i grew up in california learning about japanese american history, and was amazed to realize as a teenager that there were japanese peruvians, japanese canadians, and other nikkei around the globe. brazil still has the largest nikkei community in the world. i hope to see what its like there someday.
this link may die or get updated with another feature so have pasted it below the url as well. a little long, but very interesting reading:
http://
Half a world away
Brazilian-Japanese have a love-hate relationship with the land of their forefathers
Text By Irene C. Herrera/photos by Tomas Reyes and Irene C. Herrera
-----------------------------------------------
Stroll with me through the streets of Liberdade on a sunny Sunday afternoon to witness the deep-rooted presence of Japanese culture in the heart of São Paulo. Among its population of more than 15 million, South America’s largest city is home to the biggest community of Japanese outside Japan.
On weekends, the air of Liberdade, which means “freedom” in Portuguese, reeks of yakitori, soba and Brazilian-beef gyoza sizzling on iron pans. It feels like a Japanese matsuri as shiatsu masseuses stand next to stalls lined with assorted Japanese goods—yukata, geta, goldfish, and Hello Kitty. A monumental red torii gate gleams opposite a bright yellow McDonald’s sign written in katakana. Around the corner a small oriental garden bestows a touch of Zen upon the atmosphere. After the sun goes down, Japanese street lanterns are lit, symbols of that country’s sense of transient beauty.
A third-generation man of Japanese descent shows me mango and passion fruit bonsai trees. He says he has never set foot in Japan, but his commitment to these miniature trees inspired him to tropicalize his art. Opposite is a 76-year-old Japanese man who arrived in Brazil at age 7. He sells bamboo tongue-cleaners, a craft he says has been lost back in Japan. “Americans never came to Brazil like they did to Japan,” he says.
Nowadays there are many Koreans and Chinese living in the neighborhood, but amid the street chatter you can still hear the older generation speaking in Japanese. They wake early during the week and gather in this same square to practice their morning “radio taiso” exercises, just as some elderly people still do in Japan. Two blocks away, a group of lively senior Nikkei (a Japanese term for ethnically Japanese people born outside of Japan) get together every week to socialize. For nearly six hours, they dance and sing karaoke, blending Japanese enka songs with Brazilian bossa nova and samba rhythms. Sitting down with them to eat feijoada (Brazilian-style beans) with chopsticks, or churrasco grilled meat paired with miso soup, the acculturation of Japanese with Brazilian is thrilling.
The transformation of Liberdade into a Japanese neighborhood began in 1969 when locals remodeled their building facades, erected bilingual signs and built the colorful torii gateway, known as the Viaduto Cidade de Osaka (the City of Osaka Viaduct), on the main street, Rua Galvão Bueno, making Liberdade look even more Japanese than most towns in Japan. But the Japanese presence in Brazil has a much longer history.
In 1803, four shipwrecked Japanese men were picked up by a Russian ship and taken to Florianópolis, an island city in the south of Brazil, at that time a Portuguese colony. But it wasn’t until more than 100 years later that waves of migration started.
On June 18, 1908, the first group of 781 immigrants, mostly farmers in search of a better life, landed in the port of Santos after a 52-day voyage from Kobe aboard the ship Kasato Maru. Brazil’s need for agricultural labor and the Japanese government’s encouragement of emigration were factors that contributed to a continuous wave of Japanese immigration to Brazil. Under an agreement between the Japanese and Brazilian governments, more than 3,000 Japanese made the same journey over the next three years.
An award-winning film by Japanese-Brazilian director Tizuka Yamazaki, Gaijin: Os Caminhos da Liberdade (Gaijin: The Paths of Freedom), illustrates the hardships early immigrants endured when they first arrived. In the film, the Japanese long for rice and miso but are given only meat from their employers on the coffee plantations, or fazendas. Having never seen a coffee bean before and unable to speak Portuguese, the immigrants are taught with sign language how to cultivate the crops.
Nostalgic for Japan, they build ofuro baths as part of their desire to preserve native culture. (In later years, the Japanese would introduce their native fruits and vegetables to Brazil. Today, daikon, tofu and even gobo can be found in any supermarket in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Paraná.)
