ABSTRACT
Heisei era saw drastic changes in immigration policy and a rapid increase in Japan's immigrant population. It began with the 1989 Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act that officially started labour migration in Japan and ended with its amendment in December 2018 formally admitting foreign manual labour. The population of foreign residents during this period tripled. Nonetheless, throughout the Heisei era, Japan's elite rejected the notion of immigration, and the immigration policy was cloaked in discourses about bringing in global human resources, internationalizing Japan, and technology transfer to developing countries. This chapter analyses Japan's immigrant population changes in the three decades and explains the policy development responsible for such changes. It argues that Japan's reluctance to embrace the discourse of immigration has to do with its adherence to an ethno-nationalist identity, which consequently prevents it from taking action to adapt its institutions to the emerging immigration reality. The chapter concludes by proposing that it is time for Japan to envision itself as inclusive and diverse and a society that is not based on an ethno-nationalist identity.
