Interviews

1. Decided to leave Japan to Argentina (Spanish)

2. Tango makes him to stay in Argentina (Spanish)

3. Leaving to Argentina (Spanish)

4. His first jobs in Argentina (Spanish)

5. Learning Spanish (Spanish)

6. Journalism as Vocation (Spanish)

7. Marriage to a non-Japanese (Spanish)

8. No more close family in Japan (Spanish)

9. Conflicting relations between Argentina and Japan (Spanish)

10. To feel uncomfortable in Japan (Spanish)

11. Argentina is my home (Spanish)

12. Generational Gap (Spanish)

13. Need generational change in Japanese community (Spanish)

14. No discrimination in Argentina (Spanish)

15. Nikkei identity (Spanish)

Takagi,Kazuomi

(1925-2014) La Plata Hochi, Journalist

His first jobs in Argentina (Spanish)

(Spanish) I didn’t have any money to study Spanish. As I couldn’t speak Spanish but had to live, I didn’t have any money. Therefore, they suggested that I become a flower grower…[in that job] Spanish wasn’t necessary. Then I went, they hired me, but I lasted thirty minutes: I didn’t like being cooped up all day…I returned once again to Buenos Aires. It was the lesser evil to have found an Argentine job that forced me to speak Spanish…so that I could listen to and understand Spanish. I entered as a manager of a large hardware store. There I made many mistakes.

Argentina languages Spaniards

Date: February 23, 2007

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Interviewer: Takeshi Nishimura, Ricardo Hokama

Contributed by: Centro Nikkei Argentino

Interviewee Bio

Takagi Kazuomi was born in Japan on March 27, 1925, in the Mie province. He arrived in Argentina as a tourist and never returned to Japan. By chance he started out in journalism, a profession that provided employment for more than fifty years on radio and in the graphic arts. Today, at eighty-one years old, he continues to fervently work as a journalist for the newspaper of the Japanese collectivity, La Plata Hochi (Japanese Section), including acting stints in various forms of publicity. He passed away on November 10, 2014 at age 89. (January 2021)