Intergenerational Exploitation of Filipino Women and Their Japanese Filipino Children: “Born out of place” Babies as New Cheap Labor in Japan

Introduction

In Japan strict immigration control policy officially bars so-called unskilled workers from working. Since the late 1970s, the entertainer visa became the main route for Philippine female migrant workers seeking employment in Japan. One of the consequences of traveling under the entertainer visa was the birth of Japanese Filipino children (JFC). These children were the products of a union between Filipino mothers, who came to Japan as entertainers, and Japanese fathers, whom their mothers met at their workplace. Many of these children are either not acknowledged by their Japanese fathers or, in some cases, categorized as “illegitimate” or “out-of-wedlock” children because their Japanese fathers and Filipino mothers are not legally married. These JFC were “born out of place” (Benhabib and Resnik, 2009)—an estimated 100,000 JFC live in the Philippines (Development Action for Women Network, 2003), often without contact with or support from their Japanese fathers. Issues of how to treat migrant workers when they become pregnant and later how to relate to their babies are increasingly relevant for the many regions of the world when temporary or “guest” workers are imported to fill local needs for a cheap, docile, and flexible workforce (see Constable, 2014).

This paper focuses on JFC who enter the labor market in Japan as migrants. ¹ What follows is an analysis of this unique position of the JFC and the status of their Filipino mothers in Japan’s labor market and an exploration of the transnational, intergenerational exploitation of migrants in Japanese society. This intergenerational articulation of implementation of the Immigration Control Policy by the Japanese government reflects the intersection of, on the one hand, a restrictive principle of not accepting so-called unskilled foreign labor and, on the other hand, a principle of jus sanguinis, the right of citizenship acquired by being born to a parent with Japanese citizenship. In 2005, the circumstances facing JFC changed drastically. First, conditions for acquiring an entertainer visa for entry into Japan were made more stringent due to the US government’s criticism that this visa system facilitated “human trafficking.” ² New restrictions on entertainer visas dramatically reduced entries of Filipina workers as entertainers and changed the conditions under which JFC would be treated (this is discussed more fully in the next section). Several years later in 2009, Japan revised the Nationality Act as a result of a court case initiated by JFC and their Filipino mothers living in Japan (Ogaya, 2008; Suzuki, 2010); they were appealing for the right to acquire Japanese citizenship. This resulted in an amended Nationality Act, which granted illegitimate JFC a route to acquire Japanese citizenship. This revision, in turn, led to new ways for JFC and their mothers living in the Philippines to pursue employment opportunities in Japan. Some JFC and Filipino mothers pursued this path and in the end encountered the ongoing exploitative working conditions these workers experienced in Japan.

Observing these changes while conducting research in both Japan and the Philippines provided me with the data leading to this analysis of the migration of Filipina entertainers to Japan and the status of their JFC, through the lens of intergenerational exploitation. This paper draws on my 20-year longitudinal fieldwork studying JFC, initially in the Philippines and later in Japan. I first encountered these children through a nongovernmental organization (NGO) in Manila, which has supported both the JFC and their former migrant mothers. At the start of my participatory observation, as a volunteer for that NGO, the children were very young and their Filipino mothers were trying to locate Japanese fathers who had cut off communication and abandoned these mothers and their children. Migrant mothers who worked as entertainers in Japan shared with me the sweet and bitter love stories of their relationships with their Japanese partners. What drew many of the Filipino mothers and their JFC to this NGO was a desire to restore communication with Japanese fathers in order to receive both financial and emotional support for their children; JFC were longing for missing Japanese fathers whom they seldom or never met. For the NGO, JFC issues were recognized as one of children’s rights and reflected gender and ethnic inequality between Japanese men and Filipino women.

