The Japanese immigration to Brazil

Résumé du document

Japanese immigration to Brazil has a long history starting early in the twentieth century when astonishing amounts of Japanese immigrated to Brazil to take advantage of Japanese government funds encouraging emigration as well as the Brazilian market. However, a deep economic crisis in Brazil during the 1980s saw a lot of this population return back to their country of origin, Japan. This was for the most part seen as a temporary situation and the return to Brazil was always a possibility. A large proportion ended up staying on in Japan as the economy was prosperous but encountered surprising obstacles and discrimination. Many factors both in Brazil and Japan, as well as in third countries led to ties between Japan and Brazil.

Extraits

[...] Initially, the idea was to return to Japan for a few years in order to make some money and be able to return to Brazil. In order to deal with the wave bringing the Japanese back to Japan, a new piece of legislation was implemented by the Japanese government. It entitled anyone able to substantiate his or her claim of Japanese descent to a special visa to return home. However, this was laden with conditions dependent on what generation of Japanese descent you were. [...]

[...] They did not speak a standard Japanese and were often viewed as ‘lower class'. Children in schools were especially targeted through bullying due to this linguistic aspect. Another way in which they were not considered as equals was a consequence from the type of work they engaged in. They were mostly factory workers, even though in Brazil they are highly educated, but in the eyes of the native Japanese this lowers their status. There are also cultural values which create divides between natives and the returning Japanese. [...]

[...] The Japanese community in Brazil (notably in São Paulo's Liberdade district) is very large and deeply rooted[10]. It seems that for the Brazilian Japanese there is , as Takeyuki Tsuda's article title sums up the situation neatly, no place to call home. Bibliography Karen Tei Yamashita Circle K Cycles (Coffee House Press, 2001): Japanese Immigration in Brazil Takeyuki Tsuda, (Aug., 1999), The Permanence of "Temporary" Migration: The "Structural Embeddedness" of Japanese-Brazilian Immigrant Workers in Japan, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol No pp. [...]

[...] 687-722. Hastings, Donald. "Japanese emigration & assimilation in Brazil," International Migration Review 3,2 (1969):32-53. [...]

[...] Japanese immigration to Brazil was at its highest from the mid 1920s to the mid 1930s. Throughout the 1930s, the only immigrants that continued to arrive in droves were the Japanese, who came to till small farms in São Paulo[2]. Between 1932 and 1935 the Japanese made up no less than 30% of the influx of immigrants entering Brazil. Immigrants arrived at Brazilian ports on an almost daily basis and today Brazilians of Japanese descent make up 1.3 million, which is by far the world's largest group of Nikkeijin ("overseas people of Japanese descent")[3]. [...]