As last week’s article alluded to, migration from Asia gained steam during from the late 1850s onward. Factors driving migration to and from offer a number of different reasons for this movement. Even though, at first blush, economic factors seem to prevail within the explanation the author examines, it quickly becomes evident that more complex reasons are behind Japanese migration to Peru.
Before I go on, I just wanted to point out how the issue of remittances has shifted over time. Until about give or take the 1980s and 90s, many migrants were treated as traitors in some countries of origin. All this changed when a number of governments (beginning with Mexico and India) began to realize how much money was coming through remittances. All of a sudden, a group of ‘traitors’ became heroes who sacrificed for their families, cities, and homeland. In the case of Peru, for example, remittances account for about USD$2 billion annually, which is peanuts if you compare it to the USD$21 billion going to Mexico each year. Yet it is interesting to see how a qualitative shift has taken place in how migrants are regarded.
The gold rush in the Americas and Australia became a point of interest for governments, private enterprises, and migrants alike. Governments in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Argentina, and Brazil, with large swaths of available cheap, or sometimes free land were able to capitalize in attracting migrants from different places and regions, with an affinity for European labour, which depending on the region meant Northern European such as in North America (Catholics such as the Italian s and Polish were regarded as ‘un-assimilateable’) and western Europeans in the Southern Cone (Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and parts of Brazil).
On the other side of the Pacific, and in this case, Japan, migrants originated from a very specific geography; as well as social and cultural place in family hierarchy. If economics were our only lens, it would not make sense for only second or third sons to migrate; we would need to include women and the eldest son in each family. However, cultural proclivities, many times guide who migrates, which may or may not be the most ‘fit’ individual to do so. At the same time, it is interesting how the Meiji Monarchy decided to ‘outsource’ the issue of poverty by enticing the unwanted to leave for other lands.
Similarly to Chinese migrants, the first Japanese arrived as indentured workers to toil in cotton and sugar plantations, and like many, with thoughts of saving and going back after the four year contract was up. As history has shown however, it is rare for people to completely make a return.
One aspect of this migration, or at least one of the ideas behind it, was colonization through migration. However, what I found interesting was the absence of violence as with other colonization campaigns by empires (including the Japanese colonization of Korea and Manchuria). This idea of sending its subjects (Japan was not a democracy at the time) in order to help secure ‘the prosperity of the Japanese race’ seems a dubious argument at best in the way it was made. What does seem likely is the Crown shedding a positive light on their plans of ‘population control’ by getting rid of the unwanted poor from prefectures such Hiroshima, Okinawa, Kumamoto, and Fukuoka.
Peru’s rapid growth post-war with Chile it seems was not enough, it seems, to rid itself of the Social Darwinism prevalent in many regions of the globe. The drive to induce European migration and ‘improve our race’ only took a backseat when it became evident Peru could not compete with the nation building processes in countries with larger geographies, as well as the willingness to grant access to farmland. The want by Peruvian landowners to keep migrants from owning land became one of the central reasons for Peru’s failure to attract migrants. Even in their want to attract European migrants, Peruvians landowners wanted free labourers, but also restricted access to land ownership. It seems, not wanting any competition whatsoever helped contributed to a lack of innovation and competitiveness in the global marketplace. In comparison, for example, Argentina became one of the most successful economies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
This article also touches on an aspect of the nation-building process, which never ceases to amaze me: the power of the top-down dissemination of the concept of nation (ethnicity, language, culture, etc.) and how it has become embraced in many regions. In the case of Peru, it is especially interesting how this notion of nation, which really only included about 5% of the population (10% if you included western Europeans in general, and not just those of Spanish descent) was able to be so pervasive.
What do you think?
I liked the point made about using “colonists” and “emigrants” interchangeably as colonization immediately bring horrors to mind, and the Japanese also meant to exploit the receiving country for what it’s worth, but in this case the Japanese meant it for inhabiting a small area without taking power and to not resist the existing regime and way of life. That is why it is interesting that Japanese scholars at the beginning of the 20th century had still not made that distinction at a time when the horrors of colonialism were already somewhat known.
I believe Aron’s point from last week about Peru deporting Japanese immigrants and Peruvian-born 2nd generations to American concentration camps appears here in full color, explaining the background and the Peruvian government’s claims. To me it’s astounding that this is still news to us and not regarded as common knowledge, but unfortunately it’s a first for me to find out that the US implemented similar Nazi racial techniques designed to differentiate and control different ethnicities.
