I am a Korean living in Japan who naturalized from a South Korean nationality, becoming a Japanese citizen in 2009. Even though I’m 57 years old, I have only voted in national and local elections a total of 7 times up until now. One of the main reasons I applied for Japanese citizenship was for voting rights. No matter how long foreign nationals live in Japan, we don’t have the power to determine and improve matters for ourselves and are only able to make requests to others. Following the natural human desire to have a part in determining issues affecting your own life, I decided to apply for Japanese citizenship.

I sometimes hear other people say things like, “So why don't all the other foreigners just apply for Japanese citizenship then?”

　Do you really think changing your citizenship is such an easy thing to do? There are an extremely large number of conditions that must be cleared to acquire Japanese citizenship. Some of them are quite difficult to overcome. In addition, there are a lot of people who consider their nationality to be a part of their identity. For many of these people, changing their nationality seems akin to discarding their identity.

　Until I was 18 years old, I lived my life with the fact that I was a Korean living in Japan kept secret. After that, I revealed this aspect of my identity to numerous acquaintances and determined to make honesty about being a Korean living in Japan a part of my life. For me personally as well, I had various feelings about applying for Japanese citizenship, and it was a major step that was difficult for me to take.

　In Japanese society, when you acquire Japanese citizenship, you are simultaneously expected to “become like a Japanese person.” Society demands that people discard their various ethnic and cultural characteristics to become more Japanese. However, there’s no question that this type of thinking is outdated. In my opinion, Japan needs to aim to become a society in which people can simultaneously be Japanese citizens while still holding on to your diverse cultures.

There are also some people who think, “Foreigners don’t pay taxes, so it’s only natural for them to lack rights.”

　This is incorrect. Foreign nationals are required to pay taxes just like Japanese people, and there isn’t a single obligation that being a foreign resident exempts you from. For foreign residents to have all the same obligations as Japanese people without the same rights is unfair. Foreign residents have already become indispensable to Japanese society in a variety of areas. Rather than pushing the jobs that Japanese don’t do or don’t want to do onto foreign residents, we need to become a society that proactively expands the range of career path, occupation, and lifestyle choices available to foreign residents.

The requirement for foreign residents to apply for permanent resident status should be changed to 5 or more years of residence history.

　Currently, applying for permanent resident status requires foreign residents to have 10 or more years of residence history in Japan as a general rule. However, 10 years is far too long. I request this policy be changed to 5 or more years of residence history.

“We want a role in determining matters that affect us.”

　Foreign residents have the same desire for self-governance as Japanese people. In recent years, there are calls for “multi-cultural coexistence.” The attitude toward foreign residents must change from people who simply abide by the systems, laws, and regulations of Japan to people with a role in the creation of systems, laws, and regulations, becoming true partners in the creation of society. Foreign residents must become people who can take action and determine matters themselves rather than people forced to have others decide matters on their behalf. This is what diversity is truly all about, and it’s the path toward multi-cultural coexistence!