Panels and speakers > Speakers list > Seiger Fiona-Katharina

Migration from the Philippines to Japan has been dominated by women and children. Since the early 1980s, numerous women entered Japan as so called talents or as brides of rural bachelors. Numerous Filipina-Japanese relationships led to matrimony. Sometimes these families were joined by children born from the wives' previous relationships. Since an amendment of Japan's nationality law in force since 2009, another group of children from the Philippines with Japanese parentage have been arriving in Japan with their mothers.

 Thus far, migrant youth from the Philippines in Japan have been observed with regards to their adjustment to the school system and their career development, their relationships with their mothers and step-fathers, their ethnic identity constructions, as well as their roles in the care-industry (Cf. Hara 2013; Suzuki 2015; Takahata &Hara 2014, 2015; Takahata 2011; Uchio 2015). However, these studies focused on young adults in their early 20s. Also, most studies looked at migrant youth who came to Japan to join their mothers and step-families.

In the case presented, however, Filipino children of Japanese parentage are their mothers' migration enablers and therefore need to participate in the move, notwithstanding their reservations. In this paper, I discuss the migrant experiences and mother-child relationships of children and young teenagers (aged nine to 15 y.), giving special attention to their points of view. In doing so, I aim to study my young respondents not merely as passive subjects, but “as involved in the construction of their own social lives, the lives of those around them and of the societies in which they live” (James & Prout 1990, p.4).