The Quiet Strength of Japan’s Friendship Associations in Supporting Immigrants

As Japan grapples with labor shortages and a rapidly aging population, its peri-urban cities increasingly rely on immigrants. Yet, without a cohesive national immigration policy, grassroots organizations like International Friendship Associations (IFAs) quietly provide the only community support for many immigrants. Offering services such as language education and legal guidance, these underfunded and volunteer-driven associations embody the quiet strength that helps immigrants navigate life in Japan. As the IFAs in Koga and Toride shift from integration-focused efforts to broader support frameworks, these actions reveal the challenges they face and their implications for Japan’s evolving immigration infrastructure.

Japan’s aging population and labor shortages have led to a growing immigrant workforce, especially in peri-urban areas. However, national policies offer little support for these workers, leaving grassroots organizations to fill the gap. Since the 1970s, International Friendship Associations (IFAs) have emerged as key players in providing vital services to immigrants. While Japan has begun a sluggish attempt to build immigrant infrastructure in the past decade, with larger cities taking the lead—such as Tokyo—the semi-rural remains neglected. Supporting immigrants is often left to grassroots organizations like IFAs (Green, 2021).

Tabunka Kyōsei: An Ideal That Never Quite Left the Drawing Board

International Friendship Associations (IFAs) in Japan play a crucial yet underfunded role in supporting immigrant communities. Established at the local level, these grassroots organizations help immigrants adjust to life in Japan by providing essential services like language education, cultural orientation, and social inclusion activities (Ermilova, 2023). They are guided by the concept of Tabunka Kyōsei, or multicultural coexistence, but receive little support from national policies. This lack of a coherent national strategy burdens local municipalities, whose success in supporting immigrants varies widely depending on available resources and political will (Green, 2021; Burgess, 2012).

Grassroots vs. The State: Why Local Volunteers Shoulder a National Problem

Tabunka Kyōsei (多文化共生), or « multicultural coexistence, » is a term frequently used in Japan’s policies to describe the ideal of peaceful integration between Japanese nationals and immigrants. However, it often functions more as a rhetorical tool than as an actionable national policy. In reality, Tabunka Kyosei is a localized, unevenly applied framework that shifts the responsibility for immigrant support from the national government to local municipalities and grassroots organizations, such as International Friendship Associations (IFAs).

Though Tabunka Kyōsei promotes inclusivity, its decentralized implementation leads to significant disparities. While large cities like Tokyo have more comprehensive programs, rural and semi-rural areas often lack the resources to support immigrant populations (Green, 2021) effectively. Furthermore, the framework suffers from insufficient national funding and guidance, leaving small volunteer-driven organizations to manage immigrant support with limited resources. This results in inconsistent and often superficial efforts at integration (Burgess, 2012; Liu-Farrer, 2020).

Volunteer Burnout and the Aging Dilemma: Who Will Support the Next Wave of Immigrants?

IFAs, such as those in Koga and Toride City, have evolved from focusing on integration to providing more holistic support services, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, these efforts are severely hampered by limited funding, volunteer burnout, and inconsistent governmental support. The IFAs’ reliance on volunteerism and lack of sustainable funding makes it difficult to meet the growing demands of immigrant communities (Ermilova, 2023). Moreover, the national government’s continued reluctance to establish a formal immigration policy exacerbates the issue, leaving municipalities and local IFAs to navigate these challenges with minimal guidance (Green, 2021).

While these organizations are essential in helping immigrants become a part of Japanese society, their efforts remain fragmented and insufficient. The situation reflects a broader failure at the political level to adequately support immigrant mobility and integration, relegating responsibilities to local entities without ensuring consistent resources or strategies. Japan’s International Friendship Associations (IFAs) face major challenges, including limited resources and volunteer fatigue, as many rely on aging volunteers. Additionally, the lack of a coherent national strategy leaves IFAs without consistent funding or guidance. Local municipalities vary in support, with some providing infrastructure while others do little to prioritize immigrant integration, leading to inconsistent outcomes (Green, 2021; Burgess, 2012).

Japan remains unprepared and ill-equipped to provide an immigration infrastructure supporting its increasing immigrant population. The risks remain that communities will continue to provide sub-par integration. The local communities’ reliance on volunteer schemes to provide such a crucial service limits the possibility of making immigrants feel supported and secure.

The Pandemic’s Aftermath: Broken Systems and New Demands

During the COVID-19 pandemic, both the Koga and Toride IFAs faced significant challenges, particularly due to the high average age of their volunteers, who were over 60. Membership declined, and crucial services, such as Japanese language classes, were interrupted. This service vacuum set back years of integration efforts. Post-pandemic recovery efforts revealed the growing demand for additional services like legal support and food assistance for struggling immigrants, underscoring the need for stronger and more sustainable support mechanisms.

When a society has limited support infrastructure, as we see in the case of Ibaraki prefecture, it is detrimental to the immigrants and the communities they live in and can potentially cause trouble for them in the global context. While unable to address all these issues, this article brings attention to the immigrants struggling to adjust and build a life in Japan. Tabunka Kyosei’s plan is a necessary philosophical practice for the national government as it starts the conversation, albeit with more hot wind than substance. The quagmire that immigration has become and continues to pose the most significant barrier to building immigration infrastructure.

Brandon Bodenstein is a PhD candidate at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, having trained as an anthropologist at Wits University in South Africa. Brandon’s work digs into the precarious, often invisible labor systems that migrants are forced to navigate in Japan and South Africa, exploring how these entangled economic and social forces create both unexpected resilience and systemic exploitation.   

This blog post is based on Brandon’s work selected to participate in the Neuchâtel Graduate Conference 2024.

References:

–Green, David. 2021. « Charting Tabunka Kyosei: An Assessment of Municipal-Level ‘Multicultural Coexistence’ and Immigrant Integration Efforts in Japan. » Journal of Asian Sociology, 50 (2): 401–429.
–Ermilova, Mariia. 2023. “Growing Roots in the Japanese Neighborhood: Green Community Projects and Homemaking Lived by a Female Russian Scholar in Japan.” Hakusan Review of Anthropology, 26: 103–138.
–Burgess, Chris. 2012. « Maintaining Identities: Discourses of Homogeneity in a Rapidly Globalizing Japan. » Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies.
–Liu-Farrer, Gracia. 2020. Immigrant Japan: Mobility and Belonging in an Ethno-nationalist Society. Cornell University Press.