英米　１年
It’s interesting for me to listen to their stories. There are a lot of problems about diversity. I’m a quarter. My father is the second and my mother is the second or third generation. They were born in China and then moved to Japan. They have a nationality of Japan. I was born and grew up in Japan. I have a nationality of Japan, too, but I sometimes get confused about my race. One of my relatives wanted to be a police officer, but she couldn’t be a police because her mother comes from China. I think that I’m going to face racial problems someday. We have to solve this problem.

英米　２年
Thank you for your presentations. Recently I have had a lot of opportunities to think about “diversity” and immigrants, but your presentations were so helpful for me to think about it again. I’m not a foreigner, and I cannot become a foreigner, either. I may not be able to visualize everything from your side (maybe). However, I feel the same thing as you. I feel very angry about the people who see foreigners as opponents (or things like that). These days, I saw some foreigners and they spoke their language on the train, but a Japanese man looked at them dubiously. I think this is because Japanese don’t speak English, and what’s worse, they aren’t willing to communicate with foreigners. Stubborn politicians are the same! Here’s a crazy island Japan but I’m really honored to know the facts and to communicate with foreigners.

英米　２年
I learned Japan is one of the homogeneous countries today, and I was shocked that 6 million laborers’ workforce will disappear by 2025. To cover their work, Japan has to ask for a workforce from other countries, so Japan needs to accept immigrants soon. However, I was also surprised that immigrants have lower average levels of happiness in diverse cities compared to homogeneous cities. To get over this problem, the government should prepare more laws, insurance, or services for immigrants. Furthermore, understanding the other cultures and each other is very important to relieve their stress. Of course, protecting my own culture is important, but knowing other’s culture is also significant.

フランス　１年
I researched about hate speech and hate crimes when I was a high school student. Hate speeches against Chinese and Korean remain even now. Also speech against Korea is more serious than when I wrote the paper because of historical problems. It is very difficult to solve them because the problems have lasted such a long time. However, as Ms. Makino said, it is a very big problem for second-generation Japanese, and Korean, Chinese, and other countries’ people who live in Japan. We will have to accept those people because of the aging society with fewer children. We have to think deeply about this serious problem, and know their culture, and prepare to accept them.

国際関係　１年
Thank you for both your presentations. Thanks to that, I can understand the current circumstances of multiculturalism in Japan and get a hint to tackle these problems. Actually, the demand for foreign people in our workforce will keep increasing until the government make plans for population growth. So, the skills to cooperate with foreigners are very important, especially for our student generations. On the other hand, the plan to get foreigners into Japan as a workforce maintains the workforce shortage problems in Japan. Then, the balance between foreigners’ support system and population growth programs are very difficult, and perhaps in the future, both will crash into each other. Therefore, I think we have to tackle with both problems at the same time to make a good environment and world for every person.

国際関係　４年
Two years ago, I had a relationship with technical interns in Aichi. I saw the young trainee studied hard and tried to understand Japanese people and Japanese society. So, I’m sad to hear some foreign workers are treated badly in their place of work. It is important to make comfortable situations for them. I think Japanese people should know the facts and problems regarding interns. Moreover, we should think about these issues and have own opinions.

社会福祉　２年
The government in Japan introduced a new system so that we accept many foreign workers because of the population and workers in Japan are decreasing. So, we should live with foreign people in the future. But we don’t think about foreign people, for example, thought, identity, life. Foreign children who are bullied because of differences of race or culture. We should consider them, and it is important to think that we are helped in our society by them. I feel that I want to try to communicate with them and cooperate with them.

留学生
Today’s lecture was about diversity in Japan and the future of Japan. As a student from abroad, this is very relatable. There was a focus on the decreasing population and the large effect this will have on the economy. The counter argument is about culture, homogenous populations and how to deal with foreigners without losing the identity of the Japanese. My personal opinion is that Japan should open its borders but make clear rules and have strict punishments for those that do not adjust. As for cultural differences, more Japanese people should focus on how similar they are to other peoples because they are not as unique as they think, and all the recent success and technological advancements are not Japanese-made. It’s as if they want to return to wearing wooden shoes all the time. Obviously, no one does. If they accept things like that, then accepting other people shouldn’t be so hard.

留学生
The benefits and challenges of immigration are an important topic, especially in a country as culturally homogenous as Japan. I’d like to share two things that irritated me, though. Firstly, I think it is wrong, and to a degree counterproductive, to use the terms culture and nationality synonymously. This implies a homogeneity of people in a country that does not exist. Describing “the Japanese “ and “the[foreign country people]” steers away from the problem, which doesn’t lie on a national, but regional and interpersonal level. The second thing is the “happiness research” slide. It implies that these findings are the scientific consensus, which I find hard to believe. It seems to me that the study is one step too late, as most homogenous countries are, for whatever reason, economically stable ones. Without the need of foreign workers or refugees from neighboring countries, homogeneity seems to me more like a symptom than a reason for happiness.

留学生
This lecture got me reflecting about my own situation. Bring a foreigner in such homogeneous country in sometimes annoying, because, more often than I expected, I stand out in the crowd, people stare, I am clearly not a local, but I am here for one year, so it doesn’t affect me as much. However, those who do live in Japan but look Japanese, those who don’t blend in that easily, who are slightly out of the pattern, those people are on a somewhat mixed ground, identity crises, segregation, etc, are all current issues, whether they are caused by hostility from the host country/ culture or from a “group up” instinct on behalf of the foreign community.