The Japanese Empire and Latin America 9780824894610
The Japanese Empire and Latin America provides a comprehensive analysis of the complicated relationship between Japanese
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Contents
Introduction
1 Turning the Water into Fair Pools: Prewar Japan’s Paternalistic Outreach in Its South American Emigration Policy
2 Japanese Shipping Lines in Latin America, 1905–1941
3 Toward a Prototype of the Total Empire: Japanese Migration to Brazil and Japanese Colonial Expansion in Asia, 1921–1934
4 Transpacific Migration and Japan’s Extraterritorial Settler Colonialism in the US-Mexican Borderlands
5 The Immigrant-Homeland Connection: The Development of the Japanese Community in Peru
6 Guiding Settlers: The Overseas Development Company and the Recruitment of Rural Brazil, 1918–1936
7 “South America Bound”: Japanese Settler Colonist Fiction of the Meiji Era
8 Chasing the Transnational Flow of Books and Magazines: Materials, Knowledge, and Network
9 Immigrant Propaganda: Translating Japanese Imperial Ideology into Argentine Nationalism
10 After the Empire: Postwar Emigration to the Dominican Republic and Economic Diplomacy
11 Were Issei in Brazil Imperialists? Emigration-Driven Expansionism in Nikkei Literature
Bibliography
Contributors
Index
Recommend Papers
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The Japanese Empire and Latin America
The Japanese Empire and Latin America Edited by
Pedro Iacobelli and Sidney Xu Lu
University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu
Th is book was partially funded by the ANID-Fondecyt Regular, Grant No. 1200031 © 2023 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First printing, 2023 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-P ublication Data
Names: Iacobelli, Pedro, editor. | Lu, Sidney Xu, editor. Title: The Japanese Empire and Latin America / edited by Pedro Iacobelli and Sidney Xu Lu. Description: Honolulu : University of Hawai`i Press, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022044589 (print) | LCCN 2022044590 (ebook) | ISBN 9780824892999 (hardback) | ISBN 9780824894610 (pdf) | ISBN 9780824894627 (epub) | ISBN 9780824894634 (kindle edition) Subjects: LCSH: Japanese—Latin America—History. | Japan— Emigration and immigration—Government policy. | Japan— Commerce—Latin America. | Latin America—Commerce—Japan. Classification: LCC F1419.J3 J37 2023 (print) | LCC F1419.J3 (ebook) | DDC 327.5208—dc23/eng/20220928 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022044589 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022044590 Cover illustration and design by Aaron Lee University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Designed by Westchester Publishing Serv ices
Contents
Introduction 1 Sidney Xu Lu and Pedro Iacobelli
1 Turning the Water into Fair Pools: Prewar Japan’s Paternalistic Outreach in Its South American Emigration Policy 16 Toake Endoh
2 Japanese Shipping Lines in Latin America, 1905–1941 37 Elijah J. Greenstein
3 Toward a Prototype of the Total Empire: Japanese Migration to
Brazil and Japanese Colonial Expansion in Asia, 1921–1934 63 Sidney Xu Lu
4 Transpacific Migration and Japan’s Extraterritorial Settler Colonialism in the US-Mexican Borderlands 93 Eiichiro Azuma
5 The Immigrant-Homeland Connection: The Development of the Japanese Community in Peru 126 Ayumi Takenaka
6 Guiding Settlers: The Overseas Development Company and the Recruitment of Rural Brazil, 1918–1936 145 Andre Kobayashi Deckrow
v
vi Contents
7 “South America Bound”: Japanese Settler Colonist Fiction of the Meiji Era 168 Seth Jacobowitz
8 Chasing the Transnational Flow of Books and Magazines: Materials, Knowledge, and Network 191 Yoshitaka Hibi
9 Immigrant Propaganda: Translating Japanese Imperial Ideology into Argentine Nationalism 208 Facundo Garasino
10 After the Empire: Postwar Emigration to the Dominican Republic and Economic Diplomacy 227 Hiromi Mizuno
11 Were Issei in Brazil Imperialists? Emigration-Driven Expansionism in Nikkei Literat ure 250 Ignacio López-C alvo Bibliography 273 Contributors 295 Index 299
The Japanese Empire and Latin America
Introduction Sidney Xu Lu and Pedro Iacobelli
I
n 1893, shortly a fter ending his tenure as Japan’s foreign minister, Enomoto Takeaki established the Colonial Association (Shokumin Kyōkai) in Tokyo. In this venture he was joined by a host of like-minded Meiji politicians, business leaders, and intellectuals; their association aimed to pool resources both in and outside of the government to facilitate the empire’s migration-driven expansion.1 One of the association’s most noteworthy projects was land acquisition in southern Chiapas, Mexico, where it established a Japanese settler community in 1897 known as the Enomoto Colony.2 Though this project quickly failed due to poor planning and lack of funds, some of its key participants, such as Enomoto’s close associates in the Foreign Ministry Fujita Toshiro and Nemoto Tadashi, would go on to play critical roles in paving the way for Japanese migration to Peru and Brazil.3 However, before Enomoto was shoring up support for Japanese migration to Latin America, he had already pushed for the empire to expand into the South Seas. He made attempts to purchase the Mariana Islands, the Palau Islands, and Borneo for the empire as early as the 1870s.4 Under his leadership, the imperial navy took Japanese intellectuals and journalists on tours in the South Seas on its battle cruisers. Shiga Shigetaka, an editor of the magazine Nihonjin, went on one such tour and penned the book Nan’yō Jiji based on his observations, and it proved to be one of the most influential works advocating for Japan’s southward expansion during the Meiji era. ere in danger of becoming a Nan’yō Jiji warned the Japanese that they w victim of Western colonialism like the native peoples in the South Seas and Hawai‘i had already done. To escape the clutch of Western imperialism, Shiga urged, Japan’s empire builders must make haste to occupy what 1
2 Introduction
he referred to as “unowned land” and sea lying to the south of the empire before the Westerners did.5 The ideas and activities of Enomoto Takeaki and his followers belong to a much larger story of the multifaceted connections between the Japanese empire’s legacies in the Asia-Pacific region and Japanese migrant presence in Latin America. Why and how does Latin America m atter in our understanding of the Japanese empire? How did the history of Latin America and that of the Japanese empire intersect and intertwine as the latter sought to transform itself into a nation-state? These are the central questions that this book seeks to answer. Due to the territory-bound and nation-based understanding of history, the experience of the Japanese empire in Asia and that of Japanese expansion to Latin America have been studied in isolation with few connections with each other. Accordingly, these experiences often developed into contrasting narratives and w ere memorialized differently in conventional wisdom, with the tragedy of colonialism and imperialism on the one hand and the saga of migration and ethnic integration on the other. The Japanese Empire and Latin America challenges this intellectual separation by emphasizing the multidimensional links between the rise and fall of the Japanese colonial empire in Asia and the Japanese presence in Latin America. It argues that we cannot adequately comprehend Japan’s imperial history, colonialism, and even domestic politics without taking Latin America seriously. It also places the Japanese migration to Latin America into the global history of migration and settler colonialism and reexamines the location and significance of the Japanese empire in modern world. Since the beginning of the modern era, Japanese expansionists referred to the ongoing Anglo-American expansion in the world as a textbook on empire building, in which migration was a central engine. US westward expansion, in particular, served as a constant source of inspiration for Japan’s empire builders, who not only saw it as a guide for the Meiji colonization of Hokkaido but later also turned to the American West itself as a frontier of Japanese expansion. The Japanese expansionists’ desire for a share of the North American land, however, turned out to be unfruitful. Decades of anti-Japanese campaigns in North America that culminated in the promulgation of the US Immigration Act of 1924 forced Japanese empire builders to cast their gazes southward to Latin America as an alternative target. For this reason, they often viewed Latin American land through a lens of colonialism and expected that the migration and settlement of Japanese
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subjects there would put down permanent roots for the Japanese empire in the New World.6 Additionally, the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were a time when the newly independent powers in Latin America were conducting their own dual processes of nation building and expansion. Immigrants from Europe, Spanish and Portuguese American elites reasoned, would not only help to whiten their own racial stocks but would also serve as trailblazers for their nations’ expansion into interior regions. The decrease of European immigrants and the rise of the Japanese empire in Asia at the turn of the twentieth c entury together made the Japanese an alternative source of immigrants for Latin American policy makers. Therefore, Japa nese migration was caught in the processes of empire building in both East Asia and Latin America.
Japan in the Americas, the Americas in Japan From its onset, the Meiji government undertook several steps to enrich the nation, strengthen the army, and develop industry and commerce. While constrained to “unequal treaties” with the major Western powers in Asia, the empire sought to expand its diplomatic and commercial links across the Pacific. This process involved acquiring foreign techniques and knowledge and adopting Western ideas and practices. As a part of this process, during the late nineteenth century Japanese economists and politicians advocated for trade expansion to Latin America.7 The Japanese diplomat and theorist Inagaki Manjirō, in 1891, claimed that “the powers compete for wealth in peacetime and in arms during war,” and thus, overseas Japanese settlements would help the extension of trade by creating markets for Japa nese goods (mostly silk and cotton textiles).8 The Japanese government organized and promoted international migration through private emigration companies (imin kaisha), establishing Japanese settlements in several places from the early Meiji period. One of the features that characterized Japanese foreign policy before the Pacific War was its state-endorsed migration programs.9 Japanese migrants from almost all corners of the archipelago, especially from Okinawa, Niigata, Yamaguchi, and Hiroshima, were shipped to countries and territories in Asia, the Americas, and the Pacific Islands. By 1935, over 1,753,000 Japa nese subjects had migrated to the empire’s colonial territories and over
4 Introduction
550,000 to countries and territories in Southeast Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.10 Japan was quick to establish diplomacy and trade agreements with several Latin American republics and opened offices in Mexico (1891), Brazil (1897), Chile (1902), Peru (1909), and Argentina (1918).11 Moreover, Japanese migrants began reaching the shores of Latin America from the late nineteenth century: Mexico (1897), Peru (1899), Chile (1903), Argentina (1908), Brazil (1908), Colombia (1929), and Paraguay (1936), among others. Even though tens of thousands of Japanese had migrated to the Americas during the Meiji period, Japanese migration gained its true Latin American colors during the Taishō period when migration to Peru and Brazil increased and Latin America overtook North America as a main destination.12 The Japanese empire’s links with Latin America w ere more diverse than just the circulation of people. In terms of trade, for Japan, World War I was a great stimulus for Japanese exports (and a surge of inflation), which set the quick development of Japan’s shipping industry.13 By the late 1920s and 1930s, Japan developed a cotton textile industry that rivaled its British counterpart.14 In the early 1930s, to retaliate against the Commonwealth’s boycott against Japanese textiles, the Japanese government sharply decreased raw cotton importation from India and turned to Brazil as a major cotton supplier.15 As the Great Depression slowed Japan’s economic expansion, Tokyo’s central reaction to the crisis was to strengthen its economic diplomacy.16 Latin American countries continued to stand as alternative markets for Japanese manufactures when tensions between the Japanese empire and the Anglo-American powers continued to escalate in the 1930s. Though the Pacific War (1941–1945) put an abrupt end to Japanese trade with the continent, Japan swiftly reestablished its trade networks in Latin America a fter the US occupation. The Japanese presence in Latin America also gave place to discourses on race that were widespread in the Americas and the rest of the world. Since the late nineteenth c entury, the expansion of the Japanese empire had seemed unstoppable. Its rise as a hegemonic power in Asia and an impor tant source of immigrants to the Americas sparked a surge of anti-Japanese invectives abroad. Literati and policy makers of Latin American republics reaffirmed their white supremacist beliefs and viewed the Japanese immigrants through an Orientalist lens. Hate, fear, and discrimination w ere some of the elements to be found in these ubiquitous discourses towards the empire of Japan in the Americas during the first half of the twentieth
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c entury.17 Such racism against the Japanese in Latin America, however, was matched by the racial ideologies of the Japanese expansionists, who saw themselves not only as the whites of Asia but also as colonial masters in Latin America.18
The Literature on the Japanese Empire and Latin America Area studies, as Jordan Sand puts it, has kept Japanese history within Asia and far from other regions and disciplines, such as Asian American studies and—we may add—Latin American history.19 This partition of knowledge follows its own historical and political rationale in North America and, from there, has been replicated elsewhere.20 Existing literature on Japanese involvement in Latin America has been generally conducted u nder the frameworks of ethnic studies and diplomatic history. The approaches of ethnic studies in Latin America treat the experience of Japanese communities, past and present, in the historical context of Latin American societies. Starting in the early period of the Cold War, scholars in Japan and the US together launched a series of ethnographic studies of the Japanese communities in Latin America. Grounded on the logic of modernization, scholars like Izumi Sei’ichi (1957), Saitō Hiroshi (1960), Harvey Gardiner (1975), James Tigner (1981), and Robert Smith (1979) have elaborated the social and cultural successes the Japanese communities managed to achieve in their host societies through agricultural activities and education.21 They have highlighted the enormous economic, cultural, and social contributions Japanese immigrants made to their host countries. These earlier studies, mainly in English and Japanese, also inspired a whole generation of Latin American researchers—most of them members of the Nikkei community—to survey the origins, consolidation, and presence of their own ethnic group. The early works of such scholars as Amelia Moritomo (1979) and Jorge Nakamoto (1988) are good examples of this process.22 Since the last decade of the twentieth c entury, a growing number of scholars have begun to examine the experience of Latin Americans of Japa nese ancestry who have migrated to Japan as foreign workers and are commonly known as Nikkeijin. The discrimination the Nikkeijin face at work and in the broader Japanese society due to their heritage and cultural background has been a constant topic of discussion among scholars. Studies of
6 Introduction
Nikkeijin belong to the category of ethnic studies in Japan, closely associated with studies of the experiences of other ethnic minorities in Japanese society, such as Koreans and Indigenous p eople.23 The literat ure on Nikkeijin profoundly differs from the scholarship on Japanese immigrants in Latin America countries in terms of methodologies and debates, b ecause they are situated in two different social contexts with distinct historical and cultural experiences. But they also mirror one another as both fall into the domain of ethnic studies in their own national contexts.24 At the turn of the twenty-first century, joining the boom in diaspora studies, a growing number of scholars began to examine the experience of Japanese communities in Latin America by highlighting their roles as cultural diplomats between the two sides of the Pacific. This trend of scholarship was made possible, on one hand, by the increase in the Japanese government’s funding of related research and, on the other, by the growth of Japanese communities in Latin America as a political force. Alberto Fujimori’s success in becoming the first Latin American president of Japanese descent in the 1990s strengthened the academic interest in the Japanese legacy in the Americas at both ends of the Pacific Ocean. Japanese funds facilitated the training of Nikkei academics in Japan (including language acquisition in some cases) and supported the establishment of international research projects, such as the Discover Nikkei Project, which examines Japanese migrants and their descendants.25 Moreover, the celebrations of the first hundred-year anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and various Latin American nations, as well as the commemoration of the inception of Japanese migration to Brazil, promoted the publication of commemorative volumes that examined the history of the Japanese influence on the continent.26 The works of such scholars as Cecilia Onaha, Celia Sakurai, Marcia Takeuchi, Francisco Hashimoto, Sergio Hernández Galindo, Mary Fukumoto, and Isabelle Lausent-Herrera illustrate this momentum.27 In addition, a more traditional diplomatic history approach to Japan–Latin America relations also gained popularity among researchers on both sides of the Pacific Rim who studied Japan’s diplomatic relations with Latin America both in the past and at the present.28 As a result, by the turn of the new millennium, a robust corpus of scholarly works emerged—that mainly dealt with ethnicity and diplomacy—a long with a vibrant generation of young scholars. Transnational projects such as Encyclopedia of Japanese Descendants in the Americas (2002) and New Worlds, New Lives: Globalization and P eople of Japanese
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escent in the Americas and from Latin America in Japan (2002) showcase D these trends.29 While research in ethnic studies in both Latin American and Japanese contexts as well as in diplomatic history remain absolutely necessary, it is no longer sufficient. These nation-bound narratives are incapable of capturing the critical role of the Japanese empire in various aspects of Japan’s involvement with Latin America in the modern era. This book joins a group of innovative studies on the Japanese empire in recent years that have started to shed light on this topic by transcending the boundaries of national history.30 Our goal is not only to illustrate the transoceanic connections but also to analyze Japanese colonialism and expansionism within a broad frame of global transformations.31 To this end, the book focuses on the ways in which the Japanese empire shaped the transoceanic movements of people, institutions, and ideas. It further considers the lasting consequences of these movements for the region’s social relations, cultures, and politics. It also pays attention to the transnational connections between business, cultural values, and politics within the broader Japanese diaspora in the Americas and compares the interactions the Japanese empire had with Latin America to t hose with North America. By exploring these long-neglected aspects of Japanese global expansion, this volume moves our understanding of the Japanese empire’s significance beyond Asia and rethinks its legacy in global history.
Main Themes The experience of the Japanese empire in Latin America is vast. While migration is a critical part of it, other aspects are equally relevant to understanding the depth and polychromatic characteristics of the phenomena at both ends of the Pacific Rim. The core themes of this book include institutions, settlers, ideas, and legacies. The individual chapters cover a variety of topics, such as economic expansion, migration management, cross-border community making, the surge of pro-Japan propaganda in the Americas, the circulation of knowledge, and the representation of the Other in Japa nese and Latin American fictions. Together, this volume presents a new narrative of the Japanese experience in Latin America by excavating transpacific perspectives that shed new light on the global significance of Japanese colonialism and expansionism.
8 Introduction
Institutions First and foremost, Japan’s state apparatus was the central planner and a critical driving force of the empire’s expansion in Latin America. It is hard to overstate the importance of Tokyo in almost all major aspects of the Japa nese presence in Latin America. The first three chapters, accordingly, analyze the direct roles played by the imperial government in managing emigration and promoting trade with countries in Latin America as well as how the government itself changed through the process. Toake Endoh’s chapter examines the political implications of Japan’s emigration policy toward Latin America before World War II. A large number of the emigrants were guided and sponsored by their own government. This transpacific migration is distinct because of its anomalous pattern of immigration: Japanese emigration to Latin America was not entirely economically motivated; Tokyo’s emigration policies continued despite migrant-settlers’ ordeals and rising anti-Japanese sentiment in the receiving societies; and the origin of Japanese emigrants geographically concentrated in the southwestern part of Japan. Driven by t hese puzzles, the chapter focuses on the intentions, perceptions, ideology, and actions of Japan’s migration-sending state in advancing the elusive policy as a “national imperative.” Endoh’s state-centric analysis sheds light on the convoluted relationship between the Japanese government and the emigrants, as well as the historicity of this transpacific migration within the larger framework of prewar Japan’s nation building beyond its territory. It provides a systemic explanation of the political essence of Latin American emigration policy, that is, “state expansion through human exclusion.” The emigration policy had dual purposes: (1) internally, to decompress social protest and radicalism and assure stability by physically removing abroad the seeds of social havoc; and (2) internationally, to support prewar Japan’s imperialist ambition for wealth, power, and status through its organic ties with its co-ethnic diaspora. The empire attempted to substantiate its claim of “deterritorialized” sovereignty by mobilizing diasporic resources and symbols in Latin America and expanding its sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere. Latin America was also a critical component of the expanding maritime network of the Japanese empire, as Elijah Greenstein’s chapter demonstrates. In addition to more familiar processes of territorial acquisition and emigration, Japan’s rise as a modern empire also entailed efforts to dominate oceans and seas. Its aggressive efforts to develop colonies and
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a reas of informal influence w ere paralleled by and entangled with its concerted endeavor to carve out a place for commercial ships in world shipping. From the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, Japanese expansionists joined other empire builders in the world who projected their aspirations onto world shipping routes, key arenas where imperial competition and interaction played out. Japan’s shipping routes to Latin America constituted one such trajectory for the empire’s oceanic expansion. In the immediate wake of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905)—which cemented Japan’s control over Korea and extended its reach into Manchuria—t he Oriental Steamship Company (Tōyō Kisen Kabushiki Gaisha) opened the first Japanese-flagged serv ice to the West Coast of Latin America. Several years later, to maintain this transpacific connection, Tokyo began to subsidize the company’s sailings. A decade later, as world shipping was torn apart and reassembled during World War I, two more firms established services to the East Coast of Latin America via India and South Africa. In the decades between the end of one world war and the onset of another, Japanese firms continued to link ports across Latin America into an increasingly dense network of transportation serv ices. Greenstein’s chapter examines the establishment of Japan’s shipping serv ices to Latin America from the end of the Russo- Japanese War u ntil their suspension in the months before the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941. It situates t hese developments within discourses and processes of Japanese expansion and thereby traces how Latin Amer ica factored into Japan’s efforts to assume a place in the world as a maritime empire. Sidney Lu’s chapter, on the other hand, explains how Japanese emigration to Latin America in general and Brazil in particular transformed the nature of Japan’s imperial government itself. To maximize its ability to facilitate Brazil-bound migration in the 1920s and early 1930s, the imperial government undertook a series of structural changes and found new ways to expand its collaboration with different social groups to promote and manage emigration. These changes led to the formation of what Lu calls Japan’s migration state, which would later relocate hundreds of thousands of its subjects to Manchuria and Southeast Asia during World War II. The boom of interwar Japanese migration to Brazil, as this chapter demonstrates, laid the foundation for the rise of Japan’s migration-driven total empire during World War II. Therefore, in a broad sense, the chapter challenges the conventionally territory-based understanding of the Japanese
10 Introduction
empire by analyzing the continuities and connections between Japanese migration to Latin America and Japan’s colonial empire in Asia.
Settlers Chapters 4 through 6 look at the experience of Japanese migrants themselves in Latin America from trans-American and transpacific perspectives. They remind us that a migrant’s journey never completely ends as we can find scaled-down migration systems within the host nation or across borders and, thus, challenge the nation-based narratives of Japanese migration and ethnic experience that tend to dominate our current historical understanding. Moreover, t hese chapters bring to the fore the ubiquitous presence of the Japanese empire’s agencies in Latin America, which in turn shaped the immigrant communities through their diplomatic missions and technical assistance. Indeed, as p eople moved, they carried capital, ideas, and skills with them. We call Japanese migrants in Latin America “settlers” to highlight their ties with various aspects of Japanese colonialism and expansionism. Eiichiro Azuma takes on Japanese trans-American migration along the interconnected “frontier” of California and northern Mexico. During the 1910s and early 1920s, the brunt of white American racism—federal immigration exclusion and the state ban on Japanese landownership and tenancy—rendered “racism-free” Mexico particularly desirable for Issei remigration from California while simultaneously making the territories south of the border an entry point of unauthorized Japanese migrants into the US West. This chapter traces these complex circuits of Japanese mobility and settlement, which turned California and Baja California into an integrated space for Japanese immigrant settler colonialism before World War II. This transborder community of self-styled Japanese frontiersmen offers an example of historical formations that are now difficult to detect in existing ethnic narratives. The nationalized histories of Japanese Amer ica and Japanese Mexico have obfuscated their prewar ties and connections. Ayumi Takenaka bridges the local and the global in her discussion of Japan’s role in the development of the Japanese Peruvian community. While Japanese settlers in Peru w ere victims of racial discrimination, some of them became part of the story of successful incorporation and upward social mobility. For the author, this cannot be understood solely by domestic factors nor by the individual or collective effort of the immigrants. Ever
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since the first group of Japanese immigrants arrived in Peru in 1899, the Japanese government has played an influential role in shaping the immigrant community by pouring in resources through its emigration and subsequent diaspora policies (until this day). In other words, Takenaka looks into how Tokyo exerted influence in building immigrant communities as its “outposts” abroad and how Japanese immigrants and their descendants sought self- empowerment by relating and resorting to Japan as their “mother country.” Together with California, Mexico, and Peru, the case of Japanese agricultural settlers in Brazil shows how both internal and external forces shaped migrant communities. Andre Kobayashi Deckrow’s chapter shows that between 1920 and 1935, some 200,000 farmers moved from Japan to rural Brazil, primarily the state of São Paulo, as part of a migratory program organized by governments in both countries. The migratory arrangement saw Brazilian state governments ceding large parcels of supposedly empty lands, nucleos coloniais, to Japanese state-led migration companies, who w ere then contractually required to settle large numbers of Japanese families on t hese lands and make them agriculturally productive. As Kobayashi points out, u nder the terms of the nucleo system, the Japanese government-r un Overseas Development Company was primarily responsible for working with local Brazilian governments to ensure the overall economic and social well-being of these settler communities, including establishing agronomic offices and primary schools. Migration was, among other t hings, a contractual relation between Japanese mig rants and the semiprivate migration company. This chapter assesses how the migration company sought to fulfill its legal responsibilities to its settlers and local governments.
Identities In addition to the materialistic ties between settlers and the empire, this volume also explores the roles the empire played in the process of settler identity formation in Latin America. Seth Jacobowitz’s chapter argues that Japanese migration to Mexico, Brazil, and Peru, from its very inception, should be considered within the context of Japanese colonialism and expansionism. The genre of settler-colonist fiction emerged in the pages of proexpansionist magazines to promote Japanese migration to Latin American precisely when the Gentlemen’s Agreements restricted Japanese immigration to the US and Canada in 1908. Th ese fictions, as he points out, rationalized
12 Introduction
Japa nese expansion by juxtaposing an overpopulated Japan with an empty and wealthy Latin America. If the colonialist and expansionist discourses in Japan set a stage for the beginning of Japanese migration to Latin America, it was the vibrant circulation of information between East Asia and the Americas that allowed the Japanese empire to stay at the center of the cultural life of the Japanese communities on the other side of the globe. Yoshitaka Hibi’s chapter illustrates the transoceanic and trans-A merican distribution networks of Japanese books and magazines before World War II. Through the case of Mochizuki Seiji, president of the Japanese book distribution company Nippon Shuppan Bōeki Co., Ltd (Japan Publications Trading Co., Ltd.), the chapter explains how book and newspaper shops emerged in Japanese communities in the Americas and how book distribution companies managed to tie these shops with publishers in the Japanese empire. In a similar vein, the circulation of knowledge and ideas across the Pacific provided the framework for Japanese political activism in the Ameri cas. As Facundo Garasino explains in his chapter, Japanese mig rants in Buenos Aires translated Japanese imperial ideologies into a universalist narrative of civilization and integrated it into Argentinian discourses of ethnic nationalism. Indeed, people such as Shinya Yoshio, a Japanese merchant and journalist, organized pro-Japan propaganda during the 1930s in cooperation with the local elites of Buenos Aires and the Kokusai Bunka Shinkōkai, Japan’s first national institution for cultural diplomacy. The case of Shinya epitomizes the intellectual and political attempts of Japanese mi grant elites to reframe Japanese colonialism and expansionism as part of the processes of nation and empire building in Latin America to define their own identities in the New World.
Legacies The Japanese empire left a mark on Latin America that is hard to ignore. The prewar deployment of institutions and mass migration programs as part of the political and cultural penetration in the region had long-lasting effects on local societies. The book’s final section brings to the fore two intriguing stories that demonstrate the broader legacies of the Japanese empire on both sides of the globe. Hiromi Mizuno’s chapter reveals the imprint of the empire on the postwar state-led emigration program to the Dominican Republic. It draws on cases of second-time migrants, who had partici-
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pated in the prewar migration program in Asia (Manchuria and Korea) and, upon repatriation, joined the postwar agricultural land development program (sengo kaitaku) in Japan. Mizuno also explains how the Japanese government continued to use the claim of “overpopulation,” common rhe toric to justify the empire’s expansion before 1945, to promote emigration to the Caribbean after the war. From an institutional point of view, Japa nese migration to Central America also shows the disruption and changes between the prewar migration policy and its postwar version. The imprint of the empire is also present in the popular culture of Japa nese communities in Latin America t oday. As Ignacio López-Calvo points out in the final chapter, the never accomplished project of Japanese formal expansion into Latin America remains alive in Nikkei literat ure. While most Japanese Brazilian literature tends to conveniently avoid dealing with Japanese imperialism and colonialism, some works do contemplate and even critique links between Japanese immigration in Latin America and imperial expansion. For instance, Ryoki Inoue’s novel, Saga (2006), explores the shameful episode of Shindō Renmei’s terrorism in the context of Japanese imperial ideology, including the concept of yamato-damashii, emperor worship and the belief in Japan’s military invincibility. Saga also recreates the presence of former imperial military officers, such as Junji Kikawa, among the leaders of this organization. Another work that reaches similar conclusions is Jorge J. Okubaro’s O Súdito (Banzai, Massateru!) (2008), where the protagonist, Massateru, is portrayed as a victim of Japanese ultranationalist education. Okubaro even went as far as to suggest that Japanese emigration policies in the period before World War II had clearly become a means for the empire’s territorial expansion. In sum, this collaborative study illustrates various aspects of the enduring presence of the Japanese empire in Latin America that have received little attention in the extant literature. From different disciplinary perspectives, it demonstrates that the history and legacies of the Japanese empire cannot be fully grasped without an understanding of its multiple layers of connections and transformations across the Pacific Ocean. From a Latin American perspective, this book makes the case for opening up its national histories to Asia, a point that the established historiography has failed to acknowledge. The focus on Japan and Latin America is a methodological choice as well. Departing from US or Eurocentric views that place the North Atlantic as a driving force in world history, the study brings fresh insights on the mutual interdependence between Asia and Latin America.
14 Introduction
Beyond connections, it bridges the studies of Japan and the studies of Latin America more broadly and serves to advance our knowledge in the growing field of global history.
Notes 1. “Shokumin Kyōkai Setsuritsu Shoisho,” pp. 105–107. 2. Azuma, In Search, pp. 58–61; Ota Mishima, Siete migraciones japonesas, ch. 1. 3. Lu, “Great Convergence.” 4. Peattie, Nan’yō, pp. 6. 5. Shigetaka, Nan’yō Jiji, pp. 13–15. 6. A zuma, “Japanese Immigrant Settler Colonialism,” pp. 257–271; Azuma, In Search, pp. 135–149; Lu, Japanese Settler Colonialism, pp. 164–179. 7. Iriye, Pacific Estrangement. 8. Iriye, After Imperialism; Miller, Bankrupting the Enemy; Lu, “Colonizing Hokkaido.” 9. Endoh, Exporting Japan; Masterson and Funada-Classen, Japanese in Latin America. 10. Myers and Peattie, Japanese Colonial Empire; Suzuki, Nihonjin dekasegi imin; Uchida, Brokers of Empire. 11. Hayashiya, “Nihon to Raten Amerika.” 12. Torres, Japoneses Bajo El Sol; Smith, “Ethnic Japanese in Brazil.” 13. Patrick, “Economic Muddle.” 14. Kawakatsu, Lancashire Cotton Industry. 15. Tsuchida, “Japanese in Brazil,” p. 310. 16. Ikeda, Japan in Trade Isolation; Ishi, “Senkanki Nihon.” 17. Gasquet, El llamado de Oriente; Said, Orientalism; Sneider, Teahouse of the August. 18. “Shokuminchi ni taisuru honkai no iken,” Ensei, no. 5 (September 1891): 2, cited from Azuma, “Japanese Immigrant Settler Colonialism,” p. 260; Lesser, Discontented Diaspora, p. 5. 19. Sand, “Reconfiguring Pacific History.” 20. Notably, in Japan, where Latin American studies do not take into consideration the Japanese historical influence, see, for example, Masuda, Estudios Latinoamericanos. The historical formation of area studies in the US has been amply studied; see, for example, Morris-Suzuki, “Anti-A rea Studies”; Harootunian, History’s Disquiet; Iacobelli, “James Tigner.” 21. Izumi, Imin; Saitō, Burajiru no Nihonjin; Gardiner, Japanese and Peru; Tigner, “Japanese Immigration into Latin America”; Smith, “Ethnic Japanese in Brazil.” 22. Morimoto, Los inmigrantes; Nakamoto, “Discriminación y aislamiento.” 23. Weiner, Japan’s Minorities, for example, defines and analyzes Nikkeijin as an ethnic minority who share a similar predicament with other ethnic minorities in Japan, such as Koreans, Chinese, and the Ryukyuans. 24. Salient works of Tsuda and Nishida demonstrate the comparability of these two paradigms of ethnic studies by synthesizing Japanese Brazilians’ ethnic encounters in both Brazilian and Japanese societies. See Tsuda, Strangers; and Nishida, Diaspora and Identity.
Lu and Iacobelli
15
25. More information on this project can be found on its website: http://w ww .discovernikkei.org/. 26. For example, Socieda de Brasileira de Cultura Japonesa, Uma Epopeia Moderna; Nihon Aruzenchin Kyōkai, Nihon Aruzenchin kyōkai. 27. Onaha, “Sensen no ijūsha”; Lausent-Herrera, Pasado y presente; Wakatsuki and Kunimoto, La inmigración; Sakurai, Romanceiro da imigração Japonesa; Hashimoto, Sol nascente no Brasil; Takeuchi, O perigo amarelo; Galindo, La guerra. 28. For example, Ninomiya “O centenário”; Muñoz, Japón y la Argentina; Castellón and Pozo, “Historia”; Iacobelli “Empire of Japan”; Uscanga, “La Armada Imperial Japonesa.” 29. K ihumura and Imouye, Encyclopedia of Japanese Descendants; Hirabayashi, Kikumura-Yano, and Hirabayashi, New Worlds, New Lives. 30. The works that have inspired this book include but are not limited to Endoh, Exporting Japan; Kingsberg, “Becoming Brazilian,” and “Japan’s Inca Boom”; Shiode, Ekkyōsha no seijishi; Negawa and I noue, Ekkyō to rendō; Iacobelli, Postwar Japanese Emigration; Azuma, In Search; and Lu, Making of Japanese. 31. As such, this book echoes the call of Sheldon Garon to rethink world history through the lens of Japan. Garon, “Transnational History.”
c h a p t e r
1
Turning the W ater into Fair Pools Prewar Japan’s Paternalistic Outreach in Its South American Emigration Policy Toake Endoh
E
quatorial crossings by Japanese to the Ibero-Americas commenced around the turn of the twentieth c entury. Beginning as an offshoot of the mainstream of Japanese migration to Hawai‘i and North America, this migratory flow grew into a monumental movement, surpassing North America–bound migration in the 1920s and 1930s. The growth of Japanese migration to the region—mainly Peru and Brazil—owed much to the direct involvement of the sender state of Japan. The state-guided migration to South America was also distinguished by conundrums. For one, many mi grants experienced hardships and suffering in their settlements as a result of the state-directed “downward” migration to less-or undeveloped areas. Despite the migrants’ ordeals in unwelcoming circumstances in the receiving nations, Japan insisted on advancing the audacious emigration project. Further, Japanese emigration policy as kokusaku (strategic national policy) depended heavily on certain regions for the recruitment of emigrants. To unwrap this elusive emigration policy, I look into the domestic political foundations of the policy and its international dimensions. What social prob lems did the Japanese state perceive and attempt to remedy via emigration? How did the national policy become so locally specific (i.e., in its geograph ical concentration in western Japan)? Using a state-centric paradigm, this study focuses on the perceptions, ideas, and actions of the sender state of Japan—the key enabler of South American migration (hereafter SAM)— through its policies and institutions. I also explore how SAM encapsulates prewar imperialist Japan’s expansionist ideology. What material or symbolic role did the state assign to its subjects in advancing this national goal? Adapted from my work Exporting Japan: Politics of Emigration to Latin America (2009), this chapter presents the distinct form of governance 16
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anifested by the SAM policy. I conceptualize SAM as political machinm ery for nation builders comprehending two dimensions: one side is internal control (decompressing social dissatisfaction and restoring order by removing undesirables), and the other, grasping, imperialistic ambition for wealth, power, and status, by mobilizing diasporic resources and symbols into frontier developments in the Western Hemisphere. What emerges from that dualistic emigration-colonial policy—exclusion h ere and inclusion there—is a convoluted political relationship between the prewar authoritarian state and its unwanted populations.
Unorthodox Patterns of Japanese Emigration Japanese migration to the Iberian Americas started relatively late and on a more humble scale, like a branch, than the main streams to Hawai‘i and North America. The first significant arrival on the South American continent was a cohort of 790 contract workers to Peru in 1899, more than three decades a fter the first Japanese labor migration to Hawai‘i in 1868.1 A fter them, Japanese emigration continued in parallel with the larger flows to Hawai‘i and the continental US. Early Japanese immigrants, mainly dekasegi (temporary migrant workers), had their eyes on the mainland US. Nowhere else in the Americas could match the US labor market, which offered better wages and job opportunities.2 The Latin American economy was generally agrarian and less affluent by Western Hemisphere standards. In the eyes of early migrants, the region was their second or third choice or a transit point for their eventual entry into the US.3 Such negative prospects were reflected in the stagnation of early Japanese immigration t here. From the mid-1920s, though, the currents of transpacific Japanese migration changed, and the branch became the mainstream. In the 1920s, Latin American migration surged to 85,342, a 40-percent increase from the previous period (see table 1.1). The region became the most popular destination among the Japanese, absorbing 53.3 percent of all 160,049 migrants. Another 97,962 persons followed in the following decade. This surge contrasted with, and in fact substituted for, the sharp decline in North America– bound migration, which was constrained by the American Japanese Exclusion Act of 1924. Latin America—specifically Peru in the 1920s and Brazil in the 1930s—attracted the most Japanese migrants to the Americas u ntil
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T ABLE 1.1
Japanese Immigration by Destination (1868–1941) 1901–1920
1921–1930
1931–1941
Total (1868–1941)
911
60,731
85,342
97,962
244,946
Argentina
0
811
2,100
2,487
5,398
Bolivia
0
17
64
168
249
Brazil
0
28,661
70,913
89,411
188,985
Paraguay
0
0
1
708
709
Peru
790
19,378
9,172
3,730
33,070
Mexico
121
11,428
2,141
977
14,667
Others
0
436
951
481
1,868
129,593
206,698
37,192
727
374,210
United States
30,130
61,018
16,105
0
107,253
Hawai‘i
90,572
128,124
12,484
0
231,180
Canada
8,891
17,556
8,603
727
35,777
Asia and South Pacific
5,202
32,369
26,333
28,463
92,367
33,069
14,764
11,182
5,786
64,801
168,775
314,562
160,049
132,938
776,324
Destination Latin America
North America
Others Total
1868–1900
Source: Composed by the author based on JICA data. Kokusai Kyōryoku Jigyōdan, Kaigai ijū tōkei: Shōwa 27 nen–62 nen (Tokyo: Kokusai Kyōryoku Jigyōdan, 1987). Note: The table excludes twenty-six persons whose destinations were unknown and excludes emigrants to Manchuria, K orea, Taiwan, and other Japanese colonies.
the outbreak of World War II and the severing of bilateral relations. In the following, I provide a brief overview of how equatorial crossings by Japanese to South America, mainly Peru and Brazil, evolved under tense sociopolitical circumstances. South American societies, whose nation building depended more on African slaves or European immigrants than on Asian migrants, exhibited ambivalence about the arrival of Japanese labor migrants on their soil. They desired migrants as l abor but rejected them—especially people of color—
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as humans. In Peru or Brazil, it was agribusiness, keen to secure cheap and sufficient labor for their plantations, that actively advocated Japanese immigration initiatives to their political patrons in the executive offices, including the president of Peru and sugar hacienda owner Augusto B. Leguía (1919–1930) and the coffee state governments of São Paulo and Minas Gerais in Brazil (authorized to import foreign migrants at that time). As Japanese immigrants increased in number and presence, however, ethnic chauvinism among locals, especially urban residents, reared its head. Immigration restrictionists, representing xenophobic public opinion, succeeded in legislating bills to curb Japanese inflows. Amid invigorated hate politics, the attitudes of the Peruvian and Brazilian governments t oward Japa nese immigrants vacillated between inclusion (pro-migration) and exclusion (antimigration and race-based restriction), increasingly inclining toward the latter. Triggered by America’s Great Depression beginning in 1929, economic turbulence bred political instability in Latin American nations and disrupted Japanese immigration. The host countries’ immigration policies, as well as Japanese immigrants, lost their political patrons. Incoming leadership, such as Peru’s Luis M. Sánchez Cerro and Brazil’s Getúlio Vargas, was nationalist, openly anti-Japanese immigration, and soon anti-Japan in its alliance with the US in international relations. The populist nationalists portrayed the Japanese settlers as peons of the sugar and coffee barons and thus enemies of the regimes and their working-class allies. Discriminatory measures to narrow Japanese immigration (e.g., the Act to Restrict the Immigration of Aliens by Two P ercent in Brazil from 1935) or to limit employment opportunities for the Japanese (Peru’s Act No. 7505 in 1932) were passed. Such anti-Japanese legislation invigorated street demonstrations. In a riot in Peru’s capital, Lima, in 1930, one Japanese national was killed, and ethnic businesses and properties were damaged or looted. The government of Japan (hereafter GOJ) lodged an official diplomatic complaint and a demand for monetary compensation with the Sánchez Cerro government, in vain.4 Ironically, adversity in the receiving countries hardly arrested the Japa nese influx. Japan continued to pour out more migrants, and South American emigration crested in the mid-1930s, with 23,300 migrants in 1933 and 22,900 in 1934. The principal factor was the sender state of Japan, which entered the international migration business, applying its new migration/settlement stratagem. Since the 1880s, Japanese migration to the
20
Chapter 1
Americas had been underwritten by private migration agencies; it was etatized in the mid-1920s as kokusaku. The reasons for this are multifaceted, as will be discussed. As far as the macro environments of international migration are concerned, Tokyo was apprehensive about the f uture development of Japanese migration if it remained laissez-faire, given the growing anti- Japanese politics in host countries. The government had to step in to secure new settlements for immigrants wherever available. Under state tutelage in the 1920s and 1930s, Japanese immigrants trekked to the frontier, in isolated and deserted hinterlands like the Peruvian jungles, the northern interior of São Paulo and Paraná, the Brazilian Amazon, and rural areas of Paraguay. Th ere, the physical and social infrastructure necessary for subsistence was nonexistent, let alone commercial or industrial dynamics for prosperity. Settlers reclaimed lands prepared by the GOJ or private entities. Japan’s colonial administrators expected frontier colonization to curb any conflict of economic or cultural interest with locals and to deflate the Japanese ethnic presence. In the early 1930s, the Japanese consulate in Lima reported to Tokyo that the ongoing settlement project in the Huallaga Valley would “placate the Peruvian government and diffuse growing anti-Japanese sentiment” amid the economic instability.5 This rerouting strategy resulted in countless migrant hardships and sacrifices. Many migrants w ere young families with small c hildren—a result of the GOJ’s decision in 1927 to emphasize family-based migration. It took them years or generations to achieve self-sufficiency or commercial success in farming. Not a few settlers gave up and wished to repatriate or remigrate elsewhere. One of the few returnees escaping the economic hardships and the authoritarian Estado Novo of President Vargas (1937–1945) testified that “immigrants’ plights are getting unimaginably worse, and most of the 80,000 immigrants [in Brazil] are desperate to return home.”6 In fact, however, very few returned to Japan. The majority—as many as 85 percent of the total number of immigrants to Brazil—did not (or could not) repatriate and remained in Brazil or remigrated elsewhere.7 Meanwhile, Japan continued to churn out 22,500 more migrants, including new brides of settled immigrants, from 1936 till 1941. A fter its etatization, SAM apparently deviated from its former pattern or the conventional pattern of international migration. On a micro level, migrants (and their families) w ere herded to where opportunities to get rich quick w ere slim. On the macro level, the migratory flow turned downward, from a developing economy (i.e., prewar Japan) to less developed econo-
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mies (new destinations in Latin American backwaters). This downstream pattern runs c ounter to the neoliberal explanation of international migration, which argues that a profit-maximizing agent moves from lower to higher economies.8 Why did the Japanese state continue a scheme so deleterious to its own p eople and so dicey in its economic prospects?
Geographic Origins of SAM oday, Japan faces what former prime minister Abe Shinzo decried as a T “national crisis” of depopulation, at arguably the fastest pace in the world.9 When SAM started, the demographic threat was overpopulation. Since the early Meiji period (1868–1911), Japan’s population had grown so rapidly— about 60 percent from 1879 to 1910, for example—that the land-and resource-scarce economy could hardly absorb (into job markets) and support (in basic consumption) the entire population in the process of modernization and industrialization. Overpopulation, as well as poverty, was particularly severe in rural areas, full of small-property-owning or landless peasants.10 Life chances w ere particularly limited for second or third sons in the impoverished class due to the primogeniture system: they had to e ither become tenants or migrate to cities or overseas for other jobs.11 Persistent demographic and economic malaise in the countryside provided policy makers with a rationale to employ SAM as an instrument of long-term structural adjustment. The first such attempt can be traced back to disaster relief in 1923. One month after the Great Kantō Earthquake ravaged the Tokyo metropolitan area in September, Nihon Imin Kyōkai (Japan Emigration Association), an emigration advocacy group, recommended that the Yamamoto Gonbei cabinet (September 1923–January 1924) “translocate the excess population overseas and balance out Japanese demography” to ease postquake distress and avoid a massive inflow of rural population to Tokyo.12 Following their recommendation, the Yamamoto administration provided a relief program for quake victims to migrate to Brazil, with a two- hundred-yen subsidy of travel expenses for each of the 110 program applicants.13 Subsequently, SAM was incorporated into the policy framework for population adjustment and promoted as national strategic policy with state guidance, financing, and direct engagement. The idea of solving domestic overpopulation through overseas migration was quickly adopted in policy maker circles of the time, and “overseas
22
Chapter 1
migration for solving overpopulation” was repeated like a mantra. The policy’s effectiveness—whether, that is, it could weather structural crises— was rarely examined. A careful reading of the policy debates suggests, however, that migration advocates w ere projecting something other than or beyond the vaguely addressed “overpopulation.” Officials at the Ministries of Internal and Colonial Affairs frequently invoked such political woes as “social uncertainty or instability” and “radicalization toward communism” (sekika)—highly unnerving threats to the establishment—in rationalizing the policy.14 These potentially threatening ramifications of national weakening were cited by many other SAM proponents but without elaboration. What (or who) was fomenting political instability where, and in what way? How could the emigration policy mitigate the political risk? Another puzzle of SAM policy appears in the geographical concentration of emigrant origins. During the prewar period, roughly half of South America–bound migrants came from the western part of Japan, consisting of the eight prefectures (equivalent to provinces) of Okayama, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Fukuoka, Saga, Kumamoto, Nagasaki, and Okinawa. I refer to this geographical cradle of SAM as “western Japan” in this chapter. (Okinawa is excluded from this analysis since it was excluded from state- directed SAM by the GOJ mostly due to ethnic discrimination against Okinawans.) The region, whose population was merely 17.2 percent of the nation’s total as of 1920, supplied 51.8 percent of all emigrants to Peru, 35.5 percent to Brazil, 30.5 percent to Bolivia, and 14.9 percent to Argentina.15 Except for the industrial and urbanized Hiroshima and Fukuoka, the region was generally rural, agrarian (or fishery) based, and less developed. Population pressure for emigration—as gauged by population density, landownership (the proportion of land-poor and landless peasants), household debt, and other indicators—was salient in the region but was not a sufficient condition for the region to champion SAM.16 Other regions or prefectures— perhaps the northeast, or Nagano Prefecture—might have wanted SAM but did not supply many emigrants.17 Further, there is evidence that the national strategic policy was rigorously applied to western Japan through its quota system. If the policy was national strategy, why did it become locally specific?18 This intuitive question, together with another puzzle concerning the state’s assertiveness in promoting SAM, begs close examination of the linkage between western Japan and the policy.
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23
Shedding the Unwanted Contemporaneous with the implementation of state-g uided SAM in the 1920s, the sociopolitical climate of western Japan was worsening as antagonism between the ruling bloc and grassroots protesters sharpened. The political liberalization known as the Taishō Democracy empowered the formerly unprivileged and underrepresented to demand more rights and freedoms, assertively or forcefully. While rights crusaders marched most loudly in Tokyo, Osaka, and other urban areas, peripheral regions also took part in the mass protests. In western Japan, local political forces emerged from the very bottom of the social hierarchy: peasants, workers, and social outcasts (the so-called burakumin, or “people of the hamlets”).19 These marginalized groups and their collective actions, while prevalent in other parts of Japan, developed uniquely on the region’s structural and political vectors. They also made western Japan’s geopolitical climate distinct and daunting in the eyes of the authorities. The powers of the time problematized endogenous political developments particular to the region: the synchronization of these social movements that arose uniquely from the region’s social matrix, the radicalization of some factions of these protesters against the system, and signs of the coalescence of multiple class interests or identities into a united antiestablishment force. I explain t hese risk factors below. Prewar western Japan was the crucible of modern Japan’s industrial and resource bases. The once-peripheral region led national production of coal (in Chikuhō and Miike, Fukuoka), steel (in Yahata, Fukuoka), and naval vessels (in Kure, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki). Amid Japan’s imperialist advance to Asia, the military-industry complexes boosted production, hiring large numbers of workers nationwide. Among coal miners w ere an uncounted but significant number of impoverished burakumin peasants. “Where there is a coal mine, there is a buraku, and vice versa,” according to a proverb from Chikuhō.20 The strategic industrial significance of western Japan made the power holders—particularly the military—hypersensitive to the region’s stability and thus intolerant of any opposition by locals. An admonition uttered by the naval minister and later premier (1932–1934) Saitō Makoto against labor protests at the Kure Naval Shipyard in Hiroshima in 1912 reveals the rulers’ tenacity: “[The government w ill] categorically deny workers’ demands, even at the cost of a temporary closing of the factory.”21 It became established procedure to deploy military troops to coal
24
Chapter 1
miners’ disputes and strikes after the miners at Minechi colliery in Tagawa County, Fukuoka, killed imperial soldiers with dynamite in 1918. Unionized peasants and workers—the Japan Farmers Union or Japan Council of L abor Unions, for instance—increased their leftist orientation, demanding more workers’ rights and shouting such Marxist slogans as “Land to peasants” or “Realization of a communist society free from exploitation.” The Burakumin’s National Levelers Association attacked the emperor system as the root cause of class stratification and the enduring discrimination against the burakumin.22 Some radical factions of these social movements bluntly criticized Japan’s “imperialist wars” in Asia. Further, the Levelers sought an interclass alliance with peasants and the working classes. At their fifth national conference held in Fukuoka in 1926, they called for a united popular front among the nonpropertied classes, with the aim that “multiple classes and strata unite and fight against the common enemy in order to realize the common goal beyond conflicts of class interests or difference in political values and world views.”23 How substantial the revolutionary forces mustered by t hese marginalized groups for a regime change were is one t hing; how irritated and intolerant the authoritarian elites grew, scowling at the marginalized protesters’ challenge with contempt, is quite another. On the national front, regime hardliners, including the Justice Ministry, the military, the House of Peers, and big business (represented by Baron Dan Takuma of Mitsui Mining), saw the radicalization of dissent through the lens of security and order and resorted to draconian measures against subversives. On March 19, 1925, the Katō Takaaki cabinet issued the Peace Preservation Law, under which any individual or group threatening kokutai (the national polity) or capitalism was resolutely suppressed. Core elements of social radicalism, including the leadership of the Japan Communist Party, farmers’ and workers’ unions, and the Burakumin’s National Levelers Association, were arrested, imprisoned, or censored. Meanwhile, the Home Ministry sought conciliatory methods more than raw violence, providing welfare, compensation, jobs, and other aid to the needy. Its accommodative approach—hoping to placate the distressed and dissatisfied masses with material rewards and earn the regime’s legitimacy— was a dopted by the Tanaka Giichi administration (1927–1929). Addressing the resurgence of the Communist Party, on April 25, 1928, the Lower House passed the resolution, “On the Ideological Crisis of the Nation,” pronouncing that “further advance of communism and other evil ideologies cannot be
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deterred by punishment alone. . . . Political safety valve institutions should work as effectively as the penal system in preventing an insurgency.”24 The overseas migration initiative was employed together with antipoverty, anti- unemployment, and anti-leftist measures. The SAM scheme, whose underpinning institutions w ere almost fully laid out by that time, was thus concocted in a policy mix of accommodative politics. From its inception, SAM policy centered unequivocally on the rural population. As noted above, the Yamamoto administration, in implementing the postquake emergency plan to translocate excess agrarian population in 1923, instructed the national emigration and colonization policy companies,25 Kaigai Kōgyō and Nanbei Takushoku, to prioritize poor peasants in providing subsidies for emigration-related expenses.26 Thereafter, emigration policy focused on the rural peasantry for the purpose of deterring superfluous rural populations from flooding into urban areas and destabilizing the economic, social, or political order. Attesting to this policy orientation, the majority of emigrants on the ships destined for South America registered as “commoner-farmers,” apparently preprinted as such on the passenger lists by the emigration companies.27 Local governments in western Japan played a vital role in advancing SAM in their districts. Prefectural, city, and village offices led the national emigration campaign through information dissemination and the recruitment of emigrants in collaboration with local emigration agents, including local branches of the state-a ffiliated Overseas Emigration Association (OEA) and migration companies. The western prefectures were willing, even e ager, to take on larger quotas for recruiting emigrants than their peer prefectures, according to internal documents of Kaigai Kōgyō and Nanbei Takushoku.28 It was probably local authorities that felt the urgency of the endogenous political instabilities noted above and the necessity of curbing the resulting political instability most keenly. Hayashida Shunjirō, chairman of the Fukuoka prefectural parliament and the vice chairman of the Fukuoka OEA, deemed overseas migration a method to “solve labor, agrarian, social, and ideological problems and realize the welfare of 2.5 million Fukuokans.”29 Prefectural governors must have been motivated out of a sense of political responsibility and accountability to Tokyo since they were not elected but w ere appointed by the Home Ministry. Parochial pride as traditional emigration fiefdoms also drove local offices to further the overseas migration movement from their locales. A long
26
Chapter 1
history of overseas migration—tracing back to the early Japanese emigration to Hawai‘i in the 1880s—as well as their “social capital” for international migration, like local and transnational support institutions (e.g., prefecture- based associations called kenjin-kai), knowledge, and experience, substantiated their self-esteem as dentōteki imin ken (prefectures with a tradition of emigration). Fukuoka governor Matsumoto Manabu, who also chaired the OEA’s Fukuoka branch, wrote in 1930 that “Fukuokans are ambitious and outward-looking people, having pride in advancing thousands of miles away since the ancient times. It is our duty as pioneers in overseas migration to encourage and assist others to follow our suit, by sharing our precious experiences with them.”30 Indeed, local activism enabled western Japan to champion SAM for a long time and render the national emigration enterprise locally specific. SAM was promoted for the emancipation and “redemption” of the long discriminated-against underclass of the burakumin. The idea of “emancipation of the dangerous poor by overseas migration” was already advocated in the early twentieth c entury by conservative nationalist thinkers like Tōyama Mitsuru and Sugiura Shigetaka (an imperial tutor of the then-crown prince Yoshihito). 31 Colonial bureaucrat Yanase Keisuke recommended Peru, Mexico, and Taiwan as ideal havens for burakumin salvation, believing that the more remote the destination, the quicker and more perfect their redemption could be.32 Burakumin migration to Latin America was openly promoted within the framework of the state patronage program Yūwa Jigyō (Project of Reconciliation and Reincorporation) (1925–1941). The Yūwa project sought the burakumin’s social and economic redemption through their own efforts at “self-reliance” and “self-improvement.” Voluntary migration and realization of a free and independent life in South America would suit this welfare principle. A part of the overseas emigration budget for state subsidies of travel expenses and other settlement costs was appropriated from the Yūwa budget under the administration of the Social Affairs Bureau of the Home Ministry. In 1927, 2,750 yen in total (or 50–100 yen per family) was granted to would-be emigrants to Brazil.33 The subsidies continued to grow thereafter. In 1932, the Industrial and Economic Research Council, a governmental study group on the burakumin issue, observed the burakumin’s plight worsening amid the economic depression and released a policy recommendation: “In order to alleviate the population pressure in burakumin hamlets and stabilize their living situation, the government should promote
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27
emigration to South America, Manchuria, and Hokkaido.”34 Print media disseminated the state-funded emancipation-via-emigration scheme among the isolated communities. Yūwa jihō, the national newspaper of the Yūwa association, actively promoted Brazil-bound migration, peppered with such seductive words as “limitless resources of land and nature” and “Brazilian culture of hospitality.”35 SAM was a mighty stone for killing two birds at once: the “burakumin’s emancipation from the agony of discrimination and despisal,” and the elimination of domestic troublemakers on national soil.36 The a ctual number of burakumin mig rants who went to South America under Yūwa financing and their former occupations remains unknown. W hether peasants or coal miners of buraku origins, all were recorded as “farmers.”37 The state prescription to curb political opposition via emigration was also applied to the labor sector and against labor disputes, although the application was less systematic and of smaller scale. One early instance was the Kure Naval Shipyard l abor strike in Hiroshima in the post–World War I period. Upon a large-scale strike by shipbuilding workers against a massive layoff plan, the company (i.e., the imperial navy) erected a recruitment booth in front of the main gate of the Kure Naval Shipyard, trying to recruit laid-off workers to volunteer for Brazil-bound migration.38 Similar attempts w ere directed toward laid-off workers (and their families) at the Sasebo Naval Shipyard in 1924 and 1929,39 as well as at coal mines in western Japan.40 These cases, while anecdotal, suggest that the emigration-as- decompressor formula was extended to rural industrial areas experiencing economic turbulence. The SAM policy, originally grounded in a Malthusian rationale, increasingly weighed in on more immediate and concrete sociopolitical concerns and on western Japan, rife with such problems. It assumed the function of a political safety valve removing perceived sources of current or potential instability via “voluntary” migration and restoring civic order and harmony inside Japan. This method of governance is essentially illiberal, subjugating a person’s (i.e., the emigrant’s) welfare and rights to the state’s higher goal of achieving progress and a unified nation-state under the emperor’s moral authority. That said, labeling the policy kimin (dumping people) misses a critical point—the uniqueness of the SAM policy in its duality and continuity. Internally, SAM policy was part of a matrix of accommodative politics seeking to peacefully and effectively emasculate social opposition and restore political equilibrium while taking care of the rural poor and
28
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socially marginalized by presenting the opportunity of overseas migration. Externally, without severing ties with its translocated subjects, the paternalistic state attempted to “include” those domestically superfluous and undesirable into an imagined harmonious and perfect nation once translocated overseas, by reprogramming a transborder relationship with the emigrant diasporas. Such paternalistic outreach is another guiding ethos of SAM, which I explain below.
Making of a Double Commodity About three centuries before SAM, Sir Francis Bacon suggested the utility of emigration as a “double commodity” for empire building to King James of Great Britain. Bacon’s proposal of 1606 reads: “As if a man were troubled for the avoidance of water from the place where he hath built his house, and afterwards should advice with himself to cast t hose w aters, and to turn them into fair pools or streams, for pleasure, provision, or use. So shall your Majesty in this work have a double commodity, in the avoidance of people here, and in making use of them there.”41 I find that this synthesis of migration, social control, and state expansion apprehends SAM’s duality as well as the Japanese state’s paternalistic outreach toward its subjects overseas. In its pursuit of wealth maximization, Japan sought to deploy Nikkei resources (e.g., migrants’ labor and capital) onto foreign lands for agricultural development and trade. In this progressive (in the imperialist sense) scheme, emigrants were no longer unproductive or undisciplined masses but useful and dutiful surrogate actors in Japan’s expansionist overtures.42 That double commodity would also benefit the Asian empire by utilizing the co-ethnic diaspora’s political and ideological symbols in elevating its international status. Japan’s overarching international strategy t oward Latin America has been closely examined.43 The topic is to be further explored in other chapters of this volume. Below, I revisit Japan’s transnational statehood, referring to a case of agricultural development in Brazil and Peru. Cotton production was a successful tripartite agri-development by the Japanese state, capital, and migrant-farmers in prewar Brazil. The fluffy white fiber had been cultivated by small Nikkei farmers in the greater São Paulo area since 1916. It garnered Tokyo’s attention as its rivalries with the US and the British—major cotton exporters to Japan—intensified in the 1930s. The
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importer, exposed to the risk of a trade embargo, attempted “diffusion [i.e., diversification] of trade partners.”44 Nikkei farmers should increase their commercial cotton production in Brazil in order to export more cotton to Japan, according to the Colonial Ministry of Japan.45 Nikkei Paulista modernized local cotton concerns, such as Brazcot and Algodeira do Sul Limitada, with Japanese capital and expanded their production for export. The first shipment destined for Japan left Port Santos in 1933, with a h umble 79.6 metric tons worth 61,900 yen. By 1937, exports had risen exponentially to 51,445 metric tons (47,890,000 yen).46 Pleased to gain a new trading partner in cotton, Japan still insisted that the imports should be based upon Japanese emigration. In the 1936 trade talks, Japan requested more Japanese immigration in the northern part of Brazil in exchange for its increased cotton purchases. In fact, Japan’s ambition was higher than business. The Colonial Ministry’s newsletter, Takumu Jihō, stressed that emigration and development were mutually reinforcing and inseparable from Japan’s pursuit of international power.47 The same hybrid model of migration and colonization was also applied to Peru. The Colonial Ministry’s staff at the Japanese Embassy in Lima identified cotton as a favorable commercial crop since t here seemed no conflict of interest with local Peruvian plantations. It instructed Perū Menka K. K., a subsidiary of the national policy company, Kaigai Kōgyō, and other Nikkei concerns to incorporate their cotton production business locally and employ co-ethnic immigrants as tenants in the coastal areas of Chancay and Cañete or in mountain areas. If needed, the home government provided subsidies or investment capital. Nakauchi Hiroshi, a colonial bureaucrat in Lima, foresaw multiple benefits of the agricultural undertakings: “While alleviating Peruvians’ antipathy against Japanese, Japanese immigrants are able to prove their loyalty to the country with their work [i.e., cotton farming]; they can also acquire land titles and permanently settle in the locales, and Japan can achieve a genuine kaigai hatten [overseas advance].”48 The paternalistic state encouraged the sustainable growth of Nikkei farming, especially family-based and small-scale independent farms, many of which w ere struggling operationally and financially, and encouraged their collectivization and u nionization. The Industrial Promotion Department within the Japanese Consulate General in São Paulo financed the formation of the COTIA Trade Union by Nikkei potato farmers in the greater São Paulo area. The Pinheiros-based association (1928–1994) was
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the first and probably the largest state-sanctioned Nikkei cooperative in Latin America, boasting 18,000 members at its peak.49 The COTIA incubated cash crops, represented various produce interests, and engaged in nonfarming communal activities, including infrastructure building, warehousing, loans, ethnic education, and entertainment. All these were among immeasurable benefits for union members, who tended to be isolated and marginalized in the larger society. The COTIA achievement spurred about fifty more Nikkei trade associations and cooperatives in the states of São Paulo, Mato Grosso, Goiás, and Paraná by the end of 1934.50 To supervise and communicate (usually Tokyo’s interests) with these numerous unions, the Colonial Bureau of the Colonial Ministry established the local overseeing association, the Central Association for Japan-Brazil Trade Associations in 1934. When Nikkei farmers, stirred by “cotton fever,” rushed into cotton crop production, the local consulate sent them the disciplinary message “not to focus too much on cotton, or to seek speculative profits from agriculture.”51 Diversification into noncotton products was encouraged instead, for the sake of sustainable farming. The ingenious synthesis of migration, social control, and paternalistic outreach is not unique to Japan. As quoted above, Francis Bacon articulated the colonization model to James I, and his proposal was practiced by the British in Australia. There is no evidence that the Japanese state was familiar with the Bacon model and adopted it as a national policy, but its essential hybridity is evident in Japan’s colonization of Hokkaido, Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria.52 That said, the SAM enterprise fundamentally diverges from its peers in terms of its extensive control over its co-ethnic diaspora in other sovereignties (i.e., Latin American nations). On what basis did Japan imagine and attempt to substantiate its extraterritorial rule, which might muddle with South America’s legal-formal sovereignty? Law on nationality provided Japan a theoretical basis for its claim on this extraterritorial statehood. Before World War II, a significant (although unaccountable) number of Nikkei immigrants to Latin America held Japa nese passports. Most of the first generation, particularly males, kept Japa nese nationality, planning to return home one day. Also, expatriation was technically impossible due to a legal catch-22: the GOJ required military serv ice of its male citizens before expatriation, whereas, for instance, Brazil under President Vargas also required it for naturalization. As a result, many retained Japanese nationality. Moreover, many second-or third-generation immigrants—nisei or sansei, respectively—born to Japanese parents in for-
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eign countries held dual citizenship, a result of a difference in citizenship law: many Latin American nations practiced jus soli while Japan observed jus sanguinis. A child born to Japanese parents overseas was granted Japa nese nationality through Japan’s local consulate, thanks to the international arrangement of birth registration. This registration system also contributed to a numerical expansion of the overseas Nikkei community.53 Dual nationality was de jure prohibited but often tolerated by “home” and host governments. Further, the GOJ willingly made a head count of the unregistered (and thus non-Japanese) nisei or sansei as “Japanese,” to make the co-ethnic pool larger.54 With this diasporic linkage—legal or imagined—in mind, imperialist Japan demanded the diaspora’s economic (as noted above), political, or cultural engagement and contributions, particularly in times of crisis, and reprimanded disloyal or uncooperative behavior.55 Meanwhile, the state often failed in its responsibilities to protect its nationals—herein the prewar Law on Immigrants’ Rescue and Repatriation may be relevant—from perils, such as the economic depression (during which only seventeen Japanese immigrants w ere retrieved from Brazil 56) and the race-driven persecutions in Peru in the early 1930s.57 Some Latin American nations suspected Japan’s paternalistic outreach toward its co-ethnics as a sign of imperialist infiltration of their national sovereignty. “El peligro de la asianización” concerned Peruvians, who saw land acquisition and the implantation of Japanese nationals in Japanese estates in the countryside.58 The advancement of Japanese immigrants and businesses in the Brazilian Amazon was condemned as a step toward the “Manchurianization of Brazil” in the words of the anti-Japanese Brazilian ideologue Miguel Couto.59 To pacify skeptical sovereigns, Japan hid the imperialistic teeth of its migration-colonization operations. The Nikkei development efforts were “not an act of aggression but a peaceful enterprise to be conducted with the agreement of the other [host] nation, whose formal sovereignty Japan fully respected,” a colonial official insisted.60 Land acquisition and ownership— quintessential matters of sovereignty—were executed with care. In 1929, the Japanese Colonial Ministry directed that “land in Latin America be purchased and owned by private entities in consideration of Japan’s relations with t hese nations.”61 The International Trade Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated, “It is undesirable from an international relations perspective that Japan’s government agencies directly purchase land [in the
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Peruvian Amazon].”62 In the states of São Paulo and Pará in Brazil, Junin Province in Peru, or La Colmena in Paraguay, property transactions and management wore a “peaceful guise,” using the private names of such entities as Kaigai Kōgyō or of the individuals who represented those organ izations.63 It would have been unwise to expose the GOJ’s presence and unnecessarily irritate the host countries, which might halt the colonizing enterprise. The state’s involvement was thus camouflaged. It is hard to imagine that Tokyo’s pacifist pretense dispelled Latin America’s suspicions. Nonetheless, the host nations allowed Japanese immigration and frontier settlement until World War II. Latin American government motives w ere probably as pragmatic and shrewd as Japan’s. They tolerated Japan’s colonial endeavors as long as the migrants’ reclamation, development, and practical use of lands benefitted the otherw ise stagnant regions. A fter all, Japan’s self-assertive gambits in the South American frontier hinged upon the tacit consent of the host states. The present study recognizes Japan’s prewar emigration policy toward South America as an integral part of the state’s organic mechanism for social domination and imperialist overtures in the continuum of its efforts at modernization. Originally grounded in a Malthusian rationale—to solve overpopulation and poverty via emigration—the policy increasingly pivoted to more immediate and imminent political concerns, popular disobedience in partic ular, and toward the western part of Japan, rife with such problems. This political decompressor conjoined with Japan’s international ambition to project power to Latin America, mobilizing its co-ethnic diaspora’s material and symbolic resources in the settlements. The hybridization of the policy essence thus prolonged the life of an otherw ise unsustainable emigration policy. A state-centric approach is useful in revealing the intent of the Japa nese state in its elusive SAM policy. The approach also highlights the historical continuity of Japan’s cross-border migration. The dual strategy of “exclusion h ere and inclusion there” was revived in the 1950s and 1960s by democratized postwar Japan. In that time of structural transformations and social discontent with the probusiness and conservative regime, the postwar GOJ revisited the Latin American emigration policy as a safety valve to remove perceived sources of current or potential instability and to improve its international status via emigration.64 Smaller in scale and divergent in destinations (e.g., the Dominican Republic and Bolivia as new
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destinations),65 the postwar policy resonated with the earlier regime’s statist and illiberal disposition—that is, national interests overriding the well- being of individual migrants. The downward migratory flows to hinterlands (which caused settlers hardship), the geographical concentration of migrant origins in western Japan, and the sender state’s assertions regarding the flawed policy were other, repeated patterns. However, state-centric analysis may have compromised a more substantial investigation of the experiences, achievements, and thoughts of Japanese migrants (and their descendants). The voices and actions of migrants, who are also protagonists in the history of South American migration, are far from monolithic, often nuanced, and hard to generalize, shaped by their personal or social attributes and circumstances.66 They may contest or reject the top-down, dogmatic thinking of the Japanese state. As in their transborder relationships with their “home” state, migrants may engage or collaborate with it, defy or disengage from it, or remain independent. Nikkei Brazilian youths who fought and died as Japanese soldiers during World War II67 and the group lawsuit brought by former immigrants to the Dominican Republic against the GOJ in the 1960s are cases in point. H ere, as recent diaspora studies demonstrate, a people-focused approach certainly reveals numerous, unaccounted chronicles of the state-society linkage. It also substantiates or reconceptualizes the political community (in this case, Japan) across time and space.
Notes 1. A European venture transported 153 Japanese workers to Hawai‘i without Japa nese government authorization (the gannenmono incident of 1868). A fter hearing of the quasi-slave treatment of its citizens on sugar plantations in Hawai‘i, the government hardened its attitude against labor emigration. 2. Suzuki, Nihonjin dekasegi imin, p. 97. 3. Masterson and Funada-Classen, Japanese in Latin America, p. 33. 4. Gaimushō, Amerika-k yoku, Shōwa jūninendo oyobi jūsannendo, pp. 71–72. 5. Masterson and Funada-Classen, Japanese in Latin America, p. 71. 6. Osaka asahi shinbun, dated May 18, 1930. The newspaper article was documented in the MOFA record, Imin jōhō zassan, Burajiru koku no bu, at the Diplomatic Records Office (DRO), Tokyo. 7. Suzuki, Nihonjin dekasegi imin, pp. 166–67. 8. Briggs, International Migration; Castles and Miller, Age of Migration; Cornelius, Martin, and Hollifield, Controlling Immigration; Hatton and Williamson, Age of Mass Migration.
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9. NHK News Web, “Abe shushō.” 10. Lu, Making of Japanese. 11. A disproportionately larger number of the second and third sons of agrarian families migrated to Latin America and, later, Manchuria. In contrast, Hawai‘i-and US-bound emigration had more f amily heads and first sons because many emigrants intended to return home a fter making their fortune. 12. In “Saigai go no shinkō-saku to shiteno kaigai ijū o shōrei suru no iken,” at the National Archives of Japan (NAJ), Tokyo, 1923. 13. Ogishima, “Japanese Emigration.” 14. See, for example, Takumu-shō, Ishokumin kōshūkai kōen-shū, pp. 1–3; Naimu- shō, Shakai-kyoku, Shakai-bu, “Kokumin kōsei undō gaikyō,” in the Database System for the Minutes of the Imperial Diet of the National Diet Library (NDL), Tokyo, http://w ww.ndl.go.jp/en/data/diet.html. 15. Note that the data period differs by destination: 1899–1941 for Brazil; 1899– 1923 for Peru; as of 1941 for Bolivia and Argentina. See Saga-ken, Saga-ken kaigai ijū shi, pp. 114, 280, 290; Fukumoto, Hacia un nuevo sol, p. 142; Wakatsuki, Sengo hikiage no kiroku, pp. 23, 25. The proportion of the population of western Japan to the nation’s total was calculated based on the national census: Naikaku Tōkei-k yoku, Nippon teikoku tōkei nenkan 1882–1940. 16. Endoh, Exporting Japan. 17. For structural and socioeconomic differences between northeastern and western Japan, see Endoh, Exporting Japan, pp. 109–111. 18. Another possible explanation of the geog raphical concentration of SAM’s sources is chain migration. While it is true that western Japan historically championed emigrants to the Americas, the majority of state-recruited mig rants w ere sent to hinterlands where there were no compatriot settlers. In some cases, earlier Japanese settlers opposed the GOJ’s plan to send more settlers or condemned the SAM policy as kimin-teki (dumping p eople). Endoh, Exporting Japan, p. 184. 19. The term burakumin, as used throughout the text, is highly controversial in the legal, political, and social worlds of Japan. This social group is so named b ecause they are, historically, the people of a “special hamlet” (tokushu buraku). Thus, the word itself is already discriminatory, differentiating this communal group from other Japanese based on place of origin or occupation. In this book, I use the term simply as a m atter of pragmatism. 20. Fukuoka Buraku-shi Kenkyūkai, Fukuokaken hisabetsu burakushi, pp. 361–362. 21. Hiroshima-ken, Hiroshimaken ijūshi, p. 1073. 22. Nishi Nihon Bunka Kyōkai, Fukuokakenshi, pp. 506–507. 23. Shindō, Buraku kaihō undō, p. 148. 24. The Resolution of the Lower House of the Diet, “Shisō teki kokunan ni kansuru ketsugi” (April 25, 1928), NAJ. 25. The term kokusaku kaisha (national policy companies) is often used to refer to special-purpose companies either funded by the Japanese government or established under state guidance in the prewar period. 26. “Saigai go no shinkō-saku to shiteno kaigai ijū o shōrei suru no iken,” NAJ, 1923. 27. In “Honpō imin toriatsukainin kankei zakken, kaigai kōgyō kabushiki kaisha, kaigai tokōsha meibo,” exhibit no. 6, “Kazoku imin boshū yoteisū oyobi chihōbetsu
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35
boshū haitō-hyō (Showa 5–6), April 1930–March 1931; “Honpō imin toriatsukainin kankei zakken, nanbei takushoku kabushiki kaisha, kaigai tokōsha meibo” (January 1934), DRO. 28. “Honpō imin toriatsukainin kankei zakken, nanbei takushoku kabushiki kaisha, kaigai tokōsha meibo” (January 1934), DRO 29. Fukuoka Kaigai Kyōkai, Hakkō, pp. 4–5. 30. Fukuoka Kaigai Kyōkai, Hakkō, p. 3. 31. Narusawa, “Yūwa undō to seisaku.” 32. Yanase, Shakaigai no shakai. 33. “Ijū no shidō, shōrei ni kansuru jikō,” in “Yūwa jigyō ni kansuru sangyō keizai shisetsu yōkō,” in Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, Yūwa jigyō nenkan. 34. Osaka Jinken Rekishi Shiryōkan, Manshū imin, p. 47. 35. Yūwa jihō, September 1931; Yūwa jihō, Kyushu regional edition, August 1, 1933. 36. Yūwa jihō, no. 86, January 1, 1934. 37. A survey of the Nikkei population in Brazil conducted in 1964 found that t here were 250 “miners and quarrymen” (and their families) among the 10,501 emigrants studied who w ere “nonfarmers” and emigrated during the state-guided emigration period (1923–1941). Burajiru Nikkeijin Jittai Chōsa Iinkai, Burajiru no Nihon, pp. 378–81. 38. Hiroshima-ken, Hiroshimakenshi, p. 643. 39. Hara, “Senkanki Nagasaki-ken,” p. 75. 40. Ueno, Shutsu nippon ki, p. 20. 41. From “The Plantation in Ireland,” in Bacon, Works of Lord Bacon. 42. Regarding migrant-settlers’ cooperation with the Japanese state, Mackintosh’s comment was instructive: “The fact that migrant-settlers ostensibly went of their own volition allowed the state to mobilize its settlers ‘inclusively’ as ‘co-ethnic’ representatives of Japan’s colonial expansion and prestige abroad.” See Mackintosh, review of Exporting Japan. 43. Endoh, Exporting Japan; Masterson and Funada-Classen, Japanese in Latin America; Normano, “Japanese Emigration to Brazil”; Normano, “Japanese Emigration to Latin America.” 44. Kaneda, Shōwa jūninen ban, p. 136. 45. Takumu-shō, Menka ni kansuru chōsa. 46. Hiroshima-shi, Kaigai ijū, p. 31. 47. Takumu jihō, no. 8, January–June 1935, pp. 2–3. 48. Takumu-shō, Perū koku zairyū hōjin, p. 47. 49. Nakamura, Burajiru Fukuoka kenjin hattenshi, p. 110. 50. Kaneda, Shōwa jūninen ban, p. 110. 51. Kaneda, Shōwa jūninen ban, p. 37. 52. Schumpeter, Imperialism and Social Classes; Young, Japan’s Total Empire. 53. Uchiyama, Sōbō no kyūjūninen, pp. 98–100. 54. Masterson and Funada-Classen, Japanese in Latin America, p. 131. 55. Endoh, Exporting Japan; Masterson and Funada-Classen, Japanese in Latin America; Normano, “Japanese Emigration to Brazil”; Tsuchida, “Japanese in Brazil.” 56. Osaka asahi shinbun, dated May 18, 1930. The newspaper article was documented in the MOFA record, Imin jōhō zassan, Burajiru koku no bu, 50, DRO. 57. Gardiner, Pawns in a Triangle, p. 19.
