Would you naturalize to take office in Japan?

For some of us foreign residents in Japan, politics can feel like something happening at a distance. Policies are crafted, laws change, and we adapt. However, what if you wanted to move from being on the receiving end of decisions to actually helping make them? I read in a recent article via the Japan Times (I'll add the link at the bottom of this blog) that's exactly what Canadian-born Jon Heese did.

Heese came to Japan in the early 1990s as an English teacher, then stayed on as a bar owner in Ibaraki. A sudden legal shift (tougher drunk driving laws that gutted nightlife businesses) pushed him to think differently about local policymaking. Since he'd witnessed similar problems solved in Canada decades earlier, he felt Japan was reinventing the wheel unnecessarily, and that frustration became the seed of his political career.

There was one non-negotiable barrier though, and that was citizenship, since Japan requires naturalization before you can run for office. For Heese, the decision was pretty clear, since he'd already built his family and life in Tsukuba, and naturalizing gave him not only the right to stand for election but also the security of knowing he could always return home. Any of us here during the COVID border closures without Japanese citizenship will remember that we didn't have that right for a period of time.

The good news is that his leap paid off -- he was first elected in 2008, and went on to serve multiple terms in Tsukuba's municipal assembly before winning a seat in the Ibaraki Prefectural Assembly.

I think Heese's journey begs the question of how far any of us would go in shaping the society we've chosen to live in. Of course, you don't need citizenship to influence local politics, since petitions, activism, and community groups are all open to non-Japanese. If your ambition stretches to actual decision-making power, though, there's no way around the passport hurdle.

If you had the chance to stand as a candidate in your adopted community, would you take the plunge and naturalize? Or is your role better played as an engaged resident on the sidelines, lending your voice without trading your passport?

Inspiration from here: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2025/09/08/our-lives/jon-heese-ibaraki-politician/