this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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Japan is notably more xenophobic. No matter how long you live in Japan, even if you manage to get full citizenship (which even celebrities who have lived there for decades struggle with), you are never considered "Japanese" by the native-born Japanese people.
The USA on the other hand is comparatively easy to become a citizen of and has laws banning discrimination based on race and national origin for employers. A citizen is a citizen is a citizen. The only job in the entire country that requires you be born as a citizen is the POTUS.
It's pretty damn hard to become a citizen in the US, and there are several studies showing that even legal immigrants from non-white countries with citizenship will face discrimination for their entire time in the US. Let's not forget how we treat people at the border either. There's significant evidence of genocidal treatment of immigrants at the Southern border, like forced sterilization
Right, but in Japan it's legal for businesses to racially descriminate against both potential customers and potential hires. During the height of the COVID pandemic, many businesses had "No Foreigners allowed" signs due to the perception that COVID was spread by foreigners. In the US there's lots of controversy over racism, but in Japan you don't hear about it because it's generally the accepted status quo.
In Japan, it has until recently been a legal requirement for trans people to undergo sterilization in order for their gender to be legally recognized (which is also a legal requirement for trans people to adopt children there).
To be clear, I'm not saying the US is not xenophobic. What I am saying is that from an American perspective, Japan is even more so.