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58. Fukumoto, Hacia un nuevo sol, p. 236. 59. Kaneda, Shōwa jūninen ban, pp. 78–84. 60. The words of Takayama Sanpei, chief of the Colonial Bureau of the Colonial Ministry. Takayama Sanpei, “Waga kuni no ishokumin mondai ni tsuite,” in Takumu- shō, Takumu-k yoku, Takumu jihō, no. 8, January–June 1935, p. 5. 61. Inoue, “Imin gyōsei.” 62. Correspondence from Taketomi of the Bureau of International Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the bureau chief of colonial affairs in the Ministry of Colonial Affairs, June 3, 1930, in Gaimu-shō, Imin jōhō zassan. 63. The phrase “peaceful guise” was used by Miyasaka Kunihito, the senior director of the OEA and the proprietor of the La Colmena colony in Paraguay. Ra Korumena Nijusshūnenshi Kankōkai, Paraguai koku saisho. 64. Endoh, Exporting Japan. 65. Iacobelli, Postwar Emigration to South America. 66. Handa, Imin no seikatsu; Higashide, Adios to Tears; Lu, Making of Japanese; Migita, Mariana sensei; Nakamura, Burajiru Fukuoka kenjin hattenshi; Ueno, Shutsu nippon ki. 67. They were nisei, sent to and educated in Japan by their parents. Among the martyred, two were of Okinawan origin. See Uchiyama, Sōbō no kyūjūninen, pp. 98–100.
c h a p t e r
2
Japanese Shipping Lines in Latin America, 1905–1941 Elijah J. Greenstein
I
n the first half of the twentieth century, Japanese shipping firms developed an extensive network of shipping lines to Latin American ports, many with state support.1 Ships on these lines carried trade between Japan and Latin America, as well as tens of thousands of Japanese immigrants. In facilitating these flows of p eople and goods, these shipping serv ices represented the essential infrastructure of a set of entanglements and interactions between states, societies, nations, and empires in East Asia and the Americas. Such entanglements have, at times, been characterized as “transpacific” or constitutive of a larger “Pacific history.”2 Neither term, however, fully captures the scope of the Japanese shipping activities that touched on Latin America. Whereas the two terms lay emphasis on a particular ocean space (the Pacific), and the former suggests a preoccupation with transit across that space, Japanese activities in Latin America also extended to other ocean spaces and w ere significant in creating, mediating, and transforming connections between a range of ports and regions. To be sure, Japanese shipping activities in Latin America created links across the Pacific, but they also carried flows of traffic in the Indian Ocean, across the Atlantic, between the Americas, and along a number of coasts. Japanese shipping lines to Latin America, in other words, can be understood as supportive of a range of “transpacific” projects but also as integral components of the global transportation system beyond the Pacific. Many officials and businessmen consequently suggested that shipping lines were critical to securing a place for Japan among the world’s great powers. Much as William Tsutsui has argued that efforts to extract marine resources through fisheries represented the making of a “pelagic empire,”3 these shipping boosters viewed competition between shipping firms as an extension 37
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of interimperial competition. At the same time, shipping lines w ere also linked to other shipping networks, railways, and transportation systems. Similar to network building by land-based institutions, such as Japan’s South Manchuria Railway,4 Japanese shipping firms sought to dominate sea- lanes while simultaneously integrating services into multimodal systems that conveyed people and goods across oceans, continents, and political borders. Shipping lines thus represented claims on both ocean space and the infrastructure of global circulation. This chapter shows how Japanese shipping lines in Latin America contributed to and w ere shaped by t hese interlinked expansionary projects.
Transpacific Flows, Interoceanic Infrastructure, and the West Coast Route Japanese shipping in Latin America initially developed along two routes (fig. 2.1). The “South America West Coast route” (Nanbei seigan kōro) across the Pacific to Mexico, Peru, Chile, and other Pacific-facing countries, and the “South America East Coast route” (Nanbei tōgan kōro) across the Indian and Atlantic Oceans to Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina.5 The earliest voyages of Japanese ships w ere organized around the transport of migrant workers, such as the 790 laborers who arrived in Peru aboard the Saikyō Maru in 1899 or the 781 laborers who arrived in Brazil aboard the Kasato Maru in 1908.6 In the early twentieth century, Japanese shipping firms also began to open regularly scheduled shipping serv ices on these routes. The TKK (Tōyō Kisen Kabushiki Gaisha) opened a shipping line on the West Coast route in 1905, and the OSK (Ōsaka Shōsen Kabushiki Gaisha) and NYK (Nippon Yūsen Kabushiki Gaisha) established regular services on the East Coast route in 1916 and 1917, respectively.7 The TKK’s operations on the West Coast route were shaped by turn- of-the-century efforts to promote Japanese shipping, the reorientation of Japanese migration to Latin America, and developments in the infrastructure of global transport. Following victories in wars with China (1894–1895) and Russia (1904–1905), Japan not only acquired an empire of overseas colonies and concessions; it also began to assume a larger role in world shipping. In 1896, the government passed legislation to subsidize shipping and shipbuilding, and the Ministry of Communications began to subsidize specific serv ices designated as “ordered lines” (meirei kōro). Over the next
7. Manzanillo 8. Salina Cruz 9. Balboa 10. Callao 11. Iquique 12. Valparaiso
West Coast Line 3. Yokohama 2. Kobe 1. Hong Kong 13. Saigon 14. Singapore 15. Colombo 16. Durban 17. Cape Town 18. Rio de Janeiro 19. Santos
20. Montevideo 21. Buenos Aires 19. Santos 18. Rio de Janeiro 22. New Orleans 23. Galveston 9. Cristóbal 6. Los Angeles 3. Yokohama
East Coast Line
FIG. 2.1. Map illustration of the West Coast and East Coast Lines, ca. 1920s. Note: Balboa and Cristóbal, the Atlan tic and Pacific ports of the Panama Canal, are marked as a single location (9) on this map.
1. Hong Kong 2. Kobe 3. Yokohama 4. Honolulu 5. San Francisco 6. Los Angeles
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s everal years, firms established transoceanic lines to Seattle, San Francisco, Australia, and Europe, and after the Russo-Japanese War, the TKK extended this network to South America.8 Emigration boosters welcomed the direct link to Latin America, a region that they viewed as a promising alternative for transpacific migration in the face of immigration restrictions in the United States, Canada, and Australia.9 Japanese officials, meanwhile, supported the extension of shipping serv ices to a region where transcontinental railways and the Panama Canal promised to foster movements of people and goods between the Pacific and the Atlantic. Th ese developments in shipping, migration, and global transportation converged to shape the TKK’s operations on the route. Though the TKK’s establishment of semiregular serv ices to Peru and Chile in 1905 marked the beginning of “Japanese” shipping in the region, Japan’s entry into world oceans still rested on European, particularly British, sources of steamships. In 1898, when the TKK established a serv ice to San Francisco, it ordered three steamships from British shipyards.10 Likewise, when the company began sailings on the South America West Coast route, it again employed foreign-built ships. For the inaugural voyage, the company chartered a British steamer, the Glenfarg, which departed Yokohama in December, bound across the Pacific to Callao, Peru, and Iquique, Chile. Early the next year, the British commercial ensign was joined by the Rising Sun when the TKK further employed the Kasato Maru—a British- built steamer owned by the Russian Volunteer Fleet until its capture by the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Russo-Japanese War.11 Other spoils of that war included overseas territories; the renamed Kasato Maru, meanwhile, contributed to the expansion of Japanese shipping on the Pacific. In 1907, the firm employed another British ship u nder charter, the Katherine Park, until it temporarily suspended services the next year. After the Ministry of Communications began to subsidize the West Coast line as an ordered line in 1909, the company resumed operations with three British-built, Japanese- flagged steamers.12 In sending t hese ships to South America’s Pacific coast, the TKK entered a region in which shipping was largely controlled by British firms. In the mid-nineteenth c entury, Britain’s Pacific Steam Navigation Company had assumed a dominant position on runs between San Francisco, Panama, Peru, and Chile, and between the Pacific coast of South America and Europe. Despite competition from Germany’s Kosmos Line in the run to Europe and from Chile’s Compañia Sud Americana de Vapores in the routes to
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San Francisco and along the coast of Latin America, Pacific Steam retained a powerful place on the Pacific coast of Latin America until the outbreak of World War I in 1914.13 In the early twentieth c entury, however, the TKK sought to organize its activities around transpacific traffic. Upon inaugurating its serv ice, the TKK carried several flows of trade and passengers across the Pacific. While developing plans for the route, TKK managers saw prospects in carrying Japanese migrants to Peru on outbound voyages and returning to Japan with Chilean nitrates. The company’s president, Asano Sōichirō, presented these trades in terms of national interests, asserting that the new shipping line was an “imperative” (kyūmu), necessary “to make prosperous the trade and commerce between South American countries and the [ Japanese] Empire, and to resettle [ishoku] the Empire’s subjects in the region.”14 At the same time, the TKK also earned fares carrying Chinese migrants and rice from Hong Kong to Peru.15 In 1907, the company projected that passengers and cargoes loaded in Hong Kong would make up more than a third of passenger revenue and more than half of freight income on the line (table 2.1). Hong Kong’s significance was not unique to the West Coast line. Chinese ports were often important sources of cargoes on transoceanic routes in which Japanese foreign trade only partially filled ship holds. On the Eu rope line, for example, Japan’s trade imbalance left the NYK reliant on Chinese exports to fill ships on outbound sailings.16 Traffic between Hong Kong and South America was of such importance to the TKK’s West Coast line that reductions in that traffic led to the suspension of sailings. In February 1908, the Peruvian government raised entry fees for Chinese immigrants, leading to a sharp decline in migration; strong harvests in South America, meanwhile, presaged reduced exports of Saigon and Rangoon rice transshipped in Hong Kong.17 Already facing losses on the route, the TKK temporarily suspended sailings. Several Japanese officials also viewed serv ices on the West Coast route as an opportunity to link Japanese ships into transportation networks that extended beyond the Pacific coast or even South America. In mid-1905, as the TKK prepared to open serv ices, the Japanese minister to Brazil, Sugimura Fukashi, proposed that the company make Valparaiso, rather than Iquique, its southern terminus. On the one hand, he suggested that the extension might encourage the Chilean government to subsidize the line—a practice not without precedent, as both the Chilean and Peruvian governments had subsidized Pacific Steam in the 1840s.18 At the same time, he
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T ABLE 2.1
Projected Income on the TKK’s South America Route, 1907
Total Income: ¥131,500 Freight Revenue: ¥91,500 Origin and Destination
Freight
Rate/Ton
Income
Hong Kong to Peru
General cargo, 3,000 tons
¥19
¥57,000
Kobe, Yokohama to South America
General cargo, 200 tons
¥20
¥4,000
Between Valparaiso and Iquique
General cargo, 1,500 tons
¥8
¥12,000
Chile to Kobe, Yokohama
Saltpeter, 1,000 tons
¥11
¥11,000
Peru to Kobe, Yokohama
Sugar, 1,000 tons
¥7.5
¥7,500
Passengers
Rate/Person
Income
Hong Kong to Peru, Chile
150
¥100
¥15,000
Kobe, Yokohama to Mexico and South America
200
¥80
¥16,000
Coastal, between Chile and Peru
—
—
¥3,000
South America to Japan, Hong Kong
50
¥120
¥6,000
Passenger Revenue: ¥40,000 Origin and Destination
Source: Asano to Yamagata, November 5, 1907, in NGB, vol. 40, no. 2, p. 739.
argued that the extension to the “premier trading port on South America’s Pacific coast” would connect the line to Valparaiso’s transcontinental railways to Argentina and shipping lines to Europe.19 Ambitions to claim a place for Japan in interoceanic transportation similarly shaped the reorganization of the West Coast line when it was reopened as an ordered line in 1909. Under the terms of the government’s subsidy, the TKK was required to maintain six annual sailings between Hong Kong and Coronel, Chile, with mandatory stopovers in Salina Cruz, Mexico, as well as ports in Peru and Chile.20 The extension of the shipping service to Mexico was the result of negotiations between Japanese and Mexican officials and transportation firms. At their center was the Japa nese minister to Mexico, Arakawa Minoji, who, in July 1908, met with Mexican president Porfirio Díaz and proposed that the Japanese and Mexican
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governments jointly subsidize steamship serv ices between the two countries.21 Over the following two years, he sought to garner support for this venture from officials and businessmen in both countries. Arakawa’s visions for the line centered as much on the f uture of transportation between the Atlantic and Pacific as Japanese-Mexican relations. Like many of his contemporaries, he viewed transportation infrastructure and the circulation it generated as progressive forces, and he argued that regular sailings would encourage trade and amity between Japan and Mexico. At the same time, he aimed to link the shipping line to the Tehuantepec National Railway, which crossed Mexico from Salina Cruz to Puerto México (Coatzacoalcos). First completed in 1894, the railway had been overhauled and reopened with g reat fanfare in 1907.22 In communications with other Foreign Ministry officials, Arakawa argued that a link with the railway would reroute trade between Japan and the United States from American transcontinental railways to a new, multimodal network: “Cargo can be directly transported from the banks of the Mississippi River and, through New Orleans, by sea route to Coatzacoalcos, Mexico; it can then be delivered from that port to Salina Cruz via the Tehuantepec Railway, and t here loaded aboard Japanese steamships and directly carried to Japan.”23 This transportation system, promised Arakawa, would convey trade between Japan and commercial centers in the eastern United States in less time and at a reduced cost. At the same time, and much as Mexican officials sought to make the Tehuantepec Railway a critical link between the Pacific and Atlantic, Arakawa viewed an arrangement with the railway as an opportunity for Japan to assume a new prominence in the Pacific and the global transportation system. Of concern for the diplomat was the construction of the Panama Canal, which promised to transform global commerce and to intensify competition in global transport: “Already it is widely recognized that, for our national development, it is necessary for the Japanese shipping industry to become a conqueror [hasha] of the Pacific Ocean; however, one must never forget the global competition that [will arise] in Pacific shipping the day that the Panama Canal is completed.”24 According to Arakawa, Japan could meet this competition by establishing a shipping line to Salina Cruz, thereby creating a line of transportation from Japan to the Americas and Europe that would ultimately be shorter and more competitive than the route through Panama. Arakawa’s proposal was compatible with Porfirio Díaz’s own ambitions to develop maritime links to Mexico and to center the Tehuantepec Railway
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in global commerce.25 In the late nineteenth century, Díaz’s government had encouraged the development of maritime serv ices to Mexico by subsidizing several American-owned shipping enterprises. At the same time, Mexican officials also sought to reconfigure the country’s maritime links through the establishment of shipping services that would bypass San Francisco and directly link Mexico and East Asia. The Mexican government realized this latter goal by granting tax exemptions to the China Commercial Steamship Company Ltd., which opened the first regular ser vice from Hong Kong to Mexico in 1903.26 A fter meeting with Arakawa, Díaz proved amenable to supporting an additional transpacific serv ice to Salina Cruz operated by the TKK, and the president and his minister of finance offered to match any subsidy offered by the Japanese government. The Pearson Company—which held a controlling interest in the Tehauntepec National Railway—likewise indicated support for an arrangement with a Japanese shipping line.27 In Japan, however, Arakawa struggled to generate similar enthusiasm. Asano Sōichirō rejected the proposal for a direct Japan–Mexico line, and instead offered to make Salina Cruz a port of call on the West Coast line. Japanese communications officials likewise indicated a preference for integrating Salina Cruz into the West Coast line.28 In response, Mexican officials offered a reduced subsidy to support stopovers in Salina Cruz on the West Coast line, but negotiations stumbled when they further demanded serv ices to Manzanillo and twelve annual sailings. In 1909, a fter several months of negotiations, the Mexican government and the TKK concluded an agreement u nder which the former was to provide a subsidy of 10,000 pesos per sailing, and the latter agreed to maintain at least six annual sailings to Salina Cruz.29 Though Japanese officials and businessmen rejected a direct Japan– Mexico line, Arakawa’s arguments about the future of global transport were echoed by communications officials when they submitted a proposal for a West Coast line subsidy to the Imperial Diet in 1909. Responding to doubts raised in the Lower House,30 the head of the Mercantile Marine Bureau, Uchida Kakichi, drew attention to the Tehuantepec Railway, arguing that it “w ill not only help our trade with Mexico, it w ill prove to be 31 a major highway of global transportation.” Like Arakawa, Uchida emphasized the railway’s potential to streamline New York–Yokohama traffic and to transform global transport: “Due to connections [renraku] such as the link [setsuzoku] with the railway between Argentina and Chile and the link with the Tehuantepec Railway, I expect that this shipping line w ill
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become a foundation of global transport, and that it must therefore be opened quickly. Moreover, I expect that this shipping line w ill also develop 32 Japan’s trade with Mexico, Chile, Peru, and this region.” American observers, too, saw the development of Japanese shipping on the West Coast route as linked to Japanese ambitions in Latin America and the Pacific. Commenting on the subsidized West Coast line, the Washington Post suggested that Japan “sees in Chile and the wide pampas of Argentina beyond an immense and fertile country for the exploitation of her laborers. . . . The new line w ill rapidly tend to develop trade between the two countries and easily induce the emigration of Japanese to South America.”33 The newspaper also drew attention to the partnership with the Tehuantepec National Railway: “By the time the [Panama] canal is completed the Mexican railroad w ill have been in full operation for a sufficient period to establish Japanese commercial supremacy, if their theory works out in practice as well as it looks on paper.”34 The TKK’s arrangement with the Mexican government ultimately proved short-lived. In 1910, the Japanese Ministry of Communications sought to terminate the subsidy contract due to concerns that it granted a foreign government authority over a shipping line of national significance.35 Such concerns soon became moot, however, as Díaz was forced to resign in 1911, and his successor canceled the TKK’s subsidies. 36 Nevertheless, negotiations over the connection at Salina Cruz and the configuration of the West Coast line exemplify the multiple objectives pursued through the development of shipping between Japan and Latin America. The establishment of the West Coast line was presented as a means of fostering transpacific exchanges of p eople and commodities, and thus an opportunity for Japan to project its population overseas while acquiring Latin American resources. At the same time, Japanese and Mexican officials alike sought to assume a central place in global transportation in the Pacific and beyond by linking the West Coast line and the Tehuantepec National Railway. The West Coast line thus simultaneously extended Japanese influence into Latin America, the Pacific, and the infrastructure of global circulation.
Migration, War, and the East Coast Route As on the West Coast route, the development of shipping lines on the East Coast route reflected Japanese interests both in Latin America specifically and in world shipping more generally. In the early twentieth c entury,
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immigration boosters and companies began to encourage emigration to Brazil, where officials and plantation owners welcomed Japanese labor.37 As the TKK opened its West Coast line, officials and boosters called for the establishment of another line between Japan and Brazil to support immigration. The low volume of trade on the route initially precluded regular ser vices, but the outbreak of World War I (1914–1918) created new opportunities. With European production and shipping devoted to the war effort, Japanese exporters and shipping companies entered new overseas markets. Shipping firms opened new lines, and the Japanese fleet ended the war with an expanded place in world sea-lanes, including the East Coast route. Parallel to the development of the West Coast line in the early twentieth c entury, Brazilian officials sought to encourage shipping on the East Coast route. In 1905, as the TKK prepared to open its line to Peru and Chile, the Brazilian ambassador to Japan proposed an alternative line from Yokohama to Rio de Janeiro, and in late 1906, Brazilian officials and politicians passed legislation to subsidize shipping between Japan and Brazil.38 Brazil’s overseas shipping at the time was largely in the hands of British firms that carried triangular trade between Europe, Brazil, and the United States. In the late nineteenth century, Brazilian officials had sought to reconfigure maritime serv ices touching on Brazil through measures that included subsidies granted to foreign firms, such as the United States and Brazil Mail Steamship Company. 39 Proponents of the 1906 legislation hoped that a new serv ice would promote Japanese immigration and Brazilian commerce. The legislation required the subsidized firm to exhibit such Brazilian products as coffee, sugar, and gum in Japanese cities, and officials also hoped that a direct link with Cape Town would encourage exports of coffee to South Africa.40 The Brazilian foreign minister ultimately forestalled the subsidy,41 but Japanese and Brazilian officials continued to discuss opening transportation links between the two countries. In late 1907, Uchida Sadatsuchi, newly appointed minister to Brazil, learned of negotiations between Brazil’s largest steamship enterprise, Lloyd Brasileiro, and a French firm, Chargeurs Reunis, u nder which the latter would establish serv ices from Japan to Salina Cruz, which would connect to serv ices between New York and Brazil managed by Lloyd Brasileiro via the Tehuantepec Railway. Uchida was able to convince Lloyd Brasileiro directors to consider partnering with a Japanese firm, but in early 1908, NYK president Kondō Renpei rejected the partnership as unlikely to be profitable.42
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Even as emigration companies began to organize Japanese migration to Brazil, insufficient cargo for return voyages impeded regular services. In April 1908, the Kasato Maru, recently released from the suspended West Coast line, again steamed at the vanguard of Japanese shipping to Latin America when it departed Japan with almost eight hundred emigrants bound for Brazil. Also aboard was Mizuno Ryō, the president of the Imperial Emigration Company (Kōkoku Imin Gaisha), who, in 1905, had traveled to South America aboard the Glenfarg.43 Between 1908 and 1914, emigration companies organized ten voyages to Brazil (table 2.2).44 To prevent ships T ABLE 2.2
Voyages to Brazil, 1908–1914
Departure
Emigration Company
Ship Name
04/1908
Imperial Emigration Company
Kasato Maru
05/1910
Takemura Colonial Company
03/1912
Gross Tons
Owner
Families
Migrants
6,209
Imperial Japanese Navy
158
781
Lüshun (Ryojun) Maru
4,806
NYK
447
909
Takemura Colonial Company
Itsukushima Maru
3,882
Oshiro Steamship
367
1432
03/1912
Oriental Emigration Company
Kanagawa Maru
6,151
NYK
357
1419
03/1913
Takemura Colonial Company
No. 2 Unkai Maru
3,951
Nakamura Seishichirō
384
1506
03/1913
Oriental Emigration Company
Wakasa Maru
6,266
NYK
394
1588
08/1913
Takemura Colonial Company
Teikoku Maru
4,997
South Manchuria Railway
527
1946
09/1913
Oriental Emigration Company
Wakasa Maru
6,266
NYK
470
1908
03/1914
Takemura Colonial Company
Teikoku Maru
4,997
South Manchuria Railway
408
1809
03/1914
Oriental Emigration Company
Wakasa Maru
6,266
NYK
412
1688
Sources: Ōsaka shōsen Mitsui senpaku kabushiki gaisha, Ōsaka shōsen kabushiki gaisha hachijū-nen shi (hereafter OSK 80-nen shi), p. 335; Burajiru ni okeru Nihonjin hatten shi kankō iinkai, Burajiru ni okeru Nihonjin, pp. 184–186.
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from returning in ballast, owners sought return cargoes in other countries. The NYK, for example, organized sailings to Brazil as an extension of its Europe line. Outbound, its ships steamed to Brazil along the East Coast route, calling at Singapore and Cape Town en route; the ships then returned via Europe, where they loaded Japan-bound cargoes.45 Dramatic shifts in world trade brought on by World War I, however, created new opportunities on the route. The Entente’s diversion of ships to the war effort and Germany’s withdrawal from world shipping created tonnage shortages, and Japanese companies profited from heightened demand for shipping.46 Disruptions to Europe’s export trade also created opportunities in overseas markets, and Japanese exports to Latin America increased rapidly (fig. 2.2). At the same time, export controls in other countries forced Japanese manufacturers to pursue alternative sources of raw materials. The OSK therefore saw an opening to establish a new line on the East Coast route based on expectations that Australian controls on wool would drive demand for wool from South America and South Africa.47 In December, the OSK opened an East Coast line, employing the Kasato Maru on the inaugural voyage. In early 1917, almost nine years a fter transporting Mizuno Ryō’s first load of contract laborers, the Kasato Maru again arrived in Bra-
FIG. 2.2. Trade between Japan and Latin America, 1901–1940. Source: Yamazawa and Yamamoto, Bōeki to kokusai shūshi, pp. 206–213.
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zil, dropping anchor in Rio de Janeiro before steaming south to Buenos Aires.48 As predicted, the OSK found plentiful cargoes on the East Coast route. The Kasato Maru returned to Japan with wool and other South American products, and demand was such that in 1917 the OSK organized extra sailings to South America and South Africa.49 The NYK, too, entered this trade. In 1916, the company had concluded an arrangement with the Brazil Emigration Group (Burajiru Imin Kumiai) to maintain three annual voyages to Brazil beginning in 1917. Initially, the NYK routed return voyages to New York and back to Japan via the Panama Canal, but in 1918, it rerouted return voyages back to South Africa and Singapore, entering the wool trade and increasing serv ices to six annual sailings.50 Both companies also profited from third-country trade. In 1918, the OSK reported additional revenue from carrying rice, jute, and sugar that had accumulated in intermediate ports, 51 and the NYK established an additional shipping line to carry cargoes from Calcutta to Buenos Aires.52 The OSK’s and NYK’s wartime establishment of serv ices on the East Coast route contributed to Japanese expansionism in several dimensions. The services w ere the infrastructural foundation for what Sidney Xu Lu has referred to as Japan’s “Malthusian expansionism” in Latin America, 53 and they facilitated increased immigration to Brazil in the 1920s and 1930s. In this, they undergirded efforts to cultivate national power in Latin Amer ica through the resettlement of Japanese subjects. At the same time, the shipping lines w ere also part of an effort to expand the nation’s place in the oceans and flows of global commerce. Commenting on conditions in shipping a fter the war, Terashima Shigenobu, an NYK researcher, called for the “internationalization” (kokusaika) of Japanese shipping: the development of “global shipping lines” (sekaiteki kōro), such as “shipping lines from Bombay to Southern Europe, or from South America to France.”54 Though Japan’s “production capacity” (seisanryoku) was limited, Terashima suggested that global shipping networks offered an alternative source of wealth. Likewise, NYK president Kondō Renpei also advocated for the development of such shipping lines and suggested that South America, as well as the “South Seas” (Nan’yō) and South Africa, were areas in which Japanese shipping might be “cultivated” (kaitaku).55 Much as immigration boosters viewed migration to Latin America as a way for the Japanese population to exceed Japanese territory, shipping boosters and business leaders saw shipping routes as additional spaces for expansion.
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Reorganization and New Technologies In the decade that followed World War I, Japanese shipping firms faced new opportunities and challenges on the Latin America routes. The 1920s saw an acceleration of Japanese immigration to Brazil, spurred on by immigration restrictions in the United States and support from the Japanese government.56 At the same time, the wartime trade and shipping booms came to an end. World tonnage had expanded during the war, but postwar trade did not see a rapid return to prewar levels, creating an oversupply of tonnage. Postwar economic recovery initially sustained shipping, but in 1920 demand fell and the industry entered an extended depression.57 The value of Japanese trade with Latin America also fell sharply from 1920 to 1921 and did not return to wartime levels until the 1930s (fig. 2.2).58 Japa nese firms, moreover, faced renewed competition from European and American ships, galvanizing efforts to acquire large, fast, technologically advanced ships. Combined, these developments in trade, migration, and technology drove changes in the organization of shipping to Latin America. In the immediate wake of World War I, officials endeavored to maintain Japan’s expanded network of shipping lines in Latin America. In late 1919, communications officials announced plans to subsidize shipping on the East Coast route and to mandate additional sailings on the TKK’s subsidized West Coast line. The head of the Mercantile Marine Bureau, Wakamiya Sadao, defended the former as necessary to facilitate emigration to Brazil, maintain Japanese trade with South America, and assist Japanese ships in competition with British ships expected to return to the route between Cape Town and South America.59 In early 1920, the Imperial Diet approved the subsidy, which communications officials awarded to the OSK after the company declined to retain subsidies on its transpacific Tacoma line.60 Revisions to the TKK’s subsidy, meanwhile, required monthly sailings on the West Coast route.61 The end of the war also saw the OSK reorganize sailings on the East Coast route around a new set of trade flows. In 1919, the company ordered the Panama Maru to follow a new course on its return voyage. Rather than returning across the Atlantic, the ship instead steamed north to the Gulf of Mexico, calling at South American ports en route. In New Orleans, the ship unloaded coffee, loaded cotton and pig iron, and then passed through the Panama Canal to return to Japan across the Pacific. The following year, the OSK began to route all return voyages to the Gulf, where ships loaded
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cotton and other cargoes in New Orleans and Galveston before returning to Japan via the Panama Canal (fig. 2.1).62 In doing so, the company established a more direct line of ocean transport for Texas-and Louisiana-grown cotton, which previously had been carried by rail to San Francisco or Seattle for transfer to transpacific liners.63 OSK operations thus came to rest on Japanese emigration, Asian exports to South Africa and South Amer ica, South American exports to the United States, and American exports to Japan. The author Ishikawa Tatsuzō pithily described t hese flows in his award-winning novel Sōbō (1939), when he wrote of the cargoes transported by an OSK ship as it carried Japanese immigrants to Brazil: “Japanese textiles to Colombo, Colombo’s black tea to Cape Town, Brazilian coffee to North America, North American cotton to Japan . . . The world economy moves with the La Plata Maru. The wealth of the world beats like waves.”64 The NYK, in contrast, continued to route return sailings on its unsubsidized East Coast line back to Japan via Cape Town and Singapore. Whereas American trade with South America and Japan was an important source of revenue for the OSK, African trade was of greater significance for the NYK. During World War I, the NYK negotiated an arrangement with the London-based Furness Withy and its subsidiary, Rio Cape Line, regarding the transport of coffee from Rio de Janeiro to Cape Town. The NYK remained active in the wool trade, too, sending its ships to additional South African ports during the peak wool season. In the late 1920s, however, the NYK and OSK began to compete for bilateral trade between Japan and Africa when the latter opened a direct, subsidized line to ports in East Africa and Durban, South Africa. In response, the NYK began to route outbound sailings on its South America East Coast line to Mombasa. Competition between the OSK and NYK came to an end in 1931, however, when the firms concluded an agreement to minimize competition during the Great Depression. The OSK eliminated its Tacoma line, which paralleled the NYK’s Seattle line, and the NYK withdrew from the South America East Coast route. The OSK, in turn, extended its East Africa line to South American ports, replacing NYK serv ices between Asia, Africa, and South America.65 In the Pacific, meanwhile, competition from American and European ships and reductions in trade left the TKK struggling to remain afloat. In 1920, the United States Shipping Board, which had overseen wartime shipbuilding, leased several President-class ships to the Dollar Steamship Company for the run between San Francisco and East Asia. The faster
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American ships attracted passengers and more lucrative cargoes, and the TKK lost revenue. At the same time, the TKK also saw reduced traffic on the South America West Coast route: Japanese exports to South America fell, and outbound cargoes largely consisted of rice loaded in Hong Kong. Japanese demand for Chilean nitrates also fell, and in 1924 the company began to route return voyages to Portland to load lumber. Due to reduced traffic on both transpacific lines, the TKK began to see losses in 1922 and suspended dividends. In 1923, business leaders proposed that the TKK merge its operations with the NYK. A fter several years of negotiations, in 1926 the companies reached an agreement under which the TKK transferred its transpacific lines to the NYK in exchange for shares of stock.66 Under the competitive conditions in world shipping that followed World War I, many shipping executives and officials viewed the acquisition of large, fast ships as key to maintaining services. Fast, fuel-efficient ships outfitted with turbine or diesel engines could attract higher-value cargoes and passengers while offering reductions in operating expenses.67 The late 1920s saw several such ships introduced to the subsidized services to Latin Amer ica. In 1924, the OSK ordered three diesel-powered motorships from the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard—the Santos Maru, La Plata Maru, and Montevideo Maru—and several years later purchased two additional motorships: the Buenos Aires Maru and the Rio de Janeiro Maru. The NYK, in contrast, continued to employ aging ships on its unsubsidized East Coast line. While NYK ships required sixty-five days to reach Santos, the OSK’s Santos Maru–class ships could make the passage in forty-seven days. Thus, in the late 1920s, the OSK carried a greater share of Japanese immigrants to Brazil (fig. 2.3).68 The NYK, however, also invested in new ships for its subsidized lines, including a motorship for the West Coast route. The Heiyō Maru was launched from the Osaka Ironworks in late 1929 and began operations in 1930.69 In the decade following World War I, Japanese shipping to Latin Amer ica largely developed within the shipping networks established in the first decades of the twentieth c entury. The major development in the geography of Japanese shipping to Latin America was the OSK’s reorganization of its East Coast line into a round-the-world serv ice. The transfer of the TKK’s transpacific lines to the NYK consolidated serv ices to Latin Amer ica u nder Japan’s two major liner companies, and their 1931 agreement eliminated competition between Japanese firms on the major routes to Latin America. At the same time, the OSK’s investment in motorships reduced
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FIG. 2.3. Japanese immigrants transported by the NYK and OSK on the East Coast Line. Sources: OSK 80-nen shi, p. 337; Kamotsu-ka, Waga sha kaku kōro, pp. 333–337; Yamada, Fune ni miru Nihonjin, p. 75.
the travel time between Japan, South Africa, and Latin America and facilitated Japanese migration to Brazil, which flourished between 1924 and 1934.
Latin America and Oceanic Domination In the 1930s, Japan embarked on further imperial expansion in continental Asia, beginning with the invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and followed by the occupations of China in 1937 and Southeast Asia in 1941. During this period, the orientation of Japanese migration shifted from Latin Amer ica to Northeast Asia, as Brazil imposed limits on immigration in 1934 and Japanese officials encouraged settlement in Manchuria.70 The decade also saw Japan’s oceanic expansionism reach its zenith.71 In the early 1930s, Japanese trade began to recover from the Great Depression, and Japanese shipping firms developed new services. Despite the decline of Japanese emigration to Latin America (fig. 2.3), the region retained a central place in this “advance” (yakushin) of Japanese shipping.
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Developments in Japanese trade and shipping policies buoyed renewed expansion at sea. In 1931, Japan embargoed gold exports, and the depreciation of the yen stimulated exports; Japanese trade with Latin America increased rapidly from 1932 to 1937 (fig. 2.2).72 At the same time, the government also a dopted new policies to support shipping and shipbuilding. In 1932, the Ministry of Communications implemented a scrap-and-build scheme intended to modernize the Japanese fleet. Under the program, the government subsidized shipbuilding on the condition that o wners scrap older vessels. Similar schemes implemented in 1935 and 1936 supported further building, as did the National Shipping Policy (Kaiun Kokusaku) adopted in 1937 that provided subsidies and low-interest loans to support transoceanic shipping and the construction of luxury liners.73 Japan’s export trade and government policies combined to support a boom in shipping, and a number of Japanese firms expanded their serv ices.74 These included the NYK and OSK, as well as several other firms, including two that opened lines to Latin America: the Yamashita Steamship Company (Yamashita Kisen Kabushiki Gaisha) and the Kawasaki Steamship Com pany (Kawasaki Kisen Kabushiki Gaisha).75 In the routes touching on Latin America, advances by Japanese ships in the mid-1930s were closely linked to developments in the eastward route to New York via the Panama Canal. U nder the first scrap-and-build scheme, the NYK purchased six diesel freighters to improve its New York line and used its older ships to establish a subsidized service to Caribbean ports that had seen increased traffic in Japanese exports. In the past, cargoes bound for the region were transshipped in Cristóbal or New York, but the NYK began to carry goods from the Philippines, China, and Japan directly to such ports as Puerto Colombia, La Guaira, Kingston, Port-au-Prince, and Havana.76 Similarly, when, in 1936, Kawasaki Steamship introduced high- speed motorships to its New York line (first opened in 1932), it used its older ships to open a line to the Pacific coast of Latin America under an arrangement with the NYK aimed at avoiding competition on the parallel West Coast line.77 New York City also held an important place in several other lines extended to Atlantic ports in Latin America. In 1937, Kawasaki Steamship opened a westward, round-the-world line similar to a round-the-world ser vice between Japan, Europe, and New York that the company had jointly operated with an American firm in the late 1920s. In 1937, however, Kawasaki Steamship reorganized the serv ice, routing ships from New York
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to South American ports before they passed through Panama.78 Similarly, when Yamashita Steamship sought to enter the New York route in 1937, it organized its service around a triangular trade between Japan, North Amer ica, and South America and sought to carry cargoes from New York to South America and between South America and California.79 The development of such lines in Latin America and beyond was accompanied by a shift in Japanese discourse on shipping. Officials and boosters increasingly promoted the expansion of Japanese shipping in third-country trades, highlighting shipping as a source of foreign exchange that contributed to Japan’s balance of trade. At the same time, they framed such developments in militaristic terms as the conquest or domination of ocean spaces. Shipping in Latin America, too, was refracted through these visions of expansion and domination. Yamashita Steamship, for example, was praised for advancing into the Atlantic to claim a share of trade between New York and South America.80 A fundamental tension, however, lay at the core of such ideas, which appealed both to nationalist visions of oceanic domination and cosmopolitan ambitions to make Japanese ships into vehicles of global commerce, migration, and travel. This tension was on display when the OSK introduced two new ships to the East Coast route. Subsidized u nder the 1937 National Shipping Policy, the Argentina Maru and Brasil Maru were constructed in Mitsubishi’s Nagasaki Shipyard and launched in 1939. Portrayed as symbols of Japan’s mastery of marine technologies, the vessels were incorporated into the discourse of oceanic domination. At the same time, the OSK marketed the ships and their services to foreign clients and used them as tools of public diplomacy. Simultaneously loaded with nationalist and cosmopolitan aspirations, the “national policy ships” (kokusakusen) and the spectacle that surrounded their voyages evinced the conflicting political currents of the decade. Officials, OSK managers, and the press presented the two sister ships and the National Shipping Policy as key components of Japan’s conquest of the seas. In an overview of the policy, communications officials claimed that ships produced u nder the scrap-and-build schemes had “overwhelmed foreign fleets and seized control” of the New York route and suggested that the subsidized national policy ships would make similar advances.81 Similar language attended the launching of the Argentina Maru in 1939. The Asahi shinbun newspaper announced the first voyage of the liner under the headline “Seizing Hegemony in the Pacific” and observed that the ship was
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to join a fleet of fast Japanese vessels that had set speed records on transpacific passages.82 At a shipboard reception in Tokyo before the ship’s first sailing, OSK president Murata Shōzō likewise emphasized the Argentina Maru’s role in making claims on ocean spaces, declaring: “Three- quarters of the earth is water, a place that belongs to nobody in the world; I firmly believe that the domination of [this water] is a mission that has been laid upon Japan, though it is one that w ill not be completed in a sin83 gle generation.” At the same time, the Argentina Maru also offered serv ices to global shippers and travelers. OSK managers emphasized the importance of close relations with the South American countries for which the national policy ships w ere named.84 The head of the OSK Passenger Section, meanwhile, observed that tensions in Europe had increased South America’s appeal as a tourist destination and expressed hopes that wealthy South African and American tourists would travel to South America aboard the “charming” Argentina Maru. Fares from those passengers, moreover, would be a source of desperately needed foreign currency.85 English-language advertisements likewise appealed to foreign clients to utilize Japan’s latest ships for global travel. OSK advertisements published in the Los Angeles Times juxtaposed the modernity of “today’s newest ships” against the “romantic ports of yesterday” that could be visited along the route.86 OSK management also used the inaugural voyages of the national policy ships to pursue a public relations campaign in Latin America. In Belém, Brazil, the OSK’s agent publicized the arrival of the Argentina Maru in local newspapers, and OSK management issued invitations for a shipboard cocktail party. Guests included Brazilian officials and elites, consular officials from several countries, and Japanese residents.87 The OSK organized similar events when the Brasil Maru arrived in South America on its maiden voyage the following year. In Santos, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo, the ship hosted several events, such as exchanges of gifts, luncheons, and dinners for officials, reporters, diplomats, and overseas Japanese.88 American business interests, meanwhile, greeted this outreach with some alarm. One businessman who attended a reception aboard the Brasil Maru observed that through such events Japanese business and organizations “keep before the public the year round, and to a great extent they are buying their way into Brasil [sic] through these missions and their lavish scale of entertaining. . . . I am sure that they are trying to become firmly established in Brazil while the European countries are at war.”89
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Imperial expansion in continental Asia, however, ultimately severed Japan’s connections to Latin America and ended its oceanic expansionism. In 1940, heightened tensions with Britain after the signing of the Tripartite Pact led the OSK to suspend its westward serv ices to South America and employ the Argentina Maru and Brasil Maru on the Osaka– Dalian route—a reassignment from global transportation to empire in Northeast Asia. The company continued to maintain sailings to South America via Panama, but in July 1941, a fter Japan’s occupation of southern Indochina, the United States closed the canal. Several OSK ships, as well as an NYK ship on the Gulf line, were forced to return to Japan around Cape Horn.90 With war on the horizon, Kawasaki Steamship suspended sailings on the West Coast route in September.91 The NYK, in contrast, maintained West Coast serv ices u ntil the outbreak of the Pacific War in December. At the time of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, the Naruto Maru was off the coast of South America. Its return to Japan in January 1942 marked the final withdrawal of NYK ships from global shipping.92 During the Pacific War, the ships that had deepened Japan’s links to Latin America and its hold on transoceanic transportation were instead harnessed to support territorial occupation and the circulation of troops, matériel, and resources within Japan’s wartime empire. Shipping lines to Latin America contributed to several expansionary proj ects pursued beyond Japanese territories in the first half of the twentieth century. As the essential infrastructure of transoceanic transportation, the lines facilitated efforts by emigration boosters and officials to resettle Japa nese subjects in Brazil, Peru, Mexico, and other Latin American countries. Such immigration was framed in terms of national interests served by the overseas expansion of the Japanese population. Likewise, shipping boosters and officials presented shipping lines as an expansion of the nation into ocean spaces between territories and a global transportation system that transcended territories. Th ese efforts at expansion converged and reinforced each other in the routes to Latin America. Immigrants were a source of revenue for the firms that opened serv ices, while efforts to expand Japan’s place in oceans and global transport, in turn, created the maritime infrastructure that carried immigrants overseas. Though t hese projects were suspended due to continental aggression in the early 1940s, they w ere revived soon after the end of World War II. In 1950, American occupation officials began to permit Japanese shipping
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firms to resume overseas sailings, and the OSK reentered the East Coast route in December. With the resumption of Japanese immigration to Latin America in 1952, the OSK also reopened lines on the eastward, transpacific route to Atlantic ports via Panama with ships that bore the names of their prewar predecessors: the second-generation Santos Maru, Brasil Maru, and Argentina Maru.93 Later that decade, Kawasaki Steamship and the NYK also returned to Latin America.94 Out of the ruins of empire in Asia, the postwar years saw Japanese officials, boosters, and businesses resume conjoined efforts at expansion in Latin America, world oceans, and the global transportation system. Japanese ships rapidly reclaimed a central role in the global system of trade and transportation, and the Rising Sun could again be seen in ports and sea-lanes around the world.
Notes 1. The author gratefully acknowledges the hospitality and support of the Program on US-Japan Relations at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, and the Centre for Japanese Research at the Institute of Asian Research, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia. 2. For example, in a discussion of Pacific empires, Jordan Sand highlights “trajectories of migration and influence” that linked Japan and the United States. Sand, “Reconfiguring Pacific History,” p. 3. For a critique of “transpacific” and “Pacific empires,” see Chang, “Looking at the Pacific,” pp. 23–27. For Japan’s transpacific activities, see Uchida, “ ‘Pacific Empire,’ ” pp. 28–31; Uchida, “From Island Nation,” pp. 57–90. For discussion of transpacific and Pacific history more generally, see Kurashige, Hsu, and Yaguchi, “Introduction,” pp. 183–188; Matsuda, Pacific Worlds. 3. Tsutsui, “Pelagic Empire,” pp. 21–38. Also see Muscolino, “Fisheries Build Up,” pp. 56–70; Uchida, “From Island Nation,” pp. 57–90. 4. Kate McDonald describes such activities as an “asymmetrical integration.” McDonald, “Asymmetrical Integration,” pp. 115–149. 5. Despite t hese names, the serv ices extended beyond South America. The “South America West Coast line,” for example, included stopovers in the United States, Mexico, and Panama as well as South American countries. Hereafter, these routes w ill be referred to as the “West Coast route” and the “East Coast route.” 6. Yamada, Fune ni miru Nihonjin, pp. 7–23, 52–56. 7. The OSK and NYK w ere well known internationally by these acronyms; the TKK was often referred to as “Toyo Kisen Kaisha.” English translations are as follows: TKK, Oriental Steamship Company; OSK, Osaka Mercantile Shipping Company; NYK, Japan Mail Steamship Company. 8. For historical studies, see Greenstein, “Sailing,” 70–121; Wray, Mitsubishi and the N. Y. K., pp. 293–340; Kokaze, Teikokushugi-ka no Nihon kaiun, pp. 295–331; Chida and Davies, Japanese Shipping and Shipbuilding, pp. 20–22. For company histories, see
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Nihon keieishi kenkyūjo, Nippon yūsen kabushiki gaisha hyaku-nen shi (hereafter NYK 100-nen shi), pp. 116–135; Nakano, Tōyō kisen rokujūshi-nen, pp. 35–45. 9. Lu, Making of Japanese, p. 166. 10. Nakano, Tōyō kisen rokujūshi-nen, pp. 21–25. 11. Yamada, Fune ni miru Nihonjin, pp. 17–19, 56–57; Matsuura and Sasagawa, Tōyō kisen to eiga, p. 97; “Ship Kasato-maru,” in National Diet Library, Japan, 100 Years of Japanese Emigration to Brazil, https://w ww.ndl.go.jp/ brasil /e/column / k asatomaru .html. 12. Yamada, Fune ni miru Nihonjin, pp. 56–57; Matsuura and Sasagawa, Tōyō kisen to eiga, p. 96; Kamotsu-ka, Waga sha kaku kōro, pp. 361–362. 13. De La Pedraja, Oil and Coffee, pp. 17–22, 29–35; Clarke, “Pioneering Steamship Line,” pp. 221–250. 14. A sano to Ishii, April 17, 1906, in Nihon gaikō bunsho (hereafter NGB), ed. Gaimushō chōsakyoku, vol. 39, no. 2, p. 220. 15. Sugimura to Katsura, August 20, 1905, in NGB, vol. 38, no. 2, p. 413. 16. Wray, “Japan’s Big-Th ree Serv ice Enterprises,” pp. 39–40. 17. Asahi shinbun, “Nanbei kōro haishi,” March 18, 1908. 18. De La Pedraja, Oil and Coffee, p. 18. 19. Sugimura to Katsura, August 20, 1905, in NGB, vol. 38, no. 2, p. 414. 20. Teishinshō daijin kanbō, Teishinshō nenpō, no. 28, p. 100. 21. Arakawa to Terauchi, July 16, 1908, in NGB, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 307–310. 22. Garner, British Lions, pp. 94–117. 23. Arakawa to Terauchi, July 16, 1908, in NGB, vol. 41, no. 2, p. 309. 24. Arakawa to Terauchi, July 25, 1908, in NGB, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 311–312. 25. Garner, British Lions, pp. 94–117; López, “Transpacific Mexico,” pp. 155–161; López, “From Sail to Steam,” pp. 262–268. 26. López, “From Sail to Steam,” 262–275; López, “Transpacific Mexico,” pp. 140– 147, 188–190. 27. Arakawa to Terauchi, July 19, 1908, in NGB, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 310–311; Arakawa to Terauchi, July 25, 1908, in NGB, vol. 41, no. 2, p. 311. 28. A rakawa to Komura, October 14, 1908, in NGB, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 314–315; Nakashōji to Ishii, October 22, 1908; Komura to Arakawa, October 29, 1908, in NGB, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 316–317. 29. A rakawa to Komura, December 28, 1908, in NGB, vol. 42, no. 2, p. 320, and communications from January to July 1909, in “Chū-Nanbei kōro kaisetsu kankei ikken,” in NGB, vol. 42, no. 2, pp. 54–95; López, “Transpacific Mexico,” pp. 193–197. 30. “Yosan iin dai-roku bunka (Teishinshō shokan) kaigiroku (sokki),” no. 1, February 1, 1909, p. 9, Shūgiin iinkai kaigi roku. 31. “Yosan iin dai-roku bunka (Teishinshō shokan) kaigiroku (sokki),” no. 4, February 4, 1909, p. 33, Shūgiin iinkai kaigi roku. 32. Yosan iin dai-roku bunka (Teishinshō shokan) kaigiroku (sokki),” no. 4, February 4, 1909, pp. 35–36. 33. Washington Post, “Nippon in Latin America,” February 25, 1909. 34. Washington Post, “A Route to the Orient,” January 14, 1909. 35. Communications from February to June 1910, in “Chū-Nanbei kōro kaisetsu kankei ikken,” in NGB, vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 366–383.
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36. López, “Transpacific Mexico,” p. 223. 37. Endoh, Exporting Japan, pp. 26–29; Lu, Making of Japanese, pp. 164–169. 38. Sugimura to Katsura, August 20, 1905, in NGB, vol. 38, no. 2, p. 413; Tsuchida, “Japanese in Brazil,” pp. 83, 112–113. 39. De La Pedraja, Oil and Coffee, pp. 7–9, 35–42. 40. Sugimura to Inoue, September 1, 1907, in Gaimushō kiroku, B-3-6-3-70, Japan Center for Asian Historical Records Reference Code (hereafter JACAR) B11092483400; Tsuchida, “Japanese in Brazil,” pp. 83–84. 41. Tsuchida, “Japanese in Brazil,” pp. 113–119. 42. Tsuchida, “Japanese in Brazil,” pp. 116–119. 43. Tsuchida, “Japanese in Brazil,” 96–105, 132–139; Yamada, Fune ni miru Nihonjin, pp. 8–17, 57. 44. Burajiru ni okeru Nihonjin hatten shi kankō iinkai, Burajiru ni okeru Nihonjin, pp. 184–186. 45. Kamotsu-ka, Wagasha kaku kōro, pp. 331–332. 46. Wray, “Opportunity vs. Control,” pp. 59–83; Chida and Davies, Japanese Shipping and Shipbuilding, pp. 28–35; Nakagawa, Ryōtaisen-kan no Nihon kaiungyō, pp. 73– 109. 47. K ōbe shinbun, “Shōsen shin kōro kaisetsu mondai (ichi/ni),” March 7–8, 1917. 48. OSK 80-nen shi, p. 346. 49. Ōsaka mainichi shinbun, “Nanbei keizai jijō,” May 30, 1917; Ōsaka shōsen kabushiki gaisha, Eigyō hōkokusho (1917/2), p. 2. 50. Kamotsu-ka, Wagasha kaku kōro, pp. 332; NYK 100-nen shi, pp. 217. 51. Ōsaka shōsen kabushiki gaisha, Eigyō hōkokusho (1918/2), p. 2. 52. Kamotsu-ka, Wagasha kaku kōro, pp. 358–359. 53. Lu, Making of Japanese, pp. 3–7. 54. Jiji shinpō, “Nihon kaiun zento,” October 13, 1919. 55. Asahi shinbun, “Sekai kaiun zento,” October 30, 1919. 56. Lu, Making of Japanese, pp. 197–201; Endoh, Exporting Japan, pp. 66–67. 57. Chida and Tomohei, Japanese Shipping and Shipbuilding, pp. 36–38; NYK 100- nen shi, p. 245; Kawasaki kisen kabushiki gaisha, Kawasaki kisen gojū-nen shi (hereafter Kawasaki 50-nen shi), pp. 42–45. 58. Yamazawa and Yamamoto, Bōeki to kokusai shūshi, pp. 206–213. 59. Kokumin shinbun, “Nanbei teikisen kōro no shin zōsetsu wo hojo,” December 24, 1919. 60. Tōkyō asahi shinbun, “Nanbei kōro hojo kyōsō: Yūsen Shōsen no taikō,” January 31, 1920; Ōsaka shinpō, “Nanbei kōro keieinan: Shōsen to kōro hojo,” February 6, 1920; Teishinshō, Teishin jigyō shi, 6:848–849. 61. Nakano, Tōyō kisen rokujūshi-nen, pp. 179–180. 62. Ōsaka shōsen kabushiki gaisha, Ōsaka shōsen kabushiki gaisha gojū-nen shi (hereafter OSK 50-nen shi), p. 327. 63. Nakagawa, Ryōtaisen-kan no Nihon kaiungyō, pp. 120–123. 64. Ishikawa, Ishikawa Tatsuzō sakuhin shū, p. 104. 65. OSK 50-nen shi, pp. 351–353; Kamotsu-ka, Wagasha kaku kōro, pp. 332, 340– 341, 356–357; Asahara, Nihon kaiun hatten shi, pp. 304–305.
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66. Sugiyama, Kaiungyō to kin’yū, pp. 89–122; Nakano, Tōyō kisen rokujūshi-nen, pp. 183–224. 67. The OSK’s most celebrated use of motorships was its introduction of fast freighters to the New York route in 1930. Tatsuki, “Intensifying Competition,” pp. 88–107; Tatsuki, “Kaiun fukyō to teikisen,” pp. 303–335; Nakagawa, Ryōtaisen-kan no Nihon kaiungyō, pp. 123–131; Nippon yūsen kabushiki gaisha, Nippon yūsen kabushiki gaisha gojū-nen shi (hereafter NYK 50-nen shi), pp. 388–390; NYK 100-nen shi, pp. 327–328. 68. Yamada, Fune ni miru Nihonjin, pp. 71–72, 75. 69. Kamotsu-ka, Wagasha kaku kōro, p. 364. 70. Lu, Making of Japanese, p. 223; Endoh, Exporting Japan, pp. 32–34. 71. This was also true for the “pelagic empire.” Tsutsui, “Pelagic Empire,” pp. 29– 30. 72. N YK 100-nen shi, pp. 309–311. The depreciation of the yen partly accounts for the increase in the value of Japanese trade shown in figure 2.2. As seen in that figure, however, trade with Latin America also began to make up a growing portion of Japan’s total foreign trade at that time. 73. Yoneda, Gendai Nihon kaiun shikan, pp. 185–286. 74. For details, see Greenstein, “Sailing,” 230–261. 75. Yamashita Steamship was established in 1911, and its ships became active overseas during World War I. In the 1920s, the firm primarily engaged in tramp shipping (irregular serv ices), but in the 1930s, it established several regular lines. Kawasaki Steamship was established by the Kawasaki Shipyard in 1918, and from the 1920s to the 1930s, it engaged in liner and tramp shipping. Nakagawa, Ryōtaisen-kan no Nihon kaiungyō, pp. 84–96, 161–183, 203–230; Yamashita Shin-Nihon kisen kabushiki gaisha shashi henshū iinkai, Shashi: Gappei yori jūgo-nen (hereafter Yamashita 15-nen), pp. 394–400, 404–422. 76. N YK 50-nen shi, pp. 388–390; NYK 100-nen shi, pp. 327–328. 77. Kawasaki 50-nen shi, pp. 60–61, 74–76, 95–96. 78. Kawasaki 50-nen shi, pp. 60–61, 95–96. 79. Yamashita 15-nen, pp. 454–455. 80. Toda Teijirō, “Nihon kaiun no yakushin,” pp. 122–123. 81. Shadan hōjin senpaku kaizen kyōkai, Shadan hōjin senpaku kaizen, p. 171. 82. A sahi shinbun, “Nigiru Taiheiyō no haken: Aruzenchina Maru kyō funade,” July 11, 1939. 83. Murata Shōzō, “Aruzenchina Maru teito kaikō ni saishite,” in Ōsaka shōsen kabushiki gaisha, Umi, p. 24. 84. Tajima Masao, “Aruzenchina Maru ga mono ga ietara,” in Ōsaka shōsen kabushiki gaisha, Umi, p. 25. 85. Nakamura Tomikatsu, “Ginrei wo sekai no umi ni furu,” in Ōsaka shōsen kabushiki gaisha, Umi, p. 28. 86. Los Angeles Times, “Now Around the World,” May 21, 1939; Los Angeles Times, “Round the World via the Southern Hemisphere,” May 28, 1939; Los Angeles Times, “Today’s Newest Ships,” August 20, 1939. 87. Folha de Norte, “Grande cruzeiro de luxo á volta do mundo: Realizando essa maravilhosa viagem, aportarà hoje ao Pará, pela primeira vez, o modern transatlantico Japonez ‘Argentina Marú,’ ” September 15, 1939; Folha de Norte, “Maravilhosa viagem
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A Volta do Mundo: A Folha em visita ao luxuoso e modern transoceanico ‘Argentina Maru,’ ” September 16, 1939, in Gaimushō kiroku, F-1-6-0-7, JACAR B09030238000. 88. OSK Tōkyō shiten to Shibusawa, March 5, 1940; OSK Tōkyō shiten to Shibusawa, March 12, 1940; Sakane to Arita, March 27, 1940, in Gaimushō kiroku, F-1-60-7, JACAR B09030238000. 89. Pedrick to Arledge, March 11, 1940, National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD, 178-P1–937. 90. OSK 80-nen shi, pp. 339–340; NYK 100-nen shi, p. 381. 91. Kawasaki 50-nen shi, pp. 95–96. 92. N YK 100-nen shi, p. 381. 93. OSK 80- nen shi, pp. 341–345, 351–357; Yamada, Fune ni miru Nihonjin, pp. 210–223. 94. N YK 100-nen shi, pp. 517–518; Kawasaki 50-nen shi, p. 193.
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Toward a Prototype of the Total Empire Japanese Migration to Brazil and Japanese Colonial Expansion in Asia, 1921–1934 Sidney Xu Lu
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n March 8, 1930, a twenty-four-year-old young man named Ishikawa Tatsuzō boarded the ship La Plata in Kobe. He was heading for Brazil in hopes of pursuing a career in South America. A fter a brief stay in Brazil, he returned to Japan and established himself as a respected writer by winning the inaugural Akutagawa Prize with the novel Sōbō (The Masses). Written based on the author’s observations during his Brazil trip, Sōbō won acclaim for its depiction of impoverished Japanese subjects who migrated to Brazil as the nation’s “abandoned p eople” (kimin), whose lives the government refused to take responsibility for.1 However, a closer look at how migration trips were conceived, planned, and arranged by the Japa nese government would reveal that t hese Brazil-bound emigrants were anything but “abandoned.” Ishikawa was one of the hundreds of thousands of Japanese subjects who answered the call of the imperial government and took advantage of its subsidies to pursue a f uture in Brazil. The years from 1921 to 1934 marked the heyday of Japanese migration to Brazil: during this period, nearly 10,000 Japanese migrants reached Brazil’s shores e very year in the same prearranged way as Ishikawa had.2 This golden era of Japanese-Brazilian migration was made possible by a number of structural changes inside the Japanese government. These changes enabled the government to insert— and entrench—itself in all aspects of the migration processes, including planning, promotion, financing, and management. The Japanese government strengthened its control over vari ous social interest groups and brought them into the fold to serve as the state’s auxiliary corps in the migration project. This new political structure, together with newly formed and strengthened ties between the state and social groups during these 63
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years, would continue to function as engines for Japan’s migration-based expansion to Manchuria and Southeast Asia from the 1930s until the end of World War II. In other words, the genesis of Japan’s World War II migration state is to be found in its interwar experience with launching, organizing, and managing Japanese emigration to Brazil. This chapter examines how the Japanese government’s structural changes, made in the wake of World War I, were designed to maximize its ability to promote and manage emigration to Brazil. At both central and local levels, this early prototype of the migration state experimented with three different models by working closely with migration companies, social organizations, industrial capital, or a combination thereof. Together, they mobilized an unprecedented number of Japanese subjects from diverse social backgrounds into the tide of Japanese migration to South America. From the rural masses to business tycoons, from desperate job seekers to ambitious investors, the Brazil-bound mig rants and their backers w ere hailed by the state as participants in the mission of Japan’s overseas development (kaigai hatten), who would put down their roots in São Paulo’s coffee fields and conquer the inhospitable Amazon forests.3 By examining the changes occurring within the Japanese government and its relations with Japan’s civil society during the heyday of Japanese- Brazilian migration, this chapter aims to revise the prevailing understanding of the histories of Japanese colonial empire and Japanese migration in two ways. First, it challenges the territory-bound narratives of the Japa nese empire by shedding light on the importance of Japanese-Brazilian migration in the interwar years as a precursor to Japanese colonial expansion in Asia from the 1930s to 1945.4 This study joins recent transpacific liter ature in the study of the Japanese empire that has begun to uncover intriguing connections between Japanese migration to South America and the empire’s expansion in Asia. Toake Endoh’s monograph makes the convincing argument that Japanese migration to Latin America in general, both before and after World War II, should be seen as stories of Japan’s state-driven expansion.5 Miriam Kingsberg Kadia, writing from a cultural perspective, reveals how Japanese intellectuals’ colonial imaginations of South America w ere closely tied with Japan’s changing imperial and national identities during the twentieth c entury.6 This chapter distinguishes itself from the existing body of transpacific literat ure by focusing on the importance of Brazil in the process of Japan’s
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empire building. It analyzes the growth of Japanese migration to Brazil in the context of Japan’s rise as a global power a fter the G reat War and explains how interwar Japanese-Brazilian migration led to profound changes in the ways that Japanese government managed emigration—changes that would eventually empower Japan’s migration-driven expansion in Manchuria and Southeast Asia during World War II. This study also deepens our understanding of the culmination of Japan’s domestic mobilization for expansion during the early Showa era. It echoes recent studies that have highlighted the continuities between the imperial government’s control of the society and colonial expansion during the era of the Asia-Pacific War and the empire’s social policies and expansion during the preceding decades. Using the concept of “social management,” Sheldon Garon has convincingly shown how Japanese state officials had tightened their control over civil society through collaboration with various social interest groups long before the 1930s.7 Louise Young has traced the roots of Japan’s mass migration to Manchuria during the total war back to various migration campaigns both inside and outside of the archipelago during the Meiji era.8 This chapter, on the other hand, explores specific connections between the experience of Japanese migration to Brazil and that of Japanese expansion in Asia by focusing on the structure of the imperial government and its relationship with social groups in promoting and managing emigration. Louise Young has shown that Japan’s expansion into Manchuria required— and resulted in—an unprecedented mass mobilization of its civil society in the 1930s, a phenomenon that she defines as the “total empire.”9 This study builds on Young’s concept but argues that the interwar-era boom of Japa nese migration to Brazil had already given birth to a prototype of the total empire, in which the government’s mass mobilization of domestic resources for emigration had begun to take shape before the 1930s. The history of Japanese migration to Brazil is commonly traced back to the sail of the ship Kasato Maru in 1908, an event that officially brought a group of Japanese laborers to Brazilian shores. This chapter, however, focuses on the period between 1921, when the imperial government began to provide subsidies to its subjects bound for Brazil, and 1934, when Japa nese migration to Brazil suffered a precipitous decline due to changes in Brazil’s immigration policies.10 This period was marked by the largest wave of Japanese migration to Brazil in history. More importantly, it proved to be
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crucial to a series of structural changes of the imperial government, maximizing its ability to mobilize domestic society for Japan’s migration-driven expansion in Asia during World War II.
“Citizens of the World”: Emigration, Trade, and the Formation of Japan’s Migration State Coming out on the winning side of World War I, Japan found itself as one of the few world powers that had a say in the construction of the postwar global order. On top of receiving German Micronesia and expanding into the South Pacific, it also joined the United Kingdom, France, and Italy as one of the four permanent members of the League Council, the core policy- making body of the League of Nations. Th ese spectacular diplomatic achievements did not come without a cost, however, and the empire encountered a number of new obstacles in its quest for expansion. Although the US remained outside the League of Nations, its central role in the making of the postwar world order was clear at the Washington Conference of 1921. The conference advanced the US vision of the new order, one in keeping with Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, by emphasizing both disarmament and open trade. At the same time, it ended Japan’s wartime monopoly of control over Chinese politics and market. It also included Japan in the Five Power Treaty (with the UK, US, France, and Italy), which limited the construction of navy forces by the signatories. Nevertheless, immediately after the war, mainstream Japanese politicians and intellectuals embraced the new world order with great enthusiasm. Opinion leaders, ranging from journalists to military strategists, recognized the necessity for Japan to accept the principles of the new order, such as international cooperation, pacifism, and liberalism, to continue its pursuit of expansion.11 Accordingly, Japan’s leaders embraced “peaceful expansion” as the new principle of empire building. For example, in his 1922 New Year’s message, Prime Minister Takahashi Korekiyo argued that it was no longer possible to expand a country’s territory through force because of the fundamental changes the Great War had brought to the world. At the same time, Takahashi continued, great powers would never stop expanding. The difference was that they would now eschew military invasion in favor of trade and economic competition.12
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For Japanese empire builders of the day, the process of peaceful expansion had three major components: trade, international cooperation, and emigration. While the United States served as a reliable market that soaked up 40 percent of Japan’s exports throughout the 1920s, further expansion of trade and overseas investment remained one of Japan’s top priorities. Japanese diplomats managed to reduce China’s tariff on Japanese exports and created more opportunities for Japanese traders in both Southeast Asia and the M iddle East.13 Japanese investment also poured into the South Seas and South America. Tokyo’s commitment to economic expansion during this period is best represented by the ideas and activities of Shidehara Kijūrō, foreign minister of Japan from 1924 to 1927. Known as “Shidehara Diplomacy,” Shidehara’s diplomatic strategies followed the same economic liberalism that buttressed the Open Door policy of the United States, and he was firmly supported by the growing business elites of the Taishō era who called for widening political participation at home and exploring new markets abroad.14 In alignment with the US-centric new world order, Japan’s interwar economic expansion was guided by the principle of international cooperation. In addition to playing a key role in the deliberations of the League of Nations as a permanent number of the League Council, Japan was also widely involved in a number of other internal organizations, such as the International Labor Organization, the International Court of Justice, and the Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs.15 According to Nitobe Inazō, the prominent Japanese intellectual who served as an undersecretary general of the League of Nations for seven years, Japan’s ultimate goal under this new world order was to produce subjects who could think beyond the archipelago and become “citizens of the world” by dedicating themselves to the serv ice of all humankind.16 Concerning this new path to empire defined by economic expansion and international cooperation, emigration played a central role. For many Japanese leaders of the day, the emigration of Japanese farmers and their permanent settlement overseas would be a peaceful means not only to proj ect national power abroad but also to increase trade opportunities between Japan and the host nations. By the 1920s, Japan had already conducted numerous experiments with agrarian migration to locales under its spheres of influence, including Manchuria, the Korean peninsula, and Micronesia.17 In 1924, the United States completely shut its doors to Japanese immigrants.
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In contrast, the doors of Brazil remained wide open to Japanese immigration, and the Japanese farming communities in the state of São Paulo were growing at a stunning rate. The success of Japanese-Brazilian migration and community building, in turn, brought on an unprecedented expansion of the Japanese government’s role in the sphere of emigration, eventually leading to the formation of the migration state. The concept of the migration state highlights the fact that the Japanese state played a central role in promoting and managing Japan’s overseas emigration. The birth of the migration state is marked by two features that came into being during the 1920s. First, through a series of new legislation and structural changes, the imperial government, at both central and local levels, assumed direct responsibility in planning, subsidizing, and controlling overseas emigration. Second, in a manner similar to what Garon calls “social management,”18 the Japanese government began to collaborate closely with different social groups and co-opted people of various social backgrounds, from the rural masses to business elites, into the empire’s migration-driven expansion. The following sections provide a close examination of three models by which the migration state first took shape. State support for Japanese- Brazilian migration was mostly dispensed through one of these three models: Kaikō, Aliança, and Nantaku. Together, they served as tentative blueprints for the migration machine of Japan’s total empire during the Asia-Pacific War. First was the model of Kaikō, under which the Ministry of Home Affairs formed a partnership with the Overseas Migration Company (Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Gaisha, or Kaikō).19 Campaigns conducted u nder this model offered a variety of financial aid to Japanese subjects who would migrate to southeast Brazil. They would initially work as coffee laborers but were expected to ultimately become landowners. The second model took its name from Aliança, a colony established by expansionists hailing from Nagano Prefecture. Under this model, Japanese government facilitated the formation of Oversea Migration Cooperative Societies in individual prefectures as state agents to manage emigration at a local level. Working within their own prefecture, each of these societies functioned as both a migration recruiting organization and a credit union. In addition to receiving financial aid from Tokyo, they collected small funds from individual members to purchase land in southeast Brazil and directly settled their members there as farmers. The third model, that of Nantaku, received its name from the South America Colonization Company Limited (Nanbei
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Takushoku Kabushiki Gaisha, or Nantaku). Jointly established by several industrial enterprises, this company worked to manage Japanese settlement and capital investment in the Amazon River basin. For Nantaku’s colonial project in the state of Pará, Tokyo served as a critical financial backer and a policy guide but operated primarily b ehind the scene.
Mobilizing the Masses: The Model of Kaiko¯ Like other passengers of La Plata, Ishikawa was recruited to Brazil by the Overseas Development Company (Kaikō) through a government-sponsored migration (seifu fujo imin) program. Before departure, he first went to Kobe. There he received f ree accommodation at the National Emigrant Camp (Kokuritsu Kaigai Imin Shuyōjo), which also offered Brazil-bound mi grants classes on basic Portuguese as well as geography and customs in South America. Registered as a single emigrant (tandoku imin), he received a subsidy of 200 yen from the imperial government to cover steamship transportation in a third-class cabin to the port of Santos. Upon arrival, he signed a labor contract and was dispatched to a designated farm to start his term as a plantation laborer.20 Through Kaikō, the imperial government provided its impoverished subjects with various forms of financial aid and encouraged them to start a new life in Brazil. Under this model, state-sponsored emigration served a dual purpose, both alleviating social poverty at home and accelerating Japanese settler colonial expansion in Brazil. At the end of their labor contracts, these emigrants w ere expected to become independent landowners and settle down in Brazil permanently.21 To ensure such a transition would happen smoothly, Kaikō took over the management of Iguape, a São Paulo colony founded e arlier by a group of Japanese expansionists. The government-sponsored migration program came into existence by the end of World War I, as the empire’s monopoly on the Chinese market during the war had led to a short-term economic boom and a record- breaking wave of urbanization in the archipelago.22 The wealth increase in the archipelago, however, came at the price of a growing social gap. The sudden emergence of the nouveau riche (narikin) was accompanied by rising tensions in both urban and rural areas in the form of labor and tenant disputes. As European capital returned to Asia following the end of World War I, Japan quickly lost its economic monopoly in the region. This led to
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an immediate economic downturn that exacerbated existing social tensions. In 1918, food price inflation triggered the biggest rice riots in Japa nese history. Such grassroots discontent marked the birth of what Michael Lewis called the “mass awakening.” The urban and rural poor began to adopt more organized means of political protests, forming various u nions and civil associations at both national and local levels.23 The rise of the masses as a major political force compelled the imperial government to take on a greater role in social welfare, providing poverty relief and basic food supply to its subjects. Embracing the increasingly popu lar claim that overpopulation was the root of all social ills that plagued the archipelago, policy makers began to portray emigration as a natural solution to Japan’s social problems.24 The first step of institutional change within the government was the formation of the Bureau of Social Affairs (Shakai Kyoku) in 1920. As a part of the Ministry of Home Affairs, this agency began to promote emigration to Brazil as a solution to poverty,25 and Kaikō was its primary partner in this venture. Starting in 1921, the bureau began to fund Kaikō to promote emigration through a number of programs, including emigrant recruitment, training, conducting physical exams, and dispensing vaccinations.26 Kaikō itself was established in 1917 under the imperial government’s auspice as a means to unify migration-related businesses both in and outside of the Japanese empire. It was the result of a merger of four different migration companies, each of them focused on sending out emigrants to a specific region.27 A fter absorbing the Morioka Emigration Company (Morioka Imin Gaisha) in 1919, Kaikō was able to monopolize all authorized Japanese businesses related to Brazil-bound migration for several years. In addition to Brazil, Kaikō organized emigration campaigns to Peru, the Philippines, and Australia. It also purchased land and held commercial farms in several countries in Latin America and Southeast Asia.28 The first few years of the Bureau of Social Affairs’ partnership with Kaikō, however, proved unfruitful with regards to Brazil. From 1921 to 1923, the average number of Japanese subjects bound for Brazil remained less than 880, showing a decrease rather than increase from the yearly average during the 1910s.29 This number began to swell in 1924, a fter the bureau started providing direct subsidies to individual emigrants recruited by Kaikō. In 1923, the bureau started to offer thirty-five yen per person to up to 2,000 emigrants recruited by Kaikō, fully covering the registration fees charged by the company. The next year, the bureau further offered a
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substantial stipend of 200 yen, covering the emigrants’ voyage expense to Brazil. The number of emigrants who received the government’s financial aid grew to over 7,500 by 1928, right before the newly formed Ministry of Colonial Affairs (Takumu-shō) took over the management of migration- related affairs from the bureau.30 This dramatic increase in government financial aid was the result of two related factors. First, the state of São Paulo, where over half of the Japa nese Brazilian immigrants had settled, completely terminated its subsidies to Japanese immigrants in 1922.31 The end of World War I brought numerous European immigrants to southeastern Brazil, sufficiently meeting the local demands for coffee laborers. As the Japanese had been commonly seen by the Paulista elites as less desirable substitutes for the European immigrants, they were no longer needed to fill the gap. The termination of Brazilian subsidies pushed Tokyo to take on greater financial responsibility to keep the migration project g oing. Secondly, two events intensified the Japanese public’s anxiety over overpopulation. The first was the G reat Kantō Earthquake that struck Tokyo and Yokohama in 1923. Aside from the horrific casualty toll, the disaster immediately created hundreds of thousands of victims deprived of basic livelihood. To prevent potential social uprisings and chaos, the government responded quickly by making Brazil-bound migration one of its disaster relief programs.32 A year later, the enactment of the Immigration Act of 1924 completely shut the United States’ doors to Japanese immigration, further narrowing down Japanese migration options.33 In the same year, the government hosted the Imperial Conference on Economy (Teikoku Keizai Kaigi), at which policy makers and bureaucrats specializing in social affairs, migration, and foreign affairs agreed to further expand the state- sponsored emigration program. The Bureau of Social Affairs, participants of the conference believed, should play a particularly central role in further promoting and guiding overseas emigration to combat rural depression and overpopulation. A month later, the Imperial Diet approved this initiative, creating an extra budget that allowed the Bureau of Social Affairs to fully reimburse all government-sponsored Kaikō emigrants for the expenses of their trip to Brazil.34
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Localizing the Migration Campaigns: The Model of Aliança nder the Kaikō model, the imperial government directly provided subsiU dies to individual emigrants through a migration company. There were two other models through which the government collaborated closely with dif ferent social groups and migration promoters. These two models w ere made possible by a growing interest, both in terms of nongovernment interest groups and the general public, in overseas migration in general and Brazilian migration in particular. This trend was reflected by the emergence of several well-circulated emigration magazines in the 1920s, such as Shokumin (The Colonial Review; a mouthpiece of Kaikō), Kaigai (The Overseas), and Burajiru: Ishokumin to bōeki (Brazil: Colonial Migration and Trade). 35 These new periodicals w ere joined by established mainstream general-subject magazines such as Kingu (The King) and Ie no hikari (The Light of F amily), which also began to provide more coverage on emigration- related topics. The growth of media coverage on emigration further fanned public enthusiasm for emigration, stimulating the private sector’s interests in collaborating with the migration state. Aliança, a Japanese settler community in the state of São Paulo, was established within this historical context. The Aliança Colony was made possible by the close cooperation between Nagano’s prefectural government and individual expansionists who held personal ties to the same prefecture. It became the poster child of another model of the migration state, one in which the prefectural government played a leading role in financing and managing emigration campaigns. The Aliança project was first conceived by Nagata Shigeshi and Wako Shungorō, two Nagano natives who sought to establish a new type of settler community in Brazil. Both men had previously migrated to the United States and worked as journalists in Japanese American communities on the West Coast. A fter quitting his journalist career, Nagata returned to Japan and became the president of Nippon Rikkō Kai (Japanese Striving Society), a major migration company based in Tokyo, while Wako moved to Brazil and continued working for Japanese-language media in São Paulo. Unsatisfied with Kaikō’s contract-laborer-centered migration program, Nagata and Wako wanted to establish a new Japanese community in Brazil that would be composed of independent farming settlers directly migrated
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from Japan; in addition, the community would be economically self- sufficient, f ree from the control of big companies like Kaikō.36 To this end, Nagata and Wako worked with Nagano’s prefecture government and the Nagano Board of Education to establish the Shinano Overseas Association (Shinano Kaigai Kyōkai) in 1922. The association was funded by both public and private money; it had the governor of Nagano and the leader of the prefectural diet as its first director and vice director. The association functioned as a semigovernmental organization in charge of promoting emigration among Nagano residents, hosting public lectures, publishing and circulating materials, funding investigation trips overseas, and raising funds to support specific emigration campaigns.37 The Aliança colony, established in 1924 in the state of São Paulo, was its crowning achievement. As a product of the migration state, the Aliança project differed from Kaikō’s government-sponsored emigration program in a number of aspects. First, unlike the Kaikō model that recruited and transported Japanese subjects to Brazil as contract laborers, Aliança directly recruited and settled Japanese subjects in Brazil as farmers. To this end, the Shinano Overseas Association purchased land in São Paulo and built a host of facilities, including a rice mill, a coffee refinery, a clinic, and a school, all aiming to foster the growth of the farming community.38 The founders of Aliança believed that the prospect of Japanese expansion in Brazil depended upon the prosperity of independent and self-sufficient Japanese farmers. As Nagata claimed with pride, the goal of Aliança was to “cultivate people rather than coffee [kōhī yori hito wo tsukure].”39 Secondly, different from the Kaikō program that relied almost exclusively on government subsidies, a part of the financial backing of the Aliança project came from the migrants themselves. Th ese migrants fell into two categories: first, individuals who w ere able to purchase land in the colony in advance and would move to Aliança directly as independent farmers; second, those who would first settle in Aliança as contract farmers. They usually started with loans from the Shinano Overseas Association. Financially backed by the prefectural government, the association functioned as a credit union for Nagano emigrants.40 The migrants would later become independent owner-farmers by paying off the loans. Both of these categories required the recruits to have a certain amount of funds to begin with.41 In other words, a substantial portion of Aliança’s financial
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resources, used for land purchase and facility preparation in São Paulo, came from individual migrants themselves. Unlike the Kaikō recruits, most of whom w ere struggling at the bottom of the society, the average Aliança migrant was financially closer to becoming an owner-farmer in Japan before their migration. Thirdly, unlike the Kaikō program, which recruited nationally, the Aliança project emphasized local identity and personal ties. The processes of planning, fundraising, and migration recruiting were mainly limited to Nagano residents and those who had personal connections to the prefecture. The prefectural government also played a central role from b ehind the scenes by providing financial and political assistance through the Shinano Overseas Association. The Aliança project, therefore, opened a new chapter in the history of Japan’s migration state, one in which local governments began to directly insert themselves into the area of migration promotion and management. Inspired by the Aliança project, the Overseas Associations of Tottori, Toyama, and Kumamoto, backed by their respective prefectural governments, also completed land purchases near Aliança in São Paulo. Tottori’s colony, appropriately named Aliança II, was established in 1926, and Kumamoto’s Vila Nova colony was established in 1927. In the same year, the Toyama Overseas Association and the Shinano Overseas Association jointly founded Aliança III. The Aliança model, with its prefecture-based scope, farmer-centered focus, and the principle of mutual support among its members, was officially adopted by Tokyo as a central means of migration promotion and management and was applied nationwide. In 1927, the imperial government promulgated the Overseas Migration Cooperative Societies Law (Kaigai Ijū Kumiai Hō), authorizing each prefecture to establish an overseas migration cooperative society. Each society, backed by its respective prefectural government, would recruit emigrants and raise funds to establish its own prefecture-centered settler community in Brazil by following Aliança’s example. Seven cooperative societies formed in the same year, and they jointly formed the Federation of Overseas Migration Cooperative Societies (Kaigai Ijū Kumiai Rengōkai). As the oversight body of all prefectural cooperative societies, the federation had forty-four members by the mid-1930s. Upon its formation, it immediately received a loan of 1.7 million yen from the imperial government, allowing it to facilitate and coordinate the prefectural societies’ migration and land-acquisition campaigns in Brazil.42
FIG. 3.1. A photograph of Umetani Mitsusada during his investigation of the Japanese community in Tietê, São Paulo. Source: National Diet Library, Japan, “100 Years.”
