The Politics of International Marriage in Japan 9781978809055

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The Politics of International Marriage in Japan

The Politics of Marriage and Gender: Global Issues in Local Contexts Series Editor: Péter Berta The Politics of Marriage and Gender: Global Issues in Local Context series from Rutgers University Press fills a gap in research by examining the politics of marriage and related practices, ideologies, and interpretations, and addresses the key question of how the politics of marriage has affected social, cultural, and political processes, relations, and boundaries. The series looks at the complex relationships between the politics of marriage and gender, ethnic, national, religious, racial, and class identities, and analyzes how these relationships contribute to the development and management of social and political differences, inequalities, and conflicts. Joanne Payton, Honor and the Political Economy of Marriage: Violence against Women in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq Rama Srinivasan, Courting Desire: Litigating for Love in North India Hui Liu, Corinne Reczek, and Lindsey Wilkinson, eds., Marriage and Health: The Well-Being of Same-Sex Couples Sara Smith, Intimate Geopolitics: Love, Territory, and the Future on India’s Northern Threshold Rebecca Joubin, Mediating the Uprising: Narratives of Gender and Marriage in Syrian Television Drama Raksha Pande, Learning to Love: Arranged Marriages and the British Indian Diaspora Asha L. Abeyasekera, Making the Right Choice: Narratives of Marriage in Sri Lanka Natasha Carver, Marriage, Gender, and Refugee Migration: Spousal Relationships among Muslim Somalis in the United Kingdom Yafa Shanneik and Annelies Moors, eds., Global Dynamics of Shi‘a Marriages: Religion, Gender, and Belonging Anna-Maria Walter, Intimate Connections: Love and Marriage in Pakistan’s High Mountains Viktoriya Kim, Nelia G. Balgoa, and Beverley Anne Yamamoto, The Politics of International Marriage in Japan

The Politics of International Marriage in Japan

V I K T O R I YA K I M NEL I A   G. BA LG OA B E V E R L E Y A N N E YA M A M O T O

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW BRUNSWICK, CAMDEN, AND NEWARK, NEW JERSEY, AND LONDON

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Kim, Viktoriya, author. | Balgoa, Nelia G., author. | Yamamoto, Beverley, author. Title: The politics of international marriage in Japan / Viktoriya Kim, Nelia G. Balgoa, Beverley Anne Yamamoto. Description: New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, [2022] | Series: Politics of marriage and gender | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021010057 | ISBN 9781978809017 (paperback; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781978809024 (hardcover; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781978809031 (epub) | ISBN 9781978809048 (mobi) | ISBN 9781978809055 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Intercountry marriage—Japan. | Foreign spouses—Japan. | Interracial couples—Japan. | Japan—Social policy. Classification: LCC HQ1032 .K479 2022 | DDC 306.84/50952—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021010057 A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright © 2022 by Viktoriya Kim, Nelia G. Balgoa, and Beverley Anne Yamamoto All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. References to internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Rutgers University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. www.rutgersuniversitypress.org Manufactured in the United States of America

We dedicate this book to all couples in international marriages and their children. And to our mothers: Margarita Kim, Lilia Gayosa Balgoa, and Anne Evelyn Jillings for all their support and for allowing us to navigate our own spaces.

CON T EN T S

List of Illustrations

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Series Foreword by Péter Berta

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Introduction

1

1

Cross-Border Marriage Studies

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International Marriages, Past and Present

33

3

Spousal Choices

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The Politics of Love

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Spaces for Negotiation

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Choices and Constraints

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Raising Bilingual/Bicultural Children

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International Divorce

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Appendix: List of Research Participants

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Acknowledgments

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Notes

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References

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Index

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L I S T O F I L LU S T R AT I ONS

Figures I-1 Trends in Marriages and Divorces of International Couples 5

in Japan I.2 Trends in Marriages and Divorces in Japan

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I.3 Trends in International Marriage and Divorce in Japan, 1995–2019

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1.1. Hypergamy “Blocks” and Global Hypergamy

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3.1. Partner Choices in International Marriages in Japan

48 83

5.1. Four Household Patterns 7.1 Trends in Birth of Children in Japan, 1987–2019

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Tables 3.1. Characteristics of Spouses in International Marriages in Japan Based on the Marriage Patterns 3.2. Age of the Spouses in Different Categories 3.3. Age Difference in the Marriages in Different Categories

59 62 63 154

A.1. Research Participants

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SE R I E S F O R E WO R D

The politics of marriage (and divorce) is an often-used strategic tool in various social, cultural, economic, and political identity projects as well as in symbolic conflicts between ethnic, national, or religious communities. Despite having multiple strategic applicabilities, pervasiveness in everyday life, and huge significance in performing and managing identities, the politics of marriage is surprisingly underrepresented both in the international book publishing market and the social sciences. The Politics of Marriage and Gender: Global Issues in Local Contexts is a series from Rutgers University Press examining the politics of marriage as a phenomenon embedded into and intensely interacting with much broader social, cultural, economic, and political processes and practices such as globalization; transnationalization; international migration; human trafficking; vertical social mobility; the creation of symbolic boundaries between ethnic populations, nations, religious denominations, or classes; family formation; or struggles for women’s and children’s rights. The series primarily aims to analyze practices, ideologies, and interpretations related to the politics of marriage, and to outline the dynamics and diversity of relatedness—interplay and interdependence, for instance—between the politics of marriage and the broader processes and practices mentioned above. In other words, most books in the series devote special attention to how the politics of marriage and these processes and practices mutually shape and explain each other. The series concentrates on, among other things, the complex relationships between the politics of marriage and gender, ethnic, national, religious, racial, and class identities globally, and examines how these relationships contribute to the development and management of social, cultural, and political differences, inequalities, and conflicts. The series brings together books that provide thought-provoking critical perspectives that are well-balanced between a high degree of theoretical sophistication and empirical richness, and that cross or rethink disciplinary, methodological, or theoretical boundaries. The thematic scope of the series is intentionally left

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broad to encourage creative submissions that fit within the perspectives outlined above. Among the potential topics closely connected with the problem sensitivity of the series are “honor”-based violence; arranged (forced, child, etc.) marriage; transnational marriage markets, migration, and brokerage; intersections of marriage and religion/class/race; the politics of agency and power within marriage; reconfiguration of family: same-sex marriage/union; the politics of love, intimacy, and desire; marriage and multicultural families; the (religious, legal, etc.) politics of divorce; the causes, forms, and consequences of polygamy in contemporary societies; sport marriage; refusing marriage; and so forth. Through an in-depth investigation of the interplay between transnational, national, and regional trends and processes The Politics of International Marriage in Japan offers a path-breaking analysis of the main reasons for and consequences of international marriage migration in contemporary Japan, focusing especially on women coming from the former Soviet Union, from the Philippines, and from North America and Western Europe. The authors offer a nuanced interpretation of how state-level attitudes toward migration, marriage, family planning, and gender shape conjugal power relations of international couples living in Japan; how and why couples’ perceptions of (an ideal) marriage as well as of constraints and opportunities change during marriage; how couples use various ethnic, class, cultural, or gender identities and address various structural inequalities in continuous (re)negotiations of their marital relationships; and how the micropolitics of bilingualism and biculturalism work within international couples. Besides meticulously investigating not only the contemporary forms but also the historical roots of transnational marriage migration, the authors convincingly argue why this practice is a gendered phenomenon and highlight the complex web of factors and circumstances that can contribute to divorce among international couples living in Japan. Péter Berta University College London School of Slavonic and East European Studies

The Politics of International Marriage in Japan

Introduction

There was no [such term as] “international marriage” in my dictionary. I wanted to get married with my wife, I have never thought about marrying a Russian. [My] wife is a wife. (Keisuke, 40, Japan) When I got married to a Japanese, I see my own culture slowly disappearing right in front of me. I do not see it even in my children. (Mariel, 56, Philippines) Nobody asks him [my husband], why he got married with me, everybody understands the reason. They mostly ask me, why I married him. And I feel bad for my husband in this sense. (Aleksandra, 31, Russia)

This volume discusses the politics of international marriage in Japan, focusing on history, policies, processes, negotiations, and interactions at state, local, familial, and individual relationship levels. One might ask, Why study the politics of international marriage in Japan? To date, the majority of studies of international marriages have been scattered across different disciplines, undertheorized (Williams 2010; Charsley 2012b), and generally focused on a single ethnic group in a select geographic location. Because international marriages represent only a small number of migrants and family units in most countries, they tend to be overlooked by migration studies and family researchers, as well as by policy researchers, political scientists, economists, and sociologists. Moreover, the ambiguous position of marriage migration studies at the intersection of various disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, psychology and gender studies, makes it difficult to position international marriage 1

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studies within a single field. Thus far, the major contributions have been made by anthropologists, who focus on capturing context-specific experiences of being a marriage migrant. Although it is inevitable to be caught between disciplines when studying individuals who cross borders and enter into conjugal relationships with people from different countries and cultures, the goal of this volume is to construct a simplified model for theorizing cross-border marriage migration globally. We adopt a retrodict approach in introducing the most important features of international marriage migration, while addressing specific features and background of the receiving society (in our case, Japan). We highlight the complex interplay of national, cultural, and ethnic boundaries, as well as gender norms, that together construct international marriages in Japan at multiple levels. Given that international marriage migration in Japan is highly gendered, we focus mainly, but not exclusively, on women as the “foreign spouse” and consider three broadly defined cultural/ethnic groups for whom we have empirical data: women from the former Soviet Union (FSU) countries, women from the Philippines, and women as well as men from North America, Australia, and Western Europe. The main question raised in this volume is how wider state-level politics and policies toward marriage, migration, and gender affect interpersonal politics in the relationships of international couples living in Japan. The interview excerpts from individuals that begin this introduction show how three spouses from different ethnic groups emphasize similarities to their foreign marriage partners and downplay differences, seemingly only vaguely conscious of how underlying contexts and meaning can create different perceptions of their reality to those outside. While it is true that there is no essential difference among humans in general, our societies, cultures of origin, and residences affect our worldviews and interpretations. Thus, we consider what international marriage in Japan means, how it has developed historically, and how public and academic discourse affects and shapes the images of such couples. Some of the key questions we set out to address include: Who are the people entering international marriages in Japan? Why do they marry each other? What are their motivations? How can we explain the increase in international marriages in the 1980s and their decline from the beginning of the 2000s? We further explore the question of whether marriage migrants from the same cultural background and ethnicity have similar marriage experiences. What are the personal characteristics of couples? Who is likely to get married to foreigners and how do they meet their spouses? What are the experiences of wives and husbands in these marriages? What kinds of issues do international marriage couples face in terms of child rearing? Finally, what happens when conflicts lead to divorce? Overall, we discuss how sending and receiving states’ policies, socioeconomic conditions, and cultural factors affect couples’ attitudes toward marriage; how ethnic identity intersects with gender in the process of negotiating power

I N T RO D U CT I O N

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relations among couples; and the roles that states and structural inequalities play in these processes.

What Is International Marriage? There are a variety of terms used to describe couples that include a spouse from a different national or ethnic group. In general, marriages between individuals with different sociodemographic characteristics, such as class, race, ethnicity, religion, and nationality, are called “mixed marriages” or “intermarriages” (FresnozaFlot and Ricordeau 2017c; Kamoto 2008a). Mixed marriages/intermarriages are further subdivided into interethnic, interracial, interreligious/interfaith, intercultural, and international marriages. Moreover, international marriage is also characterized as cross-border marriage, meaning that one partner is not a national of the receiving country. Such marriages are also described as transnational, cross-national, cross-cultural, and binational. While all these terms have different connotations, we use the two that are widely used in academic literature: “cross-border marriage” and “international marriage.” Cross-border marriage migration is “migration that results, at least in part, from a contractual relationship between individuals with different national or residency statuses. . . . Cross-border marriage migrants may not physically move as a direct result of their marriage but their marriage will change their immigration status and grant them greater security, or at least official status, in their country of residence” (Williams 2010, 5). The concept “emphasizes the role of extrinsic structures and avoids the problematization of ethnic and cultural difference. It challenges the assumption that difference in heritage is necessarily more telling a difference than, for example, difference in class, interests or status” (Williams 2012, 24; emphasis original). By using this term we broaden the analysis of intermarriage couples beyond cultural differences to explore structural and political influences affecting their lives. In Japan the term kokusai kekkon, or “international marriage,” is used for the marriages we are studying. It refers not only to “the legal aspects of contracting a marriage” (Charsley 2012b, 19), but also to “marriages between individuals of different nationalities and ethnicities, which may be preceded or followed by the migration of one partner towards the country of residence of another. It suggests a dynamic interaction between nation-states with diverse migration, citizenship, and family policies shaping the family formation process of couples, their social lives, sense making, and strategies” (FresnozaFlot and Ricordeau 2017c, 4–5). Together, the terms “cross-border marriage” and “international marriage,” or kokusai kekkon, allow us to address historical and cultural backgrounds of spouses and their gendered socialization, as well as structural constraints, such as political regulations and migration regimes, that they face.

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International Marriage and Divorce Trends in Japan From the mid-1980s to the present, Japan has witnessed a dramatic increase in international marriages (figure I.1a), which was followed by a concomitant increase in international divorces (figure I.1b). First rural marriages and then an influx of female entertainers and so called “mail-order brides” from developing countries accounted for the increase. A gendered pattern of marriage migration also became evident. Between 1965 and 1970, the small number of international marriages was between Japanese women and foreign men, but later, especially after the mid-1980s, the number of marriages between Japanese men and foreign women increased dramatically (Piper 1997, 321). According to Japanese government statistics (E-Stat 2020d), there were 4,156 marriages to foreign citizens in Japan in 1965, which accounted for 0.44 percent of all marriages. By 2006, this figure had risen to 44,701, or 6.12 percent; it then decreased in the following years, falling to 20,976 by 2015 (3.3%), and then started slowly rising again, reaching 21,919 in 2019 (3.7% of all marriages). In 2019, 14,911 marriages involved a foreign bride, as compared with 7,008 in which the groom was non-Japanese. In 2006, at the time of the peak of international marriages between Japanese men and foreign women (35,993), the largest number of brides came from the Philippines 12,150 (33.8%), China 12,131 (33.7%) and Korea 6,041(16.8%).1 Although the number of international marriages decreased to 14,911  in 2019, women from China (4,723, or 31.7%), the Philippines (3,666, or 24.6%), and Korea (1,678, or 11.3%) still constituted the largest portion of foreign brides in Japan. At the same time, the number of marriages between Japanese women and foreign men in Japan has not fluctuated as much as the number of marriages between Japanese men and foreign women. Although marriages between a Japanese bride and foreign groom increased from the 1980s through the mid-2000s, they have declined since 2009. This trend can be explained by economic growth and increased migration to Japan, followed by the downturn of the Japanese and global economies after the 2008 economic crisis and a decrease in the number of foreign migrants. In 2006, most of the foreign grooms were Korean (2,335, or 26.81%), American (1,474, or 16.93%), and Chinese (1,084, or 12.45%). By 2019, the number of the marriages with foreign grooms decreased to 7,008, but the top countries were still Korea (1,764, or 25.2%), the United States (989, or 14.1%), and China (917, or 13.1%). The high number of Korean spouses for both Japanese husbands and wives can be attributed to the large population of ethnic Koreans who settled in the country in the first half of the twentieth century and who are usually referred to as “old comers.” Under the circumstances, it is debatable whether marriage between Koreans in this category and Japanese should be referred to as “international” from the point of view of ethnicity. The data also shows that Japanese women have a stronger tendency than their male counterparts to marry European and American men.

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FIGUR E I.1 Trends in Marriages and Divorces of International Couples in Japan

Source: Created by Kim based on the Portal Site of Official Statistics of Japan (E-Stat 2020a, E-Stat 2020d).

Several trends in international marriages can be observed (figure I.1a). First, the number of marriages grew rapidly between 1995 and 2006, but in the succeeding years there was a steady decline. The number of marriages in 2019 was less than half (21,919) of that in 2006 (44,701). These trends can be explained by the tightening of Japanese immigration policies related to the issuance of working visas for female “entertainers” from eastern European countries and the Philippines to work in hostess clubs and bars.2 Initially, the tightening of the “entertainment” visa appeared to lead to an increase in so-called paper marriages (marriages of convenience), where foreign women pay Japanese men significant sums of money to enter and remain in a marriage until permanent residence can be secured. Subsequently, it resulted in fewer women entering from these countries, and the international marriage rates declined and then stabilized. Directly related to the above trends is the rise in international divorce numbers, which grew from 7,716  in 1992 to a peak of 19,404  in 2009, and then declined to 10,647 in 2019 (figure I.1b). While the number of divorces between Japanese women and foreign men increased from 1,542 in 1992 to 3,834 in 2009, it later declined to 2,966 in 2019. In 2009, the nationality of divorced husbands

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FIGUR E I.2 Trends in Marriages and Divorces in Japan

Source: Created by Kim based on the Portal Site of Official Statistics of Japan (E-Stat 2020a, E-Stat 2020d).

were Korean (982, or 25.6%), Chinese (660, or 17.2%), and American (379, or 9.9%); 2019 saw the same trend: Korean (658, or 33.1%), Chinese (458, or 15.4%), and American (327, or 11%). In contrast, the number of divorces between Japanese men and foreign women increased rapidly from 6,174 in 1992 to a peak of 15,570 in 2009. It then declined to 7,681 in 2019. In 2009, the largest number of divorced wives were Chinese (5,814, or 37.3%), Filipina (4,714, or 30.3%), and Korean (2,681, or 17%); in 2019 the trend was the same: Chinese (2,678, or 34.5%), followed by Filipina (2,392, or 31.1%), and Korean (960, or 12.5%). The high number of divorces from 2005 to 2011 (figure I.1b) can be attributed to “paper marriages” (Liaw, Ochiai, and Ishikawa 2010), which, as previously mentioned, can be viewed as one of the strategies used by some women to obtain permanent residence status in Japan. These numbers stabilized when the entry of entertainers and potential entertainers was restricted; those regulations also explain why more female foreign spouses experienced divorce than did male foreign spouses. Among Japanese couples, there has been an almost 20 percent decline in the number of marriages since 2000 (figure I.2a); from 1995 to 2000, the number of divorces increased by 30  percent (figure I.2b), and then subsequently declined. Overall, the proportion of divorces to marriages in endogamous Japanese marriages has grown, and currently, for every three marrying couples there is one divorcing couple. In cases of international marriages (figure I.3), the number of divorces between Japanese wives and foreign husbands grew from 1992 (one divorce to every four marriages) to the highest in 2009 (one divorce to every

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FIGUR E I.3 Trends in International Marriage and Divorce in Japan

Source: Created by Kim based on the Portal Site of Official Statistics of Japan (E-Stat 2020a, E-Stat 2020d).

two marriages). On the other hand, the divorce rate for Japanese husbands married to foreign women was one divorce to every three marriages in 1992. The likelihood of divorce increased after 1992, with three divorces to every five marriages in 2009 at the highest. These statistics confirm the stereotype that there are more divorces in international marriages than in endogamous Japanese marriages. In addition, they show that there are more divorces between Japanese men and foreign women than there are between Japanese women and foreign men. It is worth noting that the rates of divorce are not distributed evenly across different national groups. Set against the general trend in the overall number of marriages in Japan, and despite their fluctuating numbers, international marriages remain a feature of Japanese society. Added to this is the gendered patterns that have emerged, which shifted from more Japanese women with non-Japanese husbands in the 1960s to a greater number of Japanese men marrying foreign women from the 1980s to the present. Yamamoto (2010) asserts that these trends foreground the motivations and marriage paths for both Japanese and non-Japanese spouses, which should be considered in light of the rigid gender roles and idealization of family in Japanese society.

Theoretical Perspectives: Key Terms This volume focuses on the politics of international marriage in Japan and intersections of different social and individual factors that affect spouses’ lives. For these reasons, our analysis involves governmental policies and definitions of

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international marriages implemented by the state; academic and public discourses that have constructed images of marriage migrants in Japan; social and educational as well as ethnic and racial characteristics of individuals that affect the power balance between spouses; individuals’ agency in the process of integration into the receiving community; and processes of negotiation inside the family and ability of individuals to take action within social constraints. Several theoretical perspectives are helpful in connecting our analytical categories to each other: agency and structure, gendered geographies of power, and the uchi (inside) versus soto (outside) dichotomy.

Agency and Structure Since the mid-2000s, a great deal of ethnographic and qualitative research on international marriage migration has focused on women’s agency, the patriarchal underpinnings of marriage, and uneven gender relations (Constable 2005b). Agency has to do with the “everyday agency of the subordinate in relation to the powerful (Asia to the West, minority ethnic groups to dominant national ethnicities, women to men, citizens to the state and individuals to the globalized economy)” (Parker 2005, 1). Studies of agency involve “attempts to hear the stories of the actors themselves” (Williams 2010, 35). Giddens (1979, 55) argues that agency or “action” “does not refer to a series of discrete acts combined together, but to a continuous flow of conduct” (emphasis original). It is also conceptualized as a “socio-culturally mediated capacity to act” (Ahearn 2001, 112); “the capacity and willingness of actors to take steps in relation to their social situation” (Goddard 2000, 3); and “an ability to project and act in the conditions of social constraints” (Burgess 2004, 234). The social constraints in this context are structural and include “the institutions, formal and informal, that control lives and shape opportunities” (Williams 2010, 42).3 These institutions are not necessarily oppressive or limiting. Structure “is not to be conceptualised as a barrier to action, but as essentially involved in its production” (Giddens 1979, 70; emphasis original). In other words, individuals act within constraints that organize, produce, and reproduce their interactions in time and space. However, as Williams (2010, 2) points out, If agency is the capacity to make free decisions about one’s own life, then no-one possesses truly unrestricted agency, unfettered by ethical, cultural or economic restraint, but by the same token, except those who are living in conditions of bondage, no-one is entirely without agency. Gender roles, imposed or adopted by individuals and communities, provide clear examples . . . of how community norms can restrict the agency of their members but, as with most structures, what restrains some, in fact, opens avenues of opportunity for others.

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Thus, rather than treating agency as an expression of free will or an ability to freely make decisions, we must focus on how existing constraints are perceived and how individuals, groups, and communities act in relation to them. Another question that arises with agency is whether it has to be explicit or implicit. Criticizing Western notions that measure power relations in terms of efficiency of actions, Parker (2005, 12) points out that “it might be that non-Western thinking registers agency according to quite different criteria and evaluates agency in quite different terms.” Furthermore, the understanding of agency as being effective only when it enables changes in society and in one’s life or the view of the relationship between structure and actor as being solely a matter of domination “denies possibilities for other forms of expressions of agency that might be based, for example, on relations of reciprocity”; also attributing agency “to those in position of relative power,” makes it “fail to address the possibilities of subalterns” (Nakamatsu 2005, 161). Nakamatsu proposes that we avoid viewing agency as a universal concept across all cultures, and instead, look at agents in relation to the cultural and social contexts in which they are situated. The agency may be “expressed in their [agents’] making of decisions that change their life course to their own advantage, in their efforts to realize that intent and in their taking of responsibility for their own decisions” (Nakamatsu 2005, 163). Similarly, Hay (2005, 38) argues that “agents are those who are motivated to act upon the world in particular ways, either within or against the social structures and traditions restricting their activity.” Accordingly, the personal life experiences and interests of individuals can be included in any analysis of the patterns of global migration; doing so thereby challenging universalist notions about women and men having an equal capacity to exercise agency or the opposite, that women are particularly submissive objects of their life circumstances, as well as the idea that all women have uniform experiences. Paying attention to agency also allows us to question dominant discourses that represent women globally. Thus, agency describes the capacity of an individual to act within social and structural (class, gender, ethnoracial, religious) constraints. It describes how people respond differently to their social locations: some may become agents of change; some might merely participate; some will resist; some will not. How people respond is partly dependent on levels of cognitive agency—the imagining, strategizing, and planning that go into their choices and decision making. These parameters are crucial to understanding agency in the context of international (marriage) migration to Japan because as migrants move between nations, they also adjust idealized notions of marriage and family, adapt to become effective agents and fulfil their desires, and develop multiple identities in the process.

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Gendered Geographies of Power Another underlying framework of this book, gendered geographies of power, was conceptualized by Mahler and Pessar (2001). This framework combines notions such as geographic scale, social location, and power geometry (discussed by Massey [1994]) in order “to see not only how people’s social locations affect their access to resources and mobility across transnational spaces but also their agency as initiators, refiners, and transformers of these conditions” (Mahler and Pessar 2001, 447). The term “geographies” captures the idea that “gender operates simultaneously on multiple spatial and social scales (e.g., the body, the family, the state) across transnational terrains. It is both within the context of particular scales as well as between and among them that gender ideologies and relations are reaffirmed, reconfigured, or both” (Mahler and Pessar 2001, 445; emphasis original). Furthermore, the social location of individuals plays a role in identifying what tools they have available to negotiate available choices and create strategies of action. Mahler and Pessar also point out that the multiple dimensions of identity, such as class, race, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality, and gender “shape, discipline, and position people and the ways they think and act” (Pessar and Mahler 2001, 446). The gendered geographies framework posits that geographical scales, social locations, and power geometries articulate how migrant men and women negotiate gender relations across national borders (Pessar and Mahler 2003) and how this negotiation interacts with other modes of identity. Mahler and Pessar (2001, 446) draw from Massey’s (1994) idea of “power geometry,” which is “that the particular conditions of modernity that have produced time-space compression, have also placed people in very distinct locations regarding access to and power over flows and interconnections between places. . . . People exert . . . power over these forces and processes as well as being affected by them.” While emphasizing that individual actions are constrained by broader power structures, Mahler and Pessar also argue for “people’s social agency,” which they identify as both “corporal and cognitive.” In other words, broader power structures constrain, but do not determine behavior or consciousness. This position is made theoretically possible by employing a notion of ‘multiple hierarchies of power operative within and across many terrains’ (Mahler and Pessar 2001, 447). This diffusion of power allows room for individual initiative to a greater or lesser degree. Insofar as the concept of agency in general allows us to identify individuals’ reasoning for taking or not taking certain actions in the process of navigating structural constraints, the concept of “corporal and cognitive” agency allows us to analyze spaces of negotiation created by individuals as they interact not only with each other, but also with the social structures and the state. It allows us to

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reflect on the possibility that the interconnectivity of a family created by an international marriage spans across geographical spaces and nation states and therefore straddles simultaneously at least two spheres of political, cultural and social ideologies. The gendered geographies of power and social agency frameworks also highlight transnational migration, an otherwise neglected area of scholarship, and allow us to use gender as an analytical tool to problematize human mobility in general and female migration in particular. They also focus our attention on the participation of state apparatuses and the role of the social imaginary in gendering of such transnational processes as international marriage and migration.

The Uchi/Soto Dichotomy For understanding international marriages in Japanese society, the uchi (inside) versus soto (outside) distinction is critical. We use it to introduce the underlying cultural notions within Japanese society that foreign and Japanese spouses encounter and articulate (explicitly or implicitly). The uchi/soto concept is related to situational interactions of Japanese people in their daily lives. In this sense uchi means “inside” or “internal,” as well as “self” or “in-group” (Nakane 1986; McVeigh 2014), while soto means “outside,” “external.” McVeigh (2014) elaborates on Lebra’s (1976) conceptualization and describes four patterns operating within the dichotomy, adding also the degree of visibility ura (side hidden from view) and omote (visible side): 1. Uchi-ura: This “describes being among family and friends in situations in which most people consider themselves equal so that rank loses importance (at least relatively)” (McVeigh 2014, 63). Under these circumstances, individuals may express their true opinions. 2. Soto-omote: In these situations, behavior is conditioned by the hierarchical positions of people, “language and posture are monitored, movement is regulated, and patterned activities are employed in order to erect walls between authority figures, non-kin, and strangers” (McVeigh 2014, 63). These situations are characterized by self-monitoring and self-disciplining. 3. Uchi-omote: This “is best understood as being in a group (uchi) or being oneself while facing outside (omote) toward other groups and institutions and putting on a show” (McVeigh 2014, 63). 4. Soto-ura: Here individuals are “free from the judgmental gaze of the unit/ group.” Thus, “soto-ura allows the discarding of practices of self-presentation (relatively speaking) while one is among strangers (soto). There is little need for impression management or building fronts” (McVeigh 2014, 63–64). The uchi/soto dichotomy is also used to identify spatial locations or experiences that “symbolize anything including social relations, linguistic forms, the

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flow of information, material objects, and bodily experiences, as well as psychological states” (McVeigh 2014, 115). Lie (2001, 148) argues that in interactions of Japanese with non-Japanese “the contrast between inside and outside is transposed to that between Japanese and others, thereby strengthening the boundary of Japaneseness. The fundamental belief that there is something distinct about being Japanese—that there is a significant barrier or boundary between Japanese and non-Japanese people—makes possible the diverse and proliferating discourses on being Japanese, or the discourse of Japaneseness.” Thus, while bearing in mind Kuwayama’s (2009) critique of the usage of Japanese words to define the particularity of Japanese culture, we use the uchi/soto concept to elucidate how Japanese people and their foreign spouses perceive and experience Japanese culture and public discourse on who Japanese people are and how they (should) act. Many studies (discussed in chapter 1) differentiate among various ethnic groups of foreign nationals in Japan, but Japanese spouses and their ideas and perceptions are rarely questioned. In contrast, we highlight the fact that “the Japanese” are not one unified group of people with similar attitudes toward marriage and gender/ethnoracial relations, but a diverse group with different life projects. The uchi/soto dichotomy will help us to identify some of the social pressures Japanese spouses experience and how they exercise (social) agency by marrying foreign nationals and organizing their lives differently from or similarly to what is expected from them by society. Fukuoka (2000) also raises a question of who can be defined or accepted as “a Japanese.” He provides three variables—lineage, culture, and nationality— as being essential to the concept of Japaneseness and shows that between “pure Japanese” and “pure foreigner.” Thus, there are (1) “pure Japanese,” with Japanese lineage, culture, and nationality; (2) first-generation Japanese migrants (emigrants from Japan); (3) Japanese raised abroad, including “returnee children” (kikoku shijo); (4) naturalized Japanese, or “residents in Japan” (Zainichi), such as Koreans who have internalized Japanese culture and hold Japanese nationality; (5) third-generation Japanese emigrants and war orphans abroad; (6) Zainichi Koreans with Japanese upbringing—those who internalized Japanese culture, but hold foreign nationality and have different ethnic lineage; (7) the Ainu; and (8) “pure non-Japanese,” which is “an image of unambiguous foreignness to place in mental counterpoint opposite the image of unambiguous Japaneseness with which most Japanese identify themselves” (Fukuoka 2000, xxxv). However, considering that this volume aims to discuss international marriages, we can add at least three more categories to the ones introduced by Fukuoka. These are (a) “pure Japanese” who do not conform to the dominant Japanese culture in that they marry foreign nationals and may or may not practice Japanese culture inside their household; (b) children born in international marriages, who consider themselves Japanese, but are seen differently by their

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society; or, children born in international marriages who are not raised in or do not conform to Japanese culture; and (c) spouses of Japanese nationals, who naturalize, acquire permanent residency status in Japan, learn and practice Japanese culture during their life in Japan, and so on. Thus, the uchi/soto dichotomy allows us to see Japanese and their foreign spouses and children in the context of Japanese society and to differentiate them based on their explicit or implicit attitudes toward dominant Japanese culture and the local communities they live in. It also allows us to investigate the reasons that drive Japanese to choose foreign partners and other aspects of their marital decision-making. Furthermore, this dichotomy affects not only Japanese spouses, but also foreign spouses and children in these marriages, along with the ways their households are organized and their interactions with the local community, with various ethnic groups, and with family and friends left behind. Therefore, we expand the idea of uchi/soto to involve foreign spouses’ perspectives, and consider how their families internalize the uchi/soto idea or detach themselves from it. Overall, The Politics of International Marriage in Japan aims to show the intersections of social and cultural constraints and how these are maneuvered and negotiated by Japanese nationals and their foreign spouses during their married lives in Japan. We introduce snapshots of different periods of couples’ lives to show the process of decision-making, actual actions and their consequences. This allows us to observe the changes in the environment and their lives, how the spouses justify their actions in retrospect, and the processes of evaluations of the choices they made. We observe how an individual’s free will is not necessarily negated by social structures, and how social structures are also a source for the actions. Gendered geographies of power allow us to see how different ethnic groups of foreign spouses might have similar or varied experiences, depending on their social locations, countries of origins, ethnoracial characteristics, as well as social and (embodied) cultural capital. And, finally, we hear voices of Japanese spouses (both males and females) and how their ideas of international marriages impact their unions.

Methodology This volume is a collective effort to capture international heterosexual marriage in Japan from the perspective of women from FSU countries and the Philippines and of women and men from Western countries. It is important to note that our sample does not include two other large groups of foreign spouses: South and North Korean and Chinese nationals.4 Thus our work does not reflect the experiences of all foreign spouses of Japanese nationals. The fieldwork and interviews were conducted by the authors separately from 2007 to 2012 and resulted in three datasets.

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Western Couples Dataset (Yamamoto) Overall, Yamamoto interviewed twelve couples (24 spouses and 11 children) from 2008 to 2011, with follow-up interviews conducted in later years.5 There were nine Japanese wife/foreign husband couples and three foreign wife/Japanese husband couples. The foreign spouses came from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. The semi-structured interviews lasted from one to two hours and included one or both spouses, depending on their preferences and language base. Likewise, some siblings were interviewed together and others separately. Contact was initially made through two junior high and high school counselors in the Kansai area of Japan,6 and a snowballing technique was used to broaden the scope of the dataset. The interviews were conducted mainly in the couples’ homes, unless an outside location, such as a coffee shop or workplace, was preferred. The children were also generally interviewed at home, but a school library and a coffee shop were also used. All the children were at the secondary school level, with most at the junior high school level for the initial interview. The interviews with the couples covered the background to the couples’ meeting, their decision to marry and live in Japan, the lifestyle strategies that they have adopted, and a broad range of relationship and intimacy issues, as well as educational and parenting issues. The interviews with the children focused on their identity, the influence of their dual backgrounds on how they were raised, the extent to which they met family members from both the Japanese and foreign parents, the ways in which cultural holidays and events were celebrated, and aspects of their school lives.

Former Soviet Union Dataset (Kim) The FSU data presented in this volume were collected by Kim from 2007 to 2011; additional interviews were conducted in later years through until today. The initial fieldwork involved interviews with forty-eight women from FSU countries, mainly Russia (29), Ukraine (9), Belarus (1), Kazakhstan (6), Uzbekistan (2), and Kyrgyzstan (1),7 who were married or had been married to Japanese men, as well as twenty Japanese men married or going to be married to women from the FSU. The FSU countries were chosen because of high emigration flows, including a large number of labor and marriage migrants. Although these countries have various political-economic, social, cultural, and ethnic structures, all participants had a common Russian language background. The participants from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus were mostly ethnic Slavs; those from Central Asian countries were Kazakhs (4), Kyrgyz (1), ethnic Koreans (3), and Tatars (1), who were born and raised in the Soviet Union. The majority of female participants, especially from Central Asian countries, came from urban areas, which were more affected by the Soviet and later Russian political and

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cultural views. In addition, all females participated in the study were born in the period from the 1970s until the mid-1980s and were thus raised in Sovietand Russian-influenced environments and education systems. Most of the participants were contacted through a Russian language internet community called “Yaponomama,” which was established in February 2005 by Russian women who lived in Japan.8 The community consisted of about 1,900–2,000 members who were Russian-speaking women from the FSU countries living in Japan. Most of the interviewed participants actively participated at one time or another in multiple discussions on the online forum and lived in the urban areas of Japan (mostly the Tokyo metropolitan area and Osaka prefecture) with their husbands (15 men). Furthermore, other Japanese male participants (5) were found by Kim through different internet forums and personal networks. The interviews were conducted in couples’ homes, where Kim was usually invited for lunch or for dinner. When she visited the Tokyo area to conduct interviews, most of the participants expected her to stay in their homes overnight. Therefore, she was able not only to discuss women’s lives with them, but also to observe their daily interactions with their husbands and children. The fieldwork involved in-depth interviews via telephone or Skype and in person. Data were also collected through participation in and observation of women’s communication in the internet community, at their gatherings, and at their homes. The interviews were semi-structured and covered topics such as their personal backgrounds, their reasons for marrying Japanese men, and problems they faced in their daily lives. Changes in couples’ lives after the first interview were also the subject of second interviews. All interviews with wives were conducted in Russian, which is Kim’s native language. The interviews with husbands were conducted in Japanese, in which Kim has professional-level competence. Interviews with fifteen wives were conducted once or twice with an interval of at least one year after the first interview.

Filipino Women Dataset (Balgoa) The data introduced in this book were gathered from ethnographic research conducted by Balgoa from 2007 to 2011 with a total of twenty-three Filipino wives who were married or used to be married to Japanese nationals and lived in the cities of Osaka and Nagoya at the time of the fieldwork. In contrast to Yamamoto and Kim, Balgoa approached her participants through a religious community: Roman Catholic churches in Japan. Participants were referred by acquaintances, and a snowballing technique was then used to generate more participants. The interviews lasted from forty-five to ninety minutes. In her interviews, Balgoa asked participants about their personal backgrounds, their entry pathways to Japan, their religious activities, their relationships with their husbands and children, and their cultural practices. The interviews were conducted in cafes and in churches. As some wives explained,

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they could not talk freely at home since they had to attend to their husbands and do household chores if they were at home. All participants professed that they asked permission from their husbands before agreeing to be interviewed. One respondent said that her Japanese husband gave his consent only upon learning that the interview would be conducted by a woman. Balgoa also conducted follow-up interviews in 2013 and in 2017–2018. As is clear, the points of entry into the migrant community for all researchers in this volume were limited to the available networks. Thus, it was possible for Yamamoto to get access to international couples and their mixed-heritage children due to her being a university professor specializing in educational issues, as well as a mother and a wife in an international marriage with a Japanese national. Kim was able to access a Russian-speaking community and women there due to her language skills and position as a female and a researcher in Japan. Balgoa was likewise able to access the Filipino community due to her position as a female, a researcher, a Filipino, and a Roman Catholic. Despite our efforts to vary our samples by approaching participants in different circumstances, a large proportion of the participants represent a so-called convenient sample. This also explains why, except for Yamamoto’s nine cases where the foreign spouses are men, all marriages in Kim’s and Balgoa’s datasets have women as the foreign spouse. Another limitation of this study is that it was conducted independently by each researcher; therefore, it was not always possible to draw comparisons due to differences in the available data. One unique feature of this research is that all authors were able to keep in touch with many of the participants to observe changes in their lives. In this sense, while we do not aim to provide a comparative analysis, we do attempt to provide a holistic picture of international marriages in Japan and how they change over time.

The Structure of the Book The chapters that follow are delineated and allocated based on the main focus of this volume, which analyzes the interplay of social and structural constraints and individuals in international marriages. We begin with an overview of the academic literature on international marriage globally and in Japan, identify current trends, and highlight the key ideas and approaches that informed our study. In chapter  2, we consider wider structural influences that have affected international marriages in Japan. Specifically, we provide a historical overview of what we know to date concerning the effects of Japanese migration politics before and after World War II on international marriage trends in Japan. The chapter offers an account of the effect of political, economic, and cultural factors on the choices made by Japanese who have entered international marriages. The

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chapter provides a historical periodization of contemporary international marriages in Japan based on the review of available secondary data.9 Chapter 3 addresses the question of who marries whom. In it we introduce the participants in the study and provide general information on their socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, as well as on their Japanese spouses. The focus of this chapter thereafter will be on relating migration trends, gender and other factors to the personal stories of participants. The chapter follows historical migration trends that led to marriages as well as focusing on issues related to gender, and it delves into how couples met and why they chose each other. Chapter 4 addresses one of the biggest questions in public and academic discourses: Do spouses in international marriage love each other? This chapter looks at how international marriages are constructed and influenced not only by individuals and their feelings for one another, but also by omnipresent forces such as migration regimes. In the process we consider how spouses of various nationalities expressed their feelings and interest in each other and whether there were rational calculations in their marital choices. In chapter 5, we begin by addressing individual issues that affect spouses and power balances within marriages by examining the internal and intimate dynamics of the family. We identify four types of household arrangements based on the uchi/soto divide and the gender arrangements that shape roles and duties. We address problems couples face in terms of differences in their backgrounds, languages, styles of communication, and how they resolve these differences. The chapter also considers broader factors that lead to domestic conflicts between couples and the question of how foreign spouses negotiate their position inside the family. Moving from the internal and private spaces of negotiation in chapter 5, chapter  6 highlights the public sphere and our participants’ public lives. It focuses on the settlement patterns of foreign spouses in Japan, the conditions that influence their life paths, the effect of their (embodied) cultural and social capital. We show how Western spouses’ experiences differ from those of FSU and Filipino wives, while also looking further into intersections of gender, nationality, and ethnicity. In chapter 7, we switch our focus from couples’ relationships to the bilingual and bicultural identities of their mixed-heritage children. Drawing on the interviews with FSU and Western couples about their ideas on educating their children in Japan, we also examine their geopolitical considerations in making decisions for their children, as well as how these decisions can be supported, reproduced, or undermined during the child’s socialization in Japan. Chapter 8 addresses marriage dissolution and its consequences. The rate of divorce among cross-border couples is higher than for endogamous Japanese couples. Our case studies highlight various reasons why this is the case. We provide an overview of separation and divorce procedures in Japan and discuss the

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difficulties international couples face in the process, including differences in divorce procedures depending on jurisdiction, attitudes toward divorce, alimony and child support, and child custody issues. Lastly, a few words of explanation about the book structure and the text of the volume. In order to make this volume more comprehensive, each author worked her assigned chapters, while other authors added their data (if such were available) and, when needed their perspectives. In addition, since each of the authors conducted interviews in different languages—Russian, Tagalog, English, and Japanese, there are slight discrepancies in interview data presentation. As for the Japanese language, as a general rule we have incorporated the Revised Hepburn system of Romanization of non-Western names, words, phrases, and titles, except for when the name is widely recognized and accepted (e.g. Tokyo, Osaka, and so forth). Participants of the study are referred to by first names (pseudonyms). All Japanese sources have been referred to by their Romanized versions of the original titles followed by an approximate English translation.

1 Cross-Border Marriage Studies

How does the politics of international marriage contribute to cross-border marriage discourse? In this chapter we analyze how previous studies have explained spouses’ attraction to each other, their motivations for marriage, power relations within these unions, and larger institutional and structural forces that impact them. We also outline the expected contribution of the current volume to this body of literature. There has been a considerable shift in the concerns and approaches of scholarship in this area. In particular, female (marriage) migrants are no longer considered to be “trailing migrants” as they once were. Another shift is that when discussing marriage migration, scholars pay attention not only to the positioning of the sending and receiving countries on a global scale, but also to the economic and social gains that accrue to migrants. In addition, because not all female marriage migrants are victims of human trafficking, scholars tend to avoid the “victim”/“perpetrator” dichotomy in favor of treating individuals as agents in their life projects within structural constraints created in the sending and receiving countries. It is also important to pay attention to the positioning of individuals in their sending countries and to the families they leave behind and thus to consider marriage migration in the context of transnational networks and spaces. Consideration of migrants’ class, gender, and ethno-racial characteristics, countries of origin, migration status, and positioning within receiving states is also critical. So too is attending to the migration policies of the receiving state, along with stereotypes that exist there, and how (marriage) migrants position themselves in such an environment. Study of marriage migration, however, has not been systematic. As Charsley (2012a, 4–5) points out, the “scholarship on transnational marriage is fragmented, covering a wide variety of practices and stemming from very different 19

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academic traditions which have led to several largely independent avenues of research.” Moreover, “This array of different approaches to a diverse social phenomenon has meant that the field of transnational marriage has remained conceptually under-developed.” Thus, we have edited volumes that provide information on a variety of experiences of marriage migrants worldwide (Constable 2005b; Yang and Lu 2010; Charsley 2012b; Fresnoza-Flot and Ricordeau 2017c; Piper and Roces 2003; Palriwala and Uberoi 2013). Most of the publications in the field of intermarriage look at a particular area or country (Faier 2009; Johnson 2007; Flemmen and Lotherington 2009; Charsley et al. 2020; Parreñas 2011); focus on various topics such as cultural issues, legal issues, arranged or mediated marriages, rural marriages, and so forth; and draw on experiences of a particular ethnicity, such as Russian, Taiwanese, Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese (Kelsky 2001; Thai 2008; Sandel 2015; Freeman 2011). These studies discuss cross-border marriage in terms of why these women and men choose each other; why they do not/cannot marry people from their own country; why they marry people from particular countries; how the couples meet; the kinds of issues they face in their marriages; how they organize their daily routines; and what they do when the marriage breaks down. They also approach these issues through a variety of social science perspectives and theories. Nonetheless, we see the possibilities for synthesis and further conceptual development of the field of cross-border marriage. Thus, we propose to interpret previous studies as though they were a montage of photographs, a variety of perspectives that shed light on particular aspects of people’s lives. We can extend the photography analogy to the camera to see how researchers have approached and analyzed couples’ lives in the environments where they—couples and possibly researchers—were situated. Moreover, we can understand the ways in which particular studies have framed a multidimensional world in an image, as if it were a photograph. Thus, in the following sections of this chapter, we look at sending and receiving societies as backgrounds for the photographs and examine individual spouses, their families, and local communities as their subjects. This approach allows us to analyze the contribution of individual studies and their theoretical perspectives. It also allows us to position this work within the landscape of international marriages in Japan and forward our own arguments as contributions to the scholarship in this particular field.

