Twenty participants on Saturday wandered through Kotobuki, home to more than 100 cheap boarding houses for day laborers, including foreign nationals, as well as Nakamuracho, where a private group offering study support to children of foreign residents is located, in Minami Ward.

In the tour organized by the Kanagawa International Foundation, Kahoruko Yamamoto, associate professor of urban sociology at Tokyo Metropolitan University researching issues affecting foreign laborers, discussed the lives of foreign residents in Kotobuki district and how the district evolved.

Kiyoshi Saito, a former junior high school teacher who has helped foreign children in an educational program at nonprofit Shinaijuku in Nakamuracho, also gave a briefing on the group's activities.

Kotobuki district began accommodating day laborers in the 1950s, when Korean residents in Japan began operating inexpensive boarding houses and shops there.

Twenty years later, the district saw an influx of Filipinos who learned of the area through sailors who had visited Yokohama port.

In the 1990s, there was a surge in the number of laborers from South Korea.

But the population of foreign workers in the district plunged to less than 100 from a peak of more than 1,000 due to an economic downturn.

Still, there are many Filipino residents in the vicinity.

At Shinaijuku, Mariko Takekawa, who heads the group with a history of more than 30 years in providing educational assistance to foreign children, said that children enlisted in the program come from more than 10 countries.

She added that at a nursery school in the neighborhood, more than half of the children are those of foreign residents.

The tour also took the participants to Wakabacho, home to many Thai food eateries. A Thai woman who has been running a Thai food store there since about three years ago said that the deteriorating economy led to a dwindling population of people from her country and the closure of shops.

The participants of the tour said that they appreciated the event as an opportunity to have a better picture of the city.

"We heard stories of residents who have taken roots in the community," one participant said. "I could learn about Kotobuki district, which I used to find it hard to go into alone," said another.