As has been recently reported, Paraguay was one of the last countries in South America where Japanese immigrants entered (1936). Perhaps because Paraguay, due to its Mediterranean nature, was a country without sea coasts. The absence of the sea was a negative condition for the vital development of people and for any relationship with the outside world as well as for adequate commercial transactions.
La Colmena was the first Japanese colony in Paraguay, it was considered “an island without the sea”, isolated from other national populations. Although the land was fertile and the geographical configuration of incredible beauty, the organizers of the colony that was Paraguay Takushoku Kumiai (Colonizing Company of Paraguay) made superhuman efforts to provide the settlers with a healthy and prosperous life. With adequate infrastructure for the formation of a colony within the urban area with a school, hospital, plaza, social club, sports recreation area, church through land planning designed by Engineer Hisakazu Kasamatsu, as well as the rural sector. with appropriate divisions into plots of 20 hectares for each family.
It was the 1930s, in which the inland cities did not have electricity, running water, or drainage, the entire mechanism of action and work was manual. Lights were turned on with pressure lamps with kerosene fuel, wells were dug to draw water through a pulley stretched by jute ropes and a brass bucket, the toilet was a certain distance from the house. Each Japanese home planted fruit trees, vegetables and flowers in a spacious garden. He compacted the earth for the internal road. For those who did not know another environment as was the case with children, this colony was an earthly paradise in which they interacted with nature, toured the crop fields, drank, fished and immersed themselves in the crystal clear water of the streams, delighting With the singing of the various birds, they walked for miles in the fresh morning dew, while they inhaled the perfume of the wild flowers and their imaginations wove myths and realities with such ease.
The organizers of the Colony had tried to offer the best on the basis of harmony (wa) taking into account that human nature was good and that the natural affection emanated between the members of a family was the fundamental basis of social morality. . This characteristic of seeing life penetrated deeply among the children in such a way that despite the time that had passed, La Colmena had become a refuge or paradise for the soul and the episodes of a happy childhood, within a strict discipline that did not allow nor a kink like the one taught by the Japanese school teacher, Naka Yazawa. Who does not remember his wise life teachings and guidance for a straight path?
Life is actually the complementation of two forces, the positive and the negative, in Japanese they are called the IN and the YOH, which are different and necessary elements like day and night, like man and woman, the cold and heat. In this regard, the negative aspect of the colony's life can be mentioned, even though this cannot perhaps be considered as a complementarity but rather as an episode of disturbance of nature that negatively affected the full development of production and the spirit of the community. the residents. As in the case of the intense frost, the invasion of locusts and worms that were true extermination of the harvest and all the plantations. The lack of access to market the products to other markets such as the capital was another of the negative aspects due to the lack of transportation and access routes and transportation and the lack of support from the Japanese government. In the midst of desperation, about half of the families moved to other destinations, some to Argentina, some returned to Japan, while many others moved to the Paraguayan capital and other cities.
However, these negative aspects contributed to further strengthening among the remaining members of the colony to jointly face the struggle for life with perseverance and tenacity; and this example led to Paraguay opening its doors after World War II to new Japanese immigration. As Carlos Kasuga mentions, they have turned the land into fertile fertilizer to produce new fruits.
At this point, what is the incidence among the Nikkei residents of La Colmena. And those who were born in La Colmena and live outside this district. La Colmena continues to be an “island without a sea” where the spirit of the first immigrants to Paraguay remains almost unchanged, even though they are already Nikkei, it emerges in their behavior and their philosophy of life. Several Japanese scholars who visited this colony confirmed, as something unusual, the existence of a culture and discipline characterized by the Meiji era (1868-1912) rooted in the soul of the Japanese and Nikkei of La Colmena.
Their descendants spread throughout Paraguay, but their seal of differentiation and perhaps we can call it “distinction” is noted in various manifestations that they express daily, with an ethic in the conduct of life, they are reliable beings, with discipline and with the correctness demonstrated in various circumstances and activities that they experienced. As happens to thousands of Nikkei in the Americas.
New hopes appear with the arrival of the new year 2007. May that spirit that we somehow inherited from our Japanese ancestors remain as a unique and vital symbol and whose hybridization with local cultures will be the reason for many achievements and new creativity in the search of a better way of life for all the inhabitants of the Americas, and that is complementary like Ying and Yang.
Merry Christmas and New Year, a Paraguayan Nisei who lives on an island without a sea but in the heart of South America wishes you with all her heart.
© 2006 Emi Kasamatsu