In this article, the perspective of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989) grounds the reality of intergenerational exploitation of Filipino entertainers and their JFC in the context of Japanese society and policy. Using the concept of intersectionality helps explain the overlapped and interconnected nature of discrimination and social stratification. Studies on migrant women have historically shown how gender, class, and ethnicity had simultaneously constructed the nature of their work and the other social status migrants held in labor-receiving countries (Glen, 1986, 1992; Morocvasic, 1983, 1984, 2003). For example, Shinozaki (2015) emphasizes that an intersectional analysis is necessary for her study of irregular migrant domestic workers, whose work is structured not only by state policy but also by the complexities of gender and ethnic hierarchy in both German and Philippine societies. Suzuki (2010) mentioned the power struggles at the intersection of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and nationality in her study on JFC and their Filipino mothers. This article extends that analysis (a) to take into consideration the recent migration of JFC and their mothers to Japan due to the revision of Nationality Act in Japan, and (b) to explore the nature of continuous discrimination against and exclusion of Filipino mothers and JFC. One unique aspect of their experience is that these mothers, as migrant entertainers who came to Japan between the late 1970s and the mid-2000s, have established the legal and economic conditions first for their JFC raised in the Philippines and then for the JFC who came to Japan after acquiring Japanese citizenship. As a result, the JFC face similar but also more complex situations in terms of their socioeconomic status in Japan. This intergenerational exploitation of migrants differs from other forms of reproduction of cheap labor in other host countries. This “unintended” intergenerational circulation of cheap labor reproduction between the Philippines and Japan is the result of the complexities of the politics of citizenship and immigration control policy of Japan. Consequently, the analysis that follows is both a unique exploration of female migration in Japan and the basis for a broader understanding of migrant women giving birth in a host country whether or not their children can make any legal claims on that country.

The next section provides an overview of the extremely gendered pattern of migration resulting in the influx of Filipina entertainers to Japan starting in the 1970s. This is followed by an explanation of the existence of JFC as a consequence of that “feminized migration” to identify several issues facing JFC. The section “Amendment of Japan’s Nationality Law and Its Implication for JFC” deals with the amendment of the Nationality Act and its impact on JFC, and the section “JFC and Their Mothers: A New Source of Cheap Labor for Care Workers” provides an understanding of how the intergenerational exploitation of JFC and their Filipino mothers emerged.

Filipino Migrant Women: A Deceptive Migration System and Intersectional Discrimination

The Japanese government has maintained a strict immigration policy that bars the entry of unskilled workers, only welcoming professional and skilled workers “who contribute to the vitalization of the Japanese economy.” ³ As a result, the entertainer visa became one of the only routes for female migrant workers from Asian countries, predominantly from the Philippines, to enter Japan since the late 1970s. This entertainer visa system was used to recruit and import women to work in nightclubs and the sex industry. In the worst case, many women were forced into prostitution under the guise of “professional artists” permitted by both the Philippine and Japanese governments (Development Action for Women Network, 2003). The applicants for entertainer visas had to attend private training schools to be trained for dancing and singing over several months, schools which usually served as recruiters, in order to pass the national license exam of the Philippines and be certified as Overseas Performing Artists (OPAs; Parreñas, 2011). In truth, Filipina entertainers were far from “professional artists,” working in poor conditions, forced to stay in dormitories owned or controlled by the club, and kept under strict control by having their passports confiscated. Some were assigned to a club that was different than the one indicated in their contract (a system called Tobashi or “flying booking”) allowing the promoter and manager to make a profit from their services. Often the women were forced to have afternoon dates with their customers before the club opened (the dohan system) and customers would pay more to date young Filipinas. By only giving women their salary at the end of their 6 months contract, these Filipina entertainers often depended on tips from their regular customers to earn money for remittances sent back to their families in the Philippines (Development Action for Women Network, 2003). These restrictive and exploitative labor conditions often led to affairs between Filipina entertainers and their Japanese male customers.

By 2005 more than 80,000 such entertainers arrived in Japan annually. Ironically, those with entertainer visas comprised the largest segment among those who entered with a professional and skilled worker visa, and 80% of entertainer visa holders were Filipinas. Nevertheless, this category of entertainer was always excluded from the official data reporting on foreign professional and skilled workers entering Japan. It meant that migrant entertainers were not formally recognized as “workers” by the state, even though they had a legal status to work in Japan.

