The bubble generation

In sum, arriving from the mid-1960s up to the 1970s, the subjects of this pioneering generation have now been living and working in Japan for at least four decades, which makes their time spent in Japan twice as long as the time spent in their home countries before their first arrived. While all of them have established their lives in Japan permanently, some have left the country for longer periods at a particular stage in their lives, as was the case of Randy Woosley, who returned to Canada between 1975 and 1989. Others have split their time between two countries, like Richard Milgrim, who spent thirteen years from 2000 to 2013 going back and forth between Japan and the United States.

to Japan] because I'd met quite a lot of people who said that they were in Japan, they were taking holidays in Japan, who were teaching English in Japan and making lots of money (Richard Truckle, February 2017).

Furthermore, getting an English teaching job was one of the few available ways for foreigners to stay in the country for longer periods. In fact, the Japan Immigration Control Law created in 1952 did not encourage immigration, making it very difficult to get a visa at that time. Moreover, getting a permanent visa was a long and complicated process in spite of how long they had been in the country, as was the case of Kyoto-based Canadian Tracey Glass, to whom it took fifteen years. Thus, many of those who came before 1989 either came as exchange students, had a work visa or entered Japan with a tourist visa that was only valid for three months. Randy Woolsey talked about his regular trips to neighboring Korea to renew his tourist visa:

I couldn't spend three years in Mashiko because of the visa. And I was in a hurry;

all of the rest of the [apprentices at Tsukamoto] were my age, some a bit younger, but they were taking it easy, the Japanese. But I couldn't take it easy because I was afraid that I would run out of visa extensions. And I used to have to go all the way to Korea and I would take the local train all the way from Kasama to Shimonoseki, Kyushu and then get on a ferry boat. They had shinkansen [bullet train] but it cost too much money (Randy Woolsey, November 2017).

Despite this, the 1980s saw the development of transnational networks worldwide and labor shortages nationwide that led to a growing influx of migrants to the country. Amongst them were what Komai (2001:18) has called people looking for

“self-actualization”, which included exchange students. In fact, boosted by the discourse of internationalization, the Japanese government launched the ‘Plan to Accept 100,000 Foreign Students” in 1983, which encouraged many young foreigners to come and study in Japan. Furthermore, the expansion of international travel and university exchanges worldwide stimulated the visit of Japanese artists and

500 1 000 1 500 2 000 2 500 3 000 3 500 4 000

1952 1954 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016

Foreign entries with art-related activities visa

intellectuals to the West and Westerners to Japan and, in this context, more potters came to Japan to practice ceramics in from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s.

In 1989, Japan finally reformed its Immigration Control Law in response to increased flows and overstaying, which recognized ten new visa categories to facilitate the immigration of professionals and skilled workers. For our subjects, this meant the possibility of coming to the country with a one-year cultural activities visa and stop relying on the periodically renewable tourist visa or English teaching jobs.

Furthermore, some subjects also came with a visa specific to the undertaking of art-related activities during this period. In fact, according to data from the Ministry of Justice, foreign entrances in Japan with this type of visa tripled between 1979 and 1989, when it reached 3,633 entries, after which is drastically decreased (see in Figure 1.5. below). However, it is worth noting that, even at its peak in 1989, entrance with art-related activities visa represented only 0.1% of all foreign entries into the country.

According to data of the Ministry of Justice from 2017, while the vast majority of foreign entries in Japan are from nationals of other Asian countries (85%), with Europeans and North Americans representing only 12%, the majority of those who entered in Japan with an art-related working visa in 2017 came from Europe and the United States (62%), thus showing the racial inequalities present within the visa acquisition process (see Figure 1.6.).

Figure 1.5: Foreign entries in Japan with art-related activities visa (1952-2016)

Source: Ministry of Justice

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

Total number of foreign entries Entries with art-related activities visa Asia Europe Africa North America South America Oceania

Figure 1.6: Foreign entries in Japan with art-related activities visa (2017) - Percentage by continent of origin

Source: Ministry of Justice, 2017

This is also present in our sample, with the first generation of potters being outweighed by people from English-speaking countries, with four subjects being from the United States, two from Canada and one from Portugal. Nonetheless, the second period witnessed a diversification, with more potters coming from non-English speaking European countries such as Portugal, Spain, Hungary and also Brazil. In fact, the arrival of the second generation of potters coincides with the outburst of migrants of Japanese ascendance coming from South America. This was made possible by the new immigration law that provided long-term residence to second and third generation Japanese descendants and their spouses to engage in any activity in the country. In particular, second-generation Japanese-Brazilian Regina Goto was one of the subjects that benefited from this reform. However, even in the second period, American nationals still comprised one-third of the total of arrivals in our sample and, thus, nationals from English-speaking countries remain the majority (65%). This shows not only the historical trajectories between the two regions but, once again, racial hierarchies and inequalities in mobility and migration.

Contrary to the first generation, not all subjects from this second generation ended up establishing their lives permanently in the country. Moreover, the process of obtaining a permanent visa is often more complicated for those not married to

Japanese nationals or who are not bound by a formal work contract. While some subjects have managed to stay the country with an art-related activities visa for extended periods, they must demonstrate their artistic accomplishments and income to the immigration authorities in order renew their visa every three years until they get permanent residency.

In fact, the vast majority of those who established permanently in the country have married Japanese nationals (twenty-three out of twenty-seven subjects), thus becoming eligible to receive a spouse visa and apply for the permanent visa after a few years². This shows how foreigner residents in Japan often have to rely on their Japanese spouses for permanent settlement in the country, with foreign couples thus facing greater instability. Moreover, gender inequalities visible in the patterns of international marriage in Japan, which are still dominated by “Western husband, Japanese wife” pattern by three to one (Ministry of Justice, 2017) mean that, for women, not having a Japanese spouse can hinder permanent stay. Furthermore, while marriage to a Japanese national seems natural given the fact that the subjects are living in a country where more than ninety-eight percent of its residents are Japanese, many rely on their Japanese spouses, who in many cases are also potters, as an important source of support in their everyday lives, as pointed by Spanish potter Jesualdo Fernandez-Bravo.

If you pay attention, there is a common fact amongst all the foreigners you met in Mashiko: all of them are married to Japanese. I believe it is impossible [for a foreigner living in Japan] to move forward by his or her own means. I don’t know any potter who has done it (Jesualdo Fernandez-Bravo, February 2013, translated from Spanish).

This is partly because the majority of the subjects cannot read and write Japanese fluently, which can be a challenge when dealing with the country’s bureaucracy. In fact, many have come to Japan with no previous knowledge of the language and taught themselves or have learned through osmosis after arrival. Thus,

2 The number of years of residence needed to apply for a permanent visa in Japan depends on the visa status of the applicant.

while they can speak Japanese fluently enough to communicate with others in their everyday lives (with a few exceptions comprising of those who are mainly surrounded by other foreign nationals or whose partners speak their native languages), most of the subjects lack the same level of fluency in reading and writing. However, it is interesting to note how some of the subjects who have been living for the country the longest have started losing fluency in their native languages, a question that might be interesting for linguists to explore.

Reliance on Japanese spouses can also put the subjects in a fragile position in case of divorce, especially when regarding the children’s custody. While not limited to international marriages, issues involving forced separation between parent and child are not uncommon in Japan due to the inexistence of joint custody under Japanese laws, a situation that has affected at least one of our subjects.