Tom Gill

Meiji Gakuin Course No. 3505/3506

Minority and Marginal Groups of Contemporary

Japan

Nikkeijin 日系人

Lecture No. 10

Japan’s 3rd & 5th largest foreign minorities

China

Korea

Brazil

Phils

Peru

Make that “4th and 5th”!

The government’s immigration data for 2012 was recenrtly released. The Brazilian population continued to fall, and had slipped below the population of Filipinos.

RANK COUNTRY

1 China

2 Korea

3 Philippines

4 Brazil

5 Peru

End of 2012

A pair of instant ethnic minorities

The data clearly shows almost no Brazilians and Peruvians in Japan in 1986, a few in 1989, and then a whole lot in 1992, further increasing after that.

How come? To understand, we need to examine 120 years of history.

Nowadays people think of Japan as a destination for migrants. It has not always been so. For about 70 years (1895-1965) Japan sent many emigrants to other countries.

Migrant 移住者

Emigrant （自国から,他国への）移住者

Immigrant （外国からの）移住者.

2.8 million ethnic Japanese

Japan’s Diaspora Country Nikkei pop.

Brazil 1,500,000

USA 1,200,000

Philippines 120,000

Peru 90,000

Canada 80,000

Argentina 30,000

Japan’s Diaspora cont. Country Nikkei pop.

Australia 20,000

Micronesia 20,000

Mexico 15,000

UK 15,000

Bolivia 10,000

Germany 10,000

Start of Japanese emigration in the 12th century – to the Philippines, then Thailand

(small, ancient communities)

But major emigration only started in the late 19th century, after the Meiji restoration.

1908 Kasato Maru arrives in Sao Paolo: start of

Japanese migration to Brazil

2008: Official government celebration in Brasilia, capital of Brazil

Centenary (100周年) characters

Karina Eiko Nakahara

Miss Japan-Brazil (Japanese-

Portuguese-Italian Brazilian)

Sabrina Sato

Japanese-Swiss-Lebanese-Brazilian TV idol

Japanese emigration, 1868-1943

North

America,

Hawaii

Central

& South

America

Southeast

Asia

Manchuria TOTAL

1868-1898 89,962 0 0 0 89,962

1899-1924 302,772 70,588 37,060 0 410,420

1925-1931 14,417 82,885 25,376 0 122,678

1932-1942 4,258 91,063 25,740 180,534 301,595

1943-1943 0 0 0 89,473 89,473

TOTAL 411,409 244,536 88,176 270,007 1,014,128

Roth 2002: 21

State-sponsored migration

Some people decide to emigrate from their own concerns. But most Japanese emigrants left the country as part of a government-organized program.

Private enterprise too Private companies like Nanbei Takushoku 南米拓殖 bought up land and tried to sell it to migrant Japanese. Cruise companies also made profits from taking them out there.

Widely scattered

Nikkei population in

South America

A mission of mercy?

Emigrants to South America were encouraged to go by flattering them that they were being “called for” by governments of South America to “improve” those countries. To a certain extent, this was true. Settlers from Japan were indeed welcomed by some governments hoping that they would improve the economy. But the big lure for most settlers was land.

The lure of land

Settlers were promised land and financial assistance from the Japanese government. They would create a little piece of Japan in the tropics, protected by fences from the poverty around them.

Land-hungry second and third sons rushed to the boats.

Some also went to work for wages

Some Japanese went abroad as contract workers (契約労働者), to work on a big construction project. For example the railway from Manila to Baguio in the Philippines was largely built by Japanese contract workers, hired by the Americans (the colonial power). Japanese had a reputation for working harder than any one else in the world!

A shock on arrival

When they arrived at their new “settlements,” they often found they were knee-deep in mud and nothing else. The support and help promised by the Japanese government was not there. It was sink or swim. Many would-be farmers sank into poverty.

“Promised heaven, given hell”

In 2000, 177 Nikkeijin from Dominica sue the government of Japan for making false promises about the lives awaiting them on arrival.

"Japan's government advertised its immigration project with the phrase 'A paradise in the Caribbean Sea'. "That's why we all decided to go there to realize our dreams of farming on vast, rich land."

-- Toru Takegama, leader of legal action against government, interviewed by Reuter, 2006.

"But it was a far cry from a paradise. It was a hellish nightmare."

