Struggles of Orphans’ Spouses and Offspring

Abstract

As the repatriated orphans struggled to settle in their homeland, their spouses and children who accompanied them had their own share of tribulations. While the orphans had legitimate reasons and desires for repatriation, their spouses and children had little incentive or motivation to settle in Japan, except for their family ties and the attraction of Japan as an economic power. For the orphans’ spouses and children, Japan was truly a foreign country where they had no kin or friends. Confronted with the harsh realities of the Japanese society, still prejudiced against other Asians, the orphans’ spouses and offspring struggled to assimilate into Japanese society in vain. They endured discrimination from their peers at school and at work, as well as from the Japanese society at large. In a society where even the Japanese orphans were despised as Chinese, many of the Chinese spouses and children succumbed to the prevailing social intolerance. Their sense of alienation and rejection was deep to the extent that it had serious social implications and took a toll on some of them.¹