LAND OF THE RISING SALSA:

Japan Mulls Importing Foreign Workers (JOSEPH COLEMAN, 1/20/07, The Associated Press)

The prospect of a shrinking, rapidly aging population is spurring a debate about whether Japan _ so insular that it once barred foreigners from its shores for two centuries _ should open up to more foreign workers.

Japan's 2 million registered foreigners, 1.57 percent of the population, are at a record high but minuscule compared with the United States' 12 percent.

For the government to increase those numbers would be groundbreaking in a nation conditioned to see itself as racially homogeneous and culturally unique, and to equate "foreign" with crime and social disorder.

"I think we are entering an age of revolutionary change," said Hidenori Sakanaka, director of the Japan Immigration Policy Institute and a vocal proponent of accepting more outsiders. "Our views on how the nation should be and our views on foreigners need to change in order to maintain our society."

Oizumi's more than 6,500 foreigners, mostly Brazilian, provide a glimpse into what that change might look like.

Walk down the main drag and it's obvious this is no typical Japanese town. Among the convenience stores and coffee shops are tattoo parlors and evangelical Christian churches. At the Canta Galo grocery, people line up at an international phone to call family 10,000 miles away.

The only reason these foreigners are able to be here is their Japanese descent, which entitles them by law to come here as guest workers.

Watanabe's grandparents emigrated to Brazil decades ago, and he and his friends stand out in Japan with their non-Japanese features, booming voices and backslapping manners. At 2 a.m., after a night out with friends, his manner becomes even less Japanese _ shirt off to expose a hefty belly, howling farewells as he drives off in a beat-up car.

Not everyone feels as isolated as he does. Another Brazilian, Claudinei Naruishi, has a Japanese wife and two kids, and wants to buy a house. "I like it here," he says.

Still, City Hall officials are clearly overwhelmed trying to plug the holes in a social system that seems to assume that everyone living in Japan is Japanese.

"We're kind of an experimental region," said Hiroe Kato, of the town's international section. "Japanese people want immigrants to come here and live just like us. But foreigners are different."

Speaking poor Japanese, they tend to be cut off from their neighbors, unable to _ or critics say, unwilling to _ communicate with policemen, file tax returns or understand notices to separate plastic garbage from burnables.

Schooling is compulsory in Japan until age 16, but only for citizens. So foreign kids can skip school with impunity. Arrangements such as special Japanese classes for newcomers are ad hoc and understaffed. Many of the foreigners aren't entitled to pensions or the same health benefits as Japanese workers because they're hired through special job brokers.

Above all, the differences are cultural and rife with stereotypes: Latinos playing music late on weekends; teenagers congregating in the streets at night, alarming police.

"We have people who don't follow the rules," said Mayor Hasegawa. "So then we have a lot of cultural friction."

All the same, demographics suggest Japan has little choice but to open the doors a little further.

The population is 127 million and is forecast to plunge to about 100 million by 2050, when more than a third of Japanese will be 65 or older and drawing health and pension benefits. Less than half of Japanese, meanwhile, will be of working age of 15-64.

Fearing disastrous drops in consumption, production and tax revenues, Japan's bureaucrats are scrambling to boost the birthrate and get more women and elderly into the work force. But many Japanese are realizing that foreigners must be part of the equation.