Interviews

1. Father’s Reason For Moving to Argentina (Japanese)

2. Nikkei Businesses in Buenos Aires (Japanese)

3. Escobar’s Immigrant Population (Japanese)

4. Popular Sports in the Nikkei Community (Japanese)

5. Great Japanese Language School in Escobar (Japanese)

6. Serving in Malvinas War and its Impact (Japanese)

7. Nikkei Signalman (Japanese)

8. Supporting Nikkei in Japan (Japanese)

9. Changes in the Nikkei Community in Japan (Japanese)

10. The Next Generation of the Nikkei Community (Japanese)

11. Nikkei Identity (Japanese)

12. Roles You Can Fulfill Being in Japan (Japanese)

13. About Escobar (Spanish)

Matsumoto,Juan Alberto

(b. 1962) Nisei Japanese Argentinian, currently residing in Japan

The Next Generation of the Nikkei Community (Japanese)

(Japanese) I’ve been involved in the development on next generation of Nikkei leaders from Japan and I conducted various workshops for them. I realized that it seems that the third and fourth generations are not interested in the way that older generations did. For example, they don’t like to form large organizations, build a large assembly hall to get together, or organize some events for themselves with high goals though social clubs or kenjinkais which connects people with strong ties. Instead, the current generation sees having some Japanese identity as added value, so they plan matsuri or bon-odori or bazaars, but mostly they want to go out and have fun with their friends and classmates, many of whom are not Nikkei.

leadership Nikkei in Japan

Date: September 22, 2019

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Yoko Nishimura

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

Interviewee Bio

Juan Alberto Matsumoto was born in 1962 in the city of Escobar, Buenos Aires, Argentina. He received an informal bilingual education attending the Japanese school in Escobar. While he was in college, he enlisted in the Malvinas War (Falklands War) and served as a signalman. Afterwards, he graduated from the University of Salvador in Buenos Aires with a degree in international relations. In 1990, he went to Japan as a government-sponsored student. He majored in Labor law at Yokohama National University where he received a master’s degree.

Currently he serves as a public relations legal translator, a court interpreter, and broadcast interpreter, as well as a lecturer at JICA trainee orientations. He also teaches Spanish language and Latin American politics and law at the University of Shizuoka and occasionally he gives talks on multicultural coexistence. He also provides various supports for Latin American Nikkei living in Japan. (February 2020)