The film portrays the immigrants’ sense of exploitation as they worked long hours and saw little money in return, and many deserted the plantations. In 1911, a group of five Japanese families wanting more independence bought their own land, and a year later a group of 30 families created their own “colony” in Iguape in the state of São Paulo. A coffee crisis in the early 1910s motivated some to venture into cotton farming and others to move to Paraná, known for its fertile red soil. Cities that were founded in that period, such as Maringá, Londrina and Açaí, still have large Nikkei populations.
By the 1930s there were more than 130,000 Japanese in Brazil with their own stores, schools and newspapers. But in 1938, the government banned education in foreign languages and closed the German, Italian and Japanese schools. During World War II, the Japanese were overwhelmed with restrictions; their belongings were confiscated and Japanese newspapers banned.
After the war, with Japan crippled, immigration started again, and the number of Japanese in Brazil rose to 400,000 in 1948. By the time the last immigrant ship arrived in 1973, there were about 1 million (today the figure is 1.3 million). In 1978, then Prince Akihito and Princess Michiko traveled to São Paulo for the inauguration of the Museum of Japanese Immigration in Brazil on the 70th anniversary of the Kasato Maru’s arrival.
Brazil’s Nikkei community has earned itself an impeccable reputation as hard-working and honest. While they are integrated into Brazilian society, they remain proud of their heritage. Celia Abe Oi, director of the immigration museum explains: “Nikkei intellectuals of my generation in the ’60s and ’70’s were constantly reflecting on our identity and our role within Brazilian society.” Celia struggled hard go to college because her father did not want her to leave the town she grew up in or marry outside the Japanese community. She managed to go to São Paulo, earn degrees in history and journalism, work for Japanese- Brazilian newspapers, and marry another Nikkei.
“Although we feel integrated, there is still a fundamental cultural difference between Brazilians and Japanese-Brazilians. Growing up, I felt different. But when I reflect on Japanese culture, although I think I understand it, there is a deeper sense that it does not ‘agree with me.’ That’s when I realize I am quite Brazilian. Fortunately, my job has given me an opportunity to come to terms with my identity, reconcile both cultures, and do something for the Nikkei community.”
An old Japanese man sells handmade tongue and ear cleaners, a tradition that he says has been lost in Japan
While many Nikkei have married among themselves, others have married Brazilians, some of European and/or African descent, adding complexity to the ethnic identity issue.
More recently, the tide of immigration has reversed, confusing the issue even more. A prolonged economic crisis in Brazil, combined with Japan’s economic prosperity in the 1980s, made an attractive destination. The country recognized its need for manual labor and opened its doors to Nikkei-Brazilians.
Many second-generation Brazilians do not have any interest in coming to Japan, or find it too expensive. But the third and fourth generation are more motivated to come to their ethnic homeland for a couple of years with the intention of working hard and saving money to see their dreams materialize back home. Most also expect somehow to better understand their heritage and the culture of their forefathers.
The Morimoto family, based in São Lorenzo da Serra, a rural area near São Paulo, saw their dreams come true. Five of the family’s six siblings, all young and well educated, came to Japan to earn money. Two worked on farms and learned how to cultivate orchids. With the help of the money saved by the other family members and their knowledge gained in Japan, the Morimoto family managed to pay off their land and start a successful orchid business. For almost a decade, the siblings moved in and out of their parents’ home, going back and forth to Japan, but today they are reunited.
Neide Morimoto, who has come to Japan but never lived here, had this to say about her experience of Japanese society: “I appreciate many values of the culture, but I don’t quite understand why they cannot express themselves directly. Everything has to be so subtle.”
In the book Memories of a Japanese Immigrant in Brazil, Tomo Handa describes how Nikkei children grew up thinking their parents did not love each other because they never saw them kiss or touch affectionately. The parents explain that just because Japanese people can’t express their feelings as openly as Brazilians, it doesn’t mean they don’t feel them the same.
Hiromi Iwanaga, whose father is a Japanese immigrant and whose mother is second-generation, sells sushi rolls every week at the Sunday market in Mazomba, about an hour outside Rio. “I like Japanese food but I have never been to Japan. Last summer I chose to go to Italy on vacation. For me, Brazil is a paradise, whereas in Japan people seem too serious and the climate is not as good. I love it here.”
