April, and the first thing that comes to mind is the Fall of Bataan on April 9, as we remember the brave men and women who fought in World War II. Sixty years after the war, peace reigns across Asia. Japan and the Philippines, enemies in the war, now have a flourishing relationship as neighbors and trading partners.
But business is not the only bond between these two countries.
Migration and intermarriage through generations have resulted in Filipino-Japanese children or JFC who are now part of local history.
When the Americans came at the turn of the century in the 1900s, Japanese workers migrated to the country to work on Kennon Road. After that project, their next destination was the plantations surrounding Davao. Their children would call themselves Nikkeijin, and would suffer the consequences brought upon by the war as they got separated from their Japanese parents.
The second wave of Filipino-Japanese children was born of Japanese businessmen who started their enterprises in the 1970s after former President Marcos invited investors from Japan.
This may be an abbreviated history of people with mixed parentage, but as one myself, I find it immensely satisfying to know that we have a storied past, that we did not just come from nowhere.
The generation I am most concerned with are the Japanese-Filipino Children whose mothers are Filipinas who migrated to Japan to find work, or to be integrated into rural households by marrying Japanese men. A majority of these women found work as entertainers and suffered the stigma of the label “Japayuki” in the early ’90s.
The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs pegs the number of JFC to some 200, 000 based on the number of Filipinas with the “Spouse of Japanese National” Visa. Since computation did not factor in overstaying Filipinas, or those who had different visa categories at that time, the true numbers of JFC may even be double that estimate.
Although I am 10 years older than the average JFC, I derive a sense of pleasure and completeness when I am with them. When I meet a new JFC, I do not have to tell them that I do not speak Nihongo nor feel pressured to explain why I cannot. We have the same eyes, the same Japanese-sounding names, almost the same passions and distractions.’
A lot of us are also estranged from our Japanese fathers. Most of the fathers do not want the children nor acknowledge them. I have heard accounts of Filipino women being paid off to cut ties from their former Japanese partners and waive financial support and acknowledgment for their children. Since Japan has a very different writing system and very strict privacy laws, it is quite easy for a Japanese man to vanish if he wants to.
The phenomenon of abandonment by one’s Japanese father is very real. I have met tens of JFC who are in the same situation. What intrigued me are the whys.
This mystery drew me in because I am also estranged from my father and since he cut ties from me at a time of crisis, the lack of closure meant that I would always be haunted by his figure.
My father’s name is Yasuo Ishikawa and he was part of the wave of businessmen who started their businesses in the country in the ’70s. He started a travel agency called Metropolitan Tourmaster that sold Cebu and Boracay as destinations to Japanese in the mainland. He met my mother who was working as a part-time cashier in a Japanese restaurant in Manila in 1974. My mother described him as a high-roller who often found himself in the casino or mah-jong parlors after work. But my parents separated just a year after I was born; my mother found a love letter from another woman in my father’s golf bag.
My mother took us to Pampanga where I spent my formative years. Without malice nor knowledge of the stigma that Japanese-Americans in the US suffered in the years following the Second World War, relatives nicknamed me “Jap.”
Growing up in Quezon City, I was always a member of the Japanese Imperial Army when the neighborhood boys and I played pretend war. Every new acquaintance always has the follow up question: “Do you speak Japanese?”
Once, a popular girl in school called my mother a “Japayuki” to my face. Without my bidding, I grew up with a sense that I was different. These feelings would persist for a long time until I met more JFC when I became a representative in the 1st Manila-Tokyo Conference on Japanese Filipino Children in 2009.
After the conference, I started reaching out to people like myself. I met one, a web developer and graphic designer named Noriaki, with whom I would collaborate on several projects. Most of the JFC we encountered were still very young at that time and our work, like a social media website for JFC called JFSekai, did not bear fruit.
In 2010, we got invited to be members of Batis-Yoghi, a JFC youth group, after we attended their summer camp. I’m still a member, with the distinction of being the oldest at 34.