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Aliança’s presence loomed large during the early days of the federation. Umetani Mitsusada, the former Nagano governor and a central backer of the Aliança project, was its first executive director, and he soon arrived in Brazil on an investigative trip. The federation established Sociedade Colonizadora do Brazil Limitada (Brazilian Colonization Company Limited, or Burajiru Takushoku Kumiai [Burataku]) to serve as its agent in Brazil to carry out land purchases and Japanese community-building projects. By the end of the 1930s, when Burataku stopped its operation in Brazil, it had established three Japanese settler communities, including Bastos (along the Sorocabana Railway in São Paulo), Tietê (along the Noroeste Railway in São Paulo), and Tres Barras (in northern Paraná). In addition to managing these three colonies, Burataku also took over the administration of all four communities associated with Aliança along the Noroesete Railway, including Aliança I, II, and III and Vila Nova. In total, Burataku acquired and managed 537,668 acres of land and oversaw the lives of 18,317 Japanese settlers, most of whom were owner-farmers.43
Assembling Private Capital: The Model of Nantaku While the Kaikō and Aliança models focused on the exportation of emigrants in the form of contract laborers and farming settlers respectively, the third model of the migration state was centered on capital exportation. It was exemplified by the activities of the South America Colonization Com pany Limited (Nanbei Takushoku Kabushiki Gaisha, or Nantaku), established in 1928. The Nantaku model was marked by a combination of settler migration, land acquisition, resource extraction, and capital exportation. It represented how the migration state worked closely with Japan’s business elites and involved private capital in its migration-driven expansion. Similar to the model of Aliança, Nantaku conducted campaigns of land acquisition and the emigration of farming settlers, yet its primary goals w ere not only to export and settle Japanese migrants but also to extract natural resources from Brazil. Unlike the two aforementioned models, both of which depended heavily on the financial resources provided by the government, the Nantaku model mainly relied on private money. Under this model, Japan’s business elites and industrial entrepreneurs took center stage in financially sponsoring, planning, and conducting land acquisition, emigration,
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and community building in Brazil. They w ere also the primary beneficiaries of the profits and resources generated by t hese campaigns. While the imperial government also provided political support, it mainly worked behind the scene. Nantaku came into being amid the rise of Japan’s capitalist expansion and emigration to the Amazon region in the mid-1920s. Unlike the models of Kaikō and Aliança that exported Japanese subjects, the Nantaku model focused on the prospect of natural resource extraction. Accordingly, the site of its colonies shifted from southeast Brazil (particularly the state of São Paulo) to the Amazon River basin, targeting land in the northern states of Pará and Amazonas. Japanese expansionists’ growing interest in the region was stimulated by a deep-seated national anxiety over the lack of resources (shigen) in the archipelago. In the wake of World War I, Japan’s policy makers became haunted by a fear of shortages in natural resources. As the first total war in human history, the Great War demanded each participating nation to thoroughly mobilize both human and material resources, blurring lines between the battlefield and the home front. Recognizing the decisive role played by resources in deciding the war’s outcome, the Japanese government established the Bureau of Resources (Shigen Kyoku). Directly reporting to the cabinet, the bureau took charge of investigating and collecting information on Japan’s material resources. It also assisted the cabinet with its policy making in the area.44 Japan’s annexation of German Micronesia during World War I also turned the South Seas, including both the South Pacific and Southeast Asia, into a potential resource supplier for the empire.45 Replicating the Western colonial discourse on the tropics, Japanese expansionists imagined that the North was the world of the h uman and the home of progress, technology, and civilization. On the other hand, they viewed the South as merely a world of materials, the home of natural resources, where progress, technology, and civilization w ere absent.46 This North-human-South- material discourse (hokujin nanbutsu ron), to borrow a term from Yano Tooru, not only undergirded Japanese colonial expansion in the South Seas from the 1920s but also fostered the growth of Japanese colonial interests in the Amazon River basin around the same time. Japanese expansionists began to look at the rainforest land in northern Brazil through the same lens of tropical colonialism that they applied to the South Seas. The colonial imagination of the Amazon, fanned by a fear of natural resource shortages, joined hands with a growing anxiety of overpopulation
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and food shortage in the archipelago. They became two main justifications for Japan’s capital exportation and emigration to the Amazon region. The formation of the Kansai-based Japan-Brazil Association (Nippaku Kyōkai, or Associação Nipo-Brasileira) in 1926 symbolized the marriage between Japan’s business elites and promoters of Japanese migration to Brazil, particularly to the Amazons. With business elites and politicians as its board members and the governor of Hyōgo Prefecture as its president, the association vowed to solve the issues of overpopulation and resource shortage that plagued the archipelago by facilitating Japanese migration to Brazil and fostering bilateral trade.47 It founded a journal, Burajiru: Ishokumin to bōeki (Brazil: Migration and Trade), to disseminate information regarding opportunities for migration and investment in Brazil, providing advice and tips for Japanese investors and migrants. It also organized a series of lectures and events to promote emigration and investment, including an exhibition about Brazil in the Mitsukoshi Department Store in Kobe.48 The exhibition showcased a variety of Brazil’s resources, from diamond and precious minerals to exotic animals and tropical plants. To the Japanese public, it offered up an image of Brazil that had boundless empty land and countless natural wealth, all waiting for the Japanese to occupy and utilize.49 During the 1920s, Japanese business elites’ primary target in Brazil was the Amazon region due to both its natural resources and local governments’ subsidiary policies designed to attract foreign immigration and investment. The formation of Nantaku itself provided a good example. After the Japanese ambassador to Brazil Tazuki Shichita obtained a grant of 500,000 hectares of land from the governor of Pará, Tokyo sponsored an investigation trip to Pará in 1925 to evaluate the local conditions for establishing Japa nese communities.50 The trip was funded by the Kanebo Textile Company (Kanebo), the biggest textile company within the Japanese empire, as it was searching for raw cotton suppliers outside Asia. The delegation was headed by Fukuhara Hachirō, a director of Kanebo, and included several government bureaucrats as well as experts in agriculture and medicine.51 Based on his investigation of the Amazon land in Pará, Fukuhara concluded that Japanese capital exportation and migration to the region was indeed full of promise. The land of the Amazons was not only ten times cheaper than São Paulo but also boasted abundant natural resources. While civilized p eople in other parts of the world w ere busy competing for resources to survive, Fukuhara observed, Brazilians, due to the abundance of resources in their land, w ere slow in their pace of life. For the same reason,
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the Indigenous p eople in the Amazons, he argued, w ere especially mild- natured and obedient, easy for the Japanese to manipulate (oshiyasui). Because of the local residents’ lack of diligence and the small size of their population, he argued, the Amazon region remained largely a virgin land waiting for the Japanese to explore.52 Fukuhara further urged Japan’s business elites and investors to become trailblazers of the empire’s expansion in the Amazon. The failure of Japanese migration to the United States, Fukuhara reasoned, was because Japanese mi grants did not have a solid economic foundation in the host society. Land, manpower, and capital w ere the three pillars of successful migration. Although the Brazilian land was full of natural wealth and the Japanese settlers were incredibly diligent, the Japanese settler communities still lacked a solid economic foundation. Accordingly, he urged Japan’s business leaders to act on behalf of the empire by joining Japan’s migration-driven expansion in the Brazilian land.53 Buoyed by Fukuhara’s report, Prime Minister Tanaka Gi’ichi hosted a meeting with over sixty Japanese business leaders in March 1928. From this meeting, Nantaku was born. Kanebo took on Nantaku’s principle financial and managerial responsibilities by holding 25 percent of Nantaku’s stocks. A few other big companies also purchased substantial amounts of its stocks. Fukuhara himself became the first president of the company. At the end of that year, he arrived in Pará again, established the Japan Plantation Com pany of Brazil (Companhia Niponica de Plantacao do Brasil) as a local agent of Nantaku, and signed the agreement of land concession in Acara, Monte Alegre, and three other areas from the Parã government to Nantaku. Nantaku established Japanese colonies in both Acara and Monte Alegre, where it built a host of public facilities, such as clinics, schools, playgrounds, warehouses, and grocery stores. The company recruited migrants in Japan and directly settled them in t hese two colonies as farmers. It provided each migrant family with free housing and an inexpensive lease of land, with the understanding that the land’s ownership would be transferred to the farming families at a low cost later on. In addition to managing migration and community building, the companies also established laboratories in the colonies to experiment with new technologies in farming and pest control and to provide professional guidance to the farming settlers. The company’s profits mainly came from the sale of crops produced by these colonies, including cotton, rice, and tabaco, which it encouraged the migrants to cultivate.54
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FIG. 3.2. A map in a guidebook of Japanese migration to Pará that marked out the two colonies established by Nantaku in the state. Source: HITKZ: NTKG, vol 2, J120, J3-2.
The ways by which Nantaku promoted emigration substantially differed from those of Kaikō and the Aliança. They targeted different social groups as their campaign audience and had different funding sources. However, as apparatuses of the migration state, each of the three represented a major way by which the Japanese government managed emigration: by collaborating with migration companies, social groups in local prefectures, or industrial corporations. Through their links with the Japanese government, the migration campaigns u nder these three models w ere also closely connected with each other. For example, Tatsuke Shichita, the first Japanese ambassador to Brazil, was a core planner of the investigation trip led by Fukuhara Hachirō in the Amazons that led to the formation of Nantaku.55 After leaving his office in Rio de Janeiro, Tatsuke became the founding director of the Federation of the Overseas Migration Cooperative Socie ties.56 Inoue Masaji, the president of Kaikō during the height of its Brazilian migration and settlement programs from 1924 to 1937, and Mutō
FIG. 3.3. A poster of Nantaku promoting its programs of migration to the Amazon River basin. Source: National Diet Library, Japan, “100 Years.”
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Sanji, the head of Kanebo (the largest shareholder of Nantaku), also served as members of the federation’s board of directors.57
From South America to Asia: Heyday of the Migration State By the end of the 1920s, the Japanese government was able to form alliances with various social groups and mobilize Japanese subjects from dif ferent social strata into Japan’s migration-driven expansion in Brazil. The rise of Japan’s migration state ushered in the heyday of Japanese migration to Brazil. Through various migration programs, directly or indirectly supported by the government, over 130,000 Japanese subjects arrived in Brazil between 1925 and 1934. Japanese settler communities in Brazil continued to grow both in terms of population and geog raphical scope. While the state of São Paulo continued to be the home of most Japanese plantation laborers and farming settlers, the Amazon region in the north emerged as a new destination for the Brazil-bound Japanese migrants. The boom in Japanese-Brazilian migration also made the sea route between Kobe and Santos highly popular. During this golden era of Brazil- bound migration, most Japanese migrants departed the archipelago from the port of Kobe, heading westward for Southeast Asia. A fter passing through the Strait of Malacca, the ships would sail across the Indian Ocean toward the southern tip of Africa. They would then head further westward across the Atlantic, eventually reaching the port of Santos. As a result, Kobe quickly grew into a central port of Japanese emigration that rivaled Yokohama. In 1928, the Japanese government established the National Kobe Emigrant Camp (Kokuritsu Kobe Imin Shūyōjo), a counterpart of the Emigration Center established previously in Yokohama during the heyday of Japanese migration to North America. As an arm of the migration state, the camp offered f ree accommodation and meals to Brazil-bound emigrants for up to ten days. The government also provided emigrants at the camp with orientation sessions, relevant training, and the required medical exams and vaccinations.58 As Japanese migration to Brazil grew steadily both in number and in its political and economic importance for the empire, it led to another profound structural change in the central government in 1929. In that year, the Ministry of Colonial Affairs was established as a main branch of the
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FIG. 3.4. A map that illustrated the information of Japanese settler communities in the state of São Paulo in the early 1930s. Source: Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Gaisha, Kaigai kōgyō kabushiki gaisha.
central government. It took over the task of subsidizing overseas migration to Brazil and elsewhere from the Bureau of Social Affairs by providing grants to such migration companies as Kaikō, Nantaku, and the Federation of Migration Cooperative Societies.59 At the same time, the ministry also managed Japan’s colonies in Asia by overseeing colonial administrations and colonial companies, such as the Southern Manchuria Railway Company (Mantetsu) and the Oriental Development Company (Tōtaku). The formation of the ministry further strengthened the power of the migration state by unifying previously separate governmental branches that had overseen migration activities in and outside of the empire. On a conceptual level, the Ministry of Colonial Affairs also symbolized an institutional
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convergence within the empire’s state structure between Japanese migration to Brazil and Japanese colonial expansion in Asia.60 More generally, the establishment of the ministry formalized the strategic unity and operational continuity within the Japanese government between migration activities inside and outside of the empire. In 1930, one year before the Manchurian Incident would usher in a new stage of Japanese expansion in Northeast Asia, two public events jointly marked the apex of state–civic-society collaboration in the promotion of Japanese migration to Brazil. Th ese w ere the Conference for Overseas Colonial Migration (Kaigai Shokumin Taikai) and the Harbor Exposition (Kaikō Hakurankai). The Colonial Migration Association (Shokumin Dōshikai) hosted the Conference for Overseas Colonial Migration on January 19 in Tokyo’s Hibiya Park, right next to Kasumigaseki, where the imperial government buildings were located. This half-day conference, attended by over three thousand p eople, was designed to encourage more Japanese subjects to participate in Japan’s migration-driven expansion in Latin America. It began with three keynote speeches given by the representatives of the host and Tokyo Nichinichi News Agency (the conference’s cosponsor) and Inoue Masaji, the head of Kaikō. In his speech, Inoue urged his fellow countrymen to contribute to the empire’s overseas expansion by making the entire world their home (sekai wo ie toshite). The keynotes were followed by the speech of the minister of colonial affairs, emphasizing the empire’s mission of peaceful expansion through emigration and the importance of collaboration between the government and social forces. Next were the tributes of diplomats from Brazil, Argentina, Peru, and Mexico, the main destinations of Japanese migration in Latin America, all extending warm invitations to more Japanese migrants to their land. The conference ended with the screening of two documentary films: one film highlighted the success of the Japanese farming settlers in Brazil, while the other was a history of Western colonial expeditions in Africa, an example that the Japa nese, the empire builders of the new era, w ere supposed to learn from.61 From September 20 to the end of October that year, Kobe’s municipal government held the Harbor Exposition in three different locations and attracted over a million attendees. Cosponsored by the Kobe Chamber of Commerce and supported by several central government ministries, the exposition aimed to highlight Japan’s recent accomplishments as one of the three greatest maritime empires in the world. It emphasized Kobe’s rise as Japan’s premier harbor city and a central base of the empire’s maritime
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expansion in the South Seas and South America. Through images, goods, music, films, and military displays, the exposition showcased the growth of Japan’s transoceanic trade, the advancement of her naval and air forces, the development of the empire’s steamship and fishery technology, and the prosperity of Japanese settler communities in Brazil.62 As a critical component of the exposition, the Pavilion of Overseas Expansion (Kaigai Hatten Kan) emphasized the contrast between a modern, civilized, but overcrowded Japan and an ancient, primitive, but resourceful and empty South America, thereby portraying the emigration from the former to the latter as an act of spreading progress and sharing benefits. A highlight of the pavilion was the exhibition of “The Dream Land,” with the subtitle “Migration to Brazil: Ten Years of Hard Work (Burajiru ijū: Jūnen no funtō).” This exhibition contained six consecutive scenes, starting with the emigrants’ departure from the port of Kobe and ending with them reaping a rich harvest as farmers in Brazil. It presented the experience of the Japanese migrants in South America as a saga of how men conquered nature. According to this narrative, through a challenging but also rewarding decade-long process—including working as plantation laborers and taming forest land—Japanese mig rants eventually became independent farmers with their own land in Brazil. The exhibition exhorted more Japa nese to follow the footsteps of their countrymen and migrate to Brazil to pursue their own success.63 As the empire’s migration to Brazil reached a crescendo when the fourth decade of the twentieth century was just about to unfold, the Manchurian Incident in September 1931 and the establishment of Manchukuo in the following year ushered in a new era of Japanese expansion in Asia. Mobilizing Japanese subjects to migrate to Manchuria became a military and political necessity for the empire. Apparatuses of the migration state wasted no time in rising to the occasion. Beginning in 1932, the Ministry of Colonial Affairs began to fund investigations in Manchuria and organize migration campaigns. Some individuals that spearheaded Japan’s state-centered migration to Brazil quickly turned to Manchuria as a new frontier of Japa nese expansion. Umetani Mitsusada, the first director of the Federation of Overseas Migration Cooperative Societies, moved back to Asia in 1932 to head the migration department of the Kwantung Army. He proceeded to carry out a series of migration campaigns and land acquisition in Manchuria.64 Nagata Shigeshi, a cofounder of the Aliança Colony in São Paulo, also participated in the promotion of Manchurian migration as early as
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1932. He would later serve on a government committee to draft a plan for the five-million-person migration project.65 In the early 1930s, institutions that had backed the establishment of the Aliança Colony (including the Shinano Overseas Association, the Shinano Board of Education, the Japanese Striving Society, and the Nagano prefectural government) committed themselves to the promotion of Manchurian migration with g reat enthusiasm.66 It was Nagano that pioneered Japan’s prefecture-centered model for Brazil-bound migration; thus, perhaps unsurprisingly, out of all the prefectures, it was also Nagano that exported the largest number of migrants to Manchuria.67 However, before Tokyo launched its five-million-person migration proj ect on the eve of the total war, none of its Manchurian migration campaigns was successful: government subsidies were relatively limited, and the general living conditions in Manchuria were unattractive. In contrast, Japan’s migration and capital exportation to Brazil continued to grow. In 1933, the annual number of Japanese who arrived at the Brazilian shores reached 24,493, the highest in history.68 After decades of unfruitful campaigns, the anti-Japanese social forces in Brazil did push through a quota restriction on Japanese immigration as a part of the New Constitution of 1934. However, the restriction was not strictly imposed and only had limited effects on Japa nese immigration, which began to decline but continued u ntil 1941. The decrease in Japanese immigration, however, was accompanied by a surge in Japanese capitalist exportation in Brazil. In 1935, Japan’s Chamber of Commerce dispatched an economic mission to Brazil headed by Hirao Hachisaburō, director of the Federation of Overseas Migration Cooperative Societies, to further promote bilateral trade. A major achievement of this mission was a dramatic increase in Japanese importation of raw cotton from Brazil.69 Responding to the Commonwealth nations’ boycott against Japanese textiles, the Japanese government eschewed India in favor of São Paulo as a major cotton supplier. Japanese textile companies began to pour investment into Japanese farming communities in Brazil to expand their cotton cultivation.70 The 1930s also witnessed further expansion of Japanese presence in the Amazon basin, a trend exemplified by the formation of the Amazonia Industrial Company (Amazonia Sangyō Kabushiki Gaisha) in 1935 based on a land concession in the state of Amazonas. It was funded by a ten-year loan approved by the Imperial Diet as well as several Japanese industrial
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corporations.71 The company conducted both Japanese settler community building and agricultural cultivation. A turning point in Japanese migration to Brazil was Japan’s further expansion into China proper that led to the outbreak of the Second Sino- Japanese War and, eventually, the Pacific War. To facilitate this total war, the imperial government elevated migration to Manchuria as a national policy by launching an ambitious 1936 campaign with unprecedented amounts of financial and political commitments. This project called for relocating five million Japanese farmers to settle in Manchuria within the next two de cades.72 At the same time, on the other side of the Pacific, anti-Japanese sentiment continued to intensify. For example, the totalitarian regime Estado Novo, proclaimed by Getúlio Vargas in 1937, banned all Japanese-language schools in the Brazilian countryside.73 Then in 1941, by a presidential order, Vargas further banned the publication of foreign-language printed media, including all Japanese newspapers and magazines in Brazil.74 The next year, after Brazil entered World War II as an allied power, its government confiscated all the businesses owned by Japanese companies as enemy properties, including t hose of Kaikō, the Federation of Overseas Migration Cooperative Societies, Nantaku, Amazonia Industrial Company, and o thers.75 Around this time, apparatuses of Japan’s migration state in Brazil w ere quick to shift the focus of their activities to Asia in support of the empire’s further expansion in Southeast Asia. Kaikō, for example, obtained Tokyo’s permission to start emigration programs to North Borneo.76 With financial assistance from the imperial government, Kaikō and the Federation of Overseas Migration Cooperative Societies also relocated some Japanese immigrants from Brazil to Hainan Island in China. These re-migrants from Brazil, with their farming experience in the subtropical climate in South America, were expected to become trailblazers of the new subtropical frontier of Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.77 The Japanese Striving Society, led by Nagata Shigeshi, also launched campaigns to relocate Japanese subjects to the Philippines and Java.78 In 1937, a few months before the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, a movie based on the novel Sōbō hit the silver screen. The film revolved around the lives of recent Japanese migrants to Brazil, portraying them as poor people that the government refused to take responsibility for. By contrast, as the government now had fully committed itself to protect and
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support the emigrants, Japanese subjects bound for Manchuria no longer had to fend for themselves in an alien and hostile land. Unlike their fellow countrymen in South America, the settlers in Manchuria w ere laudable trailblazers of the empire. However, the reality of Japanese migration to Brazil, as this chapter has illustrated, was quite different. It was far from the story of an imperial government merely discarding its undesirable subjects. In fact, it was a critical chapter in the history of Japanese expansion that had close connections with Japanese colonial migration in Asia. The years from 1921 to 1934 w ere the heyday of Japanese migration to Brazil, an era marked by the increased presence of the Japanese government in e very aspect of the migration process. This chapter has examined the important structural changes occurring within the government in the form of institutional convergence. It also discusses the new ways by which Tokyo collaborated with various social groups to mobilize Japanese subjects from different social classes for Brazilian migration campaigns. Together, these changes led to the formation of the migration state, which was able to penetrate civil society to mobilize and manage emigration to an unprecedented degree. The same migration state, in a clear showing of both institutional and personnel continuity, would take on the mission to relocate hundreds of thousands of Japanese subjects to Asia to facilitate the empire’s expansion during World War II. Japanese migration to Brazil during the interwar period, therefore, should be understood as a critical preparative step toward Japan’s state-driven mass migration to Asia, making it a prototype of Japan’s total empire. Finally, as much as we need to recognize the connections and continuities between Japanese migration to Brazil and the empire’s expansion in Asia, it is also important to acknowledge the significant differences between the two experiences. Unlike the campaigns of migration to Asia during the total war, which were usually tied to military agendas and had military support, the imperial military did not play a role in Japanese migration to Brazil. Moreover, while most of the Japanese settlers in Asia during World War II sat at the top of the racial and colonial hierarchy established by the militant empire, their fellow countrymen in Brazil, on the other hand, fell victim to racism and state violence under Estado Novo, another militant and authoritarian regime. Even so, the political structure that had enabled and directed the two projects of migration on the opposite sides of the Pacific was one and the same. The migration state, still in its infancy during the interwar years, would continue to expand and further entrench itself,
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culminating in the usage of migration as a critical tool for colonial expansion during Japan’s total war.
Notes 1. Kimura, Shōwa sakka no nanyōkō, pp. 59–60. 2. There were 131,389 Japanese subjects who migrated to Brazil between 1925 and 1934, according to the Japanese government’s records. See Tsuchida, “Japanese in Brazil,” p. 235. 3. For an in-depth analysis of the discourse concerning Japanese overseas development, as well as its connections with the idea of Japan’s peaceful expansion, see Azuma, In Search, p. 16. 4. It heeds the insights of recent scholarship that has revised our understanding of the Japanese empire through both transcolonial and transpacific approaches, such as Azuma, “Pioneers of Overseas”; and Azuma, In Search. 5. Endoh, Exporting Japan. Her chapter in this volume, more specifically, illustrates the central role of Tokyo in the Japanese empire’s migration-driven expansion in Latin America. 6. Kingsberg, “Becoming Brazilian”; and Kingsberg, “Japan’s Inca Boom.” 7. Garon, Molding the Japanese Mind, pp. 6–7. 8. Young, Japan’s Total Empire, p. 331. 9. Young, Japan’s Total Empire, p. 13. 10. In 1934, the new constitution of the Vargas regime had imposed a quota restriction on Japanese immigration, limiting the annual number of Japanese subjects to enter Brazil as immigrants to 2,711 in the next year, 2 percent of the total number of Japanese immigrants who entered Brazil from 1908 to 1933. Tsuchida, “Japanese in Brazil,” pp. 345–347. Though the Brazilian government continued to admit Japanese immigrants outside of the quota in the following few years, the year 1934 marked the beginning of the quick decline of Japanese immigration to Brazil. 11. For public media’s opinion, see Osaka mainichi, August 2, 1918. For the ideas of the strategists in the imperial military, see the comment of Matsui Iwane, “Hokuman taisaku shiken,” mimeographed, June 1, 1923, cited from Iriye, “Failure of Economic Expansionism,” pp. 240, 245. 12. Tokyo asahi, June 1, 1922, cited from Iriye, “Failure of Economic Expansionism,” p. 245. 13. Iriye, “Failure of Economic Expansionism,” pp. 246–247. 14. Nishita, “Shidehara Kijūrō,” pp. 96–99. 15. Dickinson, World War I, p. 70. 16. Iriye, “Failure of Economic Expansionism,” p. 256. 17. Lu, Making of Japanese, pp. 161–164. 18. By the concept of “social management,” Sheldon Garon has illustrated how the Japanese government bureaucrats collaborated and negotiated with leaders of differ ent social interest groups during the interwar years to strength state control over society. Garon, Molding the Japanese Minds, pp. 6–7.
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19. For more detail regarding the history of Kaikō and its role in the history of Japa nese migration to Brazil, see chapter 6, “Guiding Settlers: The Overseas Development Company and the Recruitment of Rural Brazil, 1918–1936,” by Andre Kobayashi Deckrow in this volume. 20. Ishikawa did not follow the regular path like most other emigrants on board. He quitted the farm a fter about a month and traveled north to the Amazon River basin. He then returned to Japan a fter stopping by the US West Coast. Moriya, “Burajiru Nikkei imin shōsetsu,” pp. 133–156. 21. The migration guides and pamphlets published by Kaikō usually encouraged its recruited migrants to become independent owner-farmers after their labor contracts ended. For example, see Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Gaisha, Nanbei Burajirukoku to Nihon, pp. 1–3. 22. Young, Beyond the Metropolis, pp. 15–23. 23. Lewis, Rioters and Citizens, pp. 248–249. 24. Dinmore, “Small Island Nation,” pp. 20–28; Lu, Making of Japanese, pp. 183– 185. 25. Sakaguchi, “Dare ga imin,” p. 55. 26. Iikubo, “Kaigai kōgyō kabushiki gaisha,” pp. 70–71. 27. Iikubo, “Kaigai kōgyō kabushiki gaisha,” pp. 66. 28. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Gaisha, Kaigai kōgyō kabushiki gaisha, pp. 10–40. 29. The numbers of Japanese mig rants to Brazil in these three years w ere 776 in 1921, 1,087 in 1922, and 757 in 1923, according to the records of the Japanese government. Burajiru Nikkeijin jittai chōsa iinkai, Burajiru no Nihon imin, p. 225. 30. Iikubo, “1920 nendai ni okeru,” p. 43. 31. Tsuchida, “Japanese in Brazil,” p. 132. 32. Iikubo, “1920 nendai ni okeru,” p. 45. 33. The US doors to Japanese immigration w ere not officially reopened u ntil 1952. 34. Iikubo, “1920 nendai ni okeru,” p. 47. 35. The founding years of these magazines are Shokumin, 1922; Kaigai, 1927; and Burajiru: shokumin to bōeki, 1927. As Seth Jacobowitz’s chapter in this volume points out, these magazines also promoted Japanese migration to other Latin American countries. 36. Nagata, Burajiru ni okeru Nihonjin, 2:32–34. 37. The official magazine of the association, Umi no soto, started to circulate in 1922. 38. Nagata, Shinano kaigai ijūshi, pp. 91–92. 39. Nagata, Shinano kaigai ijūshi, p. 134. 40. The Shinano Overseas Migration Cooperative Society took over the management and finance of Aliança migration from its establishment in 1927. Nagata, Shinano kaigai ijūshi, pp. 111–112. 41. To buy a piece of land of twenty-five chobu in Aliança required 1,500 yen, while to enroll in the contract-farmer program of Aliança required 700 to 800 yen too. Nagata, Shinano kaigai ijūshi, p. 134. 42. Nagata, Burajiru ni okeru Nihonjin, 2:56; Tsuchida, “Japanese in Brazil,” pp. 250– 251. 43. Nagata, Burajiru ni okeru Nihonjin, p. 73; Tsuchida, “Japanese in Brazil,” p. 269. 44. Satō, “Motazaru kuni” no shigen, pp. 69–70. 45. Satō, “Motazaru kuni” no shigen, p. 76.
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46. Yano, Nihon no nanshin, p. 16. 47. Yamagata, “Sōkan no ji,” pp. 4–5. 48. The exhibit was also cosponsored by the Hyōgo prefectural government, Department of Commerce and Industry of Kobe Municipal Government, Kobe Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Osaka Mainichi News Agency. The composition of the cosponsors demonstrates the profound interest of Kobe-based business elites in the opportunities in Brazil. See “Burajiru jijō tenrankai,” p. 93. 49. “Burajiru jijō tenrankai,” pp. 93–96. 50. National Diet Library, Japan, 100 Years, ch. 4. 51. Ikushima, Amazon ijū sanjūnenshi, p. 21. 52. Fukuhara, “Zenjin mitō no Burajiru,” pp. 26–29 53. Fukuhara, “Wa ga kuni,” pp. 58–59. 54. Burajiru koku parā shū shokumin nannai, in Gaimushū gaikō shiryōkan, Honpō imin toriatsukainin kankei. 55. Ikushima, Amazon ijū sanjūnenshi, pp. 21–25 56. Osaka mainichi shinbun, “Kaigai ijū kumiai sōkai: yūshi jikō kettei,” August 7, 1927. 57. Osaka mainichi shinbun, “Kaigai Ijū kumiai sōkai: yūshi jikō kettei,” August 7, 1927. 58. Imin Shūyōjo, Imin shūyōjo e nyūjo. 59. For the concrete numbers of the money that the Ministry of Colonial Affairs had provided to the migration companies in supporting Brazilian migration, see Iikubo, “Burajiru imin kara Manshū,” p. 109. 60. For an extended explanation of the Minister of Colonial Affairs on the responsibilities of the ministry, see Gaimushō gaikō shiryōkan, Honpō imin toriatsukainin kankei. 61. “Chūzai gaikoku shisetsu,” pp. 6–11. 62. Osaka asahi shinbun, “Kugatsu nijūnichi yori hanabanashiku kaijōshita kankanshiki kinen kaikō hakurankai,” September 28, 1930. 63. Fukuda, “Senkō wo assuru ei,” pp. 72–73. 64. Nagata, “Manshū no shinano mura (1),” p. 21. 65. Nippon Rikkō Kai Sōritsu Hyaku Shūnen Kinen Jigyō Jikkō Iinkai Kinenshi Hensan Senmon Iinkai, Nippon rikkō kai hyakunen, p. 213. 66. Nagano ken kaitaku jikōkai Manshū kaitakushi kankōkai, Naganoken Manshū kaitakushi: sōhen, pp. 89, 150–166. 67. The number of Manchurian mig rants from Nagano was more than twice that of their counterparts from Yamagata, which was ranked second. Young, Japan’s Total Empire, pp. 329–330. 68. Burajiru Nikkeijin jittai chōsa iinkai, Burajiru no Nihon imin, p. 225. 69. Shibusawa Ei’ichi kinen zaidan kenkyūbu, Jitsugyōka to Burajiru ijū, pp. 133–134. 70. Tsuchida, “Japanese in Brazil,” p. 310. 71. Gaimushō gaikō shiryōkan, Honpō imin toriatsukainin kankei zakken: “Amazonia.” 72. Tagawa, “ ‘Imin’ shichō no kiseki,” pp. 129–130. 73. National Diet Library, Japan, 100 Years, ch. 5. 74. Burajiru Nihon Imin 100-Shūnen Kinen Kyōkai Hyakunenshi Hensan Iinkai, Burajiru Nihon imin hyakunenshi, 3:113.
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75. For a full list of these businesses, see Gaimushū gaikō shiryōkan, Honpō imin toriatsukainin kankei zakken: “Zai.” 76. Gaimushū gaikō shiryōkan, Honpō imin toriatsukainin kankei zakken: Kaigai. 77. Gaimushū gaikō shiryōkan, Honpō imin toriatsukainin kankei zakken: Kaigai; “Kaigai ijū kumiai rengōkai, Kaigai ijū kumiai rengōkai jigyō gaiyō,” pp. 8–11, in Gaimushū gaikō shiryōkan, Honpō imin toriatsukainin kankei zakken: Kaigai. 78. Nippon Rikkō Kai Sōritsu Hyaku Shūnen Kinen Jigyō Jikkō Iinkai Kinenshi Hensan Senmon Iinkai, Nippon rikkō kai hyakunen, pp. 260–273.
c h a p t e r
4
Transpacific Migration and Japan’s Extraterritorial Settler Colonialism in the US-Mexican Borderlands Eiichiro Azuma
M
igration-led expansionism, or mass migration and settler colonialism, formed a significant aspect of Japan’s empire building. Japa nese settler colonialism, as it unfolded in the Americas and elsewhere, entailed the processes—both projected and actual—of land control and agricultural colonization not only through the outright settlement of equipped immigrant farmers but also by way of transplanting laboring masses that initially worked for investors and landowners before becoming “frontiersmen” in their own right. In t hese processes that were often spearheaded by the Japanese government as well as expansionistic entrepreneurs and ideologues, the state and the private sectors worked in tandem to promote the outward migration and settlement of rural Japanese within and without Japan’s colonial empire. Not only its puppet Manchukuo but also the other territories of imperial Japan, including Taiwan, Southern Sakhalin, K orea, and the South Sea mandate (Nan’yō), experienced uneven state-sponsored efforts to transplant ordinary people to erect a “new Japan” there between the 1910s and the early 1940s. As my recent monograph details, the settler colonialism inside Japan’s sovereign control was inseparable from what transpired in the Americas, especially the United States, Mexico, and Brazil. What is especially important in these linkages between Japan’s settler empire and its extraterritorial immigrant settlements is the idea of US-style frontier development, which many self-styled “pioneers” of Japanese national expansion, including working-class immigrants, embraced as a model for their own practices of settler colonialism all over the Pacific Rim.1 As the first site of Japanese frontier experience, the immigrant society in the US West held larger-than-life influence over the 93
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subsequent history of global Japanese mobility and diasporas, including migration to Latin Americ a. Indeed, the guiding principle of Japan’s state-sanctioned colonization— family-based migration and permanent settlement (eijū dochaku)—emerged around 1905–1908 from the discursive and social-engineering endeavors in Japanese immigrant society in the United States (especially California) and Hawai‘i, the first concentrations of overseas Japa nese settler- migrants in the history of modern Japan. During the 1910s, this princi ple was incorporated into Japan’s first settler colonial ventures in Korea and Brazil; the former was an official enterprise of the empire, and the latter was clandestinely supported by the prime minister and other high-level government officials and moneyed elites in Tokyo.2 Thus, imperial Japan’s settler colonialism inside its sovereign territories and informal colonization efforts in Latin America w ere deeply entwined through the mediating role of “Japanese North America” (hereafter Japanese America), which helped produce key ideological underpinnings of the empire’s borderless expansionism. In this triangular relationship, the US-Mexican borderlands not only formed an important link between Anglophone and Latin Americas, but the liminal space also allowed Japan’s state colonialism to exert its influence over the forms and processes of transpacific Japanese migration and settlement making in the Western Hemisphere. This chapter examines the integrated nature of Japanese mobility and agricultural colonization in the US-Mexican borderlands, where the extraterritorial settler experiences of immigrants in Anglophone America became tangled up with their counterparts in Latin America in the broader context of the migration-driven expansionism of the Japanese empire. First, I w ill delineate why and how the US state of California and its transborder “frontier” in Mexico’s Baja California Norte served as an important junction point in migration circuits and multidirectional migrant movements between Japan and Latin America. Here, US settler racism provided a crucial background for generating complex streams of migration to, and projects of settler colonization in, the northernmost region of Latin America. In the context of its response to that racism, Japanese America also served as a vital source of experienced immigrant farmers and colonial investment for Japanese-settler colony making on the northern fringes of Mexico in particular and of Latin America in general between the early 1910s and the mid-1920s.3 This historical unfolding also entailed close interactions and collaborations between former and current members of Japanese Amer
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ica and its home empire in the creation of a new borderland settlement— the stories that formed neglected integral components in the history of Japanese in Latin America and their complex relationship to Japan and its imperial expansionism.
Transpacific Migrations and the New Circuits of Settler Colonist Mobility between Anglophone America and Latin America Between the 1910s and the 1930s, the Japanese in Southern California and Mexico’s Baja California Norte organized what can be termed a “transborder” community—one that was integral to what they saw as Japan’s global empire and its extraterritorial “overseas development” (kaigai hatten). Being transborder does not suggest homogeneity in the lives of the immigrant settlers there. Ironically, such a community could sustain its transnationality b ecause of the politico-legal differences between US and Mexican Californias, and the advantages with which both sides supplemented each other’s wants. The organization of distinctive, often conflicting state structures created numerous points of divergence between the white supremacist US legal regime and the less-exclusionist Mexican republic. This situation valorized the desirability of the “Latin America” side from the standpoint of first-generation Japanese Americans, who w ere faced with race-based exclusion and various forms of institutionalized discrimination from around 1908. As a result, the inter-California borderlands witnessed the fluid movements of Japanese migrant-settlers and their ethnic capital, as well as the spread of expansionistic ideas and practices from north to south, when the initial uproar of US Yellow Peril fearmongering led to the termination of mass immigration from Japan to that country. While more and more US-bound migrants started to travel to northern Mexico to use its border region as a stepping-stone into exclusionary California, many US Japanese residents also frequently moved their bodies and economic resources southward. These transmigrants established common institutions and shared discursive spaces and cultural practices across the loosely policed national border to develop a varied but integrated community life in that liminal space.4 At the same time, this transborder Japanese community could not have maintained itself without the remote interventions of imperial Japan. The
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multiple linkages that brought together the borderland Japanese migrant- settlers in the local context derived partly from Japan’s emigration policy, as well as its attempt to influence/control overseas residents from across the Pacific. While the United States and Mexico presented the contexts in which the borderland Japanese settler-farmers found it desirable to remain connected and live in tandem across national boundaries, their home empire played a crucial role in shoring up ideological and institutional apparatuses for the construction of their settlement, a “new Japan,” which overarched the two Californias. Japan’s embrace of American-style settler colonialism and its enduring influence over immigrants particularly helped facilitate such a local unfolding. Indeed, the early history of transpacific Japanese migration revealed strong US-slanted settler colonialism from the very beginning. Starting in the late 1880s, San Francisco attracted a significant number of Japanese immigrant (Issei) intellectuals and pol itical activists with expansionistic thinking and practice. Often affiliated with homeland political groups, like the Seikyōsha (Society for Politics and Education) and Liberal Party (Jiyūtō), which spearheaded Japan’s nascent advocacy of imperialism, these Issei expansionists embraced and helped popularize the “discourse on overseas development” (kaigai hattenron), which formed an ideological backbone of Japanese settler colonialism. This popular discourse posited “expansive” traits of the nation and race, which presumably remained in their blood and tradition. It also extolled the maritime destiny of the island empire and its people not only as a colonizing power but also as a nation “racially endowed” for expanding to frontiers all over the globe through trade, migration, and settlement making. In this formulation, many ideologues, including US-based Issei intellectuals, drew inspiration from the American popular discourse on frontier conquest and manifest destiny, shaping a common expansionistic mindset in the emergent empire. Because Tokyo officials had already adopted US-style agricultural colonization as a model for the state-sponsored development of Japan’s domestic “frontier” of Hokkaido in the early 1870s, Issei endeavored to emulate Anglo-Saxon examples in the US West and brought their own settler colonialism into harmony with imperial Japan’s migration-driven expansionism.5 The discourse on overseas development initially attained the nation’s acceptance when the earliest groups of Japanese labor mig rants left for Hawai‘i and then for the continental United States and Canada. During the 1880s, barely two decades a fter scrapping feudalism, Japan encountered
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a major politico-economic crisis in the context of state-led modernization efforts. While displaced farmers violently protested the government’s economic policy, young intellectuals and dissident activists, including those who later fled to San Francisco, criticized Tokyo’s conciliatory diplomacy toward imperious Western powers. They demanded that Japan take a more aggressive, expansionistic course of action in dealing with t hese domestic and diplomatic problems. Should the government embark on its own imperialist venture as a colonizing power, they argued, the West would re spect modern Japan as a civilized equal. Moreover, t hese pundits stressed other tangible benefits in Malthusian terms. Imperial expansion by way of popular migrations would create new opportunities and sources of livelihood overseas for distressed rural populations while contributing to the greater goal of “overseas Japanese development.”6 Some of these early San Francisco residents were among the first group of Japanese who traversed the tablelands and plains of Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, and Chile, in search of “colonial” opportunities for adventurous Japanese frontiersmen and laboring masses alike. They even formed a Spanish study group to equip them with the necessary language command and knowledge about the lands they might wish to “conquer” as trailblazers of Japanese immigration and racial settlement making in the f uture.7 Combining an advocacy for a proactive imperialist policy in East Asia with a call for mass migration to the Americas and elsewhere, these activist- intellectuals drew little distinction between colonialism (shokumin) and labor migration (imin). Rather, they tended to (con)fuse t hese concepts— and practices—under the rubric of ishokumin, defining mass migration from rural Japan as a prerequisite for the nation’s colonial expansion.8 This idea converged with the pragmatic thinking of government brass, who thought that labor migration to Hawai‘i would not only be an effective solution to the rural economic crisis but also a convenient means to “enrich the nation and strengthen the military”—Japan’s national motto when it endeavored to build a modern empire. Thus, in 1885, Tokyo suddenly reversed its long- standing policy against mass emigration, allowing over 29,000 commoners for the next nine years to work on Hawaiian sugar plantations under a bilateral agreement. While more and more rural Japanese traveled to the mid-Pacific islands even after the US-backed overthrow of the native monarchy in 1893, many o thers began to migrate to the western parts of the continental United States and Canada, then to Peru, Mexico, and Brazil, in search of work and colonial opportunities. Japan’s neighboring regions,
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like Taiwan, K orea, and Manchuria, attracted much smaller numbers of Japanese newcomers until state-sponsored settler migration commenced following Japan’s formal colonization.9 Therefore, combined with the public extolment of national expansion abroad, the idea of ishokumin propelled ordinary immigrants to see their economic endeavors and community building intertwined with the formal settler colonialism of imperial Japan.10 By influencing the mindset and action of ordinary Japanese, this idea made it possible for the pervasive act of dekasegi (temporary) labor migration to be confounded with the state project of settler colonization after the annexation of K orea in 1910. The origins of imperial Japanese migration w ere therefore inseparable from the US-inspired settler-colonial ideology of Japan, which subsumed the extraterritorial labor and colonial aspects of mass migration u nder the ubiquitous concept of “overseas development.” Japan’s settler colonialism was partially rooted in the ideological work of self-styled Issei frontiersmen and their a ctual endeavors of agricultural colonization in the US West. Many of these Issei w ere responsible for the muddling of labor and colonial aspects of early Japanese migration, since they dominated the management of most major “emigration companies” (imin gaisha) that shipped thousands of Japanese laboring masses to Mexico and Peru along with Hawai‘i and other Pacific islands between 1894 and 1908.11 US-based proprietors of these human-trafficking businesses and their partners in Japan portrayed the massive movements of working-class Japanese as instances of imperial expansion, thereby dressing their exploitative enterprise in patriotic clothes. For the same reason, ordinary migrants could justify their self-centered pursuit of material benefit—including breaking state regulations as explained later—in terms of their “contributions” to the national imperative of overseas development.12 Compared to San Francisco and its surrounding region where prototypical Issei expansionists initially concentrated, Southern California occupied only a minor place in the early history of Japanese America and its settler colonialism. The birth of a sizable immigrant community in the greater Los Angeles area is traced to intrastate Japanese movements during the first two decades of the twentieth c entury. Between 1905 and 1915, an increasing number of Issei migrated southward from Northern California under the combined effects of organized exclusionist agitation and a devastating earthquake in San Francisco as well as agricultural development in the central and lower portions of the Golden State. By the 1930s, South-
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ern California grew into a center of Japanese America on the continental United States—w ith 47 percent of the aggregate state ethnic population (97,456), three major vernacular newspapers, and perhaps the most orga nized ethnic agricultural economy encompassing the “vertical and horizontal integration” of farm production, w holesale, and retailing.13 From the outset, the formation of the Southern California Japanese community rested on its geographic identity as a borderland. While the 1906 San Francisco earthquake triggered a massive remigration of Issei from the north, Japan’s restrictions on labor emigration to the United States transformed the US-Mexican border into a southern entry point for new laborers from Japan. Starting in 1900, Tokyo employed a policy of issuing US-bound passports to only “students” and “merchants,” as well as onetime residents there, in response to the rise of California’s exclusionist agitation.14 This created two groups of working-class Japanese who still attempted to come to the continental United States for work. One group successfully received legitimate US-bound passports as either “students” or “merchants” by furnishing doctored documents and borrowing “show money” to pass as self-financed (“free”) immigrants. Though with fewer resources, another group still held on to the dream of quick riches in the United States by carrying passports intended for Mexico—w ith preexisting labor contracts with Mexican employers. Once they arrived, the immigrant workers used that country as the transit point to the continental United States while bailing out of their l abor contracts.15 As official statistics show, over 1,200 Japanese suddenly left for Mexico in 1904. Following the end of the Russo-Japanese War, the years 1906 and 1907 saw an even greater increase in Mexico-bound emigrants, with aggregates of 5,068 and 3,822, respectively (see t able 4.1).16 The vast majority of these Mexico- bound immigrants must have subsequently crossed the border, because that country’s national census reported the presence of only 2,623 Japanese in 1910. In Baja California Norte and other northwestern Mexican states, the pool of Japanese border crossers grew even bigger, since hundreds of plantation workers from Peru also joined them in pursuit of better economic opportunities on the US side.17 With the large number of Japanese border crossers and immigration brokers who helped them, the borderland Japa nese community produced what can be termed a “culture of defiance” against not only class-biased Japanese passport regulations but also racially exclusive US immigration policy a fter the US-Japan Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907–1908.
T ABLE 4.1
Numbers of Transpacific Japanese Emigrants
Year
US
Hawai‘i
Mexico
Peru
1900
7,585
1,529
1
0
1901
32
3,136
95
0
1902
70
14,490
83
0
1903
318
9,091
281
1,303
1904
640
9,443
1,261
0
1905
714
10,813
346
0
1906
1,715
25,752
5,068
1,257
1907
2,712
14,397
3,822
85
1908
1,585
3,455
0
2,880
1909
777
1,329
2
1,138
1910
926
1,717
5
483
1911
1,963
2,596
28
456
1912
3,378
4,732
16
714
1913
4,381
4,276
47
1,126
1914
5,553
3,187
35
1,132
1915
5,498
3,055
19
1,348
1916
5,761
3,643
22
1,429
1917
6,457
4,111
53
1,948
1918
6,306
3,024
128
1,736
1919
6,273
3,088
64
1,507
1920
5,959
2,789
53
836
1921
4,321
3,215
69
717
1922
3,558
2,960
77
202
1923
2,617
2,112
68
333
1924
4,064
2,163
76
651
Azuma Year
US
1925
101
Hawai‘i
Mexico
Peru
289
485
160
922
1926
344
636
326
1,250
1927
370
526
319
1,271
1928
306
265
353
1,410
1929
236
119
249
1,585
1930
0
0
434
831
1931
0
0
283
299
Source: Gaimushō Ryōji Ijūbu, Waga kokumin no kaigai, pp. 140, 144.
The bilateral government response to California’s grassroots exclusionism made it legally impossible for all new immigrant workers to travel from Japan to the United States, directly or indirectly. Tokyo stopped issuing passports to working-class Japanese bound for both the United States and Mexico, except for family members of bona fide US residents; Washington then disallowed the secondary migration of Japanese from Mexico, Canada, and Hawai‘i to the continental United States.18 Nonetheless, under the pervasive culture of defiance, the Mexican border-crossing option looked as though it still presented Japanese ship jumpers with a Peru-bound passport and transmigrants from that country with the possibility of sneaking into the United States. This is important context to explain the dramatic increase of passports issued to Peru-bound Japanese from a mere 85 in 1907 to 2,880 in 1908 and 1,138 in 1909—when direct migration to Mexico became nearly halted by the Japanese government. During much of the 1910s, the Peruvian emigration figures continued to hover between 1,100 and 1,900.19 Although mass emigration to Brazil also took place after 1908, that country was not a realistic option for illicit border crossing b ecause immigrants took a trans–Indian Ocean / Atlantic route to get to São Paulo. In 1923, a Japanese diplomat estimated that Japanese smuggled across the US-Mexican border had amounted to 350 annually and that a total of such individuals had reached approximately 3,700 in Southern California by June 1922.20 Around the same time, an American intelligence officer also reported on the “easy conscience of the Japanese in breaking our . . . [immigration] laws.” Even though he exaggerated when he said that “most”
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of the estimated 130,000 Japanese “stowaways” worldwide ended up “here in California” from 1916, the officer still provided a glimpse into the prevalence of illegal Japanese entries through Mexico and the borderland culture of defiance that shored it up: “The goal of the Japanese stowaway is California. They are h ere, tens of thousands of them, hiding among their countrymen. . . . Many of them have been h ere long enough to acquire domicile under our laws and could not be deported. . . . That the number of these smugglers is very large is evident from the frequent references to them in the Japanese local press.”21 Although t hese undocumented residents “still dread[ed] the possible consequences of exposure,” their fellow Issei and home expansionists generally held them in high esteem as patriotic “adventurers.” The border crossers singlehandedly conquered multiple challenges, including discriminatory laws and the possibility of death, supposedly for the purpose of advancing the cause of the expanding home empire. The meaning of “defiance”— whether violating state regulations or breaking labor contracts—was indeed multifaceted, and it looked quite admirable when viewed from the perspective of the discourse on overseas development. As discussed e arlier, that discourse had entailed conflicting ideological components; it could be useful to the state goal of imperial expansionism, and yet it might contrarily function as an antistate political advocacy when the government was deemed unsympathetic to the national imperative of mass migration, for example. The positive rendition of “defiance” stemmed from the latter, where an act of violating oppressive state regulations was justified in the name of the migrant’s dedication to the construction of a new Japan abroad. Examples of portraying illegal border crossers in a positive light are not hard to find in popular discourse of the time. Published in Sacramento, the “history of Japanese from Aichi prefecture” carries many stories of early Issei “pioneers” and community leaders who had sneaked onto the US frontier. It glamourized their border-crossing experiences as heroic and patriotic. The narrative then ends with this statement: “The fact that several hundreds of our stalwart Aichi youths knowingly took on the challenge of entering California by overcoming myriad tribulations should be commemorated as one big milestone in the chronicle of our people’s overseas development in America.”22 Mig rant acts of defiance were tolerated and widespread in the US- Mexican borderlands even when those acts involved the outright violation of Japan’s own laws. Intercepted by a Japanese diplomat from a stowaway via
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Peru, a handwritten map of Mexico (fig. 4.1) revealed the formation of underground migrant knowledge shared clandestinely by border crossers. The map shows an oceanic ship route from Peru to Ensenada (Baja California Norte) via Salina Cruz (Oaxaca), Manzanillo (Colima), and Mazatlán (Sinaloa). It then delineates a land route from Ensenada to San Diego (California). Some vital information relative to terrain, border policing, and general smuggling tips are provided. According to this “guide,” it would cost a re-migrant forty pesos to travel from Mazatlán to Ensenada by sea. The thirty-k ilometer trip on a horse-drawn carriage from Ensenada to the border would cost him twelve pesos, but the border crosser is advised to get off the carriage several kilometers before the border and proceed on foot into the United States. In order to avoid US immigration agents (identified as X on the map), he should follow a rural route (a dotted line swaying eastward) between Tijuana and San Diego, preferably traveling during the night and avoiding orange orchards as it is “risky to hide t here.” In San Diego, the map notes, “there are Japanese inns which also work as (employment) brokers.”23 This Ensenada–Tijuana–San Diego route offered a shorter distance and safer terrain to navigate after jumping ship, especially for new immigrants with a Peru-bound passport. Another option, the Mazatlán– San Felipe–Mexicali–Calexico route that comprised mostly deserts was more dangerous, albeit less detectable, but it was also less costly and hence more popular among Japanese transmigrants from Peru or t hose from the interior of Mexico who had broken a labor contract and fled.24 Traversing Mexico’s desolate land, these border crossers initially took advantage of preexisting Chinese human-smuggling channels. This is not surprising, b ecause the Chinese had pioneered indirect immigration into the United States by way of Mexico after Congress passed the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Given the anti-Asian US immigration policy of the time, immigrants from Asia—lumped together as “Orientals”—eventually found themselves altogether denied lawful admission by racist US laws, thereby engendering a common racial condition that rendered “illegal” immigration the only option to enter the United States. At the same time, in Baja California, Chinese transmigrants, like the undocumented Japanese who followed them, had been subject to a mandatory tax of one hundred pesos if caught by the local authorities. To avoid US immigration restrictions and the Mexican tax, Chinese had built clandestine infrastructures of border crossing, as well as communication networks that facilitated it. Based on the shared circumstances that limited their options in a similar
FIG. 4.1. Mig rants’ handwritten map. Source: Teikoku Heigen Nihonjinkai to Ōyama Ujirō, September 29, 1915, Honpō imin kankei zakken: Bokkoku no bu, v. 3 (3.8.2.285-1), DAFMJ.
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manner, many Japanese took advantage of the preexisting system of undocumented Chinese immigration into California, especially in the early phase of transborder Japanese migration.25 However extemporary and expedient, interethnic “cooperation” in border crossing became a frequent phenomenon in the early twentieth century.26 By the mid-1910s, the Japanese organized their own system of immigrant smuggling that revolved around the ethnic businesses overarching the border. In US border towns, like Calexico and San Diego, Issei merchants provided newcomers with shelter and transportation to local Japa nese farms and the ethnic labor market in Los Angeles. Following the Gentlemen’s Agreement, border town Japanese merchants benefited from the steady increase of the roundabout migration via Mexico and Peru, fattening themselves with commissions and other related profits. On the Mexican side, too, the respective border towns of Mexicali and Tijuana witnessed the emergence of Japanese stores and clandestine immigration brokerage, which usually worked hand in hand with US Issei merchants. Oftentimes, US Japanese interests ran the businesses south of the border, creating transnational enterprises that combined lawful and unlawful activities.27 Many leading Issei merchants in the US-Mexican borderlands appear to have owed their economic prosperity to the continuous supply of newcomers from Baja California through the 1920s. Kawakita Yasaburō of Calexico/Mexicali is a case in point. A Los Angeles Issei journalist recalled how Kawakita built a one-million-dollar business empire, which included general merchandise stores and large farms on both sides of the border: “Mr. Kawakita Yasaburō used to stretch a net all over u nder cover of midnight darkness, and you may ask what kind of game he was a fter. Put frankly, he was awaiting ‘customers’ from Mexico in the dead of the night. His role was to guide those customers [safely into the United States across the border]. He also sold them goods from his store and earned fees by exchanging Mexican pesos for US dollars—a smart business method that brought him huge profits.”28 Through the agency of Kawakita and other borderland entrepreneurs, Southern California and Baja California Norte established close economic ties, which allowed the continuous movement of Japanese from the latter to the former. Coupled with the “easy conscience” of border crossers in evading US and Japanese legal restrictions, such a transnational business practice constituted an impor tant part of the borderland immigrant culture of defiance—the culture that tolerated and justified in the language of overseas
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development the unauthorized acts of immigrant smuggling from Latin America and the rise of transborder ethnic businesses spanning Anglophone and Latin Americas.29 Supporting and partaking in the home empire’s cause of national expansion could and often did take the form of rebelling against the policy of its very government, a poignant example of how Japan’s settler colonialism operated outside its sovereign territories with immigrants as self-conscious practitioners and promoters of overseas development.
US Racism and the Overflow of Japanese Immigrant Settler Colonialism into Latin America As noted, the extraterritorial settler colonialism of imperial Japan did not always unfold in a unidirectional manner from the empire’s metropole to its migrant destinations in the Americas. Inside the Western Hemisphere, Japanese America sometimes served as an important incubator of settler colonial aspirations and practices in/for Latin America, because hundreds of California Issei farmers started to remigrate or considered moving south of the border from exclusionist Anglophone America. Still, transborder US fearmongering followed them to prevent their settler colonialism from producing nothing but modest Japanese settlements on the northwestern fringes of Mexico before that country also turned less hospitable to them. Yet these small pockets of Issei presence from the mid1910s onward still signify important but often-neglected aspects of the historical experiences of Japanese in Latin America as much as they speak to the transborder dimensions of prewar Japanese American history. Unlike its counterparts in South America that led to the rise of many impressive agricultural “colonies,” the study of Japanese settler colonialism in northern Latin America requires more attention to its frustrated processes— the stories of what did not happen as planned or envisioned due to transborder Yellow Peril fearmongering. Generally, Issei’s settler colonial aspirations and practices in Mexico’s frontera were bound to be squashed by the l egal and extralegal reaches of US white settler racism, which strove to keep its “backyard” as Japanese-free as its own territories. The rest of this chapter delineates the abortive projects of Issei settler colonialism and its short-lived partnership with an ambitious program of Japan’s monopoly
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capital for the construction of a massive “new Japan” on the US-Mexican borderlands. Despite social disorder caused by the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), the decades of the 1910s and the early 1920s witnessed the (re)migration of many California Issei farmers to northern Mexico, especially the states of Sonora, Sinaloa, and Baja California Norte. Along came also their moneys and US-bred expertise as “frontier” farmers and settlement builders. Combined with the influx of undocumented working-class Japanese from Peru and Mexico’s interior who moved in the opposite northward direction, the US-Mexican borderlands thus witnessed the vibrant mobility of propertied California Issei, who expanded the boundaries of their ethnic community and economy southward into the Mexican side. Overlapping spheres of Japanese immigrant agricultural settler colonialism consequently emerged on the northernmost perimeter of Latin America, which held dual identities as an origin of Japanese Mexico, on one hand, and a satellite settlement of Japanese America, on the other. The extension of Japanese America into a new settler space south of the border dovetailed neatly with the concurrent shift in Tokyo’s policy mandate—that is, diverting migration flows and efforts at settlement making from exclusionist Anglophone America to racially friendly Latin America from 1908 onward.30 Put differently, what unfolded on the US-Mexican borderlands was a microcosmic articulation of the history of imperial Japan’s migration-d riven expansionism, which came to identify Brazil and other Latin American regions as ideal sites to build “new Japans” after the Gentlemen’s Agreement. The continuous transborder and intrahemispheric mobility of Japanese immigrants and their community formation compensated for the virtual absence of direct transpacific Japanese migration to war-torn Mexico during the 1910s, thereby keeping that country relevant to settler colonialism of imperial Japan and Japanese America. In the eyes of many Issei, US Southern California and Baja California Norte had always registered as an integrated frontier since the 1890s. The ideology of overseas development rendered the political boundaries between the United States and Mexico artificial and hence inconsequential to their settler-colonial objectives, collective or individual. The frontier for them to conquer was not limited to the inside of Anglophone America, many US- based immigrants believed; it was supposed to encompass the contiguous wilderness of Mexico despite existing national boundaries.31 Under the spell of t hese expansionistic ideas, what catalyzed the transborder southward
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mobility of California Issei farmers was the displacement of the landed class of Japanese immigrants due to the Alien Land Laws of 1913 and 1920. The California legislation denied Issei landownership and tenancy and hence legally relegated them to the status of permanent field-workers. U nder such institutionalized racial discrimination, “Japaneseness” denoted powerlessness and subordination in an unambiguous manner in California, depriving the b earers of that mark of the opportunity to erect a new Japan there as they pleased. Once outside the political boundaries of the white supremacist regime, however, the absence of legal hindrance and the perceived racial weakness of Mexicans (and Latin Americans in general) would enable Japanese (re)settlers to exert their racial strength to a full extent. Buoyed by Japan’s ongoing attempts at transplanting settler colonists in Taiwan, Korea, and Brazil, this imperial racial thinking facilitated the exodus of California-based immigrant farmers and their investment in land acquisition across the US-Mexican border during the 1910s and 1920s.32 As explained, the northward movements of smuggled Japa nese kept the US-Mexican borderlands a liminal space of dynamic human mobility despite the closing of formal immigration pathways from Japan. In conjunction, this southward Issei remigration simultaneously helped create transborder satellite communities of Japanese America, thereby turning that liminal space into a new cornerstone of Japanese-settler colony making on the northern edge of Latin America, one that was deemed as important as Brazil and Peru during the 1910s.33 New settlements of US re-migrants started to dot the landscape of Baja California Norte and the neighboring regions in that decade, and the 1920s—especially the latter half—saw a notable jump in the Japanese population there. Between 1924 and 1931, Mexican government statistics reported that 275 and 274 Issei passed through Tijuana and Mexicali, respectively, to resettle elsewhere in Baja California Norte, although most likely the official data grossly undercounted the resettlers and their family members.34 In particular, the vicinity of Ensenada emerged as a home to many Japanese farm estates connected to the existing ethnic farm interests in Los Angeles. According to a 1927 Japanese consular report, two-dozen well-off Issei from Southern California had purchased barren lands near Ensenada for agricultural colonization. By then, nearly two hundred resettlers in the same region had already turned their transborder farming endeavors into profitable economic ventures, shipping chili peppers, beans,
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and other crops to the Los Angeles consumer market. These Japanese farmers of Ensenada also sponsored the immigration of over two hundred newcomers directly from Japan for work on the new sites of Japanese overseas development.35 In the meantime, the population of Japanese in Mexicali totaled more than eight hundred, most of whom worked on the vast cotton fields under the US-owned Colorado River Land Company (CRLC). One California Japanese farmer named Shintani Kusujirō reportedly managed to establish virtual control over—but not legal ownership of—nine thousand acres by the mid-1920s and ran an irrigation firm of his own near Mexicali.36 Replacing Chinese tenant farmers, who had been hard hit by post–World War I recessions and Mexican nativism, about 180 Japanese residents of Mexicali, as well as many more “commuter” farmers from Calexico (US side), cultivated an additional several thousand acres of cotton fields, although 70 percent of such land was still u nder the CRLC’s ownership.37 The making of these borderland settler communities swelled the demand for additional Japanese l abor in Baja California Norte, explaining a spike in Japanese migration figures from fewer than 100 to over 300 per year during the latter half of the 1920s (see table 4.1). The pro-immigration policy of postrevolutionary Mexico aided the influx of Japanese newcomers, b ecause its 1924 treaty with Japan allowed for the unrestricted entry of parents, children, and other relatives of bono fide Japanese residents, contrary to what the US exclusionist law of the same year did.38 Along with Tijuana/ Ensenada, the Mexicali Valley therefore came to occupy a significant place on the evolving landscape of Japanese-settler colony making in Latin Amer ica a fter US racial exclusion. At the same time, while Japanese America did not physically absorb these newcomers from Japan due to US policy, t hese first-generation Japa nese Mexicans still belonged to the transborder ethnic economy and social world connected to Southern California’s Issei settlements. Although it is important to recognize that dissimilarities in legal regimes and race relations between the Anglo-Saxonist United States and less exclusionist Mexico created certain qualitative differences in the lives of Japanese residents on each side, their transborder new Japans remained deeply entwined, because Baja California offered what Southern California lacked, and vice versa, u nder the yoke of ever-intensifying US politics of immigration exclusion. Whereas the dearth of institutionalized racism in Mexico accounted
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for a favorable legal environment that allowed transplanted Issei farming and unobstructed labor migration, the presence of a larger consumer market and ethnic capital base in Los Angeles encouraged socioeconomic developments in rural Japanese satellite communities across the border. And b ehind all these developments stood imperial Japan, whose expansionist policies and aspirations had extended beyond the realm of its formal sovereign territories, especially a fter the First World War.39 Indeed, the role of Japanese California as a central driving force for immigrant expansionism and settler colonization on the Latin America side was constantly bolstered by political moves made by the Japanese government. For example, in order to interlock transborder ethnic economies for the creation of a regional hub of overseas Japanese development, Tokyo’s creation of local jurisdictional boundaries without regard for the formal national border provided a crucial context, one in which the immigrant populations of Southern California and Baja California Norte became further integrated in terms of their consciousness, regional identity, and settler practices. In the eyes of these Japanese, an ethnic community was organized geographically by the lines of demarcation drawn by the local Japanese association (Nihonjinkai), which worked as an administrative arm of the Japanese consulate. Under the Gentlemen’s Agreement, Tokyo assumed responsibility for preventing laborers from departing for the United States while still letting family members of bona fide US residents travel across the Pacific with valid passports. In order to ensure and enforce this critical legal distinction, Tokyo required Japanese consulates to issue an official proof of US residency for each Issei, whose f amily member would apply for a passport with that document in Japan. The local consular officials, however, were too understaffed to verify the status and personal information of e very single US resident. In 1908, as a m atter of expediency, the San Francisco consulate devised a new system by which to delegate the administrative function of certificate issuance to local Japanese associations, from which Issei residents in their jurisdictions could request necessary papers rather than from the consular office.40 This same procedure applied to every male Issei when they filed a request for annual deferment for Japanese military service on account of their foreign residence. As every immigrant had to theoretically register at the nearest Japanese association to use its services under this system, his or her perception of community membership came to revolve around the jurisdiction of a given Japanese association.
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In Southern California, the regional boundary of the ethnic community was firmly set after the establishment of the Japanese Consulate of Los Angeles in 1915, which oversaw the affairs of Japanese in Baja California Norte as well. Just as in the case of its counterparts in San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle, the Los Angeles consulate had local Issei leaders set up the regional Japanese association headquarters as the umbrella organization for all local affiliates in Southern California, as well as those in the Baja California towns of Mexicali (1917), Tijuana (1922), and Ensenada (1926).41 Therefore, by virtue of coming under the control of the Los Angeles consulate, the Japanese residents of Baja California came to compose part of the political network centered on the Central Japanese Association of Southern California (CJASC) in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo. It was therefore not surprising that this key Issei organization helped spearhead the exodus of California’s Japanese farmers for northern Mexico by conducting formal surveys on favorable “colonial” conditions there and encouraging their remigration into a contiguous “new frontier.” Moreover, in response to the CJASC’s request for the establishment of a new consular branch along Mexico’s Pacific coast, Japan’s foreign ministry opened one in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, in 1925 in order to manage the rapidly increasing re-migrants who wished to remain independent settler-farmers outside the reach of California’s racist laws.42 Collaborations between Japanese America and imperial Japan often transpired in a highly organized but inconspicuous manner. The Alien Land Laws propelled the moneyed interests of Los Angeles Issei to organize a number of for-profit concerns to broker immigrant land purchases and build infrastructure for a Japanese agricultural colony on Mexico’s frontera. From across the Pacific, Japan’s monopoly capital, backed by like-minded politi cal interests in Tokyo, frequently acted as an eager partner in such localized colonization efforts by California Japanese. Established in 1912, the Nichi-Boku Industrial Corporation (NBIC) exemplified a Los Angeles– based enterprise and movement for immigrant resettlement and colonization in Mexico’s borderlands, which many p eople of the home empire supported discursively and materially. A founder of an Issei-owned bank that had financed California’s co-ethnic farmers before legal exclusion, Takekawa Minetarō played a central role in organizing this transborder land company. The NBIC published a twenty-page publicity booklet in order to entice both Japanese American farmers and Japanese investors by presenting the familiar racial rhetoric and (pseudo)scientific data, embellished
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with scholarly excerpts and eye-catching pictures and elaborate maps. Takekawa discussed the availability of unoccupied fertile land on the Pacific side of Mexico, as well as the inferiority, manageability, and cheapness of “native” residents, who would “swarm any site of employment opportunities like mindless ants.” This racist characterization of Mexican workers led the interested parties to believe in the availability of cheap and expendable labor. At the same time, Takekawa did not neglect to mention the company’s plans to bring “immigrants from Japan to Mexico.” According to the Los Angeles Issei businessman, these f uture partners in frontier conquest would be able to “offer much higher-quality labor” than expendable “natives” and hence far greater support for colonization by California Issei transmigrants.43 In the northern coastal region of Sinaloa, less than 150 miles across the Baja California peninsula, the NBIC acquired 85,000 acres, which it subdivided for aspiring frontier settlers from Japanese America. Published in the company’s illustrated booklet, the “colony” map shows the land tracts to be sold to Japanese settler-farmers of Southern California. The descriptions (sales pitches) in the margins say: “The State of Sinaloa is called the ‘California’ of Mexico. And [our] colony is reputed as the most desirable and fertile land in that state. . . . It is the world’s only and most ideal colony for our race’s development” (see fig. 4.2).44 Enticed by these propitious images of the new transborder “California” frontier, a total of 104 Los Angeles Issei signed purchase agreements for an aggregate 12,379 acres between 1914 and 1921, and an additional 57 individuals reserved purchase orders for 4,820.45 Although most investors were Japanese residents of Los Angeles, the moneyed interests and political elites in Japan also chipped in.46 The Taiwan Seitō (Sugar Production) Company, the most important corporate machinery of industrial development in Japan’s southern colonial frontier, made a large investment in the NBIC and sent its own agricultural specialist to conduct a land survey in Sinaloa.47 Dignitaries, including Ōkuma Shigenobu (former prime minister) and Sakatani Yoshirō (former finance minister), publicly endorsed the NBIC’s project.48 The Los Angeles Japanese consulate also approved it, giving the impression of government support. While he publicly declared that the Sinaloa colony was “an extremely promising enterprise” for “small-scale [individual] settler agriculture” in a printed publicity material, the diplomat confidentially recommended to his superiors in Tokyo: “The [foreign] ministry should accord every facilit y for
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FIG. 4.2. The “colony” map. Source: “Nichi-Boku Colony: Nichiboku shokuminchi,” May 1914, p. 11, in the author’s personal collection.
