The Japanese in Latin America

Front Cover
University of Illinois Press, 2004 - History - 335 pages
Japanese migration to Latin America began in the late nineteenth century, and today the continent is home to 1.5 million persons of Japanese descent. Combining detailed scholarship with rich personal histories, The Japanese in Latin America is the first comprehensive study of the patterns of Japanese migration on the continent as a whole.

When the United States and Canada tightened their immigration restrictions in 1907, Japanese contract laborers began to arrive in mines and plantations in Latin America. Daniel M. Masterson, with the assistance of Sayaka Funada-Classen, examines Japanese agricultural colonies in Latin America, as well as the subsequent cultural networks that sprang up within and among them, and the changes that occurred as the Japanese moved from wage labor to ownership of farms and small businesses. Masterson also explores recent economic crises in Brazil, Argentina, and Peru, which combined with a strong Japanese economy to cause at least a quarter million Latin American Japanese to migrate back to Japan.

Illuminating authoritative research with extensive interviews with migrants and their families, The Japanese in Latin America examines the dilemma of immigrants who maintained strong allegiances to their Japanese roots, even while they struggled to build lives in their new countries.
 

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Contents

Before Latin America The Early Japanese Immigrant Experience in Hawaii Canada and the United States
4
The Latin American Pioneers
11
Issei and Nisei in Mexico Peru and Brazil 190837
51
The Smaller Japanese Communities 190838
86
The Impact of the Asian War 193852
112
Exiles and Survivors The Japanese Peruvians 193852
149
New Colonias and the Older Nikkei Communities 195270
179
Nikkei Communities in Transition Nikkeijin in Peru Brazil Mexico and Japan
225
Looking to the New Century Confronting New Trends and Healing Old Wounds
269
Afterword
285
Glossary
291
Chronology
293
Notes
297
Index
329
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