A man of Japanese descent, part of the so-called Nikkeijin community in the Philippines, met a Japanese relative for the first time on Wednesday during a visit to Japan, decades after being separated from his father in the aftermath of World War II.
Jose Takei, 82, arrived in Japan on a government-funded trip, part of Tokyo’s broader effort to help people of Japanese descent abroad obtain citizenship 80 years after the end of the war.
After arriving at Kansai International Airport in Osaka Prefecture, western Japan, Takei told reporters it felt like a dream come true to be in Japan and said he hopes to visit his father’s grave. He will stay until Sunday.
Takei’s meeting with his relative came after he filed a request with the Tokyo Family Court earlier in the week to obtain Japanese nationality. He had met Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in April, when the Japanese leader visited Manila and pledged to support descendants left behind in the Philippines.
Nikkeijin refers to people of Japanese descent living outside their ancestral homeland. Many were unable to obtain either Japanese or Philippine citizenship because their birth records were lost during World War II.
As of March, around 2,160 people of Japanese descent in the Philippines, including Takei, had no Japanese citizenship, according to the Philippine Nikkei-Jin Legal Support Center, which helped trace his relatives. The center classifies those born to a Japanese national as “second-generation.”
The center said that among the roughly 2,160 Nikkeijin without Japanese citizenship, about 130 are still alive, and around 50 have expressed interest in obtaining Japanese nationality. The average age of the surviving second generation is 83.
Takei said at a press conference on Tuesday that he is “not getting any younger” and expressed hope to “speed up the process and the approval of my being a Japanese citizen.”
He added that coming to Japan is a “chance for me to make myself whole again.”
Takei was born to a Japanese man, a railway engineer who lived on Luzon, the Philippines’ main island, and a Filipino woman. His father disappeared while his mother was still pregnant and eventually returned to Japan after the war.