Tahang-Dum Truong (1996) classified the “sex-affective service” as one of the components of reproductive labor. Migrant hostesses or entertainers have contributed to the social reproduction of Japanese society by offering a kind of emotional service for male customers, often providing sex, labeled as “flirtation” (Parreñas, 2011) working at night clubs. The social contribution of these women was never properly acknowledged, and the entertainer visa system had developed a complex intermediary exploitation under the guise of “professional” appearance. Further limiting income, a training fee and recruitment fee was deducted from the women’s alary in Japan; ultimately these entertainers were debt-bonded labor from the beginning. In 2004 this led the US government to classify this entertainer visa system as human trafficking and to list Japan as a Tier 2 watch list country (necessitating strict monitoring) in the human trafficking report ⁴ . Immediately after the release of the US report, the Japanese government took action to restrict the entertainer visa system, resulting in a dramatic decrease in the number of women coming via this visa after 2006 (Takahata, 2015).

In response to the new restriction on entertainer visas, objections were raised by different stakeholders. In addition to the recruiters and promoters in both the Philippines and Japan, many women demonstrated in front of the Japanese Embassy in the Philippines claiming that this new rule would deprive them of opportunities to work in Japan (Ogaya, 2008). Some legislators in the Philippines and Japan were also against this new rule, and one Japanese politician from the Liberal Democratic Party even mentioned that the “Philippine show at the Philippine Pub (a night club) is Japanese popular culture” (Asashi Shimbun, 2004, December 14). It revealed the strong political support of this entertainer visa system reflecting both the gendered demand for service–care–sex work and the principle of excluding unskilled migrant workers in Japan.

Ito (1992) pointed out that Filipino entertainers in Japan were only treated as “culture and entertainment” issues, not as migrant labor issues, even though these women were among the first “foreign workers” to enter the Japanese labor market since the 1970s. In fact, the entertainer visa program was rarely included in the policy discussion regarding foreign workers, and the status of entertainers as workers always remained unclear. Parreñas (2011) stressed that the Filipino hostesses in Japan are basically treated as “victims of trafficking” and not as “migrant women.” In other words, these Filipino women were never included in the debate over whether or not to accept the migrant workers due to the nature of their sex-related reproductive work as hostesses. This social and political exclusion demonstrates the intersectional nature of Japanese discrimination based on gender and class. Kikuchi (2014) pointed out that Filipina entertainers were in demand by Japanese society’s sexism and racism that found young Filipino women as exploitable “youth,” “beauty,” and “foreign labor” (Kikuchi, 2014: 224). This intersectional discrimination put Filipina entertainers in a unique position in Japanese society; they were simultaneously being demanded and excluded. This contradictory position informs about the children of these women who got pregnant through their interaction with Japanese men and ended up having children born out of wedlock. These so-called out of place babies were officially ignored by both the Japanese and the Philippine state and society. In truth they too were the consequence of these migration and labor policies in Japan.

Who Are the JFC, “Out of Place” Babies of Migrant Entertainers?

JFC are the children of Filipino women and Japanese men. The backgrounds of these JFC vary, but the majority follow a pattern where the Filipino mothers came to Japan as entertainers who met the Japanese fathers at the workplace, often at a nightclub. Those Japanese men became regular customers for young Filipino entertainers who depended on tips and extra income for remittance because of exploitative working conditions, underpayment, and constant harassment (Development Action for Women Network, 2003). Under such conditions, the Japanese male customers were the only people that Filipino female entertainers could routinely encounter. Deprived of contact and communication with others, especially Japanese women, the relationships formed between Japanese male customers and Filipina entertainers was the direct socioeconomic result of Japanese migration policies. Many women got pregnant and returned to the Philippines to give birth and raise their children in their home country. While some of the couples were legally married in either the Philippines or Japan (and in some cases in both countries), many Japanese men abandoned the Filipino women and their babies, turning these entertainers into single mothers raising the JFC.

It is difficult to capture the full extent of the number of JFC in the Philippines; estimates are that there are tens of thousands of JFC living in the Philippines (Development Action for Women Network, 2003). Based on my work at a Philippine NGO supporting these JFC, in 2019 their ages ranged from as young as elementary school children to adults in their mid-30s. However, most JFC were born between the late 1980s and the early 2000s under the entertainer visas issued by the Japanese government.

Although the difficulties these JFC encountered are varied and complex, they center around the financial problems facing Filipino mothers without support from Japanese fathers, the legal instability of children without paternal recognition, the discrimination they experienced in the Philippines and Japan, and the psychological impact of being raised without fathers. In brief, these children were deprived of a range of rights and opportunities because they were born with uncertain status between two countries.

