Japanese immigration to Brazil began in the 20th century, through an agreement between the Brazilian and Japanese governments. Officially, on June 18, 1908, the first ship (Kasato Maru) docked in São Paulo and brought with it more than 780 farmers to the farms in the interior of São Paulo. The flow only decreased significantly in 1973, with the arrival of the last ship (Nippon Maru) at the time, the estimate was that there were almost 200 thousand Japanese settled in the country.
Currently, it is estimated that there are more than one and a half million Japanese-Brazilians, the majority of whom reside in the states of São Paulo and Paraná. The Japanese-Brazilians who went to Japan to work from the end of the 1980s are called dekasséguis.
In 2008, Brazil celebrated the centenary of Japanese immigration. During these 100 years, since the arrival of the ship Kasatu Maru, the first vessel with Japanese immigrants to disembark in Brazil, the Japanese came to the country and settled in several cities, initially in the Ribeira Valley. Afterwards, the Japanese migrated to other cities and regions and among these places are Mogi das Cruzes, Oswaldo Cruz and Bastos in the state of São Paulo.
City of Mogi das Cruzes
In Mogi das Cruzes there is the Japanese Immigration Centenary Park, opened in June 2008. The park has four lakes with bridges inspired by the oriental style, in addition the Japanese presence is noted by the large number of cherry trees (symbol tree in Japan) planted in the park. The Japanese immigrants who settled in Mogi das Cruzes mostly arrived in the 1920s and 1940s to work on the coffee plantations in the northwest region of São Paulo.
Bastos
If you like Japanese culture you also need to visit Bastos. It was these Japanese immigrants who started the city of Bastos, 20 years after the arrival of the first caravan. At first it was just Japanese and they contributed a lot to the history of the place. To this day, a large part of the population only speaks Japanese. Bastos has the highest percentage of Asians in the state of São Paulo and once had the largest Brazilian silk thread factory, being the largest supplier to the USA in the Second World War.
Osvaldo Cruz
Osvaldo Cruz was the scene of a conflict between Brazilians and Japanese immigrants during the Second World War. In July 1946, a murder committed by a Japanese descendant triggered a huge demonstration of anger by Brazilians against the city’s Japanese community. The situation was only controlled with the arrival of army troops. Nowadays, the atmosphere is peaceful and you can experience this on a visit to the Honpa Hongwanji Buddhist Temple. Throughout the year, the temple hosts various festivities and celebrations. A good opportunity to find a little peace and learn more about Buddhism.
São Paulo
The “Bairro da Liberdade”, located partly in the Liberdade district and partly in the Sé district, is known as the largest stronghold of the Japanese community in the capital which, in turn, is home to the largest Japanese colony in the world outside of Japan.
Paraná
The expansion of the colony in Paraná is directly related to restrictions on coffee planting in the State of São Paulo. Although the Cambará region had already had a Japanese Village since 1913, it was only after the fall of the New York Stock Exchange, in 1929, that immigration companies began to look outside the São Paulo territory. With the international financial incident, the São Paulo government banned the planting of coffee plants and large Japanese capitalists who invested in agricultural activities began to buy land in Paraná and resell it to immigrants. Thus, in 1932, Assaí emerged, initially named the Três Barras nucleus. The choice for the new name could not be more appropriate: Assaí means rising sun.
Just as they encountered difficulties upon arriving in São Paulo, immigrants from the north of Paraná also had to exercise the soul of trailblazers. Between 1932 and 1939, 365 immigrant families arrived in Assaí, but they were not people who came directly from Japan. The vast majority were already familiar with the Brazilian way of life and had a history of working on farms in São Paulo.
History of Japanese immigrants
This was the propaganda poster for Japanese immigration to Brazil and Peru.
Japan was overpopulated at the beginning of the 20th century. The country had been isolated from the world during the 265 years of the Edo period (Tokugawa Shogunate), without wars, epidemics brought from abroad or emigration. With the agricultural techniques of the time, Japan produced only the food it consumed, with virtually no stockpiling for difficult periods. Any failure of the agricultural harvest caused widespread famine.
The end of the Tokugawa Shogunate gave way to an intense project of modernization and opening to the outside world during the Meiji era. Despite the agrarian reform, the mechanization of agriculture left thousands of peasants unemployed. Thousands of other small peasants fell into debt or lost their land because they were unable to pay the high taxes, which, in the Meiji era, began to be charged in cash, whereas before they were charged in kind (part of agricultural production).
In the countryside, farmers who had not had their land confiscated for non-payment of taxes were barely able to support their families. Landless peasants moved to the main cities, which became saturated. Employment opportunities became increasingly rare, forming a mass of miserable workers.
The emigration policy put into practice by the Japanese government had as its main objective to alleviate social tensions due to the scarcity of cultivable land and the indebtedness of rural workers, thus allowing the implementation of modernization projects.
From the 1880s onwards, Japan encouraged the emigration of its inhabitants through contracts with other governments. Before Brazil, there was already Japanese emigration to the United States (mainly Hawaii), Peru and Mexico. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were also large flows of Japanese emigration to colonize the newly conquered territories of Korea and Taiwan. Only in Brazil, the United States and Peru were large colonies of Japanese descendants formed. Virtually all immigrants who formed large colonies in Korea and Taiwan returned to Japan after the end of World War II.
In April 1905, Minister Fukashi Sugimura arrived in Brazil, who visited several locations in Brazil, being well received by both local authorities and the people, part of this treatment was due to the Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War, against the great Russian Empire . The report produced by Sugimura, which described the receptivity of Brazilians, increased Japan’s interest in Brazil. Influenced by this report and also by the lectures given by Secretary Kumaichi Horiguchi, Japanese people began to appear and decide to travel individually to Brazil.