Japanese in South America...

TRox51 at aol.com TRox51 at aol.com
Wed May 3 11:46:53 PDT 2000


On Japanese emigration to SA -

One interesting point here - after WW2, the US forcibly relocated thousands of Okinawans, primarily farmers and trade unionists, to South America, and literally dumped them in a completely undeveloped parcel of land in Bolivia. The people moved were either farmers who were forced from their land to make way for Kadena Air Force Base (which was built during the Korean War) and 'communist' labor leaders who had organized unions among the Okinawan workers who built the US bases and worked at cafeterias, gardens etc for the military. It is a sad and virtually unknown chapter of US military history in Asia. The Japan Policy Research Center in San Diego has published extensive work on this episode, which should serve as another reminder of the terrible toll the Cold War had on Asia - and why US military policy in Asia must change. Tim Shorrock


> I have a dumb question Jean-Christophe: what were the forces behind those
> massive emigration waves? That was right during the time of opening up
> and modernization, right? And why to South America?
>
> Michael

I can't check much at home but I can try to answer : this 'opening and modernization' is mostly a period of accelerated capital accumulation, with incredible poverty and of course rural exodus. Plus the search for political freedom and the new possibility to leave the country (after 250 years of stricly enforced closed country policy). I know there are stats about the kind of people who left (business men, workers, peasants...) but I don't have them here. :-(

Why SA ? Well, obviously not only SA. Also Hawai, Hokkaido (the big island in the north, that is part of Japan only after Meiji) and also Korea, China when military imperialism starts to take over, also the USA. I mentioned SA only because it is mostly the descendants of emigrants to SA that came back through the new visa law. The ones in the USA fared much better, and the ones in Korea and China either came back right after the war or were kept (in China) until very recently (but their children have easy access to Japan soil through other kinds of visas). I suppose all the figures are somewhere but we have a long vacation (three days ... they call it the Golden Week) so I won't be in the office for a little while. I'll try to do better next week :-)

JC Helary



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