Two octogenarians from the Philippines, who claim to have been born to Japanese fathers in the Southeast Asian country, arrived in Okinawa Prefecture on Thursday for a planned reunion with relatives,
The Philippine government has waived fines imposed on war-displaced descendants of Japanese migrants, in a move settling a humanitarian issue that rendered the people stateless for decades and left them considered illegal residents in the Southeast Asian nation.
This year marks a century since the Great Kanto Earthquake and 115 years since the first migration of Japanese people to Brazil, but it was the disaster and subsequent mayhem in and around the Tokyo area that became the main catalyst for the growth of the diaspora in the South American nation.
Seventy-seven years on, war-displaced Filipino-Japanese descendants on an island province in the western Philippines continue to struggle to openly claim their roots.