Keiko Yamanaka

An Introductory Overview

Since the 1970s, Asia has witnessed increasing intraand inter-regional migratory flows with women constituting a substantial and increasing proportion of these. Morokvasic’s classic statement, “Birds of passage are also women...” (1984:886) has thus long applied to Asia as much as to Europe and North America (see also Kofman, 1999). To gain comprehensive understanding of this phenomenon, the Asian and Pacific Migration Journal (Vol.5, No.1) dedicated in 1996 a special issue entitled, “Asian Women in Migration.” In this volume, Lim and Oishi (1996) provided an extensive overview of the increasingly feminized migration in and from Asia. In the 1990s, according to them, approximately 1.5 million Asian women, both documented and unauthorized,1 were working abroad, while a total of 800,000 female migrants per year had left their countries to work abroad (Lim and Oishi, 1996:87). The authors discussed the main characteristics and root causes of female migration, governmental policies in both sending and receiving countries, and possible ways to address the gaps between existing policy and practice. Throughout the 1990s, these gaps widened primarily because most Asian governments enforced immigration policies that are designed to rotate a pool of temporary workers, while paying very little attention to these women’s socio-economic needs, labor and human rights and gender-

Earning the model‐minority image: Diverse strategies of economic adaptation by Asian‐American women

Abstract Using the 1980 US Population Census data, this article documents the diverse strategies of economic adaptation adopted by a group of working‐age immigrant women: Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Indian and Vietnamese. A comparable sample of non‐Hispanic white women serves as the reference group. Striking heterogeneity in the individual and collective resources of these groups, together with differences in labour market opportunities and historical context of immigration, have led to a variety of patterns of labour force participation and methods of income attainment. In order to move beyond the oversimplified image of Asian‐Americans as a model minority in their economic success, the article applies four different theories to the census data ‐ assimilation, dual economy, ethnic‐enclave economy and middleman minority. The article closes with a discussion of theoretical implications and methodological suggestions for future studies concerning labour force position and economic adaptation of min...

Feminized Migration, Community Activism and Grassroots Transnationalization in Japan

Japans 1990 revised immigration law established a renewable ‘long-term resident’ visa category for non-citizens with Japanese ancestry (Nikkeijin) and their dependents. By the mid-1990s, this had resulted in an influx of more than 200,000 Nikkeijin workers, most of them from Brazil, of whom more than 40 percent were female. In the absence of governmental policy to incorporate immigrants into the nations political and legal structure, Brazilian children growing up in Japan have encountered great difficulty in acquiring an adequate education. In response, a group of Brazilian mothers founded an organization, ALA Brasil, to help their children cope with study in a public school in Hamamatsu, Japan. In so doing, they collaborated with Japanese parents, teachers, local administrators and community activists, many of whom were also women. Global migration has thus brought dedicated citizens and non-citizens together in pursuit of shared goals, stimulating among them multicultural awareness and grassroots activism. In this process, gender has been found to play a pivotal role. This underlines the importance of gender analysis in achieving an understanding of social processes that can lead to the expanded participation of women in public roles in this era of decentralized power.