As I began my research on recent Korean immigration to Peru, interviewing the first Korean families in the Lima textile neighborhood of Gamarrra and observing their dedication to work and how they managed to serve their clients with minimal use of the Spanish language, I wondered, was this what the first years of settlement of Japanese immigrants in the cities would have been like? Since then, I can't stop comparing both immigrations. In the lines that follow I will try to make some parallels, with greater emphasis on the case of the Koreans, about whom very little is still known.

First impressions about the Korean community

When asked about a special meeting place for Koreans, the majority answer was “at Sunday mass.” Thus, one Sunday, when I attended mass at the Korean Evangelical Church in Lima, I confirmed that it was held with a large influx of Korean men, women and children, since the entire family attended, all in festive clothes. Textile merchants, Taekwondo masters, community leaders and even the ambassador of the Republic of Korea in Peru were present. The ceremony was held entirely in the Korean language and with the participation of a large choir and a music band. The mass was celebrated by the Reverend Maeng Choon Park, who is the most respected person in the Korean community in Peru.

After the religious ceremony, we shared a typical Korean lunch in which their famous “Kimchi” could not be missing. Everything was very well organized, with several groups dividing up the tasks. This moment of fellowship was used to talk about the topics of greatest interest to these immigrants, such as administrative procedures to process certain documents, Peruvian legal provisions, new business opportunities in the city, in the rest of the country or other countries, the best centers educational for their children, news of new immigrants, news from Korea, etc. This is repeated every Sunday and something similar happens in the San Andrés Kim Parish of Korean Catholics in Lima, although with greater simplicity and less influx of people.

I wonder: what role does religion play among members of the Korean community and what was it among Japanese immigrants?

Religion in Korea and among Korean immigrants

Although statistics say that only a little more than half of Koreans follow a specific religion, the coexistence of multiple religions and their manifestations in today's Korea is striking.

Buddhist temples are famous and numerous, such as the beautiful Bulguksa Temple, a world heritage site. Also impressive is the large number of Christian churches in its cities and you can still find Islamic mosques in Seoul. It is said that the influence of Confucianism is present in the morals and laws of Koreans and that many of them, even though they are not Buddhists, have a Buddhist vision of life. On the other hand, the validity of magical practices and shamanism with roots in ancient popular beliefs is also notable.

But, verifying that throughout its history there are many passages of oppression and restrictions suffered by the followers of different religions, would lead us to think that there was not always such a tolerant and peaceful coexistence of the multiple religious manifestations as in the Current Korea. However, religion has never given rise to the division of the Korean people; religious persecutions have occurred due to the preferences and conveniences of the power in power. The Korean people have great ethnic and linguistic homogeneity, which has allowed them to build a solid national identity and overcome any religious differences.

Korea is the most active Christian society in East Asia. Churches have masses and prayer meetings every day and at different times. There are even Protestant churches, such as the Yeoido Gospel Church, that have online broadcasts of Sunday sermons. The Korean Catholic Church raises as one of its highest standards that Korea is the fourth country in the world in total number of saints.

About 25 percent of the Korean population is Christian, but this figure appears to increase among immigrant populations, especially in favor of Protestant churches. According to Mirta Bialogorski ¹ , “In Argentina, most of the members of the Korean community turned to one of the orientations of the evangelical religion and, in a smaller number, to Catholicism and Buddhism.” Sônia Maria de Freitas ² , writing about Koreans in the city of Sao Paulo, mentions that in that city there are 49 Protestant churches, one Catholic and a Buddhist temple, with the Korean United Presbyterian Church being the one with the largest number of Koreans.

According to the Reverend Maeng Choon Park, around half of the Korean population in Peru is Christian, with that figure being even higher among immigrant populations in Europe and the United States. He attributes this strong religiosity to the problems that uprooting, cultural shock and different languages ​​cause for immigrants. The resulting anxiety and despair increases the need to approach religion. As the reverend says, “on many occasions the life of an immigrant is very lonely and sad, a hard and sacrificed life.” And, indeed, the sacrifice of one generation is aimed at seeking the well-being and progress of the next.

