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- Adelaida Kakazu remained in Philippines after her father was repatriated to Okinawa, Japan, by US forces following World War II
By Saadet Gokce
ISTANBUL (AA) - A 90-year-old Japanese-Filipino woman received a Japanese passport at the Japanese Embassy in Manila on Friday, decades after being separated from her Okinawa-born father in 1946, allowing her to visit Japan and her father’s grave.
Adelaida Kakazu remained in the Philippines after the separation following World War II, Kyodo News reported.
Her father, Noboru, had moved to the Philippines to trade coconut oil before the war and served as an interpreter for the Imperial Japanese Army.
He was later captured by US forces and repatriated to Okinawa, leaving his family behind.
Noboru wrote in a letter that he wished to bring them over but died in 1951.
Kakazu said she hopes to visit her father’s grave and “tell him everything that happened” since they were separated in 1946, when she was 10.
She appealed at a news conference in September for help finding relatives believed to be in Okinawa. They were located later that month.
Consul General Maya Hamada said Japan would continue striving to fulfill the “earnest wishes” of Kakazu and other people of Japanese descent left behind in the Philippines after World War II.
Saadet Gökce
