TOKYO -- They cry and gurgle like dozens of other children in Tokyo's Red Cross Orphanage, but already four of the tiniest toddlers are starting to look crucially different. Their eyes are a bit rounder, their hair is a little curlier, their skin is a bit darker.
In a country that has long celebrated the purity of its race, these distinctions are dooming evidence that the children are not pure-bred Japanese.
The consequences are beyond any child's ability to understand.
They have neither family nor country. They exist in limbo.
Along with 36 others in Tokyo orphanages, hundreds if not tens of thousands of these stateless children are believed to be hidden throughout the country.
They are the progeny of more than 300,000 illegal aliens, women from poorer Asian countries, mainly the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and China, who slipped through immigration with visas for tourists or as professional "entertainers," which has become a shorthand for prostitutes.
The children of these women "have no right to live in Japan. They have no rights at all," says Akemi Sasaki of Japan's Ministry of Justice.
Health care, education, a driver's license, even the basic identity card needed for a job or housing, will not be their right. They cannot even get a passport, so while they're not supposed to be here, neither can they go somewhere else. Like the debate over the rights of illegal aliens that arouses powerful passions in the United States, the existence of these children raises profound questions about the obligations and the values of a nation.
But here the issue is more vivid, if far less discussed, because these aliens never immigrated, they simply emerged, and one of their parents -- the father -- is probably Japanese.
Unlike in the United States and many other countries, Japanese citizenship rests on a theory of common descent from the mythical sun goddess, and an entrenched desire to protect the country and its gene pool from what is feared to be outside contamination.
"Blood is the only thing the Japanese government recognizes," says Mizuho Fukushima, an immigration lawyer. And blood must be proved by either the explicit, pre-birth recognition of a Japanese father or, under laws that have been loosened in recent years, the existence of a Japanese mother.
There are exceptions, but the government is determined to keep it that way.
Ironically, it has taken an American missionary couple who have lived here for many years to break through the system.
In a case that will be heard today by Japan's Supreme Court, William Rees and his wife, Roberta, are trying to get citizenship for Andrew, a child they adopted three years ago after he was abandoned in a hospital by his mother, who was thought to be a Filipino prostitute.
Working against authorities with a determination few Japanese would think of, the Reeses are using an obscure 19th-century law permitting citizenship application for children who have no known parents -- emphasis on the "no known."
Emphasis also on the right to apply for citizenship.
The Reeses' petition for Andrew's citizenship was first approved by the Tokyo district court, but later was overturned by a higher court holding that the parent was known, and more to the point, known to be not-Japanese, even if her whereabouts cannot be determined.
This is not the first case for the Reeses. Earlier they won citizenship for another adopted child, Annette, who is now 6.
The Reeses rescued Annette from a hospital where she was born prematurely to a Thai prostitute and abandoned while still in an incubator. They endured misinformation, opposition and other obstructions as they worked to get Japanese citizenship for Annette by naturalization.
Naturalization is a difficult recourse nominally available to persons who have lived in Japan for more than three years. It is rarely used, because hardly anyone is allowed to stay here legally that long if it seems they might have any interest in becoming Japanese citizens.
For more than a year, the government delayed while they conducted a background investigation that included research on whether she had a criminal record. At the time, she had yet to turn 4.
Andrew, who is almost 4 now, has attracted tremendous media attention and support, with television crews often accompanying the Rees family to court. Andrew himself has charmed much of the country with his succinct, beguiling commentary, confiding to a camera crew, "I like Japan, I like the Japanese."
"Every child deserves the right to be a citizen at birth," says Mr. Rees. "We are [trying] . . . to open doors for other stateless children."
Why does it take a foreigner to challenge the system? "I don't think you would find a Japanese person who would do it," says Mr. Rees. "They won't insist like we do."
If Andrew wins, other cases are expected to be filed immediately. The results will be "epochal", said Kenshi Nishida, an attorney working on a number of citizenship-related cases.
