Immigration Policy, Gender, Identity and Their Implications For Sub-Saharan Africans Living In Japan

Japan is a relatively new immigrant destination among advanced post-industrial nations. Despite increased immigration since the 1980s, Japanese immigration policy provides relatively few avenues to citizenship or permanent residence and even fewer accommodations for family reunification. Furthermore, Japan has experienced a prolonged internal debate concerning the effects of immigration on national identity and belonging. For the majority of migrants within Japan, the only way to regularize their status and legally remain in the host society is to marry a native-born Japanese citizen. Sub-Saharan Africans represent a novel migrant group to study in Japan because they are racially, ethnically, and culturally distinct from the majority-group (a “visible minority”) and their status as Africans is often denigrated within Japanese society. I use in-depth interviews and participant observations from a 12-month period in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area to interrogate how Sub-Saharan male migrants negotiate their status within Japanese society. The issues of greatest interest arising from the research are: the gendered nature of citizenship in Japan, strategies for asserting masculinity in perceived emasculating settings, priorities in partner selection, and negotiating cultural and gender differences in maintaining the family structure. I argue that marriage to a Japanese national is not only the primary mode for regularizing a migrant’s legal status, but the most essential avenue for providing invaluable access to social capital and social networks.