derekwessman.com
Natural
I became a citizen of Japan.
Let me share about it. Some is my anecdotal experience, some my opinion, and some facts. Parsing which of these is what in each sentence is not going to happen.
In 2012, I was at the Legal Affairs Bureau for something else and decided I wanted to start naturalizing. I had been thinking about it for a long time. I stepped into the department that handles naturalization.
Intentionally, the Government of Japan has designed the process of obtaining Japanese citizenship to be opaque, demand extensive documentation, take at least a year, and have an outcome based partly on subjective judgment.
At the first 2012 visit, an old Ministry of Justice bureaucrat kindly listened to my initial consultation. A first consultation usually requires an appointment, but he accommodated me. This would not happen today. Far more people are now applying for citizenship. The Legal Affairs Bureau for Hachioji was then located in Minami Osawa, within city limits but far away on the south edge of town. It takes about 40 minutes to drive or take a train there. Happily, the bureau is now back in the main part of town near the courthouse.
In a small i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶r̶o̶g̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ consultation room, the bureaucrat asked routine questions about my nationality, number of years in Japan, marital and family status, and so on. I was proud of my Japanese fluency, community activity, and experience working in Japanese politics. Subconsciously, I think I expected to be recognized for surpassing specialness.
The bureaucrat had seen plenty of people like me. He knew how to dampen expectations: Describe the process.
The preliminary documentation I would need to gather (in order of hazy memory, and later aided by referring just now to the spreadsheets I was constrained to create): An original birth certificate for each of my parents and each my six siblings. Original copy of proof of my parents’ marriage. An affidavit signed and dated by my mother attesting that she gave birth to me. List of members of my wife’s family, including their names, dates of birth, nationalities, and current status of interaction with me. A statement regarding whether each above individual wanted to also naturalize, and whether they were in agreement or opposition to my naturalization. Original copy of my birth certificate. Proof of my marriage. List of every address of every place I ever lived and the dates beginning and ending my living there. Complete academic history starting with preschool. Any diplomas or degrees obtained in the course of that academic history. Complete work history with company name, position(s) held, and dates of starting and leaving. All information originating in English had to be submitted in both original form and also translated into Japanese, with a certificate of the accuracy of the translation. Japanese translations could not include alphabet letters—only kanji, hiragana, katakana, or Arabic numerals (I suppose we should give thanks that kanji numerals were not required). But every proper noun in the awkwardest katakana. All documents originating in Japanese submitted with one original and one copy. My certificate of residence. My Zairyu (residence) card. My driver license. All tax returns of me and my wife from some number of years I can’t recall. Statements of withholdings from all employers or income sources for me and my wife. Proof that I and my wife were subject to and had paid applicable taxes to the National Tax Agency, Tokyo, and Hachioji, respectively. Proof of paying health insurance premiums. Proof, issued by the Pension Office, that I had paid my employment insurance. All of the above were going to be evaluated to see that I had not only paid, but paid _on time_ , for said number of years. An official driving record issued by the National Police Agency, listing any and all traffic violations during the maximum 10 or whatever years that such data are retained. I had a company, did I? Then also provide for the same number of years all of its financial statements, proof of paying national corporate taxes, proof of paying consumption taxes, proof of paying prefectural taxes, proof of paying city taxes, proof of paying withheld employee taxes, proof of paying employment insurance. The company registration, Articles of Incorporation, a list of clients, and a description of the business and its prospects. My wife’s family register. A statement from my wife that we were indeed married and had indeed had those kids together. A statement from my wife indicating whether she agreed with or was opposed to my naturalization. Three photographs of our family together on separate occasions (proving that we always pose in the same position as I take a selfie, causing the set of three photographs to look utterly suspicious). A listing of all household income sources and monthly expenditures categorized severally and exhaustively. Certification of Child Allowance disbursements received from the city. List of all loans, the institution making the loan, the amount of principal, monthly payment, and purpose of loan. List of bank accounts, with copy of all pages of each bank book. Proof of current citizenship issued by the US embassy. Original copy and Japanese translation of every page of all my passports expired and current, along with list organizing into a timeline the dates of my travel into and out of every country I had ever visited. Map showing my current place of residence. Map showing my current place of employment. A free-form, handwritten statement of my motivation for seeking citizenship. Certificate of enrollment of each of my children at their respective schools. Certificate of employment issued by my company about me. Certificate of the amount of my salary, issued by my company. The title and registration to each plot of land and building I owned. My certificate of passing the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) Level 1. A photo of my face, two copies. A form listing what my name would be following naturalization.
In 2012, I was already certain that I would be spending the rest of my life in Japan as part of society here. But my brain had not developed to the point of being able to direct my physical body to take the actions necessary to create or gather the above items.