Since most of them were not legally acknowledged by their Japanese fathers, JFC could not seek help or support from the Japanese government. Even when the mother and child approached the Japanese embassy in Manila, their requests for help were often rejected on the grounds that their situation was a “private matter.” The Philippine government has neither any basis to support these JFC claims nor the ability to intervene on their behalf. As Kikuchi (2014) and Constable (2014) pointed out, “pregnancy of migrant worker” is not a desirable outcome for both the labor-receiving and labor-sending states. Consequently, migrant women-turned-mothers faced multiple difficulties.

Abandonment by Japanese fathers of “out-of-wedlock” JFC is a form of discrimination based on their Filipino mothers’ position in Japanese society as migrant women workers from “less-developed” countries. The failure to recognize the JFC by the Japanese state represented discrimination due to their lack of legitimate legal status. In short, JFC’s difficulties were based on the intersection of their ethnicity and citizenship status.

Constable (2014) pointed out that the case of migrant babies has been largely ignored in migration studies. Although reports and advocacy research has been conducted by Japanese and Filipino NGOs in support of JFC and by concerned academics (Jo and Kanameeds, 1999; Kokusai Kodomo Kenri Center, 1998; Matsui, 1998), most of the research concentrated on the rights of children. In those studies, the focus on JFC was on (a) rights of the illegitimate child from the mixed couple to attain Japanese nationality, and (b) the lack of paternal support both financially and emotionally (Kokusai Kodomo Kenri Center, 1998).

However, this “rights-based” approach has created a certain stereotypical image of JFC as “miserable children who were abandoned by Japanese fathers.” Since the latter part of the 1990s, rights-based advocacy ironically has resulted in an emotional reaction from the public in both the Philippines and Japan. At the same time, a sociopolitical concern was not addressed until the passage of new laws in Japan allowing the introduction of JFC as workers into the Japanese labor market. Until then, the JFC situation had been regarded as a “private matter” and/or as “victims of paternal abandonment” and not as the structural issues emanating from the Japanese state system of immigration control policies and the gendered labor market created by the demand for a huge population of “foreign” “female” entertainers.

Amendment of Japan’s Nationality Law and Its Implication for JFC

JFC, whether born and living in the Philippines or Japan, had been excluded and detached from Japanese society. The biggest concerns of the JFC were whether or not they have Japanese citizenship. For these illegitimate JFC, the only way to attain Japanese citizenship was for their Japanese fathers to legally acknowledge them prior to birth. Even if a Japanese father acknowledges his illegitimate daughter or son after birth, the child would not be eligible for a Japanese passport; acknowledgment prior to the child’s birth doesn’t automatically confer Japanese citizenship on the child if the mother is a foreigner. ⁵ This requirement of “fetal acknowledgement” (Taiji-Ninchi) is technically unfamiliar to the public. Other than through fetal acknowledgement procedures by Japanese fathers or the legal marriage of parents prior to birth, it is near impossible for illegitimate JFC to obtain Japanese citizenship.

An important decision shifted the legal moorings for claiming citizenship in Japan. In April 2005, the Tokyo District Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to deny citizenship to JFC who were acknowledged by their Japanese fathers after birth. This court decision also raised the question of the requirement of marriage as inscribed in Article 3 of the Nationality Act for the child to obtain citizenship (Ito, 2005). After this court decision, nine pairs of out-of-wedlock JFC who were acknowledged by their Japanese fathers and their Filipino mothers appealed to the court to recognize their Japanese citizenship. In March 2006, these children and mothers, strongly supported by NGO networks, won their case. ⁶ The government appealed to a higher court and the initial decision was overturned in February 2007. But in June 2008, 12 out of 15 members of the Japanese Supreme Court affirmed the initial ruling that the requirement of marriage inscribed in Article 3 of the Nationality Act was indeed unconstitutional. Further, 9 of those 12 judges attributed social changes in both domestic and international social environments, such as family lives and parent–children relationships after the revision of the Nationality Law in 1984, as their reason for making that judgment (Suzuki, 2010).

