The publication “Resistance & Integration: 100 years of Japanese immigration in Brazil” celebrates the 100th anniversary of the arrival of Japanese immigrants in the country.

The publication“Resistance & Integration: 100 years of Japanese immigration in Brazil” celebrates the 100^th anniversary of the arrival of Japanese immigrants in the country, and highlights several aspects related to the merging of these different realities and customs throughout this period. Organized by researchers Célia Sakurai, a specialist in the history of Japanese immigration, and by Magda Prates Coelho, assistant  organizer from the Center for Information Documentation and Dissemination of IBGE, the book brings ten articles written by specialists from the Institute itself, the University of São Paulo (USP), theUniversity of Campinas (Unicamp), the National School of Statistical science (Ence), the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris) and from the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea), among others. With about 200 pages illustrated with maps, historical photographs and drawings, the book will be sold for R$ 100 in all the IBGE bookshops and through the virtual shop, which can be accessed on the website www.ibge.gov.br.

The official release of the publication will be tomorrow, June 17^th  at 7:30 PM, in Auditorium 9 of Palácio  de Convenções do Anhembi – 1,209 Olavo Fontoura Av., Santana, SãoPaulo/SP. During the event the book will be sold for R$ 50.

“Resistance & Integration” shows the experiences of Japanese immigrants and their descendants throughout these 100 years in Brazil. It has been a path of rapid social ascension, according to specialists, since the immigrants, who were formerly agricultural workers, have become PhD’s in less than three generations.

It all started when ship Kasato Maru entered the Port of Santos (SP), in 1908, bringing 781 persons and 165 families, all formed according to what was stated in by the Brazilian government. Here in Brazil the immigrants witnessed periods of fast and deep political and economic changes, and their integration to the new land faced resistance from both sides, both by the Brazilian and the Japanese, due to the appearance of immigrants or to the differences of cultures and traditions.

Throughout the latest decades, these immigrants’ descendants left their prejudice behind and some of them even lost closer contact with their own language and, after several changes in their way of life and thought they started to return to Japan in the 1980’s in order to have better opportunities for the future. When in contact with the Japanese society, they realized how different their view of the world had become after their experience of years in Brazil.

Presented under a multidisciplinary approach, the texts in the book cover four big topics: the history of immigration; the territorial distribution of Japanese in Brazil and the characteristics of immigrants and their descendants – with information ranging from data of the 1920 Demographic Census and a special focus on the state of São Paulo; aspects of Japanese colonization in the states of Rio de Janeiro and Paraná; and a final part concerning cultural aspects affecting immigrants in their new homeland.

History of Japanese immigration in Brazil

In Part I, the article by Kaori Kodama and Célia Sakurai, “Episodes of Japanese immigration in Brazil –100 years in review”, narrates the history of Japanese immigrants, giving details of the paths and settings of this history. The text provides basic information to the understanding of the rest of the book. It starts by describing the social and economic conditions of Japan in the Meiji Era, in order to explain the reasons of Japanese immigration to Brazil. It then shows, detailedly, the steps of Japanese settlement in the country until the end of the migration flow, in the end of the 1970’s and the flow of descendants to Japan, from the middle of the 1980’s on.

Territorial distribution of Japanese people in Brazil

Part II, elaborated by demography specialists, is very relevant worthwhile because of the previously unseen data it presents, filling a gap in the Brazilian bibliography on Japanese immigration.

The work of Nilza de Oliveira Martins Pereira e Luiz Antônio Pinto de Oliveira, Japanese immigrants' path in Brazil: 1920/2000 Demographic Census, is a detailed analysis of data relative to Japanese in the Demographic Censuses of 1920, 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1991 and 2000, indicating their presence in all the Brazilian states throughout this series.

The authors make a profile of immigrants by sex and age, and also refer to data concerning religion, education, work, as well as their self-declared color and race.

Kaizô Iwakami Beltrão, Sonoe Sugahara and Ryohei Konta have written “Living in Brazil: characteristics of Japanese-Brazilians”, with emphasis on the internal differentiation of the group called, in general terms, “Japanese”.  

Having the total Brazilian population as a parameter, the article analyzes the years of schooling of each one of the of nikkey segments (Japanese and their descendants), by urban or rural household and migration status (immigrants, migrants and non-migrants). Authors also show, in detail, the spatial distribution of this population and their movement, from the initial concentration in São Paulo, to the steady mobility to all over the national territory. They also make a comparison of the paths followed by the Brazilian and nikkey populations in relation to occupation in several production segments (agriculture, industry, trade and services).

The analysis of Japanese people in the state of São Paulo undergoes a previously unseen demography in the article of Maria Silvia C. Beozzo Bassanezi and Oswaldo Mário Serra Truzzi, “Planters of the future: Japanese in São Paulo during the first half of the 20^th century”. Besides IBGE censuses, the authors make use of statistics from the Service of Immigration and Colonization (SIC), of the Secretariat of Agriculture of São Paulo, presenting data about the way the agricultural work changed the size and value of rural properties, cultures, geographical mobility and the changes in the demographic profile of families.

Japanese colonization in Paraná and in Rio de Janeiro

Part III shows the colonization in Paraná and in Rio de Janeiro, in two articles analyzing the history of Japanese immigrants in these states, specifically: “From the land of the rising sun to the fertile lands of Paraná: territorialization and social organization of nikkeis”, by Alice Yatiyo Asari and Ruth Youko Tsukamoto and “Rescue of a history: the Japanese in the State of Rio de Janeiro”, by Tomoko Iyda Paganelli

To Paraná, immigrants were attracted by the fertility and abundance of land and the possibility of developing agriculture in areas offered by colonization companies. The situation of Rio de Janeiro was different: for having been the capital of Brazil, it attracted Japanese persons even before 1908, and the agricultural colonization spread over the state. In Both cases, authors call attention to the role of associations as central elements to the understanding of these experiences.

Tradition and modernity

In the last part of the book, the three first articles focus on the matter of how the process settlement and integration of Japanese immigrants in Brazil.

“From the passengers of Kasato Maru to Varig Airplanes: who were the immigrants?”, by Célia Sakurai, indicates, through a qualitative method, the different steps of immigrants: people with different profiles in their origin. In “Japanese immigration in Brazil: the wealth of a one-hundred year presence”, Mônica Raisa Schpun highlights  the contributions of immigrants and their descendants in the process of integration, showing its difficulties and the ways it occurred. The text “Tradition and modernity in the education of Japanese immigrants’ children”, by Masato Ninomiya, deals with a crucial question in the lives of Japanese people: the dilemmas of a mixed education – Brazilian and Japanese – in Brazil, at the same time it highlights the same problems in the education of Brazilian children living with their parents in Japan.

It is not possible to ignore the flow of Brazilian Japanese-descendants to Japan, the so-called dekassegui movement.  The last text, by Lili Kawamura, Family, woman and culture: impact of migration to Japan approaches the connection between both countries in an opposite direction, showing the changes in the way families and women lived and how the experience in Brazil affected the lives of Brazilians who moved to Japan.