The truth is that the number of Protestant churches in Korea has grown, among other reasons, because they are known as promoters of Western culture associated with modernity. Its efforts to modernize education and medical services, its function as a bridge of exchange between Korea and Western countries, and its work in social aid are notable. Apparently, these same reasons would explain the great acceptance of such churches among Koreans outside Korea.

Religion among the Nikkei ³

In 1903, with the second group of immigrants, three monks arrived in Peru with the mission of educating them in Buddhist doctrines. They were Taian Ueno from the Sotoshu school, Kakunen Matsumoto, and Senryu Kinoshita from the Jodoshu school. The last two returned to Japan a few years later, recognizing that, despite their efforts, they were never able to attract the attention of immigrants in Peru, indicating that they were only interested in work.

In 1907, Reverend Ueno, with financial help from immigrants, managed to build a Buddhist temple on the Santa Bárbara hacienda, Cañete. Known as Jionji, it was the first Japanese temple in South America. The following year he built, next to the temple, the first Japanese school. Ueno had four successors in his mission, the last of whom returned to Japan in 1941, before the start of World War II. However, throughout all that time, the immigrants' greatest interest was in funerals and ceremonies for the deceased, with minimal interest in learning Buddhist doctrines.

According to Hirohito Ota ⁴ , the suffering and high mortality rate due to the difficult working conditions among the first immigrants conditioned the mission of the Buddhist missionaries. He maintains that in the immigrants' imagination was the idea that the need for the Jionji Temple and the missionaries was due to the existence of those “first unfortunate immigrants” and that their mission was to celebrate religious ceremonies for the deceased.

The truth is that the majority of immigrants never had greater interest in listening to the teachings of the missionaries and, even, the Catholic religion was beginning to gain followers. Thus, for example, it is said that Sister Francisca Gros (of the French Congregation of Saint Vincent de Paul) baptized 1,114 Japanese between the years of 1901 to 1936, having gained their trust for her work caring for the sick at the Dos de Mayo Hospital. .

Perhaps, two of the greatest changes experienced, with the definitive settlement of Japanese immigrants and their descendants in Peru, were the loss of the mother tongue due to the use of Spanish and the massive adoption of the Catholic religion, the same one that is considered the official religion of the country. In the 1989 Nikkei census, of the total population of Japanese origin in Peru, 92.41% declared themselves Catholic. ⁵

Such changes were determined above all by the focus given to their lives after the Second World War, to facilitate a better future for their children, beginning a slow process of adaptation that in many cases would end in a total incorporation into Peruvian society.

However, as Morimoto maintains, “in approximately one third of the homes the practice of funeral customs and rituals with Buddhist-Shintoist roots continued; The combination of both religions was an index of syncretism and, at the same time, of a partial persistence of Japanese practices in the religious aspect.” ⁶

Immigration and the Korean community

Korean immigration to Peru is recent and small in number of individuals, although it is the third in number among those from Southeast Asia, after the Chinese and Japanese. Unlike the latter two, it is aimed directly at urban areas and occurs through successive arrivals of small numbers of nuclear families. At no time have massive and organized contingents been recorded.

The arrival of Koreans to Peru is not a direct product of an official immigration policy. It is a voluntary and free immigration, the result of family decisions in a desire to improve their living conditions and the future of their children. Such immigration to Peru was also facilitated by the massive access to information currently available, in a globalized world in which it is also easier and faster to move from one place to another.

A relevant characteristic of this population is that it has a high degree of mobility, with individuals and families moving from one place to another, within the city, the country and to other countries. Thus, while some are leaving, others are arriving in Peru. It is a floating population that is difficult to quantify, the number of individuals has fluctuated between 2000 and 800, depending on the economic and political moment of the country.

