Comment: From your perspective as a resident of the United States, or as a resident of a different country, what are your impressions of the current state of play of race and ethnic relations in the United States? If you are not a resident in the United States, you may wish to mention the ways in which the situation is similar or different in your country.

I am originally from Japan and have worked both in Japan and in Sweden. Since 2013 I live in Sweden.

Sweden has been receiving lots of immigrants in 2015 and before and the country is really getting multicultural. Japan is the opposite with only less than 2% of the total population is foreign born.

In Sweden there are increasing conflicts of race and ethnic relations. Difficulties for immigrants to get jobs and housing are big problems.

In Japan there are no such problems but the Japanese economy has stagnated over several decades and one important reason is regarded as lack of innovations and less diversity might be one factor behind such a development.

Make an Update: How are demographics changing in your country or school? What are the consequences? For society and education?

In Japan share of immigrants is so low as stated above. One more big change is of course aging. The share of the elderly in Japan is one of the highest in the world. Consequences are huge for society and education. It costs a lot for medical care and pensions for the elderly at the expenses of among others education for the younger.

In Japan there is an expression 'silver democracy' since the younger generation is not so interested in voting nor politics, that is really a serious threat even for education and society.

To sum up, the biggest demographics change in Japan is aging while the share of immigrants has not increased at all compared to countries in the West.