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Notes
1. An earlier version of this paper entitled ‘Regaining “Japaneseness”: Philippine Nikkeijin Identity Politics’ was presented at the 15th Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia, held in Canberra on 1 July 2004. My rewriting work was mostly done when I was affiliated with the Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies at the University of Wollongong in Australia. Indescribable thanks to its Director Lenore Lyons and Deputy Director Tim Scrase, who strongly supported my writing work. In this paper, I refer to some Philippine Nikkeijin by Western or Filipino name order (surname last) because they use their names in this order.
2. In the Philippines, the term “mestizo” (“mestiza” in the case of the female) has been commonly applied to people of native-foreign parentage since the Spanish colonial period.
3. By the 1980s, 50 to 70 per cent of the Japanese American (American Nikkei) population outmarried (Nakashima, Citation1988, p. 207). On the other hand, among more than 1.2 million Brazilian Nikkei, 340,000 are mesticos (mestizos) (Lesser, 2002, p. 50).
4. I recognise the difference between nationality and citizenship in the contemporary world. In some Western countries, important rights of citizenship such as suffrage and social welfare services are already granted to foreign residents who retain their original nationality.
5. Identity politics have proliferated since the emergence of various social movements of the 1960s: Black power, students' political protests, women's liberation, gay and lesbian civil rights, and others (e.g. Zaretsky, Citation1995). In recent years, it has met with increasing criticism and resistance among politicians, academics, and ordinary people who consider that the preoccupation with identity and difference has gone too far and has outlived its original purpose and intent, becoming less a movement of resistance and more a self-perpetuating form of self-interest (Nagel, Citation1999, pp. 132–33). The criticism includes the fact that the claims of minority cultures and religions sometimes clash with the norm of gender equality that is formally endorsed by liberal states (Okin, Citation1999, pp. 9–10).
6. My most intensive interviews with Nisei and Sansei were conducted in the Davao area where the biggest Philippine Nikkeijin community is found and its association is well organised. I also interviewed Nikkeijin association leaders of Baguio City, Metro Manila and other major cities to gain a wider picture of Nikkeijin communities in the Philippines. In Japan, I interviewed over one dozen Nisei who have returned to Japan and reside in Osaka, Okinawa, Okayama and Hiroshima. My interviews were conducted in Japanese, English and Philippine languages such as Filipino and Visayan, sometimes with native speakers, and responded to in the preferred language of the interviewees.
7. According to the 1939 Philippine census survey, there were 17,888 Japanese residents in the province of Davao (Commission of the Census, Citation1941, p. 428).
8. According to the 1939 Philippine census survey, the total number of Filipino wives married to Japanese male citizens was 874, and that included 269 in the Davao area alone (ibid, p. 465). These census figures probably underestimate the actual numbers. The consulate annex office of Japan in Davao estimated that by 1936 around 200 Japanese males had enacted a common-law marriage with indigenous Filipino women (Gaimushô Gaikô-shiryôkan 1936. J.1.1.0.J/X1-U2).
9. Interview with a male Nisei of Japanese parents in Davao City on 29 August 2002.
10. The Manila Japanese Elementary School was opened in 1917. The other Japanese elementary schools were opened in Davao, Baguio, Iloilo (Panay Island), Cebu (Cebu Island) and Legaspi (Luzon Island) between 1924 and 1935 (Ohtani, Citation1940, pp. 458–81).
11. The koseki system was introduced to Japan from China around the sixth century. It exists in East Asian countries such as South Korea and Taiwan, but not in the West.
12. Some scholars such as Grant Goodman (Citation1967, p. 107) have argued that the reason for this practice is that Japanese husbands did not wish their Filipino official wives or common-law wives to lose their Philippine citizenship and thereby lose their rights to possess or purchase public land. Prewar Philippine citizenship laws stipulated that upon a Filipino woman's marriage to a foreigner, by virtue of the laws of her husband's country, she acquired his citizenship. On the other hand, Japan's old nationality law (1899–1950) states that a foreign wife gains Japanese nationality after she marries a Japanese male. Thus, a Filipina who legally married a Japanese male should acquire Japanese nationality.