The 1940 Lima riot reminds of the Crystal Night in Germany that took place only two years prior, although the Lima riots could have been a show of hatred towards Japan, taken out on Japanese-descent citizens. Just like people judging the citizens of a land based on their leaders, not for themselves.
The last sentence did throw me off: once achieving perceived equality as citizens after Fujimori was elected, would the Japanese-Peruvians still want to be differentiated based on their Ethnicity? Drawing attention to themselves due to economical advantages over the majority of Peruvians would increase racial hatred.
I agree with Mr. Isla, nation-building processes in general are often imaginary and have a very selective way of defining identity and history. In the Peruvian case it is no different, so much as to imagine the Peruvian identity as that of a mere minority with a rather recent migratory background.
This week’s text by Ayumi Takenaka provided an insight into the history of Japanese emigration to Peru, and also touched upon issues and topics such as racialization and nation-building. Admittedly, I am not at all familiar with the overall topic of Asian migration, and in this particular case, Japanese migration, to Latin America. This is why the background information on the history of the Japanese in Peru was of great interest to me.
To me, the text was also eye-opening in a way, because I was not aware of the wide range of restrictive laws and discriminatory measures targeted at the Japanese minority and its descendants in Peru. I agree with what Tal said that it is hard to believe that probably many of us were not aware of the fact that Peru was the major contributor to the Japanese detention program led by the US, and that Peru deported 1800 Japanese to US detention camps.
I also did not know that the Japanese government encouraged Japanese emigration to Peru as a means of population reduction to deal with Japan’s rapidly growing population, and to eliminate “low-class laborers”, who were considered as posing a threat to the nation. I would be interested in finding out if other nations have similarly supported or encouraged the emigration of their own population to deal with population growth, and/or if they also focused their “emigration-promoting-attempts” on specific groups of the population for various reasons.
The text by Ayumi Takenaka shed light on an issue of Latin American
society that is of enormous personal interest to me: Racial discrimination
and the construction of racial discourses in Latin American countries.
The author mentions the explicit preference of the Peruvian government in
1892 to receive European workers in order to “improve the Peruvian race”.
This absurd idea is explained by the author by the fact that the Peruvian
state was back then dominated by people of European descent (p.82). What
bothers me is, on the one hand, that this idea of race improvement is not
exclusive to Peru, but can be found in most of the Latin American
societies, and more than anything, that this distorted concepts of race
and racial differences still prevails today.
At least from contemporary Mexican society I can say, that while racial
discrimination has more or less disappeared from official political
discourse or lawmaking, many negative associations and ideas about race
still prevail in Mexican society and culture. Being called an “indio” is
an insult, and the absurd white/black skin color dichotomy has its own
name in Mexico (Prieto/Güero). Indigenous popuation is still today an
abused part of Mexican society, and economic affluence is still associated
to lighter skin tones, while poverty with darker.
What is the origin of what are the root causes of these senseless concepts
of race in countries and societies like the Latin American, most of which
are the result of the mixture of many nationalities, cultures and
traditions? More than anything, what has allowed these deeply embedded
discriminatory traits of society to prevail after so many years? How can
the idea of “improving the race” of 19th century Peru still ring awfully
familiar to a Mexican in the 21st century?
Last week, I wrote about Japanese-Peruvians, so I’d like to draw upon two things in the text which arose as particularly interesting and relevant to the discussion.
Firstly, I found it very unusual that Peruvians of European descent were simply referred to as “Anglo-Saxons” according to the quotes in the article (Takenaka: p.88). This diction is quite common in a North-American context (cf. WASPs) but seems somewhat gratuitous in a Latin-American set. Does anyone know the reason for this choice of words or the actual meaning behind the term? As I looked up, there wasn’t a big British-Peruvian community either as in neighbouring Chile (in Valparaíso for example) and Argentina.
Secondly, a shocking, yet a historically common policy in Latin America was the “improvement of race” (p. 82) and the obsession with “whiteness”. I agree with Mr. Rubio on the top-down characteristic of this notion of race and nation and it’s perplexing to see how a statistical minority of 10% of the whole population (see p. 83) can dominate a whole community upon the basis of racial hierarchy and create a sistema de castas on almost a whole continent. An even more worrying phenomenon is the sustainability of this racial and social hierarchy. Besides the socio-economic aspects mentioned by Alonso, it is also implicitly promoted and/or reflected in the media. Latin American telenovelas for instance, especially Mexican ones, present exclusively white Hispanic protagonists, whilst people of colour can be only seen in minor parts, as butlers or janitors.
