When discussing the recent ethnic riots in France, The Economist newsmagazine ("Minority Reports," Nov. 10, 2005) posed an important question: How come some countries assimilate immigrants more peacefully than others?
It concluded that five basic things are necessary: lingua franca skills; income; mobility; home ownership; political representation; intermarriage.
This article will discuss how well Japan does on this scale, and offer suggestions on how it can do better. But first, let's reconfirm that something needs to be done.