Interviews

1. Going to Brazil to escape debt (Japanese)

2. Early life in Brazil (Japanese)

3. Learning skills by watching others work (Japanese)

4. Repaying Brazil by educating the technicians (Japanese)

5. Delivering know-how to the next generation (Japanese)

Nishimura,Shunji

(1911-2010) Founder of JACTO group

Going to Brazil to escape debt (Japanese)

(Japanese) I graduated engineering school. My father owned a methane factory—he started a company that makes a special kind of clay that takes the place of charcoal, and I helped out there for about a year. But the economy wasn’t doing so well, and business wasn’t very good… We had to face the debt collector every day. When it got to the point where just seeing the collector made us feel sick, we knew there was nothing we could do here [in Japan]. Somehow, we had to move abroad. Just then, the immigration partnership between Brazil and Japan began, and we were able to be included in the migration and came to Brazil.

Brazil immigration migration

Date:

Location: Brazil

Contributed by: Caminho da memória - 遥かなるみちのり. São Paulo, Brazil: Comissão de Elaboração da História dos 80 Anos de Imigração Japonesa no Brasil, 1998. VHS.

Interviewee Bio

In light of the grave economic situation in Japan at the time, in 1932 at the age of 21, Shunji Nishimura decided to migrate to Brazil in search of new opportunities. During his early days in Brazil, he made use of his inherent toughness by working on farmlands. After saving up enough money to attend school for a year, he moved to São Paulo city. After moving around from factory to factory, he eventually settled in Pompéia.

Mr. Nishimura has challenged and experienced several different jobs on his way to making a living. After gaining a special license for farming equipment manufacturing, he founded the JACTO Group. Most farming equipment at the time were imported from abroad, but with a vision to provide higher quality domestic equipment, he poured in much effort into research and development of farming equipment. He thanks the Brazilian community for the success of the JACTO Group, and as a way of giving back to the community, he established a technical school for aspiring equipment technicians. Citing both the improvement of new farming tools and the education of able technicians as the cornerstones of the country’s development, he has dedicated much effort towards the growth of agricultural technicians. (June 22, 2007)