Manila, Sept. 21 (Jiji Press)–A 90-year-old second-generation Japanese woman born in the Philippines who was separated from her father after World War II is planning to visit his native Okinawa Prefecture in southernmost Japan for the first time by the end of this year. Adelaida Kakazu is searching with the help of a support group for relatives in Japan, hoping to meet them during the trip. But the search has proved difficult, prompting her and the Philippine Nikkei-jin Legal Support Center to appeal for information. She said she wants to thank those who looked after her father and were with him at the end of his life. She was born to Noboru Kakazu, a native of Okinawa, and a Filipino mother. Her father was repatriated to Japan with his eldest son, Shoichi, following the end of World War II in 1945 and died in 1951. Shoichi returned to the Philippines in the 1970s, but contact with relatives in Okinawa had been lost by the time he died in 1992. In June last year, a grandchild of Adelaida contacted a group supporting people of Japanese descent left behind in the Philippines after the war. The grandchild had seen a television program about such people. Records including those of her parents’ marriage were subsequently found, and a Japanese court approved the restoration of Adelaida’s Japanese nationality in March this year. She then decided to visit Okinawa to meet relatives and pay respects at her father’s grave. The search has so far found that her father’s registered domicile was in the city of Itoman in Okinawa and that he had an elder brother named Naoshi, Adelaida’s uncle. It has also been learned that Naoshi had at least two children, but the search has yet to locate any relatives. Adelaida is appealing for help in reuniting her long-separated family. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