Landscape View: Global “Paradoxical” Hypergamy The first trend that we observe in the literature is a critique of the idea that people are economically motivated to move across borders and that the imbalances between the global North and global South result in a one-way flows of migrants. According to this narrative of global hypergamy, women are invested with a degree of agency as they use marriage as a strategy to “escape poverty.”

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At the same time, they are also reduced to the level of commodities, in some cases mail-order brides, who can be bought by powerful Western men. Thus, this narrative reinforces a gendered stereotype about women’s reasons for marriage in contrast to those of men and assumes that marriages between a man from a wealthy country and a woman from a poorer country necessarily involve upward mobility for the woman. However, more recent scholarship on cross-border marriage migration has moved from such a simplistic understanding of the drivers and dynamics of this kind of family formation to critically examine various aspects of female marriage migrants’ family relationships, their relationship with host communities and the wider society. Here, the ideas of global “paradoxical” hypergamy (Constable 2005b) and of hypergamy “blocks” (Kamoto 2008b) are helpful. Paradoxical hypergamy refers to the idea that moving to a richer country for marriage may improve relative economic position, but not necessarily result in achieving a higher social status. Evaluating hypergamy alerts us to the complexity of cross-border marriages and the need to go beyond stereotypes. In the hypergamy discourse, differences in the income levels of the sending and receiving states overshadow the qualifications and social position of (marriage) migrants both before and after they move. We compare these social locations as we would two photographs with the same central subject framed by two different backgrounds (landscape)—the sending and receiving countries. Such a comparison allows us to see not only the current photograph of the subject, but also a photograph of the same subject from a different perspective. From this, we can understand how the positioning of the subject in each photo highlights and contrasts individual qualities, as well as how the subject itself contributes to the background—the receiving or sending societies. As such, we can take studies focusing on paradoxical hypergamy and identify the stereotypes and assumptions that are visible in one photograph and compare these to the landscape of another photograph, the sending country. This model provides researchers with tools to analyze not only the (assumed) gains, but also any losses that marriage migrants may experience. While this model appears to be more reactive in the sense that researchers draw on people’s backgrounds to respond to the stereotypes and views from outside of academia, it is also innovative in showing another side of the (marriage) migrants’ stories— how they are positioned within their home countries. Global hypergamy is “global in the sense that it involves men and women from different regions of the world. It can be considered hypergamous—building on the conventional anthropological definition of ‘hypergamy’ as women marrying ‘up’ into a higher socioeconomic group—if we conceive of ‘up’ as referring to a hierarchy or a chain of geographical locations” (Constable 2005a, 10). In other words, we ignore the individual characteristics of the couple and focus only on the relative positions in a global hierarchy of the countries they come from. The concept of global or spatial hypergamy, in this rendering, does not mean that women

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from lower-income countries marrying men from higher-income countries are less educated or situated lower in the social hierarchy when compared to their spouse. It is “paradoxical,” since “migrants may find that their economic position and opportunities have improved after migrating to a richer country while their social positions in the receiving society and in the husbands’ kin groups are lower than the ones they had prior to migration in their sending society” (Lu and Yang 2010, 17). Patterns of marital mobility entail analysis of nationality/ethnicity, gender and economic class. To assume that when brides from poorer countries move and marry men from richer countries, their movement is “simply upward is to overlook the contradictory and paradoxical social and economic patterns that are not necessarily linked to geographic mobility” (Constable 2005a, 10). Other reasons for women’s migration, apart from economic ones, can involve a desire for adventure or to escape family confines or a failed relationship back home (Piper and Roces 2003, 11). After migrating, some women count love among the factors that motivate them to marry (Faier 2007; Reyes 2017). Others seek husbands abroad not because they prefer to live abroad, but because of local constraints on their marriage opportunities. These pragmatic considerations do not necessarily preclude love and nonmaterial forms of desire (Freeman 2005, 80). The assumption that women from developing countries who become crossborder brides to men from “developed” countries do so as a strategy to gain citizenship and upward social mobility, “begs the question of how, for whom and in what sense such marriages represent upward mobility” (Constable 2005b, 10). Another way to conceive of cross-border marriages is in terms of hypergamy “blocks” (Kamoto 2008b). These structural “blocks” define people’s positions in the local marriage markets and their attractiveness to different groups of potential partners. Considering gender, class, and labor as factors in the marriage market and applying the model to Japanese society, Kamoto shows in figure 1.1 that professional men with stable incomes (top left box) are able to secure female partners from all groups of local women across different social strata of their home country. In contrast, men who do not have stable incomes drop out from the marriage market (bottom left box). At the same time, independent professional women (top right box) are less attractive insofar as they defy gender norms and are thus left with a limited pool of potential partners. In Japan, these women may not be attractive to men from the same educational and professional backgrounds who seek partners less educated than themselves. Even if they are attractive to such men, they must compete with women from all social positions. As it is harder for these women to find partners from among their similarly educated peers, another possibility is finding a partner overseas. However, many other countries display a similar marriage market logic, where more desirable men have a larger pool of eligible partners from different social backgrounds. Consequently, men who are seen to be less desirable by local women due to their low socioeconomic status and women who are considered less desirable to local

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FIGUR E 1.1 Hypergamy “Blocks” and Global Hypergamy

Source: Kamoto 2008b, translated by Kim. a. The term makeh inu is used to refer to unmarried women (with no children) over the age of thirty. b. The term “parasite singles,” coined by Yamada (1999), refers to women and men in their thirties who prefer to live with their parents, instead of becoming independent. However, this term was later contested by Genda (2006) and discussed in line with the concept of the “boomerang effect” in family sociology, which argues that the contemporary volatile job market, low salaries, high prices, and other economic insecurities lead many young adults to return home and live with their parents.

men due to their (assumed) high socioeconomic status tend to turn to foreign partners. Furthermore, less “desirable” or “marriageable” men from more developed countries have higher chances marrying foreign women from less developed countries, but from higher social positions in those countries. The increasing number of women crossing borders to find or secure work or for marriage has tipped the migration gender balance. It has resulted in the phenomenon referred to as the “feminization” of migration. International marriage is both a cause and outcome of the feminization of migration. Whereas female migrants were often considered and/or portrayed as “gold-diggers” seeking to secure marriage with men from developed countries to gain higher social and economic status, the perspectives described above allow us to pay attention to both the geopolitical positioning of bride’s country in relation to the

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groom and the socioeconomic status of the groom and bride in their respective countries. Such an analysis of hypergamy allows us to move away from the assumed poverty and passivity of female marriage migrants and treat them as decision-makers and builders of their own lives. While the concepts of global paradoxical hypergamy and hypergamy blocks provide us with broader perspectives on individuals’ socioeconomic positions within their sending and receiving societies, we also need to look more closely at their individual motivations.

Long Exposure Photographs: Motivations for Marriage and Their Impacts While the idea of hypergamy and oversimplified explanations of cross-border marriages in terms of economic factors have been criticized, the question of why these unions happen remains unanswered. To address this question, a great deal of the recent ethnographic and qualitative research on international marriage migration has been focusing on women’s agency, the patriarchal underpinnings of marriage, and uneven gender relations (Constable 2005b). Accordingly, these studies of cross-border marriage put the emphasis on interconnectedness between sending and receiving countries, as well as on the individual spouses as they are affected by their environment. Drawing upon the photography analogy again, we can think about long exposure photography, which blurs moving elements—people and events—while making static elements—the sending and receiving societies—clear. With such a comparison, we see how the background of the photo is enhanced, while particular features of the moving objects are blurred, as well as how individual qualities and details of the objects either contrast or merge with the background. The long exposure perspective allows us to evaluate how the static background of the photo influences the way in which the object appears to us. In terms of studies on crossborder marriages, the long exposure effect appears in the emphasis on the socialization process of individual spouses, as well as on their motivations and aspirations and how these are affected by their home environments. In this scenario, the positioning of the individual spouse is not decided by the photographer (i.e., the researcher) based on an inductive theoretical logic, but instead there is an attempt to understand through deductive reasoning the subjects’ motives for the choices that are made. As such, the photographer looks to understand the agency being exercised by each spouse against a background of political, economic, social, and cultural constraints. At the same time, however, in reviewing patterns of marriage migration on the global scale, Williams (2012, 29) points to the difficulty of assessing people’s motivations: “Life course decisions, such as to marry or to migrate, evolve gradually over time and the inevitable complexity of factors for and against choices (such as aspiration, personality, loyalty and duty to dependents and to homeland)

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make it unlikely that a clear and definitive articulation of motivation for marriage choices would be possible or useful.” This hints at the difficulty of clear-cut explanations of why cross-border marriages happen because ideas and decisions are intertwined in a complex way. Studies that look at the moving subjects of the photo show marriage migrants’ starting points (sending country) and direction points (receiving country). For instance, Suzuki (2003a) points out that transnational marriage between Filipinas and Japanese men does not start at the point of female labor or marriage migration; rather, there are multiple precursors in both societies: “People, while not free individuals, are subjects and agents of their own lives who are simultaneously variously embedded, in dense webs of local as well as transnational political economic, social and cultural disciplines in the Philippines and Japan” (Suzuki 2003a, 344). There is also another side of the story—Japanese men, who are embedded in their social environment, where endogamous Japanese marriage is a standard, while Filipina-Japanese marriages deviate from this standard and for some actors around the couple, the Japanese spouse may be seen as having “married down” due to the Philippines being a less affluent country than Japan. The focus on the pressures Filipino women and Japanese men face in the process of their socialization and in terms of the capitalist labor relationships in their societies represent the static background of the photo. These eventually impact the intimate relations between Japanese husbands and Filipino wives, as well as the wives’ families in the Philippines. Thus, we observe the shift in the research literature to a more nuanced understanding of the complex push and pull factors, as well as the intricate web of social, economic, and cultural relations, that are macro and micro, that need to be factored in if we are going to understand trends in international marriage and the motivations of individual couples in such marriages. Another example of a long exposure approach is a study of Russian women’s migration experiences, their marriages with Japanese men, and the ways they craft their lives in Japan (Golovina 2017). Women’s lives in Russia appear to be in “a state of stagnation or confusion” (Golovina 2017, 50), yet these situations are also temporary, due to women’s active agency or life-crafting elements (Debnár 2018). Russian women are represented as carrying the dual burden of work and family and having to negotiate their place in the global capitalist scheme. According to Golovina (2017), they tend to look at their lives in terms of hardships and fatigue and compare their reality with an imaginary life without hardships, which is represented by marriage and family. Migration to Japan and marriage to a Japanese man offers the hope of a life with fewer struggles. While it may represent upward mobility in terms of a global hierarchy and the chance for a more secure economic life, this is not how the women framed their decisions. Instead, it was about having time to enjoy family life. There is a double, long exposure effect in this example. One is the fact of movement from one

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country to another. The other, is the movement from the hectic and hard life of surviving in post-Soviet Russia, to a quiet settled household life in Japan. This study also focuses on the existing structural constraints that women experience before and after coming to Japan. Thus, the long-exposure photos have a tendency to be directed toward the static background of the photo, within which subjects are able to act. Moreover, the positions of individuals might be dictated by the environment (background) of the photo. As we compare the moving images of the individuals with the static background, we realize that they might look very different in reality, but be depicted as blurred in the shot. For this reason, one critique of this model is that the external forces, the static background, strongly affect individuals to the point that they become oblivious to other feasible choices, which eventually (negatively) affect their private lives. Moreover, there is a high degree of inflexibility and persistence on the structural level that eventually drive women and men who appear in abovementioned studies to make less favorable choices, such as running away for women and intimate partner violence or stressful behavior for men. Despite this, these studies have contributed to the stock of knowledge about international marriages and allowed us to look at individual spouses beyond the political and socioeconomic disparities of their countries.

Portraiture: “Ethno-Racial Olympic Games”? The focus on race and ethnicity in some studies allows for observations about why particular groups of (marriage) migrants settle or integrate in receiving countries more easily or better than other groups, as well as considerations of how stereotypes affect couples and the communities they live in. These types of studies can be compared with portrait photography, which focuses on individual details and features of the subject. The focus on ethnoracial characteristics of spouses becomes particularly important in the analysis of power balance inside and outside couples’ homes, even as an overemphasis on these characteristics might lead to omissions in understanding other social factors. Mixed (exogamous) marriages in sociological studies tend to be explained by the following factors: (1) weakening social ties and a decrease in pressure for endogamous marriages; (2) demographic issues, such as an imbalance between male and female’s populations in sending and receiving countries; (3) physical and social proximity, which leads to increasing encounters with foreigners; and (4) an attraction to those perceived to be different racially and/or ethnically (Takeshita 2001). While this logic is applicable to all types of intermarriages, Williams (2012, 29) points out that, “groups considered culturally compatible are rarely subjected to the same sort of scrutiny that marriages between racial groups or between groups identified as ‘different’ face.” If we look at academic studies of (marriage) migration to Japan and globally, we can trace such trends

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addressing ethnic/racial stereotypes related to particular groups of people; comparing how well some ethnic groups do over others; as well as referring to and identifying different groups of migrants in different terms by researchers. This comparison overgeneralizes and creates stereotypical views of ethnic groups and places individuals into (perceived) advantageous/disadvantageous positions. Accordingly, “images of Asian women in Japan [Southeast Asian women in particular] are dominated by negative representations of entertainers and sex workers. Public discourse has dealt almost exclusively with their presence in terms of problems experienced as hostesses, prostitutes, or nōson hanayome-san (Asian brides of Japanese farmers). They are hardly ever portrayed as the ordinary wives of Japanese citizens—a role in which they might have much in common with Japanese wives” (Piper 1997, 322). Saihanjuna (2011) points out that there is even a hierarchy of foreign wives in Japanese academic literature based on their country of origin, race/ethnicity, and language. For instance, female marriage migrants tend to be called by different Japanese terms: Western women are tsuma (wives), independent and powerful in negotiations, and Asian women are hanayome (brides), who are expected to assimilate into and accept their new social environment. This different treatment of Western wives as equals and Asian brides as those who need to be educated is the result of the historical positioning of Japan with respect to the West and other Asian countries. As such, this positioning can be seen through the lens of colonialism, “underlying this is a Japanese sense of superiority, itself rooted in Japan’s history as an aggressive colonizing Asian power” (Piper 1997, 332). On the other hand, “spatial and class locations of privileged migrants were further associated (tacitly or implicitly) with whites symbolizing the racial character of the global power hierarchy” (Debnár 2016, 6). Therefore, it is also important to problematize the perceived privileged “winners” status of white migrants in the global migration arena. The perception that there is a competition among migrants in a global hierarchy based on ethnic and racial characteristics resulted in FitzGerald (2015) naming it an ethnoracial Olympic Games. “It is not simply that individuals and groups at the same time and place are perceived to be in competition, which may objectively be the case in some contexts, but that people separated by a century of history [of transatlantic migration] or more are categorized and analyzed as if they were contending with each other” (FitzGerald 2015, 116). Moreover, the emphasis on ethnic similarities diminishes individuals’ social signifiers to simply their ethnic heritage. Thus, “over-emphasizing distinctions based on ethnicity or culture means that other factors that may connect people, such as class, profession, interest, experience, belief, are relegated to being of lesser importance” (Williams 2010, 57). If we view international marriage as a competitive field between prospective spouses, then an additional element can be brought into the picture. One argument is that Western husbands are regarded as desirable because they are more

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“modern” and open-minded than Japanese husbands. At the same time, the attraction of Asian wives may lie in the assumption that they will be “traditional” wives focusing on their reproductive functions from a position of passivity and subservience. Nevertheless, other researchers have pointed to the complexity even in this field of competition. Robinson (2007) argues that since globalization shrinks time and space, the movement of one group of people leads to a complication of the normal lines of power on the basis of geography and gender. For example, by marrying Filipino women with English language skills, Japanese husbands without such skills could find themselves placed in a weaker position, since the language abilities of their wives bring an imagined “America” into their houses. Also, Nitta (1992) observes that wives who are native or advanced speakers of English might speak English with children inside the home, which distorts the power balance between spouses, as knowledge of English language is presented as a relatively more valuable asset. Additionally, Kim (2013a) argues that having a Russian wife is a symbol of economic achievement for some Japanese men. However, it is not the same for women who are from non-English speaking countries and are situated in the lower levels of the pyramid (Kuwayama 1995). Moreover, Asian women who live in the Japanese countryside are further marginalized not only based on their gender and ethnicity, but also by their living environment, given the countryside’s low position in relation to the city (Saihanjuna 2011). By paying attention to ethnoracial stereotypes, especially those that lead to positive expectations on the part of the prospective spouse, we have another set of tools to understand attraction between different groups. It should also alert us to the possibility that expectations based on ethnoracial stereotypes may later prove to be problematic if they are not met. While there are not many studies that specifically focus on ethnic/racial attributes of marriage migrants in Japan, foreign spouses’ ethnicity and race play an important role in the settlement processes and relationship within and outside their family. We will return to the importance of ethnicity and race in cross-border marriages later in the book by discussing the experiences of our participants.

Aerial Views: “Formal Citizenship” versus “Private Citizenship” Studies in this group are focused on analyzing particular geographic areas and/ or marriage migrant groups, addressing the impact of the local environments and marriage migrants’ response to these. We compare this group of studies with aerial photography, since these tend to zoom out and analyze the actions of the agents in relation to the structure of the receiving society and to make a clear distinction between the private and public spheres. As such, these can be seen only from the outside, top-down perspective. The studies in this group tend to focus on the receiving country’s social environment. They consider a complex set of factors affecting women and men in the local society.

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This group of studies also explains particular actions of spouses that might look irrational or unreasonable to outside observers and brings to light the impact the sending and receiving societies have on them. Thus, there is a tendency to juxtapose formal citizenship with the so-called private forms of citizenship. While formal citizenship provides its holders with full rights, privileges, and obligations (Stewart 1995), private citizenship exists in different forms and is affected by the roles—sexual, cultural, and marital—fulfilled by migrants in the receiving society. Filipina entertainers’ and marriage migrants’ experiences in Japan are discussed from the “sexual citizens” perspective “to underscore sex as a primary condition of their belonging but also to acknowledge that their citizenship, that is, their terms of belonging in Japanese society, involves sexual relations with Japanese citizens” (Parrenas 2011, 179). Such a perspective allows us to go through the questions of moral choices in the lives of Filipina entertainers in Japan and their subsequent relationships and marriages with Japanese men. The moral values of every individual participant in these relationships dictated the choices they made: those who married for love only, those who married for visa with no love, and those who married a man for whom had some feelings and for a visa. “Marriage, resulting in the promise of permanent residency status and greater economic opportunities, bars the separation of economic rationalism from feelings of love. Indeed, in different gradations, Filipina migrant hostesses pursue marriage with Japanese men for a combination of love and material security” (Parreñas 2011, 181).1 Another example of private citizenship is the “cultural citizenship” of Filipina-Japanese marriages in rural Japan examined by Faier (2009). Cultural citizenship is “a dissident form of citizenship that refuses incarceration [sic] to a specific geographical, cultural, and linguistic space,” but instead allows individuals to shuttle between linguistic and cultural landscapes “as it were by appropriating cultural and linguistic items and imbuing them with specific local meanings”(Manalansan 2003, 103). The analysis of cultural citizenship entails “examining space, class, family, religion, and other aspects of everyday living, . . . [by exposing] the usually hidden and highly nuanced processes of being, becoming, and belonging” (Manalansan 2003, 142). Researchers attempt to understand the complex reasoning and interpretation that Filipino women and Japanese men give to explain their international marriages. These explanations are further contextualized within the Japanese rural environment with its abundance of single men, lack of Japanese brides and strong discourse of Japaneseness. Needless to say, in the rural Japanese community, spouses’ perceptions are also influenced by the ideas of Japan as a developed and cosmopolitan country, and the Philippines as a poor country. Filipino brides on the other hand, are imagined by local citizens in the context of their politicaleconomic vulnerabilities as labor and marriage migrants. Women are expected to embody roles of good daughters to their families in the Philippines, while

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also performing roles of good brides and daughters-in-law (ii oyomesan) for their Japanese families and local community. Such women must thus compartmentalize their Filipina and Japanese-like identities in their daily lives, and those who succeeded in this are said to be “more Japanese than young Japanese women today” (Faier 2009, 156). A more familiar form of private citizenship is that of marital citizenship brought about as a result of a “legal status that is granted by a state to a migrant by virtue of his/her marriage to one of its citizens and that confers him/her rights, responsibilities and duties” (Fresnoza-Flot and Ricordeau 2017b, 10). Here, “marriage acts as an effective route to legal migration and as a key to access citizenship rights in the receiving country. . . . Another function of marriage is that it legitimizes the intimate relations of insider citizens with the so-called ‘others.’ It has become an obligatory rite of passage towards state recognition of such relationships” (Fresnoza-Flot and Ricordeau 2017a, 196–197). As it is clear from these studies, some “cross-border marriage migrants experience a loss of formal citizenship status and restrictions of their rights in their country of settlement. Their status as a spouse and a dependant is their defining characteristic in the eyes of the state and their rights as individuals are understood through their social status as wife, husband or partner” (Williams 2010, 5; emphasis original). Therefore, it is important to discuss the contrast between formal citizenship with the notion of private—sexual, cultural and marital—citizenship. A photo of the seashore can be used to explain the aerial photography analogy. If we look at the seashore from high above, we can see a line that separates the sea and the sand. These can represent different types of citizenship, where they overlap at some points, but are separated at other points. And, the most important point here is that these are used in contrast to each other, where one might be more powerful than the other.

Time-Lapse Photography: The Politics of International Marriages In time-lapse photography, many snapshots are combined to create a dynamic image that shows changes in the subjects’ positions and movements, which also affect and are affected by the changes in the background. If we look at a compilation of images of individuals in international marriages, we see that some subjects may have been originally overwhelmed by the structure of the environment around them, while later they gained sufficient agency to change their position in relation to this, sometimes with positive and sometimes negative implications. Time-lapse compositions also show different time frames within which the subjects are situated. What is important here is the balance and proportions of subjects in relation to the background at the starting, intermediate, and later points. Thus, we pick up where previous authors left off and continue to discuss the idea of changing individuals’ positions within local contexts. However, we

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also introduce the changes in the background resulting from the impact of time and (marriage) migrants. For instance, in chapter 2 we focus on historical attitudes toward international marriages in Japan, as well as the political and legal constructs that affect how individual spouses will be positioned in contemporary unions. In chapter 4, we discuss underlying global and Japanese migration discourses on love and show that how individuals understand their love is often less idealized or romantic than in those discourses. In chapter 6 we observe how some spouses changed their social positioning and the obstacles they had to overcome. Chapter 8 provides snapshots of international couples divorcing and subsequent effects, as well as how they maneuvered within structural constraints. Studying different groups of (marriage) migrants, their spouses and the community, as well as structural characteristics and existing constraints on and global positionings of the receiving country reflects the (changing) balance of the image. It makes it possible to respond to the questions of why spouses in international marriages face particular problems, what are the underlying qualities of the receiving state that cause these issues, and how these are balanced out by structural forces and individual agents’ actions. Thus, we put emphasis on the importance of localizing cross-border marriages in specific historical, political, socioeconomic and geographic contexts. We thereby shift the focus from the complex reasoning behind (marriage) migrants’ decision-making processes and pay more attention to the interplay between marriage migrants and the receiving states. In addition, we are able to emphasize the role of the state in defining and regulating couples’ lives.

Summary Marriage in general and international marriage in particular are very complicated matters, and there are multiple ways to approach and explain these complexities. As introduced in this chapter, there is already a significant body of research that has been conducted in the field of cross-border marriages globally and in Japan. From a historical perspective, we observe the shift from rather simplistic explanations of the phenomenon to more complicated analyses that question global hypergamy and introduce the idea of global paradoxical hypergamy. Thus researchers have become less concerned with women being pulled to the global North by the higher political, economic, and social status of its countries and its men or with women as being merely victims of circumstances. While questioning hypergamy was a good starting point for critiquing stereotypes about international marriage migration, with growing mobility and more diverse patterns of cross-border marriages, researchers are faced with understanding more complex patterns of pushes and pulls and more complicated individual stories.

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It seems now that the concern of studies from the mid-1980s onward was to pay increasing attention to the contexts around actors and to explore their understanding and explanations of the choices they have made both before and after marriage. The development of this new research trajectory coincided with the development of gender studies and was also influenced by sociologists and anthropologists, who started paying more attention to individuals’ agency and decision-making processes. Thus, we observed a growing number of studies introducing different groups of marriage migrants around the world by type, destination country, and country of origin. From that time on, there have been ongoing discussions of how different groups of marriage migrants view their lives as compared with how they might appear to outsiders. Of course, what is going on inside international marriages has always been a central concern, especially of ethnographic studies that attend to historical connections between countries, constructions of gender and gender politics in individual countries, and changing attitudes toward women’s position in the family and community. Recent trends in research address interactions between the individual and the state in cross-border marriages. This focus, in turn, brings us back to global issues surrounding migration and local responses to them. It also allows us to see changes (institutional, demographic, economic, and social) in individual societies and how these changes affect international marriages. We also introduced different models of studies utilizing photography as an analogy, which lay the foundation for the current volume. By likening the studies based on photography models and reconstructing the current outlook of knowledge on cross-border marriages, we highlighted various intersections of the academic discourses and provided a framework for making sense of the multiple studies in the field that explain the dynamics of relationship between spouses and the sending/receiving societies. By exploring the interplay of gender, agency, and politics of international marriages in Japan involving three ethnicities, this book delves into the ever-changing nature and characteristics of such marriages.

2 International Marriages, Past and Present

In this chapter we look at how gendered geographies of power in international marriage developed in Japan; the structural and institutional constraints affecting such marriages; and the positioning of foreign spouses and the hierarchy among foreign spouses. In the process, we analyze the historical origins of international marriage in Japan; explore how the nation-state and its economy have acted as key agents in defining the characteristics of migration flows in and out of the country; and highlight the feminization of marriage migration to Japan since the end of World War II. Historical reviews point to the existence of intimate relationships between Japanese and foreigners in the early modern (1600–1868) and modern (1868–1945) eras in Japanese history (Kamoto 2001; 2008a; Koyama 1995; Takeshita 2001). However, the first significant wave of intermarriages started after World War II and is typically associated with “war brides” (sensō hanayome), or Japanese women who married foreign nationals, mainly those who were serving at American military bases in Japan. A second wave is related to the period of rapid economic growth during the 1960s and 1970s, which led to an increase in the number of Japanese subsidiary companies being established overseas and provided increased opportunities for Japanese citizens, especially males, to travel abroad and meet foreign nationals. This second wave is also associated with a large influx of foreign female migrants to service Japan’s burgeoning “entertainment” industry. Their migration is also related to the increasing rejection of the ideology of domesticity by women in developed countries such as Japan, which led women from less developed countries to fill the gap (Constable 2005b; Tyner 2000; Truong 1996) and thus to another impetus for international marriages. By the end of the 1970s, a growing number of foreign women from Asian countries, the Philippines in particular, working in Japan as “entertainers,” started to marry Japanese men. This period can be considered a starting point for 33

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changes that eventually led to the foreign female gender bias in international marriages witnessed from the 1980s onward in Japan. The third wave of intermarriages, which started from the mid-1980s, is characterized by the Japanese government’s attempt to improve marriage rates in the countryside by bringing in so-called rural brides (nōson hanayome), again, mainly from the Philippines. This resulted in the construction of negative images of international marriages in public discourse. The fourth and final wave that started from around 1990s has been characterized by a considerable diversification in foreign spouses’ backgrounds and the pathways to marriage. In addition to marriages with women who came to Japan as “entertainers,” initially from the Philippines, Taiwan, South Korea, and Thailand, followed by women from China, Eastern Europe, and former Soviet Union (FSU) countries, couples also met through marriage agencies and later the internet, as well as outside of Japan. While we have tried to typify the main characteristics of each wave, this does not exclude other pathways to marriage that are present to some degree in each of the time periods. However, it is important to note that the dominant types in each period were related to political, economic, and social changes occurring in Japan and other parts of the world, which made the trends in certain types of marriage increase or decrease. Here we aim to provide readers with insights into the origins of international marriages in Japan and the ways in which the nation’s positioning in the world has shaped these unions. The changes in international marriage trends over the last 150 years illustrate the interconnections between wider political and economic changes inside Japan and their impact on marriage as an institution in general and on international marriage in particular.

The Historical Roots of International Marriage in Japan Japan’s history of international marriage is tightly connected to historical and political changes within the country and the growth of world capitalism and the nation-state. The isolationist policy in Japan called “sakoku” (meaning “closed country”) was imposed by the Tokugawa Shogunate and lasted over two-hundred years (1633–1853). Foreigners were largely banned from entering Japan in order to protect the country from the colonizing and religious influences of European nations, especially Spain and Portugal. This led to a prolonged period of relative stability, but with the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry’s “Black Ships” in 1853, the country was forced to open up under a series of so-called unequal treaties with Western powers. The overthrow of the Tokugawa regime and subsequent Meiji Restoration (1868) heralded in the Meiji era (1868–1912), which led to the transition from feudalistic structures to the establishment of a centralized constitutional government and a modern legal system adapted from the West. This was necessary as the new Meiji

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leaders sought to gain sufficient power to improve their inferior trading position in relation to the West. The compilation of a Japanese civil code started in 1869–1870 with the first draft heavily influenced by the French Napoleonic Code. However, as the draft did not reflect the Japanese social structure, traditional family, and status relationships, its promulgation was postponed and the new civil code, which was adapted from the German civil code, was promulgated in 1896. A number of legal scholars (Dean 2002; Schmidt 2005; Milhaupt, Ramseyer, and West 2006) point out that the new draft of the civil code took into consideration traditional Japanese law and legal customs. Furthermore, “during the Meiji period, a standardization of Family and Inheritance Law for all Japanese nationals had been accomplished for the first time in Japanese history” (Schmidt 2005, 267). The implementation of this law has affected Japanese and their foreign spouses since its inception. Before discussing it further, we begin by looking at legal reforms that took place in the Edo period (1603–1867).

Intimate Relationships between Japanese and Foreigners during the Period of Seclusion Starting in the early seventeenth century, the Edo government sought to restrict communication between Japanese and foreigners, control movement within the country, and consolidate caste (class) divisions. These changes in early modern Japan affected all spheres, including the family. Strict boundaries between groups were maintained and any cross-group interactions were controlled, but not prohibited completely. This system allowed some interaction between Japanese and foreigners, but only in restricted areas. Marriage rules favored endogamy, and inter-caste unions were frowned upon. “Marriage as an institution was viewed by the upper reaches of society as ‘political’ matter not as a personal matter. . . . Private considerations were not to be the basis for marriage” (Goodman 2012, 225). Thus, there was a system for gaining approval for and reporting of marriages for Japanese feudal lords (daimyō), nobility (kuge), and samurai; together, these comprised only 10 percent of all marriages (Takeshita 2001). For the majority of the population, the system of marriage and marriage-like unions differed depending on the caste and the region where the couple lived. There was no one unified marriage system; this came later with the introduction of the Koseki Law (family registration law) during the Meiji period. A marriage between two commoners was established if both parties and the community they lived in considered their union to be a marriage (Kamoto 2008a; Takeshita 2001). Marriages between Japanese and foreigners were rare, but they did happen. The Sakoku Edict of 1635, which ushered in the closed country policy, sought to reduce the influence of foreign outsiders by restricting the movement of people

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internally. Kamoto (2008a) mentions that on its way to closing the country to foreigners in 1639, the Tokugawa government banned all Japanese who had stayed overseas for more than five years from returning to Japan in 1633. It then prohibited overseas trips from 1635. In 1636, 287 children born by Japanese and so-called nanbanjin (southern barbarians, the term used to describe Spanish and Portuguese) were exiled to Macau, and in 1639, eleven children born by Japanese and kōmōjin (the Dutch) were exiled to Jakarta. If the child was born between a Japanese father and a foreign mother, he or she was expected to be taken care of by the Japanese father, but in the case of a Japanese mother and a foreign father, the child and the father were exiled. Moreover, although the country was closed to outsiders for most of the Tokugawa period, Dutch and Chinese (T’ang China) nationals were allowed into designated areas in Nagasaki (Takeshita 2001; Kamoto 2008a). During this time only Japanese sex workers were permitted entry to areas for foreigners. However, as Takeshita (2001) illustrates, these women were not hired for single nights of pleasure, but played the role of “local wives” in many instances. In the case of a pregnancy, children could be raised in the designated areas of either the Dutch or Chinese fathers; however, they were not allowed to leave the country with them. Thus, even though intimate encounters between Japanese and foreign nationals were highly restricted during most of the Edo period, opportunities did occur. Moreover, although these encounters were mostly controlled by the government, the unions themselves were unofficial and undocumented in character due to the lack of a unified system to record marriages among commoners.

Precursors to International Marriages The opening of the country in 1854 led to the growth of Japan’s population of foreigners and an increase in foreign men interested in local women who were not sex workers. This period was also characterized by the heavy involvement of the government in mediating relationships between locals and foreign residents. Thus, the government implemented the yatoi mekake (contract mistress), or rashamen (Western mistress) system, which involved Japanese women signing contracts for a specified amount of money for providing various services from domestic help to sexual services for foreign men. Kamoto (2008a) calls this system a transient form between being a sex worker and a wife, since apart from sexual services, women were expected to serve as nurses and servants; however, they did not have the official status of a spouse. According to Takeshita (2001), there were about eighty-eight rashamen registered in 1863. The Meiji Restoration, which began in 1868, led to the transformation of Japan from a feudal society built around local allegiances into a modern nationstate. As a part of this process, the caste system was abolished. These changes

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affected all areas of society, including the institution of the family. In an attempt to standardize hitherto diverse patterns of family formation as part of its nationbuilding agenda, the government mandated the Civil Code of 1896, which imposed a samurai-style family system on the entire population. Prior to the edict, this patriarchal and hierarchical model, which typified the aristocracy, had been practiced by only 10 percent of the population.1 The new family system, referred to as the ie system, began playing a key role in decision-making regarding marriages, and mediated or arranged marriages started to become widespread among common people. In addition, according to Takeshita (2001), Confucian morals such as filial piety became more influential with the introduction of compulsory education. In 1871, the Koseki Law became a tool for understanding the population of the new nation-state based on the family (ie) as the smallest unit in society; the legal reach of the ie system greatly expanded with the promulgation of Meiji Civil Code in 1896. As Yamamoto (2016, 405) observes, “The koseki system in its different forms has functioned as a powerful instrument to identify, categorize and document the Japanese population on the basis of household units, or the ko (戸), rather than the individual, a different ko (個). As a result, the individual identified through the koseki is understood within the context of family relationships narrowly defined.” As the koseki served to identify all those who were Japanese in the population, a foreign national could not be included. It also organized the family into a hierarchical relationship with all family members listed in relation to a male head of household. The modern Koseki Law can be viewed as part of a triangle of state control, along with the Civil Code and the Nationality Law (Yamamoto 2016, 405). The Nationality Law was promulgated in Meiji Japan in 1899.2 All those appearing in the koseki were considered Japanese nationals. At the time, there was no naturalization procedure for foreign nationals except international marriage for both women and men; the latter had to become either mukoiri, married into a woman’s family, or yōshi, adopted. Those who gained Japanese nationality through their koseki as well as their progeny were later classified as naichijin (inner Japanese) when the nation-state engaged in colonial expansionism and populations in colonized (occupied) territories became Japanese subjects. The latter were classified as gaichijin, or outside Japanese. A major change related to marriages as a result of the above legal changes was that individuals could no longer choose a spouse by themselves. Household members under a given age, a man under thirty and a woman under twenty-five (Meiji Civil Code, Article 772), had to receive permission from the head of household (Meiji Civil Code, Article 750) before they could marry (Milhaupt, Ramseyer, and West 2006; Schmidt 2005). In addition, “the demands of the family were considered more important than any personal love and affection. . . . Even sexual gratification was supposed to be separate from marriage” (Milhaupt,

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Ramseyer, and West 2006, 490). As a result, the spouse’s family background— family history including the father’s and mother’s ancestry, disease background, siblings and birth order—became one of the main criteria in choosing partners for a growing portion of the population. Previously, such considerations had been limited to the aristocracy and samurai class. These changes further affected the attitudes of Japanese people toward international marriages insofar as the choice was no longer individual but placed in the hands of the family and particularly the male family head. It is noteworthy that the term “international marriage” (kokusai kekkon) appears in Japanese official documentation as early as 1867, in an enquiry by the British consul about whether there was a law prohibiting marriages between Japanese and foreigners (Takeshita 2001). The government’s reply was that after consideration it did not have any objections to marriages between Japanese and nationals of treaty countries (the United States, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Russia). However, there was no official policy regarding such marriages until 1873, when the Dajōkan fukoku (Decree by the Grand Council) No.103, made marriages between Japanese and foreigners legal (Takeshita 2001, 25).3 Thereafter, from 1873 to 1897, 265 international marriages were registered, with 180 of them being between foreign men (mainly from Great Britain, Qing China, Germany, United States, and France) and Japanese women (Takeshita 2001, 27–28). In addition, according to materials collected by Koyama (1995), in more than 40 percent of the cases, these women were previously hired by foreign men to service them. Furthermore, Kamoto (2008a) points out that the term “international marriage” (kokusai kekkon) appears in academic discourse from 1889, in the discussion of the nihon jinshyu kairyō ron (theory of Japanese racial eugenics). Proponents of the eugenics theory of the time proposed marriages and having children with Western women as ways to improve the Japanese nation, as well as the adoption of English as a national language to make Japan a civilized country. According to Kamoto’s (2008a) research, the term was next used in 1911, in a letter written by a worker in Osaka, enquiring about legal approval of international marriages between spouses from Great Britain and Japan; the specific wording was naigai jinmin kon’in zakken (sundries related to marriages of inside and outside people). One of the specific features of the 1873 decree was to unify the bugen, a proxy for social standing and nationality, before the Koseki and Nationality Laws were passed.4 A provision in the decree required a Japanese woman marrying a foreigner to renounce her Japanese bugen. At the same time, a foreign woman could acquire Japanese bugen (nationality) by marrying a Japanese man (Takeshita 2001; Kamoto 2001; 2008a). The only way a foreign man could gain Japanese nationality was to be included as a yōshi (an “adopted” son) in the household of his prospective Japanese wife. This custom allowed a man marrying into a woman’s family to take the Japanese family name of that household. In such

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cases, men had to renounce their natal citizenship. In contrast, Japanese men were not allowed to renounce their citizenship under any circumstances. Among the 265 international marriages mentioned earlier, 72 percent involved women marrying foreign nationals and losing Japanese nationality (bugen); 6 percent involved foreign men entering a woman’s family as a husband (nyūfu) or an adopted son (yōshi); and 22 percent involved foreign women entering Japanese families and obtaining Japanese nationality (Kamoto 2001, 97). In 1950, with the Nationality Act (Act No.  66) of 1899 abolished and the Nationality Act (Act No. 147) instituted (Japanese Law Translation 2018) to take its place, the gender of the person who could lose/renounce Japanese nationality was no longer stipulated.5

Prewar Multicultural Policies and the Growth of International Marriages The changing position of Japan in the world and its expansionist politics in Asia led to the annexation of Formosa (Taiwan) in 1895 and Korea in 1910, and by 1922 Japan had assembled a formal empire. “As in Europe, race played a prominent role in Japanese imperial discourse. . . . State discourse focused on the common past and common destiny between colonizers and colonized. Prewar officials justified Japanese imperialism on the basis that their fellow Asians welcomed Japanese leadership and that all of Asia constituted one big family” (Chung 2010, 65–69). As a result, colonial subjects were granted citizenship status, but they represented the outer circle. However, growing discontent in the colonized Korea, which led to the violent Korean Independence Movement in March 1, 1919, forced Japan to engage in various reforms, including the Universal Manhood Suffrage Act.6 One of the measures intended to stabilize the situation in Korea was the promotion of marriages between Koreans and Japanese, which led to several unions between Japanese and Korean aristocracy (Takeshita 2001). Thus, this period is characterized by the growing number of intermarriages between inner and outer Japanese. The literature on international marriages for this period focuses mainly on Koreans. Until the end of World War II, Japanese imperialization policy aimed for the assimilation of Koreans, who became “children of the emperor,” as well as “subjects of the Japanese Empire.”7 As Goodman (2012, 185) points out, the prewar concept of multiculturalism assumed that nonmainstream Japanese, such as Koreans, Formosans (Taiwanese), the Ainu, Ryūkyūans (Okinawans), “shared affinity with ‘main stream’ Japanese and only needed assimilation through the adoption of main stream Japanese cultural values such as Shinto, Japanese diet, Japanese language, etc. to bring them within the main stream.” However, there were separate koseki created for Koreans and Taiwanese, which made it easy for them to be stripped of Japanese citizenship through postwar policies. While the number of marriages between Koreans and Japanese in Korea was not high,8 the influx of Koreans to Japan (especially men), led to a significant

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increase in marriages between Koreans and Japanese in the Japanese mainland. According to Takeshita (2001), the number grew from 811 in 1938 to 1,418 in 1942; overall there were 5,458 unions during this period. The majority of marriages were between Japanese women and Korean men (5,242) and comprised 96 percent of all intermarriages. Of these 1,278 (24%) were mukoiri (married into a woman’s family): 937 entered the family as nyūfu (where the wife is a family head and the husband is registered into the household); and 341 entered as yōshi (where the foreign male was adopted by a woman’s family). It is difficult to calculate the number of marriages between Taiwanese and Japanese due to several legal complications. Taiwan was ceded to Japan in 1895, and Japan’s Nationality Law was enforced in 1899. In terms of family relationships, Takeshita (2004) points out that at the time Japan enforced its Civil Code, Taiwan was operating based on the local Taiwanese customary law. Due to these differences, there was no legal procedure for marriages between Japanese and Taiwanese. Furthermore, when the Taiwanese Civil Code was enforced in 1923, it required recording marriages in the koseki. However, since there was no koseki system in Taiwan, most of the marriages were treated as de facto marriages. This issue was solved with the implementation of the koseki system in 1933 in Taiwan. In spite of these legal and procedural complications, there are records in the 1920s of marriages between Japanese men and Taiwanese women (32) and Taiwanese men and Japanese women (56) (Takeshita 2004). The origins of international marriages are to be found in the Meiji period, when Japan experienced influence from Western countries such as Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. During this period, the political and legal institutions that were established were based on the convergence of Western and Japanese ideologies. At the same time, the family institution was shaped by Japanese aristocratic practices. The new Civil Code kept an early modern ideal of individuals belonging to the ie; and the Koseki Law served as a tool in the creation of a nation-state and its nationals, as well as in drawing lines between Japanese and foreign nationals and between inner and outer Japanese. In later years, the imperial Japanese government used international marriages as a political tool to promote its colonial agenda. More importantly, the influx of colonial subjects to Japan led to the growth of such marriages despite the constraints of the family institution of that period.

