How Contexts of Reception Matter: Peruvian Migrants in Japan and the U.S.

Ayumi Takenaka, Bryn Mawr College

This paper compares immigrants’ socio-economic mobility in Japan and the U.S., focusing on Peruvian migrants. Having migrated to both countries around the same time for similar economic reasons, Peruvians, over time, tend to fare better in the U.S. than in Japan. This is so despite the fact that they share similar socioeconomic backgrounds and start out in comparable low-rung occupations in both countries. Drawing upon a Peruvian household survey, Census data, and life history interviews conducted in the two countries, I comparatively examine obstacles and paths to immigrant upward socioeconomic mobility. While Japan provides immigrants with monetary rewards, it has not quite succeeded in offering means of upward occupational mobility because of its less diversified immigrant labor market and relatively limited opportunities for ethnic entrepreneurship.