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)

Shunji Nishimura

(1911-2010) Founder of JACTO group

Learning skills by watching others work (Japanese)

(Japanese) Replacing the bottoms of bacias (basins)—do you know bacias? Well, I replaced the bottom of it, but [in the beginning] I’ve never seen it done before. So then this black lady brought this huge, huge basin, and tells me to replace its bottom. It’s old, so I cut it, and used lead to solder it [the new bottom] on. Then the next day, a guy came to me all angry, saying, “The bottom fell out of the one you fixed, and I caught a cold because of it!” So I said OK, I’ll fix it again. This time I went to the local tinsmith, and glanced over at how he was doing things. Then I saw that he was incasing it, bending it over here, over there and everything. So I thought OK, I can do that, no problem. So I did it that way, and I learned it. Just like that, I learned how to do jobs without any prior knowledge or experience. I was able to gain those skills, one way or another.

Brazil business economics management

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)