Changes in International Marriages in Contemporary Japan Defeat in World War II led to the occupation of Japan by the Allied Powers (1945–1952), which consequently changed the social life of Japan’s citizens, and also changed Japan’s political and legal systems. Demilitarization and democratization involved new constitutional provisions “granting women

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equal treatment with men.” In addition, “Article 14 provides for equality under law for all persons (a sexually inclusive term) and prohibits sex discrimination in political, economic and social matters,” while “Article 24 maintains that the institution of marriage is based on mutual consent of the husband and wife and is premised on equal rights of each spouse” (Goodman 2012, 226). The amended Civil Code abolished the legal foundations of the ie system, and individuals now had freedom in choosing a spouse. This led to the increase of “love” (ren’ai) marriages, although the majority of unions were arranged mainly through mediation until the 1960s, when love marriages came to outnumber arranged marriages (Kumagai 2008).

Japan’s Postwar Citizenship Politics and International Marriage Postwar legal reforms led to the compilation of a new Constitution in 1947, the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act of 1951, and reform of the Civil Code in 1962, 1980, and 1987. All these affected definitions of citizenship in Japan. The postwar reformulation of Japanese citizenship policies inserted a distinct ethnocultural understanding to citizenship status. Whereas imperial formulations of Japanese citizenship included racially and ethnically distinct colonial subjects who were united by the emperor, postwar citizenship discourse was based on consanguinity. To be a citizen of Japan implied that one was Japanese by blood (Chung 2010, 37). Due to these changes, former colonial subjects lost their Japanese nationality, which led to the current distortions in attempts at quantifying the number of international marriages in Japan. As noted in the introduction, although statistics on international marriages in Japan include a large number of marriages between South/North Koreans (Chōsen) and Japanese, there is no clear distinction between those Koreans who are marriage migrants from South Korea and those who are descendants of former colonial subjects who have been living in Japan for several generations. Both groups are counted as foreign. Another new phenomenon of the immediate postwar years was the emergence of unions between Japanese women and American soldiers who were stationed in Japan. Despite many military, legal, and social impediments to these marriages, they occurred in large numbers after the end of World War II. According to a number of studies, between 30,000 and 60,000 Japanese women entered the United States as so-called war brides (Satake and Da-anoy 2006; Takeshita 2001). However, these numbers do not include all those women who stayed in Japan, while their husbands returned home, or those who got divorced. Takeshita (2001) calls “war brides” pioneers in international marriages as well as in love marriages. The reasons for such marriages include economic and demographic factors, attractiveness to different races, and physical proximity, as discussed in chapter 1.

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Economic Growth in Japan and Changes in International Marriage Patterns The economic growth that started in 1960s brought changes to international marriages in Japan. As was illustrated earlier, starting in the Edo period and continuing through the Meiji Restoration, World War II, and until the 1970s, the majority of such marriages were between Japanese women and foreign men. In the mid-1970s, however, more foreign women began marrying Japanese men, and this trend has continued to the present. There are several reasons for the change in the pattern of international marriages. One is that starting in the 1970s, more women migrated to Japan; currently, there is a higher number of foreign female migrants than foreign male migrants living in Japan. The feminization of migration in Japan is closely related to the development of the international sex industry. “Prostitution was . . . condemned from time to time after the Restoration, but the red-light district continued not only to survive but also to flourish” (Milhaupt, Ramseyer, and West 2006, 491). As Douglass (2003) points out, international trade in women called “entertainers” started in the second half of the nineteenth century and involved the so-called karayuki, Japanese women from poor rural families who were transported to brothels in Southeast Asia, East Asia, and the United States. This form of trade continued through World War II, but started declining in the 1960s with the downturn of Japanese women willing to get involved in this activity, partly in response to overall economic growth in Japan. By the end of the 1960s, the sex industry mainly took the form of sex tours for Japanese men to the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. By the end of the 1970s, however, growing discontent and public protests in destination countries led to a change from overseas sex tours to the “importation” of foreign women for the sex industry in Japan. These women were called Japayuki, meaning “going to Japan,”9 and 1979 has been designated Japayuki Year Zero by Japanese feminists opposed to the sex trade. The thriving sex industry is explained by the constraints of Japan’s marriage system, which is based on social status rather than affection and thereby leads to husbands’ infidelity and “inside marriage divorces,” in which couples stay together as a result of social and economic pressures, but lead separate lives. It also forces women to endure such practices. In addition, the continuing gendered division of labor, wherein men are breadwinners who devote their lives to companies, while women are expected to take full responsibility in managing the domestic sphere, inhibits husbands and wives “from sharing many aspects of their lives together” (Douglass 2003, 99) and institutionalizes male promiscuity. As many authors (Komai 1995; Faier 2009; Parreñas 2011; Kim 2013b) point out, brokers have been abusing the “entertainment” visa category, which is designated for “activities to engage in theatrical performance, musical performance,

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sports or any other show business” (Komai 1995, 73). Despite this, “most of the singers and dancers who enter with entertainment visas spend just a small amount of their time performing, and pass the bulk of their work hours serving drinks to and talking with their customers, or in effect working as hostesses” (Komai 1995, 73). Satake and Da-anoy (2006) provide a brief history of how Filipinas and Taiwanese women shifted from working in the sex industry in their home countries to hostess clubs and lounges in Japan. As the authors illustrate, after government restrictions on services provided by sex workers at the Xinxi Hot Springs, the mecca of Taiwanese prostitution, about 5,000 unlicensed “geisha” who worked there were left without income (Satake and Daanoy 2006). However, the loosening of restrictions on traveling from Taiwan to Japan in 1979 led some women to migrate to Japan to work in the “entertainment” industry. In addition, political changes and economic crisis in the Philippines in 1983 also affected sex tourism in the country and led to the development of routes for Filipinas to come to Japan. These historical events in Taiwan and the Philippines started the trend of feminization of migration to Japan and its flourishing “entertainment” industry until the beginning of the 2000s. Along with the entertainment industry in larger cities, there was a growing awareness of the problem of a lack of brides in rural areas of Japan. With greater affluence, Japanese women were increasingly reluctant to marry into a rural family and attending to responsibilities in the household. As young women left the rural regions for city life, there was a growing imbalance in the male to female population. This problem was further exacerbated by the aging of the population and the trend toward delaying marriage in Japan. Starting in the 1980s, in the town of Asahi in the Yamagata prefecture, local governments sought to solve this marriage problem by arranging marriages between Filipinas and Japanese men (Satake and Da-anoy 2006). Shukuya (1988) and Takeda (2011) discuss the negative public image of “rural brides” (nōson hanayome) and “countryside international marriages” (mura no kokusai kekkon) as reinforced by the Japanese media. One of the main studies on “countryside international marriages,” published shortly after the start of an initiative entitled “Brides from Asia—The Logic of the Welcoming Side” (Ajia kara Kita Hanayome—Mukaeru gawa no ronri) (Shukuya 1988), stresses the expectations of the receiving community for Asian brides to assimilate and the lack of networks with fellow nationals for foreign brides. Saihanjuna (2011) looks at studies in which these marriages were called “instant marriages” (Ikeda 1989; Sasagawa 1989), since they brought hopes of revitalization, but created other troubles. Some were seen to be caused by women’s lack of information or misleading information about the grooms before marriage and the host community’s expectations that the women would adhere to the language, customs, and cultural norms of the receiving family.

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Furthermore, Takeda (2011) points to studies conducted in the late 1980s that criticize local governments for making these women their tool in the internationalization of the local community. However, one of the main criticisms of such marriages came from human rights groups, who argued that economic disparities between Japan and other Asian countries enabled Japan to lure women to the countryside not as “wives,” but as “brides” who would perform roles such as farming, taking care of the elderly, and rearing children. In addition, men were presented as egotists who could not escape from the traditional ie system and were unable to get married to Japanese women (Takeda 2011, 13). As more rural areas became involved in importing brides to cover reproductive work that Japanese women were no longer willing to take on, local governments took a more indirect approach to mediating such marriages due to widespread criticism (Takeda 2011). While it is true that more marriage agencies created networks with brokers from sending countries, migrant women themselves became a source of introduction for their female relatives and acquaintances. Thus, despite the negative and complex attitudes of the host country toward these particular unions, the number of marriages between Japanese men and foreign women grew rapidly starting from the beginning of the 1980s. International marriage trends in Japan in the 1990s and early 2000s have resembled those of wider global trends, including a greater diversity in the backgrounds and origins of marriage migrants, more variety in ways of meeting future spouses, and the advent of “mail-order” marriages, which were later further popularized by the spread of online dating services. One trend that is specific to Japan is the diverse backgrounds of female labor migrants, who came mainly as “entertainers” not only from neighboring Asia, but later also from eastern European and FSU countries, and Latin American and Caribbean countries. Kumagai (2015, 68) highlights this change when she points out that in 1965 the nationalities of foreign brides “were mostly comprised of North and South Koreans (79%), followed by Chinese (11.3%), and Americans (6%). Today the ethnic background of foreign brides has altered significantly. In 2012, these foreign brides came primarily from three regions in Asia, namely, China (41.7%), the Philippines (20.5%), and North and South Korea (17.5%).” At the same time the number of American brides decreased; this “coincided with the abrupt decline in the Japanese economy” in the 1990s (Kumagai 2015, 68). Another trend is the diversification in the backgrounds of foreign grooms in Japan, who were represented by Koreans ( 28.2%), Chinese (12.7%), Filipinos (2.2), Thais (0.5%), Americans (17.9%), British (4.4%), Brazilians (4.2%), Peruvians (1.4%), and others (28.4%) in 2012 (Kumagai 2015, 68). Thus, the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s was a time when specific patterns of migration to Japan started to form. In particular, migration became highly feminized, with a strong bias toward female migrants who

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occupied several specific areas, such as sex work, marriage migration, and care work. “Marriage migrants contribute to biological and labor reproduction” (Kofman and Raghuram 2015, 4; Constable 2005b; Williams 2010). “Women may also move as independent migrants, often as care-workers or sex-workers, and then change to a dependent status through marriage so that the relationship between the different forms of work they perform is connected and dynamic” (Kofman and Raghuram 2015, 4). These specific patterns of migration and subsequent international marriages among foreign women and Japanese men led to power imbalances between spouses and other issues inside those families, which will be discussed in later chapters.

Summary The Japanese state has to some extent always played a mediating role in the construct of international marriages. At various points in history, the foreign spouse has been differently positioned in relation to the family system, which was and remains the framework for defining nationality. In addition, at the beginning of the twentieth century, international marriages were used as a tool to normalize the relationship between colonizers and colonies. By the 1970s these marriages came to be shaped by Japan’s gender politics, including its condoning of male promiscuity and support of patriarchal households. Then, in the 1980s international marriages became a source of reproductive labor for the countryside population and a means for the revitalization and support of the agricultural household. If we look at these changes from the time-lapse photography perspective introduced in chapter one, we can see how the essence and the position of the subject (international marriages) was changing historically. Thus, the subject moves in different directions with the changing scenery (background). The gendering of migration into and out of Japan is a distinctive characteristic of international marriages in Japan. Although there was no intention to promote a particular type of intermarriages during Meiji period, general policies regarding Japanese females, karayuki, who were “imported” to brothels in Asia, and the need for male laborers in the Taishō and early Shōwa (1926–1989) periods led to a bias toward foreign male/Japanese female unions. In addition, the majority of Westerners who worked in Japan as professionals were males. Again, the economic growth that started in the 1960s led to the changes in the pattern of intermarriages. While Japan has enforced severe restrictions on unskilled migrant labor, foreign women have been welcomed as “reproductive” service labor, both domestic and sexual. This has also provided a backdrop for the emergence of intimate unions resulting in marriages. Finally, legal changes and reforms, including the implementation of the Koseki Law and the Civil Code in the Meiji era, have created specific power

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relations among family members in general and symbolic boundaries between foreign and Japanese spouses in particular. The binding of nationality and household, which happened as a result of the koseki implementation, has put individuals, Japanese females in particular, into disadvantaged positions and led to the loss of Japanese nationality (bugen) should they marry a foreign national. It also affected foreign men and women, who had to renounce their nationality in order to become a member of the ie. The koseki and bugen regulations led to the creation of international marriages and the Meiji Civil Code, and later, the Nationality Act allowed the state to control intimate relationships. Thus, state intervention in marriages had a strong impact on international marriage in Japan.

3 Spousal Choices

This chapter draws on our empirical data to address the question of who marries whom. International marriage markets are not a “global free-for-all in which all combinations—regardless of class, nationality, ethnicity, or gender, for example—are possible. Rather, they form marriage-scapes that are shaped and limited by existing and emerging cultural, social, historical, and politicaleconomic factors” (Constable 2005a, 3–4). This chapter explores the marriagescapes of cross-border marriages in contemporary Japan. It relates migration trends, country of origin, and gender to the question of how couples met and the decisions they make about how and where to live. We also identify several paths to international marriages in Japan from the end of the 1980s, when most of the participants in our studies married, to the late 2010.These paths were international in scope due to the increasing presence of Japanese people and businesses overseas, matchmaking agencies with a global reach, and internet dating. The entertainment industry also brought Filipina and female eastern European migrants to Japan. We also consider a variety of intersecting factors such as gender, ethnicity, age, and class that are involved in cross-border marriages and affect the positioning of spouses in them.

How Spouses Find Each Other As noted in the introduction, the uchi/soto (insider/outsider) dichotomy shapes the relationship between Japanese nationals and their spouses in a variety of ways, not the least through the legal definition of household that until recently excluded the non-Japanese members. Here, we differentiate between foreign spouses who had already chosen to live in Japan and ended up marrying a Japanese national and those Japanese who met their future spouse overseas and consider what led these couples to decide to live in Japan. We find that for 47

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FIGUR E 3.1  ​Partner Choices in International Marriages in Japan

soto-­oriented Japa­nese spouses, the choice of a foreign partner was related to their previous experiences of life overseas, their desire to avoid the constraints of traditional Japa­nese society, or their difficulties (due to personal preferences or structural constraints) in finding a Japa­nese partner. In contrast, uchi-­oriented Japa­nese spouses tend to have very l­imited or no experience of life overseas or communication with foreigners, and originally did not consider marriage with foreign nationals to be an option. To understand how decisions regarding the marriage ­were made and the reasons given for spouses choosing each other, we created four categories to or­ga­nize our data (figure 3.1). For ­those who met outside Japan, the categories are (1) multiple-­choice ­couples (MCC), in which case the Japa­nese spouse was soto-­oriented, but by the time of the interview Japan was the best option for living, and (2) basic-­option ­couples (BOC), in which the Japa­nese spouse was uchi-­ oriented and Japan was considered to be the only option. For c ­ ouples who met in Japan, the categories are (3) default-­option ­couples (DOC), in which the Japa­ nese spouse is uchi-­oriented, and the ­couples did not consider any other option except Japan, and (4) open-­choice c ­ ouples (OCC), in which soto-­oriented Japa­ nese spouses did not have a strong preference to live in Japan even though this is where the c ­ ouple de­cided to live. T ­ hese categories apply to both Japa­nese and foreign spouses and give voice not only to a migrating spouse but also to the

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spouse in the receiving country. In addition, we also focus on gender and citizenship to discuss the ways that our study participants met, the reasons they chose each other, and their country of settlement. We consider how these choices are “situated in the processes of social reproduction and globalization, in which national and familial political economics, gender, and family values are undergoing transformation” (Suzuki 2005, 125).

Multiple-Choice Couples Couples in the MCC category tend to meet overseas, in the partner’s country of origin or in a third country. The Japanese spouse was usually working overseas for a Japanese company, in the diplomatic service, or was studying in a university or a language school. The foreign partner in the MCC group is likely to have a higher level of education than their counterparts in other groups. They are more likely to be Western, English speaking and male. This is particularly true for couples who met in the late 1980s and early 1990s when Japan’s bubble economy stimulated overseas travel for work or leisure. However, there are also cases where the foreign spouse is female, from a former Soviet Union (FSU) country, and the husband is Japanese who had worked or studied abroad. The Japanese spouse was also soto-oriented and comfortable or eager to socialize with non-Japanese. Even before meeting their spouse, some state that they had wanted to marry a foreigner, offering various reasons, including feeling constrained by Japanese society and/or life circumstances and, therefore, wanting to live overseas. Even though only five of the couples actually met overseas in Yamamoto’s case study (Western spouse group), nine of the Japanese spouses had significant experience of living overseas, ranging from three months to ten years prior to meeting their future spouse. Overseas experience and language proficiency create additional opportunities for meeting and later marrying a foreign spouse. Three of the Japanese wives had gone overseas to learn English after a brief period working following graduation from high school or junior college. For two, this experience provided the backdrop to their marriage. Another was traveling in Europe when she met her future husband. One of the Japanese husbands met his wife overseas while studying for a higher degree in the United States. There was only one Western spouse couple in this group, where the husband was Japanese. The remainder of the couples consisted of foreign (American, British, Canadian, and Australian) husbands and Japanese wives. Husbands’ level of education tended to be high as well: two had masters’ degrees or higher, and another three had bachelor’s degrees. Among the wives, three had graduated from university and two had graduated from junior colleges. Although three wives were older than their husbands, one couple was of the same age, and one husband was two years older than the wife, but these age differences tended to be minimal.

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In most cases, about one to five years elapsed between the time the couples met and the time they married. The longer periods were often associated with resistance from parents on the Japanese side. One couple, Mike (48, United States) and Mayumi (48, Japan), who got engaged after going out for just three months, experienced enormous resistance from the wife’s family and waited for five years before finally getting the permission to marry. Mayumi had not been willing to marry without her parent’s consent. Four out of the five couples lived together in the country of the non-Japanese spouse immediately before marriage and/or for a period after marriage. For all these couples, the question of where to live (Japan, the country of the nonJapanese spouse, or a third country) was consciously considered and discussed. While the move to Japan was not necessarily seen as permanent (many envisaged going back to the non-Japanese spouse’s country after retirement), all the couples interviewed had spent more of their married life in Japan than outside. Three of the foreign spouses (two husbands and one wife) came to Japan for the first time after either getting engaged or married. Another couple (Peter [48, Australia] and Yuko [50, Japan]) met and married in Australia and came to live in Japan shortly after the birth of their first child. There were eight couples in the MCC category with a wife from the FSU. Among them, it was the Japanese men who worked or studied overseas; three were fluent in Russian language as well. For these couples, there was no single pattern for how they met. For instance, Alla (36, Russia) met her husband in a bar in Moscow in 1996, while he was working for a branch of a Japanese company. She worked for a bank and had good professional career prospects. Alla mentioned that she planned to marry a foreign man (this is picked up on in the next chapter). When they met, Alla and her future husband communicated in Russian and English, since he majored in Russian at university. She had some reservations about a long-term relationship, in part because she had not heard about the city her husband was from in Japan. Not familiar with Japan, she knew only about Tokyo as the capital of Japan: “I asked him which city he was from. He said, from *** [a large city in Japan]. I thought it was some kind of village, and didn’t really want to move there from Moscow. But later we started dating, and it was all right. You know, my husband is a really good person.” The couple had a long-distance relationship for another year, after Alla’s future husband had finished his assignment in Russia. “He wasn’t ready to get married and we were just dating for a year. He visited me in Moscow, I went to Japan, and we talked over the phone.” After the couple got married in 1997, her husband had several opportunities to relocate to Russia for work. However, Alla decided that it would be easier for their children to be in a Japanese school, rather than trying to catch up with the Russian education system, and she preferred raising their children in Japan overall. Thus the couple continued living in Japan.

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As mentioned earlier, some couples met during studying overseas. Kei (32, Japan) met his wife, Rosa (31, Kyrgyzstan), while he was studying for a university degree in Kazakhstan. Kei and Rosa communicated only in Russian, in which Kei was fluent. After Kei completed his university degree, the couple moved to Japan, where Kei earned a graduate degree and worked for a Japanese company. Considering his rich experience of life overseas and outstanding communication abilities—he was fluent in English, Russian, and Kazakh, he was relocated to the company’s overseas branch after several years of working in its headquarters, and the couple had been living overseas since then. Another couple met in a South East Asian country, where the Japanese husband owned a business. The wife, Adelina (31, Uzbekistan), was a sex worker when she met her future Japanese husband, who was more than thirty years older. The couple started living together while the husband was commuting between Japan and Adelina’s home country. One day Adelina’s husband asked her whether she wanted to keep living there or to move to Japan. She chose Japan, saying: “I thought if we live that well here, then we would have even more luxurious life in Japan, so I chose Japan.” However, she found out later that her image of life in Japan was completely different from the reality; the prices were higher, and she had to run the house by herself without any outside help. Overall, for MCC, there were two major reasons for the couples deciding to stay in or move to Japan: economic and familial responsibilities. In all cases, the couples felt that the husband’s earning power would be greater in Japan and that the quality of life would therefore be better as well. Thus, we see a traditional gender logic operating here. Most of the FSU wives married their husbands in the mid-1990s to mid-2000s, and were either homemakers or worked part-time, while their husbands were the main breadwinners. Most Western data couples married in the late 1980s or in the early 1990s, when the Japan’s asset price bubble had only just burst, and the impact was still not being felt throughout the society. For all but one of the foreign husbands, the realization of a greater earning power involved drawing on the (embodied) cultural capital (Bourdieu 1977) of being a native English speaker by either teaching English as a second/foreign language or, in the case of one, working in the field of translation. All the men who married Japanese women were relatively young when they met their partners and had not yet established their careers, so this was also a factor in the readiness to stay in Japan after getting married. Only one foreign spouse was working outside the English teaching/translation sector at the time of marriage and/or at the time of the interview (Harry [50, United Kingdom]) and had his own business. The second reason for living in Japan is related to the Japanese spouses’ sense of familial responsibilities. One couple, Cathy (52, United States) and Kenji (50, Japan), lived in the United States for the first five years of their marriage, but then moved to Japan because Kenji was the oldest son and expected to run

52

P O LI T I C S O F I N T E R NAT I O NA L M A R R I AG E I N J A PA N

the family business. Cathy came to Japan for the first time when her oldest child was four. As she was a health practitioner, the move to Japan involved giving up her profession and re-skilling as an English teacher. Another couple, Peter and Yuko, came to live in Japan after starting married life in Australia. Yuko explained her reasoning: “I’m an only child so I was worried of . . . the future of my parents getting old and me living . . . so far away from my parents.” For his part, Peter was drawn by the prospect of starting up his own English-language school. The couple moved to Japan soon after the birth of their son and lived near to Yuko’s parents. Yet another couple, Trevor (52, Canada) and Hiroko (54, Japan), lived in Canada for nine years before moving to Japan to be near her parents. Whether husband or wife, the Japanese spouses held strong feelings of responsibility for their ageing parents, which greatly outweighed any similar obligations that may have been felt by the foreign spouse.

Basic-Option Couples The ways that the couples met in the BOC category were similar to those in the MCC category—namely, through place of work or study. However matchmaking and internet dating also led to marriages, especially after the 1990s. The majority of couples in the BOC category met overseas and included women from FSU countries (16) and Filipino (7) women. Among Kim’s participants (the FSU group), eight couples met in the women’s country of origin or in a third country, and eight couples met via dating/matchmaking agencies or other types of internetmediated services. Even so, the use of matchmaking services is less common for Japanese men and women with Western, FSU, and Filipino spouses than for Chinese-Japanese couples. For most of the couples who included FSU and Filipino wives, Japan was considered the only option in terms of the country of settlement. One explanation is that in nearly all cases the foreign spouse was female. For these couples, the higher earning power of the Japanese male spouse if he stayed in Japan, combined with the higher standard of living, was decisive. Women who make up the sixteen FSU cases in this category generally had a high level of education: one had a graduate-level degree, eleven had bachelor’s degrees, and one was part-way through her undergraduate degree (see table  3.1, p. 59). Among the university graduates were five wives who had majored in Japanese language in their home countries. Nevertheless, when living in Japan, many of the participants in this group were full-time homemakers or worked part time. Men in the BOC category, like those in the MCC, tended to have high levels of education as well as good professional prospects in Japan in general. Among sixteen Japanese husbands of the FSU women, one had a graduate degree and ten had university degrees; two of the latter specialized in Russian.

S P O U SA L C H O I C E S

53

Four men had significant overseas life experience, including work in the women’s countries of origin. In their case working overseas was not an active choice and their later careers in Japan did not have any further connections with FSU or other foreign countries. These factors allow us to assume that they were more uchi-oriented. Most of the encounters between BOCs were accidental. For instance, Anita (37, Uzbekistan) and Irina (28, Uzbekistan) met their husbands when they worked in restaurants in Russia. In the 1990s, Anita and her Uzbek husband had divorced. Subsequently, Anita went to work in Russia while their two-year-old daughter remained in Uzbekistan with Anita’s parents. By the beginning of the 2000s, Anita had managed to bring her daughter to Russia. That is when she met Arata (40, Japan), who was working as a Japanese company representative in Russia. At the time he met Anita, he was married to a Japanese woman and also had a child. Eventually, he divorced his first wife, and he and Anita got married. Irina, on the other hand, was not married and went to work in Russia as many of her extended family members did. She met her husband Takeshi (50, Japan) in Moscow, where he worked for a Japanese company and was divorced from his former Japanese wife by that time. Among the couples who met via matchmaking agencies and the internet, there were only five FSU women who were deliberately looking for foreign men; the other four met their husbands via chat rooms or similar services. For instance, Elena (26, Russia) joined a dating website as she was interested in Asian men, while her future husband, Hiroyasu (34, Japan), was very fond of Russian culture and literature and was looking for a Russian woman there. On the other hand, Yaroslavna (24, Russia) met her husband, Masayuki (30, Japan), via the ICQ (derived from “I Seek You”) chat platform that was popular in the end of 1990s and beginning of 2000s. Yaroslavna majored in Japanese and was looking for someone with whom to practice speaking the language, rather than a marriage partner. Two couples met via matchmaking agencies. In particular, Zlata (39, Russia) had lived in Japan the longest of the FSU participants in our study. When she was twenty, Zlata’s Russian boyfriend broke up with her, and her acquaintance who worked as a matchmaker offered to introduce her to somebody else. This is how Zlata ended up with two letters from Japanese men. As she recollected, one seemed to be “too old,” as he was thirty-five and she was twenty; but another was twenty-five, so she decided to write him a letter and practice her English. It was the early 1990s and the couple exchanged letters via post. Soon after that, her future husband decided to visit Russia and Zlata went to Moscow to meet him. They continued to send letters to each other for another year, after which her future husband visited Russia again and, to Zlata’s surprise, proposed to her. However, there were many hurdles to overcome before the couple were able to get married in 1992 and later settle in Japan. Firstly, in order to be able to leave the country, Zlata had to marry her husband. All the documents had to

54

P O LI T I C S O F I N T E R NAT I O NA L M A R R I AG E I N J A PA N

be translated from Japanese into Russian by the Japanese Embassy in Moscow. Because she was from a smaller Russian town, Zlata had to commute to Moscow to finalize the paperwork. Later, after she got married, she was finally able to get a Japanese visa, but just as she was planning to fly out to Japan, she was barred from leaving the country. Despite the fact that the Soviet Union had collapsed by that time, there still were restrictions on people’s movements across borders in the new Russian state. As Zlata explained, she had a passport to go overseas, but that passport was valid only for Soviet bloc countries, and she had to have another passport that would allow her to visit capitalist countries. Neither she nor the Japanese embassy personnel who issued her visa had been aware of this. Therefore, Zlata and her husband had to start the procedure all over again, from applying for another passport to getting documents for a spouse visa. It took the couple more than one year to finally unite in Japan. In the Filipina dataset, among the participants who met their Japanese husbands through introductions by acquaintances, married, and then settled in Japan, seven deviated from the stereotypical image of “marriage migrants” not only because they married for love, but also because they were well educated, financially stable, and did not appear to have economic reasons for marrying. The main concerns of these Filipina spouses about settling in Japan were the language barrier, as well as cultural norms relating to religion and marriage. They were also concerned about whether they would find suitable work as all of them had had professional careers before getting married. The main reason for settling in Japan was that the Japanese husbands had stable careers and were financially comfortable, so it made economic sense for the female spouses to move to Japan. It was felt that it would be very hard for the Japanese spouse to find an equivalent position in the Philippines. Leslie (48, Philippines) was an accountant in a manufacturing company in Manila when she met her Japanese husband, who was a client. After more than two years of courtship, they got married in the Philippines. She agreed to live in Japan and went on to have three children there. Her mother-in-law lived with them, and it was she who insisted that Leslie should apply for Japanese citizenship. Leslie claimed that her mother-in-law wanted her name registered in the family’s koseki and for her to have a Japanese passport. It took years before she could be convinced to be naturalized as Japanese, despite her strong desire to not give up her Filipino citizenship, since Japan does not accept dual citizenship. Despite different routes that led to these women meeting and marrying their husbands, one commonality was that settling in Japan seemed to be the only or the best option. Even though there were cases where men could speak foreign languages and had experience of work overseas, in the majority of cases, Japan was chosen as the country of settlement due to the husband’s career and the perceived lack of opportunities in women’s countries.

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55

Default-Option Couples In contrast, when it comes to couples with FSU and Filipino wives and Japanese husbands who met in Japan, we can identify a large group who met through the women’s involvement in the Japanese entertainment industry and other types of labor migration to Japan. In the FSU dataset (25), two women were introduced to their husbands by their friends; three met randomly at a station or on the street; one met in a university, one met via an internet dating app, and nineteen met their husbands at hostess clubs. Since the latter group tended to settle in Japan without preceding discussions about the country of residence, we named this category the “default option,” reflecting the preferences of uchioriented Japanese spouses, who were mostly Japanese husbands. For most of the Filipinas who entered Japan in the 1980s and 1990s through tourist visas, marriage to a Japanese person was not the primary motivation; rather, they sought work in Japan in order to help their families back in the Philippines. As entertainers, however, they had frequent opportunities to meet Japanese men, and marriage became a means to upward mobility for these women, as well as giving them legal status for permanent residence in Japan when their entertainer visas ran out. However, all the women claimed that they learned to love their Japanese husbands in the course of their marriages. Thus, the decision of where to settle was not a contested one for these couples, either. On the other hand, there are notable cases when “love” or “fate” seemed more decisive when it came to Filipinas and their Japanese husbands. An interesting case is Rosanna (45, Philippines) who decided to go to Japan when she was nineteen years old and work in a bar when her father became sick with cancer, and they could no longer afford his medical care. Rosanna insisted that she was not the “usual” entertainer because she did not go out or engage in sex with her customers. Claiming to come from a very religious family back in the Philippines, she was “very careful” of setting limitations when working and made sure that she “only sang and served drinks” to her customers. She believed this was the reason her Japanese husband was attracted to her. They began a “proper” courtship by having dates outside the hostess club and did not engage in sex until marriage. Noteworthy also is that the marriages of Filipina-Japanese DOCs did last, despite difficulties and misunderstandings. Another characteristic of the couples in the DOC group is that the Japanese partners had not specifically intended to make an international match; nor did they have any extensive international background. On this basis, we characterize the Japanese spouses as uchi-oriented. As Keisuke (40, Japan) said, “There was no [such term as] ‘international marriage’ in my dictionary. I wanted to get married with my wife. I have never thought about marrying a Russian. [My] wife is a wife.” Most women from DOC group also pointed out that they initially did not have plans to get married and settle in Japan. Lyubov (36, Russia) came to Japan

56

P O LI T I C S O F I N T E R NAT I O NA L M A R R I AG E I N J A PA N

as an entertainer in 1993 and met her husband in a club where she worked as a hostess. Looking back, she said, “He was just a Japanese friend for me, I didn’t even think of marrying him, and didn’t even love him. We were just hanging out as friends. . . . He kept calling me, sending presents, showering me with attention, and slowly, step by step, won me over. . . . You can fall in love from the first sight or gradually, over time. [I think] it was the gradual [type of love].” Anna (29, Ukraine) also pointed out that she had not planned to marry her husband, Jun (45, Japan). She said that he was her club customer almost from her first days in Japan and that he went there every day. “It was in about threefour months when I fell in love with him. . . . He was always very kind to me.” A month before Anna’s six-month work contract expired, Jun proposed to her. “I thought he was making fun of me . . . It was like where are you and where am I?! . . . But he said he was sincere. He gave me a ring and said that he didn’t have money, so he could not buy an expensive ring. It was really moving.” Anna left Japan a month later, but Jun called her every day. Because he kept telling her that he would come to visit her, she started learning Japanese. “I believed him [that he would come], but none of my relatives thought so. They thought it was my imagination. I kept asking him ‘Why are you coming? When are you coming?’ He came seven or eight months later and we decided to get married after we stayed together for one month.” According to Anna, Jun sometimes mentioned that he wanted to move from Japan to her hometown to retire there; however, Anna was not sure whether they would really do it. Yolanda (51, Philippines) was married in the Philippines and had one daughter with her first husband, a Filipino. She met her first Japanese husband, a company worker, while working as an entertainer in a hostess club. They divorced after a few years because her husband was physically abusive. Later, she was introduced to her second Japanese husband, who agreed to sponsor her daughter, Aileen, to come to Japan. He wanted Aileen to finish high school in Japan, but she decided to work as an entertainer. At the time of the interview, Aileen (34) had a sixteen-year-old child and was divorced. Aileen said that her Japanese husband was too immature for marriage, and that is why she divorced him. She claimed to be very close with her Japanese stepfather. For the DOC category, marriage migration to Japan was not generally a goal for many women; nor was it men’s goal to marry foreign women. Additionally, this pattern of marriages highlighted foreign spouses who were more or less familiar with life in Japan and were willing to settle here. Therefore, as it will be discussed in the following chapters, they tended to organize their lifestyles according to Japanese customs more than other groups.

Open-Choice Couples The OCC category involves Japanese individuals who were intentionally looking for a foreign spouse and either decided to stay in Japan or leave as a result of

S P O U SA L C H O I C E S

57

negotiations and/or considering career benefits and future prospects. There is only a handful of such cases in our dataset due to the fact that many of such couples tend to live overseas and usually involve Japanese females and foreign males living in males’ countries of origin. We included four couples from Yamamoto’s data set, where the wives were Japanese and married to foreign husbands, but who lived in Japan at the time of interview. One reason for this arrangement is that these wives had fluent English language skills and intentionally looked for foreign husbands. In the case of Japanese husbands, one (Yōnosuke, 45) who had felt the need “to escape from Japan” had just returned from an extensive period of traveling in the United States when he met his wife Gwen (44, United Kingdom). Another man, Hidetoshi (39, Japan) from Kim’s data set, studied in Canada and dated a Canadian woman, but when he decided to return to Japan, his girlfriend’s parents opposed her moving with him. Back in Japan, Hidetoshi married a Japanese woman, but the marriage did not work out, and the couple divorced. Eventually, Hidetoshi opened an English conversation school and turned to internet dating, where he met Alya (31, Kazakhstan). It is also important to note that it was Hidetoshi who according to Alya started planning their life together from the moment they met. The fact that couples in this category lived in Japan was due to the husbands’ professional careers. The difference of this category from that of MCC and DOC is that in some cases it was not the Japanese wives who chose to live in Japan but rather the foreign husbands, while the wives were looking forward to the time when they would be able to leave the country. Also, in cases with Japanese husbands/foreign wives it was the husbands who intentionally looked for foreign women due to their life experience overseas or to avoid the constraints of Japanese society. There was only one case in Kim’s study of FSU women in which the couple met in Japan, but permanently lived in a Southeast Asian country due to the husband’s company business there. Nina (23, Ukraine) was working in Japan as an entertainer, while also trying to find modeling jobs, when she met her future husband, who visited her club with his work clients. Despite a large age difference (26 years), they got married and moved overseas, where Nina’s husband owned a company and was planning to settle permanently. By creating these four categories, we first aimed to identify the ways couples meet and demonstrate that there is no one straightforward way of thinking about hypergamy and hypogamy. Cross-border marriages are not unidirectional; they involve a variety of individuals with their own life projects and goals and abilities to implement them. We also observed that the majority of couples who lived in Japan fell into three main categories: soto-oriented Japanese spouses (mostly women) married to foreign men, but choosing to live in Japan for career and familial considerations (MCC); and, uchi- and soto-oriented Japanese spouses

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P O LI T I C S O F I N T E R NAT I O NA L M A R R I AG E I N J A PA N

(mainly men) married to foreign women and having Japan as a default or only option of a country in which to live due to lack of career prospects in their spouses’ countries (BOC and DOC categories). Here we see the choice of living in Japan intersecting with gender role expectations of men being the main breadwinners and by wives’ familial duties and care considerations, as well as living environment and conditions.

Intersections of Social Categories and Life Directions Considering that among international couples living in Japan, the foreign spouse is more likely to be female than male, it would be possible to conclude that many women are marrying up from their socioeconomic status. But is that really the case? Even though we have a small sample and limited data to compare, we decided to separate all our participants into the four marriage patterns—MCC, BOC, DOC, OCC (table 3.1)—and compare their characteristics, including age, countries of origin, education level, previous marriage experiences, and so on, to gain an objective view of spouses in these groups. The data introduced in table 3.1 show a clear division across gender and citizenship lines in international marriages with Japanese nationals. Thus, as we discussed in the previous section, there were more Japanese wife–foreign husband couples in the MCC and OCC categories. BOC and DOC involved more FSU women and Filipinas, due to the gender expectations that Japanese males are to be breadwinners (as we will discuss in chapter 4), as well as to the fact that economic opportunities for these Japanese husbands in women’s countries of origin were fewer than in Japan. In general, Western couples tended to be closer in their ages, with only one couple in the OCC category having a twelve-year age difference. As mentioned earlier, there were five wives (four Japanese and one American) who were older than their husbands. All women in the FSU dataset were in their twenties and thirties by the time of the first interviews, while the majority of husbands were in their thirties and forties (see table 3.2). The average age of FSU wives in categories MCC, BOC and DOC was about thirty-one, while in OCC it was twenty-five. Husbands’ average age in MCC and DOC was about fortyseven and forty-three, respectively; in BOC and OCC it was about thirty-eight. The Filipino wives had a very different age distribution compared with the FSU wives. Wives in the DOC category were older than wives in the BOC category (42 and 48, respectively) and were overall older than FSU wives (see tables 3.1 and 3.2). This can be explained by different starting times for labor migration and marriage migration to Japan. Thus, half of the Filipino wives worked as hostesses starting in the 1970s and 1980s and the other half in the 1990s while the majority (18 persons) of FSU wives worked in Japan as hostesses from the 2000s.

Years in Marriage: (())

Age Difference: (())c

Age at Interview: (())b

HF-WJ 21 (20)

8 (6)

–0.5 (–1)

13 (13) HJ-WF

HF-WJ

-

47 (48)

50 (50)

-

-

4

9

Hus.

HJ-WF

-

Filipina data

-

Ph

32 (32)

8

FSU

FSU data

1

West

50 (50)

4

West data

Wife

Area

13

Total Number of Couples

Jpn

Multiple Choice

Categories of Couples

Nationalitya

TA BLE 3.1

9 (6)

HJ-WF

10 (8)

HJ-WF

48 (50)

30 (28)

-

7

16

-

-

Wife

23

-

HF-WJ

-

HF-WJ

62 (63)

38 (39)

-

-

-

-

23

Hus.

Basic Option

6 (5)

HJ-WF

16 (15)

HJ-WF

42 (40)

30 (29)

47 (50)

13

25

-

3

Wife

41

17 (18)

HF-WJ

–2 (–2)

HF-WJ

62 (63)

43 (45)

45 (48)

-

-

-

41

Hus.

Default Option

7 (3)

HJ-WF

8 (5)

HJ-WF

-

25 (24)

48 (49)

-

3

2

2

Wife

22 (22)

HF-WJ

7 (7)

HF-WJ

-

38 (39)

48 (48)

-

-

2

5

Hus.

(continued)

7

Open Choice

Characteristics of Spouses in International Marriages in Japan Based on the Marriage Patterns

Divorced Couplesg

Previous Marital Statusf

Level of Education

e

2 1 1 8

U/S

EI

M/I

O

1 4 -

after

current

-

before

1

-

N/R

N/R

1 (1)

div.

6 (2)

B

M

12

7 (1)

2

JC

none

-

1

VC

5

1

7

-

4

1

-

-

-

-

HS

Hus.

JH

HF-WJ

1

WP

Wife

13

Total Number of Couples

Way of Meeting the Japanese Spoused

Multiple Choice

Categories of Couples

Table 3.1. (continued)

1

5

2

HJ-WF

1

1

21

-

(1)

16 (2)

-

1

2 (1)

-

Wife

9

8

1

3

2

23

-

-

-

HF-WJ

11

4

8

2

1

16

-

1

3

-

Hus.

Basic Option

1

5

12

HJ-WF

6

11

24

-

-

6 (5)

1

10

18 (1)

-

Wife

9

1

31

-

-

41

-

-

-

HF-WJ

20

12

9

12

1

16 (1)

1

3

6

1

Hus.

Default Option

-

1

-

HJ-WF

4

-

3

-

1

3

1

-

2

-

Wife

4

1

1

1

-

7

-

-

-

HF-WJ

4

2

1

-

2

4

-

-

1

-

Hus.

Open Choice

a

1 1 1

West

FSU

Ph

O

1

-

3

-

4

-

-

-

-

16i

b

( = average, ) = median.

Jpn = Japan, West = Western, FSU = former Soviet Union countries, Ph = Philippines.

2

Jpn

1

-

-

-

-

h

i

There is a mismatch in divorce numbers (–18 total) and place of residence of a foreign spouse after the divorce (16 remained in Japan). The mismatch in numbers occurred due to the divorce of two participants prior to interviews

Jpn = Japan, W = Western, FSU = former Soviet Union countries, Ph = Philippines, O = other country that is not a country of origin of both spouses.

g Since we kept in touch with some of our participants, we were able to determine their marital status as of August 2019. The details about those who divorced will be discussed in chapter 8. DB = divorced before the first interview, DA = divorced after the first interview, DP = separated or divorce in process as of August 2019.

f

Since many interviews were conducted with only one spouse, there are mismatches in number of couples and in information about previous divorce experience of one of the spouses (mostly men in the FSU and Philippines datasets). Thus, we summarize unknown numbers under N/R (no response). Also, those Filipina participants who are counted in the divorced category actually estranged from their Filipino husbands but still married, due to lengthy and complicated divorce procedures in the Philippines.

e

JH = junior high school, HS = high school with the number of dropouts from high school in parentheses, VC = vocational college, JC = junior college (provides two-year degrees), B = bachelor’s degree holders, with the number of dropouts from university in parentheses, M = master’s degree holders, with the number of dropouts from graduate school in parentheses, N/R = no response. Since many interviews were conducted with one spouse only, there are mismatches in the number of couples and in information about the education level of one of the spouses (mostly men in the FSU study). Thus, we summarize unknown numbers under N/R.

WP = workplace, U/S = university/school, EI = Japanese and overseas entertainment industry, M/I = matchmaking agency/internet, O = others (friends, bars, restaurants, stations, and so on).

This category includes Western, FSU and Filipina datasets. In the age difference category, we divided couples into 2 groups: HJ-WF (Japanese husband with foreign wife) and HF-WJ (foreign husband with Japanese wife).

d

c

Foreign Spouses’ Country of Residence after Divorceh

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P O LI T I C S O F I N T E R NAT I O NA L M A R R I AG E I N J A PA N

TA BLE 3.2

Age of the Spouses in Different Categories Multiple Choice

Age

Basic Option

Wife

Husband

Wife

Husband

Default Option

Wife

Husband

Open Choice

Wife

Husband

20–29

2

-

9

1

14

2

2

1

30–39

6

2

8

8

16

7

1

1

40–49

2

6

2

6

7

15

4

2

50–59

3

4

4

2

4

7

-

3

60–69

-

1

-

3

-

5

-

-

70–79

-

-

-

2

-

1

-

-

No response

-

-

-

1

-

3

-

-

13

13

23

23

41

40

7

7

Total:

a

a

One husband of a Filipino wife passed away.

