Ota City, Gunma Prefecture: A Walk in a Deep Town of Chaos: “Brazil City” Reflects “A Little Hope for Japan

What Ota and Oizumi have in common is that both the government and private sectors offer a very wide range of services for foreigners. For example, the city office has a multilingual consultation service and a department in charge of foreign residents. In the private sector, there are many staffing agencies for foreigners, which provide job search, medical care, and welfare services in their native languages. An employee of a recruitment agency in Oizumi Town confides, “We are not dependent on foreign workers.

A worker at a recruitment agency in Oizumicho confides, “Without relying on foreign workers, manufacturing will not be possible in Gunma. A cooperative climate has developed among the private sector and local volunteers, and there is an understanding of foreigners.

On the other hand, there were harsh comments from the community about the welfare system. The reality that about one-quarter of the town’s welfare recipients are foreigners led some townspeople to ask bitterly, “Do we really need to support them?

The author spoke to more than 30 foreigners in Ota and Oizumi, and to be honest, the majority of the population did not understand much Japanese. Nevertheless, a Japanese resident in his 30s, who agreed to be interviewed in an area where supermarkets and electronics stores catering to Brazilians are located, offered this suggestion from a completely different perspective.

He said, “Foreigners receive welfare benefits because they don’t fit in well at school or at work. I think one of the reasons is that Japanese people demand too much of them in terms of language skills and behavior. If we demand too much from foreigners, we need to step up to the plate in terms of language and interaction. Not a few of the younger generation in this town are beginning to have this awareness.

On the other hand, how does Oizumi Town appear to foreigners? Thiago Vinicius, a Brazilian who has lived all over the country and now runs a company in Oizumi, says, “When I was a child, I didn’t think of myself as Brazilian,” he says.

When I was a child, I was bullied at school just because I was Brazilian. But times have changed, and although there are challenges, prejudice is decreasing. Rather, young people actively interact with foreigners to understand them, including at local events, volunteer language support, and so on. So it’s a good place to live.”

House of Representatives Representative Hiroyoshi Sasakawa, 57, a locally elected member of the Special Committee on Foreign Workers, has this to say about the state of harmonious coexistence: “The viewpoint that is needed from now on is rather that of the people of Japan.

The viewpoint that is necessary from now on is how to make the community a place where foreign workers can choose to live. There is a limit to what can be done by local communities alone, including education. We are now at a point where the entire country, including ministries and agencies, must think about this issue.

With Japan’s declining birthrate, an increasing number of regions will have to rely on immigrants to survive. The efforts of Ota and Oizumi can be seen as a progressive example of “hope” for Japan, where coexistence will be indispensable. The entertainment district, which once flourished as a workers’ town, has been transformed into a town with a great mission.