From 1956-59, 1,319 Japanese farmers travelled to the Dominican Republic – a month by boat. Ｔhey were confined to settlements surrounded by barbed wire and patrolled by armed guards in areas bordering Haiti. They were not given land as promised, only the right to cultivate land. The area was only 1/3 of that promised and it was bad land. In 1961 President Trujillo was assassinated and civil war broke out.

Barbed wire 有刺鉄線 Assassinate 暗殺する

Plaintiff 原告

In July 2006 the Japanese government settles the lawsuit, paying $17,000 to each plaintiff and $10,000 each to non-plaintiff migrants; Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi makes a formal statement apologising for the "immense suffering due to the government's response at the time".

Pioneers in the Tropics The Political Organization of

Japanese in an Immigrant Community in Brazil

Philip Staniford London, Athlone Press, 1971

Tomé Açu Staniford describes the creation of a new

colony in the jungles of north-eastern Brazil, near the mouth of the Amazon river.

Launched in 1929 by the Nantaku company (Nanbei Takushoku Kabushiki-gaisha 南米拓殖株式会社), financially backed by the famous Kanegafuchi 鐘ヶ淵 textile company.

1929-1938: 352 families and 28 single men arrive (p. 16). Most are poor non-firstborn sons from Kyushu.

Tome Acu

Setbacks The company encouraged settlers to grow cacao,

but the the crops were bad. The company lent settlers money, which many could not pay back. The global economic depression stopped the flow of money from Japan. Tropical diseases killed some of the settlers.

1942: Only 49 families left out of 352. Those with money, or enough healthy family members, moved to better land. Only the poorest remained.

1942: Enemy aliens

World War II: Brazil declares war on the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan), and Tome Açu becomes a giant open-air concentration camp. Farmers are not allowed to leave and cannot sell their crops.

Some of the Japanese immigrants who had left are forced to return. They speak good Portuguese and become post-war leaders. (p.18)

1947: Red pepper revolution

The settlers discover that they can grow red peppers and sell them for a good price. All the Japanese farmers switch to pepper farming. Farming becomes more profitable, but there is a labour shortage.

1953-1962 Second wave of immigrants from Japan. 360 men, most with families. They want to escape poverty in war-shattered Japan. They work as contract labourers for the farmers, who need more workers.

1959: Tome Açu becomes a town

… with a population of 5,000, including many Brazilians working for Japanese farmers. It has government, hospitals, school system etc.

Some friction between first-wave immigrants (employers, expecting loyalty and respect from workers) and second-wave immigrants (workers, expecting democratic rights after experiencing the radical political atmosphere in Japan just after the war).

Japanese school in Brazil

Personality of migrants Less group-oriented, place more value on self-

reliance. Believe they have made a sacrifice (gisei) by leaving over-populated Japan. They have been “thinned out” (mabiki imin). Excluded from inheritance by Japanese system of eldest-son succession. “Strangers start with brothers” (tanin wa kyodai kara).

Some pre-war migrants felt betrayed by Nantaku company and Japan. Some post-war migrants had previously migrated to Korea, Manchuria etc. and had even worse experiences.

Effect of harsh environment

“Of necessity the immigrants had to band together in an alien world… Their relations among themselves and with the Brazilians are peaceful… on the other hand, the strong emphasis on individual effort and self-reliance undercuts co-operative activities… the immigrant believes that everyone else is corrupted by self-interest.” (p.26)

The Immigrants as Marginal Japanese

“They were men who did not inherit enough land or money to remain as farmers… they came from the lower economic strata, to whom group membership gives minimal rewards… they had already chosen to opt out of their native environment to come to Brazil…

“Freedom of choice, once exercised, is not readily surrendered.” p. 186

Ultimate success

Like most Japanese settlers in South America, the people of Tome Açu overcame broken government promises and a very harsh environment, and eventually became fairly prosperous farmers, employing many Brazilian workers. The Japanese today are a respected minority in South America.

A very enduring identity

The migrants are still called “Japones” in Brazil 100 years after the first ones arrived, with some families now in their 5th or 6th generation.

But in Japan, they are referred to as “Nikkeijin,” lit. “Japan-related people” – not “Nihonjin” (Japanese)

Also a complex identity “Dedicated with very great admiration to those

Japanese immigrants who think they have failed because they did not achieve what they desired in the new world. They left so little in Japan to accomplish what they feel is less in Brazil. May their children prosper and build on what they did accomplish at such a high price.”

– Staniford, dedication.

