their lives in Japan, still have great difficulties in being considered legally as citizens of Japan. No matter how natural they feel being Japanese culturally, they are not Japanese legally. There is a gap between cultural and legal identification.