Discrimination

We're having an interesting time adjusting to life in our new city. Hamamatsu happens to be a very international city with the largest population of Brazilians in Japan. Some companies here brought over thousands of workers and their families years ago and then layed most of them off when the economy got bad. Sadly, this led to a mini-crime wave and now there is MUCH prejudice against them here. I wonder what those companies were thinking by bringing so many people from a culture that is so incompatible with Japanese culture and expecting them to blend easily into society here. And after laying them off, how did they expect them to survive?

Finally, the government got fed up and paid to repatriate any of the workers who wanted to return to Brazil. At that time, the Brazilian school and some Brazilian churches closed down because such a huge number of them decided to return to Brazil. However, many have stayed and are living here still.

The saddest thing is that the majority of the foreigners here are probably just people who are trying to survive just like everybody else. However, there are scars on this city left from some pretty heinous crimes, including murder. So fear and ignorance reign and the kids and I feel odd when people speak to us in Portuguese (this comes from the Brazilians) and when people ask if we're from Brazil (this from the Japanese). We are in the middle of this situation where we want to sympathize with the foreigners (after all, we are foreign too), and yet we can understand the fear of the Japanese. That is also exacerbated by anger at companies that would cause such mayhem for so many people just to make (or save) a buck.

My son was "interrogated" by a police officer at Hamamatsu Station this week. He goes to a sports club near there to work out after his morning job and usually drops by the station after to hook up to the free WiFi offered there. He then chats with his friend in the States over Facetime. Well, I guess the officer thought he was up to no good and decided to go after him. He asked question after question until finally my son said, "am I doing anything wrong?" The answer was "no." So my son said, "don't judge people by the way they look!" and walked away. He was followed, but firmly told the officer to stop following him and leave him alone.

Today I took my son to get his scooter license. We had all of our paperwork in order, but the licensing officer decided he wanted to see more identification. We already had photo ID and our family register which had been processed by our local police department in advance of going for his licensing test. I had to show him MY driver's license, MY insurance card, and MY alien registration card before he would stamp my son's form.

All I can say is, "Thank you God for showing me firsthand how it feels to be the victim of discrimination. And give me the strength to SHOUT that it is wrong." Amen