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Although Korea and Japan have had to confront rapidly declining working-age population projections, both countries kept their borders closed to unskilled workers from the mid-1980s to the early 2000s, and met labour demands through de facto guest worker programs and preferential policies for co-ethnic immigrants. However, by the mid-2000s, government officials could no longer turn a blind eye to the swelling ranks of immigrants within their borders and announced two contrasting proposals for immigrant incorporation: centralized rights-based legislation that targets specific immigrant groups in Korea and decentralized guidelines that prioritize community-based partnerships in Japan. Instead of resulting from deliberate decision making by either state to manage the permanent settlement of immigrants, I argue that these divergent approaches reflect grassroots movements that drew on existing strategies previously applied to incorporate historically marginalized groups in each society prior to the establishment of official incorporation programs. Migrant workers in Korea made significant inroads in gaining rights largely because of the strong tradition of labour and civil society activism in Korea's democratization movement. In Japan, grassroots movements led by generations of zainichi Koreans from the 1960s set the foundation for decentralized, community-based strategies for incorporating new immigrants from the late 1980s. Comparing two seemingly similar countries in East Asia, this article identifies patterns of interaction between new immigration and existing practices that have shaped relationships between dominant and minority communities and between state and non-state actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I outline different beliefs about assimilation, and show that these beliefs can influence attitudes toward immigration. Using data from a new national sample survey in Japan, I test whether and how beliefs about assimilation influence attitudes toward immigration. The results show two important conclusions. First, there is a large anti-immigrant sentiment in Japan. Second, after controlling for other known determinants of attitudes toward immigration, I find that those who are in favor of immigrant assimilation support higher levels of immigration, more immigrant equal rights, and have more accurate views about immigrant crime in Japan. This suggests that those favoring assimilation are not necessarily xenophobic in all cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Daejangchon, a village community of Japanese immigrants in colonial Korea, was unique in that it was built in rural area, unlike other Japanese communities in Korea which were typically built near cities. The large-scale development projects of the Japanese colonizers, such as Hosokawa Farm in Daejang-chon, transformed a small village into a modern "town." The radical changes brought to Daejangchon by development resulted in alienation from surrounding villages. The failure of Daejangchon to promote substantial growth for Korean peasants made clear the failure of naisen ittai (Japan and Korea as one body), the professed assimilation policy of Japan. The rapid decline of Daejangchon after liberation proved that the colonial development did not encourage substantial progress in conditions for local Koreans and was unwelcomed by the locals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1930s, an entrepreneurial class began to form within the overwhelmingly working-class Korean minority community in prewar Japan. This article examines how certain Koreans attained socioeconomic success and how they became assimilated into Japanese society in the process. As a case study, it focuses on the career of prewar Japan's most successful Korean entrepreneur-turned-politician, Park Chungŭm, to reveal how the internalization of Japanese values that came with success disconnected such individuals from the vast majority of Koreans residing in Japan, while offering them only a problematic sense of identification with the Japanese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines questions surrounding the assimilation and livelihoods of the Ainu in Japan in the early 20th century. Debates conducted in Hokkaido, Japan about the place of the Ainu people in the Japanese national community; Goal of Japan in the assimilation of the Ainu; Argument of Ainu activists regarding the effect of assimilation on their society.

The article presents post-pluralist understanding of religion from a Japanese perspective. In contrast to what John Hick sees in Birmingham, England and other places in the West where Christianity has long been the social and historical majority, the question was asked as "how should Christianity as an extreme minority maintain its distinctive character so as not to be assimilated into the sea of religions?" The religious majority of a society should indeed bear in mind its own overbearing presence, but the minority religion should also raise its voice to be heard, precisely for the sake of pluralism.