Rebuilding the life after disaster: The case studies of immigrant women in Tohoku

This study analyzes the process of rebuilding lives of the immigrants after the Great Japan Earthquake. The earthquake and subsequent tsunami caused huge damages to Japan, especially in the Pacific coast areas in Tohoku region and changed every part of lives for the people residing in the area. It affected not only Japanese nationals, but also the immigrants there.

Realizing multicultural conviviality has been recognized as one of the social issues in Japan, especially in metropolitan areas and industrial cities that have been more culturally diversified by incoming of the immigrants. However, Tohoku region, which has smaller number of immigrants, is lagging far behind in grappling with this issue. There, the female immigrants who married Japanese nationals characterize the immigrants’ composition of Tohoku region. They tended to be invisible because they reside dispersedly in different towns or rarely had their own organization (Lee 2011). However, the earthquake consequently urged some of the female immigrants to organize themselves, and this is the case for the female Filipino immigrants in Miyagi prefecture in Tohoku. Although the Filipino women initially organized themselves in order to support each other in receiving the aids, they are now in the attempt to rebuild their lives by themselves through gathering social resources. Utilizing the data of interviews and participant observation, this study demonstrates the process of forming the Filipino immigrants organization, and considers the possibility and constraints in their attempt to rebuild their lives in the social context of Tohoku after the disaster.