Monday, March 14

Monday, March 14<br>Immigration Office, Shinagawa Tokyo<br>Leaving Tokyo by Class and Race<br>David H. Slater<br>Sophia U., Tokyo<br><br>By Sunday, the reports of nuclear destabilization and threats of radiation leakage were filling the news, being reported on the TV with higher levels of fear and panic than the horrific effects of the earthquake and tsunami. Among many foreigners associated with universities, and thus of certain cultural and financial capitalMonday, March 14Immigration Office, Shinagawa TokyoLeaving Tokyo by Class and RaceDavid H. SlaterSophia U., TokyoBy Sunday, the reports of nuclear destabilization and threats of radiation leakage were filling the news, being reported on the TV with higher levels of fear and panic than the horrific effects of the earthquake and tsunami. Among many foreigners associated with universities, and thus of certain cultural and financial capital—the question on everyone’s mind was if you were going to stay or leave. Among my Japanese friends, they were calling family and friends outside of Kanto arranging for some place to leave. People with options were reviewing them. I decided to send my children to California, but of course, all of our documents were not in order. Many of the hoards of foreigners in Shinagawa Immigration today had their bags with them, clearly having come here from all over Japan, not just Tokyo. The line just to buy certificate stamps, usually about a dozen people, snaked all the way out of the room, through the lobby, out the door, down the street and around the building—easily 250 meters long and still growing at noon. People were waiting in an orderly way, but already, panic was starting to set in as they began to realize that they were not going to get the stamps in time to process their documents that day. (Usually, if you are in line, they would process you until the end, but the numbers prevented that.) Clearly, for people at Immigration, they had already decided—they were leaving. They had their big bags with them, not over nighters.I spoke to two young Chinese from a part of Miyagi not hit by flooding who said that they were told to leave (by whom I do not know). They said that they were frustrated at the lack of any information, and were thinking that if bad things happened, no one would be there to help foreigners. They brought with them their friends from Saitama, and they were all leaving together, going back to China.One said to me—we had a lot of time to chat while we waited in line—“why are YOU leaving?” I explained that like them I did not know what was happening, that my family back home wanted their grandkids back. And then added, “After all, I am a foreigner, too.” They broke into laughter—‘White foreigners, white foreigners. Completely different. American?’ Yes, I said. They chided me: ‘You can stay—they will protect you. Don’t worry, don’t’ worry.’ One guy started to push me out of line, jokingly, as if to say, I did not need to be in the line, as he jumped into my place. Everyone laughed while I scrambled back into line. One woman, older than these younger Chinese (who were laborers, maybe?), said in English that ‘When bad things happens in Japan, the Japanese blame it on Chinese. Or they will just forget about us. We die. History. We are leaving.’Upstairs, the calm that most foreigners exhibit in Japan was starting to crumble. A very muscular group of Korean men were yelling through a window at a frightened young Immigration Officer who kept closing her window and disappearing. The guys were yelling to bring her back. Latin Americans, all families with kids it seemed, were struggling to keep their places in lines that were periodically disbanding, swarming, and reforming with the fast and aggressive having moved up a few places. It was a struggle of all against all, but individuals would also gravitate to ethnic or racial groups, for information about the immigration process and the larger situation, to complain and share anxiety, for support. But they were all leaving—there was no question about that. While people complained about the lack of reliable information, what they really meant was information that would be clear enough to act upon: The situation is X: you should do Y. In fact, there was tons of information, far more than anyone could make sense of and not in any form that would lead to a plan of action. In those situations, you end up looking for some sort of clear message, right or wrong, something you can act upon because anything is better than waiting. Waiting for radiation became like waiting for the tsunami—at least at the moment.A Japanese colleague of mine said, ‘If I was in America and this happened, you know I would be out in a flash. Are you crazy [for not leaving]?"As personal as all of our own reasons for staying or leaving might be, the context through which these reasons are filtered are firmly embedded in race, social class and history.