Overall, Western spouse couples and Filipino wife couples were older than FSU wife couples (table 3.2). BOC and DOC categories had the highest number of twenty- to thirty-year-old wives. The husbands’ age was distributed between thirty and fifty, with the majority of men were in their forties. The age difference between spouses was very small among Western spouse couples, while it was greater among Filipino and FSU wives couples (see table 3.3). The highest age difference was in the DOC category (16), where most couples met via hostess clubs, as compared with the MCC (13) and BOC (10) categories, where couples met through Japanese nationals’ work overseas, matchmaking, the internet, and other ways. Table 3.3 shows that there was greater age difference among couples in the DOC category than in any other. Also, while the age difference between MCC and OCC spouses ranged mostly between zero and four years, it ranged from five to nine in BOCs, and fifteen to nineteen in DOCs. There were many more wives and husbands in the DOC category who had previous marriage experience (11 wives and 12 husbands) than in the other categories. This may also imply marital issues such as spousal adultery that led to divorce and remarriage of those husbands with overseas partners. Another explanation may be in the relatively low success of divorced people in the Japanese marriage market that leads many of them to look for overseas partners. Even though we did not obtain data on previous marriage experiences of many

S P O U SA L C H O I C E S

63

TA BLE 3.3

Age Difference in the Marriages in Different Categories Multiple

Basic

Default

Open

Choice

Option

Option

Choice

Younger than wife

3

-

3

-

0–4 years older

4

4

4

3

5–9 years older

1

9

3

2

10–14 years older

1

2

7

1

15–19 years older

-

4

11

-

20–24 years older

2

3

4

-

25–29 years older

1

-

4

1

30–34 years older

1

-

1

-

35–39 years older

-

-

1

-

No response

-

1

3

-

13

23

41

7

Total

husbands of Filipino wives and Western spouses and their husbands/wives, we assume that there were fewer persons in the Western dataset who had experienced divorce before their current marriages, due to their long period in marriages and long dating process before the marriage. We can also assume that there were more divorced Japanese husbands of Filipino wives due to their older age at marriage and greater age difference. There were two Filipino wives in the DOC category and one Filipino wife in the BOC category who were still married in the Philippines. The issue of bigamy and divorce issues among Filipina spouses will be discussed in chapter 8. A look into the socioeconomic and educational profiles of informants reveals differences as well. In the MCC and OCC categories and in the Western dataset overall, husbands had relatively higher levels of education than the wives. This was especially visible in the group consisting of Japanese wives and foreign husbands: in nine couples, the wives were two university graduates, four vocational college graduates, and three high school graduates, while two of the husbands had a master’s degree or higher and seven had university degrees. Western wife–Japanese husband couples (3) generally had a high level of education, with three wives being university graduates, two husbands having a master’s degree or higher, and one having a bachelor degree. Wives and husbands in the BOC category tended to have higher levels of education (16 wives and 17 husbands with

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bachelor’s degree and higher) than those in the DOC category (6 wives and 17 husbands with bachelor’s degree and higher); this applies particularly to those who were involved in the hostess industry before their marriage. Thus, there were eight university graduates out of twenty-six FSU participants who arrived in Japan as entertainers. All thirteen Filipino women who were entertainers before their marriage were high school graduates and had no stable jobs, while the seven who entered Japan through engagement and eventually marriage were college graduates and were working in hotel industries or manufacturing companies when they met their husbands. There is then a strong correlation between the origin, socioeconomic background, and route of entry to Japan and the decision of which country to settle among these marriage migrants. There was a higher number of divorces in the DOC category compared to the BOC in the FSU data set. The divorce rate was 19 percent (3 couples out of 16) in the BOCs, and 36 percent (9 divorcees out of 25 couples) in the DOCs. In the Filipina dataset, the rate was 14 percent (1 divorce out of 7) in the BOC category and 62 percent (7 divorcees out of 13 couples) in the DOC category. Also, there were four FSU women and one Western man among the MCCs and BOCs who left Japan after the divorce, while the rest of the divorced foreign women stayed in Japan. For those women who left, it is likely that marriage was their sole reason for moving to Japan, and that their decreased interest in remaining in Japan after the divorce, their middle-class position in their home countries, and their ability to resettle there were factors in their departure. As for those women who eventually settle in Japan after their divorce, reasons might include more remarriage opportunities and better chances of getting stable economic support, even if it is from government welfare (seikatsu hogo); their ability to return to or enter the entertainment industry to earn a living; or better educational opportunities or support for their children. The differences in the BOC and DOC categories hint at different settlement patterns for wives and their ability to integrate into a Japanese community, which will be discussed in chapters 5 and 6. Also, the level of education and ways of meeting husbands affected power balance and abilities to negotiate in different categories of marriages, which is also discussed later in the book.

Summary In this chapter, we introduced the participants in our study and considered their socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. As mentioned in chapter 1, a number of authors, starting with Constable (2005b) and Suzuki (2003a), contributed greatly to debunking the stereotype that female marriage migration to developed countries is driven by a desire for upward mobility, as well as showing that it is not necessarily the case that they marry men in the receiving countries who could not find local partners. However, we are still left with partial information

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on spouses, and to fill this gap in the research of international marriages, we created four categories, whereby we separated couples by the ways they met and chose where to settle. The decision of where to settle is always proceeded by defining the marital relationships in terms of expectations of responsibilities, which are in turn highly influenced by gender roles, as well as economic opportunities, levels of education, and professional skills. The findings of this chapter show that there are a variety of experiences among female and male marriage migrants in Japan. We also support Meszaros (2017) in her argument that many couples experience hypergamy. However, it is important to differentiate couples who have similar national origins, such as the Philippines, Russia, Ukraine, and so on, and explore their experiences not only in terms of their nationalities, but also their gender and socioeconomic statuses to avoid generalizations and the reproduction of stereotypes. For these reasons, we organized couples in our datasets in terms of the choices they made and how they justified their decisions. There are several aspects that were highlighted through the analysis of their choices. First, it is not only the foreign spouse who decides to get married with a Japanese national. Therefore, we also categorized Japanese spouses as either uchi or soto oriented and showed that there are particular considerations on the side of Japanese spouses that eventually lead them to choose international marriage over endogamous marriage. Second, social and spatial locations of spouses affect their choice of the country of settlement—in our case, Japan. However, there is no a clear-cut dichotomy, such as powerful male vs. weak female, Japanese spouse vs. non-Japanese spouse, or rich vs. poor. There are factors such as career prospects, living standards, and kin and family needs, as well as personal preferences that lead couples in their decision-making process. Thus, it is not only Japanese husbands and foreign wives in our datasets who chose Japan for better career prospects and living conditions. Western male spouses and their Japanese wives in our dataset also chose Japan for the same considerations. However, it was mainly the Japanese husbands’ gender and social location that influenced the decision to live in Japan, but in case of Western husbands, it was their embodied cultural capital—being a White and an English-speaking person—that played a significant role in moving to or staying in Japan. Therefore, by focusing on the choices that couples made and their agency, we moved away from the overwhelming influence of the background (the sending or receiving countries) and showed how couples navigate their spatial and social locations in a time-lapse manner.

4 The Politics of Love

This chapter looks at how international marriages are constructed not only by individual husbands and wives but also by omnipresent outside forces such as migration regimes.1 Here we also discuss how larger structural and cultural factors affect and constrain the notion of love, and connect these to observations from our participants concerning the ways love was “performed, professed and made meaningful” (Faier 2007, 149). We address a range of questions: How do spouses of various nationalities express their feelings and interest in each other? What were the reasons for their marriages? Were rational calculations involved? What do spouses expect from an international marriage? As we pursue these questions, we consider the roles of migration regimes, economies, gender, and ethnic constructs in cross-border marriages. To discuss the role of love in international marriages, we need to consider how love is constructed. An excellent starting point is Carter’s observation that “love is not something we can ‘know’—we have to investigate how it is represented socially and culturally” (Carter, 2015, n.p.). While the roots of love can be traced back to ancient Rome and Greece, where the notion of love was not bound to marriage and sex, and then later to the Christian concept of love for God (Schwartz and Scott 2012), these days romantic love has become a barometer of equality, where women and men make choices and decisions based on the intensity and continuity of relationships. It is also seen as a legitimating ideology for relationships, commitment, marriage, and family creation (Comer 1974; Jackson 1993; Smart 2007 cited in Carter 2013). While love provides life with meaning (Langford 1999), it also “offers a distraction in life via the consumption of romance” (Carter 2013, 730).2 Introducing Hochschild’s (2003) account of the “modern Western paradox of love,” Carter (2013, 730) notes that it “represents the discrepancy between the depiction of fulfilling, intimate, playful love, that we are encouraged to aspire to, and the reality of the social context that warns 66

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against trusting such love too much for fear of betrayal or divorce.” Thus, there is a split between representations of love and people’s real-life experiences. Also calling it “confluent love,” Giddens (1992) discusses temporary love, which lasts as long as individuals are satisfied in their relationships, and questions life-long commitment. Swidler (2003, 113–114) further differentiates between “movie” or mythic love and prosaic or realistic love. She describes the first as “(1) a clear, all-or-nothing choice; (2) of a unique other; (3) made in defiance of social forces; and (4) permanently resolving the individual’s destiny.” In contrast, (1) Real love is not sudden or certain. It grows slowly and is often ambivalent and confused. Love does not require a dramatic choice but may result from circumstance, accident, or inertia. (2) There is no “one true love.” . . . (3) The kind of love that leads to marriage should not depend on irrational feeling in defiance of social convention, but on compatibility and on practical traits that make persons good life partners. . . . (4) Love does not necessarily last forever. Love and marriage do not settle either personal identity or social identity.

Swidler observes that the two different types of love are pervasive in people’s narratives. The “movie” kind focuses on the search for “one true love,” lifealtering decisions, and permanent alliances. The realistic type of love, however, helps people to make sense of how to maintain and manage relationships. In general, people are not taught how to define love or how to profess it. Most of the time love is expected to be “felt.” Thus, “Love is a blank space that couples themselves have to fill in” (Carter 2013, 279). At the same time, however, love is institutionalized in migration regimes and implemented as a measuring device in bureaucratic procedures related to cross-border marriages. That is why the first section of this chapter on the politics of love considers the specific nature of marriage migrants’ love. The second focuses on the spouses themselves, on their choices and how they profess their love, as well as on their images of one another, images that are framed by social, economic, gender, and racial constructs.

International Marriage and Love Current migration regimes of many developed countries, including Japan, implement a variety of external and internal controls to regulate migration in their countries. “Most Western countries deliver fiancée/spouse visas only after face-to-face interviews of migrant women to check the authenticity of their intentions. Many countries have restricted the access of migrants with spouse/fiancée visas to the labour market, supposedly to discourage ‘marriages of convenience’ and to protect their own citizens against what is

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informally referred to as ‘scam marriages’” (Fresnoza-Flot and Ricordeau 2017b, 9). According to Charsley et  al. (2020), in the United Kingdom, for example, as part of immigration legislation, a Primary Purpose Rule (PPR) existed between 1983 and 1997 that required anyone entering the country on the basis of marriage to prove that the marriage was not being used to gain a visa to settle in the UK. Supporters of PPR suggested that it stopped forced and “scam” marriages.3 Thus, the question of “love” plays a significant role in the process of visa acquisition and in the ability of foreign spouses from less developed countries to unite with their spouses and reside in the developed country. Immigration police and consulate and border control officials are those who evaluate the choices of international spouses in many cross-border marriages. As Scheel (2017, 402) points out, Consulates emerge as a site in which a particular notion of love . . . is shaped and circulated. This already indicates that this particular (Western) understanding of love as devoid of any material interest also features as vehicle for practices of government for the regulation of marriage migration to Europe. Put differently, emotions like love—or more precisely particular versions thereof—feature as technologies of government within the European border regime [emphasis original].

Love in this context is an emotion to be perceived and recognized by the participants as such (D’Aoust 2013). Infantino (2014) describes bureaucratic practices that created a category of “fake” marriages and were implemented by authorities “to fight against unwanted migration” (Infantino 2014, 28). As such, spouses were interviewed separately by consular employees in order to find inconsistencies in their accounts on how they met each other and other personal information, which would lead to the visa rejection. Kim’s dataset shows that Japan’s migration regime involves similar procedures for “detecting” and “measuring” a type of love that resembles a romanticized “movie” love. The standard procedure for immigration officers is not only to call or visit couples’ houses, but also to interview their neighbors in the process of evaluating a spousal visa application. Kim’s informants noted from their own experience that if immigration police officers had suspicions about the couple’s feelings, they would organize sudden visits to the spouses’ address to see whether they lived together or separately, and also interview spouses about their daily lives and later compare their answers. One of the practices was to ask spouses questions related to their daily routines, such as where they shopped, what days their garbage was collected, and the brand of their TV set or washing machine. However, there were also private questions such as “Which side of the bed does your spouse sleep on?” or “What is the color of your husband’s underwear today?” These questions were aimed to verify whether the couple lived together and whether the marriage was for “convenience” or for “love.”

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One of the ironies of such “measurements” is that some of the habits considered with regard to spouses in international marriages are not common among some spouses from the same country, in particular, Japanese ones. Dales and Yamamoto (2019, 75) point out that “in the Japanese context, romantic love made a late entrance to heterosexual relationships and marital expectations. Even today, romantic love may be regarded, at best, as an added bonus, an ‘additional something’ (purasu arufa), tied to particularly good fate (un). While companionship is something that both men and women appear to seek in a marital relationship, for many it is a companionability that is child-focused and pragmatic.” Romanticized marriage and love are not necessary components in Japanese marriages. Moreover, as Douglass (2003, 99) observes, “The Japanese institution of marriage, based on social standing rather than affection, means that married couples prefer to remain together for social reasons even in the absence of romantic relations. Pressure to stay married leads wives to endure husbands having sexual liaisons outside of the marriage. This ‘inside marriage divorce’ may not be the norm but is reported with sufficient frequency to suggest that, for some married couples, the practice is routine.”4 Thus, Western romantic love standards are applied to cross-border marriages. They are apparent in how officials examine couples’ sleeping arrangements, communications, and daily activities in order to screen out “fake” marriages from “real” ones.

Reasons for International Marriage While bureaucrats and immigration authorities attempt to measure love in international marriages in terms of romanticized “movie” love, the individuals in such marriages have their own ideals, beliefs, and goals. In this section we consider how interviewed wives and husbands professed their love to each other, explained their wish to marry foreigners instead of people from their own countries, and justified their marriages with Japanese or non-Japanese spouses.

Filipino Wives: Marriage without Love Is “Un-Filipino” The Filipina spouses who participated in our study entered Japan through one of two routes: either on a non-spousal type visa (for example, a tourist or entertainer visa) prior to meeting their future spouse, or those who met and married their Japanese husband in the Philippines and entered the country on a spouse visa. Our cases showed that more often than not, women in the first category tended to utilize marriage to extend their stay in Japan legally. In this sense, to marry for love may seem farfetched, and the reality of their union may run counter to any romantic notions often associated with marriage. “This should come as no surprise, as there are nearly always economic dimensions in ‘legitimate’ relations such as marriage” (Parreñas 2011, 181). This economic dimension

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reinforces stereotypical images of Filipino women in Japan as “shallow” and manipulative “gold diggers.” However, love had many dimensions and layers for Filipina participants. Most participants in the default-option category (DOC) discussed in the chapter 3, did admit that they married their husbands for visa purposes, but almost all professed to have developed feelings for their Japanese husbands in the course of their marriages. For most of them it was unthinkable to marry just for the visa and for the money; love also had to be a factor, even if it developed and came later. For these Filipinas, the reasons for marriage must evolve from practical reasons to the inclusion of love. For them, love of God was not congruent with love for money or marrying for a visa. As such, even though the reality was somewhat different, by the time of the interviews of the Filipina participants in the DOC category, they were able to talk about their marriages in terms of love, thus conforming to cultural norms. INTIM ACY AND SACR IFICE

If yearning for intimacy and physical contact is a

manifestation of love, then these Filipino wives did love their Japanese husbands. Hershey (40, Philippines), who married her Japanese husband when she was eighteen, expressed her dismay over not having a sexual relationship with her husband: “I haven’t had sex with my husband for sixteen years. This was after I gave birth to my second child. Since I had a difficult pregnancy, I was afraid I would get pregnant again soon. So, one time, when he intimated that he wanted sex, I refused. That was the last time that he did.” This frustration was also echoed by Mia (40, Philippines). At twenty-two, she married a sixty-yearold Japanese, whom she met in the bar where she used to work as an entertainer. In one of the Bible sessions she attended, she talked to the nun who facilitated the study about her sexual dissatisfaction. The nun encouraged her to pray and reflect on her problems. After the nun left, Raisa (40, Philippines), while playing card games, told the other women that she was thinking of separating from her husband or engaging in extra-marital affairs just to ease this frustration. The other members tried to dissuade her and set their own marriages as examples of how to endure the relationship. Narratives of sacrifice were common in the lives of the Filipina spouses. They sacrificed to earn money to send to their family in the Philippines and they sacrificed to endure the loneliness of living in Japan. In the cases of Hershey and Raisa, to endure the emptiness of marriage in terms of sexual relationships with their husbands was a sacrifice in itself. When Hershey said, “I cannot do anything. I have to endure, he is my husband,” for her this was a statement of love. As such, statements like these were framed within the Filipina spouses’ notions of intimacy and their expectations from their husbands which were in return tied to sociocultural practices and processes. For these Filipino wives, who grew up in an environment where love must be expressed, sexual intimacy is one

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pivotal factor to maintain marriage. Love, as a sacrifice, is a cultural encounter that occurs in a transitional space, and must be reconfigured and transformed. Thus, absence of sexual intimacy and enduring it was a symbolic representation of love. In these narratives, we see wives’ frustration over the lack of intimacy, which is a signifier of romantic love. At the same time, not quitting such relationships and sacrificing their personal happiness for others was a sign of the prosaic-realistic love. ENDUR ANCE Elaine (45, Philippines) first came to Japan when she was twenty-

four years old to work as an entertainer. Her migration was an act of rebellion against her maternal family; her father and brother mistreated her, and when her friend who owned an agency convinced her to apply as an entertainer, she readily agreed. She worked for nine years in a club in Tokyo, staying illegally in Japan during this period. Elaine’s narrative was distinct in a sense that her husband went against the stereotyped notion that most marriages to Japanese brought advantages to Filipino women. According to Elaine, her husband verbally and physically abused her. She said that her “husband was lazy and irresponsible and did not provide financially for her and the children.” But she said she had to endure for the sake of the children; divorce was not an option because of her Catholic upbringing.” We can see that Elaine’s motivation for staying married to her Japanese husband was not financial as her husband was not providing for the family. Instead, it was about managing the risks and perils of marriage to her husband and avoiding divorce. While Japanese men are generally perceived by Filipino women to be “rich, generous and hardworking,” Elaine was staying with her husband despite his inability to live up to these standards. Chit’s (53, Philippines) marriage to her Japanese husband illustrated the imbalance of power caused by gendered and sexual subjectivities. Love or affection for her husband was informed by the legality of her stay in Japan and was extended to her child. It became a bargaining tool for Chit as she maneuvered and strategized in order to have a sense of security. She initially entered Japan on a tourist visa and worked as an entertainer. After three months, when her visa expired, she extended her stay and became an undocumented migrant. She then met her husband in the bar where she was working, and they cohabited for a while. According to Chit, her husband refused to marry her at first because he was afraid of the idea of marrying a foreigner. Regarding this refusal, Chit surmised that the reason was that during this time, her future husband thought that international marriages were not yet accepted in Japan. When Chit got pregnant with their first child, her husband still refused to marry her for fear that his mother would discover that he was cohabiting with a foreigner. When her child turned four, Chit practically forced her husband to marry her so that she could enroll their child in pre-school. She was an undocumented migrant and was afraid to be

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asked for details for fear of being discovered. Still, her husband refused until she wrote to his mother and told her about their situation and the child. When the mother learned of this, she gave her son the permission to marry Chit. Elaine’s narrative expresses a love that is idealized and practiced in conformity with the expectations and rules set by social institutions such as the church. Chit’s, on the other hand, offers us an example of love choices that were made in defiance of existing social constraints. At the same time, these two examples show “the heroic effort necessary to keep relationships together . . . . The institutional insecurity of modern marriage introduces a mythic element right into the heart of marital mundaneness. Here prosaic love and mythic love meet” (Swidler 2003, 122). Elaine drew on her Catholic upbringing and the presence of children to compensate for her unhappiness in the marriage. Chit, however, had the courage to contact her future mother-in-law to make their relationship work. In other words, these women made heroic efforts to overcome the daily requirements of prosaic love. GR ATITUDE

Our empirical data also showed that love could be mutual

between the two parties. Tess (36, Philippines), for example, met her husband in the bar where she was working. Once, after a grueling day of entertaining Japanese men, her husband-to-be who was at that time one of her customers, offered to take her home. She did not have a proper visa then and was working and staying illegally in Japan. Upon reaching her apartment building, her husband noticed a man wearing plain clothes with earphones watching them. The man approached them and said, “I am from the Immigration Office.” Her husband-to-be then restarted the car and sped away. Thus, according to Tess, he “saved” her. She then asked him to let her stay in his place and in return she would clean the house for him, cook his meals, and do all the household chores without pay. They lived together for two years, and when she got pregnant, they finally married. Tess said she did not force her husband to marry her, but just told him to support their child and do whatever he thought was right. Tess considered herself “lucky” for having such a generous husband. A well-to-do businessman, he gave her a generous allowance, which she spent on shopping, as well as sending a portion of it to her family in the Philippines. When she became addicted to pachinko, a slot-machine game,5 her husband encouraged her to attend the Catholic mass every Sunday so that she would learn how to control her addiction. For Tess, her love for her husband was tied to his generosity, kindness, and compassion, which allowed her to maintain her transnational ties to her family in the Philippines and to change herself for the better. The experiences of sacrifices and endurance of the Filipino wives may debunk the notion that marriages contracted by Filipino women to Japanese men were always advantageous to the former. On the contrary, the women had to contend

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with the stigma, the risks and even discrimination that their marriages posed as they navigated contested spaces of their individual constructs of meanings of love. The narratives above showed different expressions of mythic love and prosaic-real love: a degree of endurance, willingness to sacrifice, financial support, levels of intimacy and gratitude to a compassionate and generous spouse. All of these constructs were tied to the ways Filipino wives of Japanese husbands reconfigured love as central to their married lives. For these women, their notions of love sustained and enabled them to formulate strategies in order to make sense of the realities of their everyday lives. Love was a tangible force from which they drew resources to transform themselves and create new subjectivities. Perhaps, just as love allowed them to exercise certain freedoms in ways that they chose their husbands and sustained their relationships, it also compelled them to reach a fuller potential as they lived their lives.

FSU Wives: Constructed Ideals of Men and Marriage In contrast to the Filipino wives, FSU wives often described having idealized images of their partners and husbands, as well as the mismatch between these images and reality. Their stories involved heroes, who were Japanese men, and villains, who were men in their home countries. Moreover, FSU wives were less religious than Filipinas and seemed to experience less prejudice when they worked as hostesses. This might be explained by a widespread image of WesternJapanese couples, whose ways of meeting and ensuing relationships supposedly have a romantic story behind them. Slavic women were partially protected by this image from being stigmatized as much as Filipinas. SECUR IT Y

There were several trends that are noticeable in the FSU wives’

explanations of why they wanted to marry foreign or Japanese men. One of these was related to the gender constructs in post-Soviet Russia, where women were presented with two lifestyle models—the housewife or the business woman. While it required a lot of effort, networking, knowledge, and capital to become a business woman, the housewife ideal could be accomplished by getting married to a man who could provide such a lifestyle. However, post-Soviet economic realities, instability, and a shorter life expectation for men made it difficult for many women to become a housewife. The FSU women typically expressed their discontent with men from their home countries and their perceived attitude toward women. As Alla (36, Russia) said: “You know, I think they [Russian men] are unreliable. . . . Let’s say, if I lived with him for fifteen years, there could be a possibility that he would leave me for a younger, prettier woman. Also, they take little responsibility for their children. . . . This is why now there are books being published on how to marry foreign men. If I were living in Russia, I would definitely buy those books. Because I had a goal, I definitely wanted to get married [to a foreigner].”

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When she met her husband, Alla worked in a bank, had a secure financial situation, and was not interested in foreign men as a means of refuge from Russia. Her main concern was Russian men’s attitude toward women, which made her feel insecure if she got married and had children. Polina (24, Russia) had similar views of Russian men: I wouldn’t say it is everybody, but of those I’ve seen, there were no Russian men that were very suitable [as a husband]. Most were alcoholics or drug addicts, and didn’t work. If they worked, they didn’t give what they earned to their wives [didn’t support the family], and didn’t help with housework. They were always hanging out with friends, or drinking beer. They said they loved their children, but didn’t take care of them. They didn’t look good either. . . . I don’t want to offend anyone, but I didn’t like them.

Many of the FSU participants often complained that Russian men “had affairs” and “didn’t take responsibility for the family,” so women felt that they did not “have anyone to rely on.” In effect, they were unsatisfied with gender and family norms in Russia. Margarita (35, Russia) echoes these concerns: I have had Russian boyfriends, but I never wanted to marry them. It had nothing to do with money; it was their attitude toward women. I would have to do what they want, and they would have affairs like it is normal. They would give me little money for living expenses, and I would be the one who has to worry about earning the rest of the money, and how the family is going to live.

These concerns speak to some extent to the fragility of marriage as an institution in their home countries, where expectations that their love life and marriage will last forever are low even while desiring this as an outcome. In contrast, some women saw foreign men, including Japanese men, as almost mythic heroes with whom a vaguely constructed dream of long-lasting marriage might come true. Golovina (2017) has called such a phenomenon a “return to family (home),” meaning that women can return to their idealized image of home that they could not attain back in Russia. Many of the FSU women interviewed prioritized a stable family over spousal love. Zlata (39, Russia), as we mentioned in chapter  3, met her husband through matchmaking services, and when asked why she decided to marry her husband, she replied: “It was 1992 . . . I don’t believe in love at first sight. I’m more pragmatic.” The decision to use a matchmaking service was emblematic of this pragmatism. When asked the same question, Polina (24, Russia) explained: “I wasn’t that interested in money, I thought about creating a family and having children and he was the one who could make my dream come true.” Galina (36, Russia) also described her love to her husband in terms of the feeling of

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security: “He behaved like a gentleman and he looked very serious and responsible. And I also liked him. I thought I could rely on him, and he could provide a family life for my son.” Even though these women did not describe their Japanese husbands as knights in shining armor, the creation of the ideal Japanese man as a stable partner suggests another kind of mythic male hero. GR A DU A L AND LONG-L A STING A FFECTION

Whereas many FSU wives in this

study drew on the language of marital security to describe their reasons for getting married to their Japanese husbands, some spoke of falling in love with their husbands, even if it was not love at first sight. Lyubov (36, Russia) described her feelings as a gradual process of falling in love: “For half a year I was walking with him [only] holding his hand. He was just a Japanese friend. I didn’t even think of marrying him, I didn’t even love him. . . . He was calling, constantly sending me presents, showed attention, and then little by little achieved [his goal] with vigor. . . . There is love from the first sight, and there is love that is gradual. I think this one was gradual.” Another participant, Anna (29, Ukraine), said that when she returned from Japan after working there for half a year as a hostess, she kept in touch with her future husband who promised to visit her in Ukraine. When I decided that I wanted to get married with him, I realized that I didn’t want to return to my routine that I was used to before leaving for Japan. I didn’t want to go out and was thinking only about him. . . . I decided that I wanted to have his child. This was the moment when I realized that I loved him. Till that moment I was afraid to get hurt. . . . Because, if it [the feeling of love] were something temporary, then what would happen with me, when it had gone? I don’t understand the idea of coming here just for self-interest. It is hard. I have to at least love him. Even if there’s no love at this moment, there is love that comes gradually. If a person feels [at least] some sympathy, then they can get married. But if it is just for self-interest . . . especially overseas, it would be hard to become happy.

In their accounts, Lyubov and Anna also talked about the prosaic, realistic love described by Swidler (2003). There appeared to be a lot of considerations on the women’s side about whether they could live with their future husbands on a longterm basis. The main thread in their narratives was that some degree of sympathy was necessary for the marriage to keep going. SC A RCIT Y AND A PPE A R ANCE

Some women also emphasized social problems

such as alcohol and drug addiction in their home countries, which forced women to constantly compete with other women to find and keep a good husband. Marina (28, Russia) explained: “I do not think Russian men are particularly

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bad. . . . There are some very good men. But many become alcoholics or do not do anything, and just complain about life. There are not many [men] who are good, young, smart, and handsome. On the other hand, there are many smart and pretty Russian women, so the competition is fierce. If a woman finds a good man, she must fight against other women her entire life to keep him. In the end, there are wonderful men in Russia, but I have never met one.” This competition made women consider cross-border marriage. As Elena (26, Russia) explained, “It is easier to date foreign men. I mean, if there are ten Russian men, only three of them would like to date me, but in case of Japanese men, it would be six.” Maiya (35, Russia) said that she used an online matchmaking website, because there were more men in the world than in Russia. There were also women who considered Japanese men’s appearance preferable to that of Russian men. Elena explained: “I like their [Japanese] appearances more. But at the core everybody [Russian men and Japanese men] are pretty much the same.” Larissa (35, Russia) said that she fell in love with her husband Takehiro (42, Japan) while she visited him in Osaka and saw him going to work in his suit. She mentioned that when they met in Russia, he always wore T-shirts and looked very young, but when he wore his suit, she realized how mature and serious he was. Another participant, Marina, said: “I always liked Asian guys. I mean, black hair, black eyes, dark skin, and not too tall men.” One of the Russian wives said that she was intentionally looking for a man who was shorter than she was because her whole family was tall and she did not want “to have a basketball team” at her home. Thus, these narratives suggest how some of the women dreamed of being chosen from among other women by the future husband or of choosing the man whose ideal image was already created in their heads before they even met. And that would be a perfect scenario for them to fall in love and live happily ever after. DI VORCE

As was in the case of some Filipino wives, FSU women also experi-

enced unsatisfactory marriages, which some endured; others sought sexual intimacy outside their marriages, and still others chose to divorce. The lack of sexual intimacy was one reason for their dissatisfaction. For instance, Alisa (28, Ukraine) divorced her fifty-three-year-old husband because of an absence of an intimate relationship and because she did not want to have affairs outside her marriage. Maria (30, FSU)6 also decided to divorce her husband, who was thirty-eight at the time, since he refused to have intimate relationships with her from the moment they conceived their child and did not support the family financially. While she was considering how to divorce and get custody of her child, she spoke about how she wanted to accidentally meet a man, with whom she would fall in love who would love her back. Alisa was also trying to find a man, about whom she could feel passionate. These women’s divorces were

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driven by the idea of the search for romanticized “one true love,” rather than enduring their situation.

Japanese Men: In Search of Not Too Traditional, but Not Too Modern Wives Even though we had a limited number of Japanese male participants, it was important to hear their voices too. The majority of men who participated in this study were married to FSU women. They had different love ideals and opinions about marriage partners, as well. RUSSI AN CULTUR E

Some Japanese husbands were particularly attracted to

women with Russian origins because for them the women embodied romantic ideals depicted in Russian literature—being well-read, hard-working, faithful, affectionate and selfless. Hideo (26, Japan), who studied Russian language and literature at university and was not yet married, shared his experience of dating a Russian woman. He compared his ease in talking to her about literature, art, and other topics with the “worthless talks [kudaranai hanashi]” he would have with Japanese women. This was one reason why he was looking for a Russian woman as his partner, as he wanted to be in a relationship where intellectual conversations were possible. Similarly, Elena explained that her future husband was fascinated with Russian and Soviet literature and culture and this passion made him look for a Russian wife. According to her, he loved Russian women because “they [Russian women], except me, are hard-workers, and compared to Japanese women, they say they want to work. And Japanese women, and me also, only think of spending money.” In this narrative, Russian women represented images drawn from Russian literature and culture, such as those featured in the works of L. Tolstoy, I. Turgenev and A. Pushkin. However as Elena said, she did not represent the idealized image of Russian women in her partner’s view, as she was not interested in working or spiritual growth, but was concerned with mundane questions—the financial side of their future life, living arrangements and so forth. The views of Hideo and Elena’s partner on Russian women were mostly constructed through the images described in Russian literature that do not necessarily reflect the reality as was in Elena’s case. IM AGES OF TR A DITIONA L AND MODER N WOMEN

Some men saw their mar-

riage with Russian women as a step away from prosaic-realistic traditional marriages and toward romantic marriages. Takehiro (42, Japan) explained his reason to marry Larissa in the following way, interspersing his Japanese with English terms (which are italicized): When I was thirty-three, I was once married to a Japanese woman. Well, we didn’t have children, and were married for about three years; well, it wasn’t really an interesting experience, . . . or it would be better to say

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that our feelings didn’t match. Both of us were very busy, and both were something like separated, like DINKS [double-income, no kids]. . . . Also, we didn’t talk straight about our feelings, and didn’t understand each other. Because I had that [experience], I felt a bit that the character of Japanese women doesn’t fit me; when I talked to foreigners in the ** company [the foreign company where he worked at that moment]—I felt, well, relaxed, or it seemed that they matched me, and I thought, if I had a chance, I’d get married to a foreigner.

Hideo, Takehiro, and other men who experienced dating or marriage with Japanese women, chose to find a foreign partner because they preferred a different style of communication. Further, Takehiro explained why he was attracted to Larissa, rather than to an American woman: Americans are straightforward, but they are not traditional, it seems that they are always delighted, like everyday happy style, but Russians, of course they like to have fun, but it can be said that they are fifty/fifty, or have a balance, they are quite traditional, and, intelligent. Americans do not have a good balance. Most of them, like my boss, my friends, I mean, hmmm, there are either people that do only job, only working, or those who are good-for-nothing; I thought that I didn’t like Americans, and at that time Russian style seemed to be better.

By marrying FSU women, some Japanese husbands expected their wives to bring a modern lifestyle with “movie” love, but keep some traditional values at the same time. Thus, while they built a “modern” family with a partner from a different ethnic and cultural background, they expected the partner to be “traditional” in the Japanese way. And for some men, Russian women had these kinds of qualities. Takehiro and Larissa were in fact both interviewed. Larissa, who said she didn’t really know why her husband married her, was surprised when she heard Takehiro’s explanation. “Why didn’t he just say that he loved me?!” she exclaimed. Evidently, Larissa showed that she was expecting her husband not to value her as a Russian woman with particular values, but to value her as an individual with whom he was in love with. LOV E AND A PPE A R ANCES

Like some FSU women who were attracted to Japa-

nese men, some Japanese men were attracted to white (Slavic and European) women in general. Jun (45, Japan), who met his wife, Anna, in a hostess club, explained: “She didn’t know Japanese, so I couldn’t talk to her. But as a Japanese, I prefer blondes with blue eyes, it feels differently than with women from the Philippines.” As Anna (29, Russia) explained: “[He] told me he always liked gaijin [foreigners] and he thought he was a foreigner in his previous life [laughs].

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He loves Americans . . . and he loves blondes.” Jun also mentioned that before meeting Anna, he mostly frequented Filipino pubs, and Anna was the first “white” woman he ever met. On the question of how Filipinas were different from Russian women, Jun explained: “Since we couldn’t talk to each other, I don’t know what they have deeply inside. But as Japanese, after all, to be with a blonde woman with blue eyes and a Filipino woman, after all, this one feels different.” According to Yaroslavna’s husband, Masayuki (30, Japan), he was attracted to her because he “thought she was clever, beautiful and kind,” and in addition: “what was a benefit . . . is that everybody notices you [laughs].” However, some participants chose ethnic Asians living in Russia, as was the case for Takeshi (50, Japan). For two years he worked in Moscow, where he met his wife Irina. According to Takeshi, he did not like blonde women, and he could not feel relaxed when he was in the office surrounded by them. Though Takeshi did not provide details of why he felt so, he added that when he saw Irina (who was ethnic Korean) with her friend in the restaurant, he decided to talk to her, and subsequently his feelings grew for her. These narratives reflect on the importance of physical traits, where a woman’s appearance was the initial reason for men to approach them and start relationships.

Summary In our discussion of migration regimes, we observed that border control and immigration officials require cross-border marriages to be based on a mythic, romantic style of love. It is interesting how this type of love appeared to be more important than the prosaic-realistic, even though it is not necessarily mainstream in the receiving society, Japan. Insofar as immigration police reinforce the romanticized style of love in international marriages, they are involved in regulating citizens’ decision-making, overseeing their marriage choices by defining who can receive a spouse visa to protect them from heartbreak or being victims of foreign “gold-diggers.” However, such regulations do not reflect the variety of social factors that actually lead to international marriages. There is no one dimension of love and one possible way to fall in love. On top of the fact that husbands and wives do not necessarily see their marriages as a representation of “modern” relationships, there might be lack of marriage partners in their geographic area; possibly, previous marriage experiences, which lead to fewer chances to find another marriage partner; low social standing, which may lead to limited marriage options for individuals, as well as other individual and social factors. Furthermore, we see many narratives related to the ethnoracial attributes of spouses in marriages with FSU women, which represent beauty ideals or values and lifestyle images that their ethnicity/race presumably brings to the marriage, as it was discussed in “portraiture” lens in chapter 1.

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The narratives of our participants reveal that concepts of love are products of transnational forces and that affective emotions are defined along the lines of “logistics of desire” (Mahler and Pessar, 2001), idealization and expectations. Suzuki (2003b) and Faier (2007) have discussed the ways notions of love were professed and were made meaningful in the lives of Filipino migrants in Japan. We affirm the argument made by Suzuki (2003b) that affective relationships can develop between the spouses and these are professed along and within political and cultural structures. In this sense, love is a discourse, a meaning-making process for the transformation of self for the spouses in cross-border marriages as they rationalize their realities in a given time and space.

5 Spaces for Negotiation

From the stories of our participants thus far, we have been able to highlight how political, social, and cultural constraints shape their personal experiences and how these impact the choices available and the decisions that are made. At the same time, the stories of our participants also reveal the degree to which agency can and is exercised within spaces created by their international partnerships. We can also observe the way that cultural and social capital may be accumulated by individuals and couples, which opens up further spaces to move with a degree of fluidity even in a highly stratified society. We find the spaces where couples are required to negotiate and accept fluidity are primarily in the private domain of the family and that the negotiations tend to concern gender identity and marital roles. For women, this has traditionally been a domain where a degree of agency can be practiced. Couples enter a marital relationship with ideas of how marriage, family formation, child rearing, and gender relations are performed. Added to this is the likely expectation of a partner from outside of one’s culture to do things differently. This combination of cultural “baggage” and “expectations” on both sides requires a degree of fluidity—give and take—if an acceptable balance in the relationship is to be reached. Differences in cultural norms, practices, and beliefs of partners may result in mismatched expectations and a sense of frustration if not handled well (Breger and Hill 1998). Yet, while culture may appear to create problems among couples from very different backgrounds, it can also be used to resolve and counter problems. Couples may give themselves “permission” to deviate from standard cultural patterns, to adapt, negotiate, and change their expectations in ways that may be more difficult if the partner was from a similar background (Yamamoto 2010; Kim 2019). In this chapter, we consider how normative ideas are challenged within marital relationships and what negotiations ensue. We pay attention to the tensions 81

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and conflicts brought about by differences (real or perceived) in cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, language and communication, and normative ideas of the “ideal” family. In looking at the resolution of tensions, we need to pay attention to power imbalances and the way that foreign spouses and ethnic minorities negotiate their position inside the family. From this exploration, we will gain an understanding of how the participants redefine their cultural notions in order to adapt to their new environment. This points both to the fluidity of culture and the possibilities for hybrid versions of the couple’s understanding of what is “normal” for them. We also return to the question of who “Japanese” people are and discuss experiences of Japanese spouses in international marriages and their attitudes toward the dominant culture. Thus, we analyze how couples’ lives are organized along cultural lines.

International Marriage Household Styles This chapter analyzes the empirical data from our interviews in terms of gender role divisions and norms in marital relationships. We have identified four patterns for dividing productive and reproductive labor and organizing the home environment in relation to Japanese norms (figure  5.1).1 The first two models are the Japanese breadwinner model and Western breadwinner model. The difference between the two is the positioning of the home and the wife in relation to nonfamily members. The Japanese model has a strong soto/uchi divide such that nonfamily members play little part. The husband and wife not only split their work along the typical productive/paid and reproductive/unpaid binary, but also have largely segregated social lives as well. Although the Western breadwinner model—so-called two-person, single career—involves the familiar productive/paid and reproductive/unpaid division of labor along gender lines, there is a stronger emphasis on shared conjugal roles. Husbands and wives socialize together, and nonfamily members are invited to the home, which is an extension of the outside world. In this type of family the wife might be seconded into the husband’s job “through the expectation that she will be available to entertain his business associates, engage in volunteer activities that will enhance his organization’s image, attend company parties and other events, socialize with her husband’s coworkers off the job, and at the same time attend to the children and keep the household functioning smoothly” (Schwartz and Scott 2012, 324). Another model, mixed-style, is hybrid in form. In it the man is the primary breadwinner, but the wife also contributes substantially to the household income. Although the wife tends to take on duties typically marked as “feminine,” compromises are possible. In particular, in the mixed-style model, the husband might be involved with household chores, childcare, and the education of the couple’s children to a greater extent than usually expected in Japanese

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FIGUR E 5.1 Four Household Patterns

culture. The last model is the egalitarian model where both partners contribute a significant degree to household income and share most chores at home. Yamamoto (2010) calls this the “Western egalitarian model” because of the near equal participation in productive and reproductive labor and the importance placed upon conjugal roles. While this model was initially developed to describe international marriages between Western and Japanese couples, we have extended it here as four ideal types to also describe relationships with non-Western (Filipino and FSU) women.

