This Is the New Japan: Immigrants are Transforming a Once Insular Society
Newsweek International (Asia) September 11, 2006 [ This article appeared in Newsweek International (Asia) on September 11, 2006. This slightly revised version is posted at Japan Focus on November 8, 2006. It is being republished and slightly annotated here in accordance with Japan Focus' Creative Commons license . ] By Christian Caryl and Kashiwagi Akiko A few years ago, when Milton Minoru Takahashi first set out to improve conditions for Brazilian guest workers living in Nagoya, he thought he'd be telling Japanese about soccer, samba and Brazilian beaches. They were the sales hooks the Brazilian-Japanese Takahashi—who works for a nonprofit foundation that aids the 60,000 foreigners in Nagoya—thought could open locals' eyes to the beauties of Brazilian culture. But, he says, "the Japanese didn't want to hear about those things. They wanted to talk about noise and garbage"—problems allegedly caused by the Brazilian immigrants in their neighborhoods. ...