Chris Hart's naturalization application accepted, becomes legally Japanese
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
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| If they gave nationality on the basis of being smartly dressed, Chris Hart would be an honorary citizen of every nation in the world. |
This became official on February 23rd, 2017, according to the Official Gazette of the Japanese government (官報), which by law has to publish the name of every single person who acquires nationality through naturalization by the Ministry of Justice (法務省).
Although this may sound like it took him almost two years to naturalize, it does not mean the actual length of time it takes is two years. There are two parts or phases to the application process:
- The stage where you collect the paperwork at your own pace (and the type and complexity and difficulty of getting that paperwork depends on your personal situation and well, how busy you are), which consists of going back and forth reviewing the collected paperwork with your 相談員 (personal public consultant assigned to you)
- The stage where the MoJ reviews your formally submitted paperwork collected during step #1 and approves or rejects you.
Remember that when you read stories on the internet about how it takes years or decades to naturalize to Japanese, these people are often calculating in the time it took people to collect paperwork, self-paced at their leisure. And they may be counting the residency requirement of five (5) years before applying. And they may be (mistakenly) adding the time it takes to acquire foreign permanent resident status in Japan, which is not a prerequisite for Japanese naturalization.
He announced it to the public and fans during his 2nd all 47 prefecture nationwide "~my hometown~" concert on April 6th in Kagoshima Prefecture (鹿児島県 {Kagoshima-ken}) where his Japanese in-law family lives.
Born Louis Christian Hartbanks (ルイス・クリスチャン・ハートバンクス) in San Mateo County, California on August 25th, 1984, he grew up in San Francisco. He began studying Japanese about twenty years ago in 1997 before immigrating to Japan in 2009 and getting a break in 2013 due to his amazing Japanese singing ability. He has said that ever since studying Japanese, his dream has been to live in Japan.
Since then, he has been busy non-stop releasing albums, performing concerts nationwide, and lending his abilities to everything from commercials to music videos to appearances around the country.
Regarding his naturalization, he had this to say on his official LINE blog:
それから日本人の友達もたくさんできて、皆僕を応援してくれました。Loosely translated, it says that since his time in Japan, he has made so many friends and everybody has supported him. In order to live in Japan, he worked in various jobs and performed in a band singing Japanese. After settling in to living in Japan, making many Japanese musician acquaintances, and meeting his spouse, his family has enlarged and his life has changed. Chris expresses his feelings of gratitude and wishes to deepen his connection of friendship with Japan, so he decided to naturalize.
日本に住むために色々な仕事をしたり、日本語でバンド活動をしたりしていました。
ようやく日本に住むことができるようになり、音楽仲間ができて、妻にも会えて、家族が増えて僕の人生は大きく変わりました。
日本への感謝の気持ちを伝えるため、日本との絆をもっと深めたいと思い、2年前に帰化申請をしました。
Regarding his name, Chris announced that he decided to "keep" his name considering his [American] family. I typed keep in quotes because although he will be able to have his name spelled "HART>>CHRIS" on his Japanese passport in Latin letters for the purpose of identification outside of Japan, the Japanese family register system (戸籍), which forms the proof of domestic Japanese national identity, does not permit middle names, mononyms, or names in characters other than the Japanese syllabet (仮名) or Japanese sinograms (漢字).
You can't have "exotic" or archaic/obsolete Japanese characters for your legal name, either. And this includes 絵文字 (Japanese pop pictogram characters). So it means he probably didn't attempt to register his stylized logo as his legal name like Price did: 💙Ｃ
This probably means he chose 『ハート クリス』 as his legal Japanese name, though it's not possible for me to confirm this via public records. Note that "Chris Hart" is not a 100% stage name derived from his birth name; his mother's maiden name (according to his U.S. vital records) is "Hart", and Chris has stated in interviews that his parents divorced when he was two, and he was raised by her as a single mother.
It's not uncommon for musicians, celebrities, and politicians who naturalize to choose to keep using their previous name or a stage name for professional use — either in Japan or other countries; artists prefer to have names that are easy to remember or catchy. Some who choose 当て字 (invented Japanese sinogram combinations that correspond phonetically to a foreign word or sound) may also prefer to write their name in 仮名 (Japanese syllabet) because it's easier to remember and faster to write — which is of critical importance when one has to hand write candidates names at the ballot box during elections (Indeed, many natural-born Japanese politicians depict their names in 仮名 in public, even though they have 漢字 names, for this reason — it also has the psychological benefit of making common / simple names stand out and look unusual. Some examples include:
| birth name | legal Japanese name | type | public name / alias / nickname |
|---|---|---|---|
| Francisco Reyes | 田沢喜一 | native | フランシスコ・キーコ |
| Raymond Conde | 吉場レイモンド | native + syllabet mapping | レイモンド・コンデ |
| Claude Ciari | 智有蔵上人 | sinogram mapping | クロード・チアリ |
| Martti Turunen | 弦念丸呈 | sinogram mapping | ツルネン・マルテイ |
Chris Hart, as we see, is not the first foreign origin musician to become famous and Japanese in Japan. He probably is the first naturalized musician with both an iPhone app and Android app.
If you're interested in seeing Chris Hart live in concert, have a look at his schedule published on his official web site.