[the NBIC] to create a model Japanese farming colony . . . so that more [similar] Japanese undertakings would follow” (in greater Latin America).49 In 1920, the semi-government-r un Overseas Enterprise Company (Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha) also dispatched an agent to investigate the feasibility of sponsoring the NBIC’s venture; this firm took charge of helping finance formal and informal colonization ventures inside and outside the Japanese empire. Despite all these signs of its promising f uture, the colony abruptly folded due to a financial scandal the following year. Yet it allowed a few hundred resettlers from Southern California to adopt the identity of frontier farmers without facing the constraints of the Alien Land Laws.50 A number of first-generation residents in Sinaloa, whom the orthodox narrative of Japanese Mexican history now celebrates as ethnic “pioneers,”
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originated from these former California Issei, who were inspired by a rosy idea of northern Mexico as an integrated transborder frontier u nder the 51 spell of Japan’s informal settler colonialism. Corporate attempts at organizing Japanese agricultural settler colonies across the border included the initiative of Japan’s monopoly capital as well. As these zaibatsu interests had concurrently financed imperial Japan’s endeavors of large-scale agricultural colonization within its sphere of influence since 1909, the instances in the US-Mexican borderlands elucidated indivisible links between the empire’s formal colonialism and the extraterritorial manifestations of settler colonialism in the Western Hemi sphere. Some examples on the US-Mexican borderlands featured well- known industrial leaders of imperial Japan, such as Shibusawa Eiichi and Asano Sōichirō, who envisioned the establishment of a gigantic Japanese- controlled cotton plantation in the Mexicali region. In these examples, leaders and members of Japanese America offered indispensable serv ice as intermediaries, migration brokers, and cross-border settler-farmers. Because agitators of the Yellow Peril scare in California, especially the fearmongering Hearst press, w ere always on the watch for cases of Japanese entry (“invasion”) into America’s “backyard” after the Gentlemen’s Agreement, the actions of Japan’s moneyed interests and their partnership with California Issei w ere generally kept outside public eyes and records. Yet, existing sources reveal that the series of surreptitious negotiations for large-scale land acquisition took place between the Japanese side and the white American-owned CRLC, Mexicali’s largest corporate landowner. In 1909, Shibusawa Eiichi began his attempt at concluding a major land deal for plantation-style settler colonization with Harry Chandler—the publisher of the Los Angeles Times—and a syndicate of white landowners, when Japan’s industrial mogul traveled to Los Angeles as the head of the empire’s first commercial mission to the United States. In the context of recessions following the Panic of 1907, Chandler and his colleagues wished to entice the Japanese to lease thousands of acres in the Mexicali Valley for cotton production, the most important US commodity export to Japan.52 Although nothing concrete came of this 1909 episode, Shibusawa’s circle kept an eye out for the possibility of creating a West Coast base of cotton importation for the textile industry—a backbone of the prewar Japanese economy—because domestic cotton mills and textile factories had relied on the more cost-prohibitive land-and-sea transport from New Orleans via San Francisco and, after 1914, through the Panama Canal importation
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route. Perhaps for this reason, the CRLC, of which Chandler’s concern was a major shareholder, received an offer of thirty million dollars from “certain moneyed interests” in Japan in 1915, when Shibusawa and his associates visited the United States again. CRLC executives took it for a formal “Japanese government” offer, which entailed the purchase of a large tract near the border town of Mexicali for “colonization” by local Issei farmers and laborers.53 At the same time, supported by many Tokyo government insiders, Asano Sōichirō, Shibusawa’s old friend, who ran his own industrial conglomerate, was also at work to strike a large property acquisition deal with the CRLC. Just like Shibusawa, Asano was interested in the Mexicali Valley because the area appeared to have the potential for erecting a Japanese- controlled hub of raw cotton production; California’s Imperial Valley, just north across the border, had been already a home to hundreds of Japanese immigrant farmers who had engaged in cotton production. The procurement of experienced growers and a labor force would not be an issue, and an increasing number of Issei had moved south of the border to make a name in local agriculture and commerce, exemplified by the likes of Shintani and Kawakita. A CRLC executive later recalled that Asano’s interest in the acquisition of its Mexicali land properties was as strong as Shibusawa’s had been for many years.54 In the spring of 1917, Asano dispatched his right-hand man, Hashimoto Umetarō, a onetime leader of the Japanese ethnic community in the US Pacific Northwest, to negotiate with Chandler a lease for fifty thousand acres near Mexicali for the length of ten years. This was a deal that would be worth $3,600,000 in total value, and it would bring “four hundred to one thousand Japanese laborers,” presumably from both Southern California and Japan.55 Most likely, Hashimoto was responsible for drafting this aspect of the blueprint, for he had had experience in immigrant labor contracting when he had resided in Seattle.56 In order to boost Chandler’s enthusiasm for this big business deal, Asano’s proxy was accompanied by a member of the House of Peers and the New York branch manager of the Yokohama Specie Bank, which made this negotiation look like a state-backed one.57 To jump-start a new Mexicali venture, Hashimoto partnered with Gō Ryūsaburō—one of Shibusawa’s protégés and a brother-in-law of the current foreign minister—who had extensive experience in the textile trade with the United States. Gō was an expansionist-minded entrepreneur in his own right, for he was involved in the establishment of the South Seas
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(Nan’yō) Society, the central organization of southward expansionists in imperial Japan. When Hashimoto began his negotiations with Chandler and the CRLC in 1917, Gō resigned his executive position at Japan’s leading brick manufacturer (Shibusawa’s concern) and immigrated to Southern California.58 Available sources suggest that this veteran businessman was secretly entrusted with a mission to start a model cotton farm under the triangular partnership of Shibusawa, Hashimoto/Asano, and a foreign ministry clique that stood b ehind them, with an eye to creating a sphere of Japanese economic influence and a major farm settlement in Baja California Norte. In Mexicali, Gō leased ten thousand acres, which instantly made him one of the largest Japanese farmers in the region at that time, and he hired an experienced Issei farmer to oversee eighty co-ethnic workers brought from the California side.59 This experimental farm was meant to serve as the foundation of a new Japanese cotton plantation and settler colony when the pending negotiations with the CRLC materialized. Along with Hashimoto’s strenuous efforts, Asano’s enthusiasm made Chandler optimistic about the “prospect [of a] big deal,” leading the latter even to favor the idea of “sell[ing] the whole property [to the former] if things work out.”60 A fter initial amiable negotiations, Hashimoto was equally exuberant, writing in his June 1917 correspondence: “We believe that everyt hing of our g rand project w ill be smoothly carried on [sic].”61 About two months later, however, the US State Department abruptly intervened in the business dealing and put its objection “in the form of a request to [Chandler’s group] as patriotic Americans”—an argument that was hard to ignore when the United States had recently entered World War I.62 National security was a paramount concern of the white republic, and the idea of massive Japanese landholdings and settlements south of the California border did not sit well with US officials or the xenophobic public. Chandler had to concede for the time being, but the end of the war allowed him and Hashimoto to revive negotiations in December 1918. Backed by Asano’s moneyed power, the Japanese side now proposed to buy up as much as eight hundred thousand acres with fifty million dollars instead of just leasing fifty thousand acres—a sweet offer that nevertheless met fierce resistance from within the ranks of CRLC shareholders.63 Inside the company, the anti-Japanese contingent mobilized a successful countermove against Chandler and his supporters by informing a War Department intelligence officer of the revival of the “repulsive” plan to construct a Japa nese settler colony in America’s backyard.64 Along with Senator James
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Phelan of California, a chief voice of anti-Japanese agitation at the time, the jingoistic Hearst press was quick to pick up the leaked story—with highly sensational spin on the allegedly predatory intention of imperial Japan behind the CRLC land deal.65 With the War and State Departments looking over his shoulder now, Chandler caved in to pressure by April 1919, thus informing Hashimoto: “Matters have taken a turn which prevent[s] me from giving further serious consideration to the business at this time.”66 National security concerns of the US government became wedded with the racial fears of the white American republic, thereby putting an end to the remote settler colonialism of Japanese capitalists and their partnership with segments of Japanese America and Japanese Mexico. A fter 1919, sensationalized US press reports further intensified popular Yellow Peril sentiments about Japanese “penetration” into “America’s backyard,” rumored at the level of as many as “100,000 men.”67 These race-driven demagogueries presented a significant push for the US decision to carry out a total ban on Japanese immigration u nder the 1924 Immigration Act and the tightening of its southern border against Japanese mobility. Wedged apart from Japanese America, northern Mexico thus ceased to look like a promised land for Japan’s overseas development and its extraterritorial settler colonialism—a perception reinforced by Mexico’s decision to prohibit the immigration of working-class foreigners (except for skilled individuals) in 1932.68 Because Japan proceeded to concentrate on the systematic transplantation of unemployed workers and farm families in the hinterlands of Brazil for agricultural colonization under bilateral agreements, the decade following 1924 witnessed the dramatic rerouting of Japanese migration flows from North America to South America.69 Nonetheless, while elevating the place of nonexclusionist Brazil on the imaginary map of Japanese overseas development, the manner in which northern Mexico disappeared from that map anticipated the decline of the entirety of Latin America under the combined effect of local racial nationalisms and national security scares regarding Japanese residents and their home empire. These developments w ere exemplified by severe restrictions on Japanese immigration imposed by Brazil and Peru in 1934 and 1936, respectively.70 Migration and settler colonialism in the US-Mexican borderlands not only helped catalyze Japanese mobility to and colonization efforts in greater Latin Amer ica, but that history also signaled parallel developments with regard to the turbulent experiences of Japanese immigrants in South American socie ties and their complex relationships with the homeland and its aggressive
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imperialism that rendered them foreignized racial perils in their adopted countries even before the outbreak of the war. This chapter has explored the neglected history of Japanese settler colonialism in the northernmost region of Latin America, specifically the borderlands of US and Mexican Californias. Between the early 1900s and the mid-1920s, this interstitial trinational space witnessed dynamic streams of Japanese immigrant bodies, moneys, ideas, and settler colonial practices in line with Japan’s expansionist ideology and policy mandate of overseas development.71 What emerged on the northern fringes of Latin America was a borderland Japanese community of re-migrants from California, Peru, and Mexico’s interior, as well as newcomers directly from across the Pacific. And this community was viewed as an extension of the home empire: a new Japan and its development celebrated as yet another example of the Japanese empire’s borderless expansion. Hence, the mobility of intrahemispheric re- migrants and transpacific immigrants into the US-Mexican borderlands constituted part of the ongoing global diaspora of imperial Japanese, where US racism caused the vectors of their movements to shift steadily from exclusionist Anglophone America to racially friendly Latin America from the 1910s onward. Not only did this historical unfolding make northern Mexico inseparable from Japanese immigrant society in Anglophone America, but it also rendered that liminal space an important (albeit largely neglected) area of Japanese Latin America as well as a pivotal node in its connections to the home empire. Although the differences between the two Americas w ere significant in terms of the different modes and forms of national race/immigrant politics, Japanese of the United States, Mexico, and greater Latin America shared overlapping and interlinked experiences as immigrants through common aspirations and practices of settler colonialism rooted in Japan’s expansionist ideology and actions. This chapter documented such entangled histories of Japanese migrations and settler experiences in the Western Hemisphere— the histories that constituted integral components of imperial Japan’s extraterritorial settler colonialism and global expansionism.
Notes 1. On a fuller discussion of Japanese settler colonialism, its connections to US- frontier discourse, and its state and private components that cut across the presumed
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divides between Japan’s sovereign territories in the Asian Pacific and the extraterritorial immigrant communities in foreign lands (especially the Americas), see Azuma, In Search, pp. 4–15. By challenging the similar divides between East Asia and Latin America in the scholarly research on Chinese diasporas, Fredy Gonzáles’s study of Chinese immigrants in Mexico narrates the transpacific manifestations of nationalist and ethnic politics, as well as its inseparable ties to the home states in China. See Gonzáles, Paisanos Chinos, pp. 1–8, 11–13. 2. Azuma, In Search, pp. 104–114. 3. Japanese America, especially its Southern California ethnic community, produced a substantial number of re-migrants to Brazil’s new Japanese settlements, especially during the 1920s. On this, see Azuma, In Search, pp. 143–144, 148–149; Azuma, Between Two Empires, p. 81; and Lu, Making of Japanese, p. 213. 4. On how white American racism propelled first-generation Japanese Americans to seek their own “frontiers,” including Mexico, see Azuma, In Search, esp. chap. 2–3. On the formation of a common social and cultural space and local identity over this transborder ethnic community, see Azuma, “Community Formation,” pp. 39–41; and Tokunaga, “Hainichi iminhō,” pp. 65–81. 5. Azuma, In Search, pp. 13–17, 37–41; and on Hokkaido colonization and transpacific migration, see Lu, Making of Japanese, pp. 39–68. 6. Pyle, New Generation, pp. 99–102; Azuma, In Search, pp. 37–39; and Lu, Making of Japanese, pp. 39–98. 7. Azuma, In Search, pp. 57–64, 110. 8. Azuma, In Search, pp. 5–6. 9. Azuma, Between Two Empires, pp. 27–29; Ichioka, Issei, pp. 40–52; Azuma, “Historical Overview,” pp. 32–38; and Uchida, Brokers of Empire, pp. 36–58. 10. Azuma, In Search, pp. 16–17. 11. Azuma, In Search, pp. 6–7, 81–89. On emigration companies, see also Ichioka, Issei, pp. 47–51; and Moriyama, Imingaisha. 12. On the blurring boundaries of dekasegi laborers and colonial settlers inside and outside the formal empire, see Azuma, Between Two Empires, pp. 22–25, 89–110; and Azuma, In Search, pp. 63, 107–108. 13. Modell, Economic and Politics, pp. 115–118. 14. Ichioka, Issei, p. 52. 15. Ichioka, Issei, pp. 51–52, 67–70; and Azuma, In Search, pp. 25–30. 16. Gaimushō Ryōji Ijūbu, Waga kokumin no kaigai, pp. 140, 144. 17. Masterson and Funada-Classen, Japanese in Latin America, pp. 33–34; and Nichiboku Kyōkai, Nichiboku kōryūshi, pp. 342–348. 18. Ichioka, Issei, pp. 69–72. 19. Gaimushō Ryōji Ijūbu, Waga kokumin no kaigai, pp. 140, 144. 20. Ōyama Ujirō, “Honpōjin mitsunyūkokusha ni kanshi torishirabe no ken,” March 26, 1923, in Fusei tokōsha oyobi dō-hōjosha torishimari kankei zakken (3.8.8.21), Diplomatic Archives of the Foreign Ministry of Japan (hereafter DAFMJ), Tokyo. 21. Edward P. Morse, “Political: Japanese Illegally in America,” June 10, 1922, pp. 31–32, in box 563, Military Intelligence Division Correspondence, 1917–1941, Rec ords of the War Department General and Special Staffs (RG 165), National Archives and Records Administration (hereafter NARA), College Park, MD.
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22. Mizutani, Hokubei Aichi kenjinshi, pp. 259–270. The quote is from page 270. 23. See the map (fig. 4.1) attached to the report. Teikoku Heigen Nihonjinkai to Ōyama Ujirō, September 29, 1915, Honpō imin kankei zakken: Bokkoku no bu, v. 3 (3.8.2.285–1), DAFMJ. There was another route of illegal entry at Ciudad Juárez–El Paso, which was popular among t hose who fled mines in Chihuahua and Coahuila, even though the use of this route became more risky and far less prevalent than the Baja California routes a fter the early 1910s due to the effects of the Mexican Revolution and tightening US surveillance. And in 1914, the coordinated relocation of Japa nese residents from war-torn Chihuahua to Mexicali took place u nder the support of US-based Japanese diplomats, thereby turning Baja California Norte into the central hub of prospective border crossers. See Masterson, Japanese in Latin America, pp. 33– 34; Geiger, Subverting Exclusion, pp. 124–134; and Adachi to Makino, April 10, 1914, Bokkoku nairan kankei ikken: Teikoku no taido, v. 3 (5.3.2.71–2), DAFMJ. 24. An example of Japanese “stowaways” who traveled from San Felipe to Mexicali in Baja California Norte reveals the danger of the second option. In August 1915, twenty- three immigrants from Japan chartered a small merchant vessel with thirty-five Asian Indians and three Chinese at Mazatlán, Sinaloa, before heading for San Felipe on the Baja California peninsula. This group of multiethnic border crossers temporarily disbanded, however, when illness among the Japanese prevented them from continuing to proceed on land together. While the Asian Indians and Chinese headed northward into the vast desert from San Felipe, the Japanese stayed put with their sick friends for the time being. One week later, they began to follow in their shipmates’ footsteps. Three days passed, and while water and food ran short, the Japanese saw no end of the desert in sight. Then, they stumbled upon the corpses of several of the Asian Indians, who had apparently died of dehydration in the summer heat. A quick deliberation resulted in a decision to go back to San Felipe to regroup. The return trip was a torturous one, as the Japanese had to survive on urine, and when they reached San Felipe, the head count had dropped to sixteen. While recouping and regrouping, the Japanese immigrants met the fourteen surviving Asian Indians, with whom they shared food and medicine. Two weeks later, the second expedition started with a total of thirty Japanese and Asian Indian members, but this time they w ere also accompanied by hired Mexican guides, who knew where to obtain clean w ater in the desert. After ten days of continuous walking, the group finally arrived at Mexicali safely. On this episode, see Teikoku Heigen Nihonjinkai to Ōyama. On the life story of another Japanese border crosser from Peru, see Nagata, Kaigai risshiden, pp. 323–339. 25. On Chinese immigrant border crossing, see Lee, At America’s Gates, pp. 161– 162, 179–187; Young, Alien Nation, pp. 153–193; and Romero, “Transnational Chinese Immigrant Smuggling,” pp. 1–16. On the Japanese/Okinawan use of the preexisting Chinese system, see Kōchi, Imin no aiwa, p. 39; and Ichioka, Issei, pp. 69–70. 26. See Azuma, “Community Formation,” pp. 34–35. 27. Nichiboku Kyōkai, Nichiboku kōryūshi, pp. 342–343, 424–426; Kitamura, Issei toshite amerika, pp. 55–56; and Gaimushō Tsūshō-k yoku, “Bokkoku ‘ensenada’ hōmen ni okeru honpōjin no hatten jōkyō” (May 1932), p. 6, DAFMJ. 28. Fujioka Shirō, Ayumi no ato, 545; and Nihonjin Mekishiko Ijūshi Hensan Iinkai, Nihonjin Mekishiko ijūshi, p. 205. 29. Given the illicit nature of immigrant smuggling, other brokers w ere more of underground operations usually connected to the Tokyo Club, an organized crime syn-
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dicate that was headquartered in the heart of Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo with branches all over the Golden State and the US-Mexican borderlands, including San Diego / Tijuana, El Centro and Calexico / Mexicali. Between the 1910s and the 1930s, the Tokyo Club reigned over the close-k nit networks of gambling halls and brothels up and down the Pacific Coast—the clandestine channels that the gangsters presumably utilized when smuggling/helping smuggle ship jumpers and undocumented immigrants from Peru, Japan, and Mexico itself. With the power of money and threat of violence, the immigrant gangsters held an upper hand over legitimate community leadership and businesses, squashing opposition to immigrant smuggling and attempts at moral reform backed by the local Japanese consulate. One example actually involved the murder of the Japanese Association secretary in Mexicali, who had tried to have female ship jumpers apprehended and deported in 1926. Tokyo Club members from Los Angeles w ere subsequently arrested for the murder by the Mexican police. Available sources suggest that Tokyo Club bosses maintained strong ties to Japan’s ultranationalist Kokuryūkai, or the Amur River / Black Dragon Society, which played a notable role in pushing for imperialist agendas relative to Korea and Manchuria. It is not difficult to surmise that the ideology of overseas development, which Kokuryūkai activists also often employed, allowed Tokyo Club gangsters to justify their transnational criminal activities in the same language. See Nichiboku Kyōkai, Nichiboku kōryūshi, pp. 472–477; Kashū mainichi, May 23, 1935; and Rafu shimpō, May 24, 1935. On the continuous role of Mexicali as a point of illicit Japanese entry a fter 1924, see Tokunaga, “Hainichi iminhō,” pp. 74–75. 30. See Masterson, Japanese in Latin America, pp. 10–11, 44–46, 51–85; and Azuma, In Search, pp. 99–101. 31. Azuma, In Search, pp. 53, 57–59. 32. On the almost simultaneous upsurge of organized farm settlement making inside and outside the Japanese empire around 1907–1913, see Azuma, In Search, pp. 105– 112. 33. Azuma, In Search, pp. 58–59, 88, 114–115. 34. Ota Mishima, Destino México, pp. 107, 111. In a recent Japanese-language essay, Tokunaga Yū also examines the formation of a transborder ethnic community a fter 1924. See Tokunaga, “Hainichi iminhō,” pp. 65–81. 35. Kuga Narumi to Tanaka Giichi, “Bokkoku shucchōkata risei no ken,” May 21, 1927, in Honshō narabi zaigai kōkan’in shucchō kankei zakken: Zaibei kakkan (M.2.2.0.1-3-2), DAFMJ. A fter the termination in 1924 of new Japanese immigration into the United States, Ensenada also experienced the influx of immigrant fishermen from Japan, who freely traveled between Baja California and Southern California aboard their ships. Typically contracted by California-based Japanese firms, t hese men engaged in coastal and deep-sea fishing, landing at San Diego and San Pedro (near Los Angeles) periodically to drop off their catch of tuna and bonito. Although they were “residents of Mexico” on paper, t hose California cities w ere as much their home as Ensenada was. See “Japanese Activities in Southern California,” n.d., pp. 1–2, in box 226, Security Classified Administrative Correspondence, 1942–1946, Office of Naval Intelligence, (RG38), NARA; Gaimushō Tsūshō-k yoku, “Bokkoku ‘ensenada’ hōmen ni okeru honpōjin no hatten jōkyō,” pp. 19–26; and Nichiboku Kyōkai, Nichiboku kōryūshi, pp. 428–437.
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36. Yoshiyama, Chūmoku subeki Mekishiko, p. 301. U nder Mexican law, foreigners could not own land within fifty kilometers of the border, but many got around the restriction by setting up a land company or becoming a naturalized Mexican citizen. 37. See [Fukuoka shoki], “Shimo kariforunia hantō nanboku ryōshū jijō shisatsu hōkokusho,” September 1926, p. 127, in Honpō imin kankei zakken: Bokkoku no bu, v. 2, DAFMJ; Zai-R afu Nihon Ryōjikan, “Rafu jijō,” November 1925, pp. 40–41, DAFMJ; Nichiboku Kyōkai, Nichiboku kōryūshi, p. 440; and Masterson, Japanese in Latin America, pp. 61–63. On the CRLC, see Kerig, “Yankee Enclave,” pp. 16–179, esp. pp. 169–170. Most of the arable and undeveloped land in the Mexicali Valley belonged to the California-based CRLC and its white American shareholders, including Harry Chandler. On the “multicultural society” in the Mexicali Valley and the prominence of Chinese cotton growers in Mexicali before the early 1920s, see Castillo-Munõz, Other California, pp. 31–51; and Hu-DeHart, “Chinese of Baja California,” pp. 11–12. 38. Gaimushō Ryōji Ijūbu, Waga kokumin no kaigai, pp. 140, 144; and García, Looking like the Enemy, pp. 78–81, esp. p. 80. 39. See Azuma, In Search, pp. 126–130, 135–143; and Tokunaga, “Hainichi iminhō,” pp. 65–81. 40. Ichioka, Issei, pp. 159–162; and Azuma, Between Two Empires, pp. 43–44. 41. Gaimushō, “Nihonjinkai narabi hōjin jitsugyō dantai chōsa,” 1939, DAFMJ. Major vernacular newspapers of Los Angeles, like the Rafu shimpō, the Rafu nichibei, and the Kashū mainichi, had significant pools of subscribers south of the border. Alongside various regional columns in t hese papers was the “Lower California” (Tei-k ashū) section, where resident correspondents in Mexicali, Ensenada, and Tijuana periodically sent in reports of local occurrences. Japanese who’s who and yearbooks, which the Rafu shimpō and the Kashū mainichi published periodically during the 1930s, illuminate the Issei’s perceived linkages between Southern California and Baja California Norte. Directories of Japanese residents and businesses in Mexicali, Tijuana, and Ensenada were usually placed right a fter the Imperial Valley section or the San Diego section. See, for example, Rafu Shimpōsha, Rafu nenkan; and Kashū Mainichi Shimbunsha, Kamai Nenkan. 42. Ichioka, Issei, pp. 241–242; editorial in Rafu shimpō, April 10, 1924; and Nihonjin Mekishiko Ijūshi Hensan Iinkai, ed, Nihonjin Mekishiko ijūshi, pp. 163, 174. Tokunaga discusses other reasons that justified the establishment of the Mazatlán consulate, which included Japan’s commercial interests and bilateral political considerations. See Tokunaga, “Hainichi iminhō,” pp. 71–73. 43. “Nichi-boku Colony: Nichiboku shokuminchi,” May 1914, p. 11, in the author’s personal collection. All quotes are from this source. 44. “Nichi-boku Colony,” pp. 14–15, and maps. The quotes are from a colony subdivision map (no pagination). See also “Nichi-boku sangyō kabushiki kaisha jigyō setsumei,” 1918; and Takekawa Minetarō to Adachi Mineichirō, October 1, 1915, both in Honpō kaisha kankei zakken: Nichi-boku sangyō kabushiki kaisha (hereafter HNB), DAFMJ. 45. “Tochi baibai keiyakusha,” in HNB, DAFMJ. The tally is by the author. 46. “Nichi-boku sangyō kabushiki kaisha kabunushi roku,” in HNB, DAFMJ; and Ōkagawa, “ ‘Kyogyōka’ ni yoru giji benchā tōshi fando to risuku kanri,” pp. 14–15.
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47. Yamamoto Teijirō to Tanaka Tōkichi, “Nichi-boku shokuminchi shisatsu hōkokusho,” November 4, 1920; and Ōyama Ujirō to Hanihara Masanao, February 16, 1921, both in HNB, DAFMJ. 48. See, for example, a company advertisement for investment published in Tokyo nichinichi shinbun, July 13, 1920. Its Tokyo office was headed by the former chargé d’affaires of Japan to Mexico. 49. Ō yama Ujirō to Nakamura Takashi, December 7, 1917; Ōyama to Uchida Yasuya, December 2, 1920; and “Nichi-boku sangyō kabushiki kaisha Mekishiko nōjō ijūsha annai,” ca. 1920, all in HNB, DAFMJ. 50. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Kaigai kōgyō kaisha shōshi (August 1935), p. 19, National Diet Library (hereafter NDL), Tokyo. On the legal trouble in which NIBC was engulfed, see Osaka asashi shinbun, June 15, 1921. 51. S ee Nichiboku Kyōkai, Nichiboku kōryūshi, pp. 422–423; Nihonjin Mekishiko Ijūshi Hensan Iinkai, Nihonjin Mekishiko ijūshi, pp. 163–164, 235, 239–241, 326–328; and Murai Ken’ichi, Paionia retsuden (1975), pp. 63–64, 66–67, 101–102, 107, Nikkei imin kankei shiryō, Modern Japanese Political History Materials Room, NDL. 52. E. E. Easton to Henry Z. Osborne, November 26, 1909, folder 35, box “Anderson’s Portfolios,” Colorado River Land Company Papers, Colorado River Land Company Collection (hereafter CRLCC), Sherman Library and Gardens, Corona Del Mar, California. 53. “An outline of book on L.A. Times and development of So. Calif.,” n.d., in folder “Sale of Lands of CRLC to Japanese, 1915, 1923,” box 1, Enrique Cortes Papers, CRLCC. 54. See page 2 of a ten-page report with no date in folder “118-a, Colonization, Allison Matters ½,” box Q , CRLCC. Under the influence of the anti-Asian Alien Land Laws, propertied Chinese immigrants in California also invested in farming endeavors in the Mexicali Valley. On their activities on CRLC estates, see Castillo-Munõz, Other California, pp. 67–72. 55. [Harry Chandler] to M. Sugawara, U. Hashimoto, and K. Imanishi, June 12, 1917; and Chandler to T. E. Gibbon, June 19, 1917, both in folder 1917, box 7, MHS Letters, CRLCC. The quote is from the second source. The tally is by the author. 56. Having once lived in the western United States, Hashimoto had his own agenda. His penchant for frontier life, adventure, and settler colonialism was deeply ingrained in his past trajectory as a self-styled New World pioneer. In the mid-1890s, for example, when he had learned about the discovery of gold in Alaska, Hashimoto had joined the Klondike Gold Rush, traveling to the Northern Territory with a dream of becoming a Japanese gold mining king. Although his Alaskan adventure was a disastrous failure, this enterprising leader of early Japanese America did not give in and had a try at l abor contracting when emigration companies and their agents w ere making a bundle of money by populating the western frontier with Japanese immigrant laborers. Between 1904 and 1908, Hashimoto had taken five hundred Japanese from Seattle to the Rocky Mountains and supervised their laying of railroad tracks. A de cade later, this colorful background induced him to envision a similar scheme of large- scale l abor importation for land development and cotton cultivation in the US-Mexican borderlands. See Ōta, Hashimoto Umetarō, pp. 63–94, esp. pp. 78–83, 91–94.
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57. [Chandler] to Sugawara, Hashimoto, and Imanishi, June 12, 1917; and Los Angeles Times, “Seek Cotton Lands on the Colorado,” June 14, 1917. 58. Gakubuchi-sei [pseud.], “Gō Ryūsaburō-shi,” pp. 64–67; Matsushita, Jinteki jigyō taikei 2, p. 178; and Higashi Kōji, Bei-boku jūō, p. 365. Gō remained in Southern California as a leader of the ethnic community and ran a trading firm u ntil 1935, when he moved to Thailand to set up a Japanese government-backed cotton plantation. See Yatabe to Hirota, August 20, 1935, in Honpō kigyōka no sōmen kōjō oyobi mengyō saien keiei ni kansuru ken; and “Shōmeisho,” April 27, 1939, in Kakkoku ni okeru nōsanbutsu kankei zakken: Men oyobi menka no bu, v. 18, DAFMJ. 59. Ōta, Hashimoto Umetarō, pp. 138–139; Higashi, Bei-boku jūō, pp. 365–368; page 3 of a ten-page report with no date, in folder “118-a, Colonization, Allison Matters ½,” box Q , CRLCC; and Gaimushō Tsūshō-k yoku, ed., “Kaigai Nihon jitsugyōsha no chōsa,” December 1918, p. 231, DAFMJ. 60. Chandler to M. H. Sherman, teleg ram, April 28, 1917; and Chandler to [Sherman], April 19, 1917, both in folder 1917, box 7, MHS Letters, CRLCC. 61. Hashimoto and Sugawara to Chandler, June 15, 1917, in folder 1917, box 7, MHS Letters, CRLCC. 62. Chandler to Sherman, August 9, 1917, in folder 1917, box 7, MHS Letters, CRLCC. Hashimoto’s published biography contradicts what primary sources reveal. According to the book, Hashimoto allegedly spearheaded the land deal of his own volition without Asano’s prior knowledge. Asano, as it narrates, convinced Hashimoto to cancel the deal after it was successfully concluded—advice that Hashimoto accepted reluctantly. Most likely, this distorted narrative reflects an effort to absolve Asano from the rather embarrassing demise of the land deal caused by Yellow Peril demagogues. See Ōta, Hashimoto Umetarō, pp. 138–139. 63. Hashimoto to Chandler, teleg ram, January 4, 1919; O. F. Brant to Chandler, January 6, 1919, and January 17, 1919, all in folder “Japanese to Buy Land, 1918–1919,” box 1, Enrique Cortes Papers, CRLCC. 64. C. A. Wardlaw to Frederick Simpich, March 1, 1919; and Brant to Chandler, January 17, 1919, both in folder “Japanese to Buy Land, 1918–1919,” box 1, Enrique Cortes Papers, CRLCC. 65. Los Angeles Examiner, “Landowners Called upon to Give Full Explanation,” March 22, 1919. 66. [Chandler] to Hashimoto, draft letter, n.d.; and Chandler to Brant, January 21, 1919, both in folder “Japanese to Buy Land, 1918–1919,” box 1, Enrique Cortes Papers, CRLCC. 67. See García, Looking like the Enemy, pp. 48–55, 80–81; and, for example, San Francisco Daily News, “Japs Look to Mexico for Colonization,” August 3, 1925; and San Francisco Bulletin, “Japan Colony for Lower California Rumored,” October 23, 1924. 68. Tokunaga Yū unveils how local labor disputes between Issei farmers and Mexican immigrant workers in Southern California catalyzed anti-Japanese agitation in Mexicali in 1933. See Tokunaga, “Japanese Farmers, Mexican Workers,” pp. 179–190. In Baja California Norte, long-standing anti-Chinese sentiments also produced a synergy with the rising nativist agrarista movement, which culminated in the expropriation of all “foreign-controlled” farms, including the Japanese-r un estates, by local Mexican citizens by 1937. See García, Looking like the E nemy, p. 81; and Nichiboku Kyōkai,
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Nichiboku kōryūshi, pp. 443–445. On anti-Chinese sentiments among borderland Mexicans, Hu-DeHart, “Chinese of Baja California,” pp. 21–25; and Chang, Chino, esp. pp. 124–188. 69. On Japan’s state-backed program of mass migration and agricultural colonization in Brazil, see Azuma, In Search, pp. 135–143; and Masterson, Japanese in Latin America, pp. 79–84. Between 1924 and 1934, Brazil’s Japanese population quadrupled from 41,774 to 173,500. Aided by the rise of South America as a prime destination of agricultural settler colonists from Japan before its seizure of Manchuria, Peru’s Japa nese population also doubled from 9,864 to 21,127; and Argentina’s from 2,388 to 5,492. In the same ten-year period, Mexico experienced only a modest increase from 3,310 to 5,360. See Gaimushō Ryōji Ijūbu, Waga kokumin no kaigai, pp. 168–169. 70. See Masterson, Japanese in Latin America, pp. 71–73, 75, 81; and Gardiner, Japa nese and Peru, pp. 38–39, 51–53. There was evidence of the US’s role in whipping up a local abhorrence of Japanese “infiltration” and “yellow peril” in Brazil and Peru toward the late 1930s. See Lesser, Negotiating National Identity, pp. 93–94, 116–132, esp. p. 116; and Lee, “ ‘Yellow Peril,’ ” pp. 315–358. 71. On the entanglement of international diplomatic relations and local race politics in the US-Mexican borderlands during the early 1930s, see Tokunaga, “Japanese Farmers, Mexican Workers,” pp. 165–197, esp. pp. 190–197.
c h a p t e r
5
The Immigrant-Homeland Connection The Development of the Japanese Community in Peru Ayumi Takenaka
O
ver the course of their century-long presence in Peru, Japanese immigrants and their descendants have established a unified, prosperous community. Long depicted (and sometimes criticized) as “closed” and “exclusive,” the community is frequently seen as a product that emerged out of the harsh external reality in pre–World War II Peru.1 A fter all, Japanese immigrants and their descendants faced much hostility and discrimination as a racial minority in the country historically dominated by European settlers. As Yuji Ichioka succinctly described Japanese immigration to the Americas as “a history of a racial minority struggling to survive in a hostile land,”2 in Peru, too, they were marginalized and racialized in the land where they once had a dream of making a fortune.3 Studies on immigrant integration typically focus on the context of reception. How the host society receives newcomers is important, as migrant- friendly policies and favorable labor market conditions generally facilitate their integration.4 The characteristics of immigrants also m atter, such as their education, proficiency in the host language, and ethnic proximity to the majority population.5 Depending on a combination of these factors, immigrants may steadily assimilate or retain their own community. They may also engage in immigrant transnationalism by maintaining active and sustaining ties to their countries of origin. In either case, what is often missing in studies on immigrant integration is the role played by the sending state, or how the sending state shapes the course of immigrant integration in the host society. In this chapter, I examine the case of Japanese immigrants and their descendants in Peru and argue that their experiences—of why they suffered hostility and how they coped with it by building a solid community— 126
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should not simply be understood within the local Peruvian context but in the broader historical context of Japanese national development. Overseas Japanese communities, originally called colonias (colonies) by the Japanese state and immigrants in Latin America, formed part of Japan’s strategy to cultivate new commercial routes and extend spheres of influence in the world. This history helps us to understand better how Japanese immigrants were treated and marginalized in Peru and also how they developed their community in coping with the external hostility. I illustrate this process by looking at the case of Japanese immigrants in Peru. The well-established, and now prosperous and reputable, community is not only a product of racism once rampant in the host society; it is also a remnant of how Japan attempted to expand its footholds abroad and how Japanese immigrants and their descendants related and resorted to Japan as their m other country. Throughout the history of Japanese immigration and settlement in Peru, the Japanese state played a pivotal role in consolidating the community, and it in turn s haped the attitudes of the host society and the Peruvian government toward the immigrants. By tracing this history, the chapter sheds light on the broader debate on how ties between immigrants and their home country shape their integration process in the host society.6 In the sections below, I first discuss the host environment Japanese immigrants encountered upon arriving in Peru before turning to the role played by the Japanese state in community development. In discussing how Japan’s involvement shaped the relationship between immigrants and the host society, the following section focuses on cotton trade between Peru and Japan and the series of disputes it generated to illustrate the process.
Racial Hostility in the Peruvian Context Japanese immigration to Peru is often described as a history of hardship and suffering. A fter the first group of Japanese immigrants set foot in Peru in 1899, they certainly endured what the Peru Shimpo called a “disillusioned farm life” (genmetsu no kōchi seikatsu). Immigrants were initially recruited to work on coastal sugar plantations u nder a four-year contract. At that time, Peru was undergoing rapid development as a result of economic expansion in Western Europe; the demand for Peruvian agricultural products, such as sugarcane and cotton, increased rapidly.7 As a result, Western capital rushed in for expanding business, and this required armies of cheap
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labor. Initially, slave labor was brought in for plantation work, but slavery was abolished in 1854. The subsequent “coolie” trade brought over 87,000 Chinese indentured laborers, but it also came to an end in 1874. The attempt to bring in Indigenous populations from Peru’s interior did not work because of peasants’ strong attachment to their lands.8 The alternative was to rely on immigration. The Peruvian state, dominated by p eople of European descent, desired nothing but European immigrants to “improve their race.” Although the government provided subsidies to immigrants from Europe and the US by implementing the White Preference Law (1873), their efforts were unfruitful. European immigrants often preferred more profitable and politically stable destinations, such as Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. Peru had l ittle to offer the prospective settler due to lower standards of living, the antiquated hacienda system that prohibited land ownership, and poor sanitary conditions with frequent epidemics, such as malaria, yellow fever, and typhus.9 Faced with growing pressure from plantation o wners, the Peruvian government reluctantly turned to “Asiatics.” So begun in 1899, Japanese immigration to Peru continued to grow, reaching 20,630 in 1923, when contract labor was abolished.10 The origins of the hostility the immigrants faced can be traced to their early plantation work. Largely incorporated as indentured laborers in transition from a slave economy to capitalism, they w ere exploited in quasi-slavery working and living conditions.11 Contracts were frequently broken. Payments w ere delayed. Labor disputes were common.12 In an unfamiliar climate, diseases (e.g., malaria and typhoid) w ere also prevalent.13 Just like Chinese and Indian indentured laborers who similarly substituted for African slaves in the Americas, the Japanese rebelled, protested, and ran away; many also perished on the plantations. A fter their contracts ended, many Japanese immigrants headed for (or fled to) urban centers, such as Lima and Callao, while some remained in rural areas. In cities, most immigrants engaged in small businesses, such as barbers, restaurants, bodegas (small grocery stores), and bazares (small stores of textiles and h ousehold goods) that required relatively little capital. As they became dominant in these small businesses, it ignited hostility on the part of the host society.14 Perceiving them as a threat, Lima’s central labor union established the Anti-Asian Association in 1917 and appealed through their newspaper La Hoja Amarilla (The yellow page) to Peru’s president to abolish “yellow immigration.”15 The populist pol itical
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party, Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA), also supported such efforts by intensifying their anti-Japanese campaigns both in the press and on the streets.16 Soon afterwards, a series of discriminatory measures emerged, aimed at curtailing Japanese activities and further immigration from Japan. Hostility against the Japanese began to escalate during the 1920s and 1930s in the context of the economic contraction in the world. The Great Depression hit hard Peru’s economy, which was dependent on international commodity markets. Amid the economic downturn, the Leguía administration (1919–1930) was toppled by the military commander Sánchez Cerro in 1930, bringing about further social turmoil in the country. During this period of economic and political instability, a wave of nationalism surged in Peru. Peruvian nationalists attributed Peru’s growing economic and societal problems to the penetration of foreign capital, which had increased to $400 million in the mid-1930s.17 Indeed, the US, which was Peru’s major creditor, controlled most of the largest corporations in Peru, while the British dominated Peru’s principal railways, petroleum, mining, agriculture, manufacturing, and trade. Italians dominated Peru’s banking, and the Japanese w ere predominant in the retail trades and in cotton production.18 This growing sense of nationalism sweeping through Peru further aggravated the anti-Japanese movement. It was in this context that a “community-oriented structure” emerged among Japanese immigrants as a strategy to cope with the hostile environment.19 This period coincided with the creation of three Japanese newspapers and thirty-six schools, in addition to the numerous prefectural associations.20 This community-oriented structure, however, did not really become a solid community u ntil the Japanese state stepped in.
The Role of the Japanese State The consolidation of the community began with the creation of an umbrella association. In 1917, the Central Japanese Association (Chūō Nihonjin kai, or today’s Japanese Peruvian Association, known by the Spanish acronym APJ) was created by merging groups of immigrant laborers and so-called intellectuals u nder the leadership of Lima’s Japanese consulate. Both groups w ere formerly antagonistic toward each other but agreed that a unified community would benefit them as an adaptation strategy. The
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merger, in reality, took the form of annexing the immigrants’ group by the intellectuals.21 Officially established to promote mutual help and solidarity, the Central Japanese Association was run as a quasi-official organ of the Japanese government, with the director of Morioka Emigration Com pany in Peru, Kannosuke Iida, as the president of the association. Within the forcefully unified “community,” the poorer immigrants continued to be treated by Japanese bureaucrats and businessmen as “second-class citizens,” and the community was organized in a top-down manner, with a strong orientation toward the “homeland.”22 Although the Japanese state exerted influence in other Japanese communities, nowhere was this influence more noticeable than in Peru.23 In the US, the Japanese consulate in San Francisco created a similar central body, the Japanese Association of America, in 1908 to fight against the growing anti-Japanese movement in the area.24 Like in Peru, the association was hierarchically organized with the Japanese consul on top, and the government exerted influence over its emigrants in America through such a structure.25 In Brazil, too, formal associations were led by Japanese consulate staff and employees of (quasi-official) emigration companies; subsequently, t hese organizations were structurally and symbolically connected to Japan.26 In Peru, where the Japanese population was more clustered in Lima and smaller in number, it was easier to control and manage. As a result, the Japanese government maintained “a closer political control over its immigrant colonies in Peru than elsewhere in Latin America” and managed to forge a more “unified” immigrant community than anywhere in the Americas.27 By establishing associations, the government hoped to maintain and facilitate communication with the emigrants. It was critical, the government believed, to have a “representative voice” abroad both to render support and reap resources from the immigrant community. Much of Japa nese emigration to Peru (and elsewhere to South America) was assisted, or induced, by the Japanese state anyway; it was part of Japan’s national development project, aimed at forging strong modern nationhood and catch up with the economically and militarily more advanced West. To this end, it was imperative to consolidate colonias and keep them subjected to their homeland, as emigrants were expected to contribute to its expanding empire as agents of development and territorial expansion.28 Through overseas colonies, the government also hoped to foster bilateral relations and commercial activities with the host country.29
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The state’s involvement also reflected the prewar national ideology. Since all Japanese w ere considered to be connected to the blood-based family headed by the emperor, emigrants naturally formed a part of the Japanese extended family.30 “The Japanese w ill always remain Japanese, no matter where they emigrate and w hether they acquire a foreign nationality. Japa nese ‘blood’ w ill always be Japanese,” stated Shinpei Gotō, a pro-emigration statesman, in debating over the nationality of foreign-born c hildren of Japa nese emigrants.31 Since prewar emigrants w ere considered an indispensable resource for Japan’s national development, it was also crucial for the state to keep them “Japanese.”32 Wherever Japanese emigrants settled, therefore, the Japanese state tried to instill a nationalistic ideology by subsidizing the construction of Japanese schools.33 The Japanese language was taught, along with Japanese spirit and morals, in accordance with the national school curriculum.34 An official of the Japanese Education Promotion Committee (Nihonjin Bunkyō Fukyūkai) commented when dispatched by the government to promote Japanese education in Brazil: “It is important to preserve and educate the Japanese language and spirit . . . [because] . . . the overseas Japanese are destined to share the same fate with their motherland [Japan].”35 Consequently, prewar emigrants tended to hold on to a sense of attachment to Japan with the idea of repatriating one day.36 Many of them did maintain Japanese nationality without taking up foreign citizenship. Although their low naturalization rate was partially attributed to restrictive measures in the host societies (such as in the US and Peru), even in Brazil, where there were no such restrictions, only 2.6 percent of Japanese immigrants (5,000 out of 190,000) took up Brazilian citizenship.37 On occasion, emigrant nationalism erupted in extreme forms, such as an armed conflict that occurred in Brazil in the aftermath of World War II (1946– 1947). It was led by Shindō Renmei (Way of the Subjects of the Emperor’s League), an ultraright nationalist association, which did not believe in Japan’s defeat. Similar nationalist organizations—A ikoku Dōshikai (Patriotic Association of Men of the Same Ideals), Kodo Remmei (Federation of Imperial Doctrine), and Yamato Minzoku (Club of Men of the Same Race of Old Japan)—a lso emerged in Peru, preaching that the stories of Japan’s defeat w ere false.38 The seemingly intricate and inseparable relationship between the immigrants and their motherland was met with suspicion in the host society. The immigrant associations and businesses, backed up by the Japanese
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government, fueled further hostility, and the immigrants were viewed and criticized as “imperial subjects,” “puppets of the Japanese state,” and agents of “the invisible sinister government.”39 The intensified anti-Japanese hostility, in turn, prompted the Japanese state to tighten its grip on the community as a defense mechanism. In summary, the Japanese in Peru were heterogeneous and divided so that they did not become a community until external forces came in. One was the hostile environment in the host society. The other was the Japa nese state, which stepped in to cope with the hostile situation. These two forces mutually reinforced each other in a self-perpetuating cycle. Most illustrative of this is the dispute over cotton trade that erupted in Peru around the 1930s, as elaborated below.
Cotton Trade Dispute The early twentieth century saw the price of sugar drop, following a declining demand for sugar worldwide. This affected Peru’s economy, which had been dependent on this product as a prime export commodity. To substitute for sugar, plantation o wners increasingly resorted to cultivating cotton, coinciding with the Peruvian government’s efforts to diversify its economy. Although cotton was already an important agricultural commodity in the country even before the collapse of the sugar market, its importance grew in the early twentieth c entury. During the 1920s, foreign textile companies rushed into Peru, most notably the American W. R. Grace & Co. and the British Duncan Fox & Co.; the latter became dominant in the cotton export market, especially in the country’s northern regions.40 In 1929, cotton textile constituted 28 percent of Peru’s total industrial production and generated 30 percent of employment in the country.41 By the early 1930s, cotton surpassed sugar to become the major export commodity in Peruvian agriculture.42 This presented an opportunity for the Japanese immigrants who had previously worked on sugar plantations as contract laborers. Although sugar required large capital and labor, cotton could be cultivated on small plots of land as tenant farmers.43 A fter World War I, plantation o wners also began to lease small plots of land to farmers as a strategy of diffusing financial risks.44 Hence, some Japanese immigrants took up cotton growing, and
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some subsequently became successful. The most prominent of all was Ikumatsu (Nikumatsu) Okada. Okada arrived in Peru in 1899 as part of the first group of 790 immigrants from Japan. He initially worked as a contract laborer on the Hacienda Palpa, located in the Chancay Valley of the Huaral Province. Upon completing his four-year contract, he administered a shop on the same plantation and in 1908 leased land in Huaral to begin growing cotton as a tenant farmer (yanacón) together with Hatsusaburo Motonishi, a fellow immigrant and business partner, and twenty other Japanese workers.45 Okada’s business soon expanded, extending to several plantations in the region, including La Huaca, Caqui, Torre Blanca, and Miraflores. Most of his workers were fellow Japanese immigrants, although Peruvians, such as Luis Santiago Allemart Oliva, a trade expert and administrator, also helped expand Okada’s business.46 From 1923 to 1929 the number of Japanese tenant farmers grew from 1,145 to 1,620 in the country, most of whom grew cotton in the Huaral region.47 Led by Okada, the Japanese soon became a dominant force in the region’s agricultural business and in cotton farming across the country. By 1941, more than half (51 percent) of cotton cultivation in the Chancay Valley was in the hands of the Japanese.48 Across Peru, the Japanese controlled about 30 percent of cotton production by the mid1930s, according to James Tigner and Victor Guevara (or 15 percent in 1941, according to Juan Franco Lobo Collantes).49 Much of the crop cultivated by the immigrants was supported by Japanese capital and exported to Japan. 50 In part icu lar, Caqui, one of Okada’s plantations, became the center of cotton cultivation and export to Japan during the 1930s.51 Okada also contributed to the development of the Japanese community in Huaral. He led in forming the Japanese Industrial Society and the Japanese Association of Huaral, both of which w ere presided by himself. When Inka Gakuen, a Japanese school, was inaugurated with teachers sent in from Japan, the Japanese consul joined the ceremony. In recognition for all these efforts, Okada was conferred a medal of honor by the Japanese emperor Hirohito in 1941.52
Japanese Cotton Companies in South America The growth in cotton farming by Japanese immigrants cannot be understood without examining the financial and technological assistance provided
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by Japan. From the mid-1920s, Japan began to invest in cotton cultivation in South America. A major reason behind it was the need to explore new markets to support the growing textile industry in the country. Prior to World War II, Japan was a principal exporter of cotton fabrics, and its raw material (raw cotton) was imported from India, the US, and China, among other countries. In the 1910s and 1920s, over half of raw cotton was supplied by British India, followed by the US.53 However, Britain began to implement trade restrictions to protect its own textile industry by imposing high tariffs on foreign products coming in from outside the British Empire. In reaction to this, Japanese spinners started a boycott of Indian raw cotton in 1933. Trade frictions with British India increased Japan’s reliance on the US for its raw cotton imports, but tensions grew between Japan and the US in the 1930s, and the US, too, imposed restrictions on Japanese imports.54 Growing protectionism posed a problem for Japan to balance bilateral trade with the countries that supplied raw cotton yet restricted imports of Japanese cotton products. To sustain the growth of its import-dependent textile export industry, Japan needed to look for alternatives and turned its eyes to South America. It was a strategy to reduce the raw cotton imports from the US and retaliate against protectionism. At the same time, they attempted to diversify trade partners and commercial routes both to import raw materials and export (semi)finished products.55 In this effort, the Japanese government implemented an Export Subsidy Law in 1930, which provided financial assistance to firms selling in nonindustrialized countries, particularly in Central and South America, Africa, and some parts of Asia. In countries where Japanese products w ere unknown, the government announced an effort to buy their natural resources to “turn them into loyal clients.”56 As part of this endeavor, Japan sent five representatives of the textile industry to Peru to hold a special exhibition of Japanese cotton products in 1933. Zōji Amari, a former Japanese consul in Lima who led the mission, made a remark prior to his departure: “The only relation Japan has had with South America so far is through emigration, but my mission is to convert the vast unexplored territory of South America into a grand Japanese market. This is my last serv ice to the Japanese State.”57 Two years later, in 1935, a major trade mission was dispatched to Brazil, led by the industrialist Hachisaburo Hirao. The Osaka mainichi shinbun, a daily, described the mission as “Japan’s opportunity to secure resources and establish new economic relationships in the region” and stated: “Hirao’s
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team w ill inspect cotton farms toiled by Japanese immigrants, with the aim to import raw cotton and export our cotton products. So far we have sent many emigrants to Brazil, but that is not enough to develop a robust bilateral relationship. We need to build business ties and a balanced give-and- take trade relationship with the region.”58 Following the mission, the Japanese-Brazilian Cotton Co. was established in Osaka, Japan’s textile hub, in 1936 with support from the major textile companies in the area. The company, presided by Hirao, subsequently set up a subsidiary in Brazil to promote cotton production (mostly by Japa nese immigrant farmers) and trade between the two countries.59 Hirao’s idea of replacing American raw cotton with Brazilian cotton proved successful. The mission paved the way for establishing an economic relationship with South America and helped sustain the growing Japanese textile industry, especially as Brazilian cotton was cheaper than the American product.60 By exploring business opportunities via emigrants, it also helped Japanese farmers in Brazil, many of whom had suffered amid the sharp drop in the price of coffee in the 1920s.61 Parallel to this development, various Japanese textile companies began to invest in Peru to promote cotton trade with the country. The first was the Peruvian Cotton Company, established in Chancay in 1925. Financed by Kaigai Kōgyō, a government-run emigration company, and Osaka’s textile industrialists (including Hirao), the company was managed by Okada and Motonishi, who had successfully run various cotton plantations in the region.62 By purchasing Hacienda Palpa, where Okada and other Japanese immigrants first toiled in sugar cultivation in 1899, the company grew cotton and was dedicated to exports of raw materials and imports of cotton products.63 The second textile company that went into Peru was the Retes Agricultural Company. Established in Huaral in 1928, the company was run by the entrepreneur Ichitaro Morimoto, who had worked in close connection with the Morioka Emigration Company and Kaigai Kōgyō. A sister company, Huaral Cotton Mill Company, was soon established to process cotton seed oil. That was followed by Huaral Cotton (1931), Brascotto of Sumitomo (1933), and Toyo Menka of Mitsui Bussan (1937). These cotton companies all relied on Japanese immigrant labor to export raw cotton to Japan and imported Japanese textile products back to Peru, which were often sold at a lower price than the market price through Japanese immigrant merchants.64
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In this way, Japanese companies and government worked closely together with immigrant farmers and merchants in developing a trade- distribution relationship across the Pacific. For example, Okada, the most successful Japanese cotton grower in Huaral, had a commercial h ouse in Lima that exported raw cotton to Japan and imported products from Japan and elsewhere. Likewise, Ichitaro Morimoto managed not only the Japanese cotton companies in Huaral but also a major commercial house, Morimoto Shōkai, in Lima that operated in collaboration with, and was subsidized by, various emigration and trade companies in Japan.65 These commercial h ouses and trade companies then distributed products from Japan wholesale to various small businesses, such as bazares and almacenes (small shops), run by Japanese immigrant merchants in urban centers.66 Although the details of the distribution chain are not well known, Yoshimitsu Arao reports that the majority of cotton trade brokers in Peru were fellow Japanese nationals or companies.67 In 1940, almost three-quarters of sales by Japanese merchants in Peru reportedly derived from products manufactured in or related to Japan.68 According to Isabelle Lausent- Herrera, the Japanese government imposed a quota to ensure 70 percent of Japanese textile products should be distributed through Japanese immigrant merchants in Peru.69 Subsequently, Chōtoku Ōgimi states, successful Japa nese merchants in Peru all had close contacts with Japan.70 These immigrant businesses, therefore, formed part of the broader Japa nese commercial trade network, prompted by the government’s endeavor to expand an agro-industrial base and gain spheres of influence via emigration. Calling it a colonial-emigration program (ishokumin jigyō), the government sent businesspeople abroad and provided subsidies in an attempt to promote trade, secure resources, and develop national industries.71 In South America, too, financial and technical assistance from Japan contributed significantly to the growth of cotton farming by Japanese immigrants. Immigrants w ere then inspired by the idea that the cotton they grew was being exported to their homeland.72 As the Japanese consul in Brazil commented in promoting the colonial-emigration program in 1934, “By fostering Japanese investment in Brazil and a commercial relationship with the country, the program w ill contribute to the development of the Japa nese colonia and that of Japan and to the expansion of the entire Japanese race!” 73 Indeed, the development of Japanese industries, nationhood, and immigrants often went hand in hand.
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Trade Dispute The growing cotton trade with Japan generated a widespread dispute and resentment in Peru. Since the import of Japanese textile materials consistently surpassed the export of raw cotton to Japan, Peru’s bilateral trade deficit increased, particularly in the early 1930s—from $3.3 million in 1913 to $74 million in 1937 and further to $87 million in 1940.74 This spurred already strong animosity against the Japanese, especially as cotton had become an important export commodity and driving force of the Peruvian economy.75 Hard hit by the worldwide economic recession in the 1930s, the Peruvian textile business fretted that the influx of Japanese products was destroying their already sluggish industry. When the Japanese mission held an exhibition of Japanese textile products in 1933, it generated a protest and led to a boycott of Japanese products.76 In his article “Japan Invades Latin America,” Carleton Beals warned of “flooding Japanese cotton products” as a “threat” to the Peruvian market.77 Ciro Alegria and Alfredo Saco similarly accused the Japanese of a “monopoly” in the cotton business in Peru: “Of the 12,000 hectares of the valley of Huaral, 80% is in the hands of the Japanese. Around Lima, too . . . one has to employ Japanese middlemen to buy cotton in Peru.” 78 La Prensa seized the opportunity to intensify its anti-Japanese movement: “The Japanese produce cotton in Peru only for the sake of Japan without investing or generating any wealth in our country.”79 Particularly vehement in the movement w ere powerful agro- industrial business lobbies, such as the National Society of Industry and the National Society of Agriculture, which constantly pressured the Peruvian government to take action against the Japanese.80 In 1934, the Peruvian Congress approved the unilateral repeal of the Japanese-Peruvian Commerce Treaty (1928), which subsequently limited the import of Japanese textiles.81 As a result, the quota of imports from Japan reduced drastically from 2,000 tons in 1933 to just 204 tons the following year.82 Prior to that, the 80% Law (1932) required at least 80 percent of the employees in each business enterprise to be Peruvian, and the 1936 Immigration and Business Restrictions Law further limited Japanese economic activities by prohibiting the transfer and establishment of businesses.83 Along with these, Japa nese immigration was curtailed, and access to citizenship was restricted. The 1936 law forbade the immigration of “racial groups” (grupos raciales), targeting “Asiatic,” and particularly Japa nese, immigrants.84 In 1941, on the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl
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Harbor, all Japanese-owned deposits in Peruvian banks w ere frozen, and Japanese businesses w ere expropriated. Subsequently, all Japanese business associations were banned and shut down.85 Soon afterwards, all Japanese farmlands w ere confiscated.86 Although Japan had only a small share of all Peruvian trade, the Japa nese became the target of discrimination, as they were constantly depicted as “unassimilable,” “secretive,” and “impermeable.”87 Landowners, who w ere of European descent, frequently expressed that the Japanese “produce cotton on Peruvian plantations and then ship it all to their native land” in contrast to European immigrants who contributed to the national economy.88 George Bertie, a representative of the British trade company Duncan Fox, said at a meeting of the influential National Society of Industry, “Although the Italian community was more numerous and economically influential before the Japanese arrived, the Italians became well assimilated and integrated in Peru, whereas the Japanese are totally impermeable” (Industria Peruana 1934).89 In this manner, Duncan Fox, which came to dominate Peru’s cotton industry, constantly accused Japan of its “tacit ploy” in secretively establishing its own distribution chain through the Japanese immigrant community. Such criticisms were further ignited by the view that the Japanese embassy constantly intervened in the Japanese community and meddled with Peru’s national affairs through the community.90 The efforts by the powerful business lobbies to curtail Japanese economic activities were in fact a strategy to protect their own interests. Th ose Europeans who represented the emerging bourgeois agro-industrial class in Peru felt threatened by “Japa nese infiltration.”91 Accordingly, the aforementioned 1934 law, pressed by the National Society of Industry, set much higher import quotas for Britain (845 tons), the US (476 tons), and Italy (448 tons) than for Japan (204 tons).92
Consequences of Japan’s Involvement Growing anti-Japanese animosity only intensified intervention by the Japa nese state. Immigrants faced hostilities and acute discrimination not only in Peru but pretty much everywhere. This “immigration problem,” as Japa nese officials called it, became a major concern and source of frustration. Indeed, it infuriated them, as they w ere trying to fortify the nation and elevate their national standing, via emigration, in the international community. To overcome the problem, the government believed it critical to help Japanese immigrants and enhance their status and reputation within
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their countries.93 Accordingly, they continued to pour resources into the community by building institutions and supporting community activities. These efforts nonetheless resulted in intensifying hostilities against Japa nese immigrants, reinforcing their perception as conspirators of the Japanese state. In Peru, such hostilities culminated in the 1940s when Japanese businesses were looted and 1,800 community leaders, including Okada, were sent to detention camps in Texas in collaboration with the US government, Peru’s wartime ally.94 Following Japan’s devastating defeat in World War II (1945), the relationship between immigrants and their homeland changed drastically. Immigrants no longer saw it realistic to return home, at least any time soon, and started thinking about settling in Peru. And the government, too, began to encourage immigrants to assimilate in the host society instead of retaining ties with the homeland,95 even though they continued to “assist” immigrants and their descendants, financially and culturally, even a fter the war. More than half a century later, Lima’s Japanese community, comprising approximately 80,000 original immigrants and their descendants, have certainly become integrated and acculturated in Peru. A fter all, the community produced a president, Alberto Fujimori (1990–2000), and Japanese Peruvians are now well represented in the country’s political, business, and other social and cultural arenas. The month of April is now marked as Peru- Japan Friendship Month to commemorate the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants, including Ikumatsu Okada, on April 3, 1899, and is celebrated each year in the Peruvian Congress. Most Japanese Peruvians, now in the second, third, and fourth generations, no longer retain Japanese nationality or proficiency, and many have grown culturally and socially more distant from Japan. Even then, the Japanese community has not disappeared but has grown in scale and status into one of the most prosperous and prestigious ethnic communities in the country. With splendid institutions and facilities supported by Japan, the community boasts one of the finest theaters in the country, the Japanese-Peruvian Theater, located within the complex of the Japanese-Peruvian Cultural Center in Lima. The nation’s major hospital, the Japanese-Peruvian Centenary Hospital, was also erected with subsidies from the Japanese government and private foundations on the occasion of the centenary anniversary of Japanese immigration to Peru in 1999. In celebrating the centenary anniversary of Japanese immigration to Peru, the organizer proclaimed that Japanese Peruvians, called Nikkei
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t oday, have come a long way: “We are undoubtedly Peruvian, and our community’s mission is to contribute to Peru.” But he simultaneously emphasized the importance of remembering their roots and the history of hardships their Japanese immigrant ancestors endured in Peru.96 “Our future rests on this history,” he said: “We Nikkei have become successful because of the values we have inherited from our ancestors, such as hard work, honesty, and perseverance. We w ill work together t oward the f uture by preserving these values and spreading them widely in Peru!” Consolidating the well-established community, as seen today, was certainly a long and arduous process. Emerging as a mechanism to cope with the harsh external environment, the community grew in close connection with Japan. In the end, the government’s continuous involvement—to this day—did not necessarily prevent immigrants’ integration in Peru, but their history of integration is certainly incomplete without understanding the role of their ancestral homeland. In November 2017, Lima’s Japanese Peruvian community celebrated the centenary anniversary of the Japanese Peruvian Association (Asociación Peruano Japonesa), originally established as the Central Japanese Association by the Japanese consulate in 1917. To commemorate the event, the Japa nese ambassador to Peru was present, along with representatives of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, as well as those of the Peruvian Congress, including Keiko Fujimori, a daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori and a thrice presidential candidate.97 The Japanese ambassador congratulated the community’s “astonishing achievements” and praised the “extraordinary efforts” Japa nese immigrants and their descendants have made in becoming what they are today— “acclaimed citizens of Peru with Peruvian and Japa nese hearts.” He referred to the 790 Japanese immigrants who first arrived in Peru in 1899 and to the 140 of them who perished u nder harsh labor conditions within the first year and a half of their arrival. “Remembering this history,” the ambassador proclaimed to an audience of 800 invited guests from Japan, Peru, and across the Americas, “Japan and Nikkei communities will continue to work together toward the future!” They indeed worked together throughout the history of Japanese immigration and settlement in Peru. Japan is certainly not unique in being involved in emigrant affairs. Britain repeatedly resorted to emigration to solve internal dissent, poverty,
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and population pressure, and many other European countries attempted to “shovel out paupers” in the process of national consolidation and development.98 The case of Italy may particularly be comparable, as the country, like Japan, saw itself as a latecomer to development and encouraged emigration as a national strategy to expand its economy and territory to catch up with more advanced countries of Europe.99 But Japanese emigration was much more centralized, and the state exerted more direct influence, not merely in sending emigrants but in shaping the lives of immigrants settled abroad.100 Maintaining ties with the countries of origin is common across immigrant populations in various countries, but “none had links to the governments of their native countries like the connection between Japanese immigrants and the Japanese government,” Ichioka has asserted in discussing the case of prewar Japanese immigrants in the US.101 The history of Japanese immigration to Peru is a history of hardship and racism encountered in the country. But it is also a history of immigrants’ relationship with Japan as part of Japan’s broader colonial-emigration project. The Japanese state did play a crucial role in shaping the course of immigrant integration in Peru. And this must be understood in the broader historical context of Japan’s position in the global racial hierarchy and quest to gain political clout in the world.
Notes 1. Thompson, “Survival of Ethnicity”; Titiev, “Japanese Colony in Peru.” 2. Quoted in Ichioka, Chang, and Azuma, Before Internment, pp. xvii. 3. Takenaka, “Japanese in Peru.” 4. Portes and Rumbaut, Legacies. 5. Portes and Rumbaut, Legacies. 6. Délano, “Immigrant Integration.” 7. Fukumoto, Hacia un nuevo sol. 8. Normano and Gerbi, Japanese in South America. 9. Vasquez, Immigration and Mestizaje; Suzuki, Nihonjin dekasegi imin. 10. Tigner, “Ryukyuans in Peru.” 11. Thompson, “Survival of Ethnicity.” 12. Irie, “History of Japanese Migration.” 13. Peru Shimpo, Inmigración japonesa al Perú. 14. Takenaka, “Japanese in Peru.” 15. Suzuki, Nihonjin dekasegi imin. 16. Endoh, Exporting Japan. 17. Connell, “Internment of Latin-A merican Japanese.”
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18. Connell, “Internment of Latin-A merican Japanese.” 19. Maeyama, Ethnicity, Secret Societies. 20. Peru Shimpo, Inmigración japonesa al Perú; Tigner, “Ryukyuans in Peru.” 21. Tigner, “Ryukyuans in Peru.” 22. Peru Shimpo, Inmigración japonesa al Perú; Maeyama, Esunishiti to Brazirujin. 23. Thompson, “Assimilation and Nonassimilation.” 24. Ichioka, “Japanese Associations.” 25. Ichioka, “Japanese Associations.” 26. Maeyama, Ethnicity, Secret Societies; Negawa and Inoe, Ekkyō to rendō. 27. Thompson, “Assimilation and Nonassimilation”; Lyman, Asian in North America. 28. Takenaka, “Paradox of Diaspora Engagement.” 29. Peru Shimpo, Inmigración japonesa al Perú. 30. Wakatsuki and Suzuki, Kaigai ijū seisaku. 31. Gotō, “Ishokumin koshukai kaikaishiki shukuji.” 32. Endoh, Exporting Japan. 33. Peru Shimpo, Inmigración japonesa al Perú. 34. Wakatsuki and Suzuki, Kaigai ijū seisaku; Negawa and Inoe, Ekkyō to rendō. 35. ANJA, Kaigai Nikkeijin, p. 34. 36. Wakatsuki and Suzuki, Kaigai ijū seisaku. 37. Wakatsuki and Suzuki, Kaigai ijū seisaku. 38. Titiev, “Japanese Colony in Peru”; Thompson, “Survival of Ethnicity”; Peru Shimpo, Inmigración Japonesa al Perú; Tigner, “Ryukyuans in Peru.” 39. Ichioka, “Japanese Associations”; Peru Shimpo, Inmigración japonesa al Perú. 40. Lobo Collantes, “En defensa del mercado.” 41. Lobo Collantes, “En defensa del mercado”; Tigner, “Ryukyuans in Peru.” 42. Fukumoto, Hacia un nuevo sol. 43. Irie, “History of Japanese Migration.” 44. Peru Shimpo, Inmigración japonesa al Perú. 45. Fukumoto, Hacia un nuevo sol; Thorndike, Los imperios del sol; Peru Shimpo, Inmigración japonesa al Perú. 46. Thorndike, Los imperios del sol. 47. Fukumoto, Hacia un nuevo sol, p. l. 48. Inamura, “Menkao”; Weston, “Un sol naciente.” 49. Lobo Collantes, “En defensa del mercado”; Tigner, “Ryukyuans in Peru”; Guevara, “Las grandes cuestiones nacionales.” 50. Rodriguez Pastor, “Poderío del peón”; Lausent-Herrera, Pasado y presente. 51. Rodriguez Pastor, “Poderío del peón.” 52. Rodriguez Pastor, “Poderío del peón.” 53. Kagotani, “Senzenki Nihonjinshōsha.” 54. Delanghe, “Japanese Imports.” 55. Delanghe, “Japanese Imports.” 56. Delanghe, “Japanese Imports.” 57. Osaka mainichi shinbun, March 11, 1931. 58. Osaka mainichi shinbun, March 24, 1935. 59. Burajiru Nihon Imin 100-Shūnen Kinen Kyōkai, Burajiru Nihon imin hyakunenshi 2.
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60. Delanghe, “Japanese Imports.” 61. Burajiru Nihon Imin 100-Shūnen Kinen Kyōkai, Burajiru Nihon imin hyakunenshi 2. 62. Peru Shimpo, Inmigración japonesa al Perú. 63. Thorndike, Los imperios del sol. 64. Tigner, “Ryukyuans in Peru”; Peru Shimpo, Inmigración japonesa al Perú; Rippy, “Japanese in Latin America “ 65. Peru Shimpo, Inmigración japonesa al Perú. 66. Fukumoto, Hacia un nuevo sol. 67. Arao, Menka to menka torihiki. 68. Normano and Gerbi, Japanese in South America; Lobo Collantes, “En defensa del mercado.” 69. Lausent-Herrera, Pasado y presente. 70. Ogimi, Saikin no Peru jijō. 71. Irie, Hōjin kaigai hattenshi. 72. Burajiru Nihon Imin 100-Shūnen Kinen Kyōkai, Burajiru Nihon imin hyakunenshi 2. 73. Burajiru ni okeru Nihonjin hatten shi kankō iinkai, Burajiru ni okeru Nihonjin. 74. Rippy, “Japanese in Latin America”; Lausent-Herrera, Pasado y presente; Lobo Collantes, “En defensa del mercado.” 75. Lausent-Herrera, Pasado y presente. 76. Peru Shimpo, Inmigración japonesa al Perú; Nonomiya, Nanbei saiko no shinnichikoku Peru to ichiman gosennin no zairyūdōhō. 77. Beals, “Japan Invades Latin America.” 78. Alegria and Saco, “Japanese Spearhead.” 79. Cited in Peru Shimpo, Inmigración japonesa al Perú, p. 105. 80. Lobo Collantes, “En defensa del mercado”; Lausent-Herrera, Pasado y presente. 81. Normano and Gerbi, Japanese in South America; Peru Shimpo, Inmigracion japonesa al Perú. 82. Peru Shimpo, Inmigración japonesa al Perú; Lobo Collantes, “En defensa del mercado.” 83. Irie, “History of Japanese Migration.” 84. Peru Shimpo, Inmigración japonesa al Perú. 85. Titiev, “Japanese Colony in Peru”; Morimoto, Migración y comunidad; Thompson, “Survival of Ethnicity.” 86. Tigner, “Ryukyuans in Peru.” 87. Irie, “History of Japanese Migration”; Lobo Collante, “En defensa del mercado.” 88. Irie, “History of Japanese Migration.” 89. Cited in Lobo Collantes, “En defensa del mercado,” p. 104. 90. Lobo Collantes, “En defensa del mercado”; Lausent-Herrera, Pasado y presente. 91. Lausent-Herrera, Pasado y presente. 92. Lobo Collante, “En defensa del mercado.” 93. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Waga kokumin no kaigai. 94. Japanese community leaders and business leaders in Lima w ere shipped to US detention camps, mostly to Crystal City, Texas, in collaboration with the US government, a wartime ally of Peru. This deportation program was carried out as part of the
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US effort to exchange them for US soldiers detained by the Japanese army and to undermine Japanese presence in the Americas. See Connell, “Internment of Latin- American Japanese”; Emmerson, Japanese Thread. 95. Wakatsuki and Suzuki, Kaigai ijū seisaku. 96. APJ (Asociación Peruano Japonesa), “Memoria.” 97. The event was celebrated in conjunction with the pan-A merican Nikkei convention, a biannual gathering of Nikkei (overseas Japanese) communities throughout the Americas. 98. Green and Weil, Citizenship. 99. Choate, Emigrant Nation. 100. Choate, Emigrant Nation. 101. Ichioka, “Japanese Associations,” p. 436.
c h a p t e r
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Guiding Settlers The Overseas Development Company and the Recruitment of Rural Brazil, 1918–1936 Andre Kobayashi Deckrow
F
rom 1908, with the arrival of the first ship carrying Japanese laborers, until 1942, when Brazil entered World War II on the Allied side and severed diplomatic relations with Japan, almost 200,000 Japanese migrated to Brazil. Most of these migrants initially entered the country as agriculturalists, either as workers on São Paulo’s coffee plantations or as settlers living in Japanese farming communities. Over time, what was first realized as a short-term contract labor migration for São Paulo’s coffee industry evolved into the long-term settlement strategy for a Japanese countryside. Prewar Japanese migration to Brazil benefitted from the increased involvement of the Japanese government beginning in the late 1910s. In 1917, the Japanese government established the Overseas Development Company (Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, or Kaikō for short) to promote Brazilian emigration by merging and nationalizing the existing migration companies d oing business in Brazil. Partly motivated by a desire to protect overseas citizens, Kaikō took over the legal obligations of these predeces sor companies: their contracts to supply coffee plantation labor to São Paulo state (Paulista) oligarchs and their duties to protect immigrants u nder the terms of their contracts and the laws of the Japanese Emigrant Protection Act. At the time of its founding, Kaikō was responsible for over 15,000 Japanese coffee plantation laborers who had been brought to Brazil by its predecessor companies.1 In addition to providing for Japanese already in Brazil, the company also recruited new migrants for its emigration schemes, either to work on coffee plantations as contract laborers (colonos) or as inde pendent (landowning) farmers on the company’s Iguape Colony. By 1920, as the existing migration apparatus was consolidated and nationalized, Kaikō also became legally responsible for the transport of almost all Japanese 145
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who entered Brazil. From 1918 to 1935, the emigration company brought close to 135,000 Japanese immigrants to Brazil.2 This chapter examines a sample of Kaikō migrant-facing promotional materials, beginning in the company’s earliest years, to examine how com pany officials sold life in rural Brazil to potential migrants. These guidebooks, pamphlets, and photo books were part of a complex recruitment system that, as Toake Endoh observes, “took various forms, from lectures to posters, flyers, movies, newspapers, and radio broadcasts, so as to reach every corner of the street, in hospitals, barbershops, and public baths.” 3 These materials sought to introduce Brazil as an emigratory destination to Japanese and also demonstrate how company migration schemes could lead to forms of rural life no longer possible in Japan. What emerges in these documents is an understanding of how company officials, motivated by broader concerns about rural Japanese life and the necessity of overseas settlement, sold Brazilian emigration to would-be recruits who w ere also motivated by economic opportunity. Additionally, these documents provide insight into the ways in which the advertising of company colonies as Japanese social spaces played an important role in bolstering the credibility of the company’s migration program. Over the course of its prewar history, Kaikō promoted coffee plantation labor and its colony-based settlement side-by-side. To all but a small minority of Japanese who could afford to settle directly in Brazilian colonies, the materials presented a two-step migration program, in which poor migrants initially worked on coffee plantations as contract laborers to save money to purchase their own land and become independent farmers, ideally on the company’s own Iguape Colony. Between 1918 and 1937, over 75 percent of Japanese agricultural families who arrived in Brazil w ere initially classified as colonos, or contract laborers.4 While some scholars have suggested that Kaikō promotional materials often overstated the wealth that settlers might accumulate in Brazil, Teiiti Suzuki’s detailed survey of the Japanese community in Brazil reveals that Kaikō’s characterization of colono labor as a means of economic mobility reflected the broader trends of prewar Japanese Brazilian migration: “A g reat majority (69.8%) leave colono status within four years a fter arrival and nearly half (46.7%) within only two years.”5 What was less common, however, was for former colonos to purchase land in Kaikō’s Iguape Colony. Suzuki’s study shows instead, that upon completion of their contracts, Japanese in Brazil entered into a
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number of different labor arrangements, including the purchasing of land in a variety of Japanese agricultural communities. What matters in t hese printed materials, however, is not w hether immigrants settled in the colony but rather the way in which the company sought to portray its migrants’ continued ties to the Japanese empire. While coffee plantation labor was seen as a short period of financial hardship, becoming an independent farmer in the company’s Brazilian colonies meant economic and social participation in an autonomous Japanese village that was contributing to and profiting from the enormous wealth of the state of São Paulo. A reading of these materials shows how the earliest Kaikō logics of Japanese settlement, expressed in both economic and civilizational terms, transcended even the Japanese government’s increased investment in and financial subsidies for Brazilian emigration beginning in the mid-1920s (known as the kokusaku imin, or “national policy migrant,” period). From its earliest days, Kaikō terminology ascribed a higher purpose to Japanese colony-based settlement than coffee plantation labor. Furthermore, these guidebooks reveal how the company’s migration schemes survived the tumultuous years of the Getúlio Vargas– led Provisional Government (1930–1934) despite being threatened by the collapse of coffee prices and the overthrow of the pro-immigration São Paulo–based pol itical order. Lastly, in presenting its Iguape Colony as an attainable and aspirational form of Japanese settlement, Kaikō may have ultimately contributed to the challenges of a Japanese Brazilian community that came under increasing threat from anti-immigrant politicians and activists in the mid-1930s.
