(Spanish) This fusion of the Japanese with Peruvians still hasn’t taken place because even today we still have the immigrant’s mentality, do we not? We’re their descendants, us, and we still feel this sense of logic of ‘survivors of the survivors’, right? That is why we have strong ideas of saving, to surpass adversities of solidarity, do we not? It’s good in a way, but bad in another. Or sometimes, it’s just what it is: not good not bad, just what it is. And I think that is the reason it hasn’t taken place yet, because in the end, what does an immigrant think? That he’s going to return. The funny thing is that we’re not going to return, are we? Because with the dekasegi phenomenon, the experience of the massive relocation of Peruvians working in Japan, we found ourselves with the truth: We’re not from Japan, we’re from Peru. And sometimes in Peru, people like us and sometimes they don’t, and we have to live with that. But I think that is basically because of this mentality that we still think we’re immigrants.
Date: February 26, 2008
Location: Lima, Peru
Interviewer: Harumi Nako
Contributed by: Asociación Peruano Japonesa (APJ)
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