Japanese Breadwinner Model The couples in this category accept the idea of prescribed gender roles and organize their household along so-called traditional expectations and duties. The “traditional” Japanese family we refer to is a post–World War II construct (Imamura 2009), in which husbands devote their lives to their companies, while wives are expected to take care of the household and children. Couples in this category tend to be accepting of prescribed gender roles wherein the husbands are in charge of productive work, while the wives take over reproductive work. For this reason we identify theirs as a Japanese uchi-oriented household. Only one couple from the Western group fit the Japanese breadwinner model, Mike (48, United States) and Mayumi (48, Japan).2 Mayumi worked one morning a week and even then only reluctantly. Mike stated that his wife’s lack of desire to work and dedication to looking after family were attractive and endearing parts of her character when they first met. Raised as a “latch key” child by his single mother and having moved frequently, he saw Mayumi as somebody who was stable and happy to be at home and desired to marry her. He waited five years and consciously assimilated into Japanese society in order to win her hand. Initially, at least, there appears to have been no clash of dreams and expectations as Mayumi was a willing partner to the breadwinner model. Mike’s subsequent realization that his own income was not sufficient to cover the costs

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involved in getting their three children through high school and university caused a degree of conflict, given his wife’s reluctance to work. It was clear from both interviews (husband and wife were interviewed separately) that Mike was ambivalent about his wife’s reluctance to work once the children were in school (at the time of the first interview, one was in high school, one was in junior high school, and one was in the final grade of elementary school). On the one hand, he said that he greatly valued her contribution to the home and the children’s care and felt that this “should be enough”; on the other, he conveyed his feelings that there would be less pressure on him and more options for the children should his wife be able to contribute a little more to household income. Ironically, Mayumi expressed some disappointment that on the issue of housework and childcare her husband was rather “Japanese” and did not contribute very much. On all other points she felt he was thoroughly “Western,” despite his perception that he had been the one to make the cultural adjustments. For Filipino wives who entered Japan through tourist visas (DOC category), subsequently worked as entertainers, and then married Japanese husbands, the Japanese breadwinner model appears to have been appealing and seems to have generated little conflict. Five couples from the Filipina dataset can be categorized as Japanese breadwinner households. Regardless of the reasons for the marriage, there was agreement that the husband would be the breadwinner and the wife would take charge of the household. In these marriages, the Japanese husbands had steady jobs and good incomes, and most of their wives viewed marriage as more economically advantageous than their previous work as entertainers. Being “kept” by their Japanese husband was regarded as a positive aspect of the marriage. In addition, given the norms and ideals of the host society, being a stay-at-home wife brought the Filipino wives “respectability” in the eyes of Japanese society. There was a shared understanding that the wife would give up her work. Based on their networks and prior experience, the Filipino women were already aware that upon marriage their primary roles would be that of wife and mother. Another four couples from the Filipina group (BOC category) also fit into this model. The wives in these couples entered Japan on spousal visas, after having met and married their Japanese husbands in the Philippines. For these wives, there was also a strong expectation that the husband would be the breadwinner of the family. Although the Filipino wives were professionals before their marriages, cultural differences and the Japanese language barrier prevented them from working in Japan. Moreover, Filipino society continues to pay lip service to male privileges and the ideal of women looking after the home. As such, it was perhaps easier for our participants to fit into the roles that were expected of them by their Japanese husbands than it was for some of the other groups of wives. Although

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women in the Philippines generally have greater access to upward career mobility and have more equal opportunities, as compared with Japanese women, the women in our data sample were not necessarily well placed to enjoy these benefits. Perhaps due to this, their ultimate goal was to get married, have children, and take good care of their husbands. Additionally, idealization of what makes a “good” husband was very evident in Filipinas who used to work as entertainers and then got married to Japanese men. For example, Nancy (60, Philippines), a widow, married her Japanese husband five years after arriving in the country. She stopped working after marriage and claimed that her husband was a “good husband,” which meant that he was a good provider, did not beat her, and accepted her being a Filipina. “Acceptance of being Filipina” can be very fluid and can have multiple meanings. For Ophelia (44, Philippines), who met her husband in a hostess lounge, this meant him accepting her son from her marriage to a Filipino. Although husbands and wives in this model largely socialized separately, a number of wives asked their husbands to join them in a Catholic mass every Sunday and to be members of the Filipino community, which is also church-based. Consequently, socializing occurred in a different space for the couples. The interviews suggest that for the Japanese husbands the church and its community were not contested sites. Given that they are spatially and culturally distanced from the home and Japanese mainstream society, Filipino wives saw their husbands as generously granting their wives time to be Filipina away from home. This perceived generosity was also interpreted as an acceptance of their cultural identity as Filipinas. Some husbands took a step further and converted to the Catholic religion to share this negotiated space spiritually as well as physically. Maureen (52, Philippines), for example, explained how after several years of marriage she was able to sufficiently influence her husband for him to convert to Catholicism. This was possible because her husband did not see religion as something exclusive, all-defining, or economically significant; therefore, this space could easily be conceded. Maureen explained this as follows: “My husband thought that religion is not important; they are all the same. It does not matter to him. But then after I gave birth to our second child, he decided to convert. He then studied the doctrines of Catholicism under a Japanese priest for one year. Now, he goes to church almost every Sunday.” For Maureen, being a Catholic and attending mass were symbolic representations of being a Filipina. Her strategy for consolidating this position involved raising her children as Catholics and going to church every Sunday. Her husband was willing to be a part of this strategy because for him religion was not an important part of his Japanese identity. For Filipino wives, religion can thus be the conduit for bringing their husbands into a non-Japanese cultural space where the wives can assert their own cultural identities. For these women, the church is perhaps the most significant

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institution for defining their being Filipina, while also being seen by their husbands as good Japanese-style wives. The negotiation around church and the church community allows these women to demonstrate that they are “good” Filipinas who are constituted and defined by their practice of religion. The church permeates all aspects of their lives, including the way they view and deal with their relationships with others, the way they handle their marriage, and the way they differentiate what is wrong and right. It is religion that provides the continuity of being Filipina in Japan. Insofar as Filipino wives expect that their Japanese husbands will be good providers, they also hold a desire to show that they are “good” wives and “good” Filipinas, which is not only achieved in the domestic space but also in the negotiated space of the Catholic church and community. As with Filipino wives, breadwinner/homemaker household was appealing to FSU women. There were twenty-four couples in the FSU group where wives fully devoted their time to the household and childcare (BOC—9, DOC—10, MCC—4, OCC—1). While some of the women did not show any interest in finding jobs and only occasionally did modeling work or work related to the introduction of Russian culture and language to local communities, there were also women who either tried to work before but stopped, or those who wanted to work, but could not do this for various reasons including childcare and lack of Japanese language proficiency. For instance, Margarita (35, Russia) used to work in a bakery but explained that her earnings were not sufficient compared to the effort and time she needed to devote to her job, so she stopped working. Valeriya (27, Russia) organized weekend classes, teaching Russian to her own and other mixed-heritage children. Anita (37, Russia) fully devoted herself to childcare, as well as prepared different meals for her two children and for her husband. However, more recently both Valeriya and Anita started part-time work due to a financial need to support the household. This returns us to the idea of time-lapse photography, as not all couples necessarily followed the same path as they might have decided initially or at the time of the first interview. This breadwinner model was not a permanent status in many other families. In some cases, women switched between dual-earner and full-time homemaker modes. For instance, Anna used to help a Russian elementary school student at school, but when they moved to live in another prefecture, she became a full-time homemaker. Her husband, Jun (45, Japan), mentioned in his interview that Anna dreamt of working as a nurse as she did back in her home country and that he supported her aspirations. However, according to Anna, he was resistant whenever she tried to talk about looking for a job. Eventually, Anna managed to convince Jun and started working part-time when their child went to school. In addition, in some cases it was more difficult to define which couples in the FSU group fit into the Japanese breadwinner category. One of the reasons for this was the difference in understanding what the breadwinner/homemaker

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roles mean among spouses. As Glybina (2009, 290) observes, the biggest motive for Russian women to become homemakers is “to devote more time and love to children and family.” On the other hand, in Japan, where “families [are] sharply divided along gender and labor lines” (Allison 1994, 92), the family is “an economic enterprise” with little emphasis on the cultivation of “romantic intimacy between spouses” (Borovoy 2005, 88). Men also do not “see the home as a haven from working life” (Borovoy 2005, 90). These different understandings can lead to distortions in the breadwinner/homemaker model (Kim 2019). For instance, Lyubov (36, Russia) did not cook for her husband, explaining this by saying that he did not help her buying food or get it delivered to their home, and that she was not going to be his “maid.” Returning back to the idea of Fukuoka (2000) that we discussed in the introduction about what it means to be “pure Japanese,” we propose another group of “Japanese” who do not conform to the dominant culture and choose foreign spouses for these reasons. In the case of Takehiro (42, Japan) and Larissa (35, Russia), it was Takehiro who wanted to help Larissa around the house. As we mentioned in a previous chapter, he used to be married to a Japanese woman but according to him, despite her working full-time, his Japanese wife considered the kitchen her area of responsibility, and Takehiro was seen as an invader if he tried to help her. He also tried to help Larissa, but from Larissa’s interview it was clear that he was not welcome there either. Alla (36, Russia), also pointed out that her husband was helpful and sometimes cooked for the family, but, she added, “He is not tidy, . . . so there is more cleaning after his cooking.” Alla’s husband’s and Takehiro’s willingness to help with the household hinted that there might be certain expectations on the part of men in international marriages to break from the gendered division of labor in the traditional Japanese household, while some of the wives wanted to draw the division of responsibilities across gender lines.

Western Breadwinner Model We identify this category as a two-person single career model, which is characterized by the husband being in charge of the financial aspects of the household. Although the wife is expected to maintain the household through her unpaid labor, the husband helps occasionally when asked. Socialization with nonfamily members in the home or as a couple or as a family outside the home is also characteristic of this model. Five couples fit the Western style breadwinner model. The first couple is from the Western-Japanese cohort. Yuka (48, Japan) and Harry (50, United Kingdom) have been married for twenty-four years and have two daughters, one of whom was working overseas in a third country at the time of the interview. Yuka regularly visited Italy, where the couple spent part of their summers each year, and Harry’s home country, England, either alone or with the children. Her

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businessman husband was often too busy to join the family for more than a few days when the children were young, but Yuka was confidently trilingual, speaking Japanese, English and Italian, and managed the overseas trips. Despite her confidence and sense of independence, Yuka was happy to be economically dependent on Harry. Their relationship conforms to a classic Western-style breadwinner model, with a clear demarcation of labor along the production/reproductive lines. The couple often entertained guests in the same formal manner as the upper-middle-class British families did a generation or so ago. While Harry spent many days away from home on business each month, Yuka looked after the home and family, apparently being highly content with their division of labor. The second couple is from the Japanese-Filipina marriage cohort. Hershey (47, Philippines) was sixteen years old when she came to Japan and worked as an entertainer. After staying in Japan for five years, in the last two years without proper documentation, she met her future husband who was fifteen years older than her in the bar where she worked. Ryōhei (62, Japan) comes from a wellto-do family and is the eldest son. Being a university graduate, he worked as an engineer in a well-known company in Japan. Ryōhei and Hershey lived with Ryōhei’s mother who was widowed. Hershey revealed that it was the mother-in-law who had the controlling voice in the house. Since Ryōhei was the eldest son, he was expected to take care of his mother. When Ryōhei introduced Hershey to his mother, she was disapproving. But, according to Hershey, she did her best to win over her mother-in-law by showing to her the “Filipino way of caring”: “Filipinos, especially daughters, are very caring to their mothers. So, I treated her the way I would treat my mother. I serve her breakfast; I help her in the household chores and I seldom contradict her. I also show to her that I care for my husband.” It was also her mother-in-law who encouraged her to invite Filipinos if the family held parties. Hershey viewed this as being accepted by the mother-in-law, although she was cautious about whom to invite. Hershey’s narrative shows her ambivalence about being Filipina—about knowing when to be a Filipina (as shown in the way she cared for her motherin-law) and when not to be a Filipina (as shown in the guests whom she invited). In this strategy, playing a recognizable female gender role that would meet her mother-in-law’s expectations was essential. At the same time, she was able to strategically use her Filipina ethnicity and the ideals of being caring, especially toward a mother-in-law, fitted well with Japanese norms. Three other couples that also fit into this model are from the FSU group. We extensively discuss one of them (Alyona’s case, DOC category) in chapter 6. Two other couples were from the BOC category, Kira (36, Kazakhstan) and Evgeniya (27, Russia), of whom both helped their husbands with their businesses. Kira’s husband owned a matchmaking agency, where Kira helped him to communicate with Russian-speaking clients and support newly arrived brides in

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Japan. Evgeniya’s husband Keijiro (34, Japan) managed a dating coach business, and she not only helped him with recordings for his lectures, but also served as a model for video materials Keijiro used in his coaching seminars and workshops. Perhaps the nature of their businesses and ways of meeting their wives (both via matchmaking) led to Evgeniya and Kira’s husbands to organize their households in a soto-oriented style. Thus, both couples united their efforts to build one career, in addition to being open to share their experiences of dating and getting married, as well as to socialize with men and women who were in international relationships or looking for them. The cases cited above show how the couples navigate their family lives through well-defined gender roles and expectations and how the husbands’ economic means enable them to maintain such arrangements. This comfortable life (and perhaps high status in society for some of them) calls for socializing outside the nuclear family, which in turn might necessitate confrontation with roles and identity issues for the couple or one of the spouses, as it was in Hershey’s case.

Mixed-Style Model This model is characterized by both husbands and wives performing productive roles outside the home. The husbands are considered to be the primary breadwinners, while the wives contribute significantly to maintain the household, in both productive and reproductive aspects. Our discussion of the mixed Japanese/Western model begins with a foreign wife/Japanese husband combination, Cathy (50, United States) and Kenji (52, Japan). While Cathy contributed substantially to household income by covering the children’s private school fees, Kenji was still the primary wage earner. Cathy’s income came from several part-time teaching jobs as she gave up her own career in health care to follow her husband to Japan. Because Cathy’s Japanese was insufficient for formal situations, Kenji had been very involved in the children’s education. They often attended school events as a couple. When difficulties occurred, both parents worked with the school to sort them out. The couple tried to raise their two children with a mixture of Western and Japanese values, although they admitted that their identities were probably more American. While Kenji also contributed to housework and other reproductive chores, Cathy had the primary responsibility. They were both generous hosts and organized summer, Halloween, and Christmas parties at their home. Outside these scheduled events, however, their home was less open to nonfamily members. Cathy was an active member in the local community and contributed in a leadership role to many local events and school activities. This balancing of the two cultures and flexibility in gender roles did not come easily. Cathy and Kenji spoke of how tough the first ten years were for her when they moved to Japan. At one point she thought the marriage would

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collapse, but counseling helped her realize that the problem was not the marriage per se, but the gender role that she was expected to fulfil. She went from being a health care professional in the country of her birth to a full-time mother and homemaker in a country where the culture and language were literally foreign. She mentioned that her husband also changed his behavior once they moved back to Japan. While they lived in the United States he appeared to be very Westernized in his thinking, but on returning to Japan he took on the responsibilities of a Japanese oldest son and patriarch. It took time and counseling for the couple to re-model their relationship in Japan into one that would allow both members to feel comfortable. Cathy suggested in the interview that during this period, had her husband been unable to move to a more flexible division of labor and a more Western way of interacting, in which the relationship between the husband and wife is not secondary to that of parentchild relationship, their marriage may not have worked. Although Cathy made the sacrifices of giving up her profession and moving to Japan for her family, she could not assimilate and become a “Japanese wife.” Because Kenji had already lived for many years in the United States and had immersed himself in American culture, he understood Cathy’s situation and was ready to work together with his wife to reduce conflict in the family. Peter (48, United Kingdom) and Yuko (50, Japan), a foreign husband/Japanese wife version of the mixed Australia/Western model, seemed to have successfully created an egalitarian marriage, where both partners worked and contributed to housework and childcare. They split their work along childcare and household lines. Peter took the larger share of childcare, which resembles the Western model, as Japanese fathers tend to be less involved in childcare, while Yuko looked after the housework, which resembles the Japanese model. As Peter explained, “Most of the time I’m with the kids teaching them to read and write or playing. I’m very much kids focused. Occasionally I help with the house, but generally . . . Yuko doesn’t want me . . . she would say get out of my kitchen. I’m sent out of the kitchen. So . . . I always enjoy putting the kids to bed. I like routine, I like the kids to get into a routine.” For her part, Yuko felt overburdened with housework, especially cooking, despite insisting on these arrangements. On the other hand, the spouses managed to create their “couple time,” which resembles a Western model rather than Japanese one. The couple did not follow one singular pattern of household arrangements, and they also did so with work arrangements, when Yuko gradually transitioned from part time work to the full time. The mixed-style model was also used by many couples in other datasets. As such, five couples from the Filipina dataset fit this model. In all cases, it took a number of years before the Filipino wives were able to contribute financially to the household. Mariel (56, Philippines), who entered Japan as spouse of a Japanese, had to learn the language and get accustomed to Japanese culture and lifestyle before she looked for a job. Although her husband worked in a car

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manufacturing company and did not pressure her to work, still she felt obliged to earn money especially when her two children were growing up and in view of their eventually attending university. Mariel reported that she was used to working and felt “useless and insecure” because she was totally dependent on her husband. She then decided to work part time in a hotel as a receptionist, always choosing her working hours and making sure that she did not neglect her duties to her children and husband. Although the hotel management offered her a fulltime job, she refused because it would mean less hours for her family. Here we see that work was regarded as possible only to the extent that it did not interfere with her gendered duties as a wife and mother. Tina (50, Philippines) told a similar story of initially being a stay-at-home mother and later seeking training in order to go back to work. Unlike Mariel’s husband, Tina’s husband was very “Japanese” when it came to his idea of a wife and hoped she would dedicate herself to family and home. Despite this, Tina was used to working and earning her own money, and so when the children were in junior high school, she decided to gain training and qualifications to work as a caregiver for the elderly in Japan. Ever conscious of her duties as a mother and wife, Tina worked part time and made sure that she finished her work before her children and husband arrived home. Like Mariel, Tina felt “safer” when she earned her own money. As Tina said, “It feels good having your own money. Sometimes, unexpected expenses come up, so I do not have to ask money from my husband. Also, when I go home to the Philippines, I have money to buy gifts for my relatives. It is quite shameful to ask this from your husband. But of course, when he gives me money, I do not forget to say ‘thank you.’” In both cases, the Filipino wives were conscious of their roles in the family even though they took on paid work. Both wives experienced pangs of guilt and they assuaged this by making sure that the household was still in order. There was no discussion of whether Japanese husbands helped them in household chores in view of the fact that the wives were contributing to the household expenses. Unlike Yuko and Peter’s case, there seemed to be no flexibility in the gender lines among the couples and this was reinforced by their own essentialized cultural construct of their responsibilities as husbands and wives. The reasons that three other women, Mila (37, Philippines), Helena (40, Philippines) and Dency (44, Philippines) supplemented household income by engaging in paid work were quite different from Tina’s and Mariel’s. They were entertainers before they married their husbands. Their decision to migrate to Japan was due to financial reasons and to help their families back in the Philippines. In order to continue sending money to the Philippines, these three women decided to work in a packing factory near their houses. Inasmuch as their identity was “Filipina” in this regard, it was also “Japanese” in that they focused their resources and attention to their nuclear family in Japan. For these couples there was no conscious effort to move into the Western egalitarian model. Rather, the

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assumption was that the paid work of these Filipino wives should be temporary, part-time, and only a supplement to the main source of income brought in by their Japanese husbands. Of the twenty couples (BOC—5, DOC—9, MCC—5, OCC—1) in the FSU group, many switched between the Japanese breadwinner and mixed models according to the household and childcare needs. For instance, Anna and Jun, who were introduced earlier, switched from the mixed model to the Japanese breadwinner model when they moved from Jun’s hometown to another prefecture during Anna’s pregnancy. After taking care of the household and her child for several years, Anna returned to work and their household arrangements slightly changed, as she was also financially contributing to the family. Another example is Lilia (28, Ukraine) who stayed at home while her child was small, and then gradually returned to part-time work and even started a small business, financially contributing to the family and enjoying the freedom of having time for herself as her child grew older. However, several years after the first interview, she got pregnant again and had to give up her work and business for the time being. While she attempted to return to part-time work by sending her second child to a daycare center, she eventually felt bad doing this to her child and decided that they can live with her husband as the main breadwinner. While FSU wives’ job opportunities were determined by the labor market in the area where they lived, at home the women followed different—Russian or Japanese— customs. For instance, when Alisa (28, Ukraine) invited Russian women to her home, the way she served the table and the food were mostly Russian style, while Anna organized the menu and cooked food in a Japanese style. There were also more expectations from Japanese breadwinner model husbands to have a Japanese diet, compared to those in the mixed model. However, many women pointed out that Russian food usually took them longer to cook than Japanese food; therefore many mixed-model families would have a Japanese diet because mothers had less time for cooking.

Western Egalitarian Model This model is characterized by both husbands and wives sharing productive/ reproductive roles in the family. Both attain established careers after much negotiation and balancing of expectations. There was a very limited number of couples who implemented such a household model. They included two couples in the Western group and one couple in the FSU group (Dana’s case, which will be introduced in chapter 6); there were none in the Filipino wives group. For the Western group, two couples (OCC) had established a Western egalitarian model in their marriages: Hiroyuki (45, Japan) and Gwyn (44, United Kingdom); Marian (46, United States) and Noritaka (46, Japan). Both couples met in Japan and were working at that time in professional roles. Although the couples fitted the Western egalitarian model, both Gwyn and Marian had quit work after

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childbirth and then worked part-time while their children were very young. Thus, there was an extent to which the wives, although from Western backgrounds, prioritized childcare responsibilities and the establishment of their husband’s careers before their own. Yet, it could also be argued that the two couples’ incomes allowed for this flexibility to stay at home. In the case of Marian and Noritaka, the couple agreed to stay in Japan in order to allow the husband to establish his career first. They had agreed that once his career was established, they would look to see whether it was possible for him to transfer his skills to the United States. But Noritaka’s career was established and their daughter, Nancy, was in elementary school, so a move to the United States seemed less realistic, and Marian began to push to establish her own career in Japan. The other couple, Hiroyuki and Gwyn, also consciously made an investment in the husband’s career with the wife playing an important supporting role. The whole family moved to the UK so that Hiroyuki could gain a higher degree, while Gwyn could benefit from the support of her family. This investment paid off, as Hiroyuki was able to increase his skills base and marketability in his field, while Gwyn was later able to consolidate her own career once back in Japan. Thus, we can see that both these couples have moved from the categories of Western egalitarian to mixed and then back to Western egalitarian as their domestic circumstances changed. Yet despite the fact that both spouses made a major contribution to household income and had their own careers, when it came to investing initially in the career of one partner, it was the Japanese husband’s that was prioritized, and the Western wife played a supporting role. What is also important to note is that these two women were able to establish careers for themselves (one as a university professor and the other as a high school teacher) despite taking time out for childcare. This achievement could seem impossible to career-minded Japanese women and has been cited as a reason for their reluctance to marry (Nemoto 2019). It is possible, of course, that the cultural capital that Gwyn and Marian possessed as native English speakers helped them minimize the opportunity costs of taking time out for childcare. The above models and the narratives of our participants reveal their roles and values in their international marriages. Gendered expectations, cultural differences, and the migrants’ vacillating between identities could cause conflict; they all required negotiation.

Public and Private Conduct Of particular interest is the question of how these couples presented themselves publicly. For Western middle-class spouses, going out as a couple and socializing with other couples are usually important elements of the marital relationship.

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The same is true for Filipino and FSU wives who expect their Japanese husbands to be expressive and compassionate in both private and public spheres of their marriages and to participate in their non-Japanese organizations and activities. In contrast, most middle-aged Japanese couples, middle-class or not, tend to be resistant to holding hands in public let alone showing affection to each other in front of children. In addition, it is quite unusual for Japanese couples to socialize with other couples, unless there is a familial backdrop. Thus, it is pertinent to ask how the respondents organized this aspect of their marriage and if conflict emerged. Predictably, socializing as a couple with other couples or single friends was much more likely in the case of the Western breadwinner and mixed models, but hardly ever occurred for the one couple in the Japanese breadwinner model. For the two couples in Western egalitarian relationships time was an issue, and they only occasionally socialized together as a couple with other couples. Socializing only as a couple did not happen very much, especially in Japanese breadwinner and mixed-style model couples, and was a point of tension for many of the foreign husbands. Interestingly, the Japanese husbands more readily fitted the Western model of socializing as a couple with other couples, which raises a number of important questions about the lifestyle changes that occur as a result of international marriage. For instance, who decides on the cultural and social arrangements in international marriages? Does financial power necessarily define the lifestyle of the family? Are Japanese men more likely to accept a Western model of socializing compared to their female counterparts? When do changes in patterns of socializing happen and why? Only one couple had consciously made time to socialize as a couple. Peter and Yuko (mixed-style model) generally managed to go out to the cinema or a restaurant together once a month, even when their three children were small. Peter expressed satisfaction with the way they had managed to keep time just for the two of them. “We’ve done quite well,” he said. Yuko added, “If I was married to a typical Japanese man, I wouldn’t have that kind of social life with my husband.” Mike (48, United States) and Mayumi (48, Japan) (Japanese breadwinner model) were far more typical of a Japanese wife/Western husband in that there were significant tensions around the issue of socializing as a couple. As Mayumi observed, “We cannot leave the kids alone at night, so we don’t go out together. . . . When kids are grown-up then it is alright but not if they are still small. If something happens to them, it will be our responsibility. If we leave children on their own and they injure themselves. When I think that something might happen with them, I cannot leave them.” She advised Mike to go out with his male friends for entertainment. Mike in contrast felt that Mayumi’s stance was rather sad and somewhat frustrating, and saw it as further evidence that his wife was not Westernized, despite their many years of marriage. Regarding going out, Mike said,

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“She feels that it would not be appropriate. She feels that while they are children, she has a career [as a mum], she is duty bound to the home and to the kids. . . . But the kids are all growing up! And we can go out, go to movies and have dinner, right? But she won’t do it. Now, this is what I meant about her being very typical Japanese; she’s not Westernized at all.” The idea that the older daughter (aged 17) could babysit the younger two appears not to have been broached. Mike also expressed dismay that Mayumi was not willing to even let the children be looked after by his mother-in-law, who was a regular visitor to their house. These kinds of conflicts arose in other Japanese and Western couples, especially when the wife was Japanese. For one of the Western egalitarian couples there appeared to be no resistance to the idea of going out as a couple, but neither was it prioritized. “I think it is a work thing,” Gwyn explained. “We really work hard and long hours and on weekends, Saturday whole day and Sunday . . . we are resting. It’s not so much policy as [lack of] time you know.” When asked if they went out as a couple when they went to England and Gwyn’s mother could look after the children (aged 11 and 15), Gwyn said that her mother believed that it was good for Gwyn’s and Hiroyuki’s relationship to leave their children and go out as a couple. During this conversation Gwyn turned to Hiroyuki and remarked, “Your parents don’t have that kind of attitude at all, I think. They’re like more that if you have kids, then you should be with your kids. My mum is more . . . She’s really pushing us to go out together.” Hiroyuki replied: “I think that’s a huge cultural difference.” But he, too, explained their not going out as a couple in Japan as the result of “a time thing,” rather than a cultural issue. For the Filipino wives who grew up in the Philippines, emotional expression was natural, and they tended to expect their Japanese husbands to be likewise expressive, as well as romantic. These expectations were usually shattered. According to them, their husbands “were too absorbed in work,” they did not “show their feelings,” and they were “too quiet.” For many Japanese men, the traditional notion of their role in marriage is to work, have children, and provide for their families. For some of them, “love is not the central point of marriage” (Semuels 2017, n.p.). One of the informants in the mixed-style model, Mariel, who has been married to her Japanese husband for fifteen years, observed that her husband was “not as affectionate as Filipino men.” According to her, “Japanese men are cold. They don’t show much emotion. I love to hug people. I saw that in my family in the Philippines. My husband is surprised when I give him gifts on Valentine’s Day or Father’s Day.” But as previously mentioned, Mariel saw the practice of her religion as a negotiated space where they could have “quality time.” Her husband’s attendance to mass every Sunday was seen as a concession to her being a Filipina.

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For Nancy (60, Philippines) and Ophelia (48, Philippines), whose marriages fit the Japanese breadwinner model, and whose husbands refused to participate in church communities, the importance they attached to joining religious organizations was that it gave them a break from their household chores and raising their families. There, too, they could be “themselves.” But even if the husbands were seen to concede this space to their wives, the arrangement went against what the Filipino wives believed marriage should be. Ophelia lamented that her husband “does not join the mass or mingle with other Filipinos and feels that this makes my family incomplete.” Tina echoed Mariel’s sentiment about Japanese men being “cold.” She had been brought up to believe that husbands should be loving and affectionate to their wives. What really surprised her was that Japanese couples tended to sleep in separate beds. For Maureen (52, Philippines), the practice was not acceptable. “I said to my husband that what differentiates married couples from other couples is because they are allowed to sleep together. At first, he was uncomfortable, but eventually he got used to it.”

Raising Children while Negotiating Cultures Raising children is another area where the differences between the expectations of spouses were often difficult to traverse and is often negotiated. In Western/ Japanese couples, these differences were almost insurmountable. For example, when asked about the issue, Mike said, “Oh boy. Well, I could go on and on. To make a long story short, . . . if there are some . . . ahhh . . . conflicts between my wife and I, it is here that my wife and I are very different . . . in the area of discipline, and . . . just creating rules, and making the kids follow the rules.” Mike felt that his wife was too lenient with their two younger children and was frustrated by her reluctance to treat their eldest child as a young adult. Other foreign husbands expressed concern about their children’s long homework schedules, the pressure placed on them to do well, and their sense that their children were not being allowed to make decisions and take responsibility as they got older. While some of this was due to the educational system in Japan, Japanese mothers often felt that it was their role to carefully manage their children’s education and to look after their every need. In couples where the mother was the foreign spouse, the Japanese husband seemed less driven to intervene in child raising issues regardless of cultural imperatives. When asked about how conflicts over child raising were resolved, Hiroyuki and Gwyn (Western egalitarian model) both agreed that the tendency was for Hiroyuki to give in. As Gwyn pointed out, “When the kids were younger, I was at home more and he was out working . . . so we had to do it my way. And we were living in *** [city in the Kansai area] and he was getting home quite late and it started out with me running the home as I wanted to do it. It’s just

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hard to suddenly change it. We do share . . . household chores and stuff, but I do think as a mother . . . I am probably . . . you know, stronger at home.” Even so, the child raising norms that this couple has introduced into their home combined many Western with Japanese elements, particularly with regard to sleeping arrangements. While Gwyn noted that her mother took the view that children should sleep in their own rooms, in the couple’s own home in Japan, the children slept with the parents, as was customary, until they half-way through elementary school. Thus, for Gwyn and Hiroyuki, a kind of hybridization of child raising norms has occurred, with elements from both cultures incorporated relatively harmoniously. For the Japanese-Filipina couples in our study, one issue that was generally not contested was the education of their children, who all went to public schools in Japan and thus were proficient in Japanese. Some Filipino mothers bemoaned their inability to help their children with their homework. Cultural issues also arose. Mariel, for example, did not realize the significance associated with the bentō (lunchbox) in Japanese society, and initially “haphazardly” prepared her kindergartner a packed lunch of fried fish and vegetables on top of rice. The next day, Mariel received a note from the teacher encouraging her to be more creative in the making of her bentō. But there was a broader issue, which Mariel articulated this way: “It is disheartening to see my Filipina identity slowly but surely disappearing right before my eyes . . . in my children.” Additionally, our interviews reveal that religion can be a means for asserting a Filipina identity when raising children. Loreta (46, Philippines) for example, insisted to her husband that their children should be baptized as Catholics and be given Christian names. Another wife, Maureen, made a deal with her husband before they got married: “I said to my husband: If we will have children, how they should be raised up, I should do it on my own. Not in a typical Japanese way. They should be raised up in Christian . . . Catholic way.” Thus, she engaged her children to participate in all activities of the community, especially religious ones. She also motivated them to be “sacristans” on Sundays because according to her “this is the way to serve the Lord and become more Filipino.” Children of Filipinas understood this, too. Nineteen-year-old Akiko, for example, always associated the Filipinos with church and religion. As a baptized Catholic, she went to mass every Sunday with her mother. The same was true for sixteen-year-old Kenji. Both associated religion with their Filipino mothers, and for them, this was the extent of their Filipino identity. They had stronger feelings of being Japanese, which was reinforced at school and at home, by friends and family. Our cases show that raising children in international marriages involves questions of identity for all members of the family. What is noteworthy is how spouses determine when to negotiate, when to assert themselves, and when to give in.

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Summary In this chapter, we continued our analysis of international marriages in terms of time-lapse images. As we discussed in the previous chapters, the representations of international marriage couples might be obscured by different stereotypes related to the foreign spouse’s country of origin and its economic disparities with Japan. However, as our case studies showed there are multiple considerations, choices, and decisions made by both Japanese and foreign spouses in relation to whom they marry, why they choose these people, and where they decide to live. Furthermore, the process of decision-making does not stop when the couple gets married. Here, spouses once again are faced with different choices related to how they organize their daily lives. We elaborated on four models that international couples in our datasets tended to choose: Japanese breadwinner, Western breadwinner, mixed-style, and Western egalitarian. As is clear from our case studies, Western egalitarian model is the hardest to achieve for international marriage couples. This can be explained by different institutional constraints in the welfare system and job market, availability of daycare services, labor division in the household, and the individual preferences of foreign and Japanese spouses. For this reason, most of the couples chose either Japanese/Western breadwinner or mixed-style models. As we traced couples’ lives for a period of time, it became clear that their family models tended to fluctuate between mixed-style model and the Japanese or Western breadwinner model. Furthermore, the Western breadwinner model was not widespread among couples and tended to be exercised by upper middle-class families if their work or lifestyle was oriented toward networking and socialization with a wide range of people. Otherwise, this model was chosen by foreign wives of family-oriented private business owners, where spouses shared the responsibilities of handling their businesses. Another finding of this chapter is that even though it tended to be a husband’s (both Japanese and foreign) career needs that drove the choice of family model, the family lifestyle tended to be organized based on wives’ preferences. Finally, we did not find correlation between uchi/soto-oriented Japanese spouses and how they eventually organized their household. This shows that while Japanese and foreign spouses have particular preferences over whom they want to marry, the organization of the family life is usually influenced by negotiations and socialization practices between the individual couples.

6 Choices and Constraints

One of the defining features of international marriages is the degree to which state policies and apparatuses of receiving countries regulate the settlement patterns and access to resources of the foreign spouses. These affect the way foreign spouses make choices, exercise their agency, and interact with the political and social structures of the state. In addition, the trajectories of the lives of migrants tend to be contingent on their route of entry to the receiving countries, which can define the parameters of their choices and constraints. The likelihood of the change of status of migrants from temporary, contractual, undocumented, skilled, or unskilled workers to foreign spouses differs from country to country. Japan, in particular, poses quite stringent barriers to such alteration of status. One reason for this is its deeply rooted ideology of homogeneity, born from the fear that migration might destroy the stability and cultural uniqueness of its society (Burgess 2004). Previous studies show, however, that although Japan confronted international migration issues belatedly compared with other migrant receiving countries, it has undergone changes in response to the challenges of this phenomenon with the transformation of its economy, demography and civil society (Burgess 2004; Befu, Eades, and Gill 2000; Goodman 2002). Migrants to Japan, like migrants to other countries, are “local agents who develop their practices and representations in global contexts”; thus they “are not only products of global change but also a powerful force for further change” (Burgess 2004, 223; Befu, Eades, and Gill 2000; Mato 1996). In this chapter, we consider how foreign spouses of Japanese nationals exercise agency, as well as how they overturn existing stereotypes. In looking at how they manage their life trajectories and shift to different roles and occupations, we also take into account the concept of “marital citizenship,” which, as noted in chapter one, FresnozaFlot and Ricordeau (2017b, 1) define as “legal status that is granted by a state to 99

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a migrant by virtue of his/her marriage to one of its citizens and that confers him/her rights, responsibilities and duties.” And we observe that although marriage can confer these benefits, it can also undermine the foreign spouses’ agency and independence.

Marriage and Visibility in Japanese Society Marriage as a trajectory of settlement is made more complex by gender. The feminization of migration to Japan in the 1980s and the fact that there have been more foreign brides than foreign grooms in the past decades necessitate further interrogation. Because marriage legitimizes the presence of foreign spouses in Japan, it has the potential to change Japanese society (Constable 2005b; Suzuki 2003c; Piper 1997). Marital citizenship provides an understanding between citizenship and marriage, and how it influences the access of foreign spouses to resources and entitlements of the receiving countries. The changing images of female marriage migrants from “victims,” “passive women,” or “traditional wives” to “active members of the society” reflect the visibility of these foreign spouses in domains outside their families. In the process, a migrant woman will come to realize that her shifting of roles carries with it rights and privileges. The discourse of agency eliminates the obscurity of the participation of women migrants in Japanese society and highlights their potentialities as harbingers of change, thereby challenging essentialized gender roles. As a result, we see our participants developing multiple identities as they transform themselves, negotiating the best of both spaces and increase their agency. The following case studies analyze the settlement patterns, the realities marriage migrants face in terms of life paths and how their accumulated social and cultural capitals facilitate these. It probes into how they exercise their agency within constraints and existing stereotypes, and how they attempt to contribute actively to Japanese society, thereby challenging dominant representations associated with them.

Overcoming Stereotypes on a Path to “Respectability” In the process of integrating themselves into the host society and interacting with state policies, migrants find ways to overcome dominant stereotypes associated with being low-skilled workers, entertainers, sex workers, and foreign wives. In the cases of our Filipina participants, a significant number of them entered Japan through a “back-door” route, which implies irregular entry (such as entering on tourist visa yet working as entertainers or engaging in lowskilled, menial jobs) and then transitioned into roles in which they had a voice in their networks and in their ethnic communities. Those “old timers” who live

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for many years in Japan have a certain authority, especially if they are proficient in the Japanese language. They can thus serve as advisers, consultants, mediators of conflict, and all-around “go-to persons” for other migrants, especially newcomers.

From Entertainer to Bar Owner The case of Mia (40, Philippines) exemplifies upward mobility and the accumulation of both economic and social capital. Mia was sixteen years old when she entered Japan through a back-door route: an agency falsified her passport and recorded her age as eighteen, so she was given a tourist visa. After a month she worked as an entertainer. Mia first heard of Japan and of the option of becoming a Japayuki, when a classmate encouraged her to audition for a cultural dancer position. When she arrived in Japan, she learned that she was going to be a pole dancer, and she became apprehensive, but on being assured her that she would just be serving drinks to Japanese costumers, Mia agreed. She was surprised that it took only two weeks for the hiring company to process her papers and visa. Over the next six years, she renewed her contract four times with brief periods back in the Philippines. In her sixth year, however, she had difficulty in renewing her visa, which meant she would be staying in the country illegally if she continued in her current position. She took courage in approaching one of her customers, a sixty-year-old Japanese man, whom she asked to marry her. To her surprise, the Japanese man agreed. Mia claimed that she later developed feelings for her husband. Mia’s profile fits the usual image of Filipino women who entered Japan in the 1980s. Young, with a low educational level, she came from a big family in the Philippines, and dreamed of a better life. Going to Japan to work as an entertainer was one way of fulfilling this aspiration, and she did not want to leave. In view of her difficulty with renewing her visa, she resolved to marry to a Japanese man as a solution to her problem. According to Mia, “I was ashamed to do it [asking for marriage] because I am a woman. But I have no choice. What will happen to my family back in the Philippines?” Thus, although she felt shame in transgressing gender norms by asking a man to marry her, she chose to violate Japanese laws by willingly entering into a marriage of convenience that could afford her the legal status that being an entertainer could not. Ten years later, Mia decided to end the marriage because of the physical abuse she suffered from her husband: My husband started to get jealous because I did not stop working in a bar to earn money that I could send back to the Philippines. I was supporting my younger sisters then, so that they could go to school. My husband never did understand that. Then he started beating me. He even did so

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in front of mother-in-law. I was really mad at my mother-in-law for not stopping him. Then I decided to escape, and I concocted a plan so that I could get my children. It was difficult.

In this situation, transnational processes are reflected by how a migrant’s simultaneous social locations influence her decision making, thus shaping and structuring her agency. Transnational engagements such as Filipino migrants sending money to the Philippines is one social process that characterizes the country’s migration phenomenon. Hailed as unsung heroes in the Philippines, Filipino migrants known as overseas contract workers, keep the economy afloat through their remittances. Mia’s act of sending money to her family back in the Philippines stemmed from her own family’s expectations of her as the eldest daughter. Within the Philippine context, daughters, especially the eldest, are conditioned to help the family in times of need. This gendered expectation from her Filipino family came into conflict with her role as a wife to a Japanese man, who expected her to stay at home and attend to their family. She did not fulfil these expectations when she continued working in a bar, which resulted in violence and divorce. Contested sites between Mia and her husband now moved to expectations of being a wife and an economic provider. In this sense, her agency was shaped by her conviction that it was her primary role to support her Filipino family, but was restricted by the economic outlook of her husband who could not understand this obligation. When she separated from her husband, Mia continued working as an entertainer and was able to save enough money to establish her own bar in a city in Kansai area. This was not easy: she had to contend with the skepticism of not only her Japanese acquaintances, but also her fellow entertainers. Mia, however, was determined: “I am not getting younger anymore. Nobody wants an old woman serving drinks in a bar. Also, I want to retire in the Philippines. I need money for this. I cannot be working in a bar forever.” Owning the bar enabled her to support her children who were studying in Japanese universities. It also brought her social influence within the community. The fact that she was able to employ other Filipina entertainers in her club made her a valuable member. In joining a church-based organization, she was able to widen her network and gain a certain amount of respectability. Aside from her age and length of stay in Japan, Mia’s economic and social capital gained the respect of other Filipino migrants. In the process, Mia was able to change the norms and associations often attributed to a Filipina entertainer in Japan. Trajectories in migrants’ lives such as divorce, separation, economic hardships, and separation from children compel them to make life changing decisions. Massey (1994) contends that agency is affected not only by geographic and social locations and power relations, but also by the initiative and individual skills of the migrants. Studies also show that some migrants are able to manipulate social and

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economic circumstances to their advantage (Faier 2009; Parreñas 2011; Suzuki 2003a). Many of the choices made by migrants are grounded in imagining, planning and strategizing (Appadurai 1991). Thus, the experiences of Mia and her exercise of agency show that migrants not only conform to laws and norms, but also challenge, transgress, and even change them.

From Entertainer to Small Business Owner and Teacher Leah (40, Philippines) was twenty years old when she entered Japan on a tourist visa and subsequently worked as an entertainer in Japan. Her main purpose in migrating as a worker was to escape her abusive husband in the Philippines. Leaving her nine-month-old daughter to her mother, she worked in a bar in Osaka and eventually married a Japanese man. She kept her marriage in the Philippines a secret from her Japanese husband. She stopped working as an entertainer when she got married and ventured into buying and selling Filipino goods and telephone cards in Osaka. The marriage lasted for nine years before they divorced. According to Leah, “We are just too different from each other.” Her business made her financially independent, and like Mia, she needed to send money back home, this time for her daughter who was then studying in a private school in Manila. Her parents also depended on her. Then her Filipino husband threatened to expose their marriage to her Japanese husband if she did not send him money as well. In this case, Leah’s refusal to passively accept the abuses from her Filipino husband resulted in the transgression of the marriage laws of both countries. Yet, because of her economic independence, she had become a victim once more by a deadbeat transnational husband. Despite the distance, the Filipino husband was still able to exercise control over Leah, who straddled the two contested sites of Filipino and Japanese marriages. Although her business gave her an opportunity to interact with other Filipinos, Leah was always conscious of whom to befriend: “Filipinas in Japan are different from each other. I do not like the noisy ones. . . . Going out with Filipinos is useless if you cannot learn from them . . . if all you do is making gossips. . . . I want to be friends with those students studying in Japanese universities. . . . They are really bright and I learn from them.” She could also gain social capital by associating with them. At a time when Leah was expanding her business, a Filipina friend, who noticed her proficiency in English and her gregariousness, invited her to teach part time in her small private English school in the Osaka prefecture. Although she did not finish high school, Leah was able to speak the language well through her constant interactions with international students and foreign parishioners in church. For Leah, this was an opportunity to improve her social image, not only in the Filipino community in Japan, but also for her daughter, who was aware of her former job of being an entertainer: “It is really different when you are an English teacher in Japan. At least, they won’t look down on you. Of course,

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it was difficult because I am not college graduate. And also, I am not American or Canadian. . . . Japanese prefer them. But I can do it, if I work hard. Of course, my daughter will be proud of me now.” Leah’s economic and social choices were, thus, careful and deliberate. Interacting with “educated” Filipinos, rather than “noisy” ones was a strategy to improve her English proficiency, which in turn improved her social capital in a society that places a high value on English. Leah exemplifies what Bourdieu (1986) considers as social capital being convertible into economic capital, which may be institutionalized in certain conditions, through a title. Thus, when Leah said, “I am happy when they call me Leah-sensei, instead of being labeled as Japayuki,” she expressed feeling validated as a member of Japanese society.

From Entertainer to Teacher Irish’s (35, Philippines) narrative reflects a very unusual trajectory for a female migrant who entered Japan on an entertainer visa. Like Leah, she migrated to Japan when she was sixteen and left her one-year-old baby in the care of her parents. A single mother, Irish worked as an entertainer in Osaka. Encouraged by her fellow entertainers when her visa was about to expire, Irish married a Japanese national, whom she met at the bar where she was working, but after two years they divorced. Irish cited the fact that her mother-in-law could not accept her as a wife to her eldest son as a reason. Irish continued working in a bar after her divorce, but after she joined a Catholic-based Filipino organization in Osaka, she began working in a manufacturing company instead. These jobs enabled her to stay legally in Japan and eventually acquire a permanent resident status. Like Leah, Irish chose which Filipinas to bond with and become friends. She would go out with Filipina student expatriates after mass and would keenly observe how they spoke and behaved. According to Irish, “I wanted to learn English and when I am with them, I learn so much.” When she became friends with an assistant language teacher under the government’s Japanese Exchange Teaching Program, she decided to apply for a post. “I asked my friend to teach me how to do a demonstration teaching. It is one of the requirements. Honestly, I do not know why I was accepted. I indicated in my CV that I just reached firstyear college. It must be the way I speak English and because I am already a permanent resident.” She was assigned to a public elementary school in Kobe, but after a year she left the school because of too much pressure: “Honestly, I was not happy because I felt so insecure with my English, especially when I am with Americans or British. I just could not cope. I felt discriminated; my pronunciation is not perfect, but I know it is understandable. It is a good thing I did not tell them that I was an entertainer.” Irish’s narrative reflects how the exercise of agency may accumulate social and cultural capitals, which can be transformative and empowering and at the same time may be excluding or prohibiting. Her marriage to a Japanese national,

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for example, did give her the legal status temporarily to be able to stay in Japan. The opposition of her mother-in-law to her marriage, on the other hand, constrained her to fully perform her role as a wife and mother. It is in learning of new skills, particularly teaching English to gain cultural capital, which challenged the prevailing representations of her being a Filipina entertainer. A combination of choosing the “right” friends and being proficient in English, a highly prized skill in Japan, enabled her to build forms of social capital which she used to be included in a “better group” of Filipinas in Japan. However, when she moved into a wider domain, at a national scale of English use, she was once again excluded because of her accent. After Irish quit teaching at the elementary school, she started a small private English school for children. She recalled her difficulties in getting started, including processing a license, convincing her Filipina business partner to invest in the school, and brushing off her fears that by opening an English school in Japan, she was putting herself at great financial risk. Regarding those who were skeptical she said: “Perhaps, if I were not a former entertainer in this country, they would not have doubted me.” Irish’s school was a potent symbolic representation of her integration into Japanese society. She has gained enough social capital to overcome Japanese bureaucracy in the licensing of her school and to gain the trust of Japanese parents and students. On the other hand, despite her transformation and the new representation that she carried in Japanese society, her former self, that of being an entertainer, and the stigma and stereotypes being associated with it, constrained her from reaching her full potentiality to achieve more. In summary, the cases cited above show how women accumulated social capital emanated out of a determination to better themselves, despite the social and political constraints. Utilizing their marriages to gain legal rights to stay in Japan, they expanded their networks, gained the trust of their communities, and transformed themselves. More importantly, the mobilization of their internal resources was a form of unconventional and quiet resistance to the dominant gender and political structures of Japanese society.