For others it has not been a choice but a circumstance that has kept them away from Japan. A 64-year old, second-generation Nikkei I met at a tea ceremony in Praça do Japão (Japanese Square) in Curitiba told a story of how both his parents passed away when he was quite young. Growing up among Brazilians, he eventually married a Brazilian woman, daughter of Italian immigrants. His intention to study his ancestors’ language went up in flames during the war, when government representatives started burning Japanese textbooks. However, his grandson, an architecture student, is proudly looking back at his heritage, scavenging history to learn about the wabisabi aesthetics of onsen and teahouses.
Suyenne Inoue, daughter of a Brazilian father and second-generation mother, speaks of the warmth she feels back home in the town Itaguai, near Mazomba, where she works at the Office of Environmental Affairs: “I gained a lot from living in Japan,” she told me. “But now I am happy to be surrounded by my loving family and feel more useful to society. Here I am doing a specialization course in my area of study and getting involved in social projects.”
Today, there are about 250,000 Brazilians in Japan, making them the third largest foreign population (after Koreans and Chinese). University of San Diego anthropologist Dr. Takeyuki Tsuda, who carried out a two-year investigation into the Brazilian Nikkei community, says such people don’t usually develop attachments to either country. If anything, their experiences in Japan make Brazilian Japanese feel more Brazilian and less Japanese. Their once-critical views of Brazil become positive after their Japan experience. Whereas Japanese culture values quiet, restrained and subdued behavior, Brazilian culture exalts liveliness, openness and warmth. Because Japanese-Brazilians feel they will never fit in Japanese society, they tend to accentuate their otherness as they dream of retuning to Brazil.
Tizuka Yamazaki will continue to explore the history of Japanese Brazilians in her new film, Gaijin II, which will premiere this year under the slogan, “We are all gaijin.” Perhaps, third-culture kids, integrants of a neo-nomadic generation, have all felt like outsiders in Japan, inspiring our inquisitive minds to dwell on our identity.
A Venezuelan who grew up in the United States and who has made Japan her home for these past years, I was in Liberdade when a Japanese woman who had grown up in Brazil hugged me tight with tearful eyes and kissed me on the cheek. It was then that I realized that culture is not ethnic. Rather, it is the syncretism of all the cultures in which we have had the opportunity to participate that defines who we are.
this link may die or get updated with another feature so have pasted it below the url as well. a little long, but very interesting reading:
http://
Half a world away
Brazilian-Japanese have a love-hate relationship with the land of their forefathers
Text By Irene C. Herrera/photos by Tomas Reyes and Irene C. Herrera
-----------------------------------------------
Stroll with me through the streets of Liberdade on a sunny Sunday afternoon to witness the deep-rooted presence of Japanese culture in the heart of São Paulo. Among its population of more than 15 million, South America’s largest city is home to the biggest community of Japanese outside Japan.
On weekends, the air of Liberdade, which means “freedom” in Portuguese, reeks of yakitori, soba and Brazilian-beef gyoza sizzling on iron pans. It feels like a Japanese matsuri as shiatsu masseuses stand next to stalls lined with assorted Japanese goods—yukata, geta, goldfish, and Hello Kitty. A monumental red torii gate gleams opposite a bright yellow McDonald’s sign written in katakana. Around the corner a small oriental garden bestows a touch of Zen upon the atmosphere. After the sun goes down, Japanese street lanterns are lit, symbols of that country’s sense of transient beauty.
A third-generation man of Japanese descent shows me mango and passion fruit bonsai trees. He says he has never set foot in Japan, but his commitment to these miniature trees inspired him to tropicalize his art. Opposite is a 76-year-old Japanese man who arrived in Brazil at age 7. He sells bamboo tongue-cleaners, a craft he says has been lost back in Japan. “Americans never came to Brazil like they did to Japan,” he says.
Nowadays there are many Koreans and Chinese living in the neighborhood, but amid the street chatter you can still hear the older generation speaking in Japanese. They wake early during the week and gather in this same square to practice their morning “radio taiso” exercises, just as some elderly people still do in Japan. Two blocks away, a group of lively senior Nikkei (a Japanese term for ethnically Japanese people born outside of Japan) get together every week to socialize. For nearly six hours, they dance and sing karaoke, blending Japanese enka songs with Brazilian bossa nova and samba rhythms. Sitting down with them to eat feijoada (Brazilian-style beans) with chopsticks, or churrasco grilled meat paired with miso soup, the acculturation of Japanese with Brazilian is thrilling.
