Originally, my mother came to Japan to work. She sent money to my grandparents in the Philippines to help them lives. After my mother gave birth to me in the Philippines, she continued to work in Japan and I was raised by my grandparents in the Philippines. My mother worked very hard in the hope that she would be able to bring me to live with her in Japan someday.

When I was 9 years old, my mother got married to a Japanese man, and I left the Philippines to live with my parents in Japan.

I really didn’t want to go to Japan. On the day of my departure, I even ran a fever at the airport!
I enjoyed my time in the Philippines and was very anxious to leave my grandmother and friends. To be honest, I didn’t feel lonely without my parents. Since I had been raised by my grandmother, I didn’t know how to treat my mother, as I had no relationship with her whatsoever. At first living in Japan with my mother and father doesn’t make sense to me. I had no choice but to do as my mother told me, even though I felt resistant.

From the lively and bright Philippines, I felt like I was in a quiet space where I could not hear anything, as I did not understand Japanese when I came to Japan. It was my first time living with my mother and father. At first, I felt uncomfortable and homesick even when I was at home.

When I started going to elementary school in Japan, the “language barrier” was still a big problem.
I didn’t understand any Japanese at that time, so I didn’t know what they were saying to me. But from the looks of the people around me, I felt that I was being bullied.

When I first came here, I was teased with the name “Devil” because the name “Angel” was unusual for Japanese people. In the Philippines, it is normal to call each other by nicknames, so I was shocked to be bullied because of my name. I wondered what the problem was with my name, and it made me sad to hear people say bad things about me.

I was also surprised by the “eating raw food” thing. In the Philippines, we don’t usually eat fish raw. When sushi was served in Japan for the first time, I ate squid, but the texture was disgusting and I was so traumatized that I still can’t eat sushi or sashimi.

In the Philippines, I liked studying and interacting with people, but I felt like I was being denied, and I lost motivation to do anything. But I couldn’t talk to anyone about it.

I felt that I had been forcibly brought to Japan by my mother, and I felt reserved. I had friends from elementary school who took care of me, but I couldn’t open up to them because I knew that they were doing it because they were asked to and that they were taking care of me.

For the first month or two month, my mother came to school with me as an interpreter, but I think the most important thing was that I started going to a Japanese class twice a week, which was different from the elementary school I attended. I attended a Japanese language class from 4th grade to 6th grade. There I studied Japanese with other foreign students who had similar backgrounds to mine. I also made Filipino friends and had a lot of fun there.

At first, I learned hiragana in Japanese class by using a karuta card with pictures on it. At first, my mother came with me to the Japanese class and translated for me when I could not understand Japanese. We wrote a diary and exchanged it with the teacher, who corrected our grammar and other mistakes with a red pen. As I learned Japanese little by little, there was also a class where I had to write an essay and present it in front of everyone.

Yes. In elementary school, I was quiet and didn’t say a word, but in Japanese class, I was able to do so without hesitation. I think it was because there was an atmosphere where mistakes were accepted. I learned Japanese little by little in the Japanese language class, and thanks to that, I was able to understand what they were saying little by little in elementary school.

I learned the language by watching Japanese anime, music program in TV, and other TV programs and manga. At home, I conversed with my mother in Tagalog. With my father, I spoke in Japanese. I gradually became accustomed to living with my mother and father and began to open up to them.

Yes. I stumbled in math. I was scared of my math teacher and lost interest in my studies. I missed more and more days of school.

I told my mother that I wanted to go back to the Philippines. My mother let me go to the Philippines two or three times a year. I spent several months in the Philippines and went back and forth between Japan and the Philippines. I felt refreshed by being allowed to go to the Philippines.

I made friends in junior high school, but the atmosphere in the class was bad, and I hated seeing my classmate being bullied. I was also worried about what I would do if I were bullied. The number of days I didn’t go to school increased, and in the second year of junior high school, I quit school and went back to the Philippines.

I was in the Philippines for about two years after I dropped out of school. I thought about living in the Philippines, so I took the entrance exam to a Philippines junior high school as a test and was lucky enough to be pass the exam. However, all the classes at the school in the Philippines were in English, and when I tried to take the classes, I could not understand the content of the class. I realized that the hurdle of learning subjects in English is quite high for me, and that now I can’t understand them unless they are in Japanese. That was the first reason why I thought it would be better to live in Japan.

Secondly, my grandmother passed away. My grandmother told me to take care of my mother, and I knew that I had to work in Japan to support her. I’ve been going back and forth between Japan and the Philippines, sometimes going to school and sometimes not. I realized that I can’t keep being selfish forever. When I saw my cousins in the Philippines working hard, I knew that I had to do the same. So I decided to return to Japan and live in Japan.

I started going to a Evening classes junior high school that my mother suggested. It was more fun than I had imagined, and the friends and teachers I met there changed me a lot.

There were students from all walks of life in the night school. I didn’t realize it at first, but I came to Japan when I was 9 years old and I realized that being exposed to Japanese early on and being able to communicate in Japanese now is a positive thing. Instead of focusing on what I couldn’t do, I was able to focus on what I could do. And the teacher I met at the Evening classes junior high school gave me a lot of encouragement.

I was so negative and unconfident that I gave up before I even tried, thinking that I couldn’t do anything. At that time, my teacher told me, “You will never know unless you try. You have to try, fail, and learn”. He encouraged me to dance with my friends at the school festival. Even when I was confused, the teacher said, “It doesn’t matter if you are good or bad. The important thing is whether you enjoy it. Do what you enjoy and what you like with confidence,” and that’s how I was able to take on the challenge of dancing. The teacher then told me verbally, “You have good communication skills, and your cheerfulness is a good thing”.

Before, I didn’t know what I wanted to do or what I liked to do, and I felt like I was living a random life. I used to think that everything was too much for me and give up halfway through, but after dancing at the school festival, I realized that I could see a new view by challenging myself without fear of failure, and that it was fun to do something in front of others. Even after graduation, having a place to go back to and people to connect with is a great support for me.