Early Kaiko¯ Literature To sustain its early operations in Brazil, Kaikō developed an overlapping network of organizations and operators in Japan to support its emigration programs. The company established an official presence in almost all the prefectural capitals and coordinated with local governments and civic migration-promotion groups to recruit new emigrants. The company’s promotional materials advised interested recruits to “inquire at the company’s [Tokyo] headquarters or its representative offices to learn more details.”6 And a 1918 company fact sheet proclaimed that, in addition to its headquarters in Tokyo, “domestically [naichi], branch offices and official representative
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offices would be set up in every prefecture, district, and important locations.”7 Individual company representatives were licensed by both Kaikō and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and these representatives received financial compensation for each f amily migration contract secured. To help identify where and how to concentrate its operations, in its earliest days, Kaikō maintained a survey section (chōsabu) responsible for research on agricultural conditions at home and abroad. For example, an early Kaikō report from September 1918 entitled Japanese Medium and Small Farming Household Distribution and Their Economic Conditions, published in the immediate aftermath of the 1918 Rice Riots, detailed the state of agriculture at the prefectural level and included, as a supplement, a chart showing the prefectural distribution of Brazilian emigrants from January 1917 through July 1918. Echoing the conclusions of other Japanese agricultural thinkers at the time, the report warned that smaller plots of land coupled with a sudden increase in rice prices w ere preventing small landowners and tenant farmers across the country from making ends meet and promoting a general “state of psychological anxiety.”8 As evidence of this anxiety, the report referred to a recent tenant-farmer strike in Ehime Prefecture in northwestern Shikoku and, consistent with the beliefs of the era’s emigratory thinkers, suggested overseas settlement as a solution to these families’ economic problems. Prefectural-level analysis of agricultural conditions allowed Kaikō to concentrate its recruiting efforts in areas where farmers’ suffering was more pronounced, and naturally, t here w ere a greater concentration of early Kaikō representatives in regions that historically produced many migrants.9 In making the case for Brazilian emigration, early Kaikō materials drew directly from the company’s research to emphasize the dire social and economic conditions in rural Japan. The foreword to the 1919 edition of a Kaikō guide to Japanese immigrant life in Brazil, entitled Japanese Development in Brazil, provided a bleak assessment of the f uture of small-scale agriculture in Japan. Attributed to the company, it began with an observation about the effects of Japanese capitalism, using logic that would have been familiar to early promoters of agricultural emigration: While there are repeated debates about the cause and regulation of the recent rise in rice prices, it is primarily related to supply and demand, that is to say it is nothing more than the necessary goods are not available in Japan. If one looks at the people’s staple food, rice, the immense growth of
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the population means that now 58 million p eople live in this narrow country. On the other hand, the maximum production of rice, give or take, is 54 million koku, leaving an annual shortage of 5 to 6 million koku, so, of course, the price of rice w ill steadily increase.10
Where farmers may have believed that higher rice prices would lead to greater profit, the foreword quickly disabused its readers of this notion: “The only group that celebrates the higher rice prices are large landholders. Of course, ordinary citizens, small landowners, and tenant farmers are left unhappy.”11 The foreword to the 1919 Kaikō guidebook put the struggles of rural Japan in strikingly personal and material terms and tied these conditions directly to the company’s Brazilian emigration efforts. Rice notably enjoyed a symbolic significance in popular notions of Japanese identity, and it was well observed that rice was also one of the agricultural products being grown by Japanese in Brazil. The inescapable nature of the rural poverty suggested that long-distance migration was one of the only viable forms of economic escape. The 1920 edition of Japanese Development in Brazil featured much of the same content in the chapters describing immigrant opportunity in Brazil but with a new foreword that described rural Japan in slightly more positive terms. The opening paragraph alluded to the same domestic factors—inflation and population growth—but now these challenges and the solution of overseas emigration w ere treated as an inevitable consequence of civilizational progress: “With humanity’s progress, the organ ization of society becomes more complicated, and as the population increases, daily life becomes increasingly difficult for many. These phenomena appear in all nations. To overcome these obstacles and promote the sound development of the nation [kokka kokumin], we must simultaneously advance domestic policies and put effort into overseas development. Each and every country must follow this same course. The issues of today are corroborated by world history.”12 In linking Brazilian emigration to national development, the 1920 edition sought to present overseas emigration not only as an escape from Japanese rural conditions but as a mutually beneficial arrangement with the homeland. Such a posture directly echoed the attitudes of Japanese thinkers and policy makers who viewed overseas populations as an asset in imperial development and presented t hese elite understandings of Japan’s place in the world to the broader populace.
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One of the more common motifs in these materials was to contrast the lack of arable land in Japan to the large amount of farmland available to Japanese in Brazil. In introducing Brazil to the public, Kaikō materials assumed would-be migrants had little familiarity with the country and highlighted its immense size and small population relative to Japan. A 1918 broadsheet stated the country was “the largest republic in South America, Brazil’s area is almost twenty-one times larger than Japan, but the population is about one-third of Japan’s.”13 Similarly, the 1919 edition of Japanese Development in Brazil described Brazil as a “sparse population on a broad land.”14 These passing references to overpopulation and the limits of arable Japanese land mirrored the academic descriptions of early emigration advocates.15 Drawing implicit contrasts between Brazil’s geographic expanse and Japan’s overpopulated islands was part of Kaikō’s strategy to promote Brazilian emigration. Even into the 1930s, Kaikō guidebooks, like the 1932 edition of Conditions in South American Brazil, argued, “Finally, to say one word about the present conditions in Japan: Japan, which has come to an impasse with its limited land and its population that continues to grow, now threatens p eople’s livelihoods. Compare Japan and Brazil’s conditions, and you can understand that there are significant differences.”16 For agriculturalists, the guidebooks’ descriptions of an abundance of Brazilian land implied freedom from the hardships of Japanese rural life. Even the description of the creation of f amily units (kazoku kōsei), as required by Brazilian immigration law, was explained in the context of Brazil’s purported economic advantages: “Where in Japan, they say large families will immiserate, there [in Brazil], a f amily with many workers can save a lot of money and quickly become successful.”17 The shift away from more specific discussions of Japanese rural life may have also reflected the decision by Kaikō and the Japanese government to expand the geographic and occupational scope of its emigrant recruiting in the mid-1920s as the Japanese government invested significantly in promoting Japanese settlement in Brazil. Wako Shungorō’s 1938 study of the Japanese population in the Bauru region of the state of São Paulo, for example, revealed that immigrants in the region came from varying geographic backgrounds in Japan.18 Thus, while company and government officials remained focused on the broad social and economic goals of large- scale agricultural emigration, Kaikō promotional materials largely avoided focusing directly on the difficulties of rural Japanese life and instead highlighted the relative economic potential of agricultural life in Brazil.19
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The Coffee Plantation as Economic Mobility Throughout the entire prewar period, Kaikō advertised its coffee plantation labor arrangement as a form of economic mobility that would lead to long-term settlement and landownership in Brazil. The coffee plantation was presented as a short, initial period of difficult labor and financial sacrifice in which colonos might save enough to become successful indepen dent farmers. Thomas Holloway, in his examination of the Paulista coffee industry, notes that the region’s unique colono labor arrangement, in which immigrants arrived as contract laborers but w ere allowed to engage in other forms of agricultural production when not working on the coffee plantations, was central to the growth of independent landowners in the region.20 This type of upward economic mobility was first practiced by the large number of Italian immigrants, and Kaikō materials successfully promoted this same system for Japanese settlement. The 1918 broadsheet highlighted the economic potential of Japanese coffee plantation labor in São Paulo. It contained separate sections explaining “wages” (chingin) and “income” (shūnyū) in order to give would-be recruits a fuller picture of how they might earn and save while working on the coffee plantation.21 In addition to coffee l abor, the same broadsheet highlighted self-interested types of agricultural labor.22 Its section on “work” (shigoto) suggested that families might “earn the permission of the plantation owner to intercrop rice, beans, or corn in land not used for coffee growing, or raise a few sheep, pigs, or chickens near their living quarters.”23 Likewise, the most successful h ouseholds lowered their “cost of living” (seikatsuhi) through t hese other forms of noncoffee agriculture.24 By 1924, the literat ure stated that “in a regular year, for a single family, net profits ranged from five hundred to two thousand yen.”25 For Kaikō officials, earnings from noncoffee agricultural labor were closely linked to a f amily’s ability to purchase their own land. To demonstrate both the acceptable conditions on São Paulo’s coffee plantations and the upward economic mobility they represented, the 1920 edition of Japanese Development in Brazil outlined the four outcomes for the company’s coffee plantation labor migrants following the end of their two-year contracts: “1, staying to work on the same coffee plantation; 2, moving to another coffee plantation; 3, become tenant farmers; and 4, purchasing their own farmland.”26 Of the four outcomes, Kaikō—not to mention the Japanese government—assumed that independent farming was the ultimate goal of overseas settlement, in addition to being the most profitable. In
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the section of the guidebook entitled “The Secrets of Immigrant Success,” Kaikō warned would-be recruits of the dangers of moving to independent farming too quickly: “Even after the completion of the initial contract, coffee plantation migrants and o wners mutually benefit from staying at the same plantation for another year. In their first year, plantation laborers are still inexperienced and can’t expect to make many profits, but from the second year on, they can easily save as much as 1000 yen a year.”27 Kaikō officials argued that Japanese agriculturalists would benefit from continued ties to the migration company, as “the company, where it can, w ill make its best effort to meet the immigrants’ aspirations [kibō].”28 Presented as a gateway to economic independence, the primary appeal of coffee plantation labor was material in nature—Japanese families tended to leave coffee plantation labor as quickly as economically feasible.29 Kaikō would continue its coffee plantation labor recruiting throughout the prewar period, but the emphasis of the temporary arrangement would evolve following the company’s merger with the Brazil Colonization Com pany (Burajiru Takushoku Kaisha) in 1919. As part of the merger, Kaikō took over control of its first agricultural settlement, the Iguape Colony. Even early Kaikō recruiting materials imagined a two-step process that encouraged former colonos to invest their savings in their own lands, w hether on Kaikō’s own Iguape Colony or in the numerous Japanese agricultural communities that had emerged by the early 1920s. The 1919 and 1920 editions of Japanese Development in Brazil included a list of “new Japanese villages” along with the number of independent farming families who had purchased land there. While the Iguape Colony’s 115 families were listed first with a parenthetical stating that the colony was “where successful immigrants [imin no seikōsha] were settling,” in listing the many other Japanese villages, the guidebooks suggest that from the company’s earliest days, the goal of Japanese migrants was not just owning one’s own land but doing so in a community of fellow Japanese.30 Company literat ure continued promoting coffee plantation labor as a viable step towards the economic freedom of independent farming well into the 1930s, even a fter the collapse of coffee prices in 1929. The 1932 edition of Conditions in South American Brazil noted that Japanese h ouseholds might save only 665 yen a fter three years, a figure far lower than in previous years.31 The income projections in the 1931 and 1932 editions of Conditions in South American Brazil included a fine-print explanatory note that warned, “This calculation of income and expenses is just one example of the current con-
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dition of low coffee prices, but if coffee prices improve, then, the wages for weeding and picking along with daily wages will also improve, and income w ill grow.”32 By the printing of the 1936 edition, coffee prices had recovered enough that h ouseholds could save a projected 939 yen over the course of three years, with no need for the warnings of e arlier editions.33 The section “The Secrets of Immigrant Success” reiterated the idea that laborer households could remain on the same coffee plantation a fter the expiration of their contracts: “Over three or four years, with the experience and savings, one can become independent.”34 Company recruiting materials also needed to persuade Japanese immigrants of the possibilities of long-term economic success in Brazil outside of the coffee plantations.
The Economics of Independent Farming To distinguish between t hese two forms of Japanese migration, Kaikō materials used different terms to refer to coffee plantation labor and indepen dent farmers within the Brazilian context. Coffee plantation labor was dubbed “migration” (imin), while settlers were referred to as “colonists” (shokumin). Each of these words carried specific connotations regarding their forms of agricultural activity. The 1919 edition of Japanese Development in Brazil explained the difference in the context of Brazilian emigration: “Of the academic distinctions between migrants and colonists . . . at its most basic, migrants’ objective is income for their labor, and they aim only to be temporary overseas sojourners [dekasegi], and colonists are half or fully permanent residents in a foreign country and engage in opening [kaitaku] the land. In the case of Kaikō, who administers Brazilian immigration, those going to work on coffee plantations in São Paulo and Minas Gerais are imin, and t hose g oing to the same company’s Iguape Colony are shokumin.”35 Where Brazilian emigration was seen from the outset as a long-term commitment, life as a colono was presented as a temporary sojourn of its own. In drawing a distinction between the two forms of settlement, Kaikō imbued Japanese independent farming with a higher purpose than that of coffee plantation labor. No longer just an economic claim, this difference of vocabulary signified the hierarchical relationship of the two forms of migration. Such distinctions in language would carry through the entirety of the prewar period. The unique circumstances of Japanese colony-based migration allowed, at least from Kaikō’s perspective, for multiple beneficiaries,
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both at home and abroad. Yet, even if colony-based settlement signified a continued relationship that benefited the Japanese empire—through international trade, improving Japan’s international standing, or solving the problem of domestic overpopulation—Kaikō officials never failed to remind recruits that it was also profitable. Unlike coffee plantation l abor, independent farming featured no fixed- term contracts and no set wages. Its profits varied from year to year, settlement to settlement, and even household to household. But Kaikō tried to persuade Japanese agriculturalists that, in the aggregate, long-term overseas settlement was a profitable investment in one’s f uture. The 1919 edition of Japanese Development in Brazil focused primarily on coffee plantation labor but, toward the end of the guidebook, explained the benefits of “in dependent farming [dokuritsu kōsaku]” and an introduction to the company’s recently acquired Iguape Colony. In a section entitled “The Income of In dependent Farmers,” Japanese Development in Brazil presented a reasonable budget for Japanese agriculturalists looking to s ettle in Japanese agricultural settlements.36 New settlers w ere expected to commit at least 1,500 yen in capital to become independent farmers in Brazil: 500 yen to buy land, a 450-yen fee to clear the land for farming, 50 yen for equipment, 50 yen for seeds, 300 yen for living expenses, and 150 yen in reserves.37 Once in dependent, the guidebook argued that since annual expenditures for living expenses and seeds would total just 450 yen per year, agriculturally productive settlers, by their third year of independent farming and sixth total year in Brazil (the first three as colonos), could earn as much as 1,780 yen in annual income.38 A 1926 pamphlet advertising Kaikō colony migration claimed that a normal settler h ousehold with three workers might earn enough to save 450 yen by the end of the first year and 550 yen by the end of the second.39 Even as early as the late 1910s, the company presented its Brazilian settlement program as an attractive economic alternative to rural life in Japan, assuming that potential recruits could weather the initial hardships. From the perspective of a potential Japanese settler, the idea of moving halfway around the world based solely on a migration company’s promises of economic profit was, naturally, a major decision. To show the credibility of their claims, early Kaikō guidebooks included testimonials from successful Japanese in Brazil. For example, in a section titled “Dispatches from Our Brazilian Countrymen” (“Zaiburajiru dōhyō no tsūshin”), the 1920 edition of Japanese Development in Brazil featured ten reports designed to
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demonstrate “more or less, the [Japanese] conditions in Brazil, the circumstances of our overseas countrymen, and how deciding to become migrants and cross the seas led them to a bright future.”40 With titles like “4–5,000 Yen in Three Years” and “Welcome to a Farmer’s Paradise,” t hese one-to two-page dispatches were intended to convince Kaikō’s audience of potential recruits that Japanese settlers had achieved economic success in Brazil.41 But just as important as the names and stories of these early settlers were their home prefectures, which for most were listed alongside their names. Yet these types of testimonials largely disappeared with increased Japanese government involvement in Brazilian emigration and the com pany’s emphasis of its own colony as the aspirational goal of Japanese agricultural settlement, even if settlers w ere not bound to invest in Kaikō-run settlements following their time on the coffee plantations. By the 1930s, editions of Conditions in South American Brazil contained testimonials that emphasized not where emigrants had originated but the Kaikō-r un colony where they now resided.
The Iguape Colony as the Ideal Form of Independent Farming The earliest Kaikō guidebooks, published just after the company’s acquisition of the Iguape Colony, featured maps and photographs of the community and held it up as a model for Japanese cooperative settlement. Although they also listed Iguape alongside other non-Kaikō Japanese communities, by the mid-1920s, migrant-facing literature eschewed mention of other non-Kaikō communities and instead focused on making the colony the aspirational centerpiece of its Japanese emigration program. Founded in 1913 by Aoyagi Ikutaro, who represented a group known as the Tokyo Syndicate, later known as the Brazil Colonization Company, the Iguape Colony was the name of a collection of what would become three Kaikō- run colonies (the Katsura, Registro, and Sete Barras Colonies) located along the Ribeira de Iguape River in southern São Paulo State. Although the company’s materials occasionally differentiated between these settlements, the Iguape Colony served as a metonym for the entirety of the company’s colony-based agricultural settlement apparatus. In his exhaustive history of Japanese Brazilian migration, Tomoo Handa argues that the establishment of the Iguape Colony in 1913 marked an
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important turning point in the history of Japanese settlement in Brazil. Where, he argues, previously Japanese migrants had sought to earn money and quickly return to Japan, “this was one of the g reat successes of the Iguape Colony—suggesting, for the first time, to Japanese immigrants the alternative of settling in Brazil.”42 By the time of Kaikō’s founding, its emigration program largely assumed that colono laborers hoped to buy their own land and s ettle long term in the country. Making Brazilian emigration attractive to Japanese required not only convincing them of Brazil’s economic opportunities but also that economic success might be easily achieved as independent farmers. In contrast to the coffee plantations, which required learning to harvest an unfamiliar crop and a period of difficult work on behalf of a wealthy landowner, colony-based settlement presented an image of independent Japanese farmers with freedom over their own labor—something many of them lacked in Japan—and the ability to participate in econom ically profitable cooperative agriculture.43 The population of the Iguape Colony zone (chitai) was a relatively small percentage of Kaikō immigrants entering Brazil in the prewar period. In 1917, before Kaikō took control of the colony, t here were 5,121 settlers, the majority of whom w ere recruited 44 among the population already in Brazil. By 1936, the total population was at 783 families, or just 4,885 people.45 However, like Handa has noted about the colony itself, it was the representation of the colony in these Kaikō recruiting materials that served as an important symbol for the aspirations of Japanese emigrants. While the mid-1920s saw the Japanese government become more invested in the Brazilian emigration program and the proliferation of new non-Kaikō-r un colonies, like the Aliança and Bastos Colonies, the com pany’s photo books and guidebooks concentrated on selling its own colony to potential settlers. Handa’s history of Iguape paints a varied and uneven experience for its settlers. This included the construction of a stone Catholic church by residents in 1928, photographs of which did not appear in Kaikō promotional materials. However, company literat ure was committed to portraying the colony as a profitable Japanese agricultural village in the Brazilian countryside. In text, Kaikō materials largely focused on the colony’s agricultural production, including descriptions of the colony’s primary agricultural products and figures detailing its annual production. Coffee, rice, and later tea w ere among the colony’s primary agricultural products. In its discussion of colony agriculture, the 1931 edition of Conditions in South American Brazil emphasized that although Brazil produced
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rice at different months than in Japan, aside from a few initial differences, once the rice was harvested “the remaining labor was indistinguishable from that of the Japanese home islands [Nihon naichi].”46 From the standpoint of individual farming households, the similarities between modes of agricultural production in rural Japan and in the company-run colony helped assuage worries about the financial and psychic risks of Brazilian emigration. Company materials also highlighted the cooperative economic nature of its agricultural settlements and reassured recruits that the company would provide the necessary support, technological and financial, to ensure economic success for its Japanese settlers. Visually, company photo books and guidebooks also emphasized the Iguape Colony as a place where Japanese settlers could work communally in agriculture and socially with their fellow Japanese to preserve the customs of the former homeland. In contrast to the photographs of coffee plantation labor that focused on coffee fields or Japanese migrants performing agricultural labor, Kaikō chose to portray its agricultural colonies as more complex communities in which the cooperative economics of Brazilian agriculture were also conducive to Japanese social and cultural practices. One 1924 photog raph, titled Child’s Play, for example, showed Japanese children playing outside together, one riding a donkey, while their parents were “working in the fields.”47 Kaikō-published photo books also included photographs of the colony’s medical clinic and its “Japanese doctor who was available to families at a cost of 60 sen per month, and provided f ree treatment in the event of illness.”48 As the literat ure made clear, in addition to the promise of agricultural success, the appeal and stability of the com pany’s settlements stemmed from living in a community of fellow Japanese. Some of the 1930s editions of Conditions in South American Brazil included a special photographic insert with more photos of colony life under the title “The Peaceful and Prosperous Rice Paddies along the Ribeira River,” which even included the lyrics to the colony’s song.49 Promotional litera ture also highlighted the many social organizations and cultural practices— such as colony baseball teams—to convince would-be migrants about their adaptability to rural Brazilian life. Perhaps no institution better embodied the continued links to Japanese culture than local Japanese-language schools. B ecause Brazilian regulations required that Japanese immigrants arrive as household units, Kaikō’s recruiting materials emphasized the company’s and the colony’s commitment to Japanese-language education. The 1924 edition of the Brazilian
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Migrant-Colony Photo Album noted that there were five Japanese elementary schools with plans to add two more.50 And by 1936, t oward the end of Kaikō’s prewar recruitment activities, Conditions in South American Brazil listed ten Japanese- language elementary schools, along with eleven Portuguese-language schools, across its three Iguape colonies.51 Kaikō emphasized that instruction, at least in some schools, would be in Japa nese, and the schools served as a powerf ul symbol to would-be recruits of the types of Japanese institutions available in Brazil, even if many Japanese children did not attend such schools. In almost every collection of photo graphs promoting Kaikō colony-based settlement during the 1920s and 1930s, officials included pictures of Japanese elementary schoolchildren posing or playing in front of their schoolhouses. The photograph from the 1932 edition of Conditions in South American Brazil prominently featured both the Brazilian and Japanese flags hanging over the school’s doorway b ehind the assembled students along with both a Japanese and a local Brazilian teacher (see fig. 6.1). In emphasizing the presence of Japanese schoolchildren, Kaikō not only demonstrated its commitment to families of its settlement but implied to settler h ouseholds that their Brazil-raised c hildren would also develop a familiarity with their parents’ culture. Kaikō’s recruiting materials emphasized Japanese institutions and customs, including groups to support the colony’s women and youth. Although the company did not appear to explicitly link its overseas emigration programs to the ideology of imperial expansion, in portraying the company’s colonies as an autonomous and economically viable Japanese village, Kaikō visually presented its Brazilian settlements as Japanese social spaces. What emerges from the company’s two-step migration program is the privileging of independent farmers in the company-r un colonies as the ideal form of Japanese Brazilian settlement. The economic mobility of the Kaikō settlement plan even permeated the company’s other migrant-facing literat ure. In the 1926 edition of the Introduction to the Brazilian Language, a Portuguese-language textbook prepared by the company, one of the sample dialogues on “rural life” features a speaker explaining his own migration history. When asked where he lives, the speaker states that he lives in “the Registro Colony of Iguape,” and when asked if he has lived there long, he responds that he has been in Brazil for “seven years, but his first three were on a coffee plantation in the interior.”52 Similarly, coffee plantation laborers were led to believe that, once free of their contractual commitments and having saved the necessary money, they could invest long term in the
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FIG. 6.1. Japanese elementary school, 1932. Source: Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Nanbei Burajiru jijō, front matter.
company’s settlement plan. Kaikō guidebooks emphasized the ways in which the company helped its residents attain continued economic success. But the economic success was also borne out of a familiarity with the colony’s Japanese cultural institutions and forms, many of which w ere prominently featured in company recruiting materials. Over the course of almost two decades, Kaikō consistently presented its colony settlement program not only as an opportunity for farming households to liberate themselves eco nomically but as a form of communal agricultural life that was no longer possible in Japan.
Kaiko¯ Migration in Regional and National Contexts The Overseas Development Company’s recruiting literat ure largely elided the discussion of the complex Brazilian legal and political contexts that had first allowed for the establishment of Japanese immigration. Where many Japanese experts on Brazil recognized the unique opportunity that Brazilian
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federalism offered to Japa nese migration companies, Kaikō officials omitted the details of Brazilian immigration policy and constitutional law from its settlers. Instead, Kaikō literature focused on Brazil’s long track record of accepting immigrants, notably from Europe, and presented the migration arrangement as an enduring and stable result of healthy Japanese- Brazilian relations. Although Japanese migration was very much the result of constitutional guarantees of state autonomy in the 1891 Brazilian Constitution, company literature suggested that the regional arrangements that allowed Japanese immigration would last indefinitely into the future. Moreover, while Kaikō officials routinely promoted its emigration program through a national lens, even mentioning in passing the Japanese presence in states aside from São Paulo, the positive descriptions of Brazilian modernization and the country’s attitudes toward immigrants hewed closely to regional understandings of history. Just as e arlier promotional materials sought to highlight Brazil’s size relative to Japan, the 1930s editions of Conditions in South American Brazil observed that “the area of the state of São Paulo is slightly larger than Honshū and Shikoku combined.”53 Barbara Weinstein explains about 1920s São Paulo, “From the perspective of those who sought to secure Sao Paulo’s dominant position in the union, the decade began on a high note. . . . The state capital was now incontestably Brazil’s leading manufacturing center, and the Paulista West continued to be Brazil’s most productive agricultural zone.”54 As Weinstein argues, São Paulo’s prosperity, especially in relation to the rest of Brazil, motivated specific understandings of a São Paulo–based regional identity, and Kaikō recruiting materials perpetuated many of the myths of Paulista exceptionalism that would fuel the state’s conflict against the federal government in the early 1930s. The 1920 edition of Japanese Development in Brazil, for example, in a section entitled “The State of São Paulo’s Golden Age,” posited that the economic opportunities available to Japanese settlers in the state were the result of “good land, good climate, and foreign immigrants from many countries working together.”55 The notion that European immigrants had contributed to São Paulo’s economic success was a common trope of Paulista elites, and Kaikō borrowed on these myths to suggest that Japanese w ere next in line to contribute to and benefit from São Paulo’s modernization. 56 Similarly, the 1932 edition of Conditions in South American Brazil followed its description of Brazil’s long history of European immigration, by observing, “In terms of language, Portuguese is the national language, but Spanish, Italian, and French are also often used.”57 In addition to showing the Japanese
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as the successors to e arlier European immigrants, the focus on foreign languages also suggested that Japanese might be afforded a level of autonomy in Brazilian life, consistent with the images of the Iguape Colony, which would ease the difficulties of the long-distance migration process. Over the course of the entire prewar period, Kaikō’s promotional materials also featured photographs of the city’s famous buildings and parks as a way of introducing Japanese agriculturalists to the state’s political and economic capital. Even though immigrants would find themselves living in agricultural communities far removed from this urban modernity, photo graphs of the city of São Paulo in Kaikō guidebooks played a prominent role in conferring legitimacy to the company’s Japanese migration schemes. A caption of a photograph of the city in the 1924 photobook explained, “The city of São Paulo, and the capital of the state of São Paulo, is exceedingly important for Japanese. B ehind Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, its population of 580,000 is the third largest in South America.”58 Photographs of the Jardim de Luz and Centro (downtown São Paulo) suggested to readers that São Paulo was a modern and European city, replete with brick skyscrapers and modern public transportation (see fig. 6.2). Similarly, the modern and scientific Hospedaria dos Imigrantes, the state of São Paulo’s immigrant-processing center through which almost all Japanese passed, also featured prominently in Kaikō promotional materials, as did Kaikō’s Brazilian headquarters located in a fancy building in the city center. The implication from these photos and explanations was that the Japanese settlement project was contributing to and profiting from the city’s development by making the region’s rural lands agriculturally productive.
Stability Even u nder Vargas Just as Kaikō officials failed to foresee the collapse of coffee prices and the subsequent G reat Depression, they also did not account for the 1930 Brazilian Revolution that would bring an end to the political system that had granted the state of São Paulo the authority to arrange Japanese settlement. Following the revolution, a new national government, led by Getúlio Vargas, suspended the 1891 Brazilian Constitution and sought to reshape the Brazilian economy and political system. Upon taking power, Vargas enacted a series of laws that restricted the entry and economic rights of immigrants for the first time in Brazilian history. The tensions between the Vargas regime
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Centro, São Paulo, 1924. Source: Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru.
and the state of São Paulo proved far greater than questions of international migration. The 1932 Constitutionalist Revolution would see the state of São Paulo, unhappy with its lost autonomy under Vargas, take up arms against the Provisional Government. The conflict would end with the Provisional Government agreeing to abide by a new constitution, which, when written in 1934, would include a strict 2 percent immigration quota similar to the United States Immigration Act of 1924. As James Woodard observes about the tumultuous period of the late1920s to mid-1930s, “Coffee’s preeminent position in the Brazilian national economic made it impossible to insulate coffee policy from partisan politics. . . . Indeed, in campaigning for the presidency in late 1929, Júlio Prestes himself [the last elected president before the 1930 revolution] proudly proclaimed coffee to be the ‘basis of [Brazilian] wealth’ and the coffee planter to be the ‘type most representative of the nationality.’ ”59 Woodard’s analysis of the era’s politics paints a complex picture of local and national interests, one that the Japanese struggled to navigate, but from an economic perspective, the centrality of foreign agricultural labor along with preex-
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isting agreements with Japanese immigration and colonization companies meant that Japanese immigration continued apace during the tumultuous years of the Provisional Government (1930–1934). In fact, the yearly number of immigrants would not peak until 1933 when 24,494 Japanese arrived in Brazil.60 Even though Brazil was now led by a government that openly targeted both foreign immigration and the state of São Paulo, Kaikō, in its recruiting materials, remained optimistic about the company’s emigratory operations despite both fallen coffee prices and new laws aimed at restricting immigration. Kaikō recruiting materials treated the collapse of coffee prices and changes to Brazilian immigration law as separate issues; the former threatened the economic mobility of colono immigrants, while the latter, the company argued, would have little effect on the livelihoods of those given permission to enter Brazil as part of Kaikō migration programs. Early 1930s editions of Conditions in South American Brazil, for example, emphasized the constitutional protections afforded to foreign immigrants as evidence of Brazil’s welcoming attitudes to Japanese (gaikoku imin no kangei). The 1931 and 1932 editions, for example, noted, “Article 72 of the Brazilian Constitution states that, ‘Constitutionally, for Brazilians and foreigners who reside in the country, freedoms as well as personal security and property rights are inviolably guaranteed.’ ”61 Neither edition, however, mentioned that Getúlio Vargas had suspended the 1891 constitution shortly a fter taking power. Moreover, one of Vargas’s earliest immigrant-facing legal changes, the Law of Two-Thirds, required all workplaces to have at least two-thirds of their employees be Brazilian citizens. Although it was not immediately enforced in the country’s agricultural sectors, the law distinguished between the economic rights of citizens and noncitizens, contrary to the guidebooks’ assurances. When Vargas suspended most foreign immigration in 1931, the following year’s edition of the Conditions in South American Brazil defended the Provisional Government’s actions, to which Japanese w ere exempted, saying the restrictions w ere not a threat but rather evidence of pro-Japanese sentiment in Brazil: “From last year, Brazil, to prevent urban unemployment, temporarily halted foreign immigration. However, the Japanese, who have contributed greatly to the development of sources of wealth [fugen kaitaku], have been given special permission to immigrate and indeed greatly welcomed.”62 Where Kaikō had previously sought credibility for its emigration program by linking it to São Paulo’s urban modernity and e arlier migration history, now company officials
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sought to distance its rural emigration program from the urban crises of other foreign immigrants. From the outside, Kaikō’s claims that Brazil remained friendly to Japa nese immigrants appeared increasingly fantastical as the Vargas government continued to take even more hostile measures against foreign immigration. The quotas in the 1934 Brazilian Constitution severely restricted all immigration, rural and urban, and disproportionately affected immigrants from Japan. Despite being the product of numerous political factors, including anti-Japanese sentiment and the desire to limit São Paulo’s political dominance, when the new restrictions went into effect in mid-1935, annual Japa nese immigration fell by over 60 percent, from 21,930 Japanese entering Brazil in 1934 to 9,611 in 1935 and just 3,306 in 1936.63 Undeterred, the 1936 edition of Conditions in South American Brazil continued to tout the then forty-seven years of uninterrupted republican government, which, while technically true, ignored the multiple disruptions to Brazilian national politics between 1930 and 1934.64 The guidebook also provided a narrow, legalistic reading of the quotas that focused on their nationality-blind construction. In fact, it contended that the new limits on foreign immigration did not constitute Japanese exclusion (hainichi) because “the objective of the so- called immigration restrictions [imin seigen] was not to singularly target Japanese nor did they lead to discriminatory treatment of Japanese specifically.”65 Rather, the guidebook assured that the settlers who could enter Brazil would continue to benefit from the economic and legal conditions that had undergirded e arlier Japanese settlement. Kaikō’s interpretation of the Brazilian immigration quotas in its promotional materials contradicted the public complaints of the Japanese Brazilian community and the Japa nese Ministry of Foreign Affairs— which published numerous announcements in São Paulo’s Japanese-language newspapers assuring Japa nese in Brazil that its diplomats w ere working to fight the quotas. Many Japanese Brazilians saw the Vargas regime’s new restrictions as motivated by anti-Japanese animus and as a direct threat to any future Japanese immigration. In fact, by the time Conditions in South American Brazil was published in 1936, many potential recruits had likely turned their emigratory attention to Manchuria, especially as Vargas’s immigration restrictions proved a popular news topic in an increasingly nationalistic Japan that saw them as another example of global anti-Japanese sentiment. The Overseas Development Company’s Brazilian promotional materials show that from the late 1910s to the late 1930s, the company presented a
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stable and consistently profitable vision of its Brazilian emigration programs to potential recruits. The continuities and changes across this sample of Kaikō recruiting materials reveals how the company presented its Brazilian colony as the apogee of Japanese settlement. While it is hard to know exactly how t hese materials w ere consumed by Japanese emigrants, t hose who moved to Brazil u nder the auspices of Kaikō-r un schemes, if these materials are to be believed, likely arrived with certain expectations about the nature of their new lives. Specifically, colono laborers may have harbored hope of f uture Brazilian agricultural lives within Japanese communities with robust institutional support. However, as the immigrant-friendly po litical and economic conditions of the Brazilian Old Republic further dis appeared under the nativist rule of Getúlio Vargas, the calculus of Japanese emigration changed. Even the rosy picture of life in Brazil presented in official materials was contradicted by the realities of changing circumstances on the ground. By 1935, anti-Japanese politicians and critics in Brazil referred to Japanese communities in the interior of São Paulo as racial cysts and sought to ban foreign-language education. The largely superficial treatment in Kaikō’s recruiting materials of Brazilian political institutions and the focus on the colonies’ autonomy suggest that t here was little emphasis on the company’s part in developing Japanese settlers as political subjects in Brazil, despite brief mentions in guidebooks of the possibility of naturalization or intermarriage with Brazilian citizens. As conditions worsened, many Japanese settlers directed their complaints to the Japanese government.66 In emphasizing the continuities between Japanese rural life and colony-based life in Brazil, t hese types of Kaikō’s recruiting literat ure may have helped lay the intellectual groundwork for a Japanese Brazilian community that, as Vargas’s anti-immigrant politics intensified, found itself struggling to confront new political and economic challenges.
Notes 1. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, “Burajiru sãn pauro shū jōkyōsho,” assorted Brazilian migration-related materials, Migration Collection, 3.8.2.80, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive (MOFA), Tokyo, 1918. 2. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Kaigai kōgyō kabushiki kaisha, front matter, chart 2. 3. Endoh, Exporting Japan, p. 70. 4. Suzuki, Japanese Immigrant in Brazil, p. 195. 5. Suzuki, Japanese Immigrant in Brazil, p. 247.
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6. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru ni okeru hōjin (1919), 151. 7. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Information Sheet, Assorted Brazilian Migration Related Materials, Migration Collection, 3.8.2.80, MOFA, 1918. 8. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha Chōsabu, Zenkoku chūshōnō, p. 28. 9. Scholars of Japanese migrations have long debated the reasons why certain regions produced more emigrants. Some, like Alan Takeo Moriyama, have suggested that long-held local practices of short-term emigration had created cultures of migration in certain regions of Japan, especially Hiroshima. As such, w hether a high concentration of Kaikō representatives was a cause or a product of large-scale emigration remains unclear. See Moriyama, Imingaisha. 10. A koku of rice was defined as the quantity of rice required to feed one person for one year, or approximately 330 pounds. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, foreword to Burajiru ni okeru hōjin (1919), pp. 1–2. 11. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, foreword to Burajiru ni okeru hōjin (1919), p. 1. 12. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, foreword to Burajiru ni okeru hōjin (1920), p. 1. 13. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, “Burajirukoku san pauro shūyuki imin kokore taiyō” (1918), Assorted Brazilian Migration Related Materials, Migration Collection, 3.8.2.80, MOFA, 1918. 14. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru ni okeru hōjin (1919), p. 2. 15. For an example, see Sapporo Agricultural College professor, Takaoka Kumao’s Chuō kōron article advocating large-scale agricultural emigration to Brazil. Takaoka, “Burajiru imin ron.” 16. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Nanbei Burajiru jijō (1932), p. 18. 17. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Nanbei Burajiru jijō (1931), p. 53. 18. Wako, Bauru kannai no Nihonjin. 19. As part of its emigratory apparatus, Kaikō still produced research and published reports that studied Japanese agricultural life, including population statistics in southwest and northeast Japan, where many of its recruits lived. See Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Sekai ni okeru. 20. Holloway, Immigrants on the Land, pp. 142–143. 21. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, “Burajirukoku san pauro shūyuki imin kokore taiyō,” MOFA. 22. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, “Burajiru sãn pauro shū jōkyōsho,” MOFA. 23. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, “Burajirukoku san pauro shūyuki imin kokore taiyō,” MOFA. 24. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, “Burajirukoku san pauro shūyuki imin kokore taiyō,” MOFA. 25. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru ishokuminchi shashinjō, p. 3. 26. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru ni okeru hōjin (1920), p. 43. 27. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru ni okeru hōjin (1920), p. 47. 28. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru ni okeru hōjin (1920), p. 48. 29. Seth Jacobowitz’s work has examined the struggles of Japanese immigrants in the coffee industry as presented in Japanese Brazilian literature and draws a sharp contrast to Kaikō’s optimism about coffee’s economic possibilities. See Jacobowitz, “Bitter Brew.” 30. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru no hojin (1920), p. 26. 31. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Nanbei Burajiru jijō (1932), p. 28.
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32. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Nanbei Burajiru jijō (1932). 33. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Nanbei Burajiru jijō (1936), p. 27. 34. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Nanbei Burajiru jijō (1936), p. 29. 35. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru ni okeru hōjin (1919), p. 52. 36. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru ni okeru hōjin (1919), p. 89. 37. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru ni okeru hōjin (1919), p. 89–90. 38. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru ni okeru hōjin (1919), p. 95. 39. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, “Burajiru yuki kazoku ishokumin annai,” immigration agency materials, assorted Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha–related materials, Migration Collection, 3.8.2.300-2-6, MOFA, 1926. 40. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru ni okeru hōjin (1920), p. 95. 41. See Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru ni okeru hōjin (1920), pp. 103, 122. 42. Handa, O imigrante Japonês, p. 338. 43. For more on the history of Japanese colonies in Brazil, including how the Iguape Colony and its institutions served as a model for l ater Japanese colonies, see Mita, Bastos. Rogério Dezem and Sidinalva Maria Wawzyniak’s chapters about Japanese colonies in the edited volume Cem anos da imigração japonesa: história, memória, e arte both examine the importance of the colony model of settlement within the longer history of Japanese Brazilian migration, including in public memory. See Dezem, “Um exemplo singular”; and Wawzyniak, “A ‘colônia’ como representação.” 44. Handa, O imigrante Japonês, p. 346. 45. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Nanbei Burajiru jijō (1936), p. 30. 46. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Nanbei Burajiru jijō, p. 42. 47. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru ishokuminchi shashinjo, photo 58. 48. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru ishokuminchi shashinjo, photo 13. 49. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Nanbei Burajiru jijo. 50. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru ishokuminchi shashinjo, photo 56. 51. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Nanbei Burajiru jijō (1936), p. 32. 52. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru yōgo tehodoki, p. 61. 53. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Nanbei Burajiru jijō (1936), p. 16. 54. Weinstein, Color of Modernity, p. 46. 55. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru ni okeru hōjin (1920), p. 17. 56. Jeffrey Lesser has written about the ways in which Japanese sought to make themselves appear European in the broader context of Brazilian immigration. See Lesser, Negotiating National Identity. 57. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Nanbei Burajiru jijō (1932), p. 4. 58. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Burajiru ishokuminchi shashinjo, photo 10. 59. Woodard, Place in Politics, p. 191. 60. Lone, Japanese Community in Brazil, p. 101. 61. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Nanbei Burajiru jijō (1931), p. 7; and Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Nanbei Burajiru jijō (1932), p. 7. 62. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Nanbei Burajiru jijō (1932). 63. Lone, Japanese Community in Brazil, p. 101. 64. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Nanbei Burajiru jijō (1936), p. 2. 65. Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, Nanbei Burajiru jijō (1936), p. 18. 66. See Lone, Japanese Community in Brazil, p. 102.
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“South America Bound” Japanese Settler Colonist Fiction of the Meiji Era Seth Jacobowitz
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his chapter investigates the origins of settler colonist fiction that began in the Meiji era and constituted one of the most tangible forms by which modern literat ure participated in the Empire of Japan’s broader expansionist aims. Contrary to the conventional wisdom which takes for granted that this genre was exclusively set in Japan’s burgeoning empire in Asia, from 1908 until the onset of World War II settler colonist fiction expressly promoted emigration overseas to sovereign nations in South Amer ica. Literature was regarded as an indispensable supplement to Japan’s strategy for alleviating the burdens of overpopulation in the home islands while encouraging the expansion of the Japanese as a world people. To a lesser degree, the genre also highlighted emigration to the South Seas region (Nanyō, or in Chinese, Nanyang) and occasionally looked back toward North America, where the Japanese community continued to grow and exercise a powerful grip on the national-imperial imagination despite the restrictions on immigration that began with the Gentleman’s Agreement.1 Sidney Xu Lu has rightly called the political calculus that lay behind these global efforts to resettle large numbers of Japanese immigrants “Malthusianism” or “Malthusian expansionism,”2 in recognition of the widespread perception that overpopulation constituted an existential threat to the nation, while also serving the imperialist imperative to equitably guarantee a Japanese presence alongside white settlers on both sides of the Pacific. The earliest known work of settler colonist fiction is Horiuchi Shinsen’s “South America Bound” (“Nanbei yuki”), which appeared in the inaugural May 1908 issue of the journal Colonization World (Shokumin sekai) published by the Tokyo-based magazine company Seikō Zasshi Sha.3 Although largely forgotten today, both text and genre attest to the pressures 168
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disproportionately confronted by the rural communities marked in Japa nese national-imperial discourse as “surplus population” ( jinkō kajō). It consisted primarily of men whose seasonal labor “working away from home” (dekasegi) not only temporarily brought them into the cities, but who now also took on short-term arrangements to work on sugarcane plantations in Hawai‘i and the South Pacific. Mass migration quickly took root in prewar Japan’s cultural life and thought system. Statesmen, ideologues, and professional writers often worked in concert to preach the gospel of socioeconomic advancement (shusse) overseas in mass-market magazines such as Colonization World. Building upon his earlier studies of the domestic rags- to-riches genre called “novels of success” (risshi shōsetsu), Wada Atsuhiko has demonstrated that disenfranchised but physically fit younger male workers with no access to capital w ere made the target audience for a “discursive space of enticement” (sasoi no gensetsu kūkan) in settler colonist fiction, which exhorted them to emigrate for self-benefit and the greater good of the empire.4 Enduring for only five issues between May and September 1908, Colonization World nevertheless set in motion production of a lowbrow but ideologically potent literary corpus in pro-expansionist and general interest magazines that grew well into the early 1940s. Settler colonist fiction thus operated within a feeder system that promised a degree of state sponsorship and oversight to would-be immigrants, while maintaining the primacy of ambition, skill, and luck in navigating the perils of earning one’s fortune abroad. Personal responsibility, that perennial capitalist standard, was the bedrock value according to which outward, as well as upward, mobility would be measured. In actuality, “South America Bound” was doubly marked in the pages of Colonization World as “settler colonist literat ure” (shokumin bungaku) and “settler colonist fiction” (shokumin shōsetsu). The cartouche for the former is illustrated with the figure of a young shepherd and spotted calf, while the latter appears in fine print above the title of the work. There was nothing accidental or redundant about this nomenclature. The magazine sought to encourage a variegated literature, while privileging short-form prose fiction narratives as the chief means to persuade young men to emigrate to the still-poorly understood countries of South America. Throughout this chapter, I adopt the conceptual framework of settler colonialism as the preferred translation of shokumin to reflect the underlying mission of imperial expansion b ehind the emigration campaigns. By the same measure, I consistently
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refer to Horiuchi’s work as settler colonist fiction in order to emphasize genre specificity within the general category of settler colonist litera ture that included poetry, travelogues, essays, translated prose fiction, and so on. The present study provides a reading of “South America Bound” according to three critical contexts. First, it attends to the layout, editorial voices, and journalistic content of Colonization World that must be understood as establishing its horizon of legibility within the magazine itself. Second, it documents the naturalist and popular fictional works that immediately preceded and surrounded this genre in the Meiji era, and which helped to situate settler colonist fiction within a larger literary landscape that persisted into the early 1940s. Third, it follows Shinsen’s serialization of this narrative into two additional installments about Peru, which produced a sense of narrative continuity from the immigrants’ old lives in Japan to new ones abroad. Despite being a true product of these interrelated frameworks, “South America Bound” is remarkable for a number of historical firsts. It is the earliest known fictional work to represent the overseas migration to Peru, which was, in fact, the first Latin American nation to establish diplomatic relations with Japan in 1873. Although immigration to Peru began in 1899, less than a handful of ships had made the voyage by 1908, and the immigrants, who numbered fewer than three thousand, faced intense hardship due to tropical diseases, discrimination, and cultural and linguistic barriers. Shinsen’s depiction of Peru, then, was intended by the magazine as a public relations booster shot for an emigration campaign whose own success was far from assured. His embellishments and artistic liberties elsewhere notwithstanding, he accurately named the immigrant steamer in the story as the Kasato Maru, which had brought Japanese immigrants to Hawai‘i in 1906, and Mexico and Peru in 1907. In “South America Bound,” the ship departs from Yokohama in the May 1908 issue of Colonization World and arrives in Callao in the following month’s issue, which exactly coincided with the Kasato Maru’s real-time arrival in the port of Santos on June 18, 1908, bringing the first 781 Japanese immigrants to Brazil. Working in conjunction with the editorials that precede it, “South America Bound” invested heavily in South America as the most promising site for Japanese colonial expansion outside East Asia. This came precisely at the critical juncture when the Gentleman’s Agreements with the United States (1907) and Canada (1908) had forced Japan to look elsewhere to annually
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relocate tens of thousands of immigrants, particularly from the rural male labor force. Another literary dimension of “South America Bound” is that it established the narrative paradigm for Japanese settler colonist fiction in parallel to the domestic novel of success. Th ese working-class dreams of overseas prosperity, like their home island opposite numbers, invariably pose a series of obstacles and struggles that ultimately culminate in personal financial success for the worthy (or comeuppance for malefactors). Further, they commonly portray the sojourner as an everyman who, at least in principle, plans to return to Japan to reestablish himself—the narrators and protagonists, modeling the actual immigrants, trend overwhelmingly masculine— as a landowner or shopkeeper as soon as he obtains sufficient capital. By contrast, investing in education for its own sake or forsaking one’s imperial citizenship to assume a new nationality is scarcely countenanced. Yet regardless of how brief or self-directed one’s time might be spent abroad, it was understood that even the temporary act of emigration benefitted Japan’s overseas colonies. The stories thus work in verification of this twofold dialectic of patriotic duty. By pursuing one’s ambition and venturing forth to work in other sovereign nations, the sojourner not only repatriated newfound wealth to Japan, but further contributed to building its archipelago of colonies overseas. It must be acknowledged that Colonization World was far more effective in establishing the principle of a literary paradigm than fixing its real ity. The settler colonist fiction published in its pages beyond “South America Bound” can best be described as hackwork since Shinsen and other professional writers w ere paid to hastily produce material of little artistic value. This chapter identifies “South America Bound” as the sole work in the five issues of the magazine that transcended the inherent limitations of this incipient genre by staking out the fundamental narrative arc of the immigrant struggle. In so doing, it consciously preceded the organic emergence of literary production by Japanese immigrants to South America themselves in the coming decades. It should be noted that Meiji-era pro-expansionist magazine publishers occasionally sponsored standalone, long-form novels in a bid to extend the popularity of the genre. For instance, Sakai Ichirō’s Yamato nadeshiko (235 pages in length), published by Kaigaisha in 1917, depicts an enterprising Japanese immigrant who arrives in Chile and makes his way across South America. While t hese novels did not possess any intrinsically superior aesthetic value to their serialized short-form counterparts,
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they labored at considerably greater length to describe the exotic locales and livelihoods that awaited prospective immigrants. By no later than January 1920, when the popular literary journal New Youth (Shin seinen) made its debut, settler colonist fiction was already published with some regularity in mainstream magazines in Japan. The genre was set alongside or incorporated into works of high seas adventure fiction, agrarian fiction, detective fiction, science fiction, and “true-life stories” ( jitsuwa) about successful immigrants. In the pro-expansionist magazines of the prewar era, meanwhile, literary prizes, submission contests, and other promotional activities would further solicit the active participation of readers, most often in the production of their own settler colonist prose fiction. While they do not f actor into the present study, a diversity of literary production—poetry, theatrical plays, screenplays, critical commentary, and biographical or autobiographical accounts—would likewise wax and wane in the literary arts (bungei) column commonly found in the back pages of the pro-expansionist magazines. Collectively, t hese texts, too, sought to stoke the public imagination beyond familiar thinking about the confines of an island nation or isolationist narratives of national destiny. Lest this chapter be perceived simply as an exercise in literary history or genre studies, I stake the claim that settler colonist fiction in general, and works such as “South America Bound” in particular, were not only upheld by Meiji ideologues as making vital contributions to the national- imperial doctrine of expansionism, but in fact help to make visible the continuum that existed in Japan between colonization achieved at the barrel of a gun within its sphere of influence in East Asia and the more peaceful methods of emigration and commerce outside of its national-imperial boundaries. Although prewar North and South American scholars, politicians, and lay observers debated the implications and perceived threats of Japanese mass migration as colonial expansionism in the Western hemi sphere, a granular understanding of the interconnectedness of things has long since receded from our mainstream historical consciousness. As Pedro Iacobelli clarifies in Postwar Emigration to South America from Japan and the Ryukyu Islands, The historiography of prewar Japanese migration tends to make a distinction between two types of migration: colonial migration and overseas migration (kaigai ijū). The former focuses on the expansion of the Japanese Empire and the establishment of Japanese settlements in neighboring areas
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such as Taiwan (1895), Kwantung Lease Territory (Kantōshū, 1895), South Sakhalin (Karafuto, 1907), and Korea (Chōsen, annexed in 1910). By 1935, over 1,735,000 Japanese nationals had migrated to colonial territories. The latter type of migration focuses on the international emigration movement from Japan (including the Ryukyu Islands) to countries and territories in Southeast Asia, Oceania and the Americas, which by 1935 had accrued over 550,000 people.5
At a glance, a summary of this kind is immensely helpful in identifying the scale, dates, and geographical emplacement of the imperialist and migratory campaigns. Yet, in order to reconstruct the epistemic conditions that existed at the takeoff of Japanese colonial growth, it is necessary for us to go past the numbers alone in excavating the manifold forms of literary, visual, philosophic, journalistic, and print cultural evidence from the archives that guide the way. Only in this manner can transnational or transpacific Asian studies overcome the shortcomings of an area studies deconstruction that has persistently stopped short at the level of purely methodological critique.
Colonization of the World By the late 1970s, the literary scholar Takeuchi Yō had already shown that since January 1905 t here existed a discourse of emigration in the Seikō Zasshi Sha’s flagship publication, Success, with an “overseas column” and in other relevant sections of the magazine.6 Although Colonization World was exceedingly short-lived in its own print run, it set the precedent for programmatically congruent journals that succeeded it over the next several decades, notably Overseas Japan (Kaigai no Nippon, 1911–1942), The Overseas Journal (Kaigai, 1927–1933), The Colonial Review (Shokumin, 1924– 1934), and Brazil (Burajiru, 1927–1941).7 The discourse of expansionism found ample expression u nder their combined patronage. By and large, this was no crude form of imperialist propaganda but a nuanced, cosmopolitan project, whose participants included the Christian-denominated Rikkōkai and other stakeholders who vigorously supported emigration campaigns and commerce with sovereign nations rather than military conquest. In contrast to the hierarchical order established within Japan’s formal empire, they oftentimes considered, for instance, how immigrants o ught best to
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adapt to local customs and align themselves with powerful political and economic interests where they settled. Still, these magazines unabashedly resolved imperialism and migration into a single discursive field, making them the most comprehensive and public-facing serial publications to articulate this stance of unitary expansionism. The editorial tone in the first issue of Colonization World not only corroborates the centrality of settler colonist literat ure to the larger project of the magazine, but also asserts a geopolitical vision for accommodating Japan’s rapidly growing population throughout the world and as a world p eople. The layout of Colonization World and its successors conforms to a standard template established by the Japanese magazine industry around the turn of the c entury. A typical issue would consist of nine or ten of the following items in this order: cover art; a table of contents printed in red ink; advertisements for long-form genre fiction novels, dictionaries, and reference materials; glossy photographic portraits of eminent statesmen; editorials and opinion pieces; journalistic reportage on current and prospective locales for colonization; general interest articles pertaining to same; a roundup of telegraphic and miscellaneous news items; and a literary arts column, usually placed in the back pages. Advertisements, lithographic illustrations, and low-grade photographic inserts of exotic locales, immigrant life, and the like were interspersed with the articles, while full-page advertisements appeared once more in the final pages and back cover. In contrast to the leading general interest monthly magazines, such as The Sun (Taiyō, 1895–1928) and Central Review (Chūō kōron, 1887–present), in which expansionist messaging was at best diluted, Colonization World and the later pro-expansionist journals steadfastly reinforced their raison d’être within and across each issue. I adopt an analytic approach here that surveys a cross-section of leading authorial voices in the first issue of Colonization World as they traverse different geog raphical locations and their attendant geopolitical or practical business concerns. Their words lay bare the inherently ideological nature of the magazine, including advocacy for settler colonist literat ure as a means of emboldening readers to take the plunge overseas. The front covers to the first four issues of Colonization World are virtually identical save for a change in background color, a not uncommon cost- saving measure in a competitive market where new titles w ere constantly being introduced, tested, and discarded when unsuccessful. It presents a bearded man dramatically, if somewhat incongruously, dressed in Elizabe-
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than doublet and hose, holding up a spear and banner bearing the magazine’s title in his left hand and pointing a rapier in his right toward a circular cutout superimposing the contents of the issue over a map that compresses South America and the South Seas. The fact that Colonization World was an imprint of the prestigious Tokyo-based Seikō Zasshi Sha is proudly displayed in the lower right-hand corner, while the far left-hand side beguiles, “This magazine is a must-read for the globally business-minded!” (sekaiteki jitsugyōka). The repetition of the word “world” echoing the title was less significant than its appeal to the “business-minded,” which was synonymous with the parent company’s branding. This was repeated for a third time in a mission statement addressed to the reader by the editorial board on an unnumbered page opposite the t able of contents, which signals that “practical learning” ( jitsugyō), even before “training” (yōsei) and the acquisition of “knowledge” (chishiki), is the bedrock foundation for the bold overseas endeavors of “our citizens” (wa ga kokumin) and “brethren” (dōhō). The table of contents in the May 1908 issue has twenty-eight entries, mostly short essays of two to three pages in length, which are subdivided into categories such as “Forum” and “In Focus” for the leading editorial essays; “Resources,” for the exploitation of natural resources; “Business Affairs” ( jitsugyō) for industrial development; and “Overseas Trade,” for commercial enterprises. The centerpiece is “Settler Colonist Literat ure,” which consists of Horiuchi’s “South America Bound” and Kodama Kagai’s “The Sojourning Goose” (“Yuku ōtori”), the latter parenthetically identified in smaller print as a free-verse poem.8 In terms of its global reach for promoting Japanese colonization, the magazine traverses (in alphabetical order) the Amur River, Brazil, China, Karafuto (Sakhalin), Korea, Mexico, and Peru, with several of these sites, Korea foremost among them, made the subject of multiple articles and editorials. The exceptional placement of settler colonist literat ure in the table of contents was reinforced to varying degrees by each of the issue’s four main editorials. It marks a decisive turning point in the expansionist shift t oward South America as the most auspicious area outside Japan’s sphere of influence, following the closure of the Anglophone countries to Japanese immigration. The lead editorial, “The Expansion of the Japanese Race and the Work of Colonization” (“Yamato minzoku bōchō to shokumin jigyō”), by the former prime minister and founder of Waseda University, Count Ōkuma Shigenobu (1838–1922), sets the tone for the issue and magazine as a whole.
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He wastes no time in his preamble framing the imperialist state of affairs that has reshaped the world since the age of exploration: “There is not a country in the world, not even the lands inhabited by uncivilized savages who boast of cannibalistic ways [ jinniku o kutte, hokori to suru mikai yaban naru minzoku], nor remote islands in the vastness of the sea, whose wildernesses show no signs of life, that are not subject to the dominion of some ruling body, w hether it is u nder the control of a friendly country or an agreement by the G reat Powers.”9 Japan’s overpopulation of the home islands, he elaborates, poses the single greatest threat facing the nation and necessitates procuring new territories in which to settle its immigrants. Ōkuma circumspectly sidesteps assigning legal distinctions to regions outside the sphere of Japan’s influence, but tellingly remarks that reliance upon trade and commerce, which could be cut off at any time, is insufficient. Instead, it is only natural, in his estimation, for Japan to secure its own “colonial strongholds” (shokuminteki jiban)10 amid the international competition for resources. In the next section, “Ethnic Expansion and the Strengthening of National Power” (“Minzoku bōchō to kokuryoku shinchō”), Ōkuma outlines the reasonable prospects for emigration within Japan’s growing sphere of influence in northeast Asia. He regards the Korean peninsula and frontier expanses of Siberia as the most immediate and favorable destinations but qualifies that they are insufficient to adequately meet the challenges posed by Japan’s rapidly increasing population. Moreover, as the example of other world powers has proven, Japan, too, can only achieve an enhancement of its existing infrastructure of knowledge production, industry, and trade by taking colonies. Given the anti-Japanese sentiment evinced in North Amer ica, alluding to the Gentlemen’s Agreements, Japan must find ways to be self-sufficient and avoid war whenever possible. Ōkuma ominously sketches the global situation as one in which “religious, racial, and political prejudices [shūkyōteki, jinshuteki, seijiteki henken] frequently lead to misunderstandings” that cloud Japan’s prospects for unfettered expansion.11 In the third and final section, “South America and Our Settler Colonists” (“Nanbei to wa ga shokumin”), Ōkuma turns to the final frontier for Japanese settler colonists. “There is no need to fight when North America pushes us away,” he reassures the reader. “The world is vast, and the Japa nese p eople w ill not only be expelled, but also welcomed elsewhere.”12 He estimates that K orea may receive between six hundred thousand to one million Japanese settlers. In spite of its greater landmass, he avers, Siberia
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could not boast such large numbers due to its inhospitable climate. By contrast, Ōkuma maintains South America might easily accommodate four or five million immigrants and was “the most welcoming to [other] world races” (sekai jinrui no kōfuku de aru).13 Ōkuma does not mention any partic ular country by name, but given that immigration to Peru was still struggling and the arrival of the first cohort of immigrants to Brazil was still a month away, his essay can be read as a broad missive to educate and reassure the public that the pivot to South America was already underway. The second essay is Gotō Shinpei’s (1857–1929) “A Plan for Colonization Courses at the Imperial Universities” (“Teikoku daigaku shokumin kōza keikaku”). It was paired with a full-page photographic portrait of its author, who is identified as the first director of the South Manchurian Railway (1906–1908), although by then he was already acting in his role as minister of communications and director of the Railway Bureau (1908– 1911). Gotō’s essay summarizes his discussions with the presidents of Kyoto Imperial University and Tokyo Imperial University, where he successfully convinced them to found “colonization studies departments” (shokuminka).14 A medical doctor who had served as the head of civilian affairs in colonial Taiwan (1898–1906), where he rigorously applied his philosophy for governing according to biological principles (seibutsugaku no gensoku), Gotō does not let pass the opportunity to share his disciplinary perspective in the conclusion of the essay by arguing that hygiene management and sanitation practices were essential training for the colonial administration of a rapidly expanding population. Gotō not only imbued the magazine with the prestige of his offices and accomplishments, but also added the rock-solid commitment of the preeminent imperial universities to colonization. The third essay is Diet member, writer, and historian Takekoshi Yosaburō’s (1865–1950) “In Promotion of Settler Colonist Fiction” (“Shokumin bungaku o furiokoseyo”).15 Takekoshi, who paraphrased Horace Greeley to coin the phrase “Go south, young man!” in his bestselling Nangoku-ki (Account of southern countries, 1910),16 was already intimately acquainted with Gotō’s tenure in Taiwan, which he effusively praised in the English-language book Japanese Rule in Formosa (London: Longmans, Green, 1907; translated by George Braithwaite). The book in fact begins with a preface by Gotō. If it was somewhat predictable for Takekoshi’s essay in Colonization World to follow Gotō’s in consequence of their previous close collaborations, it is rather the subject matter and its placement in the
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magazine that warrants our careful attention. Takekoshi’s praise for settler colonist fiction amounted to nothing less than a de facto state patronization of the genre in this earliest of the pro-expansionist journals. Takekoshi expresses his unabashed delight at the publication of Colonization World for providing much-needed research for the nation’s current and future colonization policies. He saves his greatest admiration, however, for the magazine’s literary contribution, noting that t here was not a lack of outlets to promote colonization (shokumin ni kan suru kikan) but instead an “absence of settler colonist literat ure” (shokumin bungaku no ketsubō)17 that the nation now most desperately needed. Takekoshi devotes much of his essay to promoting the civic virtues of patriotism (kokuminsei), which he compares with France, Germany, and England as a basis for achieving national greatness and cultivating an expansionist spirit. He praises the Japanese privateers of the Tokugawa era, who v iolated the closed country prohibitions imposed by the shogunate to cross the seas and assert their p eople’s national destiny, even trading with places as distant as Siam and Mexico. It is this “independent spirit” ( jishu jiritsu no seishin),18 rooted in Japan’s imperial heritage, that he maintains provides the prerequisite to global colonization. Takekoshi concludes the essay by concurring with Gotō that colonization studies should be implemented in higher education but that “society should also greatly encourage settler colonist literat ure, alongside historical biographies and business affairs, so as to stimulate the flagging spirits of our youth” (shakai wa mata ooni shokumin bungaku no kōryū o hakari, korera ni kan suru shiden ya jigyō o tsutae, motte chōraku sento suru wa ga seinen no genki o kōfun seshimu beki o setsubō suru mono nari).19 His endorsement of the genre for its capacity to inculcate Japanese spirit, then, was a pragmatic extension of the magazine’s capacity to proselytize and inspire the uninitiated to fulfill their patriotic duty and seek their fortune overseas. The fourth editorial is entitled “The Motives b ehind the Publication of Colonization World ” (“Shokumin sekai hakkan no shushi”) by Takahashi Sanmin (biographical data unavailable), a regular columnist for Success and Colonization World. In his essay, he too decries the three centuries of the closed-country policy upheld by the Tokugawa shogunate as having “conspicuously repressed the expansive character of our imperial nation” (ichijirushiku, wa ga teikoku kokumin no bōchōteki seikaku o yokuatsu shi). 20 Consistent with the Malthusian threat posed by domestic overcrowding, he posits the need to send two-fifths of Japan’s population of fifty million
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overseas to stave off national ruin. N eedless to say, he continues, this w ill require serious investment in agriculture, commerce, and industry if Japan is to compete with the “advanced Western nations who are steadily moving forward with peaceful [resolution to] conflict by sending their immigrants throughout the world” (Ōbei no senshinkoku wa mina heiwateki sensō ni mukatte kyūkyū tari, shokumin o sekai no kakuchi ni itarite).21 In regard to the enigmatic turn of phrase “peaceful [resolution of] conflict,” which was repeatedly echoed by fellow expansionists, it is clear that immigration was seen not only as the avoidance of warfare, but the accomplishment of its most acquisitive aims—that is, the settling of territory and exploitation of resources by nonmilitary means. Sanmin’s recommendations concerning where to achieve t hese goals map precisely onto the aforementioned regions deemed suitable for colonialism, while maintaining a dispassionate indifference to any notion of a division between imperialism and immigration: “Look around, there is the Manchurian territory, Korean lands, South America’s fecund fields, and our new dominion in places like Karafuto and Taiwan” (Kubi o mawashite miyo, Manshū no chi, Kankoku no tsuchi, Nanbei no inno oyobi wa ga shin ryōdo taru Karafuto Taiwan no gotoki).22 The message could not be clearer that the mission of settler colonist fiction must be to encourage Japanese immigrants to play their part in the imperial mission. In his concluding remarks, he offers the ultimate encomium to Colonization World, noting, “Nothing would give me greater pleasure as I contemplate the current affairs that have led to the publication of this magazine than if it should enable our imperial nation to accumulate wealth equal to the Western powers not with a martial conflict, but with peaceful [resolution to] conflict” (Yohai wa koko ni jisei no yōkyū ni ōjite honshi o hakkan su, moshi kore ni yorite, wa ga teikokumin ga buryokuteki sensō ni yorazu, heiwateki sensō ni yorite, ōbei no rekkyō ni otorazaru furyoku o baiyō suru no ichisuke to mo naraba, nan no kokei ka kore ni iwan ya).23 This rhetoric found precedent in other interventionist works besides Colonization World. Kō Youngran has independently identified a precedent in Katō Tokijirō’s (1858–1930) “The Nation’s Development” (“Kokumin no hatten”) in the July 3, 1904, edition of Socialism (Shakaishugi) published by the Heimin Shinbun, which advocated emigration to North America as a strategy for “avoidance of war,” “peaceful expansion,” and “establishing Little Japans” overseas.24 By no means reducible to a single ideologue or text, it comprises an essential part of the discourse of imperial Japan that
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has often been marginalized for falling outside the dichotomy of the home islands (naichi) and East Asian colonies (gaichi).
Situating Emigration in Settler Colonist Literat ure According to Kamei Hideo, the genre of “settler colonist fiction was a direct outgrowth of the risshi shōsetsu, beginning with Ogouchi Gokyō’s globetrotting novel Colonization King: A Novel of Success (Shokumin-ō: Risshi Shōsetsu, 1907) and followed by Shinsen’s “South America Bound.”25 Colonization King’s subtitle points to a crucial generic distinction between the two texts in this moment of discursive transformation, as is evident from the former’s title page and the latter’s cartouche. Whereas Ogouchi’s novel explores continental Asia, the Levant, and the “dark world” (ankoku sekai)
FIG. 7.1. Colonization King. Source: National Diet Library, accessed June 6, 2022, https:// d l.ndl.go.j p/info:ndljp/pid /886765/1 .
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of Africa, culminating in an encounter with Boer settlers in South Africa, it does not belong to the tightly knit cliques of Colonization World or to settler colonist fiction proper. Nor does it appear to be a “novel of success” in any conventional sense, since it is made up of equal parts geopolitical intrigue, travelogue, romance, and adventure. In generic terms, it is more in line with the political novels of the 1880s than settler colonist fiction of the 1900s. The issue of magazine patronage also returns h ere in a critical light. Popular literature in turn-of-the-t wentieth-century Japan was routinely encountered in inexpensive mass-market magazines, whose comparatively high production values radiated literary, visual, and typographic modernity, regardless of which niche world the works in question occupied. From the perspective of genre fiction, this magazine market most closely approximates for Meiji Japan the role of penny dreadfuls in the United Kingdom, dime novels in the United States, and colportage novels in Germany. Horiuchi Shinsen, meanwhile, serves up the nearest analogue to the likes of H. Rider Haggard in the United Kingdom, Horatio Alger Jr. in the United States, and Karl May in Germany. Akin to May, whose stories of the Wild West were purely a product of research and imagination, Horiuchi appears to have based his settler colonist fiction solely on reconstructions from the reference materials at hand. His stories accordingly should not be characterized as propaganda per se, but rather as sensationalist in nature, catering to the prevailing fears and fantasies of a domestic audience contemplating a new life overseas. This is not to say the genre of settler colonist fiction bore no relation to belles lettres. In Struggling Upward: Worldly Success and the Japanese Novel, Timothy Van Compernolle investigates the nexus of the Seikō Zasshi Sha, Shinsen, and the novel of success in relation to canonical works of Meiji literat ure by Tayama Katai, Natsume Soseki, Kosugi Tengai, and Takahama Kyoshi.26 These authors’ works in Van Compernolle’s monograph comprise two novels of the countryside, two of the city, and one set in colonial K orea. In all five cases, success, and just as often failure, is exactingly measured. In similar fashion, we may take note of the handful of Meiji-era naturalist texts that register overseas emigration to the Americas as an alternative form of self-striving agency. Masamune Hakuchō’s short story “Dust” (“Jin’ai,” 1907) is a vignette about a newspaper editorial assistant, who laments his dead-end prospects in publishing and missed opportunities to emigrate to Peru:
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I sat at Kitagawa’s desk facing Ono Michiyoshi, a piercing wind blowing in through the broken window glass buffeting my back, and while proofreading I watched the spectacle in the editorial room indifferently. After the collapse of my plans for a trip to South America I took this job as a proofreader, at the suggestion of a friend, to get by on until I could latch onto a promising position of some kind. I’ve been h ere three months already. As I wonder how a man can stand to work at such a worthless job as this, I nurture my colossal hopes for my eventual day of escape. Gripping the worn brush in my hand hardened by weight-lifting, I stare at the lifeless words.27
The unnamed protagonist is a young man, twenty-five years old, who may still be fit for farm labor, but whose educational level, urban lifestyle, and stable, if low-prestige, position in the newspaper business would seem to militate against such a life-altering move. It is difficult to ascertain more about his background or prospects, given the short nature of the piece, but he is obsessed with the notion of social mobility and achieving a meaningful life. Nor was he alone in such sentiments. Wada calls our attention to Uchida Rōan’s still earlier “Year’s End” (“Kure no nijūhachi nichi,” 1898), about a young man who resolves to immigrate to Mexico as one of the so-called Enomoto colonists, named for the staunch expansionist and proponent of mass migration to Mexico, Central America, and the South Seas, Admiral Enomoto Takeaki (1836–1908).28 The most celebrated naturalist novel to pose the question of emigration to the Americas is Shimazaki Tōson’s The Broken Commandment (Hakai), published in 1906, which cemented the author’s place in the literary establishment and modern Japanese canon. The narrative depicts a young schoolteacher in Nagano named Ushimatsu Segawa, who conceals a terrible secret regarding his outcaste burakumin origins. He swears an oath to his f ather never to reveal the truth, so as to pass in mainstream society and bury their family history. To this end, the narrative adopts a strategy of metaphorically driving its protagonist underground in a manner similar to what Deleuze and Guattari, in their reading of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, call “becoming-animal.”29 Ushimatsu seeks paths of resistance and escape from the bureaucratic machinery of the Meiji educational system in which he works and the ideological state apparatus of national-imperial subjectivity in which he lives and breathes, all of which w ill ensnare him as a hinin (lit., “nonperson”) or eta, a derogatory word that translates as “full of filth,” if he should admit to his origins. Ushimatsu is torn between his bio-
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logical father and his spiritual father, the charismatic writer Inoko Rentarō, who is a burakumin liberation activist and openly embraces being an outcaste to shatter the fearful stigma. As generations of readers have discovered to their dismay, however, the novel does not resolve this situation for Ushimatsu to “come out” and fight for civil rights following the deaths of his father and Inoko. Instead, Tōson makes recourse to a deus ex machina, or better still, “Texas ex machina,” whereby Ushimatsu, once his oath is broken, decides to permanently leave Japan and emigrate to Texas. However improbable and unsatisfying this may seem to contemporary readers, Texas was one of several smaller North American colonies outside of the mainstays of Hawai‘i, California, and the Pacific Northwest.30 Ushimatsu decides to accompany the wealthy burakumin named Ohinata, who promises him a place in their “Japanese village” (Nihon mura): When Ushimatsu was introduced to Ohinata, he could not believe at first this was the man who was planning to start a bold and risky new venture overseas, in Texas—he might have been an ordinary country tradesman or herb doctor, he looked so ordinary; but gradually, as they talked, he sensed an unexpected depth in the other’s character, as well as a rocklike common sense. Ohinata told him of a “Japanese village” in Texas, and of some young men from Kita-Sakuma who had gone to work t here, including one from a quite well-to-do family who had graduated from a well-known m iddle school 31 in Tokyo.
Two sociological patterns coalesce in this passage. First, young men would establish themselves overseas in the same colony as their countrymen from the same village or province and then bring over wives and families (yobiyose) once conditions were suitable for their arrival. Second, although the paradigm for mass migration targeted the rural masses, the unrelenting burden of discrimination could compel even affluent and educated individuals from oppressed minority communities to seek a new life abroad. Kō Youngran has noted how controversy has surrounded t hese aspects of the protagonist’s identity: “Since the first publication of the revised edition of The Broken Commandment, voices from within the Burakumin Liberation Movement criticized not only the scene of Ushimatsu’s ‘confession,’ but also his being ‘Texas’ bound.”32 In 1957, she continues, Iwanami’s paperback edition included an afterward by the novelist and critic Noma Hiroshi, who
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went so far as to label the “search for a new paradise in Texas” a form of “escape.”33 The question of discrimination against burakumin and the notion of escaping imperial subjection through emigration lay bare the internal tensions inherent in national-imperial subjectivity. Yet as Kō rightly insists, another issue at stake here is the changing nature of colonial emigration as reflected in the nomenclature of the Japanese government’s Immigrant Protection Law (Imin hogohō). Simply put, imin did not always mean “immigrant” or “immigration.” It encompassed a range of legal categories from temporary economic activities overseas resulting in eventual return to Japan to permanent residence and naturalization. The biases that presume a more exalted “expatriate” status for educated persons of means as opposed to regarding them as immigrants or economic refugees are clearly in evidence in the Meiji discourse of colonial emigration. A final point that Kō brings to the fore involves the number of immigrants to the United States, permanent or temporary, prior to the Gentlemen’s Agreement. According to the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s statistics on overseas migration, the number of immigrants r ose to 29,579 in 1906 and 20,808 in 1907. This high-water mark in the Americas would not be rivaled again or exceeded until the peak of Japanese mass migration to Brazil in the late 1920s and early 1930s. That shift toward South America would only begin in earnest in the years immediately following the publication of these works by Hakuchō, Rōan, and Tōson, and its launching pad was Shinsen’s works in Colonization World.
