Mistreating the Japanese community (Spanish)

We go to America (Spanish) Memories of my infancy: Japanese 1, Japanese 2… (Spanish) Mistreating the Japanese community (Spanish) Prejudice in Japanese school (Spanish) Hiding out to avoid the concentration camps (Spanish) Help from fellow Japanese (Spanish) Iron discipline at home (Spanish) Education Japanese style (Spanish) Closing the Japanese school and deportation (Spanish)

Transcripts available in the following languages:

(Spanish) A somewhat terrible situation developed terrible for those of us in the Japanese community. Why? The Peruvian government broke off diplomatic relations with Japan, and we were mistreated by our neighbors.

I was six years old and going to school; I was one of the youngest, dressed in a children’s military uniform, all dark clothes with a kepi and a shaved head. This was a rule back then, everything just so. The Second World War had not yet started; it was three years before the outbreak of the war [when] they [the Peruvians] started to bother the Japanese community. This is the saddest part of my story that I had to experience. Why do I have to run? Why do they hit me? Why do they make me cry?

Date: September 6, 2007
Location: Lima, Peru
Interviewer: Harumi Nako
Contributed by: Asociación Peruano Japonesa (APJ)

discrimination peru racism