Immigrant Acceptance in an Ethnic Country

To clarify the relationship between the state and immigrant citizenship policy, this chapter introduces a theoretical model called the Hammar–Koido–Tarumoto Model (the HKT Model). The model developed as follows: Tomas Hammar advocated a prototype of the HKT model composed of the Boundaries 2, 3 and 4 at the beginning; then Akihiro Koido added Boundary 1 to the model; and finally Hideki Tarumoto extended it by adding Boundary 5 to the components. Immigrants in Japan are often categorized into two types: firstly, immigrants who settled before World War II and their descendants who are called Oldcomers. The other types of immigrants are named Newcomers and they settled in Japan largely after the 1980s. There were economic factors that prevented Japan from needing immigrants between the 1950s and the 1970s. Another important factor supporting the restrictive immigration policy was a legacy of World War II.