“South America Bound” “South America Bound” was by design intended to educate ordinary citizens about emigration to a continent still largely a mystery to them, yet which had been judged the most favorable destination by Meiji Japan’s leading statesmen and expansionist ideologues. Shinsen’s narrative unfolds as a classic immigrant story of hardship and grit. In strictly workmanlike fashion, Horiuchi lay out the abject conditions, one a fter another, that prove the hopelessness of remaining in Japan. The narrator is born to a penniless family in the mountains of Kyushu. He and his best friend, Nisaburō, both of whose names indicate third-born sons, struggle to eke out a living amid the harsh conditions in the rural southwest of Meiji Japan. Nisaburō is nicknamed “Tom Thumb” (issun bōshi) due to his diminutive stature that resulted
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from a malnourished childhood. This fact is not lost on anyone in the village, who mercilessly bully and mock him for this ignominious mark of poverty stamped on his very being. A fter he is badly injured working as a woodcutter in the mountains, Nisaburō quits the village for good, g oing in search of better wages elsewhere. By contrast, the narrator served in the military and fought in the B attle of Mukden during the Russo-Japanese War. Katsuzō’s parents pass away, and he marries his cousin Mine, but his financial prospects remain unimproved u ntil one day a letter comes from Yokohama, written by a fellow veteran from Kyushu, who encourages him to answer the call for able-bodied laborers overseas. Seeing no alternative, Katsuzō entrusts his wife to his elder b rother and sister-in-law, and plans to work two or three years abroad. He then makes the cross-country journey to Yokohama, where the Meiji Emigration Company puts him on the Kasato Maru bound for Peru. In June 1908, the serialized continuation of the story, entitled “The Expedition” (“Shokumin tai”), saw the Kasato Maru arrive in Callao, Peru, but with no further sign of the two young men from Kyushu. There was no murder mystery: Shinsen had abruptly and inexplicably written them out of the sequel. Their ignominious disappearance from the magazine corresponded, however, to an uncanny doubling of the ship itself, which appeared in a commemorative photo g raph taken of the 781 Japa nese immigrants on board the ship dated to April 1908, just prior to embarkation from Kobe.34 Considering that the National Diet Library includes this photograph in its trilingual online exhibit Japanese Emigration to Brazil with sole attribution to Colonization World, it remains the source of record for this historic departure.35 The permanent installation online by the NDL was inaugurated in 2008 to mark the centenary of the Japanese immigration to Brazil and therefore offers a striking present-day acknowledgment by the Japanese government of Colonization World ’s contribution to the Meiji-era discourse of expansionism through mass migration to South America. It would be remiss not to mention that the iconography of the Kasato Maru in Brazil t oday is nearly ubiquitous, serving as a veritable Mayflower for the Nikkei community. Arguably the popularity of the Kasato Maru reached peak saturation in the centenary celebration, when photographs and images of the steamer’s disembarkation in Santos graced the covers of magazines, books, postcards, and other publicity materials. A scale model of the ship remains on display at the Bunkyō Museum in the heart of São
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Paulo’s Japantown, along with a photograph of the ship in transit and assorted documents from this historic voyage. It has also been memorialized in the interior of Sao Paulo State with the Kasato Maru Park in the city of Sorocaba, some one hundred kilometers due west from the city of São Paulo. It features a traditional Japanese garden and bronze sculpture of a globe with a cable tracing its inaugural voyage. Yet even as the ship dematerializes into an endless reproduced signifier of immigrant arrival and the community’s spirit of perseverance and success,36 we must keep in mind that these very representational origins began with Shinsen’s “South America Bound” and Colonization World. Less effusive praise can be raised for the literary installments that ensued. Both “The Expedition Party” and its sequel, “A Voyage into the Deep Forest” (“Shinrin ryokō”), betray a change in focus whose chief priority was bridging the narrative from a story of national departure to one of foreign arrival and uncertain settlement. They eschew character development altogether, instead providing literary sketches of the topography, climate, and other notable aspects of the trip from port to the thick forests that lay outside the city limits of Lima. What remains are the formal genre markers that speak to the magazine’s imperative to create a genre based on actual lived experiences that it was not quite ready to deliver. In keeping with “South America Bound” and its cartouche reading “settler colonist litera ture,” each of the two subsequent stories is labeled “settler colonist fiction” (shokumin shōsetsu) above the title and has a smaller parenthetical note below, marking it as a continuation (zokuhen) of the preceding story. These additional touches are curiously absent from the final two works of fiction in the magazine. Shinsen’s “The Torch” (“Aohi”) is essentially a story of filial piety with no reference to overseas life whatsoever. Mishima Sōsen’s “One House” (“Ikkenya”), published in the fourth issue, meanwhile, is only glossed as “fiction.” A vague reference in its opening lines to its “being set, simply put, in a certain state in North America” (basho wa tan ni Hokubei no aru shū to itte okō)37 leads into the narrator’s somewhat dubious claim of having spent seven years living in California. Although his descriptions of ample opportunity for work in agriculture, animal husbandry, and fruit orchards are sufficiently anodyne, his claims to expertise in hunting quickly sour when he describes the bounty of local wildlife: “deer, rabbits, pheasants, pigeons, and kangaroos—it was almost unbelievable [uso no yō ni] how much I took home.”38 And so it was. This shambolic indifference to
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FIG. 7.2. Bronze sculpture, Kasato Maru Park, Sorocaba. Source: author’s personal collection.
verisimilitude was quite common in settler colonist fiction and pulp fiction more generally. Certainly many of the innumerable Japanese and Western texts produced in this discursive field in the three and half de cades leading up to World War II had their fair share of lurid, sensationalist, and nonsensical filler.39 This did not, however, diminish Colonization World ’s essentially tutelary role in shaping and bringing forth the literary
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genre that would continue to proselytize emigration as overseas expansionism and a form of patriotic duty for those left b ehind in Japan’s uneven modern and imperial development. For its long years of undistinguished service in literature’s backbenches, the settler colonist fiction that traces its genealogy to “South America Bound” was only belatedly elevated to belles lettres status in the twilight of its own success, when Ishikawa Tatsuzō’s short story “The Emigrants” (“Sōbō”) was awarded the inaugural Akutagawa Prize for Literat ure in August 1935. “The Emigrants” was adapted to film by the director Kumagai Hisatora in 1937, and then two years later, Ishikawa republished his work as the novel The Emigrants: A Work in Three Parts with the addition of two more chapters, “South Seas Voyage” (“Nankai kōro”) and “People without a Voice” (“Koe naki tami”), which depict the transoceanic passage, immigrants’ arrival in Santos, and their dispersal to their assigned plantations and colonies in Brazil. Ishikawa’s original short story pursues the essential narrative trajectory of Shinsen’s “South America Bound” insofar as it lingers on the impoverished circumstances that lead the predominantly rural laboring masses to gather from all corners of Japan at the National Emigration Center in Kobe, and from t here to board immigrant steamers in search of a better life. At a remove of several years from his own traveling experiences, Ishikawa, too, would strive to represent those who took the plunge, in contrast to the earlier naturalist works that merely expressed intent or regret but cautiously remained on familiar shores. Settler colonist fiction’s temporarily elevated prospects in the wake of “The Emigrants” would be foreclosed within the span of a decade by the war, defeat, and Japan’s loss of empire. What had been a stolid, if decidedly unglamorous, genre defining a fundamental facet of Japanese modernity quickly faded into obscurity as the “myth of a homogenous Japan,” to borrow Oguma Eiji’s words, swiftly gathered force in the postwar era. Consequently, even for most modern Japanese literary scholars and historians, the anomaly of The Emigrants as a “singular” literary achievement was effectively all that remained known of the buried episteme that began with Shinsen’s “South America Bound” and the imperial ambitions of Colonization World.
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Notes 1. For a period of roughly a dozen years a fter the Gentlemen’s Agreement went into effect, a loophole permitted Japanese wives and children to join adult male immigrants in the United States. As Catherine Lee notes in Prostitutes and Picture Brides: Chinese and Japanese Immigration, Settlement, and American Nation-Building, 1870–1920, its profound effects on the development of the Japanese American community w ere threefold: “The practice of the proxy bride marriage had helped to alleviate earlier sex ratio imbalance, avoid the development of a bachelor society to which the Chinese community had succumbed, and foster the growth of a permanent Japanese American settlement.” Lee, Prostitutes and Picture Brides, p. 36. 2. Lu, Making of Japanese, pp. 3–4. 3. This Shokumin sekai is not to be confused with the single-issue magazine of the same name but that uses an alternate spelling, published in April 1910 by the South America Association (Nanbei kyōkai). 4. Wada, “ ‘Risshi shōsetsu’ no yukue,” pp. 303–332. I follow Wada’s lead in concentrating on Shinsen as the focus for the present study. 5. Iacobelli, Postwar Emigration, p. 14. 6. Takeuchi, Nihonjin no shusse kan. Also cited in Wada, “ ‘Risshi shōsetsu’ no yukue,” p. 307. 7. Dates for the print runs of these journals, few of which are extant today in their entirety, come from the CiNii (Scholarly and Academic Information Navigator) provided by Japan’s National Institute of Informatics. 8. Kodama Kagai (1874–1943) was a socialist-leaning poet who saw two collections of his work banned in 1903 and 1907. Thereafter, he turned to writing nationalist, imperialist, and pro-expansionist poems for Colonization World, Adventure World (Bōken sekai), and Heroic World (Bukyō sekai). 9. Ōkuma, “Yamato,” p. 1. 10. Ōkuma, “Yamato,” p. 2. 11. Ōkuma, “Yamato,” p. 2. 12. Ōkuma, “Yamato,” p. 3. 13. Ōkuma, “Yamato,” p. 3. 14. Gotō, “Teikoku daigaku shokumin kōza keikaku,” pp. 4–5. 15. For further reading on Takekoshi’s role in founding the pro-expansionist journal Japan in the World (Sekai no Nippon) in 1896 and the patronage it received from Japanese politicians, see Lu, The Making of Japanese Colonialism, pp. 109–210. Lu also provides valuable context for an earlier (1890s) debate about colonialism in the South Seas region that enjoined contributions from Ōkuma and Takekoshi (pp. 162–163). 16. Cited in Tierney, Tropics of Savagery, p. 108. I signal my debt h ere to Tierney’s inclusion of Colonization World in his analysis of colonial literat ure linked to Southern Expansionist Doctrine in the South Seas region. 17. Takekoshi, “Shokumin bungaku o furiokoseyo,” p. 6. 18. Takekoshi, “Shokumin bungaku o furiokoseyo,” p. 6. 19. Takekoshi, “Shokumin bungaku o furiokoseyo,” p. 6–7. 20. Takahashi, “Shokumin sekai hakkan no shushi,” p. 22. 21. Takahashi, “Shokumin sekai hakkan no shushi,” p. 22.
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22. Takahashi, “Shokumin sekai hakkan no shushi,” p. 23. 23. Takahashi, “Shokumin sekai hakkan no shushi,” p. 23. 24. Kō, “ ‘Texas’ o meguru gensetsuken,” p. 201. 25. Kamei, Nijū seiki zenki no bungaku. 26. Jacobowitz, review of Struggling Upward. 27. Masamune, “Dust,” p. 408. 28. See Wada, “ ‘Risshi shōsetsu’ no yukue,” pp. 310–311. 29. See Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka, p. 38. 30. Japanese colonies w ere founded in half a dozen counties in Texas between 1903 and 1914, where they had been invited to help develop the Gulf Coast rice industry. The Yamato Colony in Boca Raton, Florida, originally founded in 1903 as a pineapple plantation, is another such example of an isolated rural colony in the southeastern United States. 31. Shimazaki, Broken Commandment, p. 245. 32. Kō, “ ‘Texas’ o meguru gensetsuken,” p. 273. 33. Kō, “ ‘Texas’ o meguru gensetsuken,” p. 274. 34. See the National Diet Library digital collection for the centenary of Japanese immigration to Brazil, accessed November 21, 2021, https://w ww.ndl.go.jp/ brasil/data /R /S006/S006–001r.html. 35. See the National Diet Library digital collection for the centenary of Japanese immigration to Brazil, accessed September 1, 2021, https://w ww.ndl.go.jp/ brasil/data /R /S006/S006–001r.html. 36. Further examples of the Kasato Maru “brand” have been variously attached to a Brazilian craft beer, incongruously described by its brewers as a “New E ngland IPA,” as well as a Japanese restaurant, h otel, and office building. 37. Mishima, “One House,” p. 30. 38. Mishima, “One House,” p. 30. 39. In addition to such contemporaneous works of Western settler colonist fiction as Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan of the Apes (1912), with its blatantly racist misrepre sentations of cannibalistic Africans and savage ape-men, there is the Japanese cartoonist Tagawa Suiho’s New Year’s in the Tropics (Nanyō no oshōgatsu, 1930), published in the popular magazine Young Men’s Club (Shōnen kurabu), which unabashedly depicts the Indigenous p eople, flora, and fauna according to Sambo-like caricatures from the “dark continent” of Africa.
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Chasing the Transnational Flow of Books and Magazines Materials, Knowledge, and Network Yoshitaka Hibi
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his chapter examines book distribution networks that connected the Japanese colonial empire with South America, parts of North Amer ica, and East Asia before World War II. Although Japanese overseas and in their homeland were closely linked by various circuits, it was the distribution network of books, magazines, and newspapers that enabled the exchange of knowledge and information among ordinary people. From local news to political articles, popular novels to textbooks for c hildren, books and magazines have actively linked Japanese people. It is clear from the history of Japanese communities in North America that immigrants from Japan, from the beginning, rented retail stores to sell newspapers, magazines, and books. Full-time bookstores appeared shortly after that in areas with sizeable Japanese immigrant populations. Distribution companies in Japan linked t hese immigrant shops and bookstores with publishers in their home countries. It is necessary to understand the culture created in the Japanese language to understand the first generation of immigrants (Issei). In many cases, Issei were not fluent in host countries’ languages, such as Spanish, Portuguese, and English, so they relied on media written in their native language for information, from everyday conversations to highly technical topics. Hence, the creation of the Japanese immigrant culture in North Amer ica, South America, and other regions is inseparable from building and maintaining Japanese-language environments, enabling p eople to read, write, listen, and speak through Japanese. Only a fter distribution systems were created; newspapers, magazines, and books from Japan were imported; and such printed materials were published within the settlements outside 191
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Japan could sustainable ecosystems of Japanese immigrant culture emerge. What is important is that these publications were supported by a transnational distribution network consisting of various agencies, such as publishers, distributors, booksellers, readers, and writers inside and outside Japan.1 I should pay particular attention to the materiality of books and its contribution to developing Japanese immigrants’ culture.2 Books and magazines w ere not only imported for the enjoyment of immigrants. They w ere a bond to immigrants’ homeland culture, essential elements that shaped their lives in host countries, and resources that shaped their minds. In other words, they w ere among the most important actors in the formation of immigrants. Printed materials were critically important to sustain and develop the Japanese immigrant community. Books, newspapers, and magazines published in Japanese w ere indispensable, especially for t hose of the Issei generation who had not yet mastered the language of the host community. They were responsible for the circulation of information within the community and maintained informational and emotional ties with their homeland. By reading the same media, they contributed to the creation of an imagined community of “Japanese immigrants” or “Japanese living in North/South America.” This chapter focuses on how the Japanese empire and Latin America were connected through the network of books and bookstores, tracing three Japanese immigrant history pieces to the Americas. The first is the president of a book distribution company, Mochizuki Seiji. The company, Nippon Shuppan Bōeki Co., Ltd., exported books to South and North America, and a book distribution network was built across the Pacific Ocean, decades before the end of World War II. The second is a bookstore, Endō Shoten, located in São Paulo, and a magazine, Bunka (Culture), published by the store. Examining the magazine articles, I argue that the role of books and magazines sold by Japanese bookstores in colonies, like Endō Shoten in São Paulo, acted as a critical factor in the colonies’ cultural scenes. I conclude with a brief history of bookstores established and disappeared in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from the 1920s to the 1940s, compared to other bookstores of Japanese overseas territories and settlements. This chapter aims to shed light on the transnational history of materials, knowledge, and people that connected Japan and immigrant communities in the Americas to understand the role of the broad and multilayered networks of print culture and business. By focusing on t hese three topics, I give an overview of
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the history of the distribution of books between South America and Japan, linking the history of the book distributors and their networks that connected with Japan’s overseas settlements to the history and role of specific retail bookstores in the immigrant communities.
Outline of Book Exports to the Americas Attempts to export books and magazines out of Japan appeared in each region’s commercial centers when more Japanese w ere going abroad to work. As an early attempt a fter the Meiji period, general merchandise stores w ere selling or renting books from the 1890s in Japanese immigrant areas in Hawai‘i and North America.3 In East Asia, as early as 1892, a bookstore called Hakubunkan opened in Hoeryong, on the Korean peninsula;4 after the Sino-Japanese War, Niitakadō Shoten opened in Taipei; 5 a fter the Russo-Japanese War, Tōa Kōshi, which traded in Shanghai, Hankou, Tianjin, Fengtian, and other trading areas, opened; in Manchuria, an Osaka Yagō Shoten opened;6 and in Kolsakov (Ōdomari) in Sakhalin, a bookstore called Saito Branch opened in 1907.7 Until 1945, Japanese books and magazines for foreign countries were mainly distributed in colonies and occupied territories in East Asia, but t here was also a flow of books to North America, South America, and the South Seas. According to an article written in 1942, before the Pacific War intensified, the overseas destinations and dealers, excluding colonies, w ere as follows: North America and Hawai‘i: Iwagami Shōten North America: Hakubundō, Katō Seiki Shōten, Goshadō, Aoki Taiseidō South America and Europe: Nippai Kaisha South America: Kodama Akito, Endō Shōten Hawai‘i: Terada Yasutarō, Kojima Shōten North and South America: Furuya Bōeki Gaisha Philippines: Ōta KōGyō Kaisha, Mayon Bazā Shiirebu Canada: Kōmura Shōten South Sea: Taiheiyō Bōeki Gaisha, Nanyō Bōeki Gaisha, Bungendō French Indochina: Shiroki Bōeki Gaisha, Seibudō Hawai‘i, North and South America, Thailand, French Indochina, South Seas Islands: Yokohama Shōji Gaisha.8
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As for South America, store names such as Nippai Gaisha, Kodama Akito, Endō Shōten, Furuya Bōeki Gaisha, and Yokohama Shōji Gaisha can be found. Nippai is a national, centralized distribution company of books and magazines, established in 1942. Furuya Bōeki Gaisha is a trading company that started business in Seattle. I describe Endō Shōten and Yokohama Shōji Gaisha later. Kodama Akito is unknown, but he was prob ably a representative of a trading company. Immigrants from Japan headed to North America e arlier than South America. Thus, the transportation of books for Japanese immigrants to North America was improved earlier than for South America. In San Francisco, for example, as early as the 1890s, rental bookstores and side business booksellers appeared. Side business bookstores were general merchandise stores that imported food, sundries, and souvenirs from Japan while handling novels and magazines. This kind of business was often seen in Japanese immigrant towns before the birth of full-time bookstores, and we find that a store in Buenos Aires did the same business in the same manner as discussed later. The first full-time bookstore for Japanese immigrants in San Francisco was Fuyōdō, which appeared in 1900. From that time, full-time bookstores w ere established one after another in the Japanese quarter of San Francisco, and around 1910, they grew to about eight bookstores within the area, creating a type of bookstore district. Since immigration to North America was in part a bypass for young Japanese students who had dropped out of school in the middle of the Meiji era, Japanese immigrants in North America w ere relatively well educated. The success of bookstores in S eattle and San Francisco depended on the existence of highly literate immigrants. With the development of Japanese-language bookstores in North America, book exports to North America began to be organized. The American Booksellers Union of Japan was formed in 1915, with bookstores from San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other states of California as well as bookstores from Seattle, Chicago, Denver, and New York,9 and by 1930, the American Booksellers Union grew to include all booksellers on the Pacific coast.10 It was more advantageous to import as a union than to import as an individual store because visa fees and customs clearance fees were discounted, and it became possible to negotiate fare discounts and loading methods.11 Mochizuki Masaharu was also involved in the formation of this union. Mochizuki initially worked for a store, Ōhu Shōkai, in Sacramento,
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California. He went to the United States in 1906 and found a job at a store that sold food and sundries to Japanese. H ere, Mochizuki started selling books from Japan through the agency. As was later related in the company history, “Books and magazines imported from Japan have spread not only to North America but also to South America, Cuba and Alaska through the unique mail-order system.”12 At the request of his fellow traders, Mochizuki returned to Japan in 1918 to be involved in joint stocking operations and began exporting books and magazines to the United States and other countries as a branch office of the Yorozu Store in Sacramento.13 Aiming to expand its business further, Mochizuki established Yokohama Shōji Co., Ltd., in 1920 to start “trade that connects Japan with the United States and other countries.” The main business was the export of publications and general merchandise to Japa nese immigrants living abroad, the results of which later included the “[handling of] more than 60% of Japan’s publications exports.”14 As shown in the list of destinations and dealers mentioned above, Yokohama Shoji also handled the distribution of books to South America. As Japan entered the Pacific War, the Japanese economy began to adopt a total war system, and the print culture was increasingly restricted. In May 1941, all the distributors of books and magazines were integrated, and Nihon Shuppan Haikyū Kabushiki Kaisha (Nippai) was established to control the distribution of all national publications, including overseas territories, with an integrated and centralized system. Companies involved in the export of books to foreign countries were integrated in the same way, and in January 1942, Nihon Shuppan Bōeki Co., Ltd., was established, “aiming to unify overseas exports of Japanese books.”15 Mochizuki, who was one of the founders of the organization, became its first president. However, all trade with the United States was put on hold due to the US government’s freezing of assets in 1941. A fter that, shares in Nihon Shuppan Bōeki w ere transferred to Nippai, and the company was placed u nder Nippai management. As the war became worse, they could not perform their duties. During the war, the American Booksellers Union of Japanese was suspected of having a close relationship with Japan and was questioned by the FBI several times.16 There were other book exporters than Yokohama Shoji. Around 1933, an organization called the Japan Magazine and Book Exporters’ Union was established. It mainly dealt with magazines to Hawai‘i, North America, South America, and Canada.17
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As for the popular products that were exported to the overseas territories and settlements, they differed depending on where the bookstores were located. In the case of South America, it can be said that Japanese magazines, fiction (e.g., novels and kodan stories, traditional narratives mostly about samurai), and language books (such as Portuguese and Spanish dictionaries and conversation texts) were popular. In the analysis of bookstores in Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires that follows, I present specific examples of the kinds of books and magazines that w ere imported.
Creating Local Culture: Endo¯ Shoten and Culture From here, I move to the specific history of Japanese bookstores in Latin America. This section looks into Endō Shoten, a bookstore that has been doing business in the Japanese quarter of São Paulo. Official immigration from Japan to Brazil began in 1908 when the Kasato Maru arrived at the port of Santos. The first Japanese-language newspaper, a weekly named Nambei, was published eight years later in 1916. As the population of Japanese immigrants increased, Japanese newspapers developed significantly. According to 80 Years of Japanese Immigrants to Brazil, in 1938, the Nichihaku shinbun (est. 1916) sold 19,000 copies; Braziru jihō (est. 1917), 17,000; Seishu shimpō (est. 1921), 9,000; Aliansa jihō (est. 1930), 5,500; and 4500 for Noroesute minpō (est. 1934), 4,500.18 A survey conducted in 1939 within the jurisdiction of the consulate in Bauru wrote: of the 11,576 households (comprising 36,051 males and 32,281 females) of Japanese descent, 10,154 (approximately 87.7 percent) subscribed to Japanese newspapers, 5,967 (approximately 51.5 percent) to magazines for men, 1,168 (approximately 10.1 percent) to magazines for women, and 1,078 (approximately 9.3 percent) to magazines for children.19 We can see the overwhelming subscription rate of Japanese newspapers and learn from this survey that magazines also spread to many households. In terms of magazine subscriptions, Kodansha’ s Shōjo kurabu, Shōnen kurabu, and Kodomo no sono were the most popular magazines for c hildren, while Fujin kurabu was the most popular w omen’s magazine, with Shufu no tomo in second place. By far, the majority of the magazines for boys were King, with Kodansha’s magazines in the majority, and such magazines for intellectuals as Chūōkōron, Kaizo, and Bungei shunjū were very rare.20
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Most of the newspapers w ere written in Japanese in Brazil, and very few titles were imported from Japan. Wada Atsuhiko points out that immigrants in São Paulo, Brazil, in the 1930s had diverse distribution channels for books and magazines.21 Shops and bookstores imported and sold books from Japan, and Japanese newspapers, such as Nippaku shinbun and Braziru jihō, were also bought and sold. In addition, there were cases in which Japanese cooperatives published magazines, operated bookstores, and sold imported books. Furthermore, some local Japanese associations and youth associations took o rders for books and magazines and delivered them to readers living in the colonies. For example, the number of magazines and newspapers handled as many as 10,000 and 624,000 readers, respectively, during the year. A similar point was made by Mori Koichi. Youth associations purchased magazines, such as Yūben, Gendai, Kingu, Kōdan kurabu, and Women’s Kurabu from a book importer in São Paulo at the expense of the association and circulated them.22 Mori added that information and knowledge from newspapers, magazines, and books imported from Japan, combined with Japanese- language education and networks of Japanese organizations, formed the ethnic identity of “Japanese expatriates in Brazil” and “compatriots in Brazil.” The volume of books imported from Japan to Brazil increased by about 26 percent from 5,674 kg in 1928 to 7,147 kg in 1931.23 Endō Shoten has drawn attention when considering the Japanese- language environment in São Paulo. H ere is the bookstore’s profile, following the most detailed description by Edward Mack.24 Endō Shoten was founded by Tsunesaburō Endō. Endō was born about 1890 and moved to São Paulo in 1913. He first worked as an assistant to a physician, but in September 1917, he was selling soy sauce. In August 1920, he opened a store that sold confectioneries, sundries, medicine, and more, and among the products he handled was the “rental book.” The store was not located in the city of São Paulo, but in Birigui, São Paulo State, located about 520 km northwest of São Paulo City. He opened a bookstore in São Paulo in 1923. In 1932, Endō Shōten changed its name to Endō Shoten on its tenth anniversary and became a bookstore in both name and reality. In addition to selling books at the store, Endō Shoten also sold books by mail and was a wholesaler to relay books to other stores in Brazil. From January 19, 1942, the distribution of printed materials in Japanese and the use of the Japa nese language in public places were prohibited under the direction of the São Paulo Security Bureau. Endō’s bookstore was closed, and its stock was
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hidden in a warehouse, but it was discovered and confiscated by the authorities. In 1949, the shop was reopened, and he started to sell second hand books and magazines and continued u ntil 1965. Wada Atsuhiko researched the magazine Culture (published by Endō Shoten), compiled a total table of contents, and examined its features. Culture was first published in November 1938, and a total of nine volumes w ere published as monthly magazines until September 1939. Ando Kiyoshi, who had worked for the Burajiru jihō and Nippaku shinbun, served as an editor in chief. Wada characterized Culture by “selection and introduction of Japanese-language publications with an awareness of culture,” “awareness of and problems with publishing and reading environments in immigrant areas,” and “the point of self-reflection and valuing the act of reading.”25 Culture was a diverse magazine with a wide variety of articles. On the one hand, there were editorials that questioned the state of Japanese communities in Brazil and debated the politics and colonial policies of the mother country; on the other hand, t here were character reviews, travelogues, and accounts of exploration. Culture also promoted literature. Haiku and tanka poems appeared in the magazine, and a colonial literat ure prize was planned by Endō Shoten, with the support of the group of the coterie magazine Horizon and the editors of Culture. Noguchi Takeji has also written an interesting article, “Retrospective on the Japanese Literary Circle,” in which he looks back on the literary figures of the Japanese literary circle in Brazil, referring to the currents in his native Japan.26 In this paper, which focuses on the role of bookstores in South America, it is important to note that Culture also had the character of a reading guide, since Endō Shoten was involved. For example, in volume 1, issue 2 (December 1938), there is a column entitled Best-Selling Books in Japan from January to October of This Year, listing Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth and The Mother and Ishizaka Yojiro’s Wakai hito as well as a total of thirty-seven titles.27 In the column titled Reading Adviser, a reader requested, “Please tell me the names of authoritative books on Japanese history published in the last few years”; the writer answered carefully, naming specific books for over two pages. In addition, there were many advertisements for vari ous books with introductions to their contents. Many of the members of the literary coterie Horizon, which was active mainly in São Paulo, joined the magazine Culture. A fter the Brazilian authorities imposed restrictions on the Japanese language, from the ninth issue in 1939, the magazine announced that it would become the official
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journal of the research association of Japan and Brazil, organized by students of the São Paulo Law School. It is clear that Culture had a role to play as a base for Japanese activities, and amid the changes in Brazil’s cultural governance policy, it was also intended to be a medium to support the activities of Brazilian intellectuals who were interested in Japan.
Bookstores as a Hub of Knowledge: Bookstores in Argentina Sinya Yoshio and Toriumi Chujirō are regarded as the first official Japa nese immigrants to Argentina after diplomatic relations were established between Japan and that country.28 In 1900, when the pair arrived on an Argentine training ship, Shinya was sixteen and Toriumi only thirteen. Japanese immigration to Argentina, unlike Peru and Brazil, was not based on collective labor contracts. As a result, Japanese immigrants in Argentina w ere often t hose who had once entered Peru or Brazil and moved to other countries. For instance, it has been reported that 160 out of the 781 immigrants that had arrived on the Kasato Maru in 1908, the first Brazilian immigrants, eventually moved to Argentina.29 According to the 1930 Japanese census, Argentina had 3,888 Japanese residents, which included industrial workers, agricultural and horticultural workers, café workers, and employees or owners of dyeing and laundry businesses.30 According to a record of 1931, of the 4,300–4,500 Japanese living in Argentina, about 3,000 of them lived in Buenos Aires. 31 This characteristic of professional composition made the Japanese community in Argentina unique. The Japanese quarter was not formed since many urban dwellers ran cafés and operated dyeing and washing shops. These businesses (cafés and laundries) w ere not allowed on the same premises; they had to go where no Japanese w ere. From the Boca and Barracas districts, where Japanese lived together in the 1910s and the 1920s, Japanese had made inroads into various parts of the city and even into cities all over Argentina. The number of Japanese living in Boca and Barracas gradually decreased, and the Japanese quarter never appeared again in A rgentina.32 Unlike San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle in North America and São Paulo in Brazil, Buenos Aires did not form a large Japanese district, but even a few Japanese bookstores appeared there. Here is a brief history
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based on advertisements in the Aruzenchin jihō (est. 1924) and other local Japanese newspapers. The oldest record of a bookseller I found to date was an advertisement printed in a newspaper for a general merchandise store in 1919, promoting “new Japanese magazines and novels” and “rental books,” alongside “Japa nese medicine,” “sundries,” “postcards of Japanese beauty,” and “rice cakes.”33 This type of subsidiary business by general merchandise stores was seen in San Francisco in North America before full-time bookstores appeared. Although the number of customers may not have been large, this advertisement tells us that some immigrants considered reading a part of their lives and that there was a desire to read Japanese books at a very early stage of immigration. As an early attempt to import printed materials from Japan, the Aruzenchin Jihō Company planned the following. An advertisement printed in the newspaper on January 7, 1928, stated, “We provide new arrival books” and announced that the Aruzenchin Jihō Company itself would sell them. The ad said that the money order should be addressed to “T. Midzuno,” publisher of the Aruzenchin jihō, that is, Mizuno Tsutomu. The description included “fictions and o thers,” “translations and sexual reading,” c hildren’s articles, kōdan storytelling, and magazines. However, no further articles appeared about the Aruzenchin Jihō Company’s own efforts to sell books. It is unclear why the attempt did not work well, but it may have had to do with the relationship between the publisher and the distributor in the country, transportation problems, a cash flow problem, a labor shortage, or a profit shortage.34 Making money in the bookstore business in the Japanese community in Argentina was not easy at the time. Japanese newspapers in East Asian colonial cities often carried advertisements for magazines and books by publishers in Tokyo and Kansai, but no such advertisements existed in the Aruzenchin jihō as in Japanese newspapers in North America. This was probably due to the size of the market. However, the exception is language books. In the Aruzenchin jihō, dictionaries and Spanish textbooks appeared early on. For example, in an advertisement published on February 4, 1928, Hara Shōten, a shop dealing with “Japa nese and Chinese fine arts,” was promoting three “new arrival dictionaries” concerning the Spanish language: Supein go kaiwa bunpō (Spanish conversation grammar), Dokushū supeingo zenshaku (Complete lecture for self- studying Spanish), Seiyaku seiwa jiten (Spanish translation, Spanish-Japanese dictionary).
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The bookstore first mentioned in an advertisement in the Aruzenchin jihō is Libreria Oriental (also known as Orientaru Shoten), which was established at 3757 Santa Fé, in the northern part of the Japanese settlement in Buenos Aires on February 15, 1930. The owner was Hattori Toyosaburō. Hattori was born as the third son of Hattori Kyōichi, the principal of the Japanese Colonial School in Sapporo in 1911, and moved to Argentina with some of his fellow alumni a fter graduating from junior high school in 1928. A fter arriving in Argentina, Hattori worked on a farm near Buenos Aires, but he returned to Buenos Aires soon and opened his bookstore. Hence, the opening of the bookstore was not that long after he had settled in Argentina. He was around twenty then.35 On November 29, the store’s opening advertisement, explaining its business plans, listed the following items: “lithography, typography, and art printing,” “special agency for Kodansha’s nine famous magazines,” and “sales of general books, stationery, and papers.” The titles of the illustrated magazines were Kingu, Fuji, Gendai, Yūben, Fujin kurabu, Shōnen kurabu, Shōjo kurabu, and Yōnen kurabu. Libreria Oriental provided delivery ser vices for magazines and books to the customers in town as was usual for bookstores at that time. An advertisement in the Aruzenchin jihō on February 6 showed the price of the six magazines of Kodansha in a tabular format with the large caption, “Japanese magazines and newspapers.” According to a note at the shop, they accepted only advanced payment o rders and did not sell books at the store. According to this advertisement, the Libreria Oriental also sold reduced- size editions of the Osaka mainichi shinbun and Osaka asahi shinbun. The publisher even planned to import the Osaka mainichi shinbun, the daily, according to an advertisement on March 28, 1931. The ambitious bookstore Libreria Oriental seemed to be d oing well, but it was not easy to sell Japanese publications in remote areas. On April 4, 1931, an advertisement contained an apology by the bookstore. Only a few books and magazines of the first order since December of the previous year had arrived in April. The article said that the trouble was caused by a mistake in the communication from Japan to the Libreria Oriental. It explained that it was too far from Japan to respond to the situation immediately. The following week, on the eleventh, an advertisement announced that some of the magazines had been sent to customers who had made reservations. It was not u ntil four months a fter the application that Argentine readers obtained new Japanese magazines.
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As of August 22, Libreria Oriental’s advertisement had disappeared from the pages of the Aruzenchin jihō. Hattori, the owner of the store, wrote the following in 1930: “Today we have more than 3,500 Japanese and 2,500 residents in Buenos Aires.”36 It is difficult to say how many magazine and book buyers w ere divided among the Japanese residents, but the management of the bookstore probably did not do well. According to Hattori’s chronology, he had started working for the weekly Japanese newspaper in Buenos Aires in June 1932 and later became its editor in chief. Then he was engaged in a trade company and began the management of an ironworks. He was president of the Dōai Shintaku Co., Ltd., from 1964 to 1980 and remained active in the Argentine business world for a long time a fter the war and even published a book on his own.37 The next appearance of a bookstore advertisement in the pages of the Aruzenchin jihō was on May 25, 1934, in the ten-year anniversary issue of the newspaper. The bookstore was named Nakagawa Shoten, at 3040 Rivadabia, with the ad saying, “Sales of Japanese book magazines.” It was located a little south of the Libreria Oriental, also in the area where Japa nese live. The date of establishment is unclear. In a December 1934 advertisement, we can find Nakagawa Shoten promoting “Sale Japanese Books and Magazines, brokering Sales” and dealing with “1935 Asahi Yearbook,” “diaries,” and “other various monthly magazines, books, newspapers.” The advertisements by Nakagawa Shoten can be found up to April 13, 1935. Instead, an advertisement by Naoki Kurata, under the name “Agent of Nakagawa Shoten,” carried on the twenty-seventh. The location of the store was different from that of Nakagawa Shoten, 40 Luzuriaga, which was located farther south. The indication “agent” can be seen until August 3, and a fter that, the advertisement of “sales of magazines and books” under the name Naoki Kurata was put out for a while. The name Kurata Shoten first appeared in December. It can be said that this was the birth of Kurata Shoten, a representative—that is, almost the only—Japanese bookstore of Buenos Aires, which survived until April 1941. Interestingly, the name Kurata Shoten first appeared not in bookstores’ advertisements but in the introduction of a new publication of a book. Yoshio Shinya, an early intellectual among Japanese immigrants in Argentina, published a book entitled Pequeña contribution para la grandeza Argentina in Spanish. When the advertisement for this book appeared in the Aruzenchin jihō, Kurata Shoten was designated a sales agent.
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Kurata Shoten began to actively conduct its business. By following the contents of the advertisement by the bookstore, we can learn more about the Japanese publication culture in Buenos Aires during this period. An advertisement on January 11, 1936, said, “New Year’s issues arrived one after another!! Order before it is sold out” and encouraged people to order the New Year’s issue. The New Year’s issue, which is often filled with outstanding editing, was a familiar item that fostered a sense of the seasons in their home country. The sale of diaries at the end of the year was also paired with the New Year holiday. Buying a diary for the new year was a common practice in modern Japan. The most famous diary book of this period was published by Hakubunkan, which Kurata Shoten also advertised during January and February.38 What is interesting is a passage in the same advertisement stating, “We are open every Sunday, so please feel free to come.” This showed that, unlike other bookstores, Kurata Shoten did not allow customers to survey its stores during normal weekdays. Instead, they conducted a preorder and delivery business. The expression “we are open” tells us the nuance of not just being open and selling in the store but providing more freedom to use the interior space. From the same advertisement, it is known that the store had not only magazines in stock but also newly published books, especially popular novels, including a reference to “several hundred books.” Kurata Shoten not only sold books but also records, like other Japanese bookstores of that period. For example, an advertisement dated April 24, 1937, stated, “Special sales of records in Japan started” and “Latest disks from Columbia, Victor and Polydor w ill arrive soon.” Both Libreria Oriental and Nakagawa Shoten, which w ere mentioned earlier, focused on new-a rrival magazines and did not list the names of books they dealt with. It was only natural that the bookstores placed popu lar magazines at the forefront of sales since they were expected to earn a regular income. On the other hand, one should not expect a large number of orders for books, and there were too many titles. Kurata Shoten also promoted the titles of major magazines such as Gendai, Yūben, Shōgaku ichi- nensei, women’s magazines, Hinode, Kōdan kurabu, and Fuji. He sometimes stated the titles of newly published books, such as Daisan kisou no ue ni by Kagawa Toyohiko, Bakusin by Mutō Teiishi, Senka by Kimura Ki, Shinran by Yoshikawa Eiji, Todoroki hanpei by Nomura Kodō, Shina jihen shashin zenshū, kanton shingun shō by Hino Ashihei, Nissosen ni sonahuru sho by
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Mutō Teiichi, and Sensen by Hayashi Fumiko. We can determine what interested readers here: the Sino-Japanese War and the anticipated war between Japan and the Soviet Union, the latest works by famous novelists and books on current affairs. Th ese titles indicate that t here were many books for the masses. The advertisements in the Aruzenchin jihō tell us that there was another bookstore in Buenos Aires in the late 1930s: Ōshiro Shoten (Tairyudō), which was run by Ōshiro Masao. Ōhshiro Shoten opened on February 5, 1936, and was located at 541 Entre Rios, as a “sales agent of magazines, books, and local newspapers from the home country.” By 1938, however, Tairyudō had disappeared from the pages of the Aruzenchin jihō. The reason is unknown. There might have been too many bookstores in Buenos Aires, or a personal reason could have led the owner to close the store or move. Kurata Shoten closed its shop in 1941. On April 1, the store changed its name to Miyazono Shoten. It is almost certain that Miyazono Shoten was the successor to Kurata Shoten, since the advertisement used the same address, phone number, and titles of the newly published books in the same format as Kurata Shoten.39 Miyazono Shoten continued to follow the line of Kurata Shoten until around November, but in the advertisement on November 1, it slightly changed. It listed rather sensational titles: A Woman’s Feeling by Yoshio Natsuo, Hitozuma no kyōyō by Shikiba Ryūzaburō, and Nikutai no ikusa by Naomichi Ōishi. Advertisements by Miyazono Shoten dis appeared in 1942, and a fter that, there were no traces of bookstores in the Aruzenchin jihō until August 1944.
The Impact of the Book and Bookstores The bookstore and the books served a fundamental function, both intellectually and on a daily basis, in sustaining the immigrant community. Lastly, I examine the role of bookstores and books in South American immigrant communities, paying particular attention to their materiality. First, bookstores and books play a role in connecting immigrants to the culture of their home countries. In relation to the subject of this collection, it can be said that they connected Latin American Japanese immigrants to the Japa nese empire. So far, the Japanese newspapers’ role has been emphasized as an influx by which trends, knowledge, movements, and thoughts were brought from immigrants’ home countries.40 However, the role of maga-
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zines and books should not be overlooked. While newspapers have the advantage of concurrency and frequency, they tend to spread over a wide range of topics b ecause they do not limit readers’ interests. On the other hand, magazines are specific to gender, literacy, age, and hobbies, so it had a strong influence on ideology and taste. As for the materiality of books and magazines, books had a more robust form than newspapers and stayed in individuals and communities for a long time. This feature gives books the ability to have lasting long-term effects. Books not only go beyond space, but they go beyond time. The second role was to create an immigrant culture. As we have discussed, Endō Shoten and immigrant bookstores w ere often involved in local publication culture activities. Endō Shoten, for example, not only published a magazine called Culture to provide a forum for discourse but also more actively invited readers to join in its contest and encouraged them to transform themselves into writers, thereby revitalizing the community’s discourse. The third role is shaping the rhythm and richness of daily life. Compared to the publication of books and the distribution of prizes, it was less con spicuous, but it can be said that this was more closely related to many immigrants’ living conditions. Japanese in the Americas had a variety of pastimes, but in an era without radio, telev ision, and the Internet, reading books and magazines was the most familiar means of recreation. In addition, bookstores also sold records, importing music from their home countries, and they provided Japanese immigrants with time to listen to m usic. Books imported from Japan s haped the rhythm of life for Japanese immigrants, as in Buenos Aires and São Paulo. It may be a good idea to mention diaries here. Bookstores brought diaries printed with the Japanese calendar and sold them in immigrant towns. With that Japanese calendar in mind, the immigrants reflected on their lives in South America and North America. Diaries and bookstores supported the customs of immigrants who wanted to transcribe their lives, thoughts, and sentiments. While being aware of the distance from their home country and the difference from the calendar of their home country, they continued to live their daily lives with that sense of distance, which formed their identity as immigrants. The bookstore provided a place for intellectual exchange, although the distinguished instances were difficult to find in South America. Endō Shoten had a close relationship with literary magazine coteries, and Kurata Shoten was open on Sundays. They may not have had a prominent personality
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like Uchiyama Shoten in Shanghai, which played a role in bringing together Japanese and Chinese intellectuals, but for some intellectuals in São Paulo and Buenos Aires, t hese bookstores were indispensable spaces.
Notes This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 19K00343. 1. The system of book distribution was developed on a commercial basis by the private sector. The Japanese government did not get directly involved in book distribution u ntil the 1940s when the controlled economy began to take hold during wartime. 2. Bruno Latour has written about the role of things as follows: “In addition to ‘determining’ and serving as a ‘backdrop for human action’, things might authorize, allow, afford, encourage, permit, suggest, influence, block, render possible, forbid, and so on.” Latour, Reassembling, p. 72. 3. Hibi, “Imin,” pp. 85–124. 4. Anon., “Chōsen,” p. 6. The owner of Hakubunkan was Okukichi Koike. It is thought to be a different bookstore from Hakubunkan in Tokyo. 5. Murasaki, Taiwan, pp. 182–234. 6. Hibi, “Manshu,” pp. 102–117. 7. Hibi, “Karafuto,” pp. 58–67. 8. Shuppan dōmei shinbun, “Yushutu Gyōsha no Shimukechibetu,” May 3, 1942, p. 3. 9. Hashimoto, Nihon, pp. 124–125. 10. Zaibei Nihonjinkai, Zaibei, p. 285. 11. Mochizuki, “Wagakuni,” p. 49. 12. Rokujūnen, Nihon shuppan bōeki kabushikigaisha, p. 13. 13. Hashimoto, Nihon, p. 125. 14. Rokujūnen, Nihon shuppan bōeki kabushikigaisha, pp. 13–14. Exports of publications here refer to book distribution to foreign countries and do not include exports to such colonies as Manchuria, the Korean peninsula, and Taiwan. 15. Shuppan dōmei shinbun, “Hosho no kaigai yushutu ichigenka wo mezashi Nihon shuppan bōeki kaisha setsuritsu,” Jan. 17, 1942, p. 3. The founding office was located in Yokohama Shoji in Honmachi, Nihonbashi Ward, Tokyo. 16. Mochizuki, “Wagakuni,” p. 46. 17. Shuppan dōmei shinbun, “Zasshi kaigai yushutudaka, terada-shi ha kataru,” Feb. 5, 1941, p. 3. 18. Imin Hachijūnenshi Hensan Iinkai, Burajiru, p. 132. 19. Wako, Bauru, p. 12, 18. Percentages are calculated by the author. 20. Wako, Bauru, p. 18. 21. Wada, “Sanpauro,” pp. 1–16. 22. Imin Hachijūnenshi Hensan Iinkai, Burajiru, p. 82. See also Mori, “ ‘Gengo,’ ” p. 51. 23. The breakdown is not clear. Imin Hachijūnenshi Hensan Iinkai, Burajiru, p. 131. 24. Mack, “Nihon.” See also Wada, “Sanpauro,” pp. 1–16.
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25. Wada, “Sanpauro,” p. 6. 26. Noguchi, “Dai ikkai shokumin,” p. 59. However, the first call for submissions was unsuccessful, as no corresponding work appeared. 27. Reading Adviser (column), Culture 1, no. 2 (1938): 37. 28. Aruzenchin Nihonjin Iminshi Hensaniinkai, Aruzenchin, pp. 25–28. For more on Shinya Yoshio, see the chapter by Facundo Garasino in this volume. 29. Burajiru ni okeru Nihonjin hatten shi kankō iinkai, Burajiru ni okeru Nihonjin, p. 285. 30. Ishikawa, Nikkei, p.49. 31. Oshima, Nanbei, p. 264. 32. Aruzenchin Nihonjin Iminshi Hensaniinkai, Aruzenchin, p. 105. 33. An advertisement for a bookstore named Benrisha, which was originally published in Buenosu Airesu Shūho, is reprinted in Aruzenchin Nihonjin Iminshi Hensaniinkai, Aruzenchin, p. 102. I have not seen the original. 34. Taiwan’s Japanese language newspaper, Taiwan nichinichi shinbun, once tried a similar business. Taiwan’s bookstores were selling books at a premium, because of the high cost of shipping from Japan, and the Taiwan nichinichi shinbun criticized this, insisting on selling books at a fixed price in order to spread the Japanese culture, challenging the existing bookstores head-on. The result was that the Taiwan nichinichi shinbun’s attempt did not last long, and the existing bookstore won. See Hibi “Gaichi shoten wo oikakeru,” in Murasaki, Taiwan. 35. Hattori, “Aruzenchin,” pp. 123–127; Hattori, “Yime,” pp. 308–310; and Hattori, Aruzenchin, pp. 254–255. 36. Hattori, “Aruzenchin,” p. 125. 37. Hattori, Aruzenchin, pp. 254–255. 38. Kurata Shoten, in Aruzenchin jihō, Dec. 5, 1936, p. 8. 39. For example, an advertisement by Kurata Shoten in Aruzenchin jihō (March 27, 1941, p. 2) promoted Saigō Takamori-den, by Saneatsu Mushanokōji, and other books. On the other hand, Miyazono Shoten in Aruzenchin jihō on April 1, 1941, used the exact same format and the exact same book title. 40. See Handa, Imin, p. 602.
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Immigrant Propaganda Translating Japanese Imperial Ideology into Argentine Nationalism Facundo Garasino
I
nternational migration played a crucial role in constructing the nation- state in both Latin America and Japan, albeit with different implications. Since the mid-nineteenth century, the elites of the Latin American republics envisioned European immigration as the cornerstone of the new nation and the driving force for economic and social modernization. In Argentina, the jurist and diplomat Juan Bautista Alberdi (1810–1884) stated that in the Americas, “to govern is to populate.” This retained wide support among liberal intellectuals and the ruling classes well into the twentieth century.1 Further, following the Meiji Restoration of 1868 in Japan, expansionist intellectuals, bureaucrats, and adventurous entrepreneurs advocated transpacific mobility as the vehicle for economic modernization and transformation of the emigrant masses into national subjects working for the empire.2 Focusing on the intersections between migration and nation building, this chapter discusses the collaborations between ideologies of nationalism in imperial Japan and Argentina. It concentrates on the activities of the businessperson and journalist Shinya Yoshio (1884–1954), who organized pro-Japan propaganda during the 1930s and early 1940s in cooperation with the elites of Buenos Aires and Japanese institutions of public diplomacy. In doing so, this study explores how a Japanese immigrant social leader engaged with the expansion of the empire and how he translated its discourses of cultural nationalism and militarism into a local format. Following the Manchurian Incident of September 1931, Shinya actively vindicated Japan’s military and diplomatic actions in the major newspapers of Buenos Aires. Moreover, he collaborated with Argentine social technocrats and navy officers to establish the Argentine-Japanese Cultural Institute (Instituto 208
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Cultural Argentino Japonés). Around the same time, Shinya became the local representative of the Center for International Cultural Relations (Kokusai Bunka Shinkōkai, hereafter KBS), Japan’s first agency for cultural diplomacy.3 This chapter delves into these activities and argues that Shinya reinterpreted Japanese imperial ideologies as a civilizational narrative compatible with the discourses of Argentine nationalism as a means to negotiate immigrants’ inclusion in the host society. Previous studies on Japanese migration history have often discussed immigrants’ transnational engagements with imperial Japan in terms of their conflict with nationalism in the host society. Insightful works indicate that the emergence of the Japanese Empire as a military and colonial power in Asia and the Pacific prompted discourses of Yellow Peril, anti-Asian racism, and the establishment of exclusion policies throughout the Americas.4 Particularly, in the context of an unprecedented expansion of mass politics during the 1930s in Peru and Brazil, chauvinist legislators and the popular press promoted nationalism by drawing parallels between Japanese militarist expansionism in China and immigrants’ transnational economic activities or their collective expression of cultural differences.5 In contrast, we focus on the unexplored collaborative endeavors between immigrant leaders and local elites to integrate the promotion of Japan’s public diplomacy with Argentina’s nation building. These endeavors are made clear by characterizing Japanese immigrants as transnational agents who mediate the dissimilar nationalist discourses of both their sending and host societies. Through conferences, newspaper articles, and books, Shinya emphasized the affinities between the ideologies of imperial Japan and the narratives of Argentine exceptionalism that predicted Argentina’s transformation into the hegemon of South America. The following discussion elucidates how a Japanese immigrant leader balanced his support for Japan’s public diplomacy with his involvement in the Argentine society, from his double status as an imperial subject and the representative of a migrant ethnic minority. Local adaptation of Japan’s imperial ideologies was an essential element of the immigrant leaders’ efforts to negotiate the integration of the Japanese community with the Argentine nation-state.6 Dominant ideas of the nation during the twentieth century in Argentina centered on an exceptional and homogeneous whiteness as the precondition and marker of the nation, thus disavowing the existence of other racial and ethnic groups.7 Shinya’s experiences as a pioneering immigrant and his transnational perspective
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allowed him to reshape the ideologies of Japanese uniqueness and imperialism for negotiating and challenging the notions of race, citizenship, and nation in the host society. This provides insight into the significance of imperial Japan’s ideologies on how nationhood was s haped in Argentina and the agency of immigrants in this process.8
Between Two National Projects: Shinya Yoshio’s Early C areer Unlike Peru and Brazil, the Argentine government did not introduce or authorize Japanese contract labor immigration. Therefore, most Japanese immigrants living in Argentina before World War I entered from these two countries. From the late 1900s onwards, former colonists re-emigrated from the coffee plantations of Brazil and the sugar plantations of Peru to escape poor labor conditions or after their contracts expired. The majority settled in the cities of Buenos Aires, Rosario, and Córdoba, where they became factory workers, taxi d rivers, and waiters. Others became gardeners, cooks, or stewards in wealthy h ouseholds; and a smaller number toiled in sugar plantations located in the inner provinces.9 The earliest Japanese immigrants who settled in modern Argentina arrived during the late nineteenth century as sailors or crew working on ships of diverse flags. Shinya Yoshio was one among the first group that came before the inaugural sail of the Kasato Maru to Brazil in 1908. He disembarked at Buenos Aires on September 30, 1900, from the Argentine Navy training ship Presidente Sarmiento, where he worked with another Japanese person.10 Born in 1884 in Karatsu, Saga Prefecture, as the second son in a renowned family in the region, Shinya left home in 1899 a fter a dispute with his parents and headed to Nagasaki.11 He found a job there as a cabin boy on board the Presidente Sarmiento, which at the time was calling at the port in the midst of its first training cruise around the world. Once in Buenos Aires, Shinya built and maintained personal and professional relations with Argentine elites, Japanese diplomats, and foreign traders. His time on the Presidente Sarmiento allowed him to form lasting friendships with navy officers, and some of them became central allies to his propaganda activities during the 1930s.12 Upon arrival, he worked as a domestic servant for an officer he had met on the ship. However, Shinya soon gained acceptance within diplomatic circles by presenting himself as
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the first Japanese resident in the Argentine capital. When Ōkoshi Narinori (1856–1923)—the first Japanese minister to Argentina following the signing of the 1898 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation— and Secretary Horiguchi Kuma’ichi (1865–1945) visited Buenos Aires in October 1902 to present their diplomatic credentials, Shinya received them at the port and became their self-appointed guide. Ōkoshi mediated reconciliation between Shinya and his parents. He also introduced Shinya to J. R. Valle, an Italian trader who imported silk products from Japan through French and British intermediaries.13 Under the direction of Valle, Shinya began his career in international commerce. Further, Valle encouraged Shinya to continue his studies; thus, he entered the prestigious National School of Buenos Aires and later the Law School at the University of Buenos Aires. This formal education allowed Shinya to familiarize himself with Argentina’s intellectual landscape and granted him the cultural capital necessary to navigate through the social elites of Buenos Aires. In 1908, Shinya married Laura Hudson, an Anglo-A rgentine w oman and niece of the naturalist and writer William Henry Hudson (1841–1922). Shinya was introduced to Laura by her mother, Maria Helena Hudson, whom he met when participating in the local activities of the Young Men’s Christian Association. The couple soon traveled to Japan and Britain to visit their families.14 Around the same time, Shinya launched an independent business with the capital he raised from his hometown in Karatsu. However, the endeavor was unsuccessful. In the subsequent years, a fter a short period employed in the Argentine Ministry of Navy, Shinya worked for the Yokohama-based Matsuura Trading Company (Matsuura Bōeki-ten). In 1912, the Matsuura Trading Company merged with the San Paulo– based Fujisaki Company (Fujisaki Shōkai) to become the Fujimatsu Group (Fujimatsu Gumi). Shinya continued working there u ntil its dissolution in 1921. In 1922, he established his own importation and trade representation office called Shinya and Company (Shinya y Compañía), which specialized in importing silk goods, ceramics, pottery, and toys from Japan. He also exported Argentine quebracho extract to Japan.15 Shortly after his arrival in Buenos Aires, Shinya began to contribute to the popular Tokyo newspaper, Kokumin shinbun. Declaring himself as the precursor of Japanese trade and emigration in Argentina, he reported on the local economy, society, politics, and geography. Writing at a time when a sustained economic growth led by the exportation of grains, wool, and beef to the western and central European markets attracted large inflows of
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immigrants, Shinya described a country with limitless possibilities for agriculture and livestock farming.16 He also wrote about his achievements in importing Japanese silk goods and suggested the necessity of establishing direct shipping lines between the two countries.17 With Argentina’s favorable prospects in sight, Shinya announced in 1902 that he was seeking the approval of Argentine authorities to implement a project of Japanese agricultural colonization with the partnership of Valle.18 The following year, he sent two letters to Japan’s minister of foreign affairs, Komura Jutarō (1855–1911), requesting support.19 Shinya was influenced by a corpus of ideas that pursued the consolidation of the Japanese nation-state and its capitalist development through the promotion and control of international emigration. Since the 1880s, propagandized discourses of Japanese intellectuals, bureaucrats, and pioneering emigrants on “overseas development” envisioned a transborder model of nation building through maritime trade, agricultural settlement, and the construction of diasporic subjectivities in Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas.20 Viewing his efforts as a contribution to the economic expansion of the Japanese Empire, Shinya published an open letter addressing the young men of his hometown in the local newspaper Karatsu shinpō in February 1904, calling them to join him in South America. He promised to assist prospective emigrants in starting businesses in agriculture or commerce. In doing so, they would foster trade between “the foremost country in South America” and “the Great Britain of the East.”21 In other contributions to the Kokumin shinbun, Shinya stressed the significance of emigration to Argentina as a means to foster Japan’s economic expansion in accordance with its growing importance as an emerging empire.22 Shinya saw the Russo-Japanese War as a unique opportunity, since Argentine public opinion showed an unprecedented regard to Japan as a paramount example of successful modernization.23 However, Shinya’s enthusiasm collided with Argentina’s nation- building project. T oward the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the political elites drifted away from relatively inclusive conceptions of citizenship and redefined national belonging around racial whiteness and Euro pean culture. 24 Since the 1870s, military campaigns that expanded the territory to the south and northeast while killing thousands of Indigenous people and Lamarckian theories of racial improvement, positivism, and eugenics intertwined to consolidate modernization and nation building as a process of racial whitening.25 The Immigration and Colonization Law of
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1876 explicitly gave privilege to European immigration by granting subsidies for maritime transport and settlement. Although legal immigration bans or quotas did not exist, African and Asian peoples w ere excluded from state support in practice. In this context, debates in the National Congress and the press often condemned Asian immigration with a disproportionate intensity to the actual numbers of immigrants. Often citing the turmoil created around anti-Asian campaigns in California, lawmakers and journalists warned against the perils of introducing foreign races.26 Unable to obtain authorization for implementing his projects, Shinya quickly learned that the Argentine elites would not support Japanese immigration. Nevertheless, t here were no active anti-Asian exclusion movements or policies due to the small number of Japanese immigrants, their diverse integration in the labor market, and a general tendency to adapt to the host society. Between the 1910s and 1920s, a growing number of Japanese moved from wage labor to operate their own coffee shops, laundries, and floriculture businesses. Further, the first institutions that aimed to bring the immigrants together as a community emerged, and more p eople began to call their families and acquaintances to join them in Argentina.27 By the late 1920s, approximately 3,500 Japanese p eople resided in the country.28 During this time, Shinya defined his role as a social leader of the incipient Japanese community, taking part in the foundation of the Japanese Association in Argentina in 1917 and serving as its president in 1927. He adjusted his vision for the prospects of Japanese immigration to the realities of local racial politics. He warned that larger immigration schemes and government-sponsored agricultural colonization w ere counterproductive for the Japanese in Argentina. In an opinion article in the Bulletin of the Japa nese Association in 1924, he emphasized that the notion of Argentina as a white nation was the foundation of its politico-legal system, as the Constitution of 1853 stipulated that “the federal government shall promote Eu ropean immigration.”29 As a young republic created in sparsely populated South America, immigration was the axis of Argentina’s socioeconomic development, and the white nation was its ideological principle for national integration. Nevertheless, Shinya promptly noted that the vast majority of the elites and educated middle classes admired Japan as a leading world power, and they appreciated the aesthetic and moral values of Japanese culture.30 Therefore, if the immigrants remained a small minority and complied with the highly regarded image of Japan, they could prevent the rise of exclusionist movements.
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Shinya’s Transnational Discursive Activities The Manchurian Incident of September 1931 and Japan’s withdrawal from the League of Nations in 1934 generated concern among immigrant leaders, who feared that the sudden deterioration of Japan’s public image, especially among the elites, would undermine their security. Criticism of Japan’s aggressive expansionism in major newspapers and occasional episodes of violence against Japanese residents during the Carnival celebrations prompted public information campaigns.31 Prominent residents in Santa Fé and Córdoba—mostly owners of restaurants and retail shops targeting Argentine customers—defended Japan’s position in local newspapers.32 In Buenos Aires, the Japanese Association in Argentina and the Japanese Legation distributed leaflets among business, diplomatic, and journalistic circles.33 Shinya partook in this campaign by authoring several articles in the newspapers La Nación and La Razón between May 1932 and October 1933. A month later, he edited his writings under the title The Truth on the Manchurian Incident (La verdad sobre la Cuestión Manchuriana). Overall, Shinya argued that Japan’s actions were the last resort to defend its “special interests” in Manchuria, rightfully acquired through treaties recognized by China and the international community. He presented the Japa nese Empire as a stabilizing force in northeast China and the military incursion as a response to the violent attempts of local warlords to nullify the treaties.34 Shinya consolidated his role as a spokesperson for the Japanese Empire and the immigrant community by building durable media and institutional platforms in association with other immigrant leaders, the elites of Buenos Aires, and Japanese agencies of public diplomacy. Notably, he focused on the importance of cultural promotion to improve and maintain Japan’s public image as a civilized and refined nation. Shinya’s collaborative engagements allowed him to move from his accommodative position of adapting to the dominant structures of the white nation to that of actively negotiating the belonging of Japanese immigrants in Argentina’s nation building. The creation of the Argentine-Japanese Cultural Institute in October 1933 was the first major step in this direction. Established by the combined efforts of the art dealer Yokohama Kenkichi (1892–1978), the agricultural economist Tomás Amadeo (1880–1950), and the former navy minister Manuel Domecq García (1859–1951), the institute sought to strengthen the relations between Argentina and Japan through the promotion of Japanese
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culture. The Japanese Legation cooperated with the institute by providing books, hosting conferences and courses, and jointly organizing study trips to Japan for Argentine teachers and university professors. The institute was also affiliated with the Argentine Social Museum, an autonomous civilian organization that promoted the study of eugenics, hygiene, social engineering, and immigrant control. The Argentine Social Museum brought together social scientists, physicians, jurists, legislators, and businesspersons for research and intervention over “social pathologies” threatening the stability of the nation—namely, prostitution, communism, syndical agitation, and diseases.35 Through its association with this organization, the institute presented its activities as a contribution toward the endeavors of social technocrats to advance Argentina’s nation building. In line with the mission of the Argentine Social Museum, the institute publicized traditional Japanese moral values as a universal model of civic virtue. Being the secretary of the institute, Shinya took a leading role in organizing activities and officiating as a translator and interpreter and received active cooperation from the local elites. Remarkable members of the institute included the aforementioned Domecq García (president), Amadeo (vice president), the former navy minister and rear admiral Pedro Casal (1879–1957), the biochemist and future Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate Luis Leloir (1906–1987), and the legislator and diplomat Rodolfo Moreno (1879–1943), who became the ambassador to Japan in 1939. Its prestigious members brought attention to the institute, and the newspapers of Buenos Aires reported on its activities and transcribed summaries of their conferences. Argentine affiliates accounted for two-thirds of the institute’s membership and eagerly engaged in producing positive images of the Japanese. The author Jorge Max Rhode (1892–1979) narrated his “Impressions of the Japanese Woman” (“Estampas de la mujer japonesa,” July 1934) in which he recollected a recent trip to Japan; Casal gave a conference on “The Japa nese Navy” (“La marina japonesa,” August 1936); and the diplomat Albino Pugnalin applauded the “Aesthetics and Heroism of the Japanese Soul” (“Estética y heroísmo del alma japonesa,” September 1936). In these conferences, the Argentine members characterized the Japanese p eople as being a model of self-d iscipline and patriotism and encouraged a deeper understanding of Japanese modern history to improve the younger Argentine republic.36 Prominent members of the Japanese community collaborated with the institute. The pioneering livestock farmer Itō Seizō (1875–1941)
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presented on the “Characteristics of Japanese Agriculture” (“Las especialidades características de la agricultura japonesa,” August 1935), and Shinya’s daughter Violeta contributed with numerous discussions on Japan’s education system and cultural history. Shinya’s local endeavors intertwined with Japan’s public diplomacy through the KBS’s activities. The KBS was established in April 1934 as a semipublic organization under the jurisdiction of the Foreign Ministry’s Cultural Affairs Department. It was established as an attempt to preserve Japan’s policies of internationalism and avoid further diplomatic isolation after its withdrawal from the League of Nations.37 Culture as an asset for diplomacy in modern Japan had emerged during the negotiations for the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1905 and the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1908 under the concept of “national diplomacy” (kokumin gaikō), which called for civil cooperation in influencing foreign public opinion.38 The KBS also engaged in cultural promotion as a vehicle for rebuilding Japan’s diplomatic relations.39 They issued printed materials and films in several languages, organized lectures and exhibitions, coordinated academic exchanges, and dispatched cultural ambassadors. In December 1934, Shinya became the local representative of the KBS with the mediation of the Tokyo University graduate and future historian Nakaya Ken’ichi, who visited Buenos Aires to survey the prospect of Japanese public diplomacy.40 However, rather than following the KBS’s instructions, Shinya collaborated with its proj ects while using its materials and institutional networks to expand the scope of his activities. Resultantly, the Argentine-Japanese Cultural Institute became a platform for receiving “cultural ambassadors” such as the aforementioned Horiguchi Kuma’ichi in July 1935 and the jurist Tanaka Kōtarō (1890–1974) in September 1939. Shinya also aided the author Shimazaki Tōson (1872–1943) and the painter Arishima Ikuma (1882–1974) as an interpreter when they visited Buenos Aires on the occasion of the Fourteenth International Congress of the PEN (acronym for poets, playwrights, editors, essayists, and novelists) clubs in September 1936.41 Finally, Shinya introduced a Spanish section within the ethnic newspaper the Aruzenchin jihō (originally romanized as “Argentin Djijo”) in December 1934.42 The Aruzenchin jihō inaugurated the Spanish section with a pledge to provide the host society with accurate information about the Japa nese Empire’s efforts to bring stability and prosperity in East Asia. The idea was to prevent misinformation, as previously seen in reports on the Manchurian Incident.43 Furthermore, it exhorted the young Nisei to obtain a
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better understanding of their parents’ homeland and educate their Argentine friends about Japan by reading the new section. Although the Aruzenchin jihō was primarily distributed to subscribers within the Japanese community, Shinya attempted to reach wider audiences within the host society by sending copies to major newspapers in Buenos Aires and Córdoba. With weekly editions issued e very Saturday, the Spanish section featured four pages with editorial paragraphs and news on Japan’s latest po litical, diplomatic, economic, and military affairs. There were also articles on history, literature, and arts. The Spanish section utilized information distributed by the Dōmei News Agency and publications issued in Euro pean languages, such as Contemporary Japan and Nippon. There were also official statements by Japanese authorities and writings of American and European journalists who expressed pro-Japanese views. Shinya also utilized booklets provided by the KBS to introduce the writings of influential Japanese authors and intellectuals.44 Shinya attempted to present “Japan as it is” and counter the influence of American and British news agencies in the coverage of East Asian affairs in the Argentine press. The Spanish section also regularly transcribed conferences hosted by the Argentine-Japanese Cultural Institute and KBS. Furthermore, by publishing excerpts from classic works of Argentine national literature, essays on the meaning of national commemoration days, and moralizing essays on the civic responsibilities of children as future citizens, the Spanish section reminded the young Nisei that they owed allegiance to their country of birth.45 In an attempt to inspire his readers, Shinya invoked narratives of Argentina’s exceptional conditions to become the po litical and cultural hegemon of South America. He frequently reproduced excerpts from the writings of the influential psychiatrist, philosopher, and sociologist José Ingenieros (1877–1925) as principles that should guide the youth in constructing a g reat nation.46 From a synthesis of Spenserian biologism, social evolutionism, and Marxist economics, Ingenieros speculated that the vast geographic size, temperate climate, and the predominance of the white race would catapult Argentina into a regional power.47 He envisioned Argentina’s pacific economic expansionism, civilizing influence, and political tutelage over the South American republics rivaling the United States for hegemony over the Western Hemisphere.48 Emphasizing Argentina’s exceptional conditions, Shinya called on the host society to collaborate with him to “transform this country into a g reat nation.”49 He was convinced that “here, at the shores of the La Plata River, a nation shall
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emerge to become the beacon for the civilized world; since no other country has the elements and conditions that the providence has granted to us.”50 He also discussed Argentina’s economic and political issues in La Razón and in the volume A Small Contribution to Argentine Grandeur.51 In the preface, Shinya proclaimed himself an “Argentine by heart” striving for the development of his host society.52
Translating Japanese Imperial Ideologies into Argentine Nationalism Utilizing the aforementioned media, institutions, and networks, Shinya introduced Japanese culture and history as a patriotic serv ice to his a dopted country. He argued that a correct understanding of Japan’s culture and struggle to change the Western-dominated international status quo was essential to materialize Argentina’s national destiny to become the hegemon of South America. He reflected a transnationalism that attempted to negotiate not only the belonging of Japanese immigrants in the Argentine nation-state but also their role in transforming it. In 1934, Shinya published an introductory volume on Japan’s history, culture, society, and achievements during colonial administration titled Empire of the Rising Sun: Its Extraordinary Modern Evolution (Imperio del Sol Naciente: Su maravillosa evolución moderna). This was a subtle yet de cided challenge to Argentina’s Eurocentric narratives of a white nation and a proclamation of the distinctive role of the Japanese in shaping nation building in their host society. The volume centered its arguments on the thesis of Japan as the merging point between the Oriental and Western civilizations (tōzai bunmei yūgōron), which was ubiquitous in intellectual discussions on the empire’s international relations since the Russo-Japanese War. This thesis claimed that Japan stood on an equal footing with the most advanced Western nations as the first and sole Oriental nation that successfully assimilated Western civilization and constructed a powerful nation-state, while holding the right to guide its Asian neighbors toward modernization.53 Shinya expanded this theory in relation to Argentina’s racial politics of nation building. He argued that the emergence of modern Japan had the historical significance of refuting racial theories that linked people’s intellectual and moral capabilities with biological traits. Japan’s modern development demonstrated that “Orientals, Europeans, and Amer-
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icans can share the same ideals and principles for common action.”54 Although Shinya avoided explicit attacks on Argentina’s ideology of the white nation, he suggested that the Japanese w ere equally competent to white Argentines and European immigrants as agents of modern development.55 The outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in July 1937 pushed Shinya toward a more unambiguous propagandistic tone. He introduced Japan’s wartime rhetoric of the construction of a “New Order in East Asia” and ideas of overcoming Western modernity as a crucial contribution to the construction of a modern nation in Argentina. This was evident at a series of conferences on Japanese cultural history that Shinya delivered at the School of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Buenos Aires from October to November 1938 with the sponsorship of the KBS. U nder the title The Ideals of Japan (Los ideales del Japón), he outlined the historical evolution of the Japanese Empire into a major power that signaled the emergence of a new political and spiritual leadership in Asia and indicated its implications for the f uture development of the Argentine nation. Shinya presented a vision of an alternative international order at the crossroads of popular ideas of “the decline of the West,” Japan’s pan-Asianism, and Argentine nationalism. Shinya noted that since the end of the G reat War, Japan had been committed to putting universal human values of freedom and equality beyond the distinctions of race. In contrast, Europe became a hotbed for totalitarian regimes, and the United States legally excluded Asian immigration.56 Students and young intellectuals at the University of Buenos Aires would benefit by learning from Japan, since they were the vanguards of both Argentina’s and South America’s civilizational development. Without knowledge of Japanese culture, Shinya warned that “the mission of the new world cannot be complete or satisfactory.”57 Shinya’s closing lecture on November 8, 1938, declared the end of the political and moral leadership of the West, and the rise of a “New World” centered on the progressive nations of East Asia and the Pacific. He directly quoted the “Declaration on the Construction of a New Order in East Asia” (Tōa shinchitsujo kensetsu no seimei), which had been recently issued by Japanese prime minister Konoe Fumimaro as the dawn of a new international order.58 Shinya carefully excluded Argentina from the decaying West by underscoring its traditional foreign policy of neutralism, nonbelligerence, and the absence of legally sanctioned racial exclusion. He noted that Argentina had been promoting justice and equality of rights among the nations by opposing military interventions in Latin America, challenging
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the United States’ attempts to impose its hegemony on the continent in the Pan-American Conferences, and advancing the signing of an inter- American Anti-War Treaty of Non-Aggression and Conciliation in 1935. In contrast, the European powers stubbornly refused to recognize equal rights for Japan, as seen in the rejection of the “Racial Equality Proposal” at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and the League of Nation’s position on the Manchurian Incident. Shinya argued that Japan had been struggling on the international stage because they held the same principles that animated Argentina; and he called on the audience to cooperate with the empire’s struggle to attain freedom, development, and equality for Asia.59 In June 1941, Shinya gave a speech titled “The Unchanging Concept of the ‘Family-State’ in Japan” (“El concepto invariable del ‘Estado-Familia’ en Japón”) at the Argentine-Japanese Cultural Institute. He expressed his thoughts about his visit to Japan during the previous year to participate in the commemoration of the “2,600th Anniversary” of the empire’s founding by the mythological emperor Jimmu. On this occasion, in an attempt to develop diplomatic strategies to secure access to Latin American markets and resources amid growing tensions with the United States and the British Empire, the KBS invited Shinya to a conference on Japan’s public diplomacy in South America.60 He also attended the Tokyo Conference of Overseas Nationals (Zaigai Dōhō Tokyo Taikai), which celebrated emigrants as the pioneers and vanguards of national expansion.61 These per formances of imperial diasporic engagement were carefully choreographed around slogans that justified Japanese expansion in Asia and the Pacific through a rhetoric of universal justice and civilizational development. Shinya translated Japan’s self-righteous official slogans into a universal language that rendered ideologies of the Japanese Empire as a “Family- State” that was relevant for the improvement of the Argentine nation- state. According to him, the family and state in Japan integrated around the figure of a divine and benevolent fatherlike emperor. Both the family and state were based on the concept of one organic sociopolitical unity that generated harmony and interdependence between individual and communal interests, thus supporting the unparalleled longevity of the empire and the loyalty of the people.62 The premise of this discussion, however, emphasized the universal applicability of Japanese national morality. Shinya argued that the core spirit of the “Family-State” resonated with the social teaching of the Catholic Church, as both agreed on the centrality of the family in guaranteeing social harmony.63 Japanese civic morality could pro-
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vide valuable lessons to the younger Latin American republics, where the state was organized to protect and promote individual interests and they were still on their way to achieving effective national unity.64 It is important to note that a group of educators shared Shinya’s evaluation of the utility of Japanese imperial ideology in shaping the Argentine nation. During the 1920s and 1930s, educators, technocrats, and intellectuals valued humanistic and cultural education as the pillars of a new educational system that would inculcate ethical and religious values to shape a unified national subjectivity.65 Victorio Franceschini, who taught at elementary and secondary schools, engaged with the activities of the Argentine- Japanese Cultural Institute and contributed to the Spanish section of the Aruzenchin jihō. He studied Japan’s education system and pedagogical methods in Japanese public and private elementary schools between 1938 and 1939, with a fellowship of the International Students Association of Tokyo arranged by the Japanese Legation and the Argentine-Japanese Cultural Institute. In his research report, Franceschini argued that the empire’s educational system had played a leading role in forging the moral backbone of the nation around the belief that Japan was a great family with the emperor as its leader.66 In the prologue to this study, the director of the Pedagogical Institute of the School of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Buenos Aires Juan Emilio Cassani (1896–1981) commented that studying Japan’s model of national education would provide valuable information for introducing reforms in Argentina.67 However, the Pacific War ended Shinya’s collaborative propaganda activities. A fter the attack on Pearl Harbor, a Spanish edition of the Aruzenchin jihō came out on January 1, 1942. Transcribing the declarations of the Japanese minister of foreign affairs to the Diet, Shinya claimed that Japan had merely responded in its own defense to the political provocations and economic strangling by the United States and the British Empire. Thereafter, the Spanish section was reduced to an opinion column that was published irregularly from where Shinya praised the war efforts of the Japa nese Empire, criticized the cruelty of the British and American troops, and manifested his optimism on Argentina’s future as a world power because of its material prosperity and advanced culture. However, Shinya was more actively involved as a foreign correspondent for the Yomiuri hōchi shinbun. Although t here is a greater need for research on the concrete aspects of Shinya’s coverage for this newspaper, it is well documented that during wartime, the Argentine-Japanese Cultural Institute
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was accused of spying for the Japanese Empire from the pro-A llied politi cal group Argentine Action.68 Additionally, following Argentina’s war declaration on Japan in March 1945, Shinya was arrested on charges of espionage along with the local directors of Japanese companies and banks, embassy personnel, and other correspondents for Japanese news companies and newspapers.69 Even though Argentina condemned the attack on Pearl Harbor, it did not have severe diplomatic relations with the Axis until January 26, 1944, and fi nally declared war on Japan and Germany on March 27, 1945.70 Argentina’s neutrality facilitated the operations of Japa nese intelligence in the country. Military attachés and correspondents of the Dōmei News Agency in neutral countries provided the Japanese Army, Navy, and Foreign Ministry with information on the economic and military movements of the Allies.71 However, Shinya’s arrest did not thwart his career or reputation. He returned to journalism in La Plata Hōchi from the newspaper’s foundation in 1948, where he wrote opinion columns in Japanese and Spanish u ntil his late years. When he passed away in September 1954, the major newspapers of Buenos Aires mourned him as the precursor of friendship and understanding between Argentina and Japan. Since then, he has been commemorated as a pioneer and role model for the Nikkei. This study examined the personal and intellectual trajectory of a Japanese immigrant in Argentina, Shinya Yoshio. Shinya developed a transnational perspective that allowed him to reinvent the ideologies of Japanese imperialism into a civilizational narrative compatible with the Argentine discourses of nationalism. Shinya’s activities sought to promote Japan’s public diplomacy while integrating Japanese immigrants into the Argentine nation-state. Although Shinya believed that Japan’s expansionism in East Asia and the Pacific was justified, he presented the ideologies sustaining Japanese imperialism as a contribution to the conformation of a powerf ul Argentine nation-state in accordance with its geographical and social conditions to become the f uture hegemon of Latin America. Shinya emphasized that the study of Japanese history, culture, and society was of paramount importance to the betterment of the host society; and this idea was shared among the Argentine social technocrats, intellectuals, and navy officers who engaged with the Argentine-Japanese Cultural Institute. In doing so, he sought to debunk racial theories that denied the incorporation of Asians into the Argentine nation.