Utilizing Cultural Capital to Enter Japan In the Western group dataset, the foreign spouse was male in nine of the twelve couples. For those nine foreign husbands, Japan seemed to offer better opportunities for high earnings than the home country in much the same way that it did for the Filipina participants. However, here it was the husband’s role as a breadwinner that the couple considered. It should be noted also that these migrants did not enter Japan as spouses to Japanese nationals. In Japan, the husbands’ cultural capital in terms of Western background, English proficiency, and higher education, was perceived to have a higher value

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than in their home countries. Many arrived in Japan during the bubble years, between 1986 and 1991, when the economy was booming, and Japanese with newfound wealth had a strong desire for anything foreign, as well as an eagerness to learn English. In such an environment, the cultural capital of Western men only increased. In contrast, the three foreign female spouses felt a sense of loss of professional status in a society where domestic skills (as seen in the examples in the previous chapter) are valued over and above (productive) work in women.

From English Teacher to University Professor Hank (58, United States) first came to Japan to teach English after finishing a degree in Asian History in the United States. At the end of the year he returned to the United States to gain a graduate degree in Japanese studies, and then once again went to Japan. There, he once again found himself in the English conversation field, but was eventually able to secure part-time and then later full-time university teaching positions. He met Satoe (46, Japan) at a school where he was teaching. She was twelve years his junior. When they married, he hoped that they could move back to the United States and have a family there. While Hank found a full-time college teaching position, he was concerned that putting all his energy onto a new job would mean that he would have too little time for his young, pregnant wife, who herself had no social networks in the country. It also appeared that the pressures he faced in the U.S. college were much greater than what he had been used to in Japan. In effect, he had swapped a work situation where he stood out as a Western man in Japan for one where he was an ordinary American male, who needed to prove himself. “I was in my brand-new job, trying to prove myself and she was pregnant,” Hank related. “This was a recipe for a disaster, so we made a decision that we would go back to Japan and look for work.” On returning to Japan, Hank was able to secure a well-paid university position where his English language skills and Western cultural presence meant that he did not have to “prove” himself. It was a comfortable position that he stayed in through to retirement. His and Satoe’s only child, Wade, was able to benefit from an international school education and regular holiday trips to the United States, ensuring that this cultural capital, at least, was transferred generationally. Satoe was able to start a small business once Wade no longer needed the devotions of a full-time Japanese mother. It was clear from the interviewees that English teaching was a main career route for foreign spouses from Western countries who wanted to work in Japan. The ideal pattern was to start out in English conversation classes in private schools and then to move up to high school teaching or, even better, university teaching. Until recently this was possible with only a bachelor’s degree. Those who met their Japanese spouses in Japan were all involved in English teaching

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at some level, with the exception of one who worked as a translator using his Japanese as well as English skills. Having English as their main skill allowed these spouses to support a middle-class standard of living.

From English Teacher to Entrepreneur Career paths were more difficult for the two spouses whose careers in Japan did not involve teaching English. Yuka (48, Japan) traveled to England straight out of high school and stayed for a year. When she returned to Japan her aim was to save enough money to once again travel to England. She attended an English language conversation school near her home to further improve her language skills. It was there that she met Harry (50, United Kingdom), who was an English conversation teacher. At the time, Harry had intended to stay in Japan only for a couple of years. After he met Yuka, they dated for about eighteen months, and then they decided to go back to England, where Yuka would help Harry’s mother, who taught English to children from overseas in a small private school, while improving her own English. As she mentioned in the interview, she also wanted to check out Harry’s family. She liked what she saw, and after a difficult period with her own parents, who took her to a fortune teller who reported that it would be a horrible marriage, Harry and Yuka finally became a married couple. According to Yuka, Harry knew that she would want to live in Japan, but he did not want to continue teaching English, so they agreed to go back to England, where he could gain skills and experience for a different career in Japan. This sojourn ended up lasting eleven years, but Yuka was ready to put up with the long wait in England to ensure that when Harry went back to Japan, he would be in a position to get the “right job.” In fact, Harry was able to set up his own company in Japan. He was very successful and was able to provide a comfortable middle-class lifestyle for his wife and children, and they enjoyed regular holidays in Europe. Meanwhile, Yuka ran a small business that was an extension of her interest in interior design and accessories. As Debnár (2016, 134) observes, in Asian countries “the association with a perceived English ability and the generally positive attitudes toward white migrants tend to privilege white migrants in certain occupations and in everyday life. . . . Moreover, the ‘small benefits’ of whiteness can be translated to particular job opportunities through the conversion of social and cultural capital.” Although both Hank and Harry had to invest time and effort into pushing their careers forward in order to achieve higher economic and social status in Japan, they certainly benefited from these associations—and in ways that English-speaking Filipinas in our study could not.

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Self-Fulfilment and Growth As mentioned in earlier chapters, one of the main goals Russian-speaking FSU women pursue in marrying a foreign man is to become housewives and mothers, according to an ideal promoted by Russian and FSU media (Kim 2014; Golovina 2017). For our FSU respondents, even though their image of an ideal marriage and family did not necessarily fit the realities of their lives with Japanese men (Kim 2019), motherhood was prominent in their narratives about their daily lives. The internet forum Yaponomama further reinforced the motherhood ideal and gathered Russian-speaking women living across Japan into one community. Under the circumstances, few of our FSU participants were eager to get jobs after marriage. Poor Japanese language skills also contributed, as did the devaluation of their professional skills in the process of migration. That was the case for Alla (36, Russia), who at the time had a job in a bank in Russia, but decided to be a full-time homemaker in Japan saying: “Well, I’ll try to look for jobs. But I cannot practice my profession [meaning the major she got in the university], right? I don’t know, maybe something more or less decent. . . . My husband laughs at me, saying, are you planning to put eggs in boxes [meaning work in a factory line] having a university degree?” Another participant, Valeriya (27, Russia), specialized in Japanese language for her undergraduate degree and met her husband when she worked as an interpreter. After moving to Japan and having two kids, Valeriya continued staying at home, but decided to contribute financially to her family by organizing various events for the local Russian community. One of these events was a New Year festival, which was supported by the Russian consulate and gathered many international families with Russian-speaking spouses. She also organized Russian language classes for local mixed-heritage children. In Japan, due to their inability to use their cultural capital such as university degrees, these women utilized their knowledge of Russian language and Russian culture to become involved in respected types of work. Many of those women who decided to work did so due to financial difficulties in their families, out of boredom, to pursue their dreams, or in preparing to separate from their husbands. For instance, Karina (33, FSU) specialized in a European language for her undergraduate degree, but had never worked before moving to Japan.1 When her husband had some financial difficulties, she found work in a local fast-food restaurant. Even though the manager was willing to let her serve customers, Karina worried about her lack of Japanese language skills and decided to wash dishes. When her father, who had a successful business in her home country heard about this, he ordered Karina to leave her marriage and return home, saying that he did not raise her and invest in her education so that she could cook burgers for Japanese people. This was one of many reasons that ultimately led to Karina’s divorce, which we discuss in chapter 8.

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Compared with Karina and Alla, Dana (28, Kazakhstan) did not let a lack of proficiency in Japanese hamper her prospects in Japan. She met her husband when she was twenty-one in her hometown in Kazakhstan. Her future husband was planning to create a food-related company in Kazakhstan, but this did not work out, so the couple moved to Japan. As Dana recollected, When I came here, I had language barrier. . . . My first goal was to learn the language, so I could communicate in it. And I wanted to work. . . . [Initially] I learned language with volunteers in the international center. I went there every week. Then, I could understand how much I learned, and what I needed, tried to learn more. When I understood that I’ve learned enough with my teacher, I started looking for another teacher. . . . I went to the class that was more advanced, they were twenty lessons ahead of me, and I could reach their level pretty quickly. Then I felt that I needed not only speaking skills, but also needed to learn characters. I talked to my Japanese friend and she recommended me kids’ school, juku [cram school], I went to juku. I was studying there with kids, of course, it wasn’t comfortable, but it helped me in studying characters, because we practiced a lot. . . . I also decided to get driving license, because there are a lot of terms, that’s why I spent two years with a driving textbook.

Dana explained that her dream was to work in a cosmetics company. She had different types of service jobs, but eventually found the job she wanted. Later she felt that she needed a better position in the company, which led her to getting an undergraduate degree in Japan. Her husband found an extra job to earn money and help her to realize her dream. Dana chose to learn English as well, and even went on an exchange program overseas to improve her English. Dana’s case was not common among other FSU wives living in Japan. Having difficulties in getting pregnant, she poured her energy into language studies and reaching professional goals. Even though she had some Russian friends, it was mostly her local Japanese friends and husband who gave her advice on how to improve her Japanese studies and how to advance her career. In summary, work and integration into the local society are “site[s] through which migrant women negotiate their sense of self, and reflect on their social position” (Capussotti, Laliotou, and Lyon 2010, 122). However, as we have seen from Dana’s experience, it requires much effort on the woman’s part and certain conditions must exist in order for professional goals to be met. Dana’s case is relatively rare among women who arrived in Japan as a result of marriage to a Japanese man. As we discussed in the previous chapter, it is hard for foreign women to build careers since they are first and foremost expected to take care of the household and children. Migration in addition to several years of housewife work eventually leads to devaluation of their professional skills. Labor and

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marriage migration for the majority of the FSU wives led to so-called brain waste, as their education and professional knowledge were not fully used in Japan. However, many of them still managed to find new applications for their skills.

From Wives to Leaders The cases below illustrate how foreign spouses transform themselves to take an active role in the local communities, moving from the private family sphere to the public sphere in the process. Their narratives show how they utilized their marriages to accumulate social capital, formed alliances, and bridged private and public identities.

From Housewife to the Leader of a Church-Based Organization Edna (50, Philippines) was twenty-six years old and worked as a receptionist in a hotel in Manila, when she met Yoshi (63, Japan), her Japanese husband-to-be. They got married in a Catholic rite in Visayas, her hometown. Yoshi’s parents were not able to attend. Edna was apprehensive about going to Japan, where the culture and environment was entirely different. When the couple settled there, Yoshi wanted her to stay at home and attend to her children. Likewise, her mother-in-law was not open to the idea of her working. For more than fifteen years, Edna’s life revolved around her Japanese family and the Filipino community. According to Edna: “I was bored; but I have little choice. I did not know Japanese very well then. . . . Yoshi is a good husband and he provides well, but . . . sometimes I want to have my own money and not just depend on him.” Boredom and the feeling of being useless led her to become more active in a FilipinoJapanese Catholic Church organization. Edna found self-esteem in the organization, something which she did not find in her family. For Edna, being a wife and mother in Japan was like being a “second-class citizen,” and she felt that being a Filipina exacerbated this status. When her children entered junior high school, she was elected president, and during her term conducted many activities for the organization. According to Edna, one of her accomplishments was to provide spiritual guidance to her fellow Filipinas, especially to those who worked as entertainers and in not so “respectable” establishments. The organization also dispensed advice to overstaying Filipinos in Japan, through the Catholic priest who ran the church. Because the Catholic Church where the organization was based was administered by Japanese parishioners and by the local city government, Edna had to deal with the policies set by them. Here, Edna played what Ortner (1996, 12) calls a “game” in which the player is “meant to capture simultaneously the following dimensions: that social life is culturally organized and constructed, in terms of defining categories of actors, rules and goals of the games . . . ; that social life is

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precisely social, consisting of webs of relationship and interaction between multiple, shiftingly interrelated subject positions . . . ; and yet at the same time there is ‘agency’, that is, actors play with skill, intention, wit, knowledge, intelligence.” Thus, when Edna had to organize an event which needed the permission of the Japanese parishioners, she had to be “Japanese,” which meant being orderly, on time, and attentive to details. But when dealt with the Filipino members of the community, she needed to be “fun, friendly and not too serious.” In this case, Edna learned a high level of cultural competency that allowed her to meet the expectations of both the Japanese and Filipino parishioners. Edna was also aware that by helping the organization and by acting “Japanese,” she bridged the gap between the dominant stereotype of Filipinas in Japan and the reality that she was representing to the Japanese parishioners. According to Edna, possessing these multiple identities and shifting them when it was necessary allowed her to be an effective leader.

From Dancer to Family Business Manager Alyona (36, Ukraine) came to Japan when she was twenty-five years old. She had been married twice to Ukrainian men and had a daughter from her second marriage. When her daughter was two years old, Alyona ran away from her husband’s abuse, leaving all her belongings, including documents and clothes, in his apartment. She took her two-year old daughter back to her parents’ house and felt she had no other option but to go overseas and earn money. As she had done gymnastics and dance before, she easily caught up with training and nine months later left to work in Japan. For the first two contracts (six months each) Alyona worked only as a dancer, but the third time she worked as a hostess. It was at this time when she met her future husband, who was twenty-seven years older than she. Alyona’s husband had been married twice before he met her and had two children from those marriages. After they married, Alyona had to take care of a three-story house, which was not only the couple’s home, but also where her husband’s business was run. The first floor was occupied by workers during the day, the second floor had office spaces connected with the living room, and the third floor was occupied by the couple. Initially I found myself cleaning this house. I started as a cleaner . . . since I didn’t understand anything else. But I had to prove to my husband that I am not only a cleaner, that I am smart. In order to prove this, I had to show what I can. I just sat down and learnt hiragana and katakana [Japanese syllabary], . . . watched TV and memorized words. . . . It took me about one year. I started understanding the language, but was hiding it . . . . I wanted to know what was happening in the company and in the family.

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Later, when Alyona started understanding Japanese better, she proposed that she should take over the business when her husband decided to retire: “He told me: ‘You are silly. Do you even understand how hard it is? You cannot even speak two words in Japanese. Forget about it and do housework!’ I didn’t want to give up. Why should I be a housewife? I can do better.” Like Dana, Alyona also decided to get a driver’s license. The more she learned, the more useful she became in her husband’s business. Eventually, she managed accounting and had many other responsibilities in the company. According to Alyona, her husband still thought that she needed more training to take over the business. He planned to retire in seven years, and it was clear that Alyona would do her best to prove herself capable of running it. In this section we showed cases where women actively participated in the local community or in the family business and through these activities, gained a sense of self. Edna and Alyona’s stories show that both women did not accept their position as homemakers and were strategic in accomplishing bigger goals.

Summary This chapter discussed the strategies foreign wives and husbands in Japan used to exercise their agency and accumulate or convert their social and cultural capitals. In the process they transformed themselves, challenged dominant representations associated with them, and developed multiple identities. For women, although marriages to their Japanese husbands conferred legal rights, they could also be constraining. But it was not only women who were driven to assert themselves. British and American men had to overcome the stereotypical image associated with their being English teachers, while also being pressured to settle in Japan. Agency was reflected in the way Western husbands worked on achieving greater cultural capital or using the embodied one to provide for their families. However, FSU and Western women did not necessarily experience the same privileged status as men, hinting that the concept of “whiteness” is not genderand nationality-blind in this context. Furthermore, wives from the Philippines and the FSU formed their networks and associations stratifying their own ethnic groups as either “good” or “bad”— this choice enabled the accumulation and enhancement of their personal social and cultural capitals. Just as these migrants “excluded” and “included” those in their own social groups, at a macro level they also had to contend with these constraints where they faced racial and gender-based discrimination. To overcome this, they had to shift and develop multiple identities such that essentialized notions of national identity—who was Filipino, who was European or who was Japanese—became blurred and fluid. When migrants mobilized their internal resources, defied conventions and became prominent through business,

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teaching languages in both private and public schools, participating in local community activities, they created a solid foundation and influence such that their gender roles and representations might require redefinition. In this way, deficiencies in the prevailing notions of homogeneity and assimilation cannot capture the fluidity of these processes. Finally, the idea that the exercise of agency and accumulation of social and cultural capital necessitates challenging political, social and cultural structures also sheds light on how Japanese society is transforming given the integration and visibility of these female and male migrants.

7 Raising Bilingual/Bicultural Children

A feature of international marriages that is portrayed as a source of envy in popular discourse in Japan is the presumed bilingual and bicultural skills of children born in such marriages. “Together with affirmative or even aspirational attitudes towards the English language in Japanese society, the popular discourse has generated a social atmosphere which separates international marriages from marriages between Japanese citizens by attaching cultural and ethnic fantasies, imaginaries, and desires to international marriages” (Itoh 2015, 224; see also Fujita 2009). However, there is also persistent media coverage of problems that these children are assumed to face, including cases of bullying targeting mixedheritage children and these children’s difficulties in fitting into Japanese schools, which are conformist and assimilationist in nature. Given the fickleness of popular discourses, from a scholarly perspective it is important to understand the lived reality of children born into international marriages. At the same time, popular discourses may have the power to shape this reality and individual identity. Bearing all this in mind, this chapter considers children of international couples in Japan focusing particularly on education. Children spend a significant amount of their waking hours in formal educational settings, which have a powerful socialization role. We focus on the strategies and perceived choices parents have in the area of education. To what extent is raising children who are bilingual and embrace bicultural identities a priority for our families? As we asked our participants to recall the decisions they had made in the past about their children’s education and to consider the outcomes of this, we came to see this as time-lapse photography revealing snapshots at key moments. Articulated from another perspective, this chapter explores the power politics of parenting in international marriages in relation to raising mixed-heritage children in a society that continues to largely imagine itself as ethnically 114

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homogenous. Children’s culture, the language(s) they speak, and their educational pathways are negotiated and decided in a complex process that reflects the geopolitical considerations of parents, ideas about the children’s future and available paths, expectations of parenting, and the interplay of power relations between the couples as well as their extended family. As we discuss, couples who chose the Japanese school system mostly from the basic-option couples (BOC) and default-option couples (DOC) categories, while those who choose international school education or mixed schooling tend to be multiple-choice (MCC) or open-choice (OCC) couples.1 As such, the educational strategies and ideas also reflect the uchi/soto orientations of Japanese spouses. And finally, the geopolitical positioning of a foreign spouse’s country defines the importance of children’s learning that spouse’s native language. Thus, this chapter also constructs a few aerial shots of the landscape that helps to construct the choices available to these families.

Demographics and Terminology The data presented in figure 7.1 show a decrease in births in Japan in general (Figure 7.1a), but a steady increase in the number of children for whom one parent is a foreign national from 1987 (10,022) until 2007 (24,177) and a slow downturn since then, decreasing to 17,878 births in 2018 (Figure 7.1b). During the main period of our data collection (2007–2012), the number of children born in families with one foreign parent followed the general trend for international marriages in Japan, with more foreign mothers giving births compared with Japanese mothers; this was also due to the greater number of marriages between Japanese men and foreign women. Thus, more children were born to foreign mothers from 1987 (5,538) through to 2015 (9,459), than to Japanese mother/foreign father couples—4,484 in 1987 and 9,620 in 2015. However, starting in 2015 this trend has reversed. The latest available numbers from 2018 show 8,436 births in foreign mother/Japanese father couples, and 9,442 births in foreign father/ Japanese mother couples. This is a very interesting trend, considering that the number of marriages between Japanese men and foreign women remains greater than those between Japanese women and foreign men. It suggests that foreign mothers/Japanese fathers follow the similar trends of low fertility seen in the general population in Japan, while Japanese women/foreign men couples have higher fertility rates. Overall, mixed-heritage children constituted only about 2 percent of all births in Japan (18,134 out of 918,400) in 2018. In the Japanese academic literature, a variety of names are used for children born in international marriages. They include kokusai kekkon de umareta kodomo, child born in an international marriage (Enomoto, Morikawa, and Nakai 2012; Shibuya et al. 2013); kokusai kekkon kara umareta kodomo, child born from an international marriage (Kokusai Kekkon o Kangaeru Kai 2011); kokusai kekkon

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FIGUR E 7.1 Trends in Birth of Children in Japan, 1987–2019

Source: Created by Kim based on the Portal Site of Official Statistics of Japan (E-Stat 2020b).

katei ni iru kodomo, child in an international marriage household (Lee 2017); hāfu no kodomotachi, “half” children (Golovina 2017); kodomo, child (Takeda 2011, 2012; Saihanjuna 2011); and kurosu karuchuraru chirudoren, cross-cultural children (Kamoto 2008b; Satake and Da-anoy 2006). Originally, these children were referred to in negative terms such as ainoko, half-breed or crossbreed. Kamoto (2008b) and Sekiguchi (2003) point out that the former term was used to refer to children born to American military men and Japanese women after World War II. The term carries connotations of two different species being interbred. Another term used, konketsuji, or mixed-blood child, also emphasizes mixing, but here the focus is on the mixing of blood, which has racial overtones. Currently, the most widely known term used by the general public to refer to children born in international marriages is hāfu (half). This term can be traced back to the 1960s when it began to be used by artists of American-Japanese heritage to express their bicultural identities. However, by referring to a person as being half-Japanese and half-American, hāfu still has the negative connotation of half-breed (Kamoto 2008b; Sekiguchi 2003) or at least of someone who is somehow lacking in something. Even though it is widely used in media, the term hāfu is frowned upon in academic discourse. Therefore, “Generally speaking, along with the broader social use of the notion of hāfu (half), the term daburu (double) has often been used to refer to people of mixed ethnicity, in line with

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the current discourse of political correctness” (Uchio 2015, 95). As Uchio (2015, 95–96) further argues, “The epistemic dichotomy common to both terms is still too static”; in other words, the notion that children in international marriages have equal halves of the cultural heritage of their parents is not necessarily correct. Kokusaiji, international child, is another option. According to Kamoto (2008b, 145), the term kokusaiji was introduced in 1979 by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, where it was defined as a “child, born in the marriage of people of different races and having the distinctive characteristics of both mixed”; this term is not generally being used in popular discourse. A more recent term that some leading experts in international marriages use is “cross-cultural kid” (Kamoto 2008b; Satake and Da-anoy 2006), which Pollock and Van Reken (2009, 31) define as “a person who is living or has lived in—or meaningfully interacted with—two or more cultural environments for a significant period of time during childhood (up to age 18).” However, as we show below, children in international marriages do not necessarily interact with two cultural environments. We support Uchio’s (2015) argument that being born from parents of different heritages does not necessarily mean the child will equally acquire the cultural heritage of both parents. As such, we generally use the term “mixed-heritage children” to refer to children born to couples in an international marriage. While there is no exact equivalent being used in Japanese, the term places an emphasis on cultural heritage that can be acquired without necessarily being international. It also allows us to steer clear of terms that are imbued with biological essentialism and problematic notions of race.

Mixed-Heritage Language and Education Although children are not solely defined by household boundaries when it comes to their socialization, the family continues to play a significant role in their language and cultural acquisition. The desire to nurture language and cultural diversity in their mixed-heritage children is common among spouses in international marriage. This can lead to individual successes and pitfalls, as well as the realization of the power of globalization to open up, shape, and close off children’s experiences. “Both family and community constitute the initial stage in the child’s language socialization and his/her closest language ecology” (Schwartz and Verschik 2013, 2). Therefore, some foreign parents consider it important to use their language at least inside the home, as the local community and wider society will supposedly nurture and maintain the receiving country’s language and culture. Sims and Ellis (2014) point to the abundance of research around the world on different types of bilinguals, including balanced bilinguals, receiving bilinguals, bilinguals lacking biliteracy; on the positive academic, social, and

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cognitive effects of being bilingual; and on positive effects of bilingual language policies on society overall. Having perfect command in both languages tends to be rare; therefore, many bilinguals use a unique combination of two languages (Garcia 2009; Grosjean 1982; Sims and Ellis 2014). In contrast to creating these advantages, raising children monolingually in bilingual families might lead to loss of the “potential for belonging” (Sims and Ellis 2014; Ellis and Bilbatua 2013). Either way, “family language planning, as distinct from national or state language planning, involves the goals a family has for the use of languages within the family, including what language(s) children will learn and use, and the daily strategies they use to achieve those goals” (Sims and Ellis 2014, 30). In the context of Japanese schools, however, mixed-heritage children tend to be treated the same way as monoethnic Japanese children. One reason for this is that these children’s mixed heritage is not acknowledged on any documentation— it is sufficient that they have one Japanese parent—and thus their non-Japanese background and different home environment and language skills tend to be overlooked. Even though it seems counterintuitive to the current attempts on the part of the Japanese government to internationalize Japanese society (Yamamoto et al. 2016), mixed-heritage children, one of the country’s largest ready-to-use resources, are generally expected to assimilate in a Japanese school environment, and not only is their rich cultural heritage not taken into account, but it can also be regarded as an educational liability. At the same time, overemphasis on their different background in the homogenous school environment might also lead to these children being stigmatized as “foreigners” and/or being bullied as a result. “The children from international marriages are often called hāfu regardless of the ethnicity or nationality of their parents. Needless to say there is great diversity among the people grouped under this designation and the perceptions held by the Japanese ethnic majority towards them are anything but uniform” (Uchio 2015, 91). In his interview (Kinoshita 2019, n.p.), Lawrence Yoshitaka Shimoji, founder of the website HAFU TALK, where the voices of hāfu and their experiences as well as research on the topic are introduced, explains that “the social prejudice associated with being hāfu remains and conjures an image of being half white. . . . Japanese with Philippine and African roots also suffer. Those who are half African or Arab say they often get stopped by police.” Shimoji said that one such mixed-heritage person told him “it would be different if he had a ‘normal’ Japanese face.” Therefore, it is not only the education system per se that leads to the assimilation or rejection of mixed-heritage children; wider social forces are also in play. For couples raising mixed-heritage children in any social setting, the default mode or path of least resistance is to send them to a local state school, especially given that upon the child’s reaching the age for entrance to an

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elementary school and again when advancing to secondary level, the family will automatically receive notification that the child has a place at the nearest school. To consider private schooling in any shape or form necessarily involves the parents proactively articulating an educational strategy that involves a rejection of the state system. It requires that the family addresses additional questions, not least of which is how private education school fees will be paid. Sending children to a private school ultimately involves the parents acting on an agreed strategy (or the strategy of the more influential parent in this domain), which can range from seeking extra extracurricular instruction for their children to pass entrance examinations to moving into an area within commuting distance of the desired school. In this chapter we analyze couples’ decision-making processes, in choosing different schooling pathways. We mainly introduce FSU and Western datasets findings since we do not have sufficient data to form a comprehensive picture of the child rearing and educational choices of the Filipina-Japanese cohort. In the case of FSU, although these wives come from less developed countries compared to Japan, the majority of them are white. We assume that the wife’s cultural background, as well as ethnicity and race play a role in negotiating their children’s upbringing. Western parents in our dataset are represented by mostly English-speaking foreign spouses, and this, too, affects their decisions about their children’s schooling and their expectations for their future.

Japanese Schooling and FSU Wives: Bicultural Families with (Nearly) Monolingual Children In 2007, when we began our fieldwork, few of our FSU participants had schoolage children. However, for many of them, sending their children to a Japanese school sounded commonsensical, given that they were growing up in Japan. Follow-up surveys in 2013, 2015, and 2017 enabled us to track their and their children’s experiences.

Japanese Schooling as a “Natural” Path As we have discussed in the previous chapters, FSU wives had different paths to their marriages with Japanese men, but eventually the decision to live in Japan depended on the economic and social environment of the country and the possibilities the families, mainly husbands and children, would have. For many of these families, going to a Japanese school was a “natural” part of their settlement in Japan and a ticket to a better future for their children. Vera (24, Ukraine), who participated in an interview when her older child was only oneyear old, pointed out that “Even if he is a hāfu, Japan is his country. Japanese

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schools are schools of the society he lives in, that’s why going to Japanese school is natural.” Going through public education does not pressure families in financial terms; it also lessens the burden on parents in terms of commitment to home support and on children in terms of commuting time to school. Lada (30, Russia), whose son was eight years old by the time of her interview, felt that “it will be better for him to study in Japan. . . . You know, I understand that Russian education USED to be good. When . . . I studied, it was great, it was holistic, it was in-depth, it was wonderful education. Now, with this USE [Unified State Examination], nobody needs it. They just abuse children. . . . I think he doesn’t need Russian education as it is. It is not highly rated anywhere. . . . It’s better to have bad Japanese education, which is rated everywhere, rather than cool Russian education, which is useful only in Russia.”

In addition to the different status of Japanese and Russian education in the world, Lada also compared literacy rates of students in Russia and Japan: “Look, they learn 3–4 kanji [characters] every day. . . . they have tests every two weeks. . . . Yes, they are slower [than in Russian education], but what is the end result? They can write characters. They know three alphabets [Hiragana, Katakana, and English]. What about our [Russian] students? They cannot learn one alphabet. They cannot write at all.” As is clear, Lada had strong opinions against the current Russian education system and considered Japanese education better in quality. However, it is also important to mention that Lada’s mother was a primary school teacher, who frequently visited the family and stayed with them long term. By the time Lada’s child was eight, he had studied the first-year program of Russian schooling with his grandmother and was one of the children in our study who was most fluent in Russian language among those raised in Japan. It is also important to note that Lada herself could speak some Japanese, but inside the house she and her son spoke only in Russian. Other parents also considered the Japanese school environment to be better for their children compared with the Russian one, despite its perceived pitfalls. Daria (32, Russia) was born and raised in eastern Russia; her mother was Russian, her father was a Korean from Japan and his mother was Japanese. The only FSU participant in our study with Japanese roots, Daria did not speak any Japanese as a child. When she was seventeen, however, she became interested in Japanese language and started taking some Japanese language courses. Even though she had grandparents who lived in Japan and even though she visited Japan for a short-term homestay program as a student, Daria never planned to move there. She was twenty-four and living in Russia, when her Russian husband passed away and she became a single mother of a two-year-old son. As she explained, she started thinking about her son’s future:

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I didn’t even think of remarriage, the only thing I worried about was how to raise a decent person in the [crime-ridden] environment I lived in. Moreover, I’m alone, he will soon grow up and go to school, I probably cannot afford elite school, he will go to the regular one, next to [our] home. The schools are mayhem (crimes, drugs . . .). . . . I haven’t thought about this before, but the more I was thinking, the more I was terrified about the future of my child. As my . . . dad’s parents live in Japan, they agreed with me moving there. So, I made up my mind. It is only about my child’s future. Even now, despite all the pluses and huge minuses of the education system and kids’ school life, I think it is better for a child to be here, than in Russia.

Vera, Lada, Daria, and many of the FSU parents had the choice of either Japanese or Russian education or both. However, even though there were cases among the online network participants whose children studied in Japanese schools on a daily basis while at the same time going through distance learning in Russian school, many of them mentioned that it was only possible to study through the Russian primary school program (from the first to the fourth grade), as it was difficult to complete the junior high school program (starting from the fifth year) via distance learning. One of the mothers in a Russian online network mentioned that she felt bad for her daughter, who was extremely busy trying to catch up in both school systems, while the other parents gave up. Apart from such parents, the majority of wives considered Japanese education a “natural” path for their children to have better future in Japan.

Japanese Schooling as a Path to a Better Future Some parents chose Japanese public education in view of their children’s future prospects. Arata (40, Japan), who worked for several years in Russia, had a child with a Japanese woman from his first marriage, and a step-child and two daughters with his Russian wife, said, “I think it’s better for them to be in Japan [rather than in Russia]. I loved Russia and Moscow, but one thing that bothers me is that the state system there is very cold toward people. Human rights are not protected. Under the authoritarian regime, even if you have skills, there are only a limited number of people who can become a part [of the ruling elite]. I think Japan is still liberal in this sense.” In addition to thinking about the future, some mothers were eager to give their children the education that they did not receive. Lyubov (36, Russia), a mother of two daughters (11 and 8) explained that she was considering international school as a path, but was conflicted: “I think, it [international school education] is better than Japanese, but in order to enter into Japanese university it is better to graduate from Japanese schools. . . . I don’t plan for them to live in Japan,” she added, “but I plan for them to receive education. I made my

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mistakes; I didn’t receive proper education. . . . I regret that I didn’t continue with my education, that’s why I want them to graduate.” Lyubov’s time at university coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the value of a university degree was low and was not useful for a job, so she dropped out. In addition, Arata said that nepotism and value of social networks were prioritized over gaining knowledge and skills in Russian education, and this was another reason that he and his wife took the Japanese education path. As we discussed earlier in this volume, for many BOC and DOC category spouses, Japan was the best or the only choice of country to live in. This, in turn, affected the future of children’s education in these families. The FSU women above evaluated the quality and global positioning of Russian education versus that of Japan and decided in favor of Japan.

Becoming Bilingual As we mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, bilingualism requires a lot of planning and effort inside the home. Alla (36, Russia), who was introduced in chapters 4 and 5 and had two children, a boy, Ryūnosuke (8), and a girl, Erica (3), explained: “My husband talks to the kids in Japanese, but sometimes he uses Russian words. I try to use Russian more, but you know, these days my older child sometimes doesn’t understand Russian. I tell him in Russian first, and then in Japanese. But younger daughter understands very well, easily. . . . My son sometimes says, ‘Say it in Japanese,’ he doesn’t want to learn Russian at all.” As we also noted before, Alla’s husband had a chance to go back to work in Russia for a three- to five-year period. Considering her possible life in Russia, Alla commented: I will have Russian children then. On one hand, it is of course good. It is difficult for me now to communicate with Ryūnosuke, because he is more like Japanese. And, if we moved [to Russia], he would be 90 percent Russian, but would talk with dad in Japanese and in Russian. . . . However, on the other hand, in terms of living conditions, school, classes, it is easier in Japan, because everything here is thought through in detail. . . . I don’t really understand it [the education system] well to know whether I am happy about it or not, . . . but it is about infrastructure.”

Like Alla, Lyubov also pointed that even though she used only Russian with her daughters, they slowly grew to speak more Japanese than Russian. A number of FSU parents complained that their children became “too Japanese,” by which we assume that the children’s growing reluctance to speak Russian and accept their Russian heritage is one of the ideas behind this. Explaining the idea of becoming “Japanese,” Alexandra (31, Russia) said that when she told her son, who was in his early years of elementary school that he had Russian heritage, he replied that he was Japanese. However, when she pointed out that she was

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Russian, he responded: “You can be Russian, but I am Japanese.” Thus, the fact that children insisted on using of Japanese language and that their manners and habits were acquired by going to a Japanese school and socializing with their Japanese friends, led mothers to believe that their children became more Japanese than Russian in their communication. At the same time, however, it does not mean that the children were necessarily accepted as “fully” Japanese in their school environment, especially if they were visibly very different in appearance. The attempt to become more “Japanese” might have come from their efforts to fit into their friends’ circles. Some FSU mothers thought that their children would be able to pick up the Russian language “naturally,” along the way, and that therefore there was no need to make an extra effort to teach it. Anita (37, Russia), for example, had a thirteenyear-old daughter, who moved to Japan after Anita married with Arata; later, she had two more daughters with him. Despite her hopes, they grew monolingual, but at the same time Anita’s Japanese language improved through her interactions with them. The first daughter (Ruka, born in 2008) was two years old, when Anita and Arata became concerned that she did not have friends and took her to a local English preschool. At that time, Anita spoke only a few words in Japanese and communicated with her daughter mostly in Russian; Arata spoke to her in Japanese, while simultaneously trying to involve her in the English conversation school. As Ruka was not a very talkative child, one day Anita complained: “Sometimes I tell her something, but she doesn’t react in any way. And I don’t really know whether she doesn’t understand me or just ignores what I say.” Eventually, feeling bad for Ruka, who had to navigate through all the languages, Anita decided to switch completely to Japanese, even though her Japanese language was very basic and led to other sorts of problems. Now it was difficult for Anita to communicate with Ruka. For instance, when Ruka had to go to the doctor, Anita needed to wait until Arata could return from work early. “I have to explain to Ruka what’s going on, but she won’t understand Russian, so we need daddy to be there.” Then, when Anita became more proficient in spoken Japanese, problems persisted because Anita could not read Japanese and so could not help Ruka with her homework. Again, then, they were often waiting for Arata to return home and help with homework. However, their second daughter, Yuri (born in 2011), grew up completely monolingual. She learned to read the Japanese hiragana syllabary by herself when she was four years old, and seemed fully integrated into Japanese school life. Although this partly had to do with Anita’s conscious decision to use only one language, she still seemed to expect her daughters to pick up some Russian, because on one occasion she complained: “They don’t understand Russian AT ALL!”

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Another participant, Adelina (31, Russia), mentioned that despite her living in Japan for five years, her Japanese was still child-like. “Yasu [her son] goes to kindergarten. . . . I talk to him and learn. . . . Now I understand baby talk.” Even though Yasu could understand his mother’s Russian, the experience of Anita shows that the strategy of focusing mostly on Japanese language, while expecting children to “naturally” pick up Russian language does not work. However, this strategy worked in the women’s benefit as they could learn Japanese language better together with their children. Thus, children became a source for women for their Japanese language acquisition. This led in many cases to women becoming bilingual (lacking reading and writing literacy though) at the expense of their children becoming monolingual.

The International School Path This section introduces the Western couples who sent their children to international schools,2 which offered an internationally accredited curriculum that would allow them to go on to a university in most countries in the world.3 Families choosing this route not only had to make a conscious effort to use English at home and teach it to their children, but also had to have the financial means for this kind of schooling, which does not come cheaply.4 To finance this choice, many families prioritized education over other considerations, such as the desire to have one parent, usually the mother, not working full time. In the Kansai area where this study was carried out, at the time of the first round of interviews in 2009, school fees ranged from 1.5 million yen to 2 million per child per year (1 USD = 110 JPY), with no discounts for a second or third child. Today, they would be 2 to 2.5 million yen per child per year. Given the small number of international schools in Japan and the fact that boarding is generally not available, families must live near enough to ensure their children can travel to school and back each day. Consequently, some parents who could afford the fees did not send their children to an international school because it would involve a relocation that was not possible and/or desirable, despite that they could afford the fees. Entry requirements vary greatly by school, but for the established schools, applicants outweigh openings. Within the schools that we had direct contact, priority was given to children who had been educated overseas. Mixed-heritage children who were being raised in Japan had to prove that they were near their grade level in English or that they could achieve this level within a specified period of time across all four skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Children educated overseas might be accepted with a lower level of English if it was felt that they could not function in the Japanese system. Some schools were ambivalent about accepting mixed-heritage children with Japanese nationality who they thought might be better off being educated in the Japanese system.

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Thus even administrators of school systems outside mainstream Japanese education considered that it would be better for mixed-heritage children to be in the Japanese school system.

Families Who Choose an International School Path In our study sample, seven children from five families attended international schools. It was thus only a small minority of mixed-heritage families who took this path. Those five families were from MCC or OCC categories and shared certain characteristics, including an above-average level of household income, although this has decreased for some over the years due to the declining economic climate. Respondents estimated that a minimum family income of 10 to 12 million yen was necessary to support two children in an international school. One respondent, Mike (48, United States), observed that paying 2 million yen per year for each of his two children would leave the family with 6 million yen to live on. He felt this would be tough, but not impossible. A more comfortable sum, he mused, was 15 million. His wife, Mayumi, felt that 12 million was a base line, but agreed that 15 million was more realistic to support the lifestyle that goes with having a transnational family.5 In all but one of the five families, the wife’s contribution to household income was less than that of the husband. Another characteristic of these families is that both parents had lived in a country other than where they were born for a considerable amount of time; in many cases this was the country of their spouse. All the Japanese spouses were proficient in English and had lived in the country of the non-Japanese spouse as a couple for between one and eleven years. In each case, the Japanese spouse (three mothers and two fathers) went overseas alone to the country of their future husband/wife for educational purposes. The two fathers studied at the graduate level and the three mothers at English language schools. Likewise, four out of five of the non-Japanese spouses (two fathers and two mothers) also had links with Japan prior to marriage and had developed a reasonable proficiency in Japanese. In other words, these couples possessed a high level of intercultural and bilingual competencies. In the Japanese context, they also possessed cultural capital in the form of being “white,” Western, and from Anglophone backgrounds. This cultural capital was further enhanced by virtue of the fact that all but one of the non-Japanese parents were working in the English language education sector, two at the university level, three at the secondary school level, and one in the English conversation sector (self-employed). In addition, one of the Japanese fathers was also involved in education at university level.

