本校同窓会館武陽ゆ～かり館において、未来創造コース２期生（１年）対象に、ミックスルーツジャパン代表須本エドワード豊氏をお招きし、「Multiculturalism:What does it mean for you?」というテーマで英語による講義をしていただきました。多文化共生の意味とは何か、その歴史的背景や世界での取組、多文化共生を進めることで何が得られるのか、アイデンティティーとグローバルコンペテンスについてお話をしていただきました。アカデミックな深い内容でしたが、多文化がローカルの資源になるという視点など生徒の今後の研究につなげられるものを得らることだできました。以下は生徒の感想です。
I’m glad to hear today’s lecture. I found that the contents are more important than first appearance. According to Edward, Americans object to accepting immigrants. I’m sad to hear the fact. In Japan, people sometimes discriminate against people from other countries. In particular, Koreans are discriminated against by Japanese. It is a bad fact. We don’t discriminate, but there are many discriminations in daily life. If the Japanese government decides to accept immigrants, there will be more and more discrimination. I agree with accepting immigrants. So we have to exclude the discrimination from Japan and the world. Therefore, we have to exchange our thoughts with many people. And I think it is important to study English. If we can use English well, we will exchange our thoughts with many other countries. Today’s lecture was very valuable.
I learned about immigrants from his lecture. Until now, I didn’t have the opportunity to think about problems about immigrants and multiculturalism, so I think that this is a good opportunity to study and think about them. I found multiculturalism had both good and bad points. On the good points, we will be able to get something new, like ideas or fashions. They’ll make our daily lives better. So, on the bad points, we are worried about work and public order. First of all, are we ready to accept immigrants? Probably not, because Japan has many problems, for example: crimes, economic problems and diplomatic problems. To be ready to accept immigrants, this country has to break the mold. As I have explained, I found a lot of good and bad points. I want to know more about it.
I hadn’t known about refugees until I heard this presentation. There are many refugees around the world today. The time has come when we hate to think about refugees seriously. So we have to establish a system which accepts refugees. It isn’t easy to establish a system. Some Japanese might not understand different cultures. Refugees might feel bad. Mutual understanding in different cultures is difficult to achieve. We have to change our way of thinking. We are expected to have a global way of thinking, however it takes time. To make a world without discrimination, we need to understand each other.
I enjoyed Mr. Sumoto’s lecture and have been interested in multiculturalism and the immigrant. The most interesting topic was problems about multiculturalism and good things about multiculturalism. Mr. Sumoto said that people in the country were afraid of foreign people coming to their countries. The reason is people don’t know the foreign people well and they can’t communicate with each other well. The result is that foreign people wouldn’t like to come. I think this is a difficult problem between the countries. However, Mr. Sumoto said multiculturalism will give us new ideas, techniques and cultures. And then our culture can have diversification. I think it is good, but I worry about the annihilation of our own culture. Today, the immigrant is an important problem in Japan too. Should receive immigrants or not? If we receive them, how will our society change? Based on this lecture, I want to study about it.
Today, I knew that multiculturalism doesn’t mean that there are a lot of foreign things around myself. Its real meaning is that different cultures, traditions and backgrounds exist. That was interesting because I had always had the wrong interpretation. An impressive topic was about an American president candidate. The candidate opposes immigration and he is supported by many people. I was surprised to hear that there are a lot of opposing opinions in America, which has many cultures and races. Public peace may get worse, but America should accept immigration to advance multiculturalism. Also, I was to acquire global competence. To be able to speak English is important, but to accept the difference of cultures is more important. On the other hand, like the example of Kyoto University and Ritsumeikan University, sometimes we hurt foreigners feelings by our actions. We have to consider it. I live in Nagata, Kobe, which advances multiculturalism, so I will try to pay attention to multiculturalism.