If you have friends who like jazz , you should be very familiar with the name Ono Lisa , especially the songs she sang "Fly me to the moon", "La vie en rose", "Night Comes to the Scent" and other songs she sang are regarded as classics by many people. Because her singing style combines the Bossa Nova style of Brazilian samba and jazz music, she is also known by Japan as the Queen of Bossa Nova. Although Lisa Ono has a very Japanese name, she was born in Brazil and is a real Japanese-Brazilian .
What kind of existence are Japanese-Brazilians? According to statistics from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Brazilian Immigration Bureau, Brazil currently has about 2 million Japanese descent, accounting for 1% of Brazil's total population. As a result, Brazil has become the country with the most Japanese people outside Japan.
Brazil and Japan are thousands of miles apart, why are there so many Japanese in Brazil? How did they reach the South American continent and how did they survive on this land?
Japanese immigration to Brazil is a long-standing historical legend. Let’s start with the country of Brazil. Brazil was once the land where the Indians lived. With the arrival of Portuguese explorers in the early 16th century, it was declared a colony of Portugal.
Although Portugal is a small European country, it has seized the initiative of the Age of Discovery and occupied a lot of territory around the world, and Brazil is the largest one.
After the Portuguese came to Brazil, they brought sugarcane native to India to Brazil and began large-scale cultivation here. By the end of the 16th century, Brazil had become the world's largest producer of sugar. Today, Brazil is still the world's largest producer of sugar cane-pressed sugar.
In addition to planting sugarcane, the Portuguese also introduced tea planting from China. In addition to local coffee planting, these cash crops have become important agricultural products grown and exported by Brazil.
Brazil is vast and sparsely populated, with superior climatic conditions. It takes a huge amount of labor to develop large-scale plantations such as sugarcane, tea, and coffee here, so some planters turned their attention to Africa.
From 1500 to 1800, more than 3 million black people were trafficked to plantations in Brazil. Due to the high labor intensity of the plantation and other factors, many black slave workers have taken away their lives, and black slave workers often escape.
In 1882, Brazil announced its independence from Portugal and established the Brazilian empire. At this time, Brazil's economy was still an agricultural economy dominated by plantations. However, as the calls for anti-oppression and abolition of slavery grew higher and higher around the world, Brazil enacted the Golden Act in 1888 to announce the abolition of slavery. Black slave workers gained personal freedom and fled from their original plantations and flocked to big cities, which led to the plantation's agricultural products rotting in the ground because no one picked them.
Plantations are the economic pillar of Brazil. After black slave workers fled, the Brazilian government had to recruit labor for the plantation. At that time, Brazil, as a white European country, began to recruit immigrants from Italy, Germany and other countries that had just achieved national reunification. However, as these countries gradually became industrialized, these immigrants wanted to find some decent jobs. When they saw the harsh working conditions of Brazilian plantations, they all gave in. In order to prevent the loss of immigrants, Italy passed the Prinetti Act in 1902, prohibiting nationals from accepting subsidies to immigrate to Brazil.
Brazil finds it difficult to attract enough immigrants in Europe, so it turns its attention to the east of the world. As a world-wide populous country, China naturally becomes Brazil's key goal. However, the Brazilian government was disappointed in China and did not receive official permission.
After the Opium War , China's door opened to the West and signed a series of trade treaties with the West, including allowing Chinese workers to go abroad to work. However, Western countries have committed the "legal" plundering in the name of "legal" employment.
Western countries set up recruitment institutions in Hong Kong, Macao, Guangzhou, Xiamen and other places in China. In the name of recruitment, Chinese workers are trafficked like "piglets" to some plantations, mines, and construction sites such as North America and South America to engage in coolies, making huge profits from it. It is estimated that between 1840 and 1870, Europeans trafficked more than 700,000 Chinese workers to work as coolies in South America. These Chinese workers not only have very poor working conditions overseas, but also often suffer from abuse and their living conditions are very poor.
In order to understand the survival status of Chinese workers overseas, the Qing government sent Chen Lanbin and Yung Wing to Cuba and Peru to conduct investigations. After investigating the survival of Chinese workers, Chen Lanbin wrote a report on "Cuba Chinese Affairs Festivals", which was accompanied by 1,600 coolies accusing of cruel humiliation and abuse by their employers. This report shocked the world as soon as it was published.
Because the Qing government is well aware of the miserable situation of Chinese workers being sold overseas, it is more cautious about Chinese workers going abroad to work. When the Brazilian government sent Karado to China to discuss recruitment of Chinese workers with the Qing government, the two sides signed the "Treaty of Reconciliation and Trade", but it did not include the content of Chinese workers immigrating to Brazil. Although the Brazilian government has repeatedly wanted to negotiate with China on recruitment of Chinese workers, with the changes in China's political situation and the outbreak of war, the two countries have failed to reach a consensus on immigration.
After the Brazilian government was unable to recruit workers from China, it turned to Japan around China, and Japan was very interested in this.
In modern times, Japan avoided falling into the same fate after seeing China being bullied by the great powers. Under the promotion of the reformist in , the Meiji Restoration , the leaves Asia and Europe, and learns from the Western powers in an all-round way, thus allowing Japan to embark on the path of capitalist development.
In a series of reforms of the Meiji Restoration, one of them was to abolish the land transaction ban and allow free land transactions. After the implementation of this reform, Japanese upper class and large capitalists purchased a large amount of land to develop industries, which led to the displacement of a large number of landless farmers and pouring into cities to make a living.
However, the Japanese industry at that time could not accommodate so many farmers, and after the farmers poured into the city, they became a surplus of labor. In addition, Japan's war against Russia consumed a lot of financial resources, resulting in an economic depression, people's livelihoods and social problems intensified. At this time, the Japanese government urgently needed to resettle these unemployed vagrants and wealthy laborers.