Sending Children to International School Perhaps the most important shared characteristic among couples in this group was that they all rejected mainstream Japanese schooling as an option for their

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child/children. Equally, they also appreciated what international schools offered. Concerns about language proficiency and bilingualism were also common themes. POSITI V E EVA LU ATION OF INTER NATIONA L SCHOOL S

All the families who

chose international schools for their children pointed to the English language base of the school as a key factor. In other words, they perceived benefits for their children if they were schooled in English rather than Japanese. A common expression used was that it would “open doors.” English was viewed as the common language of the world and would allow their children to move anywhere around the globe with ease, whereas Japanese would equip their children only for life in Japan. Therefore, in their eyes, doors would be closed if their children attended a Japanese school. To send their children to international school, parents in our study not only had to have the money to do, but also had to cover additional costs. These included relocating the mother and child to be near an international school, while the husband lived at his work place on weekdays (Hank and Satoe) and the family relocating to be near to the school of their choice (Hiroyuki and Gwyn). But paying for school also affected their lives: one wife who would have preferred to be a stay-at-home mom had to take on work outside her original area of expertise to bring in sufficient income to pay school fees (Kenji and Cathy), while another gradually moved from part-time to full-time work also to cover school fees (Peter and Yuko). Thus, parents (foreign and Japanese) placed enormous value on the linguistic component of cultural capital, especially the higher perceived (market) value of English. While an international school education would ensure that their children were proficient in English, parents also expected their children to grow up bilingual. Harry (50, UK) and Yuka (48, Japan), for example, relocated to Japan from England because they thought the environment was better for their kids and because they valued bilingualism. They also intended to send their children to international school in Japan. But with Yuka contributing only minimally to household income, they had to wait eleven years before they had the resources to move to Japan. As Yuka said, Harry “knew how much it requires to live here. And we just waited for the right job for us to manage here. . . . He knew the cost of bringing up kids, sending them to international schools and all that. . . . No way we’re going to send them to Japanese schools.” The need for an international school education for the children of our participants is driven by the fact that proficient English language acquisition is not possible in the Japanese community or even public schools, and can only be acquired in a domain such as international schools, where English is the main medium of communication. Moreover, living in Japan and having Japanese language classes in international schools allow children to acquire both languages. Thus, we can see the lengths

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and investment that families would go to achieve certain education goals, bilingualism being one of them. Peter (48, Australia) articulated the value of linguistic capital very succinctly, when he reflected on his original motivation for sending his children to international school, starting with primary school. It was “to give the kids an English education as this will provide them with significantly more choices and opportunities on the world stage. The idea of raising our kids to be bilingual was also an attraction, although that hasn’t worked out as well as I would have hoped.” That is, Peter’s two older children, Naomi and Terry, were not as fluent in Japanese as their parents expected them to be. A lack of proficiency in Japanese was felt to be a problem by the children as well. Naomi, for one, said that she was more “comfortable” in Australia (Peter’s home country) than in Japan, where her lack of proficiency in the language set limits on her interactions with monolingual speakers of Japanese. “The Japanese speak Japanese and then it can be hard for me and then in Australia you just speak English, they would just understand you and in Japan people are like . . . they stare at me because I’m a foreigner, they are so amazed.” Even though she was Japanese by nationality, as were many of her bilingual friends in international school, Naomi appeared to regard Japanese as a monolingual, ethnic “other” with whom she had no affiliation. Terry added that in Australia “You are completely normal because there are a lot of Asians in Australia like all kinds. When you go to the mall, it’s like half of the people there are Asians and Middle Eastern.” Peter and Yuko’s decision about their third child’s schooling was complicated by financial concerns. When Mari was old enough to attend school, the couple felt they could not yet shoulder the financial burden of having a third child in a private school, and they kept her in Japanese school through fourth grade. As Mari learned English from her older siblings, the need for her to go to international school was perceived as less urgent. Ironically, this strategy has resulted in Mari gaining the bilingual language skills, including literacy in both English and Japanese, that have partly eluded her older siblings. Another, albeit less pressing, reason for sending children to an international school was the perception that it would provide a more diverse cultural environment, where being of mixed-heritage would be celebrated. The global nature of the curriculum was also positively evaluated. Satoe, who was the main driver behind the decisions made over her son Wade’s education, was very clear about the rationale: “An important component of his education/experience in the international school is the value it places on human diversity, and it is one of the reasons we chose to have Wade attend an international school.” The children also emphasized this aspect of international education. Shizuka (Cathy and Kenji’s daughter) noted that her brother, Kōsuke, experienced bullying at Japanese school due to his “foreign” background. She elaborated: “When I was younger I didn’t understand about being unique and that being

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yourself is good. And I think my brother is just concerned about the fact that he wants to be the same like everyone else and he’s afraid of what people might think of him. I think it’s good to be unique and one of a kind.” This, she said, she learned in international school, “because there are people from all over the world and also in class we meet different people and different things. And you do a lot of things that help you learn about yourself and understand about other people so that really helps. You do find out who you are and maybe what you want to do.” When asked how she would describe herself—as “double” or “half” or “mixed,” Shizuka replied, “I would say am 100  percent American and 100 percent Japanese. . . . I don’t want to be fifty/fifty. I want to be hundred/hundred.” As for her brother, Kōsuke was later enrolled in international school and eventually went on to attend university in the United States. In spite of the bullying he experienced in Japanese public school, he is fully bilingual, like Mari, as a result of spending five years there. A discourse of celebration of being mixed-heritage was articulated by all the families who chose to send their children to international schools. It is a value prioritized by many of the parents and it justified any hardships associated with paying expensive international school fees. NEGATI V E EVA LU ATION OF JA PANESE SCHOOL S

Parents who sent their

children to an international school did so partly because they rejected the Japanese system. For Japanese parents this negative evaluation was based on a retrospective evaluation of their own experiences in the light of more current insights drawn from time spent overseas. For the foreign parent it was based largely on second-hand knowledge. In the case of Hank and Satoe, Satoe’s misgivings about the Japanese system based on her own experiences was the primary reason for sending Wade to an international school. As she explained, When I was a student, all the curriculums in Japanese schools were focused on examinations and we studied only for the examinations. Classes were always passive and so boring at school. Luckily, after high school I went to *** University so my view was widened and I got to become interested in other cultures (I got mainly interested in U.S at the time). I was aware of the differences between Japanese schools and American schools. Living in Japan, I thought sending Wade to international school was the best option. . . . It was not difficult at all for us to decide because he [Hank] had lived in Japan for a long time and known about Japanese educational system quite well and he had the same idea as mine.

Concerned mainly about secondary rather than primary level schooling in the Japanese system, Satoe and Hank initially planned to wait until middle school to move Wade into the international school system, but they then decided that it could be difficult to get his English literacy level up to that needed to enter

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at secondary level. Hank reflected on how during primary school he had been “trying to teach him [Wade] literacy skills on weekends. It was going nowhere, only a lot of frustrations. We were just not realistic in thinking that we could wait until middle school to [let him go to international school]. . . . We were fearful that his literacy skills wouldn’t be [good enough].” Satoe’s networking with other parents also confirmed that it would be easier to switch to international school earlier, and so they did, in spite of having to move in order to do so. Yuka also emphatically rejected the mainstream system. She had left Japan after high school to study in England and liked what she found there. When they moved back to Japan, Yuka and her husband had already decided to send their children to international school. “No way we’re going to send them to Japanese schools,” she said. “It [International school education] is better than Japanese education.” Moreover, although the children had spent their early years in England, Yuka did not think they would miss out on Japanese language and culture. “Just living here, they would learn the [Japanese] culture anyway. And especially going to school here, they would mix with the Japanese.” At the same time, she also worried that in addition to the lesser quality of education in the Japanese school system, her children might be “put off” by Japanese attitudes toward mixed-heritage children, “because of the way of thinking [in Japanese schools] and again, this gaijin [foreigner] thing.” Thus, Yuka’s bilingual strategy for her children was better implemented by keeping them in what she saw as a superior educational environment and leaving them to learn Japanese informally, through playing with friends and living in Japan. In Peter and Yuko’s family it was the foreign parent who expressed negative views about the Japanese education system. Having taught English to children schooled in this system for many years, Peter pointed to his concern about the skills not covered in secondary schooling: Apart from having high hopes for the international schools, there were also concerns about the Japanese schools. I have always thought (and still do) that the Japanese elementary schools provide a very good education and a good learning environment, but that this deteriorates very quickly through junior and senior high schools. I feel that high schools in Japan prepare students quite poorly for the workforce, especially from a global perspective, and even more poorly with regard to life skills.

The perception that elementary school in Japan provides a good or at least acceptable education was expressed by many participants. When trying to pinpoint where this viewpoint came from, our conclusion is that it had roots in advice given by Japanese parents. Friends and acquaintances of mixed-heritage families passed this idea on as received wisdom, whether it did or did not have a basis in reality.

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Mixed Schooling Path The families in our study who chose varied schooling paths for children did so for a variety of reasons. In the examples above, two children (Mari and Kōsuke) started out in the Japanese school system, despite having siblings in the international school system. A switch between school systems is often made when children are bullied or do not settle in the Japanese schools. Otherwise, poor acquisition of language, Japanese or English, creates a situation where changes in plans come to be viewed as the only option. Another reason for changing school choices were parents’ job transfers, repatriation, migration, and the level of importance parents placed on language and culture acquisition. Therefore, some children moved in and out of the Japanese education system.6 This was the case for nine families in our study. They moved their children from Japanese schools to international schools; from Japanese to foreign schools; from international schools to Japanese schools; from foreign schools to Japanese schools, and back to foreign schools. It is obvious that these various choices arose for many different reasons. Some families also had different educational strategies for different siblings, while some had to change their strategies along the way, depending on the learning environment and children’s abilities. Here, we introduce families who experienced positive and negative consequences in making these changes.

Positive Consequences of Switching School Systems We consider successful transition from one school system and integration into another as a positive consequence of switching. Marian (46, USA) and Noritaka (46, Japan) had a clear educational vision for their daughter, Nancy, and they followed their strategy as they planned. Marian was raised in an ethnic Japanese immigrants’ family in the United States; her father was a thirdgeneration American of Japanese descent, and her mother was a first-generation American of Japanese descent. Marian called herself a “passive bilingual,” as she could understand Japanese, but could not speak, write, or read it. Her own experience strongly affected Marian’s ideas on Nancy’s education: “We were a typical ‘passive bilingual’ family. My mother talked to us in Japanese and I responded in English every time. I always spoke with my father in English. . . . So I understood that acquisition of another language has limitations depending on the main language.” Marian was anxious that her daughter might become a “passive speaker” if she “does not implement proper educational strategies.” Therefore, while she agreed with her husband that sending Nancy to a Japanese elementary school would be better for her since she would have friends in the neighborhood, Marian spent time teaching Nancy English at home. She also visited her parents in the United States during summer holidays, trying to improve her daughter’s English skills, while Nancy was in elementary school.

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Meanwhile, Marian worked hard to save money so that she could afford international school fees. Although Noritaka believed that international schools were isolated from the rest of the society and that children who attended them grew up in a gaijin [foreigners] ghetto, he came to support Marian’s choice, and the school turned out to have strong connections with the local community. Marian succeeded in her educational strategy, while she also agreed with her husband that “Nancy should value that she is partially Japanese.” As Marian pointed out, “Children [in international marriages] live in Japan. If we talk about their identity, they are partially Japanese. But I think it is important for these children to acquire both cultures and languages. Children should feel comfortable with being Japanese and not Japanese. If they think that only one part of their culture and language are enough, as long as they live in Japan, they will probably do things in Japanese way. But, I don’t want to reject this [Japanese] part as well. The balance is important.” It looked like Marian and Noritaka succeeded in their search for balance: between her years in the Japanese and the international schools, Nancy became an “active bilingual,” who could read and write in Japanese and English, and in her final year of high school she sought to obtain an International Baccalaureate bilingual diploma, a very rare achievement in Japanese international schools.

Unexpected Consequences of Education Strategies The case of Trevor and Hiroko shows that not all strategies lead to the expected results. The transfer of their oldest son Ken from Japanese elementary school to international school did not go as well as it did in Nancy’s case. It took Ken several years to finally adapt. Ken’s father, Trevor, had made the decision to move him into an international school a long time before Ken finished elementary school. He, like other parents presented in this chapter, considered that it was valuable to receive elementary school experience in Japan; however, he had negative opinions about the junior-high and high schools. Trevor was particularly critical about the idea of additional studies at cram schools and preparations for university entrance exams. For this reason, he strongly opposed sending his son to a Japanese junior high school. As Hiroko, Trevor’s wife pointed out, “If I were married to a Japanese, I would probably have a different attitude. . . . But now, I myself have critical thoughts about Japanese education system, as there is no consideration of children with multicultural background. . . . There is nothing good there for such children.” Hiroko also mentioned how lonely it was for her while going through the process of rejecting the Japanese school system in favor of an international school. She did not have anybody to share her ideas with or to get advice from, as it seemed that none of other mothers she knew who were also in international marriages had any doubts about the Japanese school system. However, the parents agreed that their

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“ultimate goal was to provide Ken with plenty of choices, so he could choose what he wanted to do.” When talking about this, Hiroko became emotional: “If Ken went to a Japanese school, he wouldn’t have any opportunities. The doors to all possibilities would be closed. . . . I couldn’t say [to him] that since he lives in Japan, he has to go to a Japanese school. I couldn’t do this.” In order to be able to send Ken to an international school, Trevor had to change his job and move from a regional area to a city suburb. However, the parents did not reveal their plans to Ken till the last moment. He was furious when his parents told him that they were moving and that he would not be with his friends in middle school. Although he had to catch up with classes in the international school, his family and the school were supportive. He was also able to make friends there, and even though Japanese remained his main language, he did become bilingual. In fact, after studying in the international school, he said, “My parents made a right choice for me.” In addition, his sports achievements were a matter of envy on the part of students of lower grades.

Summary In this chapter we analyzed the educational strategies of parents in cross-border marriages. These parents wanted (1) to raise bilingual/bicultural children; (2) to enable their children to adapt to Japanese society without being overly “Japanese”; and (3) to provide their children with opportunities to choose better university education, within Japan or out in the world. Keeping children in the Japanese school system, as in the case of FSUJapanese couples, tended not to achieve these goals. There mixed-heritage children were more likely to become monolingual, and to lose interest in the heritage of the foreign parent’s language and culture. Moreover, the assumption that children can pick up a non-Japanese language indirectly as they grow up with one foreign parent proved to not work without the active involvement of parents. On the positive side, the foreign parent, FSU mothers in our case, tended to pick up Japanese language skills along in the course of their children’s education and as a result could better integrate into the local community. Children themselves can also experience difficulties in the Japanese school system. This can be due to a lack of knowledge of Japanese language and culture or their perceived “foreignness” or “otherness,” which makes integrating in these schools more difficult. Those who go on to attend international schools, however, appear to develop with near-native or native English language skills and to gain opportunities to make their way in Japan or in the broader world according to their own talents and preferences—something that is extremely difficult to do in the Japanese school system. On the negative side, international schools’ tuition fees are extremely high when compared with public and even private Japanese schools. Furthermore, the use of English as a main language makes it

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difficult for the non-English-speaking parent to access these international schools. And more importantly, children who go exclusively to international school are at risk of isolation from their Japanese language and heritage, similar to their counterparts in the Japanese education system, who are at risk of losing the foreign parent’s language and culture. Finally, as shown throughout the chapter, all parents, by choosing one path or another, emphasized their wish to provide their children with a variety of choices and possibilities in their future. How they self-identify as adults and whether they agree with their parents’ choices will be important follow-up considerations.

8 International Divorce

International marriages are frequently framed as problematic due to the perception that cultural and linguistic differences lead to discord between husband and wife. Marital conflict may lead to divorce in any marriage, but there are additional issues when the couple has different nationalities. In Japan, where only one parent can gain custody and alimony is rarely paid, there are particular problems for foreign spouses who divorce a Japanese spouse. Surprisingly, given this situation, the process of international divorce has rarely been discussed in the studies on international marriage even in the Japanese context. This may be explained partly due to difficulties of identifying divorced couples of international marriages. “All happy families are alike, but every family is unhappy in its own way.” This Russian saying suggests that any study of marital discord and divorce will find individualized narratives to explain behavior and choices. As such, it may be challenging to make generalizations. Nevertheless, given the gendered geographies of power that inform differentials in nation-state power, marriage politics of the receiving state, and legal and social constraints on marriages and families, we can expect to see some commonalities in the narratives of international couples in Japan about divorce. Many cross-border marital issues and problems occurring inside the marriage are regulated to some degree by local legal institutions or by international bodies. As a marriage migrant, the foreign spouse is dependent on the local spouse, which can lead to multiple vulnerabilities. But while the creation of cross-border family processes is strictly regulated by the state, there is less regulation and control regarding international divorces. In all of our three datasets there were cases of divorce. Among the fortyeight women from the FSU who participated in the study, fifteen were divorced (30%) or were in the process of divorcing their Japanese husbands at the time of 134

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our fieldwork. Four of the women remarried to Japanese men, five women remarried or were cohabiting with men from the FSU or other countries. Ten of the women continued living in Japan, three women returned to their country of origin, and another two lived in third countries. In twelve cases, it was the wives who initiated divorce for reasons that can be categorized as cultural or religious misunderstandings, lack of communication, husband’s inability to support the family, sexless marriage, and domestic violence. Two cases involved no-fault divorces. In the two cases where men initiated the divorce, the reason was the men’s infidelity. There was an age difference of twenty-years or more in the case of six of the divorced couples. As for Filipinas, among the twenty-three participants interviewed for this study, five had divorced their Japanese husbands (21%), two were planning to divorce their husbands, and the rest claimed to be satisfied in their marriages. All twenty-three were living in Japan and planned to continue doing so. Of the twelve couples in the Western-Japanese dataset, only one divorced; this was due to a severe mental health issue. While there were reports of marital discord, none of the other couples had taken the route of divorce. As Matsuo (2005) points out, reasons for divorce in international marriages are generally similar to those of endogamous couples. Therefore, in this chapter we focus less on the reasons for divorce and more on the process of separation and issues that these couples encounter. Thus, we begin by looking at legal divorce procedures in Japan. We then consider the difficulties foreign spouses encounter due to their dependence on their Japanese spouses for their visas and residential rights, as well as their economic dependence on them. The chapter then turns to foreign spouses’ attitudes toward divorce, and it concludes with a discussion of child custody issues divorcing international couples face. Here we introduce a series of snapshots that eventually constitute the time-lapse image of international divorce, as we observed it during our fieldwork.

Divorce Proceedings and International Divorce in Japan Both international and Japanese national couples have three divorce options: negotiation, mediation, and adjudication. Negotiated or consensual divorce (kyōgi) is a no-fault divorce; it is also referred to as a “paper” (West 2011, 180), “mutual,” or “uncontested” (Alexy 2020, 85) divorce. In these situations, both spouses agree on conditions in private and submit a divorce form to their local government. This type of divorce comprised around 87.4 percent of all divorces in 2018 in Japan (E-Stat 2020a, 2018b). The Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare states that “if a spouse contests the divorce, the spouse who wishes to divorce must petition the Family Court to mediate the dispute” (West 2011, 180). Mediated divorces (chōtei rikon) comprised 9.5 percent of the divorces. Adjudicated divorces, which involved judicial divorce (hanketsu rikon), compromise (wakai

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rikon), acknowledgement of claim (nindaku rikon), and family court decree (shinpan rikon), comprised only 3.1 percent of all divorce types in 2018 (E-Stat 2020a). International couples are expected to follow the same procedures as Japanese couples. Apart from the demographic information on spouses, a front page of a twosided “paper” divorce document requires information on the type of divorce, the choice of either party to revert to the use of their original family name, and whether they create a new family register (koseki) or return to the original family register. Furthermore, the following must be provided: a list of any children who are minors with an indication of who will be their custodian; length of marriage; address before separation; occupation of the head of the household and the other spouse; and the stamp (inkan/hanko) or signature of both parties. The back page of the divorce registration paper includes information on two witnesses to the application and requires the couple to confirm that they have agreed on visitation and child-support payments. This seemingly simple procedure conceals various issues in Japanese divorce, where “law and economics play unmistakable roles in keeping couples together” (West 2011, 179). First, there is no provision for financial support for a dependent spouse who had been a homemaker or only had a part-time job and may not have sufficient income in the case of a divorce. A spouse can claim compensation during divorce hearings only in cases of adultery or other similar situations. Second, the division of labor along gender lines in Japanese society places constrains on married women with children, limiting their ability to keep well-paid jobs after marriage due to lack of support from husbands, lack of day care facilities, and workplace inflexibility. Third, divorce is socially stigmatized, and this affects both men and women’s chances of remarrying after divorce. Fourth, “there is neither provision for joint custody nor for both divorced parents to retain parental rights” (Goodman 2012, 228). Nor is there any stipulation regarding visitation rights and child-support payments; this issue is not raised even when both parties do not agree on the conditions of divorce settlements. Moreover, even in cases of mediated and adjudicated divorce, there is no legal enforcement of child-support payments. Finally, another issue is the use of a spouse’s family stamp (hanko), the registered name stamp of Japanese nationals which can also serve as their signature. Even though foreign spouses are allowed to use their own signatures instead of hanko, there is no regulation that checks the validity of the stamp or signature. Stamps for most common Japanese family names can be easily bought and forged, which can make it possible for a divorce to be processed without the spouse’s knowledge.1 Although all these issues affect both Japanese and foreign spouses, wives are especially vulnerable in that they face the threat of being divorcees with children without economic means to support themselves. In spite of the tendency of Japan’s judicial system to consider mothers the main caregivers and

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assign them as custodians, foreign wives are threatened by the possibility of losing custody due to their unstable economic position, while foreign husbands are threatened by the possibility of not being able to visit and contact their children after divorce.

Structural and Procedural Issues When it comes to international divorces, the Japanese state does not intervene as long as the spouses reach an agreement. As Alexy (2020, 85) points out, “The legal system becomes directly involved only at the end of the process” (emphasis in original). However, it constrains foreign spouses in other ways, such as ownership of properties, permission to stay in Japan (visa status), and custody over children. According to Kokusai Kekkon o Kangaeru Kai (2011, 174), an association that publishes handbooks on international marriage and divorce procedures in Japan, “If one of the spouses is a Japanese citizen who has domicile in Japan, even if the other spouse lives overseas, the divorce proceedings will follow Japanese law in Japan.” Given this situation, there are various complications that might occur during the divorce procedures. The first is whether a consensual, no-fault divorce is accepted in the foreign spouse’s country of origin, and if it is not, this leads to the necessity for spouses to go through judicial divorce in Japan. Another problem is property division and payment of settlement fees, such as alimony, child-support payments, and other types of compensations. If a foreign spouse returns to his or her country of origin, it becomes more difficult to issue valid payment requests from Japan. However, the two biggest issues divorcing international couples face are visa status and child custody.

Visa Issues Apart from documents such as passports, marriage certificates issued either in Japan or in the country where the couple got married, the “spouse or child of Japanese national” visa application requires documents such as the Japanese spouse’s family register, tax and income certification, and a guarantee form stating that the Japanese spouse will take responsibility for the foreign spouse. Goodman (2012, 237) notes that “spouses of Japanese nationals, as a rule, obtain yearly visas to reside in Japan. A non-Japanese-national spouse who is living separately from her spouse through no fault of her own may be denied the necessary papers to remain in Japan and may be deported.” However, a 2012 amendment to Japan’s Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act in Japan made it easier for foreign spouse visa holders to obtain permanent residence. Currently, a foreign spouse must stay in Japan for a minimum of three years, after which he or she is eligible to apply for a permanent residence visa. In case of a divorce, this option remains. However, if the foreign spouse is still on an extended spousal visa, and once this visa expires, he or she

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might find it difficult to find another way to stay in Japan. One possible option is to change the status to a “long-term resident” visa (one or three years in length), which requires the spouse either to be a main guardian of a child with Japanese citizenship who requires care or to have been living in Japan for a specified period of time. In the case of divorce with a Japanese national this requires the person to have been married for more than three years before the divorce. The foreign spouse should also have sufficient income to continue to do so. Thus, the ability of a foreign spouse to live in Japan depends on his or her Japanese spouse; the foreign spouse finally becomes less dependent only after receiving permanent residence status or custody over children who hold Japanese citizenship. As it will be shown in one of our case studies, this dependence opens the door to many distortions and abuses.

Child Custody In case of a negotiated divorce, the issue of custody and guardianship for international couples can be decided by spouses in private and registered in the document when filing their divorce. As shown earlier, the Japanese legal system presumes that one parent will have sole custody over child(ren) and leaves the visitation arrangements to individuals. This, not surprisingly, leads to custody disputes between spouses, which affects not only the parents, but also the child(ren)’s psychological and economic well-being. In addition, in the case of international marriages, it has been reported that “when the Japanese parent has possession of the child in Japan, the non-Japanese parent has not been able to obtain custody or even visitation rights” (Goodman 2012, 240). Moreover, although “the Family Court has authority to make custody determinations and this could be interpreted to give it authority to order visitation—in reality visitation may be granted when the parent in physical custody of the child agrees to it, but otherwise the non-Japanese parent will not get visitation rights” (Goodman 2012, 240). These arrangements can lead to parental child abduction, which is when “one parent takes a child away from the other parent with whom the child was living, and escapes/runs away to a different place, even a different country” (Singh and Thapan 2013, 326). Although the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction has been in place since 1980, because Japan has tended to see divorce, child custody, alimony, and other settlement issues as private, and because the legal system does not recognize joint custody and joint residence for children after divorce, the government resisted ratifying the convention. However, a number of high-profile cases of Japanese women residing in Western countries abducting their children and returning to Japan after divorce resulted in international divorce becoming a public matter. Under external pressure, Japan finally ratified the Hague Convention in 2013, and it entered into force on April 1, 2014 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, n.d.). The Hague Convention applies

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only to cases in which “a child who has habitual residence in a contracting state is wrongfully removed and retained in the territory of another contracting state (Article 3). The most important aim of the Hague Convention (Article 16) is to ensure the expeditious return of the child to his [sic] habitual residence, and the Convention does not deal with issues such as who should be granted custody of the child” (Canyas 2013, 326). Since the convention was ratified by Japan, there have been more cases of abducted children being returned to their countries of habitual residence, although this only partially resolves the problem as the Japanese parent may then have difficulty seeing his or her child. Ratification has also resulted in a more sympathetic stance by courts to applications for joint visitation rights in Japan (Jones 2016). The data that inform this chapter concern cases where foreign parents are from countries that had not joined the Hague Convention at the time of divorce.2 They also deal with situations in which the divorce occurred before Japan ratified the convention. The rules of the convention cannot be applied to a national of a country that has not ratified it or does not have a contractual agreement with the country of residence. In addition, the period of petition of the leftbehind parent is limited to one year, after which the child can be thought of as having settled in the new environment, thereby rendering the regulations of the Convention inapplicable.

Case Studies: Navigating State Policies and Cultural Scripts Marriage as an institution can be wrought with complications and difficulties, which become magnified when couples come from different cultural backgrounds. Legal limitations, social locations, and cultural scripts affect how spouses approach and resolve conflicts and how they act in case of marriage dissolution. The following section is a brief exploration of how geographic scales and social locations affect the power geometry during divorce, and how social and cultural attitudes toward divorce in former Soviet Union states and the Philippines affect foreign spouses’ beliefs and decisions.

Religious Restrictions on Divorce in the Philippines The Philippines is one of the last countries in the world, along with Vatican City, to prohibit divorce for most of its populations. The minority Muslim population can file for divorce under the Code of Personal Muslim Laws. Filipinos with a nonFilipino spouse also have access to divorce insofar as that divorce would be recognized in the foreign spouses’ home country, but it is complicated, costly, and time-consuming for the procedure to be recognized in the Philippines. Moreover, even though a Filipino who is married to a Japanese national can obtain a divorce in Japan, he or she would need to take certain legal steps in the Philippines before being able to marry again.

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An annulment of marriage is another option, and it is the only one for the majority of Filipinos married to foreign nationals. This is because laws governing human relations in the Philippines are regulated by national laws, and as such, under these laws, divorce is not allowed nor recognized. However, an annulment can be even more costly and time-consuming than attempting to obtain a legal recognition of divorce. An annulment is different from a divorce in that the couple has to prove that the marriage was void from the start. Under the Philippine law, this means proving that one or both parties were below the age of eighteen when they married, that either party has an incurable sexually transmitted disease, or that bigamy or mistaken identity was involved (Santos 2015). Neither infidelity nor physical abuse is on the list of acceptable reasons for a marriage to be declared invalid under the Philippine law. A petitioner seeking to nullify a marriage for such reasons would have to prove that his or her spouse is suffering from a long-term “psychological incapacity” that prevents him or her from performing marital obligations such as living together, behaving with care and respect, being faithful. The Supreme Court has made clear that such incapacity has to be serious and incurable, as well as having “judicial antecedents,” meaning that the psychological incapacity can be traced to family background and was present before the marriage took place even if there were no overt manifestations until after marriage (Santos 2015; Domingo Munsayac and Associates 2012). The Filipina cases in our study illustrate how difficulties in getting a divorce in the Philippines drive them to ignore or violate Philippine divorce laws. Among those who were former entertainers, several confessed to having married Japanese men despite being legally married in the Philippines. Claimed to have been separated from their Filipino husbands due mostly to issues of infidelity and economic problems before coming to Japan, these Filipinas considered their marriage to Japanese men to be justifiable and reasonable. Ophelia (44, Philippines), for example, left her husband and three children in the Philippines to work as an entertainer in Japan. When her visa expired, she asked one of her Japanese customers to marry her and he agreed. She kept her marriage in the Philippines a secret from her Japanese husband, and when they went back to the Philippines for a family reunion, she introduced her Filipino husband as her cousin. Ophelia viewed her marriage to her Japanese husband as a strategy for economic empowerment and independence. Professing to be a devout Roman Catholic, she atoned for her “sins and shortcomings” by going to church every Sunday and confessing regularly. When her children asked her to patch things up with their father, she refused: “I refused because I got used to earning my own money in Japan. As long as I work hard and do my best, I can earn enough money without having to depend on my [Japanese] husband. I could give immediately what my children need back in the Philippines. Also, when I grow old, I told my children, I don’t have to depend on them because I would have my own money.”

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It is mostly economic reasons that drove Filipinas to violate Philippine laws on marriage and divorce. Dency (44, Philippines), for example, entered Japan when she was sixteen years old on a tourist visa, using falsified documents that showed her age as eighteen. Wanting to escape her drug-dependent Filipino husband, she left her two-year-old baby with her mother, and worked in Japan in bars and lounges, serving drinks and entertaining Japanese men. When her visa expired, one of the more “seasoned” entertainers advised her to marry a Japanese man so that her stay in Japan would be legal. Dency stayed illegally in the country for more than a year and eventually married one of her Japanese customers who was fifteen years older. Dency did not tell her Japanese husband about her marriage in the Philippines. When she told her Filipino husband that she would keep sending money to the Philippines, he agreed to keep quiet about her bigamous marriage. Raised as a Roman Catholic, Dency, like Ophelia atoned for her “sins” by confessing regularly to a Filipino priest. In her Filipino religious community, her marriage in the Philippines was common knowledge, but this was not talked about. In the Philippines, her family ignored this transgression of the law and did not complain as long as Dency regularly sent money. Thirty-four-year-old Aileen went to Japan when she was seventeen to join her mother, who was married to a Japanese man. Aileen’s mother herself had been married back in the Philippines and had gone to Japan to work as an entertainer to provide for her family. According to her, “Life in the Philippines was hard. People have no discipline. My husband is lazy. He is always drunk. I have three children to feed. What can I do? I needed work so when a friend told me to go with her and go to an agency to apply as an entertainer in Japan, I did not hesitate.” The mother considered herself an “old-timer,” meaning that she was one of the first Filipina “entertainers” to arrive in Japan in the late 1980s. Like Dency, she entered Japan on a tourist visa. And, like Dency, she stayed in Japan when her tourist visa expired and decided that marriage to a Japanese national was the only way to extend her stay. She told her Japanese husband about her husband and daughter back in the Philippines, but the former, according to her, did not mind as long as she promised that she would not communicate with her Filipino husband anymore. Although the Filipino husband knew of her marriage to her Japanese husband, he did not initiate any divorce proceedings. According to the mother: “What for? It is just expensive and long process. Nobody goes to prison anyway in the Philippines if you have two marriages. Besides, Lando [her Filipino husband] and I have already agreed to an arrangement.” The narratives of these Filipino wives point to the double burden they face in terms of power geometry in transnational spaces. On the one hand, religious and legal constraints concerning divorce in the Philippines limit their choices in the case of marital discord. Thus, making an international move gives them more freedom to choose another spouse. On the other hand, their social

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position as former entertainers who are married to Japanese nationals and to Filipino men creates vulnerability socially, culturally and legally. Their Catholic faith creates both a sense of personal sin and also an avenue to atone and find forgiveness for the choices they have made. Clearly, despite the creative agency implied in the notion of flexible citizenship and hybrid cultural identity, in the case of divorce, flexibility should perhaps be understood not in terms of an individual autonomy but rather as a negotiation with the multiple regulations of different nation-states and hybrid cultural practices.

Divorce as a Step to a Better Future for FSU Women In contrast to the Philippines, FSU countries and the Russian Federation in particular are infamous for the large number of divorces that take place. Russia “had the highest divorce rate in the world after the United States in the 1970s and continues to have one of the highest rates of divorce today” (Utrata 2015, 6). According to the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (2017), from the 1980s on average, two in five marriages in Russia ended in divorce. Most of the problems with Japanese husbands that led the FSU wives in our study to consider divorce had to do with lack of economic support and the husband’s unwillingness to help around the house and with children. Others included a lack of communication between spouses and intimacy issues. We can divide the FSU participants into three groups: women who did not consider divorce as an option; women who did not plan to divorce, but would consider it if needs be; and women who took a more pragmatic view of divorce in that they strategically organized their life with their current Japanese spouse so as to make remarriage in the case of a divorce easier. By the time of our interviews, ten women were divorced from their husbands, six were previously married to FSU men, four had one or two children, and four women were divorced from Japanese men but did not have children in those marriages. M A R R I AGE CHOICE GROUP

The first group of women decided that, in spite of

experiencing problems with their husbands, divorce would not be an option. Their decisions illustrate how geographic scales and social location limit or determine foreign wives’ social agency. Anna (29, Ukraine), Anita (37, Uzbekistan) and Lyubov (36, Russia) who were particularly vocal about their dissatisfaction, mentioned legal, economic, and cultural constrains as their main reasons to stay married. For instance, Anna explained that she would stay in her marriage “no matter what,” because she believed that she would not be able “to find a better father for her child than his real father.” For Anita, the main reason to stay in the marriage was that it would be difficult for her to support herself and her two small children. Having supported herself with one child from her first marriage, she said, “if I had only one child, I would leave, but I have two,” so she stayed.

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Lyubov’s case was more complicated. Her husband’s adultery, unwillingness to provide sufficient economic support for his wife and children, a lack of communication, and a tendency toward committing domestic violence, verbal rather than physical, were all issues. During her fourteen years of life in Japan, she learned that she could avail herself of various social services to pressure her husband to provide her with money. She also called the police when he broke things during their arguments; he did not physically abuse her, she said. However, when she considered divorce, she encountered many obstacles: He [her husband] used to say that children were too small [that is why he did not want to divorce]. But they are not that small anymore. I know that the real reason is that some of his company’s assets are registered in my name. . . . It is so complicated that no lawyer wants to deal with our case. My husband doesn’t do anything bad to us. . . . He doesn’t kick us out of the house. That is why we keep living together. . . . To say the truth, I want to go back to Russia. I am not that old yet, but I am already 36. Even if I want to keep studying, I cannot do this, since I am busy with children. My friends back home keep learning new things, work in good companies and get good pay. I could do this too. But I cannot take my children from here [to go to Russia]. . . . And I cannot think of leaving them here and going alone to Russia, even when they get older. I’d like to realize my potential while I have a chance. But it is difficult to do without Japanese language and without studying in Japanese school. It feels like I am in a haze.

Thus, for Lyubov, divorce was not an option. For one thing, her husband did not agree to divorce, which meant that she would have to appeal to a court and deal with the complications arising from her ties related to her husband’s company. For another, given that she had been a homemaker for many years, as a divorcee she would have to live on her own in Japan without sufficient income because of her limited employment options. Her children’s well-being was also paramount. These three cases demonstrate ideological (motherhood versus personal happiness), economic (perceived lack of economic resources), and legal (spousal property issues) constraints where women had to stay in marriage and could not divorce. PR AGM ATIC GROUP The group of women with more pragmatic attitudes toward

marriage and divorce demonstrated how they reconfigured gender relations by creating more choices and initiating actions, as Alisa (28, Ukraine) and Yana (25, Russia) exemplify. Before her first marriage, Alisa had worked as an entertainer in Japan. In a wave of entertainer visa rejections in 2004–2005 following an immigration crackdown, she decided to marry one of her Japanese

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customers in order to be able to stay in Japan. That was a marriage of convenience, a so-called “paper marriage,” wherein foreign spouses arranged to get married to Japanese nationals (usually, for monetary compensation) in order to secure a spousal visa. This marriage ended in divorce when Alisa met her second Japanese husband, Yōsuke (53, Japan) who she later married. This was a love marriage but Yōsuke was twenty-five years older than she, and after he turned fifty, the couple started drifting apart. One of the biggest issues was the different pace of life: while Alisa was interested in traveling and engaging in outdoor activities, Yōsuke wanted to stay inside the house and watch TV. In addition, they started having intimacy issues, and the lack of interest from her husband led Alisa to decide to divorce. Her language abilities allowed her to get a job in a Japanese company while Yōsuke agreed to live nearby to help her raise their child. In the case of Yana, her husband, Shin’ichirō (33, Japan), was only eight years older, but they had many domestic conflicts, and Yana decided to have only one child for the time being, since she was not sure how long her marriage would last. Her conflicts with Shin’ichirō led to issues with her visa when he would not provide the documents for a visa extension that were required from the Japanese spouse. Since Yana came to Japan to work as an entertainer, she did not have good language or other skills to support herself economically, so the only options she would have in the case of a divorce would be to apply for public assistance (seikatsu hogo) or to keep working as an entertainer. When the issue of divorce was raised, Shin’ichirō announced that he wanted to have custody of their child. Considering that he had a good income and family members who would take care of the child, Yana decided to get permanent residence status in Japan first, then apply for a divorce after she could secure her stay in Japan. In this case, she explained she would be able to be closer to her child if she could not get custody. Eventually, after getting permanent residency status, Yana filed for a divorce, and Shin’ichirō agreed that she be the main guardian of their child. Even though both Alisa and Yana claimed that their marriages were for love, they did not exclude the possibility of divorce in the future and expressed a pragmatic approach to the matter. Subsequently, Alisa remained single, while Yana married another foreign man and continued to live in Japan with her new husband. In the following section we introduce two cases of international divorce and women’s transnational strategies related to them.

Gendered Geographies of Power in Transnational Divorce As we pointed out earlier, geographic scales, social locations, and power relations constrain foreign spouses and wives in particular. The cases of Karina and Maria will demonstrate the role of the nation-state and legal procedures in

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transnational divorce, as well as the initiative and imagination that come into play when spouses negotiate divorce.

International Abduction and Sibling Separation Issues: Karina’s Case Karina (33, FSU) met her husband, Ryō, when she was a university student and he was working for a branch of a Japanese company in her country. She and Ryō had a twenty-five-year age difference, and her parents were against their marriage since he was even older than they. However, eventually Karina and Ryō gained permission and got married. The couple lived in Karina’s hometown for the first three years but then relocated to Japan. Karina did not have any knowledge of Japanese language, and she had a hard time adapting to life there. The couple faced many troubles, including financial difficulties, attitudes of the husband toward the family, and lack of communication. As Karina described it, “I gained ten kilograms in the first six months [of living in Japan]. I didn’t know anything. I couldn’t speak Japanese.” When they had just moved to Japan and Karina’s child was one year old, they would walk only to a nearby park, as Karina was afraid that she might get lost if she walked further away from home. “I was avoiding places like greengrocers and small fish shops. Because I needed to explain what I wanted, I went shopping only at supermarkets.” The only person Karina could communicate with was her husband, but since Ryō could not speak Russian, the couple communicated in English or used a dictionary, as did many other international couples with wives from the FSU. Although Karina started to attend classes to learn Japanese, she gave up after two months. Only when her child entered kindergarten and she began making friends with some of the mothers at the school did she begin learning the language. “Japanese became my second native language,” she said. “I can joke with my Japanese friends in it,” but she could not write or read the language. Since there was nobody else to help with settling in and adapting to the new environment, Ryō’s mother and sister helped Karina a lot, even though they could not understand each other. This couple’s background is not unusual for international marriages in which the husband is Japanese, and the wife is foreign. In these situations, age differences between spouses can be significant, and since the wife is a homemaker who has limited Japanese language abilities, the family is heavily reliant on the Japanese husband and his extended family members. When talking about her marriage issues, Karina explained: “We didn’t fight. We just didn’t talk. Didn’t talk at all. Even if we stayed all day together inside the house, we didn’t talk. I think it’s even worse than fighting.” Another issue that created discord was that Ryō withdrew the money her mother-in-law had saved for their child’s education and used it for his own needs. Thus, when their child entered a private middle school, they did not even have money to buy the

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uniform and Ryō had to borrow money from his mother. Karina felt very ashamed that her husband, who was in his late fifties by that time, could not support himself and his family, and had to rely on his mother. Also, at some point the family’s financial difficulties led Ryō to seek help from Karina’s family, when he sent her and their younger child back to stay for four months with her parents. Their problems got even worse when Ryō could not keep his job for more than one or two months at any company he worked for. He had different issues at work, and then he did not work for one year. During that time Karina’s motherin-law provided the family with money. Karina mentioned that she could not handle staying in the house with her husband while he was unemployed, so she was trying to spend as much time as possible outside. Eventually Ryō joined a company that dispatched him to its overseas branch. Karina explained that while he was away from home, she felt happy, and whenever he returned, she felt irritated. Financial issues and lack of communication were the main reasons for Karina to terminate their marriage, but it was not until Karina’s mother-inlaw passed away in 2006 that she made the decision. They had a good relationship, and Karina did not want to leave Japan and deprive her of her grandchildren. But after her mother-in-law’s death, there was nothing else that would hold the couple together. When Karina brought up the subject of divorce, Ryō told Karina that he would agree only if she left the children with him. According to Karina, he said that she was still young so she would be able to have more children, while he could not remarry anymore. Afraid that he would take her children away from her, she decided to go back to her country for summer vacation and announced from there that she was not returning to Japan. Returning to one’s home country is the first strategy available for foreign spouses in case of marital discord and divorce. It changes the power balance between the couple, since now the more vulnerable side—in this case the wife— has an ability to influence the outcome of divorce by changing her geographical location. It balances the power between spouses seeking protection from their home country, while further complicating the procedures. After her return, Ryō initially agreed on divorce conditions which implied that Karina would keep the children and stay in her home country, but then he started calling her every day, threatening and changing the conditions of divorce. Eventually, he went to her home country and signed divorce papers there that designated Karina as the main guardian of their children, but in return, Ryō asked Karina to sign the Japanese divorce papers. Though Karina could speak Japanese, she was not good at reading. When she signed she did not realize that Ryō was named as the sole guardian of both children. She realized this only later, when he took one of their children away from her. After divorce procedures were completed, Ryō returned to Karina’s home country and with the help of his friends, took the older child back to Japan. Karina did not know that the child left with Ryō until he phoned her from a transit

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country and informed her that the child was with him. According to Karina, because this older child did not know the Russian language and had trouble settling into the new environment, the child was willing to go with his/her father. At the time of their divorce (2006), neither Japan, nor her country had ratified the Hague Convention, and there was no legal provision that would help in their case. According to local lawyers, Karina’s actions of taking the children away from Japan were not considered as abduction since the spouses had not started divorce proceedings at that time, and she had this right as a mother. At the same time, there was no means for her to get the older child back since she was not considered their custodian in Japan. As this case shows, Karina and Ryō were acting on a transnational level, using the legal systems of both countries to protect themselves and their interests. This led to a messy and complicated situation that was unresolvable with the legal instruments available at that time. Later Ryō continued visiting their younger child. Karina and her family were cautious about these visits, and she and members of her family followed Ryō during his meetings with the child. For safety reasons, Karina applied for citizenship for her younger child; this meant that Ryō would have to gain permission before taking the child, who was a minor, overseas. Her older child ended up living with Ryō’s sister and continued speaking Japanese in daily life, while the younger spoke Russian. Since the siblings could not talk to each other, Karina interpreted for them. She did not see her older child after Ryō took the child away, but they kept in contact by phone and Skype, and she kept sending money and presents to Japan. In her interview Karina mentioned that she hoped her children would understand her decision when they grew up, but at that point she had given up on the possibility of living with her older child. This case illustrates many of the complications that accompany an international divorce. On the one hand, the lack of internationally binding legal provisions for divorce means that many international couples are left on their own to resolve issues. On the other, foreign spouses can take advantage of the situation by returning to their home countries and thereby shift the power relations in their marriages. Either way, like many others’, Karina and Ryō’s divorce took its toll on their children.

