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Journal of Asian American Studies 4.1 (2001) 83-85



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Book Review

Japanese Immigrant Entrepreneurship in New York City: A New Wave of Ethnic Business


Japanese Immigrant Entrepreneurship in New York City: A New Wave of Ethnic Business. By Akiko Hosler. New York: Garland Publishing, 2000.

In the post-1965 era, Japan has sent only a few or several thousands of immigrants to the United States per year, while other Asian countries--the Philippines, China, South Korea, India, and Vietnam in particular--have sent large numbers of immigrants annually. As a result, the U.S.-born population composes the vast majority of Japanese Americans, whereas the opposite is true of other Asian groups. This differential in the proportion of the U.S.-born vs. the foreign-born population between Japanese Americans and other Asian American groups is well reflected in academic research. Several books and many articles focusing on each of contemporary Chinese, Korean, Indian, Filipino, and Vietnamese immigrants have been published over the last three decades, with little research on the second generations of those immigrant groups. By contrast, academic research on Japanese Americans has largely focused on either the turn-of-the-century Japanese immigrants or the U.S.-born second or third generation, with almost no research on contemporary Japanese immigrants.

To my knowledge, Japanese Immigrant Entrepreurship in New York City by Akiko Hosler is the first book that covers contemporary Japanese immigrants in the United States. While Japanese Americans in the West consist largely of U.S-born second, third, and fourth generations, the Japanese in New York are predominantly Japan-born and heavily non-residents working for branches of Japanese firms located in the area. Due to their language barrier and discrimination, other Asian immigrants in New York and other cities get much lower rewards from their educational investments than U.S.-born white Americans. Yet, Japanese residents in New York, largely working for branches of Japanese firms, do very well socioeconomically. Several articles, mostly journalistic, have provided piecemeal information about the unique characteristics of Japanese residents in New York, their settlement patterns, and their socioeconomic adjustments. Based on public documents and previously published materials, this book offers more systematic information about Japanese residents in New [End Page 83] York. Moreover, using data based on personal interviews and mailed survey with Japanese business owners, it systematically examines the unique characteristics of Japanese immigrant entrepreneurship in New York.

Data based on samples of Korean and other immigrant groups reveal that due to their language barrier and other disadvantages most immigrants encounter downward mobility in their occupational status and that many of them enter small business as an alternative to a low-level service or blue-collar job. Thus, for an immigrant to start a small business is usually his/her forced situational adaptation to the difficulties in employment in the general labor market. However, Japanese immigrants in New York do not have labor market disadvantages because branches of Japanese firms located there create many high-paying managerial and professional jobs. Accordingly, the labor market disadvantage thesis has limited support in the case of Japanese business owners in New York. Hosler suggests that for them "opening a business is the realization of their training and previous career, and not a situation adaptation." (86)

The literature on immigrant entrepreneurship places emphasis on the importance of ethnic resources for the establishment of businesses. But Hosler's data show that Japanese business owners in New York do not use ethnic resources as much as the literature on immigrant entrepreneurship would make us believe. They do not depend upon ethnic resources extensively partly because they live in a small, undeveloped community and partly because many have enough class resources. Significantly, none of the respondents depended upon the practice of rotating credit association for the accumulation of start-up capital, while 20 percent partly relied on commercial loans.

Japanese business owners in New York, according to Hosler's sample, are more similar to white American business owners than to typical immigrant business owners in their...

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