Consequently, the Japanese Nationality Act was amended in December 2008 (effective on 1 January 2009) and this marriage requirement was removed. ⁷ Despite criticism from right-wing movements, illegitimate JFC could now acquire Japanese nationality under certain conditions (e.g. if they are less than 20 years old when their Japanese father acknowledges them). As of 2014, a total of 5,695 JFC applied for Japanese citizenship, of whom 3,548 (62.3%) were former Filipino citizens (Takahata, 2016).

What was the implication of this new citizenship law for JFC? On one hand, JFC and their parents formally objected to the Japanese concept of “family = nation,” which only legitimatized the family when parents were legally married. As a consequence of this concept, only the members from such heteronormative “standard” families could be considered Japanese nationals. After a period of long-term marginalization, migrant women and their children could represent themselves as members of Japanese society (Ogaya, 2012). According to Kikuchi (2014), Japanese citizenship provides Japanese JFC not only an identity but also a legal right to stay permanently in Japan (p. 205).

On the other hand, for JFC living in the Philippines, this new development meant that they also could acquire Japanese citizenship once they were acknowledged by their Japanese fathers. For many of them, Japan would now become a possible place to work in the near future. As Seiger (2017) described, acquiring a Japanese passport does not mean that citizenship claims have the sole purpose of enabling upward social mobility, “the affective dimensions of identity claims articulate with economic concerns” (Seiger, 2017: 223). In fact, the private business sector is quite interested in recruiting these JFC as a new source of labor in Japan and have started to recruit both JFC and their mothers ⁸ for work in the elderly care sector. That sector in Japan offers hard work at low pay. In effect, this has launched another exploitative migration pattern between the Philippines and Japan.

JFC and Their Mothers: A New Source of Cheap Labor for Care Workers

Japan is an aging society, with 28% of the total population above 65 years of age. At the same time, Japan is experiencing a declining birth rate. The result is that the Japanese society has a chronically declining labor force and significant shortages in the human resources needed to care for their aging population. Japan introduced a long-term care insurance system in 2000 to cover the cost of care services for the elderly who received insurance or aid from the national, prefectural, and municipal governments. Originally, the introduction of this insurance was directed at “socializing” care for the elderly at the community level, relieving family members, mainly women, of carrying the care burden. The beneficiaries of this long-term insurance can now freely choose who will provide the service, and so the private sector has become more active in providing the elderly care at the same time that “privatization” of the elderly care emerged. Services are provided by private profit-oriented entities, by nonprofit organizations (NPOs), and by elderly care cooperatives. With increased private sector involvement, there is a push to reduce labor costs, caregivers are paid less, and it becomes harder to maintain their livelihood. The Japanese business sectors and government agencies began to think about how to bring “foreign workers” into Japan to staff the institutionalized elderly care sector in Japan.

As early as 2000, through changes in immigration policy, the Japanese government revealed its interest in bringing caregivers and nurses into the country, specifically directed toward elder care. The Basic Plan for Immigration Control (2nd edition, 2000) clearly states:

Furthermore, since labor shortage is feared to happen due to future population decrease with a medium to a long-term perspective, some opined that acceptance of foreign workers should be studied now in the fields, including nursing of elderly people, which needs shall grow in an aging society.

In addition, the association of elderly care institutions is also seriously considering the acceptance of migrant caregivers. Private caregiver schools and labor-dispatching companies have actively targeted Filipino women already residing in Japan as spouses of Japanese men or other long-term residents since the start of the Japan Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA). Home Helper grade 2, in the existing Japanese standard, courses were offered only for Filipina (with language assistance). ⁹

In addition to economic policy–based developments and initiatives, another way to bring caregivers from the Philippines was through the “citizenship-based” route made possible by the 2008 revision of the Nationality Act. Companies actively recruited JFC and their Filipino mothers for care work. It is an ironic consequence that the legal challenge of efforts to secure the rights of children to acquire Japanese citizenship (mainly illegitimate JFC living in Japan) led to an exploitative labor niche for JFC living in the Philippines as quasi-migrants. These “new migrants,” formerly “illegitimate” Japanese Filipino raised in the Philippines, now have the potential to acquire Japanese citizenship. Their Filipino mothers, who once worked in Japan as “entertainers” providing social reproductive services, were already targeted as a potential caregiver workforce in Japan. These Filipino women who formerly worked as entertainers in the 1980s or 1990s could now return to Japan as caregivers and the mothers of “Japanese nationals” performing a different social reproductive role. Their children might be legally Japanese but ethnically Filipino. Since they no longer came to Japan as migrant workers but now as long-term residents or even as Japanese nationals, their status as potential workers created a new exploitative situation for them.