Nikkeijin Identity

Positive image:

Japanese used to sell

German cars

The 52nd Convention of Nikkei and Japanese Abroad

In Tokyo, October 26th-28th, 2011.

Japanese Overseas Migration Museum, Yokohama 海

外移住資料館

Fruit float from

Portland Oregon pride in

agricultural innovation

6 generation Nikkei family

… at a giant family gathering in Hawaii

Takuwan from Hawaii

“A sweet treat from your 50th

state”

沢庵 yellow pickled radish

Fast forward 30 years…

Immigration law reform

The fundamental contradiction at the heart of Japanese immigration policy:

1. Immigration law bans unskilled workers from entering the country.

BUT

2. That is precisely the kind of worker Japan needs.

Why? Because Japanese are over-educated – they

have nearly all gone to senior high school, and more than half to college. They do not want to work in dirty, badly-paid jobs like cleaning out sewage pipes or collecting garbage. They want to work for big companies, not small companies. Also most of them do not want to work in agriculture – they prefer city life to country life.

So…..

…. In the 1980s, when the bubble economy was booming, there was an acute labor shortage for “3K” jobs, in agriculture, factory work and sanitation.

3K Kitsui, kitanai, kiken きつい、汚い、危険

3D Demanding, dirty, dangerous

(There was also a shortage of highly-skilled computer programmers and IT engineers. But that kind of work can be sent out to foreign countries (e.g. China, India) and sent back using the internet. However, a broken sewer pipe in Tokyo has to be mended by someone in Tokyo. The lowest level work is the hardest kind to send off-shore.)

Sewer pipe 下水管

hesitate 躊躇する ease 緩和する

But still the government hesitated to ease immigration restrictions on

unskilled workers… why?

The Fear: Foreigners will disrupt the harmonious

Japanese society based on shared ethnicity, shared culture, shared language… shared blood.

Low-level, unskilled workers will be especially dangerous. They may have criminal or violent tendencies!

They may pollute the purity of Japanese society. (cf. Kegare lecture).

disrupt 混乱させる harmonious 調和のとれた

2 solutions 1. Creation of the foreign apprentice scheme

Foreigners are allowed in to study agriculture and industry at Japanese work-sites. They are also allowed to work part-time to earn money to cover living expenses in Japan. After they finish a 2-year apprenticeship, they can work for another year… and then go home.

Apprentice 見習い

Widely criticized!

Many people argue that the “apprentice” scheme is really just an excuse to bring in a lot of unskilled workers, pay them very badly (because they are supposed to be learning, not just working), and then send them back home before there is a risk they will pollute the purity of Japanese society.

Pollute 汚す purity 潔白

2 solutions

2. Issue working visas to unskilled workers… if they have some Japanese blood in them.

Thereby preserving the blood-purity of Japanese society, and using blood-connection as a way to limit the number of workers admitted.

The visas issued were Nihonjin haigusha 日本人配偶者 (spouse or child of Japanese citizen) or teijusha 定住者 (long-term resident), for periods of 6 months to 3 years. There were no restrictions on work.

“The closer you are to your Japanese roots, the more

we trust you!”

2nd generation (nisei) got 3 year visas, 3rd generation (sansei) 1 year visas. 4th generation (yonsei) and below had to prove they had family members in Japan to be a guarantor.

Roth 25-6

Although they have Japanese names and looked Japanese, the language they think and speak in is usually Portuguese or Spanish. They are Japanese in name, but bring with them the customs and individualism of South America – not always welcome in Japan.

An instant ethnic minority

Country 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996

Brazil 2,135 4,159 56,429 147,803 159,619 189,781

Peru 553 864 10,279 31.051 35,382 36,616

Argentina 359 627 2,656 3,289 2,796 3,035

Bolivia 126 150 496 2,387 2,917 2,811

Paraguay 122 282 672 1,174 1,129 1,235

TOTAL 3,295 6,082 70,532 185.704 201,843 233,478

Source: Kaigai Nikkeijin Kyokai, 1997, in Roth 2002 p.3

South American Nikkeijin registered as

residents in Japan

1998 Anna Bortz case In 1998 television journalist Anna

Bortz filed a law suit against a jewelery shop in Hamamatsu (Shizuoka prefecture) after the owner tried to push her out the door upon learning that she was Brazilian. When she asked why, he showed her a police document warning shop proprietors to do their utmost to prevent theft. To him, this meant expelling foreigners. Bortz won the law suit.

