Interviews

1. From the "middle" Nikkei (Spanish)

2. Growing up with some Japanese families (Spanish)

3. The various realities of Nikkei in Latin America (Spanish)

4. The political effects on Nikkei during the war (Spanish)

5. Retaining Japanese customs (Spanish)

6. Advantages of being Nikkei (Spanish)

7. To be more Japanese than you really are (Spanish)

8. Nikkei vs. Nisei (Spanish)

Hirose,Roberto

(b. 1950) Nisei Chilean, Businessman

Retaining Japanese customs (Spanish)

(Spanish) In my case, the truth is that I come from a family in which mother and father are Japanese, even though my mother left there at a young age – but her parents were very strict, and they would only speak Japanese at home. So my mother speaks Japanese, and my father, of course, being Japanese, also speaks. So, when I was little we started out speaking Japanese at home. Later on when – I’m the oldest of three – when I went to school, we began turning more towards Spanish. But my father always spoke Japanese in the house. And, in my case, later on I had the opportunity to go to Japan on a monbusho scholarship for a year and a half, and there of course I took six months of Japanese. And then since returning to Chile, I’ve spent the last forty years working for Japanese companies. Possibly, I’m an exception in that regard because I have many friends in my age range who don’t speak Japanese. It’s true, they’ve kept many customs, such as eating gohan or misoshiru, but they don’t speak [the language]. Maybe in my case the path was different.

Date: October 7, 2005

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Ann Kaneko

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Roberto Hirose was born in Quillota, Chile on August 8, 1950. He spent his childhood in an agricultural environment where he met a variety of the local Japanese in Chile. He attended school in Quillota and later in Copiapó. In Copiapó, he had the opportunity to meet people from Japan who had come to the mining area of Chile for work. He studied electrical engineering at La Universidad de Chile, in Santiago (1968-1973). Subsequently, he was awarded a six month scholarship by the Ministerio de Educación de Japón to study Japanese at the University of Foreign Languages in Osaka, and research electrical engineering at the University of Hiroshima for one year. For over a decade, Roberto worked in the machinery department at Mitsui Chile Ltda. In 1986, he worked at Industrias Vinycon (as a manufacturer of industrial fishing materials). In 2002, he managed the diversification of Vinycon in northern Chile, specifically in Caldera, where he directed an agricultural center for the cultivation of abalone. In regards to Nikkei activities in Chile, Roberto actively participated in the Sociedad Japonesa de Beneficencia from 1968 to 1986. Afterwards, he became involved with the Corporación Nikkei de la Región de Valparaíso (formerly the Agrupación Nikkei de Valparaíso) of which he is still a part of today. (May 2, 2007)