SNA (Tokyo) — When it comes to highlighting issues affecting US citizens such as the student debt crisis, Democrats Abroad Japan has taken a passive approach, focusing mainly on voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts, rather than promoting a progressive agenda for positive change.

There are nearly 60,000 US citizens living in Japan, not including the US military and its dependents. While precise statistics are not collected, it is clear from a variety of data points that these Americans are overwhelmingly left-leaning in their politics, and more likely to vote for Democratic Party candidates than for Republican Party candidates.

There is little doubt that the student debt crisis is not simply a generalized concern for US society as a whole, but it also has specific relevance to many Americans living in Japan.

Indeed, one of the recruiting pitches of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program alumni association is to present it to university graduates as a means to pay off student debt.

The alumni homepage boasts: “Many JETs even choose to pay off student loans or save for the future. The opportunities for building savings are enormous considering the cost of living in the Japanese countryside.”

Americans make up the largest national contingent within the JET program, with over three thousand US participants as of last year.

While there are no statistics available on the numbers or proportion of US citizens in Japan struggling with student debt payments, we can surmise based on the information above–particularly the pitch from the JET alumni association–that it is not insignificant.

Democrats Abroad Japan is clearly aware of the issue. In early September of last year, they called attention to an online event organized by their parent organization, Democrats Abroad, called “Student Debt Relief for Americans Abroad.”

The online event provided information about filing taxes while living overseas and numerous encouragements to get out the vote.

There was also much praise heaped on US President Joe Biden, who had unveiled the previous month a plan to relieve student debts in the range of US$10,000-$20,000 per person (applicable to those with an income under US$125,000).

While Biden’s proposal represented potential progress, it was left unmentioned that while on the campaign trail he had made a far more ambitious promise. At a town hall in Miami, Florida, held on October 6, 2020, then-candidate Biden responded to a young person who asked him about the issue by saying, “I’m going to eliminate your student debt if you come from a family [making less] than US$125,000 and went to a public university. I’m going to make sure everyone gets US$10,000 knocked off of their student debt.”

Despite continuous pressure from progressive commentators (many of whom had backed presidential candidates whose promises on student debt relief went far beyond what candidate Biden has proposed), it took a year-and-a-half for him to finally take some action–still less than he had promised during his campaign–and possibly with his low approval rates in mind as he approached last November’s midterm elections.

The point is that there was, in fact, little reason for Democrats Abroad to boast about Biden’s belated movement on the issue.

When the application for student debt relief went online last October, Democrats Abroad sent a mass email with instructions on how to use a VPN to gain access to the portal. The recipients of the email were the approximately six thousand people who had registered for the September online event.

However, even this weaker Biden administration initiative has since been held up by the conservative courts, and its outcome is yet to be decided.

In response to a direct inquiry, Democrats Abroad Japan Chair Sarajean Rossitto expressed her personal support of extending the current pause on student debt payments until lawmakers and the courts sort out the issue. Her position on this matter was subsequently endorsed by a statement from the organization she chairs.

However, Democrats Abroad Japan tends to fall back to the position that the best solution is simply to elect Democrats to office.

One weakness of this approach is that not all Democratic Party lawmakers in Congress are supportive of the kind of student debt relief policies which Biden had promised on the campaign trail. In the US Senate, Democrats Joe Manchin, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Michael Bennet have openly opposed these measures.

In Bennet’s statement last August, for example, he stated, “In my view, the administration should have further targeted the relief, and proposed a way to pay for this plan. While immediate relief to families is important, one-time debt cancellation does not solve the underlying problem.”

It is clear, therefore, that simply electing lawmakers with a “D” next to their names is no guarantee that they will bring relief to the presumably thousands of US citizens living in Japan who are still struggling with student debt obligations.

If it wishes to make its stance clear, as a minimum, Democrats Abroad Japan will need to issue its own policy statement.

This might be followed by an effort to collect information and to gather testimonies from US citizens living in Japan. Among other things, these testimonies could include the matter of whether or not financial difficulties are causing younger people to postpone trips to visit family members back home or imposing other hardships on them.

In such a way, Democrats Abroad Japan might even discover that its get-out-the-vote campaigns are more successful, since they will be demonstrating through practical action their relevance to the community which they claim to serve.

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