Anna Bortz

2001

Meeting in Shizuoka City sets up Japan Association of Cities with Large Foreign Populations, to pressurize national government for more support for foreign communities.

Levelling off in the mid-2000s…

Year 1999 2006 2008

Brazil 224,299 312,979 312,582

Peru 42,773 58,721 59,723

Prefectures with large Brazilian populations,

2009

Rank Prefecture Pop.

1 Aichi 67,162

2 Shizuoka 42,625

3 Mie 18,667

4 Gifu 17,078

5 Gunma 15,324

6 Kanagawa 13,091

7 Saitama 12,301

8 Shiga 11,384

9 Nagano 10,938

10 Ibaragi 10,200

11 Tochigi 7,710

12 Chiba 6,004

13 Tokyo 4,439

14 Yamanashi 4,318

15 Osaka 3,986

Hamamatsu City

(In Shizuoka pref.) Has the highest Brazilian population of any Japanese city, c. 20,000 up to 2008, c. 18,000 in 2009.

No One Home

Brazilian Lives Remade in Japan

Daniel Touro Linger, 2001

No One Home Brazilian Lives Remade in Japan

Daniel Touro Linger, 2001

Emphasizes hybridization. Before they come to Japan, Nikkei Brazilians are fundamentally Brazilian, not Japanese. They then “remake” (作り直す) their lives in Japan – an improvised, hybrid identity.

Joshua Roth, 2002

“In Brazil, I’m called Japones, and here in Japan, I’m called ‘gaijin’ (foreigner). I have no home.” — comment by a Brazilian of Japanese descent working in Japan, in Joshua Roth’s Brokered Homeland

The prime minister and other politicians praise the Nikkeijin

Every year, Japan hosts the Conference for Overseas Japanese. (It started in 1957, mainly as a way for the Japanese government to apologize for the suffering of Nikkeis caused by Japan entering World War II, with the result that many of them were locked up.)

A shared narrative of suffering

“Through their indomitable fighting spirit (不屈の闘志), fortitude (気概), perseverence （忍耐）and their unceasing efforts (不断の努力), the emigrants to Central and South America conquered unimaginable hardships (想像を絶する困難) in a land where everything from climate to environment, language and customs were different. (Their success) deserves our deepest respect.” (Governor of Kochi pref, Roth pp. 35-6)

Nikkeijin efforts to survive in a hostile environment parallel Japanese efforts to rebuild the shattered homeland after WW2.

Ground level reality…

… could be a bit different.

Bath segregation

When Roth started working at a car factory in Hamamatsu, he was shown around the workers’ dormitories. His guide accidentally took him into the wrong bathroom:

“I noticed a sign on the door that read Nihonjin senyo (“Japanese use only”). The foreigners’ bath was next door. The sign on this door read Gaikokujin senyo (“Foreigners’ use only”).

Roth p. 38 tepid ぬるい

“Inside was a smaller, older tub only half filled with tepid water.”

First phase lifestyle

Work extremely hard and live as cheaply as possible.

Save money as fast as possible.

Get back to Brazil as soon as possible, to use money earned in Japan to buy house, start business, achieve affluent lifestyle.

Starting to stay

Gradually the migrants start to think of staying longer, renewing visa, and using their earning power to have a more interesting lifestyle – eating well, travelling in Asia etc.

“It is not true that Brazilians today only think of saving money. It may have been so at the beginning of the immigration ‘boom,’ but at the moment, though still a minority, many want to live comfortably in Japan.”

Roth p. 98

Divisions in the Brazilian community

Angelo Ishi (1994, in Portuguese) argues that the Brazilian community is split in various ways between

1. Those planning to stay a long time and those planning to go home

2. Those concerned about Brazilian image and those not

3. Those who get on well with Japanese people and those who do not

4. Those who try to learn Japanese languaage and customs, and those who do not (Roth p.109)

3 strategies for migrants

1. Go back home to Brazil.

2. Assimilate (同化), and become Japanese.

3. The third way: become a distinct ethnic minority in Japan.

Roth argues that many Nikkei Brazilians are choosing the third way. P.117

Hybrid culture?

Brazilians in Hamamatsu experimented with various ways of combining Brazilian and Japanese culture – for example, adding samba music to the ancient Hamamatsu Kite Festival.

This, surely, is the way forward!

Tak Tsuda, 2003

Roth found separate baths. Tsuda finds that many of the car companies and car-part in Aichi prefecture (a major employer of Nikkei workers) also had separate dining halls for Japanese and foreigners. APARTHEIDT?

