Historical background

European countries that have begun to emigrate to other regions since the beginning of the 19th century, it is estimated that, until 1932, about 80 million people emigrated. The Asian countries were practically isolated from the world context; the Chinese first began to mobilize in 1840. Later with the restoration of the Japanese Empire with Emperor Meiji, which led to the opening of the country to the outside world, they left in 1886 to Hawaii, the first Japanese emigrants, previously agreed between the Emperor of Japan and King Kalakua of Hawaii.

It was a time when there were also several emigrations for contracts for specific tasks and guided by a foreign representative as a form of current dekasegi. This form of emigration was not to the liking of the Japanese government and it exercised control over them so that they would have the security of having a return ticket.

For this purpose, the General Department of Emigration was created in 1891 with Viscount Takeaki Enomoto. It establishes the absolute need for an agent to be in charge of the immigrants and who are of Japanese origin or a representative of a Japanese commercial company with previous contracts and who are in permanent contact with a Japanese Consulate or Legation to establish in this way the due protection to immigrants.

With the signing of the “Gentlemen's Agreement” in 1907, signed between the representatives of Washington DC and Tokyo, the entry of Japanese immigrants into the United States of North America was prohibited and limited to Canada. In this way, Japanese emigrations became almost exclusively to Latin America.

However, this anti-Asian position promoted by the United States had its impact on the American continent and especially in Paraguay, when the Paraguayan Government in its Article XIV of the Immigration Law of 1903 prohibited the entry of immigrants from the yellow and black breed in Paraguay. In this regard, some historians, such as Carlos Pastore, commented that while other countries have opened their doors, Paraguay closes its doors to progress.

It is interesting to study the disparate positions of the Latin American governments of the time. While countries like Brazil, Mexico and Peru admitted orientals, without restriction. Argentina and Cuba indirectly restricted what white European immigrants preferred, other countries such as Uruguay, Chile, Guatemala, and Venezuela, including Paraguay, prohibited for strictly racial reasons.

Here you can analyze the theme of the “Crucible of the Race”, that is, the preference of the white race and the expansion of European culture and education, as an ideal civilizational model of the human race, through cultural and religious imposition for the character formation and human development on earth. On the other hand, it had been perceived that Latin American nationalist sentiment was the main factor of discrimination, in such a way that the admission of Orientals was to obtain cheap labor and not as immigrants who would be part of the nationality.

With this criterion, the conquest of the Americas had begun, reducing the original inhabitants, the indigenous people of the Americas, to a situation of marginality, whose category is still in force. Only