When You're On the Receiving End

The year was 1996, and I was on my way home after a visit to the US Embassy in Tokyo. Since my visits to that fabled city have always tended to be few and far between, I decided not to take the same way back, i.e. travel via the Toranomon subway station on the Ginza line. Instead, I looked at a Tokyo atlas I'd brought and chose another station that was a bit further away in a different direction. It wasn't easy to plot my course through the maze of twisty, little streets, all alike (Plugh!), but I saw what appeared to be some of the landmarks mentioned on the map. I then headed off, eager for a little adventure.

My course took me off the main drags and into what appeared to be a residential area. Some of the homes planted among that hopeless tangle of narrow streets looked rather large and impressive. I was apparently skirting the edge of a ritzy neighborhood. I didn't think it would be a good idea to go in there (mainly because the morass of tiny roads looked intimidating), so I tried heading back toward the larger routes.

As I went, I spotted a policeman on a bicycle standing on a corner eying me suspiciously. Then he began talking into his radio. Next thing I knew, I had one officer standing in front of me and another behind me, barring my way. The one in front of me smiled, held out his hand, and politely asked to see my identification.

All foreigners staying in Japan for reasons other than tourism are required to have an Alien Registration Card, which is basically a residence permit along the lines of a green card in the US. We're all told by the immigration authorities and local public offices that, as long as we have the card on our person, we are not required to carry our passports. However, I'd already been warned by some ex-pats I'd met here that police in some parts of Tokyo (and probably other cities) don't recognize the Alien Registration Card, let alone accept it; indeed, the very act of trying to show one's Card to such an officer guarantees a humiliating trip to the station. Therefore, I made damned sure I had my passport on me when I went to Tokyo, and that's what I showed the officer.

He thumbed through my passport, tilted it around in the sunlight, and tested the feel of the paper. Then he asked me if I had an Alien Registration Card. I showed him that, too, and he subjected it to similar treatment. Then he asked me what I was doing on that particular street. I explained, showing him the map. He and his partner looked at it and burst out laughing. It turned out that:

1. I'd apparently misidentified a couple of landmarks,
2. I'd been holding the map upside down, and was therefore headed in the opposite direction,
3. The map was hopelessly outdated anyway, so some of the streets were wrong.

They pointed me in the right direction and then escorted me back to the nearest main boulevard.

Japan, like the US, has an illegal immigration problem, though it's probably nowhere near as severe. Most come from countries like China, Thailand, or the Philippines, though there are a lot from Brazil, Sri Lanka, and (during the 90s at least) Iran, too. Apparently African countries like Nigeria are also getting in on the act. Organized crime, both here and abroad, is strongly involved in bringing them here, mostly so they can be employed as slave labor in sweat shops or the sex trade. Such things have been considered a fundamental part of society for at least the better part of the last century, so the authorities have long looked the other way. However, there has been an increasingly negative reaction on the part of the general public; the illegal immigrants are seen as a major source of crime (though statistics definitely do not agree) or diseases such as AIDS, a drain on the public infrastructure, even a threat to the very Japanese way of life. Because of this, the Japanese public is only too happy to let the police crack down when, where, and how they see fit. If that means finding out where foreigners tend to gather to socialize and herding them up like stray dogs, so be it. If that means arbitrarily ignoring the written law and employing vigilante justice to weed out the illegals, so be it. If that means harassing and humiliating people who are legitimate, productive members of society, so be it.

After all, someone who is here legally has nothing to hide, right?

Oh, it's very easy to say that if you're on the side that is dishing it out, but try being on the side that is forced to take it. Seriously, I dare you. The ex-pats I talked to had nothing to hide when they showed the police their perfectly legitimate Alien Registration Cards and wound up being hauled to the station, fingerprinted, interrogated, and degraded by police detectives for not observing an arbitrary, vigilante version of the law. Police sweeps in areas frequented by foreigners, such as Roppongi, have thus far mainly consisted of harassing and humiliating people who turned out to have nothing to hide. I certainly had nothing to hide when I got pounced on by two police officers and treated like a suspected criminal when my only crime was getting lost on public streets. We didn't look Japanese, therefore by default we were guilty until proven innocent, and we could expect no sympathy from the Japanese public. Face the facts: racial profiling may not seem like a big deal, but try getting racially profiled yourself.

Once you've actually had that experience, then...maybe then...I'll listen to your arguments in support of Arizona.