(Although not a telenovela, a good example is the Mexican spin-off of the American hit TV show “Gossip Girl”, which cast is entirely homogeneous as everyone looks very “European” in contrast to the original series. Here’s the trailer of the show, it is of course pretty simple but still thought-provoking if you think about how it effects teenage viewers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdYh5g7VGZw)
After reading the text, I believe that there was an absence of violence as with other colonisation campaigns by Japan, because that was not the true intentions of the Japanese leadership at that point in time. This can be seen from the demographics and the roles adopted by the Japanese immigrants in Peru, where it would have been extremely difficult for Japanese indentured labourers who were perceived as inferior and lacking any capital or power in Peru to actually exert influence or control in Peru. Even though the economic position of the Japanese immigrants improved over time, their exclusion from the society and the negative perception of them makes it impossible for them to have “colonised” Peru, in the sense of exerting their influence or taking over significant power in the country. In addition, if the Japanese leadership had truly intended for the immigration to Latin America to be a colonisation campaign, it is likely that they would have interfered more or provided more assistance to the immigrants who were suffering from the harsh labour conditions in the countries. Thus, it would seem that it is indeed more likely that the Crown is using Japanese immigration to Latin America as a form of ‘population control’ to manage the rural poor.
Recognising the diverse racial makeup of many Latin American communities, such as the one described in the text on Peru, it is indeed interesting how nationalism continues to be shaped by the elites, which form the minority of the society. Perhaps, this could be attributed to the success of the initial governmental policies to target specific racial groups over time, such that each of the racial groups grew to be isolated from the community and perceived each other as enemies or “others” in the society, thereby preventing any form of interracial integration to take place.
The text mentioned that, “Although Japanese Peruvians perceive little discrimination today, their history of immigration and settlement as a racial minority has had a significant impact on the creation and maintenance of what is often described as a significant impact on the creation and maintenance of what is often described as a thriving and simultaneously a closed major racial ethnic community in Peru.” (p.95) This led me to wonder, in light of the racial riots that took place in 1940s and its lasting impression in the minds of the Japanese-Peruvian community, what efforts have been made by the government to bring about greater integration of the different racial groups in the country together? Especially since the legal measures of eliminating race from official documents have not been effective in eliminating the boundaries that clearly delineate each racial group from the other within the society.
Although the text mentioned the abolition of slavery (the kind of slavery we first think of when we hear the word that involves harsh treatment, no salary and workers being owned) I couldn´t help to be reminded of something I´ve heard about in a seminar about North American slavery.
Before the slave industry was introduced to America, it was quite common for poor Irish and English people to sign off to North America for 7 years with no or little salary in that time but food and lodging. After seven years of hard work and if they haven´t violated any rules, they got a piece of land to settle and become farmers.
I forgot the name of this concept but isn´t this comparable to the four year contracts the Japanese signed?
Hi Sarah,
Indeed, the contracts both Japanese and Chinese migrants signed in their journey to Peru as indentured workers is similar to that of the Irish in the United States.
Hey,
thank you for your answer!
So I imagine the treatment of the participants being as harsh meaning that they have to endure hard work and long hours, punishments, no salary, only a bed and food? And by the end of their contract they´re too worn down to actually profit from their new home and land.
I don´t fully remember the text but were they allowed to bring their families to Peru after they´ve finished their contract? Because how would they have started a proper community there?
I remember from my seminar on North American slavery that only men were put under these contracts and they relied on “regular” immigration to the US from Ireland because otherwise they wouldn´t have found wives since although they´ve finished their contracts, they were regarded as outsiders.
Although the Japanese/Chinese-Peruvian situation happened a couple of years later than the Irish-American one, I imagine the living situations being quite similar. Especially how they were regarded by the locals. Being new to a country, having very differnt cultures clash and than not being completely free does create a very distinct power dynamic between immigrants and locals, I think.
As already mentioned, I also found the relationship between emigration and colonialism very interesting and that the terms emigrants and colonists were often used interchangeably or combined. Before, I have thought about emigration more in terms of escaping poverty and following incentives by the receiving county (and other push and pull factors) than as a means of territorial expansion abroad.