The transformation of Liberdade into a Japanese neighborhood began in 1969 when locals remodeled their building facades, erected bilingual signs and built the colorful torii gateway, known as the Viaduto Cidade de Osaka (the City of Osaka Viaduct), on the main street, Rua Galvão Bueno, making Liberdade look even more Japanese than most towns in Japan. But the Japanese presence in Brazil has a much longer history.
In 1803, four shipwrecked Japanese men were picked up by a Russian ship and taken to Florianópolis, an island city in the south of Brazil, at that time a Portuguese colony. But it wasn’t until more than 100 years later that waves of migration started.
On June 18, 1908, the first group of 781 immigrants, mostly farmers in search of a better life, landed in the port of Santos after a 52-day voyage from Kobe aboard the ship Kasato Maru. Brazil’s need for agricultural labor and the Japanese government’s encouragement of emigration were factors that contributed to a continuous wave of Japanese immigration to Brazil. Under an agreement between the Japanese and Brazilian governments, more than 3,000 Japanese made the same journey over the next three years.
An award-winning film by Japanese-Brazilian director Tizuka Yamazaki, Gaijin: Os Caminhos da Liberdade (Gaijin: The Paths of Freedom), illustrates the hardships early immigrants endured when they first arrived. In the film, the Japanese long for rice and miso but are given only meat from their employers on the coffee plantations, or fazendas. Having never seen a coffee bean before and unable to speak Portuguese, the immigrants are taught with sign language how to cultivate the crops.
Nostalgic for Japan, they build ofuro baths as part of their desire to preserve native culture. (In later years, the Japanese would introduce their native fruits and vegetables to Brazil. Today, daikon, tofu and even gobo can be found in any supermarket in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Paraná.)
The film portrays the immigrants’ sense of exploitation as they worked long hours and saw little money in return, and many deserted the plantations. In 1911, a group of five Japanese families wanting more independence bought their own land, and a year later a group of 30 families created their own “colony” in Iguape in the state of São Paulo. A coffee crisis in the early 1910s motivated some to venture into cotton farming and others to move to Paraná, known for its fertile red soil. Cities that were founded in that period, such as Maringá, Londrina and Açaí, still have large Nikkei populations.
By the 1930s there were more than 130,000 Japanese in Brazil with their own stores, schools and newspapers. But in 1938, the government banned education in foreign languages and closed the German, Italian and Japanese schools. During World War II, the Japanese were overwhelmed with restrictions; their belongings were confiscated and Japanese newspapers banned.
After the war, with Japan crippled, immigration started again, and the number of Japanese in Brazil rose to 400,000 in 1948. By the time the last immigrant ship arrived in 1973, there were about 1 million (today the figure is 1.3 million). In 1978, then Prince Akihito and Princess Michiko traveled to São Paulo for the inauguration of the Museum of Japanese Immigration in Brazil on the 70th anniversary of the Kasato Maru’s arrival.
Brazil’s Nikkei community has earned itself an impeccable reputation as hard-working and honest. While they are integrated into Brazilian society, they remain proud of their heritage. Celia Abe Oi, director of the immigration museum explains: “Nikkei intellectuals of my generation in the ’60s and ’70’s were constantly reflecting on our identity and our role within Brazilian society.” Celia struggled hard go to college because her father did not want her to leave the town she grew up in or marry outside the Japanese community. She managed to go to São Paulo, earn degrees in history and journalism, work for Japanese- Brazilian newspapers, and marry another Nikkei.
“Although we feel integrated, there is still a fundamental cultural difference between Brazilians and Japanese-Brazilians. Growing up, I felt different. But when I reflect on Japanese culture, although I think I understand it, there is a deeper sense that it does not ‘agree with me.’ That’s when I realize I am quite Brazilian. Fortunately, my job has given me an opportunity to come to terms with my identity, reconcile both cultures, and do something for the Nikkei community.”
An old Japanese man sells handmade tongue and ear cleaners, a tradition that he says has been lost in Japan
While many Nikkei have married among themselves, others have married Brazilians, some of European and/or African descent, adding complexity to the ethnic identity issue.