Also, I wanted to run for city assembly after obtaining citizenship. My wife knew this. In her wisdom, she did not want me to run for city assembly. I was going to have to do all of the actions on my own, and then also somehow prevail upon her to express her assent to my naturalization application. There was going to be an interview where the bureaucracy asked her opinion, and it was going to carry weight.
I knew that one could hire an attorney to aid one’s naturalization application. I also knew deep down that the attorney was essentially going to say “put together [all of the above items] and I will submit the application for you.” Interviews were still going to be in person. A translation agency, no better than the one that was my own company, was going to be paid to translate everything. It would have the single advantage that I would have to answer to someone to get everything done. But I was not flush with cash for an attorney, or motivation. I did at least schedule a second consultation—the appointment is in my 2013 calendar. I may have actually not gone. I’m not sure. The old bureaucrat is surely now retired.
The first attempt thus died on the vine after a mildly heroic effort.
The most heroic naturalization efforts made in 2012 were not made by me, but by my parents and siblings. Having been told at that first consultation that they were required, I asked each of them to go get original copies of their birth certificates re-issued. They are so very good to me, and they dutifully did so. It was undoubtedly a massive pain. My siblings were born in a variety of US states that are not where they live now, because my dad was in the US Navy. I don’t know what they had to do to get the originals, but each was given to me.
I made another run at the process in 2018. Again it did not take.
Then around September 2024, I was again at the Legal Affairs Bureau. It had been moved back into the main part of town, as noted above. My purpose that day was not to apply for naturalization, but to get a company registration issued, or maybe pull a property title. Again I saw the sign pointing to the department that handles naturalization. Again I impulsively went to the window and asked to apply for naturalization. This time I was afforded no consultation. I remember getting a glance at the appointment book as they opened it to see when I could get an appointment for a consultation, and it was chock full of names. They scheduled me the next available two-hour slot, in October.
At the October appointment, a new grizzled old veteran met me. He first confirmed my Japanese ability through conversation, then by having me read and write some things. The passage I had to read was from a children’s book, all written in hiragana. The funny thing that will surely resonate with a lot of people is that it is harder to read pure hiragana passages. It’s an unnatural form that doesn’t exist except in children’s books or messaging meant to be understood by people who can’t read anything else (which purpose I do not disparage, mind you). It would have been far more natural to read normal Japanese that includes kanji and katakana. Anyway, I read the thing. Maybe choppily, because grizzled veteran had me nervous. Then I wrote as directed. He panned my handwriting. Haha. “Get off my back, bro. I am an objectively accomplished linguist.” Well, that ain’t the test.
He gave me pretty much the same list as above. Except now I had started _another_ company. Of course every document was still needed for it, along with all the others. I think they had removed the requirement for a translation certification, though. Credit where due.
Since 2012, I had also bought property and built a house on it. I had gotten new passports and filled their pages by traveling to many more countries. I had 13 more years of life under my belt, and it all required that much more documentation. Happily, I had also gotten better at handling administrative tasks like tax filings and pension payments. Not through personal growth, but by hiring people to do them on my behalf. My driving record was now spotless, with youthful speeding and parking indiscretions dissolved by the limitations of nation-state record retention. I was making more money. My company was more successful. My marriage was better. I had articulated internally why I wanted to naturalize. I had made more social contributions, like volunteer firefighting in Shobodan, chairing the Ichou Festa, and neighborhood association work.
At the October 2024 appointment, we set an appointment at the next available date, in February 2025, for the official submission of my application.
Getting the package of all the above documents and other items together was absolutely daunting. A fresh hell. As February 3 approached, I still hadn’t gotten everything together. February 2 was an all-nighter. Translations were cranked out, items were organized, copies were made, everything was stacked together. The stack was easily over two feet high. I packed it all into a couple of big department store shopping bags.
At the submission, grizzled veteran and I went through each item. He affixed a “RECEIVED” stamp to each. We found that two or three items were missing, or I had misunderstood what was needed. I promised to send them by Letter Pack immediately. At the end I was assigned an entry-level bureaucrat who would be my case worker. I was told to enter the Legal Affairs Bureau phone number into my phone and be ready for calls asking for extra information or appointments. I was told the procedure for calling the specific extension and stating my case number before asking for my case worker.
I was apprised that my application would only proceed while I was in Japan: Prior to any business or other trip outside Japan, I had to call and notify when I was leaving and returning. My application would stop for precisely that number of days. When returning, I was to call and check back in with my case worker. Happily for business and sadly for naturalization, I made many international trips from February 2025 to June 2026. The Ministry of Justice assiduously delayed my application accordingly. I understand this policy, though. If you want to naturalize, be in the country. At the same time, it required patience to know that being gainfully employed in international business was delaying the application.