There are several reasons why these newly Japanese JFC and their Filipino mothers were attractive for private care sectors. First, it was legally easier to employ these JFC and their Filipino mothers when compared to the problems of hiring “foreign workers” under the terms of the JPEPA. To employ a JPEPA candidate as a caregiver, care homes have to cover almost all the expenses for training, for studying for the National License Exam in Japan (required under the JPEPA scheme), and for their living expenses. Usually large and financially secure care institutions can consider hiring JPEPA candidates because such institutions have a long-term perspective with regard to training and hiring migrant caregivers. At the same time, the JPEPA scheme is under strict control and is monitored by the governments of both the Philippines and Japan. As a result, it is difficult to apply usually exploitative employment practices. In comparison, hiring JFC as “Japanese nationals” and their “long-term resident” Filipino mothers allows the host institutions to avoid state control by either the Philippines or Japan; these Filipinos leave the Philippines not as migrant workers but as “Japanese nationals” or as the “guardian of Japanese nationals.” Since a long-term resident visa is not tied to any specific occupation, the Immigration Control Office cannot intervene with regard to any employment practices implemented in these care institutions.

Second, JFCs and their Filipino mothers tend to accept longer working hours and night shifts in care institutions. When I visited the apartments of some of these JFC and their mothers in the western part of Japan, most worked from the evening to morning. Night shifts at elderly care institutions represent the hardest and heaviest work, with the greatest responsibility for the lives of the elderly. Since working the night shifts pays more than day shifts do, Filipino mothers who came to Japan to escape financial hardship as single mothers in the Philippines usually accept these job offers. By contrast, local Japanese workers tend to be reluctant to take on night shifts and in general the care sectors are routinely short of labor willing to work during that critical time period. Thus, Filipino mother and their JFC willing to work these night shifts are ideal workers for care institutions.

These JFC and Filipino mothers offer benefits for employers: The mothers’ previous working experience in Japan and JFC’s expectation about living in Japan produce an eager labor force used to difficult working conditions. Filipino mothers who worked as entertainers in Japan had already experienced gender and ethnic discrimination and exploitation. Owners or managers of private care institutions in Japan are mostly men and so the image of “Filipina entertainers” remains and these women are viewed as targets of control and exploitation. One owner of a private care institution employing these Filipino mothers publicly stated that Filipino women who used to be entertainers should be strictly under management control since they were former “hostesses” who deceived their customers. ¹⁰ When compared to the JPEPA case studied by Lan (2018), different forms of labor control are utilized for former entertainers who came back to Japan. Takahata (2019) analyzed cases of former entertainers who got married to Japanese men, settled in Japan for a long time, and now work in the care sector. For them, images of “Filipina hostesses” were replaced by the images of “great contributors for Japanese care sector” due to their caring attitude for elderly and their fluent Japanese language skills. Nevertheless, newly arrived “former entertainers” still suffer from strong biases.

JFC who are now Japanese nationals have a special feeling toward living in Japan when compared to their experience of being abandoned by and separated from their Japanese fathers. Hara (2013) explored JFC who had grown up in the Philippines and found they tend to romanticize Japan. In that way they survived their identity crises as well as the economic hardships experienced growing up in the Philippines. Recruiters targeting such JFC take advantage of this feeling and use the discourse of “helping out” to entice them to work in the care sector. According to interviews I conducted in 2012 at an agency that had recruited and dispatched these mothers and children from the Philippines to Japan, there was a continuous demand from Japan for caregivers in elderly institutions and the agency was then always looking for new pairs of mothers and JFC, even going to remote areas of the Philippines. Considering the socioeconomic gap between rural and urban areas in the Philippines, such mothers and children recruited from remote areas would be much more vulnerable to exploitation both in the Philippines and Japan.