13. The exact number of Japanese civilian war deaths in the wartime Philippines has not yet been officially determined. Dabao Kai, an association of Japanese repatriates from Davao, estimates that in Davao alone around 4,800 civilians died during the war, and moreover, around 3,700 civilians died in concentration camps (Dabao 1968, pp. 8–9).
14. Many full-blooded Japanese Nisei remaining in the Philippines are orphans who lost their Japanese parents in the Japanese civilian mass suicide that happened in the town of Ma'asin of Iloilo City on 21 March 1945. The details of this mass suicide are recorded by the former Japanese officer Kumai Toshimi (Citation1977, pp. 174–78) and the Okinawan researcher Arakaki Yasuko Citation(1983).
15. According to the Philippine government's survey, 1,111,938 human lives were lost during the Japanese occupation period (The Manila Times, 17 July Citation1951).
16. The Japanese Orphans Organisation of Iloilo City was organised by Nisei of Japanese-Filipino parents and both Japanese parents in 1973. A larger association, the Filipino-Japanese Friendship Association of Northern Luzon, was organised in Baguio City in 1974. The details of organisation of Philippine Nikkeijin associations are found in Ohno, Citation2005, pp. 221–29.
17. The details of the changes in Filipino perceptions of Japan and the Japanese are given in Ohno, Citation2005, pp. 209–13.
18. According to the statistics of the Office of Japanese Orphans in China of Japan's Ministry of Social Welfare and Labor, 2,800 Japanese war orphans called Chûgoku Zanryû Nihonjin-koji were left behind in China even after Japan's group repatriation programs were completed in 1958. Among the 2,800, 2,503 had already resettled in Japan by April Citation2006 (Kôsei-rôdô-shô Shakai Engo-kyoku, 2006, p. 1).
19. Interview with a Nisei of Japanese and Bogobo parentage in Davao City on 31 August 2002.
20. Interview with a male mestizo Nisei worker from Davao in Osaka on 20 March 2001.
21. A petition letter signed by Benedicto Onari, then president of FNJKP, and presidents of six regional Philippine Nikkeijin associations, and submitted to then Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryûtarô on 24 March 1997.
22. Interview with Carlos Teraoka in Manila in November 2002.
23. Interview with Suzuki Yasuhisa, Assistant Chief of the Consular and Migration Policy Division, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, by phone in July 2002.
24. The famous Japanese ethnologer Umesao Tadao (Citation1979, p. 24) asserted in a public speech: “Migration is a synonym for going abroad in order to become foreigners”, and “The Nikkeijin are foreigners”.
25. Interview with Yamazaki Kôichi, Chief of Public Information Section of the Immigration Bureau, the Ministry of Justice in Tokyo on 17 April 2003.
26. It is estimated that Chinese resident-visa holders (numbering 32,130 at the end of 2004) are mostly descendants of Japanese war orphans and women left behind in China after the end of World War II but who “returned” to Japan, and their accompanying family members. I categorise them as “Chinese Nikkei” although they are often called “Chûgoku Kikoku-sha” [people returned from China] in Japan (e.g. Araragi, Citation2000).
27. Interview with a male Sansei who temporarily returned from Japan to his residence in the province of Rizal near Manila on 15 December 2002.
28. According to a survey conducted by the Philippine Nikkei-jin Legal Support Center in Citation2005, among the 130 Nikkeijin respondents residing in Japan (mostly Sansei and Yonsei), 66 (50.8 per cent) faced difficulties in communicating in Japanese (Kawai, Citation2006, p. 84).
29. Interview with a Davao-born female Sansei naturalised in Japan in Davao City on 6 October 2005.
30. This trend is reflected in the results of the 2005 survey by the Tokyo-based NGO, Philippine Nikkei-jin Legal Support Center. It shows that among 130 Nikkeijin respondents residing in Japan, 104 (80 per cent) had resident visas whereas 16 (12.3 per cent) had permanent visas. Three respondents (2.3 per cent) had already acquired Japanese nationality (Kawai, Citation2006, pp. 61–62).