[goykasi]

That is mostly correct; immigrants account for about 3% of a total 123mil population. Your point does stand, but we are quite visible in Japan -- especially in Tokyo.

You are correct that we do not threaten jobs either. A large majority of the foreign population is working low/unskilled jobs. Generally, the native population is not wanting those jobs.

[wahnfrieden]

Those undesirable jobs can also be highly visible. Maybe the most frequent place Japanese notice visible minority immigrants is at convenience stores. So maybe it makes the population feel overrepresented. I see RWers post frequently about convenience store workers at least.