Not surprisingly, the U.S. played a role in Japanese immigration to Peru by enacting restrictive immigration laws, which led to increased Japanese immigration to Peru. Again, I find it quite interesting how migratory flows are shaped through such laws. However, the racist attitude behind these laws upsets me every time I read about it. Especially in the history of the U.S. there have been so many immigration laws favoring or excluding certain ethnic groups. As soon as one group had established itself, the next was discriminated against, often led by nativist sentiment.
After Peru’s failed attempt to attract European laborers, they were urged to open up for Japanese immigration because they were in demand of labor after slavery had been abolished, plus they hoped that it would encourage European immigration. Reluctantly, they incorporated the Japanese as indentured laborers. However, the workers were mistreated, working conditions were far too harsh, they were discriminated against, and many died before their contract had ended. Even emigration companies failed to step in and continued to send emigrants to Peru. Now my questions: 1. Is this just the way indentured servitude works (In the U.S., for example, it was also common that indentured servants from England did not survive their servitude) or did the Peruvian government do this on purpose because the workers were Asian and Europeans would have been treated better because they were more “desirable” immigrants? 2. Obviously the Japanese government was well aware that emigration to Peru often ended in death. So was this just a cruel way by the Japanese government to get rid of their poor underclass?
I think the author presented a range of very interesting racist arguments that have been made in the course of history, for example that “the Japanese were well suited to hard plantation work because, like all Asian immigrants, they were accustomed to working as semislaves”, “they [the Japanese] were happy”. “Their lives are dedicated to their work”. These quotes reminded me in a way of recent emotional labor research, where it is often argued that people from eastern/collectivistic countries can better cope with work stress than people from western/individualist countries because in eastern cultures people are accustomed to work hard out of loyalty to their group, which brings harmony and peace. However, individual characteristics always play a role and it is not possible to assume that all Asians are homogenous.
Not only is this week’s reading by Ayumi Takenaka a well written text but it also provides an interesting, although I agree dubious, perspective on the functions that immigration can take. Suggesting that the Japanese sent out their people as a mean of population control is a very new argument.
One thing became very evident to me from this text. Looking at the Peruvians’ opposition to immigrants one might argue that racism and the “fear” of foreigners does not have to be specific to a country like Germany during WWII or the United States until this day. Maybe intolerance to other nations is a dark aspect of all of humanity at one point or another.
Lastly, I couldn’t help but pay attention to how discrimination and arguments against immigrants are a social construct. In my opinion, even a bit hypocritical even. Locals reporting negatively on the Japanese population in Peru criticised that the Japanese would for example not assimilate or would only marry people of their own nationality. But here is the thing: Would Peruvian society even allow the Japanese to assimilate even if they wished to do so? Denying a child Peruvian citizenship is already a big step towards denying someone assimilation. Looking at the tense situation I doubt that it would even be possible for a Japanese person to marry a Peruvian or to “invest in the Peruvian economy” as did the Europeans. In a way, Peruvians complained about the restrictions they put on the Japanese themselves in the first place.
I’d like to start this week’s comment with a quote from the text, it says: “Their racialization has increased as they [japanese minority] have become economically successful” (p.19). It seems like that pattern is universal to nationalistic concepts, whenever people fear that someone is getting a bigger piece of the cake than themself. Refering to the previous comment I think intolarance to other nations grows out of thinking in nation-state patterns. I would suggest intolerance and racism is not inherent to humanity but to the concepts in which we think, especially that one of nation states.
Different aspects of the text made me truly uneasy.
First, the magnitude of Peruvian complicity with the US-American initiative of internment of Japanese (apparently pan-)American citizens is appalling. Aron already went through it last week, so I won’t get into detail. I was further downhearted by the aftermath to the horrors the Japanese-Peruvian community went through in the 1940s: the author puts it as their recognition of the need for opening up and integrating into Peruvian society. Their lack of integration was not even remotely one-sided! It’s frustrating that – as I understood it from the text – the only thing that changed was that Japanese-Peruvians had to try harder, not that Peruvian society became more open to them. The election of Fujimori as president barely proves anything (just as electing Obama was no evidence of the end of racism in the US) – especially considering the discriminatory events during the campaign.