In 2014 the case of an exploitative provider of nursing care services was publicized. This private care institution required Filipino job applicants, mothers of JFC, to sign a statement absolving “the company of any responsibility should they die in Japan.” The statement, written in both Japanese and English, states,

. . . in case of loss of life of the undersigned through natural circumstances while in Japan, I release, waive and forever discharge Juju Corp., its officers, directors, representatives or employees from any action for sums of money or other obligations arising. (Japan Times, 2014 June 13) ¹¹

The long-term effect of Japanese restrictive immigration policy, which had been rejecting “unskilled” migrant workers entering under the guise of other “professional” visa statuses such as “entertainers,” created another exploitative and intergenerational labor market. Figure 1 illustrates the three pathways into the Japanese labor market for JFC and their Filipina mothers. Current recruitment and exploitation of JFC who acquired Japanese citizenship by the Revised Nationality Act of 2008 shows us that this “right to citizenship” or acquisition of Japanese citizenship does not always mean JFCs can enjoy the full status of being a Japanese citizen. The logic of labor exploitation combined with social discrimination is more dominant than any discourse of “national” identity.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Recruitment and outcomes for JFC and their Filipina mothers.

After the nationality law was amended, JFC had an easier path of entry into Japan, which made them officially (and statistically) invisible. While JFC migration to Japan had a large impact on their identities (Hara, 2015; Seiger, 2017), in the Japanese labor market their legal Japaneseness is just a convenient tool. In contrast, their social or ethnic Filipinoness makes them flexible and useful “foreign” workers in the Japanese labor market, similar to the demand for their Filipino mothers in the 1980s and 1990s. Their ambiguous social status allows them to be treated as “foreigners” when it suits the state and capital (e.g. used as a cheap and flexible source of labor), while still being thought of as "Japanese" enough to avoid the complex procedures and monitoring requirements for employing foreign workers. These JFC are now exploited based on the intersection of their “legal Japaneseness” and “social foreignness.”

Conclusion

Reviewing the experiences of migration between Japan and Philippines and the resulting family relationships, the legal system of the immigration control policy and Revised Nationality Act in Japan always took advantage of the desires of Filipino young women and Japanese Filipino children and youth seeking better opportunities. The legal challenges made by JFC and their mothers for the amendment of Japan’s Nationality Act meant that a restrictive immigration control policy reflexively undermined its perceived ground of national identity and dislodged the strong “nation-(authorized) family” link in Japan. However, this had an impact for JFC and their mothers in the Philippines. The intersection of legal “Japaneseness” and social “foreignness“ of Japanese Filipinos who acquired Japanese citizenship under the new act have made them more attractive to Japanese industries as a new source of cheap labor.

Of course, for JFC suffering in poverty due to the lack of opportunities after their abandonment by Japanese fathers, it turned into a strategy to make use of the legal recognition of Japanese fathers in order to access opportunities for work in Japan, even under harsh conditions. Seiger (2017) describes their Japanese “blood” as a form of capital for JFC.

The Japanese government has emphasized the importance of “Japaneseness” in the immigration control policy as a basis for not accepting “foreigners” into the society. Thus, more visa categories were created based on one’s “social status” such as “long-term resident” allowing Japanese descendants and the guardians of minor Japanese nationals to enter and stay in Japan without any occupational restriction. However, the recruitment of JFC as “unskilled workers” under exploitative conditions demonstrates that “being a Japanese citizen” does not convey full rights in Japanese society. If this legal condition of Japaneseness has little meaning and only hides their “social foreignness,” what is the meaning of citizenship?

Considering the jus sanguinis principle in the Japanese Nationality Act, the biological and family background is considered to be the ground of “ethnic” Japaneseness, which is then linked to the “legal” Japaneseness as a Japanese national. However, the case of JFC, regardless of their biological roots, demonstrates that their “legal” Japaneseness is never counted as “ethnic” Japaneseness. Ironically it reflects that in Japanese society, ethnicity is socially constructed, which is contrary to public discourse as well as to the principle of the Nationality Act in Japan; there a “biological” connection is the principle of their ethnicity and nationality. This analysis exposes the discriminative nature of the Japanese state and society, which have maintained a deceptive immigration control policy promoting an exploitative labor market across generations.