Crazy naturalized people in the news versus the silent majority

(image licensed from CartoonStock)

Every blue moon an acquaintance points me to an article about a naturalized person (or somebody related to one) in Japan who has made the news… and often not in a good way (trouble with the law, extreme / bizarre behavior, family / finance trouble, etc). The caption included with the news clipping is often something like:

I'm gonna tell all my friends that if I ever mutter the word "naturalization" to smack some sense into me, because apparently that's the sign that one's mental state is about to crumble.

However, I believe these people have the cause-correlation backwards. Naturalizing doesn't make somebody nuts or causes them to screw up their lives. Rather, people who are already nuts (or are a little dodgy/unethical) tend to be attracted to naturalization (and especially the corresponding losing / renouncing / relinquishing / adding-to one's previous nationality) because in their minds, they view the act of naturalizing and renouncing/changing their nationality as "extreme" and attention getting or a "hack" to get around pesky things like visas and laws. Others that make the news do so because they view changing or losing nationality as a "legal loophole" to bypass checks & balances or responsibilities that are in place to prevent the unsettled from running amok in society.

Also, these types of people tend to be attracted or motivated to see themselves in print (even prior to naturalizing), which makes the sample of naturalized people you see on the internet appear to be disproportionately nutty.

The media is not interested in covering the silent majority that is not part of their target audience. Especially if it's not bad news. If it is, then they're more likely to focus on the perpetrator's change of nationality, because that makes the story unique.

What most naturalized Japanese are really like

I've run this site for over half a decade, and this has given me the opportunity to get data from people who have naturalized. These people have either met me face-to-face or corresponded with me personally about the subject. A quick estimate from my electronic correspondence and records show that I have personally corresponded with hundreds of people. I have personally met dozens over coffee, lunch, and evening drinks. They have often shared with me intimate and private details about their motivations, personal family issues, finances, jobs, and legal issues as it pertains to naturalization. They have been men and women, married and single, from all walks of life (software, education, finance, homemakers) from over ten different countries, ranging in age from high twenties to low nineties (!).

Thus, I think I've become the world's unofficial topic expert / amateur niche sociologist regarding English speakers who naturalize to Japan. I am confident that the only people in the world that have personally met and talked to more naturalized Japanese English/Japanese speaking people are:

• immigration lawyers
• air/sea port CIQ officials
• law enforcement
• public sector workers in Japan's MoJ that deal with nationality matters

The vast majority of naturalized people I've met are married, often with kids, and … boring. And if they're European or American: they're probably older.

Most non-Asian naturalized people are law-abiding, employed, non-controversial and sane (ergo "boring") and thus you never see them on the internet. They tend to fit two patterns:

1. If they're under 35, they tend to be from BRICS or southeast Asian countries and just want the stability and safety of a wealthy highly advanced developed country like Japan. They don't seem to mind if English language is not a popular first or second language so they skip the obvious economic immigration New World choices of America & Canada.
2. If they're from a G-7 country (especially Americans), they tend to be married, with children, with stable careers or are retired, and quite old. Often this is because getting Japanese nationality is part of their final retirement steps; they are thinking about children and inheritance.

I'm over 45 years old (married with kids), and of the American Men Who Naturalized and Are Boring Club, I'm the young one. Most of the men and women I know who fit the former U.S. Citizen but now with J-Nationality are not only married, but they often have fully-grown kids they raised in Japan who are also starting families and careers. In other words, they're grandparents!

A week of the annual data from 2013-Jan

Looking through an Official Gazette (官報 {kampō}), one can guesstimate the correlation between age and nationality of non-Asian applicants by examining the records by filtering out the 漢字 {kanji} (sinograms) names and just examining the birth dates of those whose the original (旧姓 {kyūsei}) transliterated to カタカナ {katakana} (Japanese syllabet) and not ; which is a semi-accurate (because the former nationalities are not listed) way distinguishing the Chinese & Koreans (金 {김}，朴 {리}，李 {박}，崔 {최} …), who are the largest groups, and everybody else. This won't remove the large group of southeast Asians who naturalize, but they are not as near as large a group. The average rounded age of the 仮名 {kana} (non-sinogram syllabet) sample was 33. The sinogram group was 28.

So despite what you read in the news, most naturalized people of English language descent, based on my experience, are quiet, mind their own business, and are generally content. They have lived in Japan for so long they can often measure it not just in decades, but quarters-of-centuries. For them, naturalization is part of the autumn years their life: retirement (and possibly inheritance), and enjoying their senior years in peace with no foreign status-of-residence (在留資格 {zairyū shikaku}) worries.