Furthermore, I’m ashamed (?) to say I was surprised when I read how small the Peruvian population of Japanese descent actually is. When contextualizing Japanese discrimination, the author mentions that the actual size of the Japanese-Peruvian population has been inflated as a part of the racializing, discriminatory discourse. I fear I might have either fallen for that skewed portrayal, or distorted my own perception myself due to the prominence of the figures of Alberto and Keiko Fujimori – or both.
What I found especially interesting in this article, besides highlighting parts of Peruvian history I didn’t know of, was the explanation of how Japanese immigrants became economically successful, thus becoming an easy target for reactionary politics that canalized the resentments of mestizo Peruvians onto the “foreign”.
The idea of serving the nation/emperor as “ishokumin” (immigrants/colonists), together with the governmental discrimination, led them towards a segregation that could be seen as bilateral. The work and property restrictions for certain sectors made them work in certain areas only, mostly in family owned businesses (e.g. barber shops), which motivated other petit bourgeois sectors to othering them because of fear of losing their livelihood.
It is interesting how the host society racializes immigrant communities differently, depending on regional and temporal differences. For example, European immigrants were allowed, even encouraged to move to Peru, while Japanese and Chinese were received with discrimination and racism. This goes hand in hand with the image that is created of these communities, whites being intelligent and productive, even “making the race better” and Asian immigrants being a threat.
As always, making analogies to today can be quite useful. In my experience, economical success in Asian migrant communities is argued with non-scientifical, reductionist cultural arguments like “it’s in their culture to work hard”, completely ignoring the fact that the desire to eventually move back and the segregation in the host country fuel this. Parallel to this, immigrants from other parts of the world (e.g. in today’s Germany refugees from Africa an the Middle East) are automatically seen as lazy or trying to take advantage of the German social system, while still being a threat.
How could these contradictions be explained? When observing who promotes this racialization, it becomes clear that it is not arbitrary, but happening with a political motivation and effect. Dividing oppressed and exploited groups into ethnic categories and fostering the hatred between them reduces the risk of a rebellion against the people that were responsible for the status quo in the first place, in this case the Japanese Emperor and the Leguía regime (and its predecessors) in Peru.
sorry for posting it so late, I tried to upload it but it didn’t work before
Due to the technical problems, my response comes a little late. Yet, I still want to upload my comment on the text since I found the reading well-written and very interesting.
The paper by Takenaka is extremely multifaceted and I learned a lot while reading it. First, I found it interesting to learn about the motives for Japanese emigration, why it was fostered by the government and about who migrated for which reasons. Second, the text showed well how migration flows are directed and influenced by a multitude of different factors: the political and economic reality in the country of origin have as much impact on migration as do political decisions by potential host countries and the circumstances for migrant workers.
Third, I found it interesting and extremely shocking to learn about the involvement of racism and the ambition to “improve the Peruvian race”. Before reading the text, I did not know that South American countries actively attracted migrants from Europe because they were deemed superior to migrants from Asia or Africa. I found this historical fact illustrates well how racial discrimination is socially constructed. Fourth, the text expanded on the relationship between emigration and colonialism. In my opinion, this was the most interesting point of the text. I was very surprised by the fact that Japan regarded emigration as a means to become a colonial power and to promote industrialisation and economic growth. But I was even more astonished to read that whilst Japan had these colonialist ambitions, the Japanese emigrants in Peru actually took the places of the former slave workers. This discrepancy in the conception of Japanese migration adds to point two and three – First, because it illustrates how migratory experiences are shaped by the political realities of the state of origin and the host country and second, because it underscores the social construction of races and the concepts of “colonialists” and “slaves”.