Despite being briefly content with spending time with the Yoghis (Youth Organization that Gives Hope and Inspiration), the whys kept nagging me. It is convenient to lean on easy answers, to say our fathers are evil men or to cast them as stereotypes. Easy reasoning does not yield truth nor justice, so I wanted to research on issues surrounding the JFC and what factors affect our condition in the Philippines and Japan.
In 2011, I applied for a fellowship grant offered by the Nippon Foundation in partnership with the Ateneo de Manila University called the Asian Public Intellectuals Fellowship (API) Program. I got the grant and became a junior fellow for the API fellowship year of 2012-2013.
I spent the year based in northern Osaka as a visiting researcher of Osaka University’s Global Collaboration Center (GLOCOL) but I would hie off to Tokyo, Shizuoka, Wakayama, Saitama and Gunma to meet the JFC residing there. I went alone, though I sometime brought along another researcher and friend, Megumi Hara. Japan unfolded like a dream every single day, and I found it both ugly and beautiful in several aspects.
I have been back in the Philippines for over eight months now but I am not done processing all that I have learned and experienced in Japan. Based on my initial assessment, the defining historical context of the JFC is the gendered migration of their mothers. The Nikkeijin have WWII, the Marcos generation have globalization but the stories of the JFC are inextricably linked to the struggles of their mothers in the midst of a globalizing Japan.
Because of the intimate nature of the work of their mothers, most JFC I have come in contact with are often not acknowledged by their fathers. JFC are also not recorded in the family registry of their Japanese fathers. This lack of documentation burdens the JFC’s claim to their rights; what is plain truth will require proof like DNA testing.
For JFC who are legitimate and were born in the Philippines, things are not any easier. If their fathers did not register them in the embassy, the children lose Japanese nationality three months after their birth because of Article 9 of the Japanese Nationality Law.
According to old anthropological studies of Japanese culture like Ruth Benedict’s “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword,” the Japanese have a “shame culture” that has become their society’s primary method of control. The method involves heaving shame on people who have failed to meet people’s expectations of them. Most Japanese try to live up to what is expected of them by fellow Japanese because any impropriety, say an affair or an illegitimate child, can be a source of shame. Out of respect for their colleagues, the Japanese would often gaze away from this moment of embarrassment to allow the other person to save face.
Shame is one of the primary reasons that could explain why, even if some JFC cross the ocean, ride through valleys and mountains, or trek through mountains to stand at the gates of their father’s house, the door is shut in their face. The culture of saving face often means that although JFC will not lack sympathizers, no one can, and will, directly intervene.
Japan’s strict privacy laws also restrict access to information on people’s addresses, so searching for one’s father is not possible without the help of a Japanese lawyer or paralegal whose services are expensive. These are just some of the roadblocks that bar JFC from claiming their rights.
Although legal woes can be formidable, organizations like JFCNet in Japan and the Maligaya House in the Philippines provide legal services to JFC to help them secure their rights. Resources, however, are short. Most times, the Japanese lawyers of these NGOs opt for cases where the JFC is still of age when he or she can get Japanese nationality, or the odds of winning the case are favorable.
But even when a JFC overcomes the issue of claiming nationality, inclusion can be challenging. JFC over 15 years old are too old for junior high school; public schools in Japan refuse enrolment to such kids. Half-Filipinos who get to enter school also encounter “Ijime” or bullying if their behavior or looks are different from their classmates’.
From my own experience, I have observed that the JFC are in for a struggle to secure their place and define their identities. Although I love Japan and the Philippines, I believe the complicated landscape caused by the commingling of borders, issues, and cultural notions will take time.
I remember how, while in Japan, I sought help from JFCNet to help me find and learn more about Yasuo Ishikawa. Last Christmas, they were able to provide solid leads on his past and his whereabouts. He was already married in Japan, in 1969 to be exact, before he married my mother, a detail that renders their marriage here null and void. I was angry for a while but I have found peace with my situation. It is better to know that I am legitimately illegitimate than to be kept in the dark.
I hope that other JFC would find a measure of peace in their situation. As Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, a Japanese-American writer, once wrote, there is courage in the word: shikata-ja-nai; we cannot do anything about it. In accepting what we are helpless to change at the moment, we can focus on the things we DO have the power to change now. •