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Shinya’s case shows the importance of Japanese imperial ideologies in the immigrants’ challenge to the exclusive categories of whiteness and their efforts to accommodate Argentine exceptionalism. These activities demonstrate the agency of Asian Argentines in relation to not only their homeland or ethnic community but also the conformation and transformation of the nation-state in Argentina.
Notes 1. DeLaney, “Immigration, Identity, and Nationalism,” p. 92. 2. Manzenreiter, “Japanese Emigrant Empire,” pp. 49–53; Eiichiro Azuma, In Search, pp. 32–37. 3. For a study on the foundation and evolution of the KBS in the context of Japan’s foreign policy, see Abel, “Cultural Internationalism.” 4. For analyses on the transpacific and hemispheric repercussions of the expansion of the Japanese Empire in the politics of migration and racialization in the Americas, see Endoh, Exporting Japan; Lee, “ ‘ Yellow Peril,’ ”; and Azuma, “Japanese Immigrant Settler Colonialism.” 5. Endoh, Nanbei kimin seisaku; Takenaka, “Japanese in Peru,” pp. 90–93. 6. Shinya was not alone in articulating the ideas of Japan’s cultural and historical exceptionalism to assert the belonging of Japanese immigrants. The businessperson and author Okimura Teikichi published essays and novels on the parallels between the civilizational development of Argentina and Japan, and Yokohama Kenkichi, who traded in Japanese and Chinese art and became a close collaborator of Shinya, wrote on Japa nese culture and public diplomacy in ethnic media. See Okimura and Burena, Un Japonés y un Suramericano; Okimura, Sonriendo; Yokohama, “Un relato breve sobre.” 7. Ko, “From Whiteness to Diversity”; Alberto and Elena, “Introduction.” 8. This discussion w ill also contribute to a growing body of scholarship that challenges the notion that Asians in Argentina have been and still are considered foreign or socially irrelevant. See Ko, “Toward Asian Argentine Studies.” 9. Masterson and Funada-Classen, Japanese in Latin America, pp. 86–88. 10. Federación de Asociaciones Nikkei en la Argentina, Historia del inmigrante japonés, 1:26. 11. Satō, “Nihon to Aruzenchin,” 4. Shinya’s father was an elementary schoolteacher who once served as the village mayor, and his m other was born in a h ousehold that inherited the position of village headman during the Tokugawa period (1603–1868). 12. Shinya became close to Pedro Casal (1879–1957), who embarked on the first world cruise of President Sarmiento in 1899, and Manuel Domecq García (1859–1951), who oversaw the passing of two Argentine warships to the Japanese Imperial Navy at the eve of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. The two served as ministers of the navy and became active leaders of the Argentine-Japanese Cultural Institute. 13. Federación de Asociaciones Nikkei en la Argentina, Historia del inmigrante japonés, 1:27.
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14. Federación de Asociaciones Nikkei en la Argentina, Historia del inmigrante japonés, 1:27–28. 15. Shinya’s personal life is also noteworthy. For example, his first d aughter, Violeta, was born in 1910; she became the first Argentine Nikkei w oman to receive a university degree and one of his closest collaborators. A fter Laura Hudson’s passing in 1915, Shinya married another Argentine woman named Sofía Delia in 1921; they had two sons and one daughter. See Gashū, Aruzenchin dohō gojū-nenshi, p. 286; Federación de Asociaciones Nikkei en la Argentina, Historia del inmigrante japonés, 1:28. 16. Shinya, “Nanbei no hōko Aruzenchin.” 17. Shinya, “Nihon no daihyō-teki shōhin.” 18. Shinya, “Nanbei no hōko Aruzenchin.” 19. Irie, “Zai-a Nihon-jin sōseiki.” 20. Young, Japan’s Total Empire, pp. 310–317; Azuma, “Pioneers of Overseas Development,” p. 1192. 21. Shinya, “Aruzenchin tsūshin.” 22. Shinya admired the early liberal-populist ideas of the director of the Kokumin shinbun Tokutomi Sohō (1863–1957), who advocated transforming Japan into a mercantile nation. Although the exact number of pieces that Shinya published in the Kokumin shinbun is difficult to determine, in the Directory of the Nikkei in Argentina (Zai-A ruzenchin Nikkei-jin roku) published by the ethnic newspaper La Plata Hōchi, twenty-nine pieces written between 1902 and 1910 can be found. 23. Shinya, “Nihon no shōin.” 24. Alberto and Elena, “Introduction,” p. 6. 25. López-Durán, Eugenics in the Garden, p. 3. 26. Imai, Aruzenchin no shuyō shinbun, pp. 35–41. 27. Masterson and Funada-Classen, Japanese in Latin America, pp. 90–95. 28. Higa, “Desarrollo histórico,” p. 490. 29. Shinya, “Gaikoku imin ni taisuru,” p. 11. 30. Shinya, “Gaikoku imin ni taisuru,” p. 11. 31. Federación de Asociaciones Nikkei en la Argentina, Historia del inmigrante japonés, 1:298. 32. Federación de Asociaciones Nikkei en la Argentina, Historia del inmigrante japonés, 1:298–299. 33. Asociación Japonesa en la Argentina, El Incidente en Manchuria. During the 1930s, Japanese diplomatic missions in Latin America actively engaged in public diplomacy by promoting cultural exchange and publishing in the local press. For a study of Japanese public diplomacy in Chile, see Iacobelli and Camino, “Diplomacia pública Japonesa.” 34. Shinya, La verdad sobre, pp. 7–15. 35. López-Durán, Eugenics in the Garden, p. 108. 36. Casal, La marina japonesa, pp. 29–30. 37. Shibasaki, Kindai Nihon to kokusai, pp. 24–25; Abel, “Cultural Internationalism,” p. 19. 38. Shibasaki, Kindai Nihon to kokusai, p. 36. 39. Shibasaki, Kindai Nihon to kokusai, pp. 81–82; Abel, “Cultural Internationalism,” pp. 20–21.
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40. Aruzenchin jihō, “Shinya-shi kokusai bunka shinkōkai.” 41. Shinya translated and edited their conferences in a booklet in 1937 with the title of Toson Shimazaki y sus conferencias. 42. Founded in May 1924, the Aruzenchin jihō was the longest-r unning Japanese- language newspaper in Argentina prior to World War II and the first to issue a Spanish section. 43. Aruzenchin jihō, “Seigo-ran no kaisetsu.” 44. For example, the linguist Shinmura Izuru, art critic Yanagi Sōetsu, literary critic Kikuchi Kan, essayist Hasegawa Nyozekan, and poet and literary critic Noguchi Yonejirō. 45. Aruzenchin jihō, “Trozos escogidos de literatura”; Sumire, “La patria eres tú.” 46. Aruzenchin jihō, “Sermones laicos.” 47. Ingenieros, La evolución sociológica argentina, p. 98. 48. Terán, José Ingenieros, pp. 39–40. 49. Shinya, “Llamamiento a la juventud.” 50. Shinya, “Llamamiento a la juventud.” 51. Shinya, Pequeña contribución. For a discussion about the distribution networks of books and magazines of the Japanese in Argentina and the place of Shinya’s intellectual production within them, see Yoshitaka Hibi’s chapter in this volume. 52. In doing this, Shinya also manifested his adherence to the social values that identified the nation with the traditional family. He dedicated this book to his Argentine children and stated that he loved his adoptive country with the same feelings that he professed for his home. Shinya, Pequeña contribución, n.p. 53. Yamamuro, “Ajia ninshiki no kijiku.” 54. Shinya, Imperio del sol naciente, pp. 18–19. 55. Japanese immigrants in Latin America repeatedly stressed their agency for economic and social prog ress while defending their presence. In Argentina and Brazil, the influence of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s ideas on the transformative capacities of the environment for human improvement led political elites, intellectuals, and social reformers to see whiteness as a flexible category. In this regard, Japanese immigrant social leaders and diplomats stressed their productivity, work discipline, and observance of bourgeois societal norms in an attempt to negotiate their place within the Eurocentric racial hierarchy. For an examination of the influence and implementation of Lamarckian eugenics in Argentina and Brazil, see López-Durán, Eugenics in the Garden. 56. Shinya, Los ideales del Japón, p. 13. 57. Shinya, Los ideales del Japón, p. 16. 58. The Second Konoe Declaration, or “Declaration on the Construction of a New Order in East Asia,” issued on November 3, 1938, sought to rationalize the empire’s invasion of China and establish a pro-Japan puppet regime with the collaboration of certain sectors of the Kuomintang Nationalist government. 59. Shinya, Los ideales del Japón, p. 74. 60. Th is was a period of development in bilateral relations. In February 1940, an Argentine economic mission visited Japan; in December of the same year, the Japa nese Legation in Buenos Aires was promoted to the category of embassy. 61. Ruoff, Imperial Japan, pp. 148–179. 62. Shinya, El concepto invariable, pp. 18–19.
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63. Shinya, El concepto invariable, p. 14. 64. Shinya, El concepto invariable, p. 21. 65. Bentivegna, “Juan E. Cassani y Juan Mantovani,” p. 291. 66. Franceschini, La educación en Japón, p. 179. 67. Franceschini, La educación en Japón, pp. 6–7. 68. Federación de Asociaciones Nikkei en la Argentina, Historia del inmigrante japonés, 1:318. 69. Nihon-jin Aruzenchin Ijū-shi Hensan Iinkai, Nihon-jin Aruzenchin ijū-shi, p. 136. Although the Argentine government arrested the directors of Japanese newspapers and organizations, intervened in their institutions, and confiscated the assets of companies founded with Japanese capital, it did not impose severe conditions on most Japanese residents. 70. For most of the war, the successive Argentine governments adhered to neutrality, maintained important trade relations with Britain, and provided the Allies with raw materials. The majority of society favored neutrality, although the reasons varied among different social and political sectors. For analyses of Argentina’s position during World War II, see Rapoport, “Argentina y la Segunda Guerra Mundial”; and Iacobelli, “Empire of Japan.” 71. Kotani, “Nihon-g un to interijensu.”
c h a p t e r
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After the Empire Postwar Emigration to the Dominican Republic and Economic Diplomacy Hiromi Mizuno
I
n 1956, twenty-eight Japanese families left Yokohama for Dajabón, the Dominican Republic (DR). More followed over the next three years. A total of 1,319 men, women, and children emigrated to “the utopia in the Car ibbean.” They were part of the postwar state-sponsored project that brought more than 62,000 Japanese to Latin America. The majority of them emigrated to Brazil, Argentine, and Paraguay, where Japanese immigrants had already formed communities before 1945. The DR was unique in that it had never hosted Japanese immigrants before. Postwar agricultural emigration—much smaller in size compared to its prewar predecessor— has received considerably less attention from scholars and is largely forgotten by many Japanese, but in the 1950s it was vigorously promoted by the government as one of the national policies and continued well into the 1970s. Including the postwar chapters in this book is important b ecause it shows that Japanese emigration did not only happen with the expansion of the Japanese empire but was continued as the empire collapsed. This chapter situates postwar emigration to Latin America in the rise and fall of the Japanese empire by focusing on the Dominican program and illuminates both continuities and differences between prewar and postwar emigration. The Dominican program is widely considered a failure. It resulted in collective repatriation in 1961–1962 and a historic lawsuit against the Japanese government in 2000. The program was also unique b ecause the Japanese government proceeded without signing a formal immigration treaty. Kimin, “the abandoned p eople,” is the term that is often used to describe the victims of the program—deceived and abandoned by the Japanese government as excess population, when defeated Japan was struggling with the sudden increase in population while the territory shrank by half. Two seminal 227
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works on the topic, The “Utopia” of the Caribbean (Karibukai no “rakuen,” 1987) and Dominican Emigrants W ere the Abandoned P eople (Dominika imin wa kimin datta, 1993), detail their hardship and struggles in the DR as kimin, and the post-lawsuit apology and compensations by the state w ere meant to re1 deem this abandonment. While the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs tried to avoid its responsibility by emphasizing emigration as the emigrants’ own decision based on their free will, and by insisting that the ministry provided them with opportunities and even rescued them when asked, t here is no denying that the Japanese government operated the Dominican program in an extremely irresponsible manner. Rather than simply repeating the story of abandonment, however, this chapter places the Dominican program in the wider context of the rise and fall of the Japanese empire, postwar economic reconstruction, and the Cold War. By d oing so, I highlight the following aspects of the postwar emigration program. First, many postwar emigrants to Latin America, including those who went to the DR, were repatriates from the former empire. Moreover, before they headed for Latin America, many of them w ere part of the postwar domestic kaitaku projects. Sengo kaitaku, or “postwar agricultural land development,” overshadowed by the widely celebrated land reform u nder the US occupation, is largely forgotten in affluent Japan and is also missing from various accounts of the Dominican program. It was, however, not only an important context but in fact an integral part of the postwar promotion of emigration. Second, what Louise Young called “the migration machine” was also in full operation for postwar emigration.2 Unlike the Manchuria migration machine, the main pillar of the postwar machine was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was new to agricultural emigration. The postwar machine was crankier but propelled by the Kishi administration’s economic diplomacy. Finally, unlike prewar emigration, which was promoted and justified by what Sidney Xu Lu aptly calls “Malthusian expansionism,” postwar emigration could not mobilize that logic as Japan’s defeat and the collapse of the empire delegitimized Japa nese settler colonialism.3 Despite, or because of, the apparent continuity from Manchuria kaitaku to postwar domestic kaitaku to postwar emigration, a new language of “development” and “international cooperation” replaced the logic of expansionism. By the end of the 1970s, the migration machine was absorbed into the apparatus of international development. While many also emigrated to Latin America on individual bases, the subject of this chapter is the state-sponsored program launched and pro-
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moted by the government as a national policy. The postwar migration machine, therefore, was essentially composed of the state apparatus: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), its auxiliary agencies such as the Federation of Japan Overseas Associations (Kaigai kyōkai rengōkai; hereafter Kaikyōren), the Overseas Emigration Promotion Company (Kaigai ijū shinkō kabushiki gaisha), and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF).
Colonia Japonesa The Dominican program started with extremely attractive advertisements. Information about the new emigration program was spread in Japan well before the program was officially announced. Kaikyōren’s publication Kaigai ijū carried the news as early as October 1954: “The Dominican government has unofficially requested 25,000 Japanese immigrants. Land w ill be prepared by the Dominican government, and immigrants w ill be welcomed as independent farmers. . . . The Dominican climate is as comfortable as that of Hawai‘i.”4 A major daily newspaper also reported in November 1955 under the headline “The Caribbean Utopia, the Dominican Republic, Invites Japanese Immigrants”: “Immigrants w ill be given all the rights equal to Dominican citizens and w ill receive housing immediately.”5 Kawadai Tetsuemon, who joined the Dominican project at its first recruitment opportunity, later recalled how exciting the news was: “I had worked on the kaitaku land [in Hokkaido] for four years at that point and was thinking I could redeem the wasted ten years of my youth in Manchuria. Then, in May 1955, I saw an article in Hokkaido Daily about ‘The Utopia in the Ca ribbean, Great News from the Dominican Republic.’ I became so obsessed by the news that I completely lost my interest in Hokkaido kaitaku.”6 The Dominican program was indeed attractive. The government had opened the Amazon program (June 1952), the Brazil program (May 1953), the Paraguay program (March 1954), but none of them offered 300 tarea (19 ha) of f ree land, f ree housing, and generous subsidies. In post- land-reform Japan, farmers could only own up to 3 hectares (12 ha in Hokkaido). Like Kawadai, many applicants to the Dominican and other Latin American programs were repatriates from Manchuria.7 Launched by the Kwantung Army, the Manchuria agricultural program sent 321,882 Japanese
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to Manchukuo to settle, especially in the thinly populated areas along the Soviet border. MAF was an enthusiastic promoter, hoping that the program would help rehabilitate agrarian villages hit hard by the Great Depression; if 31 percent of the nation’s agricultural population left, according to the plan, the farmers in naichi could attain the magic number of 1.6 ha, the minimal size of farm required to sustain an independent farming family without a debt. The majority of Manchuria settlers were second and third sons, as well as poor and landless farmers, who migrated for the opportunity of owning land.8 The use of the term kaitaku was strategic and ideological, however. In reality, many Japanese settlers did not work on wild land.9 The Manchuria Colonization Company forcefully obtained cultivated land from local Chinese farmers for them. Th ese kaitaku farmers and other Japanese civilians in Manchuria, totaling more than one million, comprised one-third of all civilian repatriates from the former empire.10 Faced with acute food shortage and a massive number of repatriates, the jobless, and the homeless, the Japanese government launched the kaitaku program in naichi. About 40 percent of returnees from Manchuria moved on to t hese “kaitaku villages” on volcanic hillsides, wild land deep in the forests, marshland, and former military airfields all over the archipelago, this time r eally having to toil the land to render it arable. Their postwar kaitaku life was extremely difficult and often unfruitful. The funding for the kaitaku program was small and inadequate to begin with, and was further cut u nder the Dodge Line, which made it even more challenging for these kaitaku farmers to feed themselves, let alone establish economically sustainable agriculture, even after years of hard work.11 In this context, the Dominican program that promised 19 ha of f ree land, f ree housing, and monthly subsidies was surely appealing. Nonfarmer repatriates too found the Dominican program attractive as Japan was not so welcoming to t hose who came back with nothing; many of them w ere treated as financial burdens by their relatives. While the government declared in 1955 that the postwar era was over, the postwar prosperity of the “economic miracle” was not quite a real ity for many Japanese yet. The “utopia in the Caribbean” was appealing to many who desired a new start or better life. The Dominican government had its own reasons for inviting Japanese settlers. The 1950s for the DR was a time of economic growth, agricultural and industrial development, and the nationalization or “Dominicanization” program, u nder the Trujillo dictatorship. Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo Molina had, since his ascendancy to the presidency in 1930, aggres-
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sively promoted the nation’s economic development through various mea sures. His legacy is mixed. On one hand, Trujillo succeeded in making the DR debt-free: by the end of the 1940s, his government had paid back all foreign as well as domestic debt. The country also experienced thirty years of political stability, unprecedented in Dominican history that had been plagued by foreign occupations, war, and frequent political turnover. On the other hand, however, such stability and economic development came with Truji llo’s nepotism and corruption, heavy-handed suppression of his political opponents, and brutal treatment and killing of Haitian immigrants.12 In fact, Trujillo invited the Japanese to help his Dominicanization program along the border with Haiti. The root of Dominican-Haitian conflict goes back to the colonial period. The Dominican Republic sits on the eastern half of the island of Hispaniola, where Christopher Columbus landed in 1492 and the first permanent Spanish settlement in the Americas was established. The western half was occupied by France, dividing the island between French Sant-Dominique and Spanish Santo Domingo. Sant-Dominique was France’s most prosperous colony, with its sugar plantations that used African slaves, while Santo Domingo remained less populous and economically undeveloped. Haiti, which achieved independence from France in 1804 and aspired to rule the whole island, repeatedly invaded Spanish Hispaniola, even after it became the Dominican Republic in 1844. A nonintervention agreement was reached in 1874, but distrust, hatred, and constant conflicts over the border continued to characterize the relationship between the two countries. Dominican fear of Haitian incursions was also based on racialized cultural differences. Dominican leaders, proud of their Catholic faith and Spanish lineage, despised the Africanness of Haitians and their “black blood.” To guard the border against Haitian migration and incursions, in 1927 the Dominican government began establishing agricultural colonies with Dominican farmers along the thinly populated border. By the time Trujillo became the president, t here were nine such colonies. Trujillo accelerated and heavily invested in the frontier agricultural colonization with the passage of the 1934 agricultural colonization law. In 1937, Trujillo massacred tens of thousands of Haitians who had lived on the Dominican side.13 Known as el corte (the cutting) because Trujillo made sure how many Haitians were killed by counting the ears cut off from them, this was a brutal way to clear the land of Haitian farmers. Th ose areas soon became agricultural colonies for Dominicans. Trujillo’s agricultural colonies also
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oused Spanish Civil War refugees; more than three thousand came in h 1939 and 1940 by Trujillo’s invitation. He also offered a haven for approximately seven hundred Jews who fled central Europe around the same time. They were all part of Trujillo’s Dominicanization project. Trujillo expected them to not only “whiten” the DR while bringing new farming techniques. In the late 1950s, as Japanese w ere emigrating to the DR, another wave of Spaniards came based on an agreement between Trujillo and Francisco Franco, as well as a smaller number of Hungarian “Freedom Fighters.”14 The Dominican government made a significant investment in expanding transportation and irrigation, increased the number of colonias to fifty by 1953, and converted approximately one-fourth of the country’s land to agricultural use. Trujillo intended to demonstrate a stark contrast between the undeveloped Haitian side and the modernized Dominican side. By the end of the 1950s, more than 100,000 people lived in colonias nationwide. The majority of farmers in the colonies were Dominicans, but the law allowed up to 10 percent to be occupied by foreigners. Colonies reserved for Dominican nationals typically settled landless peasants as well as urban slum dwellers. In this sense, the Dominican agricultural colonization program shared its aims with the Japanese postwar kaitaku program: to decrease the jobless and the landless while using them to expand agricultural land. Overall, Trujillo’s agricultural colonization program was successful, contributing significantly to the development of the national economy. The colonization program was “part and parcel of the master development plan.”15 This was how the Japanese w ere invited to the DR. A fter being trained at a facilit y in Miyazaki Prefecture for ten days, twenty-eight Japanese families boarded Brazil Maru in Yokohama as the first state-sponsored emigrants to the DR. Stopping by Los Angeles on the way, they arrived in the port of Ciudad Trujillo, the nation’s capital (present-day Santo Domingo), on July 29, 1956. Their arrival—w ith a banner on the ship “Long Live the Generalissimo Trujillo!”—was welcomed at the port by Dominican officials and hundreds of curious (but probably mobilized) bystanders waiving little Dominican flags on the pier. Both sides had a vested interest in making this occasion lavishly celebratory. It was an important PR event for Trujillo to Dominican citizens and to the Japanese government, and Dominican newspapers made sure to report that Japanese immigrants received a subsidy for the first eighteen days on board. The Japan side returned with an extravagant reception party, hosted by the Japanese Embassy and Osaka Shōsen, the Brazil Maru owner hoping for more business to come. A Japanese
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sword was presented to Trujillo, girls of the immigrant families danced in kimono, and a toast was exchanged. Dominican newspapers reported details of their arrival and reception party widely and followed the “happy and cordial” Japanese farmers for days.16 This first group was settled in La Vigía, Dajabón. Trujillo’s investment in this first colonia japonesa is clear. According to El Caribe, a Dominican daily, the colonia was equipped with “30 convenient and comfortable houses, a grocery store, a theater club, and other installations,” a highway that connected the colonia with the city of Dajabón, and three thousand tarea of land already prepared out of nine thousand tarea designated for this colonia. Each Japanese f amily also received farming tools, seeds, and a subsidy of sixty cents per person a day.17 However, they did not receive the promised three hundred tarea of land. Only seventy to eighty tarea were distributed to each family. Three months a fter, the second group of Japanese settlers arrived. These seventeen families were settled in Constanza in La Veiga. They were joined by twelve families in December and one additional family in March the following year, fulfilling the thirty-family cap for this colonia. Unlike Dajabón, this was an inland colonia. Geographical distance from the province capital (75 km away) was disadvantageous, but its mild weather due to height (1,200 feet above sea level) provided a much better environment for farming. H ere, the Japanese settlers had been told they would receive one hundred tarea of land but were only given fifty tarea or so.18 As Dajabón and Constanza became full, more colonias were opened for the Japanese: Neiba, Duvergé, Harabacoa, La Altagracia, and Agua Negra. Except for Harabacoa, all w ere located in the extremely dry region along the border with Haiti. Neiba was designated for vegetable cultivation, and the other two for coffee, but the crops did not grow on the arid and infertile land without adequate irrigation. Despite the poor conditions and prospects, thirty- nine families w ere settled in Neiba, fifty-seven families in La Altagracia, and fifty-seven families in Agua Negra in 1958 and 1959. Between 1956 and 1959, a total of 1,319 emigrants w ere recruited in Japan and sent, one group after another, to this Caribbean country, primarily along the Haitian border. Contemporary sources praised the Japa nese settlers as exceptionally hardworking and productive. “Virtually all foreign colonists are now Japanese,” the American economic geographer John P. Augelli reported from his 1959 summer fieldwork. Most Europe ans had fled to cities as soon as opportunities arose: “With the exception
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of the Japanese, the foreign colony has been less successful than the [Dominican] national even though foreign groups have generally received more land, better housing, and other advantages.”19 Life for those Japanese in the DR was not easy, however. By the end of 1962, more than half of them— 133 families—would repatriate back to Japan. The majority of Japanese settlers could not establish their living by farming. Immediate problems differed in each settlement. For Dajabón, the problem was the shortage of land and water. This was the area where the aforementioned Haitian “cutting” massacre took place, and it had always been “difficult to live and underdeveloped in terms of social and economic infrastructure.” Dominican famers in this region w ere the poorest in the nation, and anyone with less than one hundred tarea here—because of the soil’s infertility—had a very hard time surviving.20 As noted e arlier, the Japanese settlers received only seventy to eighty tarea on average. They called this the “fundamental problem” and would spend much energy finding out why they did not receive the promised three hundred tarea. Those who brought their savings used it to rent additional land from Dominican farmers, but the rent always was raised drastically and abruptly with a good harvest, making their investment in land economically meaningless. The Dajabón settlement received an additional two families in 1956 and twenty- eight families in 1957. The last group received even less land and of worse soil quality. The Masacre River that supplies water to this area was (and still is) a small and shallow river that measured only two meters deep even at its deepest point; the water volume went further down in the dry season. The Dominican government designated rice to be the crop for this colonia, but there was clearly not enough w ater to go around. Settlers’ first work was to extend the canal on their own with shovels.21 As the number of families increased, conflicts over water among Japanese settlers and with Dominican farmers became constant and even violent. Mr. N, for example, was attacked by a Dominican farmer a fter a quarrel over w ater. Mr. N ended up chopping off two fingers of this Dominican farmer and was sued.22 The problem for Constanza was the shortage of land and economic unsustainability. Japanese settlers h ere w ere able to enjoy good harvests of vegetables and flowers thanks to good climate, but the market was too small as Dominicans did not eat fresh produce at the time. They needed to first create consumers by teaching Dominicans how to eat fresh vegetables. Constanza also settled more than a hundred Hungarians and Spaniards. In addition, other Japanese settlers started moving here from their original
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settlements; by early 1957 Constanza h oused a total of sixty-one Japanese families. This was clearly too many farmers for too little a market. The more yield they harvested, the lower the price went. It was simply not econom ically sustainable. H ere, too, there was not enough land to go around. Each family was supposed to receive one hundred tarea but did not. Half of the first thirty families in Constanza ended up moving to Harabacoa.23 Neiba, Doverjé, La Altagracia, and Agua Negra, all in an extremely hot and dry area, were most challenging. Rocks filled the land in Neiba. Soil was so thin that, no matter how many times one dug rocks out, each rainfall washed soil away and layers of rocks reappeared.24 Doverjé was covered by salt, and promised irrigation works w ere never completed. La Altagracia and Agua Negra were barren, steep hills covered by rocks. Agua Negra at least had water miles away. La Altagracia had none. With such infertile soil, a farmer would need at least five hundred tarea of land to make ends meet. They were promised two hundred tarea in t hese colonias but found themselves with even smaller plots. All families left t hese four settlements, except for one in Agua Negra. Near the La Altagracia settlement stand tombstones for those Japanese who committed suicide.25 The Dominican colonia law mandated that settlers tend the land in order to keep it. Despite the land bearing little or no crops, therefore, the Japanese still spent time and energy weeding the land to avoid forced evacuation. Once they left a colonia, they lost subsidies and housing. In short, they w ere either stuck in the colonia, living off the savings they brought from Japan, or they left the settlement and used their savings to survive completely independently. Eventually most families accumulated debt, with little prospects of paying it off. After 1960, a series of political turns put their lives in even more precarious situations. First, economic sanctions were imposed on the country by the Organization of American States (OAS) as a response to Trujillo’s assassination attempt of Venezuelan president Rómulo Betancourt, who had e arlier collaborated with Cuba’s Castro against Trujillo. The OAS sided with Betancourt as his social democracy had gained more support among Latin American leaders than Trujillo’s dictatorship. The Kennedy administration too, fearing a second Cuba, turned its back on its longtime ally and endorsed the OAS economic sanctions. International sanctions lasted from August 1960 till January 1962, putting tremendous stress on the Dominican economy. Dominican farmers who exported their crops to the US, including those Japanese in Constanza and Harabacoa, suddenly lost income.26
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Then Trujillo was assassinated on May 31, 1961. While celebrated by Dominicans, the collapse of the Trujillo regime was a final blow to his Japa nese “guests.” They lost subsidies, protection, and a prospect of receiving the promised land. Their widely publicized arrival was still a fresh memory in the country, and they had dutifully joined Trujillo’s birthday parade every year.27 Dominicans whose land had been taken away by Trujillo to create colonias japonesas now turned their anger at them. The majority of impoverished Dominicans were also upset that the Japanese had received special housing and subsidy privileges. Wrathful Dominicans stole tools and animals from the Japanese immigrants, burned their storage huts, took over their fields, and destroyed their harvest. Election campaign cars lambasted, “Go home, Japanese!” When two Japanese youth were injured by Dominicans and brought the case to the court, the Dominican judge ruled against the Japanese who dared to challenge Dominicans and put them in prison for ten days.28 The Japanese settlers requested help from the Japanese Embassy and Kaikyōren officials stationed in the DR. Initially, many of them wanted to relocate to another Latin American country to start over. But as they waited for the Japanese officials’ response, which was slow and reluctant, the Japa nese settlers learned to their surprise that their land in the colonias could not be sold or mortgaged to borrow money, since they were corono, “contracted settlers” on the state-owned land. In Japan, they had been told they would be landowning independent farmers. U nder Dominican law, however, the right to the land was only granted after eight or ten years if they did not leave their colonia, and even then, it would be extremely difficult for the state-owned land to become their private property. In despair and angry, the Japanese settlers began demanding repatriation, sending letters directly to MOFA and Diet members in Japan. In September 1961, the Ikeda cabinet finally approved the use of the State Aid Law to repatriate them. Repatriation was challenging. As Dominican ports were closed u nder the sanctions, the Japanese w ere lifted out of the airport to get to Panama where the Japanese ship was waiting. Moreover, ongoing armed conflicts closed the airport periodically and unexpectedly. It took five separate trips over several months to get all repatriates out of the DR. Meanwhile, MOFA and Kaikyōren tried to persuade as many Japanese settlers as possible to move to another Latin American country rather than returning to Japan. MOFA had been scrutinized in Diet sessions since May and tried to control damage by minimizing the number of
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repatriates.29 In the end, 133 families repatriated, while 70 families moved to another Latin American country, and 47 families stayed in the DR.30 Once in Japan, the returnees demanded reparations and an apology from the government. They w ere extremely b itter about the gap between the conditions promised by the Japanese government when recruited and the reality they faced in the DR and, most of all, their destroyed lives. Most families had sold off all their properties to emigrate—settler applicants needed to prove their financial ability to be eligible—and came back with only accumulated debts. The families from Harabacoa even refused to disembark the ship at Yokohama without appropriate reparations. MOFA proposed 10,000 yen per adult and 5,000 yen per minor, but the repatriates refused; such a small amount would do nothing to start a new life when they had nothing, “not even a winter coat.”31 Their demand for reparations and an apology continued. The Dominica Japanese Federation, formed in 1968 by both those who stayed in the DR and those who repatriated back, continued their fight. In 1987, to claim that they had suffered from a violation of human rights by the Japanese government, they solicited the support and advice of the Tokyo Association of Lawyers. Tokyo l awyers, recognizing the gravity of the case, brought it to the Federation of Lawyers of Japan. Sympathetic lawyers, journalists, and intellectuals volunteered their time and sent a team to the DR in 1991 and 1992. Their investigation produced a series of publications, such as the aforementioned Dominican Emigrants Were the Abandoned People, that became the foundation for those of us who study and write about the Dominican case. MOFA made various efforts to prevent a lawsuit, including pressuring the Dominican government to amend the situations. For example, in 1998, on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the Japanese settlement, the Dominican Agrarian Institute presented portions of land in La Luisa in Monte Plata Province to Japanese families to compensate for the “historic error that the [Dominican] government committed.” Most Japanese families rejected this offer, however; “We are very thankful for the Dominican Republic” but could not accept the “land of poor quality” to compensate for “the very shameful attitude of the government of Japan.”32 They insisted that it was the Japanese government, not the Dominican government, that was to be blamed.33 Their goal was reparations and an apology from the Japanese government. In July 2000, 170 Japanese emigrants sued the Japanese government, and the case lasted for six years. The Tokyo District Court ruled that the
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government had indeed failed to fulfill its responsibility in executing the emigration program; it did, however, ultimately drop the case based on the statute of limitations. Too many years had passed for this injustice to be addressed by the court. The matter was settled out of the court, with Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichirō’s official apology and lump-sum compensation payment being given in exchange for not pursuing the case further. U nder a special law enacted in November 2006, the Japanese government provided not only the 170 plaintiffs but all emigrant participants of the Dominican program with a one-time, tax-exempt compensation ranging from 500,000 to 2 billion yen per emigrant.
What Went Wrong? Various investigations w ere made of the Dominican case to find out what went wrong. The Diet hearings took place in 1961 and 1962 and again in 1983, lawyers and journalists investigated in the 1980s and the 1990s, and there was the 2000 court case. Japanese settlers and repatriates themselves collected testimonies and documents throughout those decades. Dominican documents and official correspondences were examined by Alberto Despradel, a Dominican ambassador to Japan in the 1980s, who published his findings in Spanish in 1994. H ere I highlight several important findings from t hese sources. The “fundamental problem” of land occurred because MOFA and Kaikyōren provided wrong information to applicants. This was precisely because the Japanese government began recruiting before it reached the official arrangement with the Dominican government. The Japanese government’s recruitment text, distributed in March 1956, stated that emigrants would be granted 300 tarea of land for f ree, but what was officially agreed between the two governments two months later was “up to 300 tarea.” Even though this mistake was made only in the first Dajabón recruitment, the widely circulated misinformation lingered beyond the first group. The problem of water shortage reveals an even more disturbing picture of MOFA’s maneuvering. From the very beginning, MOFA officers knew— in fact, were initially very concerned with—the need to extend the existing irrigation in Dajabón in order for Japanese farmers to survive. Japanese officers sent to the DR in August 1955 to survey colonia locations clearly pointed out the problem, and Ambassador Yoshida demanded Dominican
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commitment to the canal’s extension in an official correspondence that November: “Dajabón seems most appropriate for the Japanese. However, considering the low precipitation of the area, the existing irrigation canal needs to be extended. Therefore, the Embassy of Japan requests to learn from your Ministry of Agriculture whether such extension construction could take place before the arrival of Japanese families and if so, when.”34 The Dominican government replied on March 1, 1956, that the emigration should be postponed as the canal extension could not take place immediately. Startled, MOFA dropped the request and insisted that the program be launched swiftly and as scheduled b ecause Japanese settlers had already been recruited. In fact, this correspondence took place in March as Kaikyōren was recruiting emigrants in Japan. MOFA’s early promotion of the program, it turned out, was not only to spur enthusiasm among potential Japanese applicants but also, disturbingly, to pressure the reluctant Dominican government with a fait accompli. The problems with Neiba, Doverjé, La Altagracia, and Agua Negra also reveal this disturbing pattern. When Dajabón and Constanza reached the maximum capacity of settlers, the Dominican government opened more colonias for Japanese, as explained above. An agricultural construction engineer from the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Nakada Kōhei, was dispatched in September 1957 to survey new locations. That the Japanese government sent an engineer instead of an agronomist indicates that irrigation was the main concern. Nakada barely spent ten days for his survey— given poor road conditions in the region, it should have taken him more time to do adequate surveys in multiple and distant locations—and provided a falsely positive evaluation.35 On Neiba, where Japanese settlers found layers of rocks with little dirt, he reported that “excellent and deep soil surprises me. With water, anything can grow here.”36 On Doverjé, Nakada reported that “three million dollars have been spent for the canal that can irrigate more than 200,000 tarea of land here. . . . Soil has slightly higher salt content but otherwise is good.” The canal was not yet built when he visited there and was never completed. Instead, soil covered by a white layer of salt was waiting for Japanese settlers.37 A later MOFA report even admitted that it was “incomprehensible to even want to invest in agricultural settlements in such an extremely terrible location.”38 Later in Tokyo, when settler repatriates from the DR confronted Nakada about his erroneous report, he confessed, “To be honest, your emigration had been already determined two months before I left Japan for that survey. That did influence
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my report.” Pressed on this issue again in the Diet hearing, Nakada admitted that his survey was “potentially imperfect.”39 While he rejected the accusation of any wrongdoing on his part, it became clear that he provided a report that would support the falsely rosy recruitment text that had already been circulated in Japan by MOFA and Kaikyōen. The Japanese government never surveyed La Altagracia and Agua Negra before sending its citizens there. In fact, before the settlers left Japan for La Altagracia and Agua Negra, the Dominican government had told MOFA not to send more Japanese because it could not responsibly host them any longer. By spring 1958, the Dominican government’s capacity to continue the expensive Dominicanization program was substantially down: the economy was in recession, Trujillo’s dictatorship was weakening, and the costly immigration program had lost support in the government.40 MOFA, however, begged the Dominican government to let in more Japanese as they had already sold their properties and w ere only waiting to depart. Even a fter Trujillo himself ordered the discontinuance of the program on June 24, 1958, as official correspondence makes clear, MOFA nagged, begged, and managed to send two more groups to La Altagracia. Setō Tatsuhiko was one of these last 1959 settlers. When he applied to the program, Japan was in the midst of celebrating the crown prince’s wedding. Setō could not care less about this historic imperial marriage with the first commoner bride, as he was dreaming about toiling and sweating for a coffee plantation he would own. Setō spent his youth in the military deployed in China and the Okinawan islands and grew fond of snowless winter. When he arrived in La Altagracia, a shelter was waiting for him, but he never received any land.41 Amazingly, even a fter this group, MOFA continued to pressure the Dominican government to accept more immigrants, albeit in vain. Th ere were at least three times during the entire emigration program when the Dominican government told the Japanese government to postpone or stop the program—t he beginning, the m iddle, and t oward the end. Each time, MOFA insisted that the program must go on because Japanese settlers had already been recruited. Unlike the other state-sponsored Latin American programs, the Japa nese government never concluded an immigration treaty with the Dominican government. Instead, MOFA used the piecemeal approach described above, adjusting the settlement arrangement via correspondence and pressuring the Dominican government to receive more rounds of settlers, caus-
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ing confusion, incoherency, and misinformation. The absence of the treaty was thus a clear contributing factor to the failure of the program. According to Despradel, a former Dominican diplomat to Japan, “the fact that there was no treaty agreement between the two countries to stipulate the procedure and content of immigration is a regrettable error of Japanese diplomacy. For t hose of us familiar with how diplomacy works between sovereign countries, this is beyond comprehension.”42 MOFA later explained that it lost a chance to conclude a treaty b ecause of Trujillo’s assassination, but documents show that the chance was lost b ecause MOFA’s priority, at each stage of the program, was placed on sending more emigrants before Trujillo would discontinue the program. Why did MOFA continue the program as hastily and forcefully as it did, despite all the problems? Why did it even promote overseas emigration when the Japanese economy had started to exhibit the growth? The following and last section answer t hese questions.
Economic Diplomacy and International Cooperation a fter the Empire Scholars writing on postwar Japanese emigration often contextualize it in the so-called overpopulation discourse. Although the sudden increase in population a fter 1945 was an important context, a closer look reveals that policy makers and MOFA did not regard overseas emigration as an effective measure against the population problem. This was already clear in the first articulation of postwar emigration policy, the Resolution Regarding the Population Problem, which unanimously passed the Diet on May 13, 1949: “It is difficult to expect emigration to solve the overpopulation prob lem. Yet, if the world accepts Japanese immigrants, that significance w ill be immense.” What was viewed important was rather the symbolic significance of the world accepting Japanese settlers again. As if “Japanese immigrants” represented the worst of Japanese aggressive expansionism, being able to resume overseas emigration was regarded as the litmus test for the world’s attitude toward a new Japan. A separate resolution submitted by the Population Problem Council a few months later too maintained that overseas emigration could only offer “a psychological remedy to the sense of overpopulation at home.”43 In fact, by the time the emigration program began, the Population Problem Council stopped seeing it even as a solution at all.44
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Emigrants w ere indeed expected to actively contribute to the Japanese economy. As MOFA’s Emigration Bureau stated in its “Policies Regarding Overseas Emigration” (October 1954), “A solution to the population problem basically lies in creating jobs, which can be done only through promoting industry and expanding trade. Therefore, emigration abroad should be promoted from this perspective.” The document estimated the monetary contribution of Brazilian Japanese to be 1.8 billion yen and concluded, “In short, the purpose of emigration policy is to expand as widely as possible opportunities to earn foreign currency in order to help the Japanese economy. For this reason, we need to send out as many excellent emigrants as possible.”45 Their remittance, though significant, was not the end goal. What soon became expected of overseas emigrants was to be the vanguard in reopening Japan’s economic relations with the world. Japan’s economy struggled to recover for many years after the defeat. The Korean War gave it a boost, but the war boom ended shortly. Japan needed trade, and for that it needed to reconstruct its ties with Asia, the major resource supplier and market that sustained Japanese industrial growth in the 1930s and wartime. The bottleneck was the issue of war reparations that prevented normalization. As soon as regaining sovereignty, therefore, Japan started negotiations, and the reparations and quasi-reparations treaties were concluded with Burma (1954), the Philippines and Thailand (1955), Indonesia and Laos (1958), Vietnam and Cambodia (1959), and more in the succeeding decades. Reparations w ere paid in the form of Japanese goods and serv ice. Japan built dams and ports, provided machines and technical training, and helped establish such factories as fish canneries and textile factories as reparations, which led to commercial trade deals. The golden triangle of US capital, Japanese technology, and the Asian market worked well for the American Cold War scheme, the Japanese economy, and the newly independent developmentalist military regimes in Asia.46 Asia, however, was not an option for Japanese emigration. A fter Japan’s brutal aggression, expecting Asian countries to welcome Japanese settlers was unrealistic. Moreover, the collapse of the Japanese empire triggered violent wars for independence and civil wars throughout East and Southeast Asia. China, the largest prewar trade partner and destination for Japa nese emigrants, became inaccessible a fter 1949. Latin America, in contrast, was politically more stable, f ree from reparations issues, and open to Japanese immigrants. While Brazil exhibited some anti-Japanese sentiment, its Japanese community, now the largest out-
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side of Japan, had made a g reat contribution to Brazilian agriculture and economy and was eager to see the flow of Japanese immigrants resuming. Similarly, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Bolivia, and Paraguay resumed Japanese immigration. Japan’s pro–Latin American policy was solidified under Kishi Nobusuke, minister of foreign affairs and prime minister from December 1956 till July 1960. While not part of MOFA’s “three diplomatic principles”— working with the UN, the “free world,” and Asia—Latin America indeed occupied a significant place in Kishi’s diplomacy and economic planning. With American and European aid and capital pouring in, Latin America became the destination of “the twentieth century’s great migration of capital and technology.” The Kishi administration felt Japan too should get into this market before too late. Latin American votes were also important for Japan’s r unning for a nonpermanent member seat on the United Nations Security Council. In addition, the Japanese business community had been pressing impossible demands for normalizing diplomacy with mainland China while maintaining close ties with Taiwan; Latin America would serve as an attractive alternative to present to the business community.47 A fter all, in the words of the MOFA Blue Book, Latin America was “extremely rich in resources and thinly populated: it is the frontier of the twentieth century.”48 To this Latin America, Kishi promoted emigration as “a kind of investment” integral to what he called “economic diplomacy.”49 The term “economic diplomacy” existed before 1945, but it gained significance and popularity in the 1950s as post-empire Japan sought to secure its place in the world.50 Kishi defined economic diplomacy as composed of expanding trade, sending emigrants for the host country’s development, and providing technological and business expertise. He contrasted this to the prewar Japanese expansion centered on territorial concerns.51 In Kishi’s strategy, these three—trade, emigration, and technical aid—should go hand in hand to promote each other, and its ultimate effect was Japanese economic development that would solve the unemployment problem. Overseas emigration was not about getting rid of “as large a number of Japanese as proportionate to the population increase, which would be impossible.” Rather, Kishi maintained, the real point of emigration was: The presence of overseas Japanese . . . w ill lead to the expansion of Japanese trade and economic cooperation, which w ill broaden the Japanese economic base. [Emigration] is extremely effective for international cooperation [kokusai
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kyōryoku]. . . . To promote overseas emigration means to expand the economic base to feed the Japanese population. . . . I see overseas emigration as the most important part of my economic diplomacy.52
In other words, postwar kaitaku emigrants to Latin American had an important dual mission. They were emigrating to help the land and agricultural development of the host country so that Japan would be accepted back by the international community; but in addition, “kaitaku of the new Japanese market is what is expected in economic diplomacy,” in the words of Kishi.53 Kishi’s economic diplomacy boosted emigration and capital investment in Latin America. The Emigration Promotion Company’s budget for 1957 increased by 500 million yen. By 1959, it had purchased the total of 370,307 hectares in Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentine for Japanese settlers (for approximately 800 million yen).54 The number of emigrants to Latin Amer ica drastically increased as well; the 1957 figure doubled that of 1955, and it continued to rise until 1960.55 MOFA’s 1958 five-year emigration plan aspired to send 11,000 emigrants in 1959 and 5,000 e very year a fter that. The expansion of the Latin American emigration program went hand in hand with capital investment. The Japanese government made an agreement with Brazil in 1957 to provide 30 billion yen in technical aid to build a steel mill in Brazil (with billions more added later), Usiminas (Usinas Siderurgicas de Minas Gerasis S.A.), and this directly resulted in the conclusion of the immigration treaty between the two countries in 1960.56 The 1959 immigration treaty with Paraguay, which stipulated the acceptance of 805,000 Japanese over thirty years, went with Paraguay’s high-price-tag order of commercial ships and Japan’s financial aid to build them.57 As anticipated by Kishi and the Japanese business community, t hese aid projects increased business opportunities in Latin America. Indeed, Japanese private capital investment in Latin America exceeded that in Asia in the late 1950s.58 To further promote emigration and trade, Kishi became the first prime minister to tour Latin America; he spent two weeks visiting Brazil, Argentine, Chile, Peru, and Mexico from July 24 till Aug 6, 1959, after briefly touring European countries. This was, in fact, precisely the time that the last two groups of Japanese emigrants were sent to La Altagracia despite the Dominican government’s stern request not to. The Japanese government regarded the Dominican
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epublic as an important “dollar earning market,” and MOFA thus strongly R supported pursuing it as a trading partner.59 I suspect that MOFA insisted on launching and continuing the Dominican emigration program despite all the foreseeable problems not only because President Trujillo initially offered unprecedentedly favorable conditions but also because of the prospect of f uture business in dollars. This is, in my view, reflected in one notable feature of the Dominican program: the inclusion of fisherman. It is not clear w hether it was Trujillo’s request or the Japanese government’s suggestion, but five fishermen families from Kagoshima emigrated to the DR to develop fishery in the bay of Manzanillo, also called Pepillo Salcedo, located next to the border with Haiti and slightly north of Dajabón. The port of Pepillo Salcedo was active, as Grenada Fruit Co. used it to ship bananas to the US from its plantation in the DR. The Japanese fishermen were tasked with transferring their fishing skills and fish-processing knowledge to create an industry there. But documents also suggest that Japanese officials w ere using this as an opportunity for a joint venture business. In December 1955, Natsubori Genzaburō, a Diet member representing Aomori Prefecture, where he had developed a large fishing industry, was sent to the DR to discuss the above-mentioned irrigation extension issue. Natsubori’s equally important agenda was to discuss a plan for establishing a Dominican-Japanese joint fish cannery.60 This was precisely the time when the Japanese government was negotiating a reparations treaty with the Philippines government, which included granting fishing boats and helping to establish canneries to export fish products to the US. No cannery was created in Manzanillo in the end, but the case reveals how state-sponsored immigration programs went hand in hand with business and aid opportunities. Fishing in Manzanillo did not go well. There were no fish in the bay. The Japanese fishery families were the first to be repatriated to Japan in 1961. While Kishi insisted that his economic diplomacy was different from the prewar colonial policy, connections with Manchuria are clear. The first president of the Overseas Emigration Promotion Company was Tanaka Tetsusaburō, former president of the Central Bank of Manchuria. The second president, Ōshima Magoshirō, had managed Chosen Bank, Tōyō Colonization Co., and Nanyo Colonization Co. and was also Kishi’s friend since high school.61 As discussed earlier, the Japanese in the DR were settled in the agricultural colonies along the Haitian border as a h uman buffer.
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Records do not show that Japanese officials were ever concerned about this aspect, unlike the irrigation issue that did initially raise their concern. It is tempting—and probably not too farfetched—to suspect that it was all too familiar to the Japanese officials to question such a usage of farmer settlers. The continuity with the Manchuria kaitaku project can be most strongly seen in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF). As historians such as Sidney Xu Lu and Itō Atsushi have made clear, although MOFA and Kaikyōren w ere the main engine of the postwar migration machine, MAF too played an important part.62 While MOFA regarded the population problem as the issue of unemployment and economic growth, to MAF leaders, it was essentially the continuation of the “second and third son” problem. Before 1945, MAF used Manchuria as a solution to those agrarian sons who could not inherit land. When they came back to Japan, as discussed earlier, MAF routed them to kaitaku villages throughout naichi, together with other second and third sons from overcrowded cities and villages. Creating independent, landowning farmers had been the ministry’s goal since the prewar period and continued to be so a fter the war; and, just like e arlier, it promoted postwar overseas emigration as part of its agrarian village rehabilitation campaign. In 1961, MAF announced the Policies regarding Overcrowded Kaitaku Villages and urged struggling farmers to leave their postwar kaitaku villages so that the remaining farmers could own a plot large enough for economically sustainable farming.63 This new policy took place as emigration to Latin America began to decline after 1961. The failed DR program, widely covered in the media, dampened enthusiasm for overseas emigration among Japanese. By then, labor shortages in urban industries had started to pull the youth from agrarian villages. MAF set aside a portion of the budget specifically to emigrate a large number of failed kaitaku villagers to Latin America. For many of them, it was the third kaitaku migration: first to Manchuria, then to the Japanese kaitaku village, and again to Latin America.64 Despite, or perhaps b ecause of, the clear continuity from the Manchuria program, the new language of “international cooperation” was an impor tant identity for postwar overseas emigration. Kishi’s economic diplomacy worked in the sense that technical and economic aid made possible the Japanese economic growth we call “the miracle economy.” In the 1960s, although agricultural emigration continued, the Japanese government increasingly promoted “technical emigration” instead, sending engineers and
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other experts with university degrees to Latin America.65 “Economic diplomacy” and “international cooperation” w ere literally merged in 1974, when the overseas emigration agency and the Overseas Technical Cooperation Agency were joined to create the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The Dominican project was the biggest blemish in the history of MOFA emigration policy. The collective repatriation in 1961 exposed MOFA’s incapacity and untrustworthiness and led to the decline of overseas emigration that the Japanese government had pushed for its economic diplomacy. The unprecedented lawsuit in 2000 scrutinized the past yet again and confirmed the Japanese government’s wrongdoing. But the Dominican project was not an isolated case nor a mere anomaly. It epitomized the postwar emigration project that was so forcefully and irresponsibly carried out as part of national economic diplomacy. As the earlier chapters in this book demonstrate, prewar emigration too was tied to trade and economic expansion. If prewar emigration was for the expansion of the empire, however, it was territorial extraction that propelled and defined postwar emigration to Latin America. The rise and fall of the Japa nese empire in Asia intimately connected Latin America to Japan. Postwar emigrants were expected to develop the agricultural land in Latin American countries and open the market for post-empire Japan. To view postwar emigrants as simply an excess population to be abandoned would obscure the economic and political dimensions of the postwar emigration program.
Notes I am extremely grateful for the hospitality, documents, and interview time I received in the Dominican Republic from many, especially Hidaka Toshie, Hidaka Mamaru, Takegama Tōru, Yoshimoto Sumiko, and Iguchi Shizu. Many have passed away since then. I also thank Mike Ryan for helping me with the Spanish materials and Takahashi Yukiharu and Yano Hisako for sharing their time in Japan. 1. Takahashi, Karibuka no; and Takahashi and Konno, Dominika imin. Also impor tant are former Kaikyōren officer Wakatsuki Yasuo’s works, such as Gaimushō ga keshita Nihonjin; and Genshirin no nakano Nihonjin.
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2. L. Young, Total Empire. 3. Lu, Making of Japanese Settler. 4. Quoted in Konno and Takahashi, Dominika imin, p. 61. 5. Nihon keizai shinbun, November 11, 1955, quoted in Takahashi and Konno, Dominika imin, p. 19. 6. Originally in Dominika ijū jūgoshūnen kinensai ijūshi hensan iinkai, Dominika ijūshi jūgonen, excerpted in Dominika Nihonjin rengōkai. Karibu no shima, pp. 39–40. 7. Dominika Nihonjin rengōkai, Karibu no shima, p. 29. 8. L. Young, Total Empire, pp. 328, 335. 9. Tama, “ ‘ Manshū imin,’ ” p. 61. 10. Wakatsuki, Sengo hikiage, pp. 252–253. 11. See Nozoe, Kaitaku nōmin, ch. 4 and 5. 12. Wiarda, Dictatorship and Development. 13. Turits, “World Destroyed.” 14. Horst and Asagiri, “Odyssey of Japanese Colonists,” p. 338. 15. Augelli, “Agricultural Colonization,” pp. 17–22. Also see Hazel, “Whiteness in Paradise.” 16. La Nación, “Llega a Ciudad Trujillo Primer Grupo de Agricultores Japoneses,” July 27, 1956; La Nación, “El Secretario de Agricultura Da Bienvenida a Inmigrantes,” July 28, 1956; El Caribe, “Presidente Elogia Laboriosidad de Colonia Japonesa,” July 29, 1956. 17. El Caribe, “Presidente Elogia Laboriosidad de Colonia Japonesa,” July 29, 1956. 18. Gaimushō chūnanbei ijūkyoku, Sengo no kaigai ijū, p. 224. Takahashi and Konno, Dominika imin, pp. 56–57. 19. Augelli, “Agricultural Colonization,” pp. 22–26. 20. Despradel, La migración japonesa, p. 35. 21. Takahashi, Karibukai no, ch. 2. 22. Dominika Nihonjin rengōkai, Karibu no shima, pp. 67–68. 23. Takahashi and Konno, Dominika imin, pp. 56–57. 24. Takahashi and Konno, Dominika imin, pp. 34–37. 25. Takahashi and Konno, Dominika imin, pp. 41–47. 26. Brown-Joh, “Economic Sanctions.” 27. Dominika Nihonjin rengōkai, Karibu no shima, p. 70. 28. Takahashi, Karibukai no, pp. 152–157. Dominika Nihonjin rengōkai, Karibu no shima, p. 44. 29. Dominika Nihonjin rengōkai, Karibu no shima, pp. 37–38. 30. Dominika Nihonjin rengōkai, Karibu no shima, p. 13. 31. Takahashi, Karibukai no, p. 166. Upon repatriation, most families relied on welfare. It has been reported that the government threatened to cut off welfare to force them to give up any campaigns for reparations. Dominika imin soshō genkokudan, Dominika nyūsu retā, 1:2. 32. Cruz, “A la Búsqueda.” 33. For example, the Japanese Dominican community made this stance clear in an opinion piece published in a major Dominican daily. Comité para la Agilización, “En Torno a los Reclamos,” Listín Diario, July 8, 1998. 34. Despradel, La migración japonesa, p. 17.
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35. Nakada even published a book, Journey in Latin America, based on this trip in the following year. Nakada and Nanbō, Chūnanbei kikō. 36. Takahashi, Dominica imin, p. 35. 37. Takahashi, Dominica imin, pp. 38–40. 38. Gaimushō, Sengo no kaigai ijū, p. 223. 39. Kokkai shūgiin, Kessan iinkai 7-gō. 40. Despradel, La migración japonesa, pp. 62–63. 41. Dominika Nihonjin rengōkai, Karibu no shima, pp. 49–54. 42. Despradel, La migración japonesa, p. 13. 43. Jinkō mondai shingikai, Jinkō mondai shingikai ketsugi. 44. Jinkō mondai shingikai, Jinkō shūyōryoku ni kansuru. 45. Gaimushō, Sengo no kaigai ijū, pp. 68–69. 46. Mizuno, “Kula Ring.” As I argued there, such an arrangement was not unique in the immediate postwar world plagued with dollar shortage; Britain, for example, paid back its wartime debt to India via technical aid. 47. Hasegawa, “Kishi naikaku,” p. 163. 48. Gaimushō, Waga gaikō no kinkyō (1957). 49. Kokkai shūgiin, Yosan iinkai 14-gō. 50. Takase, “ ‘Keizai gaikō’ gainen,” p. 22. 51. Kokkai shūgiin, Yosan iinkai 14-gō. 52. Kokkai shūgiin, Yosan iinkai 14-gō. 53. Kokkai shūgiin, Yosan iinkai 14-gō. 54. Gaimushō chūnanbei ijūkyoku, Sengo no kaigai ijū, p. 5. 55. Iacobelli, Postwar Emigration, p. 18. 56. Hasegara, “Kishi naikaku,” p. 186. 57. Nakayama, “Sengo Nihon karano Paraguai ijū,” p. 27. 58. Gaimushō, Waga gaikō no kinkyō (1958). 59. Gaimushō, Waga gaikō no kinkyō (1957). 60. Despradel, La migración japonesa, pp. 20–21. 61. Nakayama, “Sengo Nihon karano Paraguai ijū,” p. 25. 62. Lu, Making of Japanese Settler, ch. 8; Itō, Nihon nōmin seisakushiron, pp. 220–223. 63. Sengo kaitakushi henshū iinkai, Sengo kaitakushi, pp. 358–363. 64. Nozoe, Kaitaku nōmin, p. 156 65. For example, see Yamaguchi, Burajiru gijutsu ijūsha.
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Were Issei in Brazil Imperialists? Emigration-Driven Expansionism in Nikkei Literature Ignacio López-C alvo
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apanese Brazilian literature represents a valuable tool to explore the social memory of the ethnic community that produced it. As a therapeutic tool of self-exploration, this cultural production often tries to make sense of the past by historicizing the collective life experiences of the Nikkei community in Brazil. Both remembering and “strategic” forgetting play a key role in the formation of this literary discourse. In this sense, I find it equally telling when it addresses imperialism, its connection to state- guided emigration, or the acts of terrorism carried out by Shindō Renmei as when it consciously chooses to ignore them. These collective silences, amnesia, or denial of certain painful episodes suggest that the certain topics are still considered a taboo or an open wound that is yet to heal. Therefore, even if the literary representation may sometimes veer away from actual historical events, what interests me the most is how the Nikkei community remembers or reconstructs its past through writing. This essay explores how the role of emigration in prewar imperial expansionist plans and postwar neocolonial designs is either addressed or avoided in literat ure written by Brazilian authors of Japanese ancestry. It pays particular attention to the creation of Shindō Renmei as the missing link between imperialism and emigration-driven expansionism.1 I have selected what I consider the main literary texts addressing state-g uided emigration in relation with Japanese expansionism and imperialism. As w ill be noticed, because I was not able to find literat ure by Nikkei women writers addressing these issues, all the selected authors are men. Shindō Renmei (meaning League of the Way of Emperor’s Subjects) was an Issei (first-generation) terrorist organization in 1940s São Paulo and Paraná. It was founded in 1942 by the fanatically nationalist Junji Kikawa, 250
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a former colonel of the Japanese Imperial Army, a fter an episode of vio lence between Nikkeijin and Brazilians in Marília. He ordered acts of sabotage against Japanese immigrants producing silk and peppermint, arguing that t hese products w ere being exported to the United States for the creation of parachutes and explosives respectively. In addition, claiming that the news about Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II was mere American propaganda, Kikawa ordered, from 1946 to early 1947, his young assassins (known as Tokkōtai) to terrorize or kill with firearms or katanas several Makegumi (t hose “defeatists” or “dirty hearts,” typically wealthier and more culturally integrated, who publicly acknowledged that Japan had lost the war). Regarding the reach of this organization, Jhony Arai and Cesar Hirasaki explain, “Most Japanese not only believed that Japan had been victorious, but they also paid dues to the sect. Th ere w ere more than 120,000 sympathizers who paid monthly fees and nearly 20,000 associates in sixty branches scattered throughout São Paulo.”2 To convince their followers, Shindō Renmei’s leaders ordered the manipulation of journal photographs. L ater, they took advantage of their credulous followers by selling them by-then-worthless yen, fake return tickets to Japan, or land in the Asian colonies (some among the victimized would commit suicide as a result) and assuring them that Japanese ships would soon come to take them back to Japan or to its Asian colonies. In the end, at least 23 Japanese immigrants were killed and 147 others were wounded by the Kachigumi (the “victorists,” who refused to believe or acknowledge Japan’s defeat; they w ere typically poorer community members who w ere still planning to return to the fatherland). Yet only 14 Tok kōtai were convicted of murder. Moving on to the relation between state-g uided emigration and empire, “brokers of empire” is the term that Jun Uchida uses to describe those Japanese settlers in the Korean peninsula who, as merchants, journalists, ideologues, or semiofficial agents, among many other professions, affected every aspect of the Japanese colonial experience. Uchida maintains that even if most of them w ere guided by personal profit and national interest was only secondary to them, their activities (especially those of pioneers between 1910 and 1930) were still inextricable from the Japanese empire’s expansionist project, as they de facto mediated the colonial management of the peninsula. Whereas these settlers ultimately became tools for Japan’s domination of K orea, Sidney Xu Lu argues, in his The Making of Japanese Settler Colonialism: Malthusianism and Trans-Pacific Migration, 1868–1961,
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that the activities of Japanese immigrants in Latin America w ere interconnected with the imperial project as well, but in their case, rather than domination, their ostensible role was to expand the empire’s political influence, improve Japan’s international reputation and commerce, bring remittances, and create sources of food and raw material. Several Japanese Brazilian works call attention to the fact that among the immigrants arriving to the port of Santos w ere proud veterans of the recent Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). Thus, the artist and essay writer Tomoo Handa’s Memórias de um imigrante japonês no Brasil (Memoirs of a Japanese immigrant in Brazil, 1980), originally written in Japanese in 1970, describes former military officers and soldiers arriving with their military decorations: “Some men had been soldiers in the last (Russian-Japanese) war and brought their decorations on their chests.”3 Other works also reveal that the founders of the terrorist organization Shindō Renmei, the first terrorist group in the Americas, were former military officers. Thus, Ryoki Inoue’s novel Saga: A história de quatro gerações de uma família japonesa no Brasil (Saga: The history of four generations of a Japanese f amily in Brazil, 2006) argues that t hese former military officers who arrived among those Japanese immigrants between 1928 and 1933 had been assigned the mission “to create points of resistance against western political and cultural domination in countries where the Japanese community was beginning to have an impact, both demographically and economically.”4 However, I see most of these immigrants as mere pawns of the Japa nese government’s capitalist social engineering. They w ere first victims of a nation-state that, seeing them as an undesirable, impoverished, excess population of landless peasants and less-skilled l abor, sold them to the Brazilian government as “the whites of Asia.”5 Within the framework of a capitalist scheme, their emigration and labor abroad were planned with sights set firmly on their potential for providing food supplies and raw materials for Japan, as well as for creating new markets for Japanese products, thus spurring international trade. The Japanese government also expected its diasporic communities to help the national economy with their remittances and to conduct themselves as model, modern Japanese citizens who would improve the country’s international prestige. On the other hand, Japanese immigrants were likewise victimized by a Brazilian government lobbied by wealthy coffee plantation owners from the states of São Paulo and Paraná, who were desperately looking for exploitable, cheap labor,
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twenty years after the abolition of African slavery and soon after their failure to attract European farm workers. L ater, continued emigration during the 1950s and 1960s captured “postwar Japan’s international agenda of peacefully expanding its sphere of influence in the western world.”6 Tellingly, even after the Japanese government and immigration agencies became aware of the appalling living and working conditions on Brazilian coffee plantations, they continued to recruit and send emigrants mostly from the archipelago’s southwestern regions to Brazil (the main destination in the Western hemisphere since the 1920s, a fter Hawai‘i, Canada, and the United States closed their borders to Japanese immigration). While, in theory, this was done in order to offset overpopulation on the archipelago and as a philanthropic mission to bring economic development to overseas rural areas supposedly in need of (Japanese) progress, the true goal was to expand the empire and Japan’s political sphere of influence, all the while alleviating social tensions, unemployment, and widespread poverty at home. As the political scientist Toake Endoh explains, “Others call the emigration program nothing but kimin (dumpling people [sic]) for having abandoned the migrants in the hostile and difficult natural or socioeconomic climates of foreign countries over ten thousand miles away. Some former emigrants have filed suit against the Japanese migration authorities, who the plaintiffs believe were responsible for their plight and affliction.” 7 Endoh adds that the Japanese government’s focus on the southwest had political motivations: “Class relations that developed uniquely in the southwestern region were fomenting social antagonism against the economic and political establishment. The dispossessed or marginalized population was radicalizing their ideology and actions against their class e nemy and the state.”8 One may, therefore, accuse some of these Japanese immigrants of being gullible for believing false promises of becoming rich in a tropical land before returning home in a handful of years but hardly of being full-blown imperialists trying by choice to dominate and oppress the population of a developing country on the other side of the world; that would be tantamount to confusing a manipulative government with its own victimized people who w ere indolently displaced and neglected for the sake of the national economy. In other words, the problem with conceiving of Japanese immigrants in Brazil as imperialists is that it only bears in mind the positionality of the Meiji and subsequent Japanese governments, thus neglecting
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the subjectivities and lived experiences of the often exploited Issei immigrants themselves, many of whom had previously been victims of Japan’s imperial expansionism and demands for epistemicidal acculturation.