This reading, albeit specific to a small migrant community (Japanese migrants) and specific to only one country in Latin America (Peru), was a great case study of how migrant communities in Latin America have evolved over time. It is interesting to see how the (discriminatory) experiences of the Japanese migrants are mirrored in other migrant communities as well (e.g. Asian migrants in last week’s reading). I found the discussion about the correlation between emigration and colonialism very interesting (pg 3). It is quite intriguing how the people of Peru have written in their history records that the Japanese’s main intention for migrating to Peru at the start was to build a “New Japan” and within (100) years the local Peruvians willingly supported and voted for a Japanese-Peruvian president to rule their country. I would love to read more about Fujimori’s election campaign to learn about how he won over the hearts of Peruvians. It is also quite appalling to read about how the initial Japanese migrants were tricked and sent out of Japan to Peru to be a part of Japanese “colonization” efforts across the Pacific, while simultaneously forgoing their relations with the Japanese people as they are seen as “abandoned people”. This discussion of Japanese “colonization” in Peru is interesting as the traditional route to colonization would be to infiltrate the country by controlling the country economically and culturally from the onset (top down approach). Japanese “colonization” takes on a bottom up approach, where Japanese come to Peru as laborers before working their way up. The concept of endogamous marriage is also interesting; the suggestion that Peruvians judge migrant’s willingness to assimilate into the country by whether they engage in intercultural marriage sheds light on the values that Peruvians uphold and makes me question the extent to which the ease of migrant assimilation is dependent on the number of shared values migrants have with local communities. Will migrant assimilation be easier when migrants share similar values with their new community or will there always be friction because the cultural basis/context for these similar values are different?
This weeks text by Takenaka summerizes the history of Japanese migration to Peru by giving an historical overview about the initial situation, national and international conflicts and policy changes as well as social structures resulting through out this process.
As a mean to gain capital abroad and strengthen national economy through remittances, it was part of the Meijis Governments plan towards industralization/ Westernization on the one hand, but “Japanese immigrants in Peru were [also] incorporated as indentured laborers in its transition from a slave economy to capitalism“ (p.83). This ambivalence entail not just a few problems but is rather entangled in complex dynamics of various levels.
Especially the last sub-chapter “Consequences of racialization“ helped me understanding how people with Japanese- Peruvians descent are still suffering by beeing categorizied and othered by racial terms. The fact that the former President Fujimori was criticized by his opponents by questioning his “Peruvianess“ wether he was born is Peru or not reminded me of the current President of the USA who was trying to use the same argument against former President Obama.
I was able to read the text until now, so sorry for the late comment.
First, the text provided a lot of facts about the immigration-history of Japanes people in or to Peru, I have not known before. I found it very informative but also bitter to read about the exclusion, discrimination and the racism against japanese immigrants that took place on one hand in the broader context of certain american countries,that imposed laws against japanese immigration and on the other hand in the special context of Peru.
Altough I have not touched the topic of racial discrimination or differentiations based on race in the peruvian context, I can relate to this issue in the context of México, where racial disccourse is very present in the society and daily life, as Alonso also mentioned. In conversations with latinamerican friends from Chile and Ecuador we have concluded many times that there continues discrimination and racism towards certain groups of society, as for example against indígenas or black people, and in many cases, not in every, also an aspiration after a certain European or U.S.-american “model“ as well as even the desire to “whiten“ the own country`s population.
The actions againt japanese people surprised and shocked me, but I coud recognize some old pattern: The exclusion of certain, often minority groups, if they become – too- successfull and the construction of that group as a threat while also argumenting on their “strange“ cultural or racial conditions. This fact in addition to the tipical panic-producing- arguments that a society creates towards immigrants we can pefectly observe in the german migration-context and the ongoing migration-debatte.
I’m also sorry for my comment’s delay.
I found Andrés’s comment really accurate, especially regarding the bilateral segregation suffered by this group of Japanese migrants. From a macro point of view, this people were just a means for economic development in both countries, which actually combines very well with racial hierarchies, because it constructs political identities and therefore, identities per se. Next thing we know, we have a biological reason for the fact that POC are exploited or gain less money than white people, especially of European descent. Nevertheless, this people play an important role, because they do the dirty job, but unfortunately now they have to receive a financial retribution for it. The worst part of this phenomenon is that people don’t get to choose what their role is going to be in this “Monopoly game”, because roles are already assigned, so that this categories are taken as a given thing.
In my view, this situation can actually be seen from a merely economic perspective, because here’s the trick: We need to expand our empire and end the poverty problem. The traditional way of doing so is through war, because you send precisely the poor civilian to both fight for- and expand the nation. The problem is that it would cost a lot of money and we want to gain money, not lose it, so we pick up on the migration topic. By means of encouraging emigration we can hit this two targets with one shot: expansion through emigration as such and economic profits through remittances. So the first thing we do is implementing emigration companies, which should provide incentives for people to migrate to South America by selling the Peruvian dream as a mine full of gold and great weather, but at the same time, incorporating the temporary element, to make them believe that this contract in form of a contemporary slavery will eventually end. The second step is to assure the remittances as a stable income and this implies an exchange, so one or two members of the family will have to remain in the country. This is what I consider to be the strategic and sensitive aspect of the situation: the connection to their families and permanent hope of returning to their homelands acts as the main fuel.
