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Japanese Filipino

The Japanese Filipinos are ethnic Japanese born in the Philippines. The term can also be used to refer to mixed Filipino-Japanese currently residing in Japan. The first group includes descendants of the Japanese traders/merchants who settled there in pre-Spanish territorial period and the second group includes descendants of Japanese Catholics who fled from the religious persecution imposed by the shoguns and settled during colonial period.

Many of them also intermarried with the local Filipina women (including those of pure or mixed Spanish descent), thus forming the new Japanese-Mestizo community. A sizeable population settled in Manila, Davao, The Visayas and in the 1600s in Dilao, Paco and some in Ilocos Norte Province. This hybrid group tend to be re-assimilated either into the Filipino or the Japanese, and thus no accurate denominations could be established, though their estimates range from 100,000 to 200,000. Many have been killed or expelled after World War II. Many Japanese Mestizos tend to deny their Japanese heritage in order to avoid discrimination.

The recent Japanese Filipinos are descendants of 1980's and 1990's Japanese settlers, most of whom are men, businesspeoples, and even married locals (mostly females). Many are children of thousands of Japayukis who went to Japan mostly as entertainers, helpers, and maids. As the Japayuki Filipina mothers return to the Philippines, most take their children.


Contents

History

Old days

The ethnic Japanese born in the Philippines are mostly descendants of Japanese traders/merchants who settled there in pre-Spanish territorial period since the 12th century making up the first wave of immigrants. Notable settlements were found in the Lingayen Gulf, Manila, the coasts of Ilocos Norte and in the Visayas. The second group includes descendants of Japanese Catholics who fled from the religious persecution imposed by the shoguns and settled during the Spanish colonial period in the 1600s. Many of them also intermarried with the local Filipina women (including those of pure or mixed Spanish descent), thus forming the new Japanese-Mestizo community.

During the American colonial era, the number of Japanese laborers working in plantaions rose so high that in the 1900's, Davao soon became dubbed as a Ko Nippon Koku (Little Japan in Japanese) with a Japanese school, a Shinto temple and a diplomatic mission from Japan. There is even a popular restaurant called "The Japanese Tunnel", which includes an actual tunnel made by the Japanese in time of the war.

Because of discrimination encountered, some fled to the mountains after World War II while many others changed their names in the attempts to assimilate. Many were also killed (c. 10,000 Japanese Mestizos and Japanese) while other were deported following World War II as an act of retaliation. Their sense of Japaneseness may take on extremes, some have completely lost their Japanese identity while others have "returned" to Japan, the homeland of their forebears. There is also a number of contemporary Japanese-mestizos, not associated with the history of the earlier established ones, born either in the Philippines or Japan. There are believed to be between 100,000 and 200,000 Japanese-mestizos in the country, but no accurate figure is currently available.

List of Japanese Filipinos

Unmixed Japanese-Filipinos

Japanese Mestizo

Notable Japanese Descendants

Categories


Japanese diaspora | Ethnic groups in the Philippines

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