(Spanish) So with us, the Paraguayan Nisei, most of us speak Japanese. Maybe because we were new here or because our parents brought us up that way, and there was probably a big drive among Issei to instill Japanese education in the settlements and in Asuncion. So to a certain extent we receive a Japanese education, even if it’s just at the elementary level. Now more recently it goes through high school, and then there are also, for example, big conferences with lectures in Japanese, the famous Benron Taikai as they’re called, where they have excellent Japanese lecturers, but not so many in Spanish, and that’s the unusual part. So a lot of people say that the Paraguayan Nisei are a lot like the Japanese, even though it’s not that way in other countries. They are much more integrated into the general or local population. Nevertheless, Sansei are already quite different, as well as the Yonsei, who are still children. I think that’s the main characteristic of the Japanese, of the Nisei in Paraguay.
Date: October 7, 2005
Location: California, US
Interviewer: Ann Kaneko
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
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