The majority of these immigrants come from the Korean middle class and in Peru their presence in importing, manufacturing and selling in the textile industry, as well as in automobile spare parts as importers and wholesalers, is notable. There are numerous Taekwondo academies and they also have ethnic businesses, such as restaurants and stores selling Korean products.

In addition, they maintain a school where their children attend on weekends to take classes on Korean culture and to practice the native language. To cooperate with needy sectors of the receiving society, they have formed an NGO called the Peru-Korea Friendship Humanitarian Group, which has built a polyclinic in the peasant community of Jicamarca in Lima.

Although we are talking about a process that only began in the 1990s, with a large part of the floating population and a small number of people involved, it can be said that Koreans in Peru have achieved notable economic success and have has come to form a small but thriving community whose sole governing entity is the Korean Association in Peru.

Nikkei and Koreans in Peru: Immigration and expectations

The history of Japanese immigrants and their descendants in Peru is more than a hundred years old. During the years of immigration, the general expectation was to work on cotton or sugar cane farms until they saved up and returned to Japan. However, the permanence extended and they moved to the cities where the majority – old and new immigrants – established themselves through small businesses and some larger ones until the outbreak of the Second World War.

After the war, and with the defeat of Japan, a change of expectations occurred among the Japanese who still remained in Peru. They chose, now mostly, to settle in Peru. The community began the slow work of reconstruction after having suffered persecution, deportations and confiscations during the war years. It can be said that the immigrants had already lost the dream of their triumphant return.

For the majority of members of the Korean community in Peru, their expectations are determined by what was the main reason for emigrating from their country of origin. These immigrants are seeking to raise their socioeconomic situation, almost fleeing from a highly competitive and expensive society like Korea, where the capital they have is insufficient to achieve the goals that have been projected. But at the same time, they miss their country and suffer greatly. They are almost in search of a utopia: an easier Korea that will welcome them.

The Christian churches, especially the Protestant ones, give Koreans in Peru, for a brief moment, the illusion of being in that utopian Korea, facilitating union and mutual help, as well as greater practice and preservation of their customs. in addition to an important push in the fight to achieve their expectations of achieving progress, well-being and freedom related, in their imagination, to Western culture.

In conclusion, it can be said that both immigrations – even with the temporal distance between them – had similar motivations, like the majority of contemporary immigrations in the world: to improve their living conditions, to progress. The role of religion, however, seems to have been less central in the case of the Japanese and fundamental in the case of the Koreans, both because the church is constituted as a place of community meeting to highlight its roots and because, at the same time , within his imagination, points out a north for his future.

Grades:

1. Bialogorski, Mirta. 2004. “Achievements of recent immigration” (Koreans in Argentina). In: When the East Came to America: Contributions of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Immigrants. Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank.

2. Freitas, Sônia Maria de. 2004. “Korea in the Bom Retiro neighborhood.” In: When the East Came to America: Contributions of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Immigrants. Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank.

3. On this topic, Amelia Morimoto has developed an extensive analysis. Therefore, I will limit myself to making only a brief account of it. See: Morimoto, Amelia. “Religion among the Nikkei of Peru.” In: Perú Shimpo, No. 17338, May 14, 2007; p. 3. Also at: http://www.discovernikkei.org/forum/en/node/1647

4. Ota, Hirohito. 2003. “First Buddhist missionaries in Peru.” In: Zen: Spiritual Friends , No. 3. Tokyo: Administrative Headquarters, Sotoshu School.

5. Morimoto, Amelia. 1991. Population of Japanese origin in Peru: Current profile. Lima: Commemorative Commission of the 90th Anniversary of Japanese Immigration to Peru. By the same author, also in: 1999. The Japanese and their descendants in Peru. Lima: Editorial Fund of the Congress of the Republic.

6. Ibid.

* This article is published under the San Marcos Foundation Agreement for the Development of Science and Culture of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos – Japanese American National Museum, Discover Nikkei Project.

© 2007 Raúl Araki