Korea and Japan’s Multicultural Models for Immigrant Incorporation

In Korea and Japan, immigrant settlement and the subsequent development of “multicultural” discourse have disrupted bloodbased conceptions of national identity in divergent ways. Although both countries employ the same set of Chinese characters in their respective translations for the concept of “multiculturalism” (damunhwa in Korean and tabunka in Japanese), their divergent symbolic significance and applications offer an important window into the distinct approaches taken by each country in managing the permanent settlement of immigrants. Whereas “multicultural society” in Korea signifies a broadened definition of Korean national identity and Korean nationality to include specific categories of non-Korean immigrants, “multicultural coexistence” in Japan has further narrowed conceptions of Japanese national identity and Japanese nationality to exclude ethnic Japanese (Nikkei) from Brazil and Peru as foreigners. This paper analyzes the development of two distinct two frameworks for immigrant incorporation based on variants of multiculturalism: a type of selective multiculturalism in Korea and “multicultural coexistence” in Japan.