How Is Multiculturalism Americanized and Japanized?

The idea of “multiculturalism” has spread globally and impacted on the ways of being “nation-state” since the 1970s when Canada and Australia enacted the official policies of multiculturalism. The United States is one of the earliest adaptors of the idea to redefine its legacies of cultural diversity in the 1980s. Japan, one of the “weak” states in the strength of multiculturalism policies, modified it to a vision of “multicultural coexistence (tabunka kyosei)” for incorporating foreign residents in the 2000s. This paper compares how to accommodate multiculturalism as an image of national society in United States and Japan in entangled three layers: community legacies, national discourses, and global values. Both countries have had historical legacies to incorporate minorities at the level of the local communities. Related to the legacies, national discourses redefine the relationship between multiculturalism and nationalism although the opponents usually attempt to define it as a threat to the nation. The national modifications also depend on what extent people perceive it as a global value. The interconnection of the layers explains how multiculturalism has or has not become a part of the national image. The USA’s liberal modifications help to implant a multicultural ethic on its national image while Japan’s transnationalist interpretations fail to nationalize it. Based on analysis of governmental reports, public polls, and reactions from local communities and minorities, I will discuss the ways in which USA and Japan establish two versions of multiculturalism to adapt it in the different socio-cultural contexts in the era of global migration of idea.