Long Divorce Battle: Maria and Hiroshi’s Case Another example of international divorce complications is the divorce between Maria (38, FSU) and Hiroshi (48, Japan). Before meeting Maria, Hiroshi was married to a Japanese woman and worked in Japan’s financial sector. Due to his busy work schedule and the related stress, he burnt out mentally and was hospitalized for a long period of time. After his recovery, he quit his job, and his marriage ended in divorce. This appeared to be a reason of his future insecurity and trust issues in his marriage with Maria. The couple met in a hostess

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club, where she worked as an entertainer. During their life together, they faced many troubles, including financial issues, visa issues, and cultural misunderstandings that extended to lack of communication and intimacy between spouses. The couple had a seemingly stable life, but a constant lack of money led to Maria’s decision to return to entertainment work. Since Hiroshi’s income was not sufficient to support their family, Maria managed to convince him that a hostess job would be more profitable than the part-time jobs she had attempted. Apart from financial issues, Maria mentioned in her interview that Hiroshi was reluctant to have sexual intercourse with her; while she did become pregnant, he subsequently rejected any physical contact with her after she had a baby. Unhappy with the situation, Maria became close with one of her customers and decided to divorce Hiroshi. She left with their child and started living with the new partner before divorce proceedings were complete. The couple agreed that Hiroshi would spend weekends with their child, while Maria would be the main caregiver before and after the divorce. Initially Hiroshi abided by their agreement, and the child was returned to Maria at the end of each weekend, but eventually Hiroshi said that the child would stay with him and he would be the main guardian in the official divorce papers. In order to prove that he could take care of their child, Hiroshi changed his job and moved to another prefecture to live with his mother, who he wanted to take care of the child—an arrangement that Hiroshi thought would favor him in court. Maria was devastated. She did not know the exact address of her motherin-law, even though she had visited her before. In order to see her child again, Maria convinced Hiroshi to get back together, and they moved to an apartment close to her mother-in-law’s house. This situation illustrates how the social location of the foreign spouse weakens them in terms of power balance in international marriages. In Maria’s case, her lack of Japanese language knowledge, absence of a family and friends’ network, and weak financial position made her vulnerable in the negotiation process with Hiroshi. However, she managed to initiate a dialogue and convince Hiroshi to get back together for the sake of their child. Though the couple decided to reconcile, their issues were not resolved. Maria’s Japanese was not good enough for her to communicate effectively with her husband, and her Russian intonation and way of talking made her husband feel that she was angry and fighting with him, even when she was not. Hiroshi kept refusing to have intimate relations with her, and the couple lived in separate rooms. Also, Maria complained that she did not get enough money from him to support the family and had to spend her own savings. Moreover, when her three-year spouse visa was about to expire, Hiroshi agreed to apply only for a visa extension, not permanent residency for her. Maria said that he did not trust

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her and that he believed that she had married him to obtain permanent residency in Japan. A year after their reconciliation, Hiroshi lost his job and had to agree to Maria’s proposal for her to return to hostess work again. Maria became the main breadwinner, and the family moved in with Hiroshi’s mother. In the meantime, Hiroshi decided to re-train to get new skills in order to find a new job. Since Maria was using most of her earnings and savings for the family, she tried to negotiate with Hiroshi, asking him to pay her 50,000 yen (which was her monthly allowance from him when he was employed) for every month that she had to support the family. In response, Hiroshi announced that he was planning to divorce and was consulting with a lawyer. Maria was now cautious about his intentions in relation to their child. As members of the internet community to which she belonged advised, one of the ways to secure custody over children is to move them to the mother’s home country during divorce negotiations. Fearing that he would attempt getting custody over their child again, Maria decided to go to her family during the summer vacation and told Hiroshi after leaving Japan that she would not return back. This time it was Hiroshi’s turn to convince Maria to come back. “He sent flowers for my birthday” and promised to work on their problems, which convinced Maria to return to Japan and believe that they could still be a family. Again, though, the relationship did not work out. This time Maria finally decided on divorce—and to take her child back to her country in the process, so that regardless of the court’s decision, she can live with their child there. By the time Maria had devised her strategy, her country of origin had already signed the Hague Convention, but neither Maria nor Hiroshi knew about its existence and never considered it as an option to solve their dispute. They were convinced that there was no legal instrument for Hiroshi to make Maria return their child to Japan. Maria insisted that her plan was to go back to her home country during the Family Court hearings in Japan, and thus she became a guardian of their child and could finally divorce Hiroshi. During divorce procedures, Maria returned to hostess work and met Tatsuya, who proposed to her later. During our later interviews, Maria was living in Japan with Tatsuya, who adopted her child. They have changed the child’s family name, so Hiroshi could not find out where they lived and abduct the child. As a result of the one parent-only custody rule in Japan, the noncustodial parent can lose his or her child completely as in this case. The noncustodial parent cannot stop the custodial parent initiating adoption as the relationship is cut completely with the divorce. In such a case, the custodial parent is not even obliged to inform the non-custodial parent, whose status after the divorce emerges as a “non-parent.” This practice contravenes Articles 3, 7, 8, 9, and 10 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which Japan ratified in 1994. As

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a legally binding instrument it should be possible to implement it in family courts; however, there is no indication that this is being done. Returning to the personal level, as in Karina’s case, Maria used the “vacation back home” strategy as a source of transnational negotiations on divorce conditions. However, compared to Ryō, Hiroshi did not have any local contacts in Maria’s country, so it was impossible for him to go there and try to get their child back to Japan. In both women’s cases, their families back home agreed to take care of the children. In Karina’s case, it was her father who insisted on her return, justifying this by his ability to support Karina and her children economically, since Ryō could not do this. It is also important to note that Maria came up with this solution after she communicated in the online community. Considering various instances and difficulties other women encountered in the process of divorce and separation that were discussed in the community, the most common advice was to keep a child in the home country with parents or other family members while divorcing. Therefore, it is not only geographical locations that contribute to and empower (and disempower) spouses in their transnational strategies, but also internet communities that create a source of transnational knowledge and skills that spouses can use to their advantage.

Summary This chapter discussed two sets of interrelated issues: complications of international divorce in transnational spaces and individual’s agency and geographies of power. The Filipina cases in this chapter illustrate historical and cultural factors affecting couples’ decisions to divorce or stay in bigamous marriages. It is important to note that both men and women’s “geographies of power” on the transnational level lead to the creation of ideals and ideas that influence their strategies in negotiating divorce and its conditions. Power asymmetry in international marriages tends to occur when the wife is from a less economically developed country and has limited language abilities and economic means. Such wives are also more vulnerable in the face of Japan’s legal system. At the same time, however, even as they lack state and legal support, women use various means to help them avoid institutional and legal constraints that they experience as “marital citizens.” One is joining internet communities with other women from the same countries. These communities become sources of empowerment and information related to a variety of issues in women’s daily lives. The strategies they learn are not always successful, as was the case for Karina. It is a moot question as to who the winners and losers are when the nation-state enacts policies that require deception and ingenuity if a spouse, especially a foreign spouse, has any hope of holding on to the custody of her/his child in the case of divorce.

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The distance and inaccessibility of their home country also helps women evade their Japanese husbands, and can thus also empower them. This chapter demonstrates the challenges and opportunities of legal systems that are not aligned when it comes to divorce. Both the foreign and Japanese spouses whose stories we told in this chapter attempted to work the systems they were confronted to their advantage, but it was very clear that there was often a heavy price to be paid by the children and one or both spouses.

A ppe n di x List of Research Participants

Here we present a table of participants whom we interviewed, introduced in their order of appearance in each chapter, and organized according to the partner choice categories described in chapter 3 (figure 3.1).

1 53

Foreign Spouseb

Foreign Spousea Nationality

F / 31

F / 35

Rosa

Adelina

Margarita

Karina

Dana

7

8

9

10

11

FSU

FSU

FSU

FSU

FSU

FSU

Western

Western

Western

Western

Western

Anita

Irina

Elena

1

2

3

F / 26

F / 28

F / 37

FSU

FSU

FSU

Basic-Option Couples with an Uchi-Oriented Japanese Spouse

F / 28

F / 33

F / 31

F / 36

M / 52

F / 52

Trevor

Cathy

4

M / 50

Alla

Harry

3

M / 48

M / 48

5

Peter

2

6

Mike

1

Multiple-Choice Couples with a Soto-Oriented Japanese Spouse

Sex/Age of

Pseudonym of

Hiroyasu

Takeshi

Arata

-

-

-

Kazuhiro

Kei

-

Hiroko

Kenji

Yuka

Yuko

Mayumi

M / 34

M / 50

M / 40

M / 48

M / 59

M / 48

M / 63

M / 32

M / 41

F / 54

M / 50

F / 48

F / 50

F / 48

Japanese Spouse

Married

Separated

Married

Divorced

Divorced

Married

Married

Married

Married

Married

Married

Married

Married

Married

Status

4, 5

4, 5

4, 6, 8, 9

6, 7

7, 9

5, 6

4, 8

4

4, 5, 6, 7, 8

4, 8

4, 6, 8

4, 6, 7, 8

4, 8

4, 6, 8

Mentioned

Participants Are

Spouse

Chapters in Which Marital

of Japanese

Sex/age, of

Pseudonym

Research Participants

TA BLE A.1

Tina

Edna

16

17

F / 50

F / 50

F / 56

F / 52

F / 44

F / 48

F / 27

F / 36

F / 27

F / 35

F / 35

F / 28

F / 39

F / 24

Philippines

Philippines

Philippines

Philippines

Philippines

Philippines (Japan)

FSU

FSU

FSU

FSU

FSU

FSU

FSU

FSU

Anna

Polina

Galina

3

5

Lyubov

2

4

-

1

F / 36

F / 24

F / 29

F / 36

F/-

FSU

FSU

FSU

FSU

FSU

Default-Option Couples with an Uchi-Oriented Japanese Spouse

Mariel

Leslie

12

15

Evgeniya

11

Ophelia

Kira

10

Maureen

Valeriya

9

14

Larissa

8

13

Marina

Maiya

6

Zlata

5

7

Yaroslavna

4

-

-

Jun

-

Keisuke

Yoshi

-

-

-

-

-

Keijiro

-

Mamoru

Takehiro

-

-

-

Masayuki

M / 54

M / 47

M / 45

M / 48

M / 40

M / 71

M / 65

M / 72

M/-

M / 61

M / 61

M / 34

M / 39

M / 32

M / 42

M / 45

M / 31

M / 44

M / 30

Married

Married

Married

Married

Married

Married

Divorced

Married

Married

Married

Married

Married

Married

Married

Divorced

Married

Married

Married

Married

(continued)

5

5

4, 5, 6, 9

4, 5, 6, 8, 9

4

7

6

6

6

6, 9

4

6

6

6, 7

5, 6

5

5

4, 5

4, 5

Rosanna

Nancy

Hershey

Helena

19

20

21

Aileen

17

18

Yolanda

Daria

13

16

F / 25

Lada

12

Yana

Vera

11

Lilia

Alyona

10

14

Oksana

9

15

F / 32

Aleksandra

8

F / 28

F / 40

F / 47

F / 60

F / 45

F / 34

F / 51

F / 28

F / 30

F / 24

F / 36

F / 39

F / 31

F / 30

Alisa

Maria

6

Foreign Spouseb

Foreign Spousea

7

Sex/Age of

Pseudonym of

Table A.1. (continued)

Philippines

Philippines

Philippines

Philippines

Philippines

Philippines

FSU

FSU

FSU

FSU

FSU

FSU

FSU

FSU

FSU

FSU

Nationality Yōsuke

-

Ryōhei

-

-

-

-

-

Shin’ichirō

-

-

-

Ken’ichi

Yūichi

Taka

Hiroshi

M/-

M / 62

M/-

M / 63

M / 41

M / 66

M / 42

M / 33

M / 47

M / 35

M / 37

M / 63

M / 36

M / 47

M / 38

M / 53

Japanese Spouse

Separated

Married

Widowed

Married

Divorced

Divorced

Married

Divorced

Married

Married

Married

Married

Married

Married

Divorced

Divorced

Status

6

5, 6

6

4

4, 9

4

5

9

8

8

8

6, 7

7

7

5, 9

5, 6, 9

Mentioned

Participants Are

Spouse

Chapters in Which Marital

of Japanese

Sex/age, of

Pseudonym

Dency

Tess

Loreta

Mia

Raisa

Elaine

Chit

Leah

Irish

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

F / 35

F / 40

F / 53

F / 45

F / 40

F / 40

F / 46

F / 36

F / 44

F / 37

Philippines

Philippines

Philippines

Philippines

Philippines

Philippines

Philippines

Philippines

Philippines

Philippines

Hank

Alya

Nina

4

5

6

F / 44

F / 23

F / 31

M / 58

F / 46

F / 44

Western

FSU

FSU

Western

Western

Western

-

Hidetoshi

Satoe

Noritaka

Hiroyuki

Yōnosuke

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

M / 50

M / 39

F / 46

M / 46

M / 45

M / 45

M / 69

M / 59

M/-

M/-

M / 60

M / 78

M / 54

M / 65

M / 59

M/-

Divorced

Married

Married

Married

Married

Married

Divorced

Divorced

Married

Married

Married

Divorced

Married

Married

Married

Married

b

Age at the time of the first interview

We do not include pseudonyms for spouses, who did not participate in the interviews, however, we include their sex and age, if known.

Marian

3

a

Gwen

Gwyn

1

2

Open-Choice Couples with a Soto-Oriented Japanese Spouse

Mila

22

4, 7

4

7, 8

6

6, 8

4

7

7

5

5

5

5, 7

6

5, 6

6, 9

6

AC K NOW L E D GM EN T S

I would like to extend my sincerest appreciation to a great number of people for their contribution, support, and encouragement throughout our journey to this book. First and foremost, on behalf of my co-authors and myself I thank all international couples and their children, who generously shared their life stories with us. I thank Nelia G. Balgoa and Beverley Anne Yamamoto for joining me in this project as co-authors and contributing their chapters, data, knowledge, and ideas to deepen our understanding of international marriages in Japan. And I am also very grateful for MEXT Scholarship provided by the Japanese government during my graduate school studies in Osaka University (2006–2012), where the basis for this book was established. This research would not have been possible without generous support and strict supervision of Professor Kazue Muta throughout my graduate school, who helped me to find my way in research and served as a great example for me. I am deeply indebted to Professor Scott North for his teaching, supervision, critical comments, and continuous support throughout all these years. I also want to extend my thanks to a number of professors and colleagues in the Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University, who guided and provided support on different stages of my work on international marriages: Daisuke Tsuji, Kōkichi Shimizu, Yōichi Mine, Mamoru Tsuda, Akira Kawabata, Saori Yasumoto, and Philip Streich. I greatly appreciate support from my colleague and friend Aleksandra Babovic, who was very helpful in the final stages of this book project. I am grateful for the support of administrative staff—Fuyuko Nagarekawa, Chie Uemura, and Yoshiko Furuya. I also was privileged to study with a number of graduate students in the Communication Sociology (Comiron) group at the Graduate School of Human Sciences, who provided me with their insights and comments on my research project. I am especially grateful to Tomohiro Fujita for all his help. At the Afrasian Research Centre (phase 2) at Ryukoku University, Professors Kōsuke Shimizu, Maria Reinaruth Desiderio Carlos, and the late Pauline Kent, as well as other members helped me develop my thinking on the topic of international marriages and migration in many ways, and I thank them. I am also very grateful to Shincha Park for being a great friend. 1 59

160

AC K N OW L E D G M E N TS

I would like to thank Péter Berta, the editor of the series on “The Politics of Marriage and Gender: Global Issues in Local Contexts” for inviting me to contribute to this project. I greatly appreciate our editor, Jasper Chang, who was extremely patient, supportive, and encouraging throughout the whole process of writing and publishing this book. I thank anonymous readers and the production team at Rutgers University Press for their detailed reviews, constructive comments, and suggestions, which greatly helped in improving the final quality of the book. I also thank my student Katia Emili Jones for proofreading the draft under very constraining deadlines. Finally, I have been blessed by the support of close friends and family throughout this project. I especially want to thank my mom, Margarita Kim, whose strength and dedication to her career, as well as constant support for and belief in me, helped me throughout this project. And I owe more than I can express to my partner, James Webb, who provided me with emotional and intellectual support, who was always there to discuss my ideas, proofread chapters, and work on figures and tables and who greatly contributed to my photography hobby, which eventually became very handy when writing this book. I conclude with the disclaimer that the content of this volume and any errors that may remain are the sole responsibility of authors and not those of any organizations or individuals who have supported this work. I speak for all authors in saying that I hope the readers of this volume will gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics and complexities of international marriages in Japan. Viktoriya Kim

NOT E S

INTRODUCTION

Contributing author: Viktoriya Kim 1.

Japanese government statistics documents published in English identify nationals holding South Korean, North Korean, and Korean (de facto stateless) citizenships as Koreans. Thus, the numbers include not only recent migrants from South Korea, but also former colonial subjects whose families arrived in Japan from 1910 to the 1940s. Despite the fact that many of these people were born and raised in Japan, their status as foreign nationals affects official statistics numbers.

2.

“In the [hostess] clubs, entertainers perform a variety show on stage, otherwise referred to a show time, while in a bar or pub, entertainers work only as hostesses, limiting their interactions with customers to the tables” (Parreñas 2011, 58; emphasis original).

3.

This definition of structure implies “rules and resources, organized as properties of social systems” (Giddens 1979, 66). Moreover, “structures do not exist in time-space, except in the moments of the constitution of social systems. . . . The most deeplylayered practices constitutive of social systems . . . are institutions” (Giddens 1979, 64–65).

4.

These were excluded because the dataset, which should have been collected at the same period of time with the similar research focus, was unavailable.

5.

This research was partially funded by the Global Centre of Excellence Program, A Research Base for Conflict Studies in the Humanities, awarded to Osaka University in 2007.

6.

Two international schools and one private Japanese secondary school were initially targeted.

7.

One of the participants is listed as Russian, since she held Russian citizenship at the time of the research; however, her original citizenship was Uzbek. Another Uzbek participant acquired Russian citizenship while she lived in Japan. Several participants from Crimea and nearby areas of Ukraine changed their citizenship to Russian due to the annexation of Crimea and other political changes in their home countries.

8.

The moniker combines yapona (meaning Japanese) and mama (meaning mother). According to Popova (2018), the term was used in a derogatory way by Russian officers, starting in the Russo-Japanese War and continuing through to the World War II (1904–1945). It is widely known among Russian-language speakers.

9.

We consider contemporary Japan to be post–World War II Japan.

1 61

162

N OT E S TO PAG E S 2 9 – 4 2 CHAPTER 1

CROSS-BORDER MARRIAGE STUDIES

Contributing author: Viktoriya Kim 1.

In Japan, spouses of Japanese nationals receive a permanent residence status, which does not automatically lead to citizenship. Citizenship requires a separate naturalization process. CHAPTER 2

INTERNATIONAL MARRIAGES, PAST AND PRESENT

Contributing author: Viktoriya Kim 1.

According to Schmidt (2005, 271), “In 1875 the Great Council of State decreed that marriage, divorce, adoption and dissolution of an adoption were only valid after registration in the relevant household registers. De facto marriages, however, became officially recognized by Justice Department Notice No. 46 in 1877, which stated that a husband and wife or an adopted child who had failed to register appropriately, should still be regarded as husband and wife or adopted child, if their family, relatives and neighbours considered them as such.”

2.

According to Chung (2010), Meiji oligarchs institutionalized jus sanguinis (citizenship by descent) after concluding that it was the dominant principle of the time and as a means to prevent foreigners from politically and economically powerful Western countries from assuming positions of power in Japan.

3.

Fukoku (proclaim, let know) “was the term for a law issued by the dajōkan [the highest authority of government] and directed at an administration office or the common people. . . . Since the fukoku of dajōkan were the most authoritative acts of written law the Supreme Court occasionally called them hō or hōritsu (law or a law)” (Röhl 2005, 19).

4.

Direct translation of the term bugen is social standing; however, it refers to nationality in this context.

5.

It is important to mention that although women no longer had to renounce their Japanese nationality after marrying a foreign national, it was only in the 1985 amendment to the Nationality Act, which followed Japan’s ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, that children born from Japanese women and foreign men were allowed to acquire Japanese nationality.

6.

The Universal Manhood Suffrage Act, enacted in 1925, “allowed Korean males in

7.

Koreans as well as Taiwanese became Japanese nationals. While Japanese living in

Japan to vote in Japanese elections” (Chung 2010, 68). Japan were called naichijin (inland Japanese), those who acquired Japanese nationality due to colonization were called gaichijin (outside Japanese) and were further differentiated by country of origin (Takeshita 2001). 8.

According to the data collected by Takeshita (2001, 66), the overall number of such marriages from 1928 to 1937 was 462, among which 204 (44%) were Japanese husband/ Korean wife couples, and 258 (56%) were Korean husband/Japanese wife couples.

9.

The term has an explanation that is based on the history of karayuki in Japan. “In recognition that this represented a reversal of past practices of sending Japanese karayuki to brothels abroad, the women coming to Japan were given the title of Japayuki (coming to Japan) to provide sexual services to Japanese men in Japan” (Douglass 2003, 93). CHAPTER 3

SPOUSAL CHOICES

Contributing authors: Viktoriya Kim, Nelia G. Balgoa, and Beverley Anne Yamamoto

N OT E S TO PAG E S 6 6 – 1 2 4 CHAPTER 4

163

THE POLITICS OF LOVE

Contributing authors: Viktoriya Kim and Nelia G. Balgoa 1.

Some of the data presented in this chapter were previously published in Kim (2013a; 2014).

2.

See also Illouz 1997.

3.

While the Primary Purpose Rule was abolished in 1997, an English language requirement for applicants for spousal visas was implemented in 2010, and the introduction of a minimum income requirement for sponsors of immigrant spouses was introduced in 2012, thus raising the bar for entry on the basis of marriage (Charsley et al. 2020).

4.

“Inside marriage divorce” is a translation of the Japanese kateinai rikon, which refers to a situation where the couple have little relationship with each other within the home, but do not formally divorce. They may also present their relationship as intact to others.

5.

There are numerous pachinko parlors in Japan.

6.

As we discuss details of Maria’s divorce in chapter 8, the actual name of her country will not be given. CHAPTER 5

SPACES FOR NEGOTIATION

Contributing authors: Nelia G. Balgoa, Beverley Anne Yamamoto, and Viktoriya Kim 1.

This chapter is partially based on the paper “International Marriage in Japan: An Exploration,” presented by Yamamoto (2010) at the Eighteenth Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia.

2.

Individual categories of couples presented in this chapter are listed in the appendix. CHAPTER 6

CHOICES AND CONSTRAINTS

Contributing authors: Nelia G. Balgoa, Viktoriya Kim, and Beverley Anne Yamamoto 1.

As we discuss details of Karina’s divorce in chapter 8, the actual name of her country will not be given. CHAPTER 7

RAISING BILINGUAL/BICULTURAL CHILDREN

Contributing authors: Viktoriya Kim and Beverley Anne Yamamoto This chapter is based on “Kokusai Kekkon Katei no Kyōiku Senryaku” [Educational strategies of couples in international marriage], a chapter that originally appeared in Ōkan Suru Hitobito no Kyōiku Senryaku—Gurōbaru Shakai o Ikiru Kazoku to Kōkyōiku no Kadai [The educational strategies of transnational families: The challenges of public education for families living in a global society], pp.  113–205, edited by Kōkichi Shimizu, Itaru Kaji, Kazuhiko Hayashizaki, and Beverley Anne Yamamoto, and is used with kind permission of the publisher, Akashi Shoten. 1.

For details see the appendix.

2.

In the broadest sense, an international school is any educational institution that claims it offers an international curriculum. Over the last two decades or so there has been a dramatic increase in preschools and kindergartens claiming to offer an international curriculum. At the level of compulsory primary and secondary schooling, we

164

N OT E S TO PAG E S 1 2 4 – 1 3 9

must distinguish between institutions offering a curriculum recognized as international by global accreditation agencies, and those that are not. The main accreditation agencies are the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the Council of International Schools, and the Association of Christian Schools International. 3.

Sometimes confused as international are schools and institutions offering the national curriculum of another country (especially Western nations such as British, German, French, American and Canadian curriculums) that may or may not have received accreditation from that country. In other words, graduation from upper secondary level from such a school may or may not make a graduate eligible to apply to a university in that country. Other groups of national schools, such as Korean, Chinese and Brazilian, are more likely to be treated as “ethnic” schools.

4.

In contrast to private schools offering a mainstream Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology curriculum within the context of Article 1 of the School Education Act, international schools receive very little, if any, teaching subsidy from the government, and so the schools are run largely through fees paid by parents or in some cases the parents’ employers.

5.

The average income of salaried workers in Japan working continuously in the target year of the survey (2009), was 4,060,000 JPY. Broken down by gender, the average income for a male employee was 5 million JPY and a female employee 2,630,000 JPY. The average age of other respondents was 44.4 years (44.5 for men and 44.3 for men) (National Tax Agency 2009). Taking Mayumi’s baseline of 12 million yen and assuming an equal contribution from husband and wife to household income, only 25.6 percent of male salaried workers and 4.6 percent of female earned 6 million yen or more in 2009.

6.

We have modified some details related to our participants in order to avoid violating their privacy. CHAPTER 8

INTERNATIONAL DIVORCE

Contributing authors: Viktoriya Kim, Nelia G. Balgoa, and Beverley Anne Yamamoto 1.

For more details see Alexy (2020).

2.

The 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction came into force in Ukraine on January  1, 2007, in Russia on October  1, 2011, and in Kazakhstan on October 1, 2017. By August 2017, countries such as Belarus, the Philippines, and Uzbekistan had deposited their instrument of accession to the Hague Convention, but as of this writing, none has ratified the convention yet (Hague Conference on International Private Law, n.d.).

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IN D E X

abuse, 138, 140. See also domestic violence adoption: of a child, 149, 162n1 (chap. 2); marrying into a woman’s family, 37–40 aerial photography, 28–30, 115. See also photography analogy affection, 75, 94–95; in Japanese marriages, 37, 42, 69 agency: capitals and, 104, 112–113; choices and constraints, 65, 99, 100, 102–103; defining, 8–9; degree of, 20, 81; game and, 111; gender and, 32; hypergamy and, 24; social locations and, 102; structure and, 22, 30; types of, 9–11, 25, 142 Ahearn, Laura, 8 Ainu, 12, 39 Alexy, Allison, 135, 137 Allison, Anne, 87 Appadurai, Arjun, 103 arranged marriages, 37, 41 Asian brides. See brides: Asian assimilation, 39, 113, 118 basic-option couples (BOC): children’s education in, 115, 122; defining, 48, 52–54; household patterns and, 84, 86, 88, 92; intersections of social categories, 58, 62–64, 154–155 Belarus. See former Soviet Union (FSU) countries Bilbatua, Lidia, 118 bilingual/bicultural competences, 117–118, 122, 124, 132–133. See also education of children Borovoy, Amy, 87 Bourdieu, Pierre, 51, 104 breadwinner model, 82, 98; Japanese, 42, 51, 82–87, 92–96, 98; mixed-style, 82, 89–92, 94–95; spouse choice and, 51, 58; Western, 82, 87–89, 94, 98 Breger, Rosemary, 81 brides: Asian, 27, 43; foreign, 4, 43–44, 100; hypergamy and, 22–24; images of Filipino, 29–30; Japanese, 4, 29, 43. See also individual categories of brides brokers, 42, 44 bugen (social standing, nationality), 38–39, 46, 162n4. See also koseki (family register); Koseki Law; Nationality Law (Act) Burgess, Chriss, 8, 99

camera lens analogy. See individual photograph types; photography analogy Canyas, Asli Bayata, 139 capitals, forms of: cultural and social, 81, 100, 104–107, 110, 112–113, 125; economic capital, 73; embodied cultural, 51, 65; gendered geographies of power and, 13 Capussotti, Enrica, 109 care-worker, 45 Carter, Julia, 66–67 Catholicism, 85 Charsley, Katharine, 1, 3, 19–20, 68, 163n3 child abduction, 138, 164n2. See also Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction childcare, 82, 86–87, 90, 92–93 child custody, 134–139, 150 children born in international marriages, 12–13, 36, 38, 114–115, 162n5; terminology, 115–117. See also education of children; mixed-heritage children China: Chinese-Japanese couples, 4, 6, 13, 44, 52; Qing, 38; T’ang, 36; women from, 34 Chung, Erin Aeran, 39, 41, 162n2, 162n6 churches, 15, 72, 85–86, 96–97 citizenship: cultural, 29; formal and private forms of, 28–30, 99–100, 142; and international marriages, 3, 22, 49, 58; Japanese, 39, 41, 138, 162n1 (chap. 1), 162n2. See also individual forms of citizenship civil code, 37, 40–41, 45; Japanese, 35; Meiji, 37, 46; Taiwanese, 40 Comer, Lee, 66 consanguinity, 41. See also citizenship Constable, Nicole, 8, 20–22, 24, 33, 45, 47, 64, 100 cross-border marriages, 3, 30, 67–69, 79–80, 134; theories, 2, 20–22, 24–25, 31–32, 57. See also international marriages cultural capital. See capitals, forms of Da-anoy, Mary Angeline, 41, 43, 116–117 Dajōkan fukoku (Decree by the Grand Council), 38, 162n3 Dales, Laura, 69 D’Aoust, Anne-Marie, 68 Dean, Meryll, 35

175

176

INDEX

Debnár, Miloš, 25, 27, 107 default-option couples (DOC): children’s education, 115, 122; defining, 48, 55–56; household patterns and, 84, 86, 88, 92; intersections of social categories, 58, 62–64, 155–157; love and, 70 dependant/dependent status, 30, 136. See also residency status; visa status discourse of Japaneseness. See Japaneseness divorces: as a choice, 71, 76, 102, 142–144; couple categories and, 62–64, 134–135; inside marriage, 42, 69, 163n4; international, 4–7, 137–139, 144–150; proceedings in Japan, 135–138, 144; religious restrictions on, 139–142 domestic violence, 26, 135. See also abuse Douglass, Mike, 42, 69, 162n9 education level: brain waste and, 109–110; of couples, 49–52, 58, 63–65, 101, 105; household patterns and, 82, 89 education of children: international schools, 124–128, 163n2 (chap. 7), 164n4; Japanese schools, 96, 118–122, 128–129; mixedheritage children and, 97, 114–115, 118; mixed schooling, 130–132 Ellis, Liz, 118 embodied cultural capital, 13, 51, 65, 112. See also capitals, forms of encounters, 11, 26; cultural, 71; intimate, 36 endogamous Japanese couples, 7, 25, 43; divorce and, 6, 135; history of, 35–38, 41 entertainment industry, 33, 43, 64, 44, 100, 140, 161n2; Filipina entertainers, 55, 69; FSU entertainers, 64; visas, 5, 42–43, 47, 55, 143. See also hostesses ethnicity: ethnoracial attributes, 26–28, 79, 112, 114; ethno-racial Olympic Games, 26–27; foreign spouses and, 2, 8, 10, 44, 78–79, 88; intermarriages and, 3–4, 20, 22, 47; Japanese citizenship and, 12, 41; mixed-heritage children and, 116, 118–119, 127 exogamous marriages, 26. See also cross-border marriages; international marriages extra-marital affairs, 74, 76, 70 Faier, Lieba, 20, 22, 29–30, 42, 66, 80, 103 families: citizenship and, 29–30; divorces, 134–135; household style and, 82, 84, 87, 89, 92, 98; ie system, 37–38, 40; intermarriages, 3, 9, 22, 40, 43, 45–46, 108; Japanese, 35–40, 83, 87, 162n1 (chap. 2); love in, 66, 78; migration and, 25, 65; socialization of children, 117–119, 125–126; uchi/soto and, 11, 13, 82; values and norms, 49, 70, 74–75 Family and Inheritance Law (Meiji), 35 Family Court, 135–136, 138, 149–150 family register. See koseki (family register) family registration law. See Koseki Law feminization of migration, 23, 42–43, 100

Filipina/Japanese marriages, 6, 43–44, 100; academic discourse, 25, 28–30; dataset, 15–16, 52, 54–55, 58–64, 135; divorce and, 135, 139–142; by household style, 84–86, 90–92; love and, 69–70, 72–73, 80, 94–95; religion and, 97. See also brides FitzGerald, David Scott, 27 Flemmen, Anne Britt, 20 foreign brides. See brides foreign men/Japanese women marriages, 4–5, 7, 36–40, 42, 45–46, 57, 115, 162n5. See also Western/Japanese marriages formal citizenship, 28–30. See also citizenship former Soviet Union (FSU) countries: Belarus, 14, 164n2; Kazakhstan, 14, 164n2; Kyrgyzstan, 14; Ukraine, 14, 65, 161n7, 164n2; Uzbekistan, 14, 164n2. See also Russia Freeman, Caren, 20, 22 Fresnoza-Flot, Asuncion, 3, 20, 30, 68, 99 FSU women/Japanese men marriages, 34, 44, 73–79, 108; academic discourse, 25–26; dataset, 14–15, 49–53, 55, 57–64, 112; divorces of, 134–135, 142–144; educational strategies, 119–123, 132; by household style, 86, 88, 92 Fujita, Yuiko, 114 Fukuoka, Yasunori, 12, 87 gaichijin (outside Japanese), 37, 162n7. See also citizenship Garcia, Ofelia, 118 gender roles, 7–8, 58, 65, 82–83, 88–89, 100, 113; division of labor, 42, 82, 87, 98, 136; geographies of power, 10–11, 13, 134, 144, 150; labor reproduction, 45, 82–83 geographic scales, 10, 102, 139, 142, 144 geopolitical positionings, 23, 115 Giddens, Anthony, 8, 67, 161n3 Glybina, Irina, 87 Goddard, Victoria Ana, 8 Golovina, Ksenia, 25, 74, 108, 116 Goodman, Carl, 35, 39, 41, 136–138 Great Britain, 38, 40. See also United Kingdom (UK) Grosjean, Francois, 118 hāfu (half), 116, 118. See also children born in international marriages; mixed-heritage children Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, 138–139, 147, 164 hanayome (brides). See brides Hay, Cameron, 9 Hill, Rosanna, 81 homogeneity, 99, 113–115, 118 hostesses, 5, 27, 29, 43, 73; Filipina, 43; research participants, 55–56, 58, 62, 64. See also entertainment industry household model. See breadwinner model; Western egalitarian model

INDEX

human rights groups, 44 human trafficking, 19 hybridization, 82, 142 hypergamy, 20–24, 31, 57, 65 hypogamy, 57 identity, 10, 67, 112, 114; cultural, 85, 89, 91, 97, 142; gender, 81 ie system (household), 37, 41, 44. See also koseki (family register); Koseki Law Ikeda, Eriko, 43 Imamura, Anne, 83 Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, 41, 137 immigration policing, 5, 68–69, 79, 143 Infantino, Federica, 68 instant marriages, 43 integration, 109, 113 intermarriages, 3, 20. See also cross-border marriages; international marriages international divorces. See divorces internationalization, 44, 118 international marriages, 23–25, 27, 31, 46–47, 65, 117, 137; citizenship and, 41; by household model, 94, 98; kokusai kekkon, 3, 38; with Korean citizens, 39–40; precursors to, 34–37; with Taiwanese citizens, 40; trends, 1–6, 8, 39, 42, 44. See also brides international schools. See education of children internet community, 15, 108, 150 intimacy, 70–71, 73, 76, 87, 142 Ishikawa, Yoshitaka, 6 Itoh, Mayuko, 114 Jackson, Stevi, 66 Japanese breadwinner model. See breadwinner model Japanese nationality, 12, 162n4, 162n7. See also Nationality Law (Act) Japaneseness, 12, 29 Japayuki (entertainers coming to work in Japan), 42, 162n9. See also karayuki Johnson, Ericka, 20 Jones, Colin, 139 jus sanguinis (citizenship by descent). See citizenship: Japanese Kamoto, Itsuko, 3, 21–23, 33, 35–36, 38–39, 116–117 karayuki (entertainers from Japan), 42, 45, 162n9. See also sex: work/workers Kazakhstan. See former Soviet Union (FSU) countries Kelsky, Karen, 20 Kinoshita, Ryuji, 118 Kofman, Eleonore, 45 kokusai kekkon (international marriage). See cross-border marriages; international marriages Kokusai Kekkon o Kangaeru Kai, 115, 137 Komai, Hiroshi, 42–43

177

Koreans in Japan (Zainichi), 12–13, 34, 39–42, 162n6, 164n3; citizenship, 161n1, 162n7; Korean-Japanese couples, 4–6, 44, 162n8 koseki (family register), 136–137; in Korea and in Taiwan, 39–40. See also Koseki Law Koseki Law, 35, 37–38, 40, 45–46 Koyama, Noboru, 33, 38 Kumagai, Fumie, 41, 44 Kuwayama, Norihiko, 28 Kuwayama, Takami, 12 Kyrgyzstan. See former Soviet Union (FSU) countries labor migration/migrants to Japan, 25, 29, 44–45, 55, 58, 109–110 Laliotou, Ioanna, 109 landscape photography, 20–24, 115. See also photography analogy Langford, Wendy, 66 Lebra, Takie Sugiyama, 11 Lee, Genshō, 116 Liaw, Kao-Lee, 6 Lie, John, 12 long exposure photography, 24–27. See also photography analogy Lotherington, Ann Therese, 20 love: as a concept, 66–69, 71–73, 78–80; in international marriages, 22, 29, 31, 68–73, 75–76, 95, 144; marriage and, 37, 41, 54–56, 74, 87 Lu, Melody Chia-Wen, 20, 22 Lyon, Dawn, 109 Mahler, Sarah, 10, 80 mail-order brides, 4, 21. See also brides Manalansan, Martin, 29 marital citizenship, 30, 99–100. See also citizenship marriage migration, 1–4, 21–26, 30, 56, 64; and agency, 8–9, 11; stereotypes of, 19, 31 marriage of convenience. See paper marriages; scam marriages Massey, Doreen, 10, 102 matchmaking agencies, 47, 61; basic-option couples and, 52–53, 62, 74, 76; household types and, 88–89 Matsuo, Hisako, 135 McVeigh, Brian, 11–12 media representations, 43, 108, 114, 116 Meiji era, 34–36, 45–46, 162n2; Civil Code, 37; international marriages, 40; Nationality Law, 37 Meszaros, Julia, 65 migration: feminization of, 33, 42–43, 100; global, 9, 27, 32; to Japan, 4, 31; patterns and trends, 44–45, 47, 55, 58, 102, 108–110; politics, 5, 16, 66–69, 79, 99. See also marriage migration Milhaupt, Curtis, 35, 37, 42 mixed-heritage children, 114–115, 117–118, 124–125, 128–129, 132. See also children born in international marriages; hāfu (half)

178

INDEX

mixed marriages, 3, 26. See also cross-border marriages; international marriages mixed-style model. See breadwinner model mukoiri (married into a woman’s family), 37, 40 multiple-choice couples (MCC): children’s education, 115, 125; defining, 48–52; household patterns and, 86, 92; intersections of social categories, 57–58, 62–64; participants, 154 naichijin (inland Japanese), 37, 162n7. See also citizenship Nakamatsu, Tomoko, 9 Nakane, Chie, 11 Nationality Law (Act), 37–41, 46, 162n5. See also citizenship Nemoto, Kumiko, 93 nihon jinshyu kairyō ron (theory of Japanese racial eugenics), 38 Nitta, Fumiteru, 28 nōson hanayome-san (Asian brides of Japanese farmers). See brides: Asian; rural brides nyūfu (entering a woman’s family as a husband), 39–40 Ochiai, Emiko, 6 online dating, 34, 44, 47, 52–53, 55, 62, 76 open-choice couples (OCC): children’s education, 115, 125; defining, 48, 56–57; and household patterns, 86, 92; intersections of social categories, 58, 62–63; participants, 157 Ortner, Sherry, 110 Palriwala, Rajni, 20 paper divorces, 136. See also divorces paper marriages, 5, 144. See also scam marriages parental child abduction. See child abduction; Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction Parker, Lyn, 8–9 Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar, 20, 29, 42, 69, 103, 161 permanent residency. See residency status; visa status Pessar, Patricia, 10, 80 Philippines, 25, 29, 33–34, 42–44, 55, 102, 164n2. See also entertainment industry; Filipina/Japanese marriages photography analogy, 20–21, 32, 45 Piper, Nicola, 4, 20, 22, 27, 10 Pollock, David, 117 portraiture, 26–28, 79. See also photography analogy power balance, 26, 28, 64, 146, 148 power geometry, 10, 139, 141 private citizenship, 28–30. See also citizenship prostitutes. See sex: work/workers

race, 3, 26–28, 39, 41, 79, 117, 119 Raghuram, Parvati, 45 Ramseyer, Mark, 35, 37, 42 rashamen (Western mistresses), 36 reproductive labor. See gender roles residency status: permanent, 5–6, 55, 137–138, 162n1 (chap. 1). See also visa status Reyes, Victoria, 22 Ricordeau, Gwenola, 3, 20, 30, 68, 99 Robinson, Kathryn, 28 Roces, Mina, 20, 22 rural brides, 27, 34, 43–44. See also brides Russia, 14–15, 25–26, 38, 65, 161n7; divorces in, 142, 164n2; gender constructs, 73, 108; images of women from, 28, 77–78 Ryūkyūans (Okinawans), 39 Saihanjuna, 27–28, 43, 116 sakoku (country seclusion), 35 samurai family system, 35, 37–38 Sandel, Todd, 20 Sasagawa, Koichi, 43 Satake, Masaaki, 41, 43, 116–117 scam marriages, 68. See also paper marriages; residency status; visa status Scheel, Stephan, 68 Schmidt, Petra, 35, 37, 162n1 (chap. 2) Schwartz, Mary Ann, 66, 82 Schwartz, Mila, 117 Scott, BarBara Marliene, 66, 82 seclusion. See sakoku (country seclusion) Sekiguchi, Tomoko, 116 sex: marriage and, 66, 69–71, 140; sex industry, 42–43; sexless marriages, 135; tours, 42–43; work/workers, 27, 36, 44–45, 100. See also entertainment industry; hostesses sexual citizenship, 29–30. See also citizenship Shukuya, Kyōko, 43 Sims, Margaret, 117–118 Singh, Kirti, 138 Smart, Carol, 66 social capital. See capitals, forms of: cultural and social socialization, 3, 24–25, 87, 98, 114, 117 soto (outside), 48–49, 57, 65, 89. See also uchi/soto dichotomy spouse visa. See residency status; visa status stereotypes, 7, 64–65, 98–100, 105; ethnicity related, 26–28, 54, 70–71, 111–112; response to, 19, 21, 31 Stewart, Angus, 29 strategies, 3; of action, 6, 22, 73, 88, 103–104, 112; agency and, 6, 9–10, 20, 22; divorce, 142, 144, 146, 150; education, 114–115, 118–119, 124, 130–132 structures, 3, 13, 80, 99, 161n3; and agency, 8–10, 102; constraints, 19, 26, 28, 30–31, 48, 66; social, 34–35, 105, 113 Suzuki, Nobue, 25, 49, 64, 80, 100, 103 Swidler, Ann, 67, 72, 75

INDEX

Takeda, Satoko, 43–44, 116 Takeshita, Shūko, 26, 33, 35–41, 162n7, 162n8 Thai, Hung Cam, 20 Thapan, Meenakshi, 138 time-lapse photography, 30–31, 45, 65, 86, 112, 114, 135. See also photography analogy Tokugawa (Edo) period, 34, 36 trailing migrants, 19 transnational marriages, 3, 19–20, 25, 80, 102, 141, 144. See also cross-border marriages; international marriages Truong, Thanh-Dam, 33 tsuma (wives), 27 Tyner, James, 33 Uberoi, Patricia, 20 uchi (inside), 48, 53, 55, 57, 65, 83. See also uchi/soto dichotomy Uchio, Taichi, 117–118 uchi/soto dichotomy, 11–13, 47–48, 57, 65, 82, 98, 115 Ukraine. See former Soviet Union (FSU) countries United Kingdom (UK), 14, 68. See also Western/Japanese marriages United States (USA), 4, 14, 38, 40–42, 49. See also Western/Japanese marriages Utrata, Jennifer, 142 Uzbekistan. See former Soviet Union (FSU) countries

179

Van Reken, C., Ruth, 117 Verschik, Anna, 117 victim discourse, 19, 31, 79, 100 visa status: divorce and, 137–138; entertainers and, 5, 42–43, 143–144; marriage and spouse, 29, 67–68, 79, 135, 137, 163n3; routes to Japan and, 55, 69–70, 84, 100. See also residency status war brides, 33, 41. See also brides welfare system, 64, 98 West, Mark, 35, 37, 42 Western breadwinner model. See breadwinner model Western egalitarian model, 92, 95. See also breadwinner model Western/Japanese marriages: academic discourse, 27, 38; dataset, 14, 49, 51, 58–65, 105–106, 112; divorces of, 135, 138; educational strategies, 119, 124; by household style, 82–83, 87–98 Williams, Lucy, 1, 3, 8, 24, 26–27, 30, 45 Yang, Wen-Shan, 20, 22 Yaponomama (online community), 15, 108, 161n8 yatoi mekake (contract mistress), 36 yōshi (adopted son), 37–40 Zainichi Koreans (Koreans residing in Japan). See Koreans in Japan (Zainichi)

A B OU T T H E AU T H O R S

VIKTORIYA KIM is an associate professor in the Human Sciences International

Undergraduate Degree Program at Osaka University, Japan. Her research interests are in international marriages and divorces of Russian-speaking women in Japan, and most recent projects involve Multicultural Community Building program and its tasks, ageing and settlement of marriage migrants, as well as Russian community in Japan in times of COVID-19 pandemic. NELIA  G. BALGOA is a professor at the Department of English and Culture

and Arts Studies Center of the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology in Mindanao, Philippines. Her research interests include Filipino migration to Japan, language and culture and semiotics. Her current research projects are on mother-tongue based language education in the Philippines and crisis communication in times of COVID 19 pandemic. BEVERLEY ANNE YAMAMOTO is a professor in the Graduate School of

Human Sciences, Osaka University. Her research interests are issues around education and health, the knowledge society and the expansion of technology, including AI, as well as the issue of participation and participatory methodologies that are enabling for those who are marginalized. Beverley created a UNESCO Chair in Global Health and Education to address some of these issues.