My first case worker was transferred away after only a few contacts by phone. A new one was assigned. Their primary characteristic was mumbling inaudibly on the phone. They were young, maybe early 30s. There were occasions where I could tell that my phone call had caused them to remember something they were supposed to have done, and without my calling it wouldn’t have gotten done.
During Covid, the US FDA and other regulatory bodies stopped coming to Japan to inspect medical device and pharmaceutical facilities for about three years. My primary business is to assist life science firms by helping them to understand and comply with the regulations, and then to prepare, host, and interpret regulator inspections of their facilities. So obviously, the company’s revenue and profits suffered severely during that time . Surveying my Covid-era company financials, my case worker decided they were not good. He called me one day: “This sure is some bad company performance.” Me: “Yeah, Covid hit us hard. We could have taken government assistance and put our employees on leave at reduced salaries, but I decided to use savings and then take out loans that I have paid back to the last yen faithfully, to keep paying full salaries. We stayed open and handled what work we were still getting to support our clients.” Him: “Well, it’s still not very good.” That was a frustrating conversation. I don’t doubt that he passed a hard test or two to become a national civil servant, but he also clearly had no experience running a business.
He asked me to write down the above explanation of why the company had done poorly during that time. I did. I addressed it to the Minister of Justice (as all these submissions are) and worded the extensive explanation to pointedly refute the case worker’s view. I emphasized that I kept people employed during a crisis and thought this criticism of our results was horseshit, and to please kindly continue considering my application.
The same case worker failed to call to notify me of the application result, until four days after the 官報 Official Gazette carried notice of my naturalization being approved. That was inconvenient in many ways, especially because that is the number of days sooner that I could have applied for and obtained a Japanese passport, allowing me to resume business travel. Until the passport is issued, I am stuck in the country and unable to leave for business or any other purpose. Japanese citizens are prohibited from leaving the country without a passport. I am certain that the case worker just let the notification sit on his desk for four days. Bad job by him.
In light of that final insult and all the above and more details I have forgotten or omit, it may seem strange to say that overall, I am okay with the process.
I don’t think citizenship is a light thing. It is not rational to make it friction-free or fast. I was not ready to naturalize in 2012. The system is arcane and arbitrary, and also worked correctly to weed me out of the process. It impressed upon me the importance of following the rules and making a contribution, which honestly impacted how I behaved and thought thereafter. When I was absolutely committed, I was able to get through the process.
My name after naturalization is the same as it was before: Derek Lynn Wessman. Except now in official records it is written in katakana, since alphabet letters cannot be listed on a 戸籍 family register, which is the foundational document on which a Japanese citizen’s identity rests.
A lot of people believe that one must adopt a kanji name when naturalizing, but this has never been the case. However, it seems that in the past, pressure was placed on applicants to adopt Japanese-sounding and -appearing names. The entire naturalization process, especially scrutiny of siblings and parents, has many vestiges of its Cold War-era focus on the Zainichi Korean residents of Japan who were then the most frequent applicants. The government was anxious to find out if an applicant had ties with North Korea.
Why not change my name, though? I could certainly imagine adopting kanji whose pronunciation approximates my name, or adopting my wife’s former family name, or taking the appellation of some historical figure I like, such as Yamamoto Kansuke. I kept my name because I love it. I am proud of the name Wessman, which I hear was adopted so an ancestor could join the Swedish army when the quota of people with his previous name Bengtsson was already filled (or something like that). I like the name Derek. My middle name is from my uncle, who, if you search or ask AI, is an exceptional person of great accomplishment. Most importantly, my whole household is already this family name and would be greatly inconvenienced by a name change this far into their lives.
I do need to notify banks, change some documents and listings, and go through procedures on a number of fronts. All in all, it’s not a huge burden.
A fun fact: Upon having my family register created, I had to re-propose to my wife. Being added to one’s spouse’s family register is the administrative act of marriage in Japan. Until now, my wife was the head of her own family register and my kids were listed with her on it, along with some foreign bozo tacked on who she was married to (me). I wouldn’t be surprised if this latest 2026 proposal gave her pause. She did kindly came along, and so did the kids. Reunited and it feels so good. Not unrelated: I do not plan to run for office in the near future.
The moment of receiving citizenship was this: The above case worker called me four days late. He asked when I could come in to receive the government-issued document that attests to my naturalization. I said I was on my way. He said okay. I arrived. He invited me into a small i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶r̶o̶g̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ consultation room. We both sat down, separated across a desk by a Covid-era plastic divider. He handed me the Certification of Identity of Naturalized Person. He told me to take it to city hall and apply to have a family register created for me. He pronounced a benediction on the whole process: Good old “ _o-tsukaresama deshita_.”
That was it. No pledge of allegiance. No huddled masses pronouncing oaths together. No pomp and circumstance. Just walking down the sparse stairway of the plain public building feeling happy that I had finally joined my fate with this country that I love. I liked it.