. For these landless farmers, if they cannot find a job in the country, they will have no livelihood. To make a living, they are also willing to immigrate to a new country and start their new life.
In fact, as for Japan itself, Japan lacks local natural resources, and many other disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoon, , etc. are not very suitable for the country's development. This is also an important reason why Japan later expanded its foreign territory to occupy a large area of China. Brazil is vast and sparsely populated, has excellent land and abundant resources, and is an ideal place for residence that the Japanese yearn for.
So, the Japanese government and the Brazilian government quickly reached a consensus to immigrate to Brazil in an organized manner. On June 18, 1908, the Kasadomaru ship carried 781 Japanese immigrants to sail from Kobe Port . After more than two months of sailing, they finally arrived at the port of Santos, Brazil.
As immigration recruitment agencies vigorously promote immigration to Brazil in Japan, more and more people are interested in immigration to Brazil. They actively sign up, and many people still immigrate based on their families. Between 1910 and 1914, 14,200 Japanese immigrated to Brazil. From 1925 to 1935, the peak period for Japan's immigration to Brazil, with 140,000 Japanese arriving in Brazil one after another.
After these Japanese immigrants arrived in Brazil, most of them engaged in coffee cultivation in in the southeastern part of Brazil in the state of Sao Paulo. Since Brazil's land can be bought and sold freely, they bought land and opened plantations by themselves after saving enough money. As a result, they gradually gained a foothold in the local area.
As a supporting policy to support immigration to Brazil, the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs has set up funds to build infrastructure in areas where Japanese immigration is relatively concentrated, establish Japanese communities, and establish Japanese schools.Therefore, in these Japanese settlements, they can feel exactly like they are in China. They usually communicate in Japanese without changing their living habits and religious beliefs, nor do they have to learn the mainstream Brazilian language Portuguese , nor do they intermarry with local Brazilians, and they have become Japan's "country among the country" in Brazil. Of course, this also led to their inability to integrate into the local society in Brazil.
These Japanese-Brazilians are called "Nikkei", that is, "Japanese in South America". Since they mainly live in the state of São Paulo in Brazil, São Paulo has the title of "Little Tokyo in South America".
Because Japanese immigrants are willing to endure hardships and are more diligent and capable, they gradually gained a firm foothold. As their economic conditions improve, these Japanese immigrants have their own plantations, factories and other industries, gradually leap from the bottom to the middle class and higher levels. Even so, these Japanese immigrants still retain the Japanese traditions and are self-organized in terms of language, religion, living habits, etc., which also laid hidden dangers for their subsequent encounters.
As Japan gradually embarked on the road of foreign aggression and expansion, and established fascist alliances with Germany, Italy and other countries, the Brazilian government also began to worry about these Japanese immigrants, doubting whether they were the vanguard of Japan's invasion of Brazil. In order to prevent the continued increase in Japanese immigration, the Brazilian government announced a ban on Japanese immigration in 1934.
With the occurrence of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States declared war on Japan, and Brazil, which is located in the South American mainland, is also in a state of trouble with fascist countries such as Japan. Brazil announced its severance of diplomatic relations with Japan, and Japan, Germany and Italy became Brazil's enemies, while the situation of Japanese immigrants in Brazil was relatively embarrassing.
For Brazil, these Japanese immigrants retained obvious Japanese characteristics and were loyal to Japan and were patriotic. For Japan, these immigrants are in Brazil. Although they are covered with Japanese blood, they are already Brazilians, so they are also treated as enemies.
Because these Japanese people refused to speak Portuguese , refused to integrate into Brazilian society, and became the object of hatred by Brazilians. They were often abused, beaten, etc., and some people's property was even deprived.
These Japanese people were abandoned by Japan and Brazil. In order to protect themselves, they had to give up their Japanese nationality and chose to become Brazilian nationality. In order to better integrate into Brazilian society, they began to learn Portuguese, attend local schools, intermarry with locals, and some even converted to Catholicism. By the third generation of Japanese, the proportion of intermarriage has reached 42%, and the proportion of intermarriage has reached 61%.
In World War II , Japan announced its defeat and surrender after being attacked by two atomic bombs , and the Japanese people were once again facing difficulties. At this time, some people once again turned their attention to Brazil and chose to immigrate to Brazil. This immigration process lasted until the 1960s. Japan immigrated to Brazil in a total of about 250,000 to 300,000 people. These immigrants have reproduced several times, and now there are more than 2 million people.
However, as the Japanese economy took off again, Japanese-Brazilians began to return to Japan, and they returned to China to seek development opportunities. Lisa Ono mentioned earlier in the article is a representative figure of the return of Japanese Brazilians to Japan to develop.
And those Japanese immigrants who chose to stay in Brazil quickly integrated into the local society and made their mark in the local area. For example, Japanese-born Louis Gou Zhijian once served as the Minister of Communications of Brazil; Juniti Saito was the commander-in-chief of the Brazilian Air Force ; Julio Chiling was the archbishop of the Diocese of Sorocaba, Brazil.
While integrating themselves into the local society, the Japanese also brought Japanese culture to Brazil. In this process of integration, a unique cultural phenomenon has been formed. For example, " Brazilian Jiu-jitsu " is considered to be developed based on the Japanese Judo .
Many Japanese-American Brazilians nowadays have become Brazilian elites. They are also one of the main groups of the Brazilian middle class and are exerting an increasing influence in all walks of life in society.
A few years ago, there was a movie called "Japan Sinking", which tells how the Japanese will sink to the bottom of the sea due to changes in the earth's crust in a certain period in the future.
If one day Japan really sinks, then where is the preferred immigration destination for Japanese people? It’s not China, not the United States, not Australia, but Brazil.