Tsuda, 2003: 161

Tsuda, 2003: 162

Minority counter-identity

Nikkei Brazilians are generally respected in Brazil as a successful, hard-working minority. They are proud to be called “Japones”.

When they arrive in Japan, many of them look entirely Japanese, many have Japanese names.

But when it turns out they cannot speak Japanese and are culturally Brazilian, many Japanese start to despise them – they have lost their “Japaneseness”

… and are suspected of being lazy.

Tsuda p. 155

“The dramatic change from positive to negative minority status that the Japanese Brazilians experience when they migrate to Japan is accompanied by an equally significant transformation in their ethnic consciousness… they distance themselves from their previous transnational ethnic affiliation with the Japanese and assert a much stronger Brazilian counter-identity in opposition to Japanese society.”

Brazilian restaurant in Hamamatsu

Cultural hybridity

I photographed this poster advertising classes in “Brazilian-style jujitsu” as the “X-TREME Jujitsu Academy in Yokohama

Self-segregation

“There is little interaction between the two ethnic groups (Japanese and Nikkei) in most cases. At Toyama, the Nikkeijin and the Japanese workers always remained apart during break and lunch hours, sitting in separate rooms or at different tables and conversing only among themselves. Sometimes if a group of Japanese Brazilians was sitting at a certain table during break, the Japanese would avoid that table, even if there was room.” Tsuda 2003: 161

“Conversation between Japanese and Nikkeijin (beyond work instructions) was basically nonexistent.”

Tsuda 2003: 162

Older Nisei man in Oizumi (Tsuda 2003: 163)

“Once the Japanese find out that you aren’t fluent in Japanese, they realize to their surprise that you aren’t Japanese and therefore distance themselves. They completely sideline you and you can’t become part of their group. As a foreigner, you are treated like an object in Japan. My [Japanese] neighbors have decided not to say a single word to me and remain completely separate.”

Nikkei Brazilian identity

Theoretically, identity could be:

1. Brazilian

2. Japanese

3. Hybrid combination of both

4. Something totally different – “transnational identity”

Tsuda finds Nikkeis see themselves as BRAZILIAN

Koga (1995) and Tajima (1995) argue that they develop a Nikkei identity combining the best of Brazilian and Japanese culture… “I did not find this to be the case even among my informants who had been in Japan for a long time.” (Tsuda 246)

Transnational communities without a consciousness?

“However… a couple of informants did state that they now felt neither Brazilian nor Japanese. Having been treated as a Japanese minority in Brazil but rejected as foreigners in Japan, they were conscious of this double marginalization and mentioned that they are a people without a homeland” (Tsuda 247-6).

No solidarity with other Latinos

“The Peruvians are lazy and only a minority work really hard. They also talk too much at work and are disobedient, though there are some good ones among them too. Very few of them speak any Japanese or know anything about Japan. Therefore, the Japanese don’t like them and prefer Brazilians.” (Older Nikkei Brazilian; Tsuda 251-2)

Many want to go home

“When the Brazilians leave Japan, they all say ‘I’m never going to come back to this country to work again.’ But then a year or so later, they appear at our doorstep again, saying “Hi, I wonder if you could find me another job here in Kawasaki.”

(Labor broker in Kawasaki, in Tsuda 240)

Circular migration

“A number of them find that their employment and income situation back home has been worsened rather than improved by migration. For many, remigration to Japan to earn more money becomes the only alternative, thus initiating a pattern of circular migration.” Tsuda 242

So… who is right?

Linger (2001) and Roth (2002) both see Nikkei Brazilians overcoming many serious problems to create a new, hybrid culture in Japan. Tsuda (2003) implicitly criticizes both of them, saying that he sees Nikkei Brazilians becoming more nationalistic – rejecting Japanese culture because it discriminates against them.

Recent immigration statistics may offer a

clue:

Falling like a stone! (Brazilians)

2009: 267,456 2010: 230,552 2011: 210,032

“Haken” Dispute

Many Brazilians are employed as “Haken rōdōsha” (temporary dispatch workers). They have no job security and low wages. But some researchers say that their weakness is their strength] after the 2008 Lehmann shock, the factories laid off the Brazilians last because they were cheaper labor.

Paid to leave

2009: Japanese government offers “incentive” to go back to Brazil: 300,000 for adult + 200,000 yen per family member.