This article by Takenata shows a well elaborated approach to explaining the history of the Japanese community in Peru.
In the text from last week I noticed that the Japanese nomenclature for different generations of migrants seems to carry some sort of inherent value. In Takenaka´s text this feature was clearer as she writes:
“Emigration was a form of exclusion, and emigrants were considered ‘abandoned people’ (…) this image persists even today (…). The chasm between Japanese immigrant (emigrant) communities and more recent arrivals from Japan, such as businessmen, students. And other professionals, is also indicative of this status difference”.
This makes me wonder what kind of relationship Japanese communities have with Japan, and if the internal segregation mentioned above has some sort of effect on the intention of going back or the lack of it.
As a continuation of the 5th text, this text, written by Ayumi Takenaka, explains the history of the Japanese immigration from the 2nd half of the 19th century to the end of WWII to Peru. The author especially focuses on the reasons of emigration, the settlement, the conditions of life, the strong community-bounds, the desire of return and the exclusion and the violence towards the Japanese immigrants. Moreover, Takenaka insists on the economic success of the Japanese immigrants that other Peruvians envied and which partly caused the 1940 anti-Japanese riot.
What I found the most surprising in this text was the fact that whites still consider themselves (and sometimes are considered) “more Peruvian” than Native Americans, Japanese and African-Americans, although their ancestors immigrated to Peru as well as Asian-Peruvians’ an African-Reruvians’. It is not new: as explained in the text, from 1923 until the end of WWII the whites in power lawfully restricted Japanese immigration based on racist considerations. However, I naively thought it had changed more than it has. I don’t mean the official documents, I mean the mentalities. In fact, South American countries are often presented as countries in which racism and racist prejudice (towards all non-white communities) are not as present as the United States. A lot of facts prove it to be questionable: that people of the Japanese community are still called “los chinos”, that they don’t get involved in the political process or support a Japanese-Peruvian candidate for fear they would be associated with his actions, that they experience racism in everyday life…
I liked this text very much. Takenaka investigated every aspect of this side of Japanese emigration history, an history that is ignored by a lot of people. This also shows how this history still shapes the every-day life of the Peruvian-Japanese.
On this topic, I just read an article about Brazil being the country in America with the more people of African descent (about half of the population). It was also said that general African history is taught in middle and high school, which might mean minorities and their history could be better included in the national narrative in the coming years.
This text by Ayumi Takenaka tackles the issue of Japanese immigration in Peru. To my point of view, it raises very interesting questions on the topics of integration and racial discrimination.
Even though the history of Japanese immigration to Peru is quite ancient, it became a subject of interest in the public discourse only when Alberto Fujimori, a Peruvian of Japanese descent, was elected to be president in 1990 (till 2000). Nowadays, the Japanese diaspora represents 0.3 percent of the Peruvian population.
The first significant arrival of Japanese to Peru happened in the XIXth century, after an advertisement campaign in Japan to encourage emigration. Among other reasons, Japan saw it as a solution to get rid of the poorest farmers, since the four years contracts in Peru guaranteed a higher income then in Japan. However, emigration came to carry a negative connotation and became a synonym of exclusion for the Japanese population (kimin, the term used for migrant, means outcast, abandoned people in Japanese). Peru, on the other hand, tried to “improve their race” with white preference laws, but since the harsh working conditions kept white people from moving to Peru, the country saw Japanese immigration as a second choice.
After being exploited for more than a century and working under colonial-style conditions, the diaspora became economically more independent as they created small businesses (73% of the barber shops were run by Japanese). Nevertheless, the huge solidarity between Japanese and their lack of integration in the Peruvian population caused hostility of the outside world. The entry into war against the US didn’t make it easier: 1800 Japanese were sent to American detention camps. In 1940, riots damaged 600 Japanese-run businesses, which reinforced their fear of the “outside”.
This fear is still visible today. For example, most of the Japanese did not support Fujimori as he run for presidency, out of fear of another riot. Moreover, they still form a tightly knit community: “in a country where the majority of the population are poor Indian-mestizos, economically advantaged Japanese-Peruvians have a reason to want to remain a distinct racial minority”.