Quote:
Originally Posted by Wasabista
Nyororin, I was speaking about xenophobia rather than racism -- the two are related but not quite the same thing. That's why I compared the treatment of foreigners in Japan with that of foreigners in the United States. In this sense I think America's open immigration policy makes the distinction between locals and foreigners much less sharp than it is in Japan.
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You`re right with the point you`re making here, but in the former message you were very directly talking about relationships. Either way, when Japan is the topic, it`s VERY VERY hard to distinguish between xenophobia and racism as Japan is a pretty much homogeneous society. "Foreign" almost always equals "different race". Even with other Asians, unless from a very similar country in appearance (China, Korea, etc) it`s pretty obvious that they`re not Japanese. I think it`s very hard to make that sort of comparison to the US because it`s an immigrant country to begin with. "American" is not a specific appearance or background... In Japan, however, it is.
In the end, foreigners in Japan are a racial minority, and will pretty much always be so.