Prewar Emigration-Driven Expansionism in Nikkei Literature By way of illustration, Okinawa was one of the prefectures that had sent more emigrants since 1908. Yet Okinawans, like other nations in the East Asian colonies, had previously been forced by Japan’s assimilation policy (dōka) to adopt Japanese language and cultural practices, all the while becoming second-class citizens without the same rights as Naichijin. Naichijin’s racism against Okinawans is denounced, for example, in Inoue’s Saga, where a sergeant of Okinawan ancestry named Tomita Arakaki tells Nelson, a mixed-race Japanese Brazilian: “When I have to talk with a Japanese, the expression on his face when I give my name is more than enough to show me that I’m not welcome.”9 The diaspora in South America initially produced a “colonial literature” (shokumin bungaku) that, as the Japanese literat ure scholar Seth Jacobowitz observes, not only helped reflect on what it meant to be Japanese abroad but also contributed to sharing useful knowledge for imperial ideology: Although literary scholars regard its theme of overseas migration to Brazil as something of an outlier in the modern Japanese canon, in fact a considerable body of popular immigrant literat ure was published in Japan from 1908 into the 1940s in the pro-expansionist journals Shokumin Sekai (Colonization World), Burajiru (Brazil), Kaigai (The Overseas Journal), and Shokumin (The Colonial Review) that demand serious scholarly attention. These works were published alongside articles that valorized the heroic immigrants fanning out around the world to represent an expansionist Japanese race and empire. In turn these texts contributed to a corpus of shared knowledge between empire planners, pro-expansionist organizations such as the Nippon Rikkôkai, readers at home, and immigrants who took the plunge overseas.10
With time, however, the Brazilian Nikkei community and its writers would progressively disassociate from the ancestral fatherland, no longer perceiving themselves as imperial subjects or even as Japanese. The historical
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and geopolitical contexts b ehind their identitarian evolution are often reflected in the nomenclature used: from the initial “immigrant” or “colonial” literat ure by overseas “compatriots” or “brethren” to postwar Nikkei literature. In this sense, the Japanese literature scholar Edward Mack notes, “It is far more common to see references to dôhô (brethren) and hôjin (countrymen) than the proper noun Nihonjin when referring to the ethnically Japanese colonists.”11 Understandably so, the use of the term “colonial” to refer to prewar liter at ure by Japanese immigrants in Brazil may puzzle today’s readers—after all, Brazil was a sovereign state rather than a formal colony of Japan. It is nevertheless indicative of the intimate relationship among state-guided immigration (including immigration to South America’s remote hinterlands), commerce, and imperialism within the discourse of prewar territorial expansionism and foreign policy. Further complicating the issue, after World War II Japanese Brazilians often used the Portuguese term colonia (or koronia, meaning “community”) and colono (settler) to refer to themselves without necessarily reflecting either an imperial subjectivity or the Japa nese empire, which by then no longer existed. As in the rest of the Americas, Brazilians w ere aware of the empire of Japan’s aggressive militarism and imperialism, paying particular attention to its recent victory over the Russian empire, the first instance in modern times in which a European nation had been defeated by a non-European one. For this reason, the Nikkei community was sometimes perceived by xenophobic politicians as a potential or real “fifth column” that was secretly preparing for an imminent landing of the Japanese Imperial Navy. Throughout the Americas, Japanese men were at times suspected of being imperial officers in hiding or even innate, exceptional soldiers, as happened during the Mexican Revolution. In Brazil, this stereot ype was heightened by the fact that many Nikkei, discriminated against for decades, had found a positive, nationalist self-image in Japan’s territorial annexations during World War II, which they would sometimes celebrate loudly in public. Soon the Nikkei began to be considered “internal enemies.” A scene in the sansei (third-generation) author Oscar Nakasato’s first novel, Nihonjin (2011), re creates this situation: “One day, Ojiichan recalled, a Nihonjin from Araçatuba had been beaten to death b ecause they suspected that he was a spy of the Japanese government. And when Japan won the b attle against Singapore in 1942, and many thought the war was nearing its end, he and some friends had to celebrate in a low voice, as if they w ere all criminals.”12 This
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widespread suspicion, along with the nativist and nationalistic measures of forced assimilation taken by Getúlio Vargas’s Estado Novo against the teaching of Japanese language, owning Japanese-language books, and even speaking Japa nese in public (many Nikkei w ere monolingual Japa nese speakers) made the Nikkei community increasingly desperate and defensive. It is also useful to contextualize the birth of Japanese Brazilian litera ture within the framework concept of hakkō ichiu (eight crown cords, one roof). Reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s concept of Lebensraum and fascist Italy’s spazio vitale, imperial Japan’s hakkō ichiu, which initially was supposed to refer to racial harmony and equality u nder the moral guidance and leadership of the Japanese emperor, would l ater turn out to denote policies and practices of racism, territorial expansion, and settler colonialism. These militarist measures were ostensibly designed to secure food supplies, raw materials, and commodities for the empire of Japan’s protracted, imperial wars. Hakkō ichiu, therefore, soon became associated with world domination and military force. From this perspective, the Japanese government proposed a purportedly benevolent “new order in East Asia,” later known as the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which was supposed to be aimed at uniting East Asia in a brotherhood led by a paternalistic Japan (interestingly, the concept of “co-prosperity” was also used to describe the Japanese immigrants’ activities in Brazil). U nder the motto “Asia for the Asians!” and u nder the guise of liberation from Western imperial and colonial domination, the Japanese government tried to justify brutal force in East Asia by appealing to national mythology about the divine foundation of the country. Concomitantly, at a time when social Darwinism and eugenics w ere considered respectable, mainstream scientific discourses in the West, the Japanese created their own version of scientific racism to justify colonization. Thus, Okinawans were considered backward aborigines in need of Japanese civilization: “The Japanese government initiated a series of mea sures intended to extinguish ‘uncivilized’ Okinawan customs (including their language and their ‘irrational’ shamanistic spiritual practices).”13 The Asian American studies scholar Wesley Ueunten also discloses this type of ethnic indoctrination in schools: “Okinawan children learned that their native tongue and culture were barbaric and backward, not fitting for subjects of the emperor. Thus began the stigmatization of the Okinawan identity.”14 For the most part, Nikkei literature in Latin America, while reflecting the oppression and disenfranchisement of Nikkei communities—particularly
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during the inception of the immigration process and during World War II— tends to conveniently avoid acknowledging Japanese imperialism and colonialism or postwar neoimperialism and neocolonialism. Yet, as w ill be seen in the ensuing pages, there are works that do establish tenuous links between imperial expansionism and emigration to Latin America. Thus, some Brazilian Nikkei novelists portray their Issei (first-generation immigrant) characters as victims of imperial ideology. Sooner or later, these characters come to the conclusion that they have been conned by the exaggerations and false advertising of emigration companies. Beyond fiction, autobiographical texts, such as Handa’s Memórias de um imigrante japonês no Brasil, also recall real-life immigrants’ anger against the state and nongovernmental emigration companies’ representatives and interpreters: “There was something serious about the immigrants’ resentment against the emigration company and its members. Historia da expansão dos japoneses (History of the expansion of the Japanese) recalls: ‘Dramatically, Mizuno and Uetsuka’s party was received with baboon spears, hoes, and sickles. . . . Tomojiro Ibaragi climbed to the top of a tripod ladder and delivered a skillful speech encouraging the fight.’ ”15 Handa also recalls how the immigrants protested through their songs: ose who said that Brazil was good lied, Th the emigration company lied; to the opposite side of the Earth I arrived, spun in Paradise, to see Hell.16
It seems safe to assume, then, that t hese immigrants had begun to suspect that the o wners and representatives of emigration companies were becoming rich at their expense. Rather than fulfilling their dream of becoming wealthy in four or five years and returning home “wearing a golden brocade,” as they had been promised, most Japanese immigrants actually had no chance of even saving enough money for a return ticket (it has been estimated that only 10 percent made the longed-for return to Japan). And even when they did save enough for a return ticket, for many it would have been a shameful dishonor to make the return after failing to achieve their financial goals. Thus, in Nakasato’s novel Nihonjin, we learn: “Hideo would not subject himself to the humiliation of returning to Japan in the same condition as when he left.”17
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But this type of reaction went beyond issues of personal pride, as the Japanese government demanded from their emigrants to become ambassadors of a modern and successful Japan to the rest of the world. The historians Daniel Masterson and Sayaka Funada-Classen echo this real-life, official pressure: “Before leaving the port of Kobe, these Brazil-bound Japanese and Okinawan immigrants were addressed by a representative of the Japa nese government, who warned them that they should ‘not disgrace Japan’ and that if they did not succeed they should not return to Japan, even in death.”18 Besides reflecting official attempts at raising the international prestige of Japan, one may also wonder w hether t hese words were uttered with full knowledge that most of these hapless emigrants would not succeed economically for many years. As it happens, Nikkei cultural production reflects the fact that many Japanese immigrants, outraged by the exploitation they suffered on plantations where only two decades e arlier their predecessors w ere enslaved Africans, fled the plantations to look for opportunities in the cities or across the border, in Argentina. The opening chapters in Nakasato’s Nihonjin recall the emperor’s encouragement of “temporary” emigration abroad as a patriotic duty. It also recreates the gullibility of emigrants who believe the emigration company’s promises: “One of them, beside Hideo, spoke loudly so that everyone heard his project, so that everyone shared his dreams: staying in Brazil for four years, five years . . . Then, with a lot of money in his pocket, open a small restaurant in Yokohama.”19 Other passages, however, present obedient imperial subjects beginning to suspect that they are being used by their government. Still, they do not renounce their own feeling of superiority toward the host country, a possible reflection of imperialist ideology and the association of colonialism/imperialism with modernity. Thus, an artist named Kimura on the ship that takes them to Brazil declares that they w ill never see Japan again and expresses his pessimism about their future: “An underdeveloped country where epidemics are possible. No one was told whether doctors would be available should someone fall sick.”20 The immediate reaction of another passenger named Inabata is to accuse him of lack of patriotism or respect for the emperor’s wishes: “He wants us to emigrate, to spend some time in a foreign land, but to come back later, with a lot of money, and help in the development of the country. It w ill be our contribution.”21 Years l ater, the narrator’s grandfather, Hideo, w ill recall how Brazilian plantation o wners would make them purchase products in their overpriced
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stores, thus preventing them from saving their earnings; yet Japanese immigrants had no one to complain to. Still, he does not blame the emperor for encouraging emigration aboard, believing that he was not aware of the situation on Brazilian plantations. L ater, while inebriated at a party, another Japanese immigrant called Sato informs Hideo that, according to some educated Brazilians he has met in the city, the emperor had tricked the immigrants: “And that t hese gaijins had told him that the emperor of Japan had deceived the poor farmers and the unemployed in the city, saying that they should emigrate because they could make money quickly in Brazil. But that, in fact, it was a project to expel the poor population, that were in excess in the country.”22 By then a member of Shindō Renmei, an organization that promised to unify the Japanese community and to assure its fidelity to the emperor, Hideo cannot tolerate such accusations; irritated, he calls Sato a drunkard and a traitor to his country, before striking him. As mentioned, some characters in Nihonjin are aware of the paradox of migrating to a less developed country. Likewise, in their study of Japa nese emigration to Latin America, Masterson and Funada-Classen recall a real-life Issei settler from Tietê with this same feeling of superiority: “ ‘It has been thirty years since our countrymen landed in this country. Since then, 20,000, young and old, men and w omen have been sacrificed. It is not the way for us to leave our ancestors, leaving their cemeteries. . . . Our immigration w ill mean something only if our blood purifies the Brazilian impurity with our superior tradition.’ ”23 It is clear, then, that some immigrants living in state-sponsored settlements in Brazil had internalized their government’s political propaganda, which described its migration-driven expansionism as a sort of Japanese version of the European mission civilisatrice (civilizing mission): they w ere benevolently seeking “coexistence and co-prosperity” (kyōzon kyōei) as well as the modernization of underdeveloped South American countries. This type of paternalistic mentality has also been described by the historian Sidney Xu Lu when referring to postwar emigration: “As Japan’s overseas migration restarted at the beginning of the 1950s, South American countries that received most of the Japanese postwar emigrants were no longer portrayed as empty; nevertheless, they continued to be described as primitive but abundant in natural wealth, waiting for the civilized Japanese to explore and utilize.”24 Some Japanese Brazilian novels and other works also echo the Nikkei community’s resentment toward a Japanese empire that betrayed and abandoned them overseas. In particular, immigrants felt disappointed and
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frustrated upon seeing Japanese diplomats leave Brazil months a fter this country’s formal declaration of war against the empire of Japan in August 1942. Thus, the non-Nikkei Fernando Morais, in his essay Corações sujos: A historia da Shindo Renmei (Dirty hearts: The history of Shindō Renmei, 2000), recalls: “Immigrants resented what was seen as a lack of patriotism on the part of Japanese diplomats, who left the country immediately after relations with Brazil w ere severed, leaving more than 200,000 p eople 25 to their own devices.” Along with the long-distance nationalism that the prewar Japanese state had promoted among the diaspora, their feeling cheated by their own government plausibly propelled massive support for the fraudulent Shindō Renmei, which began to function as a de facto replacement for the departed diplomats’ leadership. I argue that the creation of Shindō Renmei can be considered the missing link between imperialism and emigration-driven expansionism. As Tsugio Shindo explains, “The Kachigumi [those claiming Japan was victorious] case was a kind of outside expression of the damage caused by the madness and obscurantism of the militaristic education.”26 Shindō Renmei’s violence damaged the Nikkei community’s reputation in Brazil. This shameful episode of Nikkei terrorism reveals the long reach of an ethnocentric, fascist indoctrination that included emperor worship, the belief in Japan’s military invincibility, and the preservation of purportedly Japanese spiritual and cultural values—the essentialist concept of yamato-damashii (Japanese spirit; literally meaning “the great spirit of harmony”). Among other works, Jorge J. Okubaro’s O súdito (Banzai, Massateru!) (The subject [Banzai, Massateru!], 2008), Fernando Morais’s Corações sujos: A historia da Shindo Renmei, and Vicente Amorim’s film Corações sujos (2011) attempt to explain the process of radicalization that led their protagonists to fanatical, intraethnic violence. All three works coincide in highlighting first the negative effects of the Estado Novo’s forced assimilation mea sures aimed at a social group that was suddenly considered a metonymy or dangerous extension of imperial Japan within Brazilian territory. They also point at the existential anxiety felt by a community caught in between two aggressively nationalist discourses, the Japanese and the Brazilian ones. In particular, they focus on the violent clash that took place soon after World War II between the majority Kachigumi and the Makegumi. The very existence of this terrorist organization reflects the malaise of a community that, for the most part, had never planned to stay in Brazil indef initely. Although in the end Shindō Renmei’s leaders took advantage of
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the naïveté and imperialistic fanaticism of members of the Nikkei community, initially the organization’s ostensible goal was to make sure that after Japan’s victory, everyone in the community would have the option to return to the fatherland or its Asian colonies without having renounced their Japanese ancestral customs and yamato-damashii, which included the belief in Japan’s invincibility and the veneration of the emperor. Having been taught from an early age about the invincibility of Japan and the divine nature of the emperor, a confirmation bias or backfire effect quickly kicked in by which they chose to ignore the news about Japan’s defeat, instead reaffirming their deep-seated beliefs. Morais’s essay Corações sujos: A historia da Shindo Renmei explores the community’s self-denial after the war: “Devoted to the most rigid Japanese military traditions, blind followers of the Emperor, they defended the false claims of Japan’s victory with arguments they considered indisputable: in 2600 years, Japan had not lost a war; in the extremely remote possibility that the homeland was defeated, the world would then witness the ‘terrible deaths of one hundred million people,’ by collective suicide, following the Emperor’s lead.”27 Overall, Japanese Brazilian cultural production revisits the painful Shindō Renmei episode as a sort of collective catharsis, a self-exploration that leads to a rejection of extremist nationalism. Along these lines, a character named Mariano in Júlio Miyazawa’s novel Yawara! A travessia Nihondin-Brasil (Yawara! Crossing Nihondin-Brazil, 2006) decries Japanese imperialism and colonialism during World War II, as well as the Japanese government’s disregard for the Nikkei community in Brazil: “It turns out that all of this is not going to change the minds of many Japanese descendants. That we w ere massacred here in Brazil and had to deal with it alone. That’s what I’m trying to say the entire time: Japan abandoned us! Japan dumped us here so that we would handle it alone.”28 And the same feeling of abandonment resurfaces in Morais’s Corações sujos: A história da Shindo Renmei: “Immigrants resented what they saw as lack of patriotism on the part of Japanese diplomats, who left the country immediately a fter Japan broke diplomatic relations with Brazil, leaving more than 200,000 of them on their own.”29 These passages disclose the fictional characters’ progressive delinking from the imperial project, a first step toward full Brazilian citizenship. Nihonjin presents the birth of Shindō Renmei as an offshoot of the Japa nese militaristic, imperial ideology that was taught in Japanese schools and was later exported to Brazil. In the novel, whereas Hideo, the protagonist,
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joins the terrorist group, his outraged son Haruo opposes it and defiantly declares his loyalty to Brazil. This same imperial indoctrination is reflected in the pervasive sense of racial superiority expressed by Japanese characters in several other novels. Thus, in Ryoki Inoue’s Saga a man named Ryuiti Fukugawa openly tells his wife that Japanese immigrants are superior to local Brazilians: “We d on’t have to be considered equals, mainly because w e’re not equal. We are superior and that’s what we need to show them!”30 And following the colonial imperative to improve the international image of Japan through the achievements of its emigrants, Nikkei college students in Saga try to follow their parents’ maxim: “We need to show that we’re superior. We are better in all things. Second place is nothing but defeat.”31 Yet while, like much of Brazilian Nikkei literature, Saga also devotes many of its pages to celebrate the multiple achievements of the Japanese Brazilian community, it also addresses the darker episode of Shindō Renmei’s violence in the context of Japanese imperial ideology. The connection between state-sponsored immigration and Japanese imperialism is enhanced by the presence of the former military officer Junji Kikawa among the leadership ranks of the terrorist organization. But perhaps the passage in Saga in which the links between imperialism and immigration are made more explicit is the following one: One of the preponderant f actors for this distortion of objectives was the strong presence of Japanese expatriates among Japanese former military men who came to Brazil between 1928 and 1933. Many of them came h ere with the explicit mission of creating, in the countries where the Japanese colony was beginning to be significant, both demographically and economically, nuclei of resistance to Western political and cultural domination. They became members of Shindô-Renmei and started to publicize the yamato damashii, literally imposing their ideas even if through violence. The leader of the association was Junji Kikawa, an ex-officer of the Japanese Imperial Army and a fanatical follower of the divinity represented by Emperor Hirohito.32
Likewise, Okubaro’s O súdito (Banzai, Massateru!), a story based on the biography of the author’s Okinawan father, Massateru Hokubaru, explic itly connects immigration with imperial expansionism: “Japanese emigration policy in the period before World War II had clearly become a means for Japanese territorial expansion.”33 O súdito also emphasizes the intersectionality of Massateru’s condition as an Okinawan—therefore a victim of
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Japanese imperialism himself—in the city of Osvaldo Cruz: “Along with the struggle to adapt and integrate into Brazilian society, Massateru, like other Okinawans, faced another difficulty: being accepted by the other Japanese.”34 Although for the most part, Massateru is in denial about the discrimination he suffers from Naichijin, he hates it when they derogatively call him “Mr. Okinawa.”35 A fanatic member of Shindō Renmei, Massateru is nevertheless sympathetically portrayed as a victim of a Japanese nationalist education during his childhood in Okinawa that turned him into “a real subject of the Japanese Empire though, deep inside, he remained an Okinawan.”36 This nationalist indoctrination received in grade school w ill continue once in Brazil, where Massateru and his friends eagerly receive and read accessible fascist and expansionist propaganda sent from Japan, including Kokutai no hongi (Principles of National Policy) and Kyōiku chokugo (The Imperial Rescript on Education). These texts reinforce their entrenched values: belief in the emperor’s divine nature; the invincibility of Japan (temporarily “proven” by recent territorial conquests); willingness to give one’s life for the fatherland; respect for one’s superiors; loyalty, filial piety, and patriotism. In addition, Okubaru speculates that since immigrants could no longer count on the remains of their ancestors for worship, they intensified their emperor worship practices as a replacement. Altogether, Okubaru pre sents immigration and imperialism as inseparable from each other: sending migrants to Brazil was part and parcel of imperial expansionism. As seen, to keep control of these migrants’ minds, the Japanese government would send imperialist propaganda. This suggests that beyond the economic support of imperial projects via new markets for Japanese products and new sources of food and raw materials, emigration to South America was conceived as a political move that would expand the political sphere of influence of Japan, thus offsetting the authority of the West. As is well known, the emulation of European imperialism and colonialism was actually a self-defense tactic: at the time Japan was attempting to present itself as a modern, powerf ul nation in order to appear not suitable for Western colonization. In this context, the historian and Asian American studies scholar Eiichiro Azuma elaborates on the concept of “adaptive settler colonialism,” the Japanese version of a borderless settler colonialism in Asia that was based on an imported notion of frontier conquest that was modeled on the American West. According to him, prewar emigration-led expansionism was conceived by the Japanese government
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as a preamble for empire making: “Agrarian settler colonialism was always integral to modern Japanese imperialism, and it constituted one of the many ways in which state officials and social leaders a dopted policies and initiated reforms that w ere intended to both defend the nation against being colonized by western powers and demonstrate that they w ere worthy imperialists as well in the Eurocentric international order of the time.”37 However, Azuma adds, Japanese settler colonialism was different from traditional European colonialism and settler colonialism “in terms of its definitive emphasis on coexistence and assimilation—in rhetoric at least— more than exclusion and annihilation.”38 As stated, immigrant farmers were used to present Japan to the world as a benevolent, modern nation that could improve local economies with its capital, know-how, and technological advancement. In East Asia, not only did they legitimize imperialism but in some cases—like t hose of Hokkaido, Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria— they also groomed the land for an eventual invasion. Although the circumstances were obviously quite different in South America, the concept of adaptive settler colonialism may give nuance to how the Japanese state understood emigration to Brazil, as well as to how the migrants saw themselves as imperial subjects within a supposedly patriotic mission. In this sense, immigrant literat ure is a key source to either corroborate or disavow Azuma’s claim that immigration was, along with imperialism, a key component of Japanese expansionism. Yet it is also important to bear in mind that first-person narratives must not be taken, at face value, as historical truth. Thus, Edward Mack, in his review of what he terms “paracolonial” literat ure in Brazil, reminds us that there were also significant numbers of sojourners who either actively and positively pursued migration out of a desire to return to Japan “wearing a golden brocade” (nishiki o kite) after achieving wealth abroad, and émigrés, who went abroad looking to create utopian societies or achieve alternate, cosmopolitan identities. The fact that any homogenizing description of emigrants is insufficient should come as no surprise; what is perhaps more interesting is the possibility that this singular image of the hard- struggling and self- sacrificing peasant migrant might be a self-romanticizing narrative embraced and developed by the emigrants themselves.39
A real-life attempt to create one of these new “little Japans” or “perfect Japans,” in this case a Christian, socialist society in the state of São Paulo,
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is recreated in the Japanese American Karen T. Yamashita’s novel Brazil- Maru (1992). The leaders of this utopian community were precisely fleeing Japan’s aggressive militarism at the time. Therefore, in this fictional text based on the real-life upper-c lass immigrant Isamu Yuba and the Yuba Farm he founded and led in the 1920s, one finds the opposite case: immigrants who do not share the Japanese state’s imperial ideology and actively attempt to escape from it. Yet imperial ideology would still follow them to that remote hinterland: in Brazil-Maru, the original founder and leader of the community of Esperança ends up being murdered by a group of Kachigumi who consider him a traitor to his country.
Postwar Immigration, Neocolonization, and Cultural Production As Lu explains, while Japan claimed the need of additional land abroad in order to accommodate its excess population, at the same time it believed in the need for a continued domestic population growth that would ultimately aid in the construction of the empire: “It rationalizes migration-driven expansion, which I call ‘Malthusian expansion,’ as both a solution to domestic social tensions supposedly caused by overpopulation and a means to leave the much-needed room and resources in the homeland so that the total population of the nation could continue to increase. In other words, Malthusian expansionism is centered on the claim of overpopulation, not the actual fear of it, and by the desire for population growth, not the actual anxiety over it.”40 A purported and invented overpopulation, therefore, justified Japan’s extension of its sphere of influence beyond its Asian “backyard,” with transcendental consequences that continue to reverberate t oday. By revealing the thinking and discourse of the migrants and their descendants themselves, Japanese Brazilian cultural production provides further insight into how state-led emigration (imin) to Brazil, a sovereign state, shared many of the traits, logic, and goals of colonial emigration (shokumin) or settler colonialism within the Japanese empire, thus exposing “the profound overlaps and connections between emigration and settler colonialism in the modern world, two historical phenomena that have been conventionally understood in isolation from one another.”41 Japan’s “Malthusian expansion,” which according to Lu begins with the Meiji Restoration (i.e., before the empire), would continue during the 1950s and 1960s
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with further emigration to South America: “Though no longer performed by a militant and expanding empire, the postwar migration was still legitimized by the same discourse of overpopulation while driven by the same institutions and networks that w ere established during Japanese migration to South America and Manchuria before 1945.”42 As seen, even if t hese connections are not always explicit in literary texts, it would not be too far-fetched to aver that Japanese emigration to Latin America and, by extension, part of Latin American Nikkei litera ture were first linked to imperialism and a sui generis type of colonialism and after the war to neocolonialism (although Japanese immigration to Brazil, which began in 1908, was forbidden in 1941 a fter the Pearl Harbor attack, it was resumed in 1952). An explicit reference to this type of neo colonialism is made in Miyazawa’s novel Yawara when Mariano states: “I made acid remarks about Japan, pointing out its colonialist stance, which was negotiating the acquisition of Brazilian land the size of a state, almost the size of Japan itself, for a soy plantation project that would demand the arrival of thousands of Japanese people.”43 But it is also important to note how part of Japanese Brazilian cultural production may be purposely silencing these links to prewar colonialism and postwar neocolonialism. Indeed, along with emigration to the states of São Paulo and Paraná, the post-war Japanese government invested in the agricultural development of the Brazilian Amazon basin in hopes of rebuilding its own national economy. Yet while texts such as the Issei Katsuzō Yamamoto’s 1984 collection of essays Toda uma vida no Brasil (An entire life in Brazil, originally published in Japanese in 1973 u nder the title Burajiru to gojūshichinen), celebrate, full of ethnic pride, Nikkei farmers’ contributions to the modernization of the Brazilian economy through their agricultural prowess, no reference is ever made in the text to the efforts to benefit the postwar Japanese reemerging economy (if indeed the author was ever aware of them). Thus, in an article titled “Virtude que sobrevive” (Virtue that survives), originally published in Jornal Paulista in July 1975, Yamamoto applauds the pioneering Nikkei’s supposedly altruistic and selfless motivations: “It seems to me that Japanese immigrants have an essential interest in introducing something that does not exist in Brazil. We have the examples of tea, black pepper, jute, fruit trees such as persimmon, peach, chestnut, apple, etc., as well as flowers, orchids, vegetables, etc. Each of these products resulted from our precursors’ great efforts. As a general rule—there are exceptions—pioneers do not make money from
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their initiatives. They were probably more eager to innovate than to make money.”44 Moreover, from postcolonial and ecocritical perspectives, neither can one read references in Toda uma vida no Brasil to the autochthonous population that was plausibly displaced or to the environmental destruction brought about by the process of felling trees (desmatamento) and reclaiming Cerrado lands (an extensive ecoregion in Brazil with plains, tropical broadleaf woodlands, and scrublands) for agricultural development. Considering himself an “ex-Japanese,” Yamamoto, a former Japanese soldier, devoted his more than half a c entury in Brazil to the improvement of commercial relations between Japan and Brazil and to the Projeto Cerrado, a frontier expedition and agricultural development project in the Cerrado, which, in Yamamoto’s own words, he envisioned as the solution to provide enough food for Brazilians. Several of the articles published since July 1979 are devoted to express his enthusiasm for the Projeto Cerrado, described as a Nippo-Brazilian venture in which several Nikkei, including himself, have demonstrated their sense of civic duty and Brazilian patriotism. Thus, in “Felicidade” (Happiness), originally published in Jornal Paulista in 1979, Yamamoto declares: “Having contributed his capital to the Cerrado Project, he felt at ease b ecause he was fulfilling his duty with Brazil. . . . There is an evident and vigorous sense of civic duty, beginning with an understanding that it is necessary to join forces in order to implement the plan for the development of the cerrado.”45 The author, therefore, celebrates the fact that the pioneering spirit of the first immigrants has survived among postwar immigrants and nisei, thus demonstrating that they are not only motivated by money or material interest but also by the pleasure of fulfilling a dream and bettering Brazil. As Jacobowitz clarifies, “there were well-defined policies backing up efforts to keep immigrants to Brazil linguistically, culturally, and nationalistically, within the fold (or folk) of the Empire.”46 Yet, while at first displaying an imperial subjectivity, Japanese Brazilian literat ure progressively steered away from imperial and colonialist ideology. This way, it echoed diaspora politics and the process by which a community that was, according to (neo) imperial/(neo)colonial designs, supposed to be forever linked to the Japanese state eventually detached from it, switching instead its national alliances to the host country. Two major historical events aided this diasporic shift in identity of a community that is now split between Brazil and Japan: first,
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World War II left Japan so devastated that it was no longer a desirable country to which one would return; secondly, the dekasegi (temporary workers) phenomenon that began in the late 1980s made many Brazilian Nikkei realize that, while they had proudly preserved their Japanese cultural identity in Brazil for several generations, back in the ancestral home they w ere no longer recognized as fellow citizens; they had instead been demoted to gaijin (foreigners). This literary corpus negotiates, therefore, the transition from a Japanese identity overseas fundamentally connected to their homeland and native language but with particular “colonial” (shokumin) characteristics specific to their Brazilian experience (prevalent during the prewar period) to a Nikkei, ethnic minority identity through which the previous sojourner mentality has been left behind. A fter World War II, Brazilian Nikkei created their own ethnic and social originations inde pendently from the Japanese government. This shift in national identity formation was often (not always) marked by a transition from Japanese to Portuguese language in their literary production. In this way, Japanese Brazilian cultural production redefines the ideas of Brazilianness and Japaneseness from both a national and a transnational perspective. Like the dekasegi phenomenon, the literary reflection of the internal conflict between Okinawans and the Japanese from the mainland also evidences internal cracks that help question Japanese and Nikkei cultural essentialism. At the same time, while during the inception of the emigration process to South America, Nikkei authors often deployed an imperial subjectivity in their historical accounts and fictionalization of the Brazilian experiment, with time they delinked from an ideology that was intimately tied to aggressive fascism and bigoted nationalism, contributing instead to a symbolic remapping of the transnational Brazilian space. Altogether, Japanese Brazilian cultural production reveals multifaceted pol itical, economic, and sociocultural connections between state-g uided emigration to Latin America on the one hand and the expansion of Japa nese imperialism and colonialism in East Asia on the other, which allows us to look at both intertwined phenomena as part of the same imperial and (neo)colonial expansionist policies and practices.
Notes 1. Regarding the title I chose for this chapter, a few years ago, a fter I gave a talk on my book Japanese Brazilian Saudades: Diasporic Identities and Cultural Production (2019),
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one of my colleagues complained that I had failed to recognize that the Nikkei arriving in Brazil in 1908 w ere “imperialists.” While, indeed, many of these immigrants were—whether consciously or unconsciously—part of Japan’s imperial project, I would hesitate to call them imperialists. 2. “A esmagadora maioria dos japoneses não só acreditava na vitória do Japão como dava contribuições à seita. Eram mais de 120 mil simpatizantes que pagavam mensalidades e cerca de 20 mil associados em 60 filiais espalhados por São Paulo.” Arai and Hirasaki. 100 anos da imigração, p. 134. 3. “Alguns dos homens foram soldados na última guerra (russo-japonesa) e traziam ao peito as suas decorações.” Handa, Memórias, p. 5. Other texts recall the same scene: “It has been said that among the immigrants who landed, some flaunted proudly the medal received in the Russo-Japanese war, won by the Japanese” (“Dizem que, entre os imigrantes que desembarcaram, alguns ostentavam orgulhosamente a medalha recebida na guerra russo-japonesa, vencida pelos japoneses” [Shindo, Passos da imigração, p. 146]). 4. “Criar nos países onde a colônia japonesa começava a ser significativa, tanto do ponto de vista demográfico como de econômico, núcleos de resistência à dominação política e cultural do Ocidente.” I noue, Saga, p. 168. 5. Lesser, Discontented Diaspora, p. 5. 6. Endoh, Exporting Japan, p. 8. 7. Endoh, Exporting Japan, p. 2. 8. Endoh, Exporting Japan, p. 12. 9. “—Quando tenho de conversar com um japonês, a expressão de seu rosto no instante em que digo meu nome é mais do que suficiente para me mostrar que não estou sendo bem recebido.” I noue, Saga, p. 225. 10. Jacobowitz, “Bitter Brew,” p. 15. 11. Mack, “Paracolonial Literat ure,” p. 119. 12. “ Um dia, lembrou ojiichan, um nihonjin de Araçatuba fora espancado até a morte porque desconfiaram que era um espião de governo japonês. E quando o Japão venceu a batalha contra Cingapura, en 1942, e muitos pensavam que a guerra estava próxima do fim, ele e alguns amigos tiveram que comemorar em voz baixa, como se fossem todos criminosos” Nakasato, Nihonjin, p. 92. 13. Nakasone, “Impossible Possibility,” p. 18. 14. Ueunten, “Japanese Latin American,” p. 102. 15. “Havia qualquer coisa de grave no ressentimento dos imigrantes contra a companhia de emigração e seus membros. Registra a Historia da expansão dos japoneses: ‘Aparatosamente, recebeu-se a comitiva de Mizuno e Uetsuka com lanças de babu, enxaas e foices’ . . . ‘Tomojiro Ibaragi, subui ao topo de uma escada tripé e pronnciou hábil discurso incitando à luta’ ” Handa, Memórias, p. 53. 16. Mentiu quem disse que o Brasil era bom, mentiu a companhia de emigração; no lado oposto da Terra cheguei, fiado no Paraíso, para ver o Inferno. Handa, Memórias, p. 164. 17. “Hideo não se submeteria à humilhação de voltar ao Japão na mesma condição em que saíra de lá.” Nakasato, Nihonjin, pp. 110–111.
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18. Masterson and Funada-Classen, Japanese, p. 44. 19. “Um, ao lado de Hido, falava alto para que todos conhecessem seu projeto, para que todos compartilhassem seus sonhos: ficar no Brasil durante quatro anos, cinco anos . . . Depois, com bastante dinheiro no bolso, abrir um pequeno restaurante em Yokohama.” Nakasato, Nihonjin, p. 11. 20. “Um país subdesenvolvido, onde podia haver epidemias. Não lhes haviam dito se haveria médico quando alguém ficasse doente.” Nakasato, Nihonjin, p. 13. 21. “Ele quer que emigremos, que fiquemos um tempo em terra estrangeira, mas que voltemos depois, com bastante dinheiro, e ajudemos no desenvolvimento do país. Será a nossa contribução.” Nakasato, Nihonjin, p. 14. 22. “E que esses gaijins lhe tinham dito que o imperador do Japão enganara os agricultores pobres e os desempregados da cidade, dizendo que deveriam emigrar porque poderiam ganhar dinheiro rapidamente no Brasil. Mas que, na verdade, era um projeto para expulsar a população pobre, que havia muitos excedentes no país.” Nakasato, Nihonjin, p. 72. 23. Masterson and Funada-Classen, Japanese, pp. 84–85. 24. Lu, Making, p. 16. 25. “Os imigrantes se ressentiam do que era tido como falta de patriotismo dos diplomatas japoneses, que deixaram o país imediatamente após o rompimento de relações com o Brasil, abandonando mais de 200 mil pessoas à própria sorte.” Morais, Corações sujos, p. 63. 26. “O caso Kachi-gumi foi uma espécie de balanço no exterior dos danos causados pela loucura e obscurantismo da educação militarista.” Shindo, Passos da imigração, p. 232. 27. “Devotos das mais rígidas tradições militaristas japonesas, seguidores cegos do imperador, sustentavam a teoria da vitória do Japão com argumentos que consideravam indiscutíveis: em 2600 anos o Japão jamais perderá uma guerra; na remotíssima hipótese de que a pátria tivesse sido derrotada, o mundo teria testemunhado a ‘morte honrosa de 100 milhões de japoneses,’ que se suicidariam coletivamente, acompanhando o mesmo gesto do imperador.” Morais, Corações sujos, p. 89. It also quotes a Japanese man named Koketsu, who is later tortured by the military police, arguing that there is evidence of Japan’s victory: “If Japan had lost the war, all the Japanese would be dead” (“Se Japão tivesse perdido a guerra, todos os japoneses estariam mortos” [12]). 28. “Acontece que tudo isso não vai mudar a cabeça de muitos descendentes de japoneses. Que fomos massacrados aqui no Brasil e tivemos que virar sozinhos. E isso que estou tentando dizer o tempo todo: o Japão nos abandonou! O Japão nos largou aqui para nós nos virarmos souzinhos.” Miyazawa, Yawara!, p. 170. 29. “Os imigrantes se ressentiam do que era tido como falta de patriotismo dos diplomatas japoneses, que deixaram o país imediatamente após o rompimento de relações com o Brasil, abandonando mais de 200 mil pessoas à própria sorte.” Morais, Corações sujos, p. 63. 30. “—Não temos de ser considerados iguais, mesmo porque não somos iguais a eles. Nós somos superiores, e é isso que teremos que mostrar!” I noue, Saga, p. 79. 31. “—Temos de mostrar que somos superiores. Somos os melhores em tudo. O segundo lugar não é mais do que uma derrota.” Inoue, Saga, p. 127.
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32. “Um dos fatores preponderantes para essa distorção de objetivos foi a forte presença de exmilitares japoneses entre os imigrantes nipônicos que vieram para o Brasil entre 1928 e 1933. Muitos deles vieram para cá tendo como missão exatamente criar nos países onde a colônia japonesa começava a ser significativa, tanto de ponto de vista demográfico como de económico, núcleos de resistência à dominação política e cultural do Ocidente. Tornaram-se membros da Shindô-Renmei e passaram a divulgar o yamato damashii literalmente impondo suas ideias ainda que de forma violenta. O líder da associação era Junji Kikawa, exoficial do Exército Imperial Nipônico e seguidor fanático da divindade representada pelo imperador Hirohito.” Inoue, Saga, p. 168. 33. “A política emigratória japonesa na época anterior à Segunda Guerra Mundial tornou-se claramente um dos meios de expansão territorial japonesa.” Okubaro, O súdito, p. 124. The creation in 1923 of the empire of Japan’s Takumu-shō (Ministry of Colonial Affairs) was a key instrument in this process. 34. “Além da dificuldade de adaptação e integração à sociedade brasileira, Massateru, como outros okinawanos, enfrentava outra: a de aceitação até mesmo por outros japoneses.” Okubaro, O súdito, p. 367. 35. “Okinawa-san.” Okubaro, O súdito, p. 368. 36. “ Um verdadeiro súbito do império japonês, mesmo que, na essência, continuasse sendo um okinawano.” Okubaro, O súdito, p. 54. 37. Azuma, In Search, p. 2. 38. Azuma, In Search, p. 6. 39. Mack, “Paracolonial Literat ure,” pp. 95–96. 40. Lu, Making, p. 4. 41. Lu, Making, p. 3. 42. Lu, Making, pp. 8–9. 43. “Eu fazia comentários ácidos sobre o Japão, falando sobre sua postura colonialista, que negociava a aquisição de terras brasileiras do tamanho de um estado, quase do tamanho do próprio Japão, num projeto de plantio de soja, que demandaria a vinda de milhares de japoneses.” Miyazawa, Yawara!, p. 170. 44. “Parece-me que os imigrantes nipônicos nutrem interesse essencial na introdução de algo que não existe no Brasil. Temos os exemplos do chá, pimenta do reino, juta, árvores frutíferas como caqui, pêssego, castanha, maçã, e tc. Assim como flores, orquídeas, verduras, etc. Cada um desse produtos resultou de grandes esforços de nossos precursores. Regra geral—existem exceções—os pioneiros não ganham dinheiro com suas iniciativas. Tiveram provavelmente mais vontade de realizar do que de ganhar dinheiro.” Yamamoto, “Virtude que sobrevive,” p. 87. 45. “Participando do capital do Projeto Cerrado, sentiu-se tranquilo porque estava cumprindo com seu dever para com o Brasil . . . Existe um evidente e vigoroso sentido de dever cívico, partindo da compreensão de que é preciso unir forças para levar avante o plano de aproveitamento do cerrado.” Yamamoto, “Felicidade,” p. 153. 46. Jacobowitz, “Bitter Brew,” p. 18.
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Contributors
Eiichiro Azuma is Professor of History and Asian American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, who specializes in transpacific Japanese migration and interimperial relations between the United States and Japan. He is author of the award-winning Between Two Empires: Race, History, and Transnationalism in Japanese America (2005) and coeditor of two anthologies, including the Oxford Handbook of Asian American History (2016). His latest research monograph, In Search of Our Frontier: Japanese America and Settler Colonialism in the Construction of Japan’s Borderless Empire (2019), received the 2020 John K. Fairbank Prize in East Asian History from the American Historical Association. Andre Kobayashi Deckrow is a postdoctoral associate in the Heritage Studies and Public History program and the Department of History at the University of Minnesota. He received his PhD from the History—East Asia program at Columbia University. A historian of global migration, his current book project examines Japanese state-sponsored migration to Brazil in the early twentieth c entury. He is interested in questions of colonialism, national identity, and legal regimes of citizenship. He has also contributed to public history projects in the Twin Cities and Southern California that examine local migration history in global contexts. Toake Endoh is Professor of Political Science at Josai International University. She is author of Exporting Japan: Politics of Emigration to Latin America (2009) and Nanbei “ kimin” seisaku no jitsuzō (2016). Endoh’s other research interests are Japan’s immigration policy and migrant deportation regime from a comparative perspective and migrant protection from disasters. Her articles 295
296 Contributors
appear in Asian and Pacific Migration Review, Journal of International Migration and Integration, Chūō kōron, and other journals. Facundo Garasino is a research fellow at the JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development. He is currently working on a transnational history of migration, nation building, and development in Japan and South America. He has recently published “Japan’s Last Colonial Frontier: Settler Migration, Development, and Expansionism in the Brazilian Amazon,” in Transpacific Visions: Connected Histories of the Pacific across North and South (2021). Elijah Greenstein is a historian of modern Japan with interests in maritime, spatial, and transportation history. He received his PhD in East Asian studies from Princeton University in 2019, and he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Program on US-Japan Relations at Harvard University from 2019 to 2020. He is currently a Sessional Lecturer in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia. Yoshitaka Hibi is Professor of Modern Japanese Literat ure and Culture at the Graduate School of Humanities, Nagoya University. His research interests include Japanese immigrant literat ure in North America, print cultural history, the I-novel, and romans à clef. He is author of “Japanophone Poems in Motion: Languagescapes of Itō Hiromi and Tian Yuan,” in Subjekt und Liminalität in der Gegenwartsliteratur (2020); “Inheriting Books: Overseas Bookstores, Distributors, and Their Networks,” in PAJLS (2019); and Japanīzu amerika: Imin-bungaku, shuppan-bunka, shūyōjo (2014). He has also written many articles on modern Japanese print culture before World War II and modern Japanese literat ure. Pedro Iacobelli is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Institute of History at Universidad de los Andes, Chile. He received his MA and PhD from the Australian National University and previously worked in the Center for Asian Studies at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. He is the author of Postwar Japanese Emigration to South America from Japan and the Ryukyu Islands (2017) and coeditor of Transnational Japan as History: Empire, Migration, and Social Movements (2016) and Rethinking Postwar Okinawa: Beyond American Occupation (2017).
Contributors
297
Seth Jacobowitz is Assistant Professor of Japanese in the Department of World Languages and Literat ures at Texas State University. He is author of Writing Technology in Meiji Japan: A Media History of Modern Japanese Liter ature and Visual Culture (2016), which was awarded the ICAS Book Prize in the Humanities in 2017. He is also the translator of the Edogawa Rampo Reader (2008) and Fernando Morais’s Dirty Hearts: The History of Shindō Renmei (2021). He is currently working on his next research monograph, Japa nese Brazil: Immigrant Literature and Overseas Expansion, 1908–1945, under advanced contract with Vanderbilt University Press. Ignacio López-Calvo is Presidential Chair in the Humanities, Director of the Center for the Humanities, and Professor of Literat ure at the University of California, Merced. He is the author of more than one hundred articles and book chapters, as well as nine single-authored books and seventeen essay collections. His latest books are The Mexican Transpacific: Nikkei Writing, Visual Arts, Performance (forthcoming), Saudades of Japan and Brazil: Contested Modernities in Lusophone Nikkei Cultural Production, Dragons in the Land of the Condor: Tusán Literature and Knowledge in Peru, and The Affinity of the Eye: Writing Nikkei in Peru. Sidney Xu Lu is Annette and Hugh Gragg Associate Professor of Transnational Asian Studies at Rice University. He is a social and cultural historian of nineteenth-and twentieth-century Japan and is author of The Making of Japanese Settler Colonialism: Malthusianism and Trans-Pacific Migration, published by Cambridge University Press in 2019. He is completing a new book, Great Convergence: Japanese Brazilian Migration in the Age of Empires, which discusses how the evolution of Japanese communities in Brazil influenced and transformed Japanese colonialism in Asia. Hiromi Mizuno is an intellectual and cultural historian, interested in t hings that move—capital, people, stuff, technologies, and so forth. In Science for the Empire: Scientific Nationalism in Modern Japan (2001) and Engineering Asia (2018), she explored the significance of the “Scientific Japan” slogan in the Japanese empire and postwar Asia. Her current projects include a book on agricultural modernization and how nitrogen circulated in twentieth- century Asia. She is Associate Professor of History at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
298 Contributors
Ayumi Takenaka is Associate Professor of Sociology in the College of Global Liberal Arts, Ritsumeikan University in Japan. She previously taught in the US and the UK. Her primary areas of research interest are in cross-national movements of people, goods, and food. She is currently conducting research on the evolution of culinary culture among Japanese immigrants and their descendants across the Americas.
Index
Page numbers in boldface type refer to figures and tables. Act No. 7505 (Peru, 1932), 19 Act to Restrict the Immigration of Aliens by Two Percent (Brazil, 1935), 19 Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs, 67 agriculture: coffee production, 19, 135, 145, 146, 147, 151–153, 156, 162; in Dominican Republic, 231–235, 238–240; in Manchuria, 229–230; migrant labor as essential to, 18–19; rice production, 148–149, 156–157, 234; sugar production, 19, 112, 132. See also cotton textile industry; farmer-centered migration; landownership; trade and trade networks Alberdi, Juan Bautista, 208 Alger, Horatio, Jr., 181 Aliança Colony, 72–76, 86, 156 Aliansa jihō (newspaper), 196 Alien Land Laws (1913, 1920), 108, 111 Allemart Oliva, Luis Santiago, 133 Amadeo, Tomás, 214, 215 Amazonia Industrial Company (Amazonia Sangyō Kabushiki Gaisha), 86–87 American Anti-War Treaty of NonAggression and Conciliation (1935), 220 American Booksellers Union of Japan, 194, 195 Amorim, Vicente, 260
Ando Kiyoshi, 198 Anti-Asian Association (Peru), 128 anti-Japanese sentiment: in Brazil, 19, 87, 89n10, 164, 255–256; and business restrictions, 137–138; in Dominican Republic, 236; and immigration restrictions/exclusions, 17, 19, 67, 71, 86, 89n10, 99, 110, 117, 137–138, 161–162, 163–164, 168, 212–213, 219; and landownership restrictions, 108, 111, 116–117, 124n68; in Latin America, overview, 19; in Peru, 19, 128, 137–139; and sovereignty concerns, 31; in United States, 2, 17, 67, 71, 99, 108, 116–117, 219 Aoyagi Ikutaro, 155 APJ (Chūō Nihonjin kai; Japanese Peruvian Association), 129–130, 140 Argentina: earliest Japanese migrants in, 199, 210; immigration policy, 212–213; Japanese bookstores in, 199–204; Japanese culture as compatible with, 214–218; nationalism, 217–221; neutrality during World War II, 222, 226n70; postwar Japanese migration to, 227, 244; white nation ideology, 212–213, 217, 218, 219, 225n55 Aruzenchin jihō (newspaper), 200–202, 204, 207n39, 216–217, 221, 225n42 Aruzenchin Jihō Company, 200
299
300 Index Asahi shinbun (newspaper), 55–56 Asano Sōichirō, 44, 115, 116, 124n62 assimilation, 138, 139, 254, 256, 260 Associação Nipo-Brasileira (JapanBrazil Association, or Nippaku Kyōkai), 78 Bastos Colony, 76, 156 Beals, Carleton, 137 Benrisha, 207n33 book distribution networks: in the Americas, overview, 193–196; bookstores in Argentina, 199–204; bookstores in Brazil, 196–199; impact on Japanese immigrant culture, 191–192, 204–206 Brazil: Aliança model of migration to, 72–76; anti-Japanese sentiment in, 19, 87, 89n10, 164, 255–256; coffee production in, 19, 135, 145, 146, 147, 151–153, 156, 162; cotton production in, 28–29, 78, 86, 134–135; earliest Japanese migrants in, 38, 94, 145, 170, 196; golden era of Japanese migration to (1921–1934), 17–18, 63, 65–66, 82, 83, 86, 163; identitarian evolution of Nikkei community in, 254–255, 267–268; immigration policy, 86, 89n10, 117, 160, 161–162, 163–164; Japanese associations in, 130; Japanese bookstores in, 196–199; Kaikō model of migration to, overview, 69–71, 145–147; Kaikō promotion of agricultural potential in, 148–150; Kaikō promotion of independent farming in, 69, 146, 152, 153–159; Kaikō promotion of modernization of, 160–161, 162; Kasato Maru iconography in, 185–186, 187; labor unions in, 29–30; Nantaku model of migration to, 76–80, 80, 81; naturalization and citizenship, 131; postwar Japanese migration to, 227, 229, 242–243, 244; remigrants from Southern California, 119n3; shipping networks, 41, 46–49, 47, 50; sovereignty concerns, 31; subsidies for Japanese migration to, 71, 79 Braziru jihō (newspaper), 196, 197
Britain: colonization, 30; cotton industry, 4, 28, 132, 134; emigration programs, 140–141; in League of Nations, 66; shipping networks, 40–41, 50, 51 Bunka (Culture; magazine), 192, 198–199, 205 Burajiru (Brazil; journal), 72, 78, 173, 254 Burajiru Takushoku Kumiai, or Burataku (Brazilian Colonization Company Limited), 76, 152 burakumin (people of the hamlets), 23–24, 26–27, 34n19, 184 Burakumin Liberation Movement, 183 Burakumin’s National Levelers Association, 24 Bureau of Social Affairs (Shakai Kyoku), 26, 70, 71. See also Ministry of Colonial Affairs Burroughs, Edgar Rice, Tarzan of the Apes, 190n39 business elites: cotton industry ventures in South America, 134–136; cotton industry ventures in US-Mexican borderlands, 111–117, 113, 124n62; mercantile ventures in US-Mexican borderlands, 105; migration programs in Brazil, 76–82. See also Shinya Yoshio California: border crossing into, 99–102, 104, 120–121n29, 121n35; earliest Japanese migrants in, 94, 96, 98–99; Japanese bookstores in, 194; Japanese consulates and associations in, 110–111, 130; landownership legislation, 108, 111. See also US-Mexican borderlands Canada, 11, 40, 96, 170, 193 Caribbean. See Dominican Republic El Caribe (newspaper), 233 Casal, Pedro, 223n12 Cassani, Juan Emilio, 221 Castro, Fidel, 235 Center for International Cultural Relations (Kokusai Bunka Shinkōkai, KBS), 209, 216, 217, 219, 220 Central America. See Dominican Republic
Index 301 Central Association for Japan-Brazil Trade Associations, 30 Central Japanese Association (Chūō Nihonjin kai; Japanese Peruvian Association, APJ), 129–130, 140 Central Review (Chūō kōron; magazine), 174, 196 Chile, 40–41 China: Japanese occupation of (1937), 53; Sino-Japanese wars, 38, 87, 219; trade and shipping networks, 41, 44, 54, 67, 242; wars with Japan, 38, 87. See also Manchuria; Taiwan Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 103 Chinese immigrants, 41, 103, 120n24, 123n54, 124n68, 128 Chūō kōron (Central Review; magazine), 174, 196 citizenship, Japanese, 30–31, 131 civilizational narrative, 85, 149, 176, 217–221, 256, 259 class struggles. See rural poor and working class coal miners, 23–24, 27 coffee industry, 19, 135, 145, 146, 147, 151–153, 156, 162 The Colonial Review (Shokumin; journal), 72, 173, 254 Colonization World (Shokumin sekai; journal): expansionist editorial tone in first issue, 175–179; layout and front covers, 174–175; as precedent-setting in publishing settler colonist fiction, 169, 171, 173, 185, 187–188, 254; “South America Bound” publication, 168, 169, 170, 184–185 Colorado River Land Company (CRLC), 109, 114–117, 122n37, 124n62 commerce. See trade and trade networks communism, 22, 24–25 Compañia Sud Americana de Vapores (Chile), 40–41 Conference for Overseas Colonial Migration (Kaigai Shokumin Taikai), 84 Corações sujos (film), 260 COTIA Trade Union, 29–30
cotton textile industry: Japan’s growth as rival in, 4, 28, 133, 137; and landownership ventures in US-Mexican borderlands, 109, 114–117, 124n62; Latin America as alternative supplier for Japanese raw material, 28–29, 78, 86, 134; in Peru, 29, 132–133, 134, 135–137; restrictions on Japanese imports, 134, 137; shipping networks, 50–51, 86, 114; and unionization, 29–30 CRLC (Colorado River Land Company), 109, 114–117, 122n37, 124n62 culture: and assimilation, 138, 139, 254, 256, 260; Japanese, as compatible with Argentina, 214–217; Japanese, as contribution to Argentine nation building, 217–221; Japanese, maintained in host countries, 95, 157–158, 191–192. See also book distribution networks; language barriers; Nikkei literature; racial and ethnic discourses; settler colonist fiction Dan Takuma, 24 Despradel, Alberto, 238, 241 Dezem, Rogério, 167n43 diaries, and bookstores, 203, 205 Domecq García, Manuel, 214, 215, 223n12 Dominica Japanese Federation, 237 Dominican Agrarian Institute, 237 Dominican Republic: agricultural challenges for Japanese migrants, 234–235; anti-Japanese sentiment in, 236; arrival of first Japanese migrants, 232–233; economic development program under Trujillo, 230–232; economic sanctions against, 235; and Japanese economic diplomacy, 243–246; Japanese migrants as repatriates from Manchuria, 229, 230, 246; Japanese migration program as failure, 227–228, 237–241, 247; repatriation of Japanese migrants, 236–237, 248n31 Duncan Fox & Co., 132, 138
302 Index East Asia. See specific countries and regions economy: in Dominican Republic, under Trujillo, 230–232; entwined ethnic economies in US-Mexican borderlands, 109–110; and Great Depression, 19, 51, 129, 230; of Japanese post-imperial government, 242–247; OAS economic sanctions, 235; and overpopulation, 21, 148–149; transborder business opportunities, 105. See also agriculture; shipping networks; subsidies and financial aid; trade and trade networks education. See schools 80% Law (Peru, 1932), 137 emigration policy and management: Aliança model, 72–76; consulates and associations, 110–111, 129–132; double commodity concept, 28, 35n42; downstream pattern, 20–21, 33; establishment of Ministry of Colonial Affairs, 82–84; government subsidies, 21, 25–27, 70–71, 72–74, 82–83, 87; Kaikō model, 69–71; Latin America as alternative to Anglophone America and Asia, 2–3, 4, 40, 107, 176–177; migrant/ colonist distinction, 153; models, overview, 68–69; Nantaku model, 76–80, 80, 81; postwar, 32–33, 227–228, 237–241, 247; as solution to overpopulation, 21–22, 70, 77–78, 97, 148–149, 168, 176, 228, 241, 253, 265; as solution to sociopolitical instability and protests, 22, 23–25, 27, 69–70, 148, 253; transnational statehood approach, 28–32; welfare and relief framing, 21, 26–28, 71; western Japan as target of, 22, 25–26. See also specific migration companies Endō, Tsunesaburō, 197 Endoh, Toake, 64, 146, 253 Endō Shōten, 192, 194, 197–199, 205 Enomoto Takeaki, 1, 182 ethnicity. See culture; racial and ethnic discourses European immigrants, 3, 18, 71, 128, 138, 160, 213, 219, 232
expatriation and repatriation, 20, 30–31, 131, 229, 230, 234, 236–237 Export Subsidy Law (Japan, 1930), 134 family-centered migration: emphasized by Japanese government, 20; in Kaikō promotional materials, 150, 157–158 family values, 220, 225n52 farmer-centered migration: in Aliança model of migration, 72–74; in Kaiko model of migration, 146–147, 151–159 fiction. See Nikkei literature; settler colonist fiction financial aid. See subsidies and financial aid French colonies, 193, 231 frontier and pioneer ideology, 2, 93, 96–98, 102, 123n56, 263 Fukuoka prefecture, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 Funada-Classen, Sayaka, 258, 259 funding. See subsidies and financial aid Furness Withy (Britain), 51 Furuya Bōeki Gaisha, 194 Gendai (magazine), 197, 201, 203 Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907–1908), 99, 107, 110, 168, 170, 176, 216 German Micronesia, 66, 67, 77 Gō Ryūsaburō, 115–116, 124n58 Gotō Shinpei, 131, 177, 178 government. See Japanese imperial government; Japanese post-imperial government; Japanese prefectural government; legislation; politics Great Depression, 19, 51, 129, 230 Great Kantō Earthquake (1923), 21, 71 Haiti, 231, 232 Hashimoto Umetarō, 115–116, 117, 123n56, 124n62 Hattori Toyosaburō, 201, 202 Hawai‘i: earliest Japanese migrants in, 17, 26, 33n1, 94, 96, 97; Japanese bookstores in, 193 Hiroshima prefecture, 22, 23, 27 La Hoja Amarilla (newspaper), 128 Hokkaido Daily (newspaper), 229
Index 303 Horiguchi Kuma’ichi, 211, 216 Horiuchi Shinsen, 181; “South America Bound” (“Nanbei yuki”), 168–169, 170–171, 184–185, 186; “The Torch” (“Aohi”), 186 Horizon (magazine), 198 Ie no hikari (magazine), 72 Iguape Colony, 69, 146, 152, 153, 154, 155–159 Immigration Act (US, 1924), 2, 17, 71, 117 Immigration and Business Restrictions Law (Peru, 1936), 137 Immigration and Colonization Law (Argentina, 1876), 212–213 imperialism. See Japanese colonial empire; Japanese imperial government; Japanese imperial ideologies Inagaki Manjirō, 3 indentured labor, 128 Indian (Asian) immigrants, 120n24, 124n68, 128 Inoue, Ryoki, Saga: overview, 252; on racism against Brazilians, 262; on racism against Okinawans, 254 Inoue Masaji, 80–82, 84 Instituto Cultural Argentino Japonés (Argentine-Japanese Cultural Institute), 208–209, 214–216, 220, 221–222 Ishikawa Tatsuzō, 69, 90n20; Sōbō, 51, 63, 87, 188 Ishizaka Yojiro, Wakai hito, 198 ishokumin concept (colonial-migration), 97–98 Izumi Sei’ichi, 5 Japanese Association of Huaral, 133 Japanese-Brazilian Cotton Co., 135 Japanese colonial empire: expansion into Latin America, contextual overview, 2–5; expansion into Latin America, scholarship on, 2, 5–7, 64, 172–173; peaceful expansion ethos, 66–67, 176, 179; total empire concept, 65. See also Japanese imperial government; Japanese imperial ideologies
Japanese imperial government: failure of Dominican program, 227–228, 237–241; and Latin American sovereignty, 30–32; migration state concept, 68, 88; passport regulations, 99, 101, 110; paternalistic outreach, 28–31; resistance to anti-Japanese discrimination, 19–20, 138–139; subsidization of emigration programs, 21, 25–27, 70–71, 82–83, 87; subsidization of shipping and shipbuilding, 38, 40, 42, 44, 45, 50, 54, 55; subsidization of trade and industrial development, 134, 136. See also emigration policy and management; Japanese imperial ideologies; shipping networks; specific departments and organizations Japanese imperial ideologies: adaptive settler colonialism concept, 263–264; civilizational narrative, 85, 149, 176, 217–221, 256, 259; double commodity concept, 28, 35n42; hakkō ichiu concept, 256; nationalism and patriotism discourse, 98, 102, 131, 171, 178, 258, 260–263; overpopulation discourse, 21–22, 70, 77–78, 97, 148–149, 168, 176, 228, 241, 253, 265; overseas development discourse, 64, 66–67, 95, 96–98, 102, 130, 149, 252 Japanese Industrial Society, 133 Japanese military: deployed against labor protesters, 23–24; former soldiers as immigrants in Latin America, 240, 252; support of migration campaigns to Asia, 85, 88 Japanese-Peruvian Commerce Treaty (Peru, 1928), 137 Japanese post-imperial government: economic concerns, 242–247; failure of Dominican program, 227–228, 237–241, 247; and overpopulation discourse, 241, 265–266 Japanese prefectural government, 25–26, 72–74 Japanese Striving Society (Nippon Rikkō Kai), 72, 87, 254
304 Index Kagawa Toyohiko, Daisan kisou no ue ni, 203 Kaigai (The Overseas Journal; journal), 72, 173, 254 Kaigai ijū (journal), 229 Kaigai Ijū Kumiai Hō (Overseas Migration Cooperative Societies Law), 74 Kaigai Ijū Kumiai Rengōkai (Federation of Overseas Migration Cooperative Societies), 74, 80–82, 83, 87 Kaigai ijū shinkō kabushiki gaisha (Overseas Emigration Promotion Company), 229, 244, 245 Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Gaisha, or Kaikō (Overseas Development Company): campaigns in Asia, 87; cotton production investment, 29, 135; early promotional materials, 147–150; establishment and purpose, 68, 69–70, 145–147; government subsidies, 25, 70–71, 83; interpretation of Brazil’s immigration history and policy, 160, 163–164; promotion of Brazil’s modernization, 160–161, 162; promotion of economic mobility through coffee plantation labor, 151–153; promotion of independentfarming ideal and Iguape Colony, 69, 146, 152, 153–159; sponsorship of NBIC venture, 113; targeting rural population for emigration, 25, 148–149 Kaigai kyōkai rengōkai, or Kaikyōren (Federation of Japan Overseas Associations), 229, 236, 238–240, 246 Kaigai no Nippon (Overseas Japan; journal), 173 kaitaku, as concept, 228, 230, 244, 246 Kaiun Kokusaku (National Shipping Policy; 1937), 54, 55 Kanebo Textile Company, 78, 79, 82 Karatsu shinpō (newspaper), 212 Kasato Maru (ship), 38, 40, 47, 48–49, 65, 170, 185–186, 187, 196 Kashū mainichi (newspaper), 122n41 Kawasaki Steamship Company (Kawasaki Kisen Kabushiki Gaisha), 54–55, 57, 58, 61n75
KBS (Kokusai Bunka Shinkōkai; Center for International Cultural Relations), 209, 216, 217, 219, 220 Kodomo no sono (magazine), 196 Kodo Remmei (Federation of Imperial Doctrine), 131 Koizumi Jun’ichirō, 238 Kōkoku Imin Gaisha (Imperial Emigration Company), 47 Kokumin shinbun (newspaper), 211, 212, 224n22 Kokuritsu Kaigai Imin Shuyōjo (National Kaigai Emigrant Camp), 69 Kokuritsu Kobe Imin Shūyōjo (National Kobe Emigrant Camp), 82 Kokuryūkai (Amur River / Black Dragon Society), 121n29 Kokusai Bunka Shinkōkai (KBS, Center for International Cultural Relations), 209, 216, 217, 219, 220 Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste, 225n55 landownership: in Aliança model of migration, 73–74, 76, 90n41; antiJapanese legislation on, 108; in Dominican program, 229, 233, 234, 235, 236, 238; and Japanese cotton industry ventures in Latin America, 109, 114–117, 124n62, 132–133, 135; in Kaiko model of migration, 146–147, 151–159; Mexican legislation on, 122n36; in Nantaku model of migration, 76, 78, 79; in NBIC colony attempt, 111–113, 113; and poverty in western Japan, 21, 22; and sovereignty concerns in Latin America, 31–32 language barriers: and book distribution networks, 191–192; and Japaneselanguage schools, 87, 131, 157–158, 159, 165; learning host country language, 6, 97, 160–161, 191, 200; legislation against Japanese language in host countries, 87, 256 Latin America: Japanese migration to, contextual overview, 2–5; Japanese migration to, growth and challenges, 17–21, 18; Japanese migration to,
Index 305 scholarship on, 2, 5–7, 64, 172–173; sovereignty concerns, 30–32. See also specific countries League of Nations, 66, 214, 220 Lee, Catherine, 189n1 legislation: business restrictions, 137–138; immigration restrictions/exclusions, 17, 19, 67, 71, 86, 89n10, 99, 110, 117, 137–138, 161–162, 163–164, 168, 212–213, 219; landownership restrictions, 108, 111, 116–117, 121n35, 124n68; on nationality, 30–31; on political radicalization, suppression of, 24; on prefectural migration cooperative societies, 74; on racial improvement, 128, 212–213; on shipping subsidization, 38; trade restrictions, 67, 134, 137, 138 Leguía, Augusto B., 19 Liberal Party (Jiyūtō), 96 Libreria Oriental (Orientaru Shoten), 201–202 magazines and newspapers: emigration promotion in, overview, 72; major titles in Argentina, 201, 203; major titles in Brazil, 196–197; pro-Japanese propaganda in, 216–217; in USMexican borderlands, 122n41. See also book distribution networks; settler colonist fiction Malthusian expansionism, 27, 49, 97, 168, 228, 265–266. See also overpopulation discourse Manchuria: Japanese bookstores in, 193; Japanese invasion of (1931), 53, 85, 214; migration campaigns in, 30, 67, 85–86, 87, 93, 98, 229–230; repatriation of Japanese migrants from, 229, 230, 246 Mantetsu (Southern Manchuria Railway Company), 83 Matsuura Trading Company (Matsuura Bōeki-ten), 211 Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), 107 Mexico: border crossing through, 99–105, 100–101, 104, 120–121n29, 120nn23– 24, 121n35; immigration restrictions,
117; landownership in, 122n36, 124n68; pro-immigration policy of postrevolutionary, 109; promoted as ideal emigration location, 26; shipping networks, 42–45. See also US-Mexican borderlands migration companies. See specific companies migration state, as concept, 68, 88 military. See Japanese military Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, 229, 230, 246 Ministry of Colonial Affairs (Takumu-shō), 22, 71, 82–84, 85, 271n33 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 228, 236–237, 238–241, 242, 243–246, 247 Mishima Sōsen, “One House” (“Ikkenya”), 186 Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, 52, 55 Mitsukoshi Department Store, Kobe, 78 Miyasaka Kunihito, 36n63 Miyazawa, Júlio, Yawara! A travessia Nihondin-Brasil, 261, 266 Morais, Fernando, Corações sujos: A historia da Shindo Renmei, 260, 261 Morioka Emigration Company (Morioka Imin Gaisha), 70, 130, 135 Nanbei Takushoku Kabushiki Gaisha, or Nantaku (South America Colonization Company Limited), 25, 76–80, 80, 81, 83 Naomichi Ōishi, Nikutai no ikusa, 204 nationalism and patriotism: in Argentina, 217–221; in Japanese imperial ideology, 98, 102, 131, 171, 178, 258, 260–263; in Peru, 129; of Shindō Renmei, 131, 250–251, 260–263 nationality, Japanese, 30–31, 131 National Shipping Policy (Kaiun Kokusaku; 1937), 54, 55 NBIC (Nichi-Boku Industrial Corporation), 111–113, 113 Nemoto Tadashi, 1 newspapers. See magazines and newspapers New Youth (Shin seinen; journal), 172
306 Index Nichi-Boku Industrial Corporation (NBIC), 111–113, 113 Nichihaku shinbun (newspaper), 196 Nihon Imin Kyōkai (Japan Emigration Association), 21 Nihon Shuppan Bōeki Co., Ltd., 192, 195 Nikkeijin, 5–6 Nikkei literature: absence of postwar neocolonialism theme, 266–267; and identitarian evolution of Brazilian Nikkei community, 254–255, 267–268; theme of imperialistic fanaticism, 260–262, 263, 264–265; theme of resentment against Japanese government, 257–260, 261, 262–263 Nippai Gaisha, 194 Nippaku shinbun (newspaper), 197 Nippon Rikkō Kai (Japanese Striving Society), 72, 87, 254 Nippon Yūsen Kabushiki Gaisha (NYK), 38, 41, 46, 48, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, 58 North-human-South material discourse (hokujin nanbutsu ron), 77 NYK (Nippon Yūsen Kabushiki Gaisha), 38, 41, 46, 48, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, 58 Ogouchi Gokyō, Colonization King: A Novel of Success (Shokumin-ō: Risshi Shōsetsu), 180, 180–181 Okada, Ikumatsu (Nikumatsu), 133, 135, 136, 139 Organization of American States (OAS), 235 Orientaru Shoten (Libreria Oriental), 201–202 Ōsaka Shōsen Kabushiki Gaisha (OSK), 38, 48, 49, 50–51, 52–53, 53, 54, 55–57, 58 Ōshima Magoshirō, 245 Ōshiro Masao, 204 Ōshiro Shoten (Tairyudō), 204 OSK (Ōsaka Shōsen Kabushiki Gaisha), 38, 48, 49, 50–51, 52–53, 53, 54, 55–57, 58 overpopulation discourse, 21–22, 70, 77–78, 97, 148–149, 168, 176, 228, 241, 253, 265
Overseas Development Company. See Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Gaisha, or Kaikō Overseas Emigration Association (OEA), 25, 26 Pacific Steam Navigation Company (Britain), 40–41 Pacific War. See World War II Panama Canal, 43, 45, 49, 50–51, 57, 114–115 Panama Maru (ship), 50 Paraguay, 227, 229, 244 passport regulations, 99, 101, 110 Peru: anti-Japanese sentiment in, 19, 128, 137–139; and border crossing by Japanese contract laborers, 101, 103; cotton production in, 29, 132–133, 134, 135–137; earliest Japanese migrants in, 17, 38, 127–128, 170; Japanese associations in, 129–132; Japanese community (Nikkei) in modern-day, 139–140; limits on Japanese migration to, 117; nationalism in, 129; promoted as ideal emigration location, 26; shipping networks, 41; sovereignty concerns, 31; sugar production in, 19, 132 Peruvian Cotton Company, 135 Philippines, 54, 70, 87, 193, 242, 245 pioneer and frontier ideology, 2, 93, 96–98, 102, 123n56, 263 La Plata Hōchi (newspaper), 222, 224n22 La Plata Maru (ship), 52, 63 politics: early Japanese migrants as political activists, 96–97; radicalization, 22, 23–25, 70, 131, 250–251, 260–263; sociopolitical unrest in western Japan, 22, 23–25, 27, 69–70, 148, 253. See also Japanese imperial government; Japanese post-imperial government; Japanese prefectural government; legislation poverty. See rural poor and working class prefectural government, Japanese, 25–26, 72–74
Index 307 racial and ethnic discourses: Argentine white nation ideology, 212–213, 217, 218, 219, 225n55; assimilation concerns, 138, 139, 254, 256, 260; caricatures of Africans, 190n39; civilizational narrative, 85, 149, 176, 217–221, 256, 259; in Dominican-Haitian conflict, 231; ethnic studies scholarship, 5–6; Japanese characterization of Brazilians, 85, 262; Japanese characterization of Mexican, 112; on Japanese presence in Latin America, overview, 4–5; Okinawans discriminated against, 22, 254, 256, 262–263; racial improvement legislation, 128, 212–213. See also anti-Japanese sentiment; culture radicalization, political, 22, 23–25, 70, 131, 250–251, 260–263 repatriation and expatriation, 20, 30–31, 131, 229, 230, 234, 236–237 rice production, 148–149, 156–157, 234 Rikkōkai, 173 Rio Cape Line (Britain), 51 risshi shōsetsu (novels of success), 169, 180 rural poor and working class: and overpopulation discourse, 21, 148–149; and primogeniture system, 21, 34n11, 184; sociopolitical unrest in western Japan, 23–25, 27, 69–70, 148, 253; as target of imperial emigration policy, 22, 25–26; welfare and relief programs from imperial government, 21, 26–28, 71 Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), 38, 40, 212, 252, 255 Saga prefecture, 22 Saitō Hiroshi, 5 Saneatsu Mushanokōji, Saigō Takamoriden, 207n39 schools: colonization studies in Japanese universities, 177, 178; Japanese educational system as model for Argentina, 221; Japanese-language, 87, 131, 157–158, 159, 165; and learning host country language, 6, 97, 160–161, 191, 200
Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), 87, 219 Seikō Zasshi Sha, 168, 173, 175, 181 Seishu shimpō (newspaper), 196 Setō Tatsuhiko, 240 settler colonist fiction: elevated status in Ishikawa’s Sōbō, 188; as genre, 168–169, 171, 186–187; literary precedents, 180–184; rise in popularity, 171–172; South America focus, 184–185, 186; state patronization of, 178. See also Nikkei literature settlers, as term, 10 Shakai Kyoku (Bureau of Social Affairs), 26, 70, 71. See also Ministry of Colonial Affairs Shakaishugi (Socialism; magazine), 179 Shiga Shigetaka, Nan’yō Jiji, 1–2 Shigen Kyoku (Bureau of Resources), 77 Shikiba Ryūzaburō, Hitozuma no kyōyō, 204 Shimazaki Tōson, 216; The Broken Commandment (Hakai), 182–184 Shinano Overseas Association (Shinano Kaigai Kyōkai), 73, 74, 90n40 Shindō Renmei (Way of the Subjects of the Emperor’s League), 131, 250–251, 260–263 Shin seinen (New Youth; journal), 172 Shintani Kusujirō, 109 Shinya, Violeta, 216, 224n15 Shinya and Company (Shinya y Compañía), 211 Shinya Yoshio: early career, 210–213; family, 211, 223n11, 224n15; ideological views, overview, 208–210; Japanese imperial ideologies translated into Argentine nationalism, 217–222; leadership in cultural diplomacy, 214–217; Empire of the Rising Sun: Its Extraordinary Modern Evolution, 218; The Truth on the Manchurian Incident, 214 shipbuilding industry: British dominance, 40; government subsidies, 54, 55; labor strikes, 27; technological advances, 52–53, 55
308 Index shipping networks: competitive conditions, 40–41, 51–52; East Coast route, extension of, 45–49; global scope of, 37–38, 44–45, 49, 51; government subsidies, 38, 40, 42, 44, 45, 46, 50; oceanic domination discourse, 55–56; reopening after World War II, 57–58; reorganization after World War I, 50–53, 53; reorganization and expansion after Great Depression, 53–55; routes to Latin America, overview, 39, 40, 58n5; value of Japan-Latin America trade, 42, 48; West Coast route, extension of, 41–45 Shōgaku ichinensei (magazine), 203 Shōjo kurabu (magazine), 196, 201 Shokumin (The Colonial Review; journal), 72, 173, 254 Shokumin Dōshikai (Colonial Migration Association), 84 Shokumin Kyōkai (Colonial Association), 1 Shokumin seka. See Colonization World Shōnen kurabu (Young Men’s Club; magazine), 190n39, 196, 201 Shufu no tomo (magazine), 196 Sieria, 176–177 Singapore, 48, 49, 51, 255 Sino-Japanese War, First (1894–1895), 38 Sino-Japanese War, Second (1937–1945), 87, 219 Sinya Yoshio, 199 slave labor, 18, 128 Socialism (Shakaishugi; magazine), 179 Society for Politics and Education (Seikyōsha), 96 sociopolitical unrest, 22, 23–25, 27, 69–70, 148, 253 South America. See Latin America; specific countries South America Colonization Company Limited (Nanbei Takushoku Kabushiki Gaisha, or Nantaku), 25, 76–80, 80, 81, 83 Southeast Asia. See specific countries and regions
Southern Manchuria Railway Company (Mantetsu), 83 Southern Sakhalin, 93, 193 South Seas region (Nan’yō), 1, 49, 77, 93, 168, 193 South Seas Society, 115–116 sovereignty, and Japan’s transnational statehood, 30–32 subsidies and financial aid: for emigration programs, 21, 25–27, 70–71, 72–74, 82–83, 87; from host governments, 71, 79, 232–233, 235, 236; relief programs, 21, 71; for shipping and shipbuilding, 38, 40, 42, 44, 45, 50, 54, 55; for trade and industrial development, 134, 136 Success (journal), 173 sugar industry, 19, 112, 132 The Sun (Taiyō; magazine), 174 Tagawa Suiho, New Year’s in the Tropics (Nanyō no oshōgatsu), 190n39 Tairyudō (Ōshiro Shoten), 204 Taiwan, 26, 30, 93, 98, 207n34, 243 Taiwan nichinichi shinbun (newspaper), 207n34 Taiwan Seitō (Sugar Production) Company, 112 Taiyō (The Sun; magazine), 174 Takekoshi Yosaburō, 177–178; Japanese Rule in Formosa, 177; Nangoku-ki, 177 Takumu Jihō (Colonial Ministry newsletter), 29 Takumū Shō (Ministry of Colonial Affairs), 22, 71, 82–84, 85, 271n33 Tanaka Gi’ichi, 24, 79 Tehuantepec National Railway, 43–44, 45 Teikoku Keizai Kaigi (Imperial Conference on Economy), 71 Terashima Shigenobu, 49 Texas, 183–184, 190n30 textile industry. See cotton textile industry Thailand, 193, 242 Tietê Colony, 76 TKK (Tōyō Kisen Kabushiki Gaisha), 38–40, 41–45, 46, 50, 51–52 Tokutomi Sohō, 224n22 Tokyo Club, 120–121n29
Index 309 Tokyo Nichinichi News Agency, 84 Toriumi Chujirō, 199 Tōtaku (Oriental Development Company), 83 total empire, as concept, 65 Tottori Overseas Association (Tottori Kaigai Kyōkai), 74 Tōyama Mitsuru, 26 Toyama Overseas Association (Toyama Kaigai Kyōkai), 74 Tōyō Kisen Kabushiki Gaisha (Oriental Steamship Company), 9 Tōyō Kisen Kabushiki Gaisha (TKK), 38–40, 41–45, 46, 50, 51–52 Toyo Menka of Mitsui Bussan, 135 trade and trade networks: fishing industry, 245; natural resource extraction, 76–79; railways, 43–44, 45; restrictions, 67, 134, 137, 138; and war reparations, 242, 245; wartime, 4, 46, 48, 50, 57. See also agriculture; cotton textile industry; shipping networks transborder migrants: culture of defiance as border crossers, 99–105, 104, 120–121n29, 120nn23–24, 121n35; fluid boundaries of ethnic community, 109–111; southward remigration, 107–109, 111, 119n3; unique experience of, overview, 95–96 transportation networks. See shipping networks Tres Barras Colony, 76 Trujillo Molina, Rafael, 230–233, 235–236, 240, 241, 245 Tsuda, Takeyuki, 14n24 Uchida Kakichi, 44–45 Uchida Rōan, “Year’s End” (“Kure no nijūhachi nichi”), 182 Umetani Mitsusada, 75, 76, 85 unionization, 24, 29–30 United States: anti-Chinese sentiment in, 103; anti-Japanese sentiment in, 2, 17, 67, 71, 99, 108, 116–117, 219; cotton industry, 28, 50–51, 109, 114–115, 132, 134; immigration policy, 2, 17, 67, 71, 99, 103, 110, 117, 168, 170, 176, 219;
Japanese bookstores in, 193, 194–195; Japanese migration to, 17, 96–97, 183–184, 190n30; and new world order, 66; shipping networks, 43, 44, 46, 50–52, 54–55, 57. See also US-Mexican borderlands; specific states United States and Brazil Mail Steamship Company, 46 universities, colonization studies in, 177, 178 US-Mexican borderlands: border-crossing culture of defiance in, 99–105, 104, 120–121n29, 120nn23–24, 121n35; dynamics of, overview, 95; entwined transborder ethnic economies, 109–110; fluid Japanese jurisdictional boundaries in, 110–111; Japanese landownership ventures in, 111–117, 113; southward Japanese remigration, 107–109, 111 Valle, J. R., 211, 212 Vargas, Getúlio, 19, 20, 87, 89n10, 161–164, 256 Vila Nova Colony, 74, 76 Wada Atsuhiko, 169, 182, 197, 198 Wakamiya Sadao, 50 Wako Shungorō, 72–73, 150 Washington Post (newspaper), 45 whiteness, 212–213, 217, 218, 219, 225n55 White Preference Law (Peru, 1873), 128 Women’s Kurabu (magazine), 197 Woodard, James, 162 working class. See rural poor and working class World War I (1914–1918): new world order after, 66; trade impacted by, 46, 48, 50 World War II (1939–1945): Argentine neutrality, 222, 226n70; Japanese book distribution impacted by, 195; Japanese cultural diplomacy impacted by, 221–222; Japanese war reparations, 242, 245; Shindō Renmei denial of Japanese defeat, 131, 250–251, 260–263; trade impacted by, 4, 57 W. R. Grace & Co., 132
310 Index Yamaguchi prefecture, 22 Yamamoto, Katsuzō: “Felicidade,” 267; Toda uma vida no Brasil, 266; “Virtude que sobrevive,” 266–267 Yamamoto Gonbei, 21, 25 Yamashita, Karen T., Brazil-Maru, 265 Yamashita Steamship Company (Yamashita Kisen Kabushiki Gaisha), 54, 55, 61n75
Yamato Minzoku (Club of Men of the Same Race of Old Japan), 131 Yokohama Shōji Co., Ltd., 194, 195 Yomiuri hōchi shinbun (newspaper), 221–222 Yōnen kurabu (magazine), 201 Yoshikawa Eiji, Shinran, 203 Yoshio Natsuo, A Woman’s Feeling, 204 Yoshio Shinya, Pequeña contribution para la grandeza Argentina, 202