More recently, the tide of immigration has reversed, confusing the issue even more. A prolonged economic crisis in Brazil, combined with Japan’s economic prosperity in the 1980s, made an attractive destination. The country recognized its need for manual labor and opened its doors to Nikkei-Brazilians.
Many second-generation Brazilians do not have any interest in coming to Japan, or find it too expensive. But the third and fourth generation are more motivated to come to their ethnic homeland for a couple of years with the intention of working hard and saving money to see their dreams materialize back home. Most also expect somehow to better understand their heritage and the culture of their forefathers.
The Morimoto family, based in São Lorenzo da Serra, a rural area near São Paulo, saw their dreams come true. Five of the family’s six siblings, all young and well educated, came to Japan to earn money. Two worked on farms and learned how to cultivate orchids. With the help of the money saved by the other family members and their knowledge gained in Japan, the Morimoto family managed to pay off their land and start a successful orchid business. For almost a decade, the siblings moved in and out of their parents’ home, going back and forth to Japan, but today they are reunited.
Neide Morimoto, who has come to Japan but never lived here, had this to say about her experience of Japanese society: “I appreciate many values of the culture, but I don’t quite understand why they cannot express themselves directly. Everything has to be so subtle.”
In the book Memories of a Japanese Immigrant in Brazil, Tomo Handa describes how Nikkei children grew up thinking their parents did not love each other because they never saw them kiss or touch affectionately. The parents explain that just because Japanese people can’t express their feelings as openly as Brazilians, it doesn’t mean they don’t feel them the same.
Hiromi Iwanaga, whose father is a Japanese immigrant and whose mother is second-generation, sells sushi rolls every week at the Sunday market in Mazomba, about an hour outside Rio. “I like Japanese food but I have never been to Japan. Last summer I chose to go to Italy on vacation. For me, Brazil is a paradise, whereas in Japan people seem too serious and the climate is not as good. I love it here.”
For others it has not been a choice but a circumstance that has kept them away from Japan. A 64-year old, second-generation Nikkei I met at a tea ceremony in Praça do Japão (Japanese Square) in Curitiba told a story of how both his parents passed away when he was quite young. Growing up among Brazilians, he eventually married a Brazilian woman, daughter of Italian immigrants. His intention to study his ancestors’ language went up in flames during the war, when government representatives started burning Japanese textbooks. However, his grandson, an architecture student, is proudly looking back at his heritage, scavenging history to learn about the wabisabi aesthetics of onsen and teahouses.
Suyenne Inoue, daughter of a Brazilian father and second-generation mother, speaks of the warmth she feels back home in the town Itaguai, near Mazomba, where she works at the Office of Environmental Affairs: “I gained a lot from living in Japan,” she told me. “But now I am happy to be surrounded by my loving family and feel more useful to society. Here I am doing a specialization course in my area of study and getting involved in social projects.”
Today, there are about 250,000 Brazilians in Japan, making them the third largest foreign population (after Koreans and Chinese). University of San Diego anthropologist Dr. Takeyuki Tsuda, who carried out a two-year investigation into the Brazilian Nikkei community, says such people don’t usually develop attachments to either country. If anything, their experiences in Japan make Brazilian Japanese feel more Brazilian and less Japanese. Their once-critical views of Brazil become positive after their Japan experience. Whereas Japanese culture values quiet, restrained and subdued behavior, Brazilian culture exalts liveliness, openness and warmth. Because Japanese-Brazilians feel they will never fit in Japanese society, they tend to accentuate their otherness as they dream of retuning to Brazil.
Tizuka Yamazaki will continue to explore the history of Japanese Brazilians in her new film, Gaijin II, which will premiere this year under the slogan, “We are all gaijin.” Perhaps, third-culture kids, integrants of a neo-nomadic generation, have all felt like outsiders in Japan, inspiring our inquisitive minds to dwell on our identity.
A Venezuelan who grew up in the United States and who has made Japan her home for these past years, I was in Liberdade when a Japanese woman who had grown up in Brazil hugged me tight with tearful eyes and kissed me on the cheek. It was then that I realized that culture is not ethnic. Rather, it is the syncretism of all the cultures in which we have had the opportunity to participate that defines who we are.
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