[2] He graduated from Cornell University in 1987,[5] dedicating his senior year to studying Japanese after visiting his pen pal and future wife in Japan.

[15] Arudou led a multinational group of 17 people of various nationalities (United States, Chinese, German, and Japanese) to enter the Yunohana bathhouse in Otaru[15] and test the firmness of the "No Foreigners" policy posted on its door.

[6] Yunohana had previously closed its bathhouse due to a decline in Japanese customers caused by the poor bathing habits of Russian sailors, and to prevent a repeat of this situation, the company refused entry to anyone who appeared to be a foreign national.

[18] The court stated that "categorically refusing all foreigners constitutes irrational discrimination, exceeds social norms, and amounts to an illegal act".

Arudou, calling the magazine "ignorant propaganda" that "focuses exclusively on the bad things that some foreigners do, but has absolutely nothing about crimes committed by Japanese".

[27] In August 2009, Arudou—acting as the chair of FRANCA (the Foreign Residents and Naturalized Citizens Association)—began a letter-writing campaign to protest an advertisement by McDonald's Japan featuring a bespectacled, mildly geeky, 43-year-old American Japanophile known as Mr. James—a burger mascot who proclaims his love for the fast-food outlet in broken katakana Japanese.

'"[29] Time magazine's Coco Masters concluded: "To protest Mr. James as a stereotype of a minority population in Japan because the Ohio native fails to speak or write Japanese fluently, dresses like a nerd and blogs about burgers only ends up underscoring the fact that there really aren't a lot of foreigners who fit the bill running around Japan.

[33] John Spiri, associate professor at Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University, argues that Arudou's tactics are excessive, that he tends to perceive things as "black and white", and that he is "more interested in attacking Japan and its people than fighting stereotyping and injustice".

[36] Arudou's next book, published in 2008, was coauthored with Akira Higuchi (樋口 彰) and titled Handbook for Newcomers, Migrants and Immigrants to Japan (ニューカマー定住ハンドブック).

This bilingual book provides information on visas, starting businesses, securing jobs, resolving legal problems, and planning for the future from entry into Japan to death.

[44][better source needed] In 2015 he published Embedded Racism: Japan's Visible Minorities and Racial Discrimination through the Lexington Books imprint of Rowman & Littlefield.