Low rate of take-up: Many Brazilians have now lived in Japan so long that “going home” is no longer a practical option.

… reflecting a gradual shift from temporary to permanent migration.

Brazilian Kids’ identity

• Behave much worse in Japanese class than in other subjects… associate Japanese language with old people, being bossed around.

• Roberto Pires Jr., Shizuoka University

• Discussing Ethnic Identity Formation among the Second Generation of Brazilian Migrants in Japan

Peruvians: steadier

2009: 57,464 2010: 54,636 2011: 52,842

Consider this stat:

A: Japanese migrants to Brazil: c. 1.5 million

B: Japanese migrants to Peru: c. 90,000

C: Nikkei immigrants from Brazil: 210,000

D: Nikkei immigrants from Peru: 53,000

C/A = 14% D/B = 59% A far higher rate of reverse migration from Peru, leads many to suspect that many Peruvian Nikkeis are not the real thing.

Peruvian and Japanese-Peruvian Migrants in Japan

Ayumi Takenaka (2003)

Although Peruvian migration began in direct response to the ethnicity-based immigration policy, many non-Japanese Peruvians also entered the country. Some entered lawfully as spouses of Nikkeijin or of Japanese, or under other status categories, such as students...

(There are brokers who specializes in Japanese descent documents)

... Many others entered as tourists before Japan abolished the visa exemption agreement with Peru in 1994; or else, they entered as ‘false Nikkeijin’ with forged documents.

Fake Nikkei…

Out of an estimated 60,000 Peruvians (including 46,000 who were officially registered in 2000), perhaps half are of non-Japanese descent, making Peruvians more diverse than other South Americans in terms of ethnic backgrounds and legal status.

Even real ones are mixed…

Among Peruvians of Japanese descent, a greater proportion of them are also considered to be ‘racially mixed,’ as shown in a JICA survey (1992) that 30% of Nikkei-Peruvian respondents were of ‘mixed descent’ as opposed to only 10% of Brazilian counterparts.

人種的に「不純」？

• Because of this, Peruvians, overall, carry a more negative image than other South Americans in Japan and associated with ‘illegality’ and racial ‘impurity.’ At the same time, Peruvian migrants are all relegated treated as low-level ‘dekasegui’ laborers, regardless of their descent and legal status.

Ayumi Takenaka

The thinking goes that ‘Peruvians (of non-Japanese descent) are sly and shrewd, of course, and they are even more so in Japan. Look how they came to Japan illegally without any shame.’

And yet….

Contrary to common expectations, moreover, non-Japanese-Peruvians generally speak better Japanese, are more satisfied with life in Japan and, in a way, better integrated into Japanese society than Peruvians of Japanese descent. (Takenaka)

Alberto Fujimori

A very famous Nikkei Peruvian. President of Peru 1990 to 2000, born in Peru to Japanese parents.

Flees to Japan in 2000, is allowed to live in Japan as a Japanese national.

Japan refuses to deport 国外追放 Fujimori to Brazil because there is no deportation treaty 犯人引き渡し条約 between the two countries.

Dual nationality?

Fujimori’s father registered his birth with the Japanese Embassy in Lima. This creates another problem and the cause of increasing anger in Peru: if he is a citizen of Japan, what was he doing serving two (nearly three) terms as president of Peru? Fujimori's supporters have always been insistent that he is a Peruvian, but Fujimori himself has always kept silent on this point.

Japan does not recognize dual nationality

日本は二重国籍を認めない Any Japanese citizen over the age of 22 who

also has the nationality of a foreign country has to abandon either Japanese nationality or the other country’s nationality.

Yet Fujimori could not be president of Peru unless he has Peruvian nationality!

Therefore he must have been breaking the law of at least one country, maybe both.

June 2011 Fujimori’s

daughter Keiko runs for president of Peru… but is narrowly defeated.

Ruy Ramos Japan national football team, 1990-95 Pure Brazilian, naturalized. A very popular Japanese man!

Marcus Tulio Tanaka Nikkei

Brazilian… now

Japanese again

Jake Shimabukuro 5th generation Japanese-Hawaiian

Tsurumi Brazil and

Okinawa in Yokohama

What have we here?

An advert in a Portuguese-language newspaper for workers to do clean-up work in the Fukushima nuclear disaster zone, for 10-12,000 yen, or 30,000 yen for just two hours work for those willing to work within 20km of the stricken power plant. Sundays off, 3 meals a day.

