Homeward bound: The Circular Migration of Entertainers between Japan
and the Philippines
RHACEL SALAZAR PARREÑAS
❖ Three Patterns of Settlement of Migrant Filipina entertainers in Japan
1. Permanent migrants -have long-term legal residency and refer specifically to wives and
mothers of Japanese nationals.
2. Indefinite migrants -refer to visa overstayers, meaning those with a precarious status as
undocumented workers.
3. Short-term migrants -are generally contract workers with three to six-month entertainer visas,
but they could also include tourists.
❖ Distinguishing Filipina migrant workers from other countries
• Migrants who initially intend to sojourn in Germany, the United States, as well as Japan
tend to be permanent migrants
• Filipina entertainers, they ‘earn money in Japan and spend it in the Philippines’. Which
makes them short term/circular migrants
• The diversity of settlement patterns among Filipina entertainers mirrors those of the
Nikkei-jin from Brazil as temporary workers granted renewable visas lasting from
between six months and three years
❖ Transnationalization and/or Assimilation?
• Settlement generally consist of assimilation and/or transnational migration as not
mutually exclusive processes(Levitt 2001; Smith 2006)
• Assimilation of migrants facilitates the greater likelihood of transnationalism(Smith 2006)
• Only established immigrants can effectively engage in transnational
practices(Alejandro Portes, Cristina Escobar and Alexandria Radford (2007)
❖ Circular Migrants VS Transnational Migrants
Circular Migrants
Transnational Migrants
Look at the sending country as home and
Described as feeling equally entrenched in
intend to settle in the receiving country for
host and home societies
only a short while. hold feelings of greater
affinity for the home society
They plan for their return to the Philippines
* They maintain transnational practices
soon after they arrive in Japan
* They maintain this coexisting allegiance
by inhabiting transnational social fields
❖ What pushes migrants to become circular migrants?
• Citizenship, particularly those that call attention to the ‘partial citizenship’ of migrant
workers (Parreñas 2001)
• The exclusionary measures that position migrant contract workers as indentured and
unfree workers (Lan 2007).
❖ “Differential Exclusion”of migrants (Stephen Castles and Alastair Davidson)
⎯ Accept migrants only within strict functional and temporal limits; are more likely
to welcome migrants as workers but not as settlers and as temporary sojourners
and not long-term residents
➢ In Europe, we see greater intraregional migration as a result of bilateral agreements that
allow the exchange of short-term migration without the issuance of work permits between
Ukraine and Poland.
➢ At present, these circular migrants are depicted as nomads or, more precisely, ‘vagrants
trapped in a transnational migrant circuit between Brazil and Japan’. (Tsuda 1999: 714)
➢ As repeat migrants, they are said to face ‘double marginalization’ because they cannot
be ‘stable residents in either country’ (Tsuda 1999: 714).
❖ Conditions that increase the likelihood that temporary labor migrants would adapt via
short-term circular rather than transnational migration
1. Temporary labor migrants in liberal democratic states are more likely to make the
transition to permanent settlement (Martin et al. 2006)
2. Access to re-entry encourages short-term circular migration
3. Skills would determine the pattern of settlement, with highly skilled temporary labor
migrants more likely than low skilled ones to settle permanently in the host society.
4. Differential exclusion as the basis of membership for migrants would encourage their
circular migration (Castles 2006; Castles and Davidson 2000).
❖ Qualifying circular migration: migration as a process of returning home
✓ The practice of planning sayonara parties and sending balikbayan boxes home to the
Philippines symbolizes the sojourn of entertainers and illustrates how they migrate to
improve their lives in the Philippines. Each suggests that entertainers remain conscious of
the short duration of their migration.
❖ The segregation of Filipina entertainers
1. Temporal segregation- They limit their integration and make minimal efforts to anchor
themselves in the host society
2. Social segregation - Migrant entertainers usually keep to themselves, interacting only
with customers and co-workers while in Japan.
3. Spatial segregation - entertainers remain geographically concentrated not only in a
specific locale but also in private spaces within this locale, resulting in their experience
of spatial segregation upon settlement.
❖ Factors constrain their spatial actions
• close vicinity of their residence and workplace
• their temporal location
• businesses are closed when they get off work at two or four in the morning
• curfew imposed by most club management on entertainers
• illiteracy
❖ Migrant conditions
• Prone to illness from overcrowding,
• Lack of ventilation
• Unsanitary conditions of their residence