廃棄物の除去・20キロ圏内/日当3万円/1日2時間。

廃棄物の除去・安全な場所/日当1万-1万2千円/日曜休・住宅と三食付。

NISHIO SAKURAI, 1993-4

I first met Sakurai Nishio on Thursday August 12, 1993 -- a warm summer afternoon. Thin and slightly stooped, with white stubble and a leathery yellow face that often cracked into an infectious grin, he'd spent much of his life in Brazil. He spoke Portuguese about as well as Japanese, and wasn't quite perfect in either.

Born on the outskirts of Sendai around 1937

His family emigrated to Brazil when he was three. He married and started a family in Sao Paulo, but found he could make better money as a migrant labourer back in Japan, sending money back to his folks.

He was on his fifth stint in Japan when I met him, each one lasting a year or more.

He had enjoyed great success as a migrant laborer.

He still had a Japanese passport, so he could work legally, and enjoy job opportunities not available to non-Japanese migrants. He used to do night maintenance for Japan Railways, which paid about ¥20,000 a night. His family in Brazil could live on $1,000 a year, and the yen was about 100 to the dollar in 1993-4.

Easy money? He could theoretically support his

family with

one week of hard work per year

once he had covered his living and travel expenses. He used to go back to Brazil with anything up to $5,000 in cash hidden in his shoe.

His family had enjoyed great economic benefits from Nishio's efforts.

They had a large house with eight rooms, and his four children had got a proper education. He also claimed to own seven apartments in Sao Paulo and to have ¥10 million stashed in Japan, and spoke of setting up an ice-cream parlor back in Sao Paulo. Alas, however, when I met him he was rapidly drinking away his hard-earned wealth and had stopped sending money back to Brazil.

His lengthy spells abroad had alienated him from his own family.

His well-educated children did not respect him and treated him like a stranger when he was home. None of them had learned Japanese and they despised his imperfect Portuguese. His wife found out he had kept a mistress during one four-year stint in Yokohama, and started badmouthing him to their friends. There was a serious financial problem over some land which he bought from his brother-in-law, who had already mortgaged it before the sale and had then gone bankrupt.

And so Nishio, who seemed a happy-go-lucky guy when I first met him, would walk the streets of Kotobuki with shoulders hunched and eyes cast down, tormented by worry over the situation in Sao Paulo.

Why not go home to Brazil?

He already had enough money for a comfortable retirement. Here in Yokohama he was just wasting money, not earning. But he wouldn't go home. Partly it was fear of the reception from his family, partly fear that he would get ripped off. He had been knifed and robbed in Sao Paulo a year before. People would kill you for a couple of hundred dollars over there, he said. Also he had some family in Japan -- he seemed to enjoy the trips he made to see his cousins in Sendai.

Self-destruction

Nishio used to frequent the Tozen, a Korean bar with hostesses. He let it be known that he had plenty of money, and they overcharged him cruelly. He always insisted on treating me, and anyone else at the table, and would bitterly resist any attempt to treat him back. He had no interest in sex, having been impotent for years, a fact which he pathetically mentioned right in front of the Tozen bar-girls.

I believe Nishio was on a death trip

He was willfully ruining his finances and his health. He suffered from diabetes, and was often so ill that he couldn't even respond to a knock on the door. He had whisky for breakfast. His face was yellow, his hair and teeth were falling out, he was decaying visibly by the day.

New Year's Eve, 1993-4

We had a festive drink at the Tozen, but he showed unusual restraint and went to bed shortly after midnight, saying he had to work a very badly paid, 24-hour shift sweeping up rubbish at Yokohama station on New Year's Day. This would be his first day's work in over three months -- an attempt to kick start the new year and bust out of his downward spiral of drunken dissolution.

8 months later

I saw him at the Kotobuki Summer Festival. He looked pale and thin, but no worse than 8 months before. He said he'd moved out of Kotobuki, taking a flat in neighboring Nakamura-cho, and had finally abandoned the Tozen after a Korean friend had started charging his drinks to Nishio's account even when Nishio wasn't there.

Sponger 居候

He had a friend with him, a tall, middle-aged, good-humoured Japanese man, who said he was Nishio‘s flat-mate. I asked Nishio if he was working these days. He said no, with a laugh. I wondered what he was up to. I had a funny feeling that maybe the other guy was a sponger.

I agreed to meet him in the Yuen bar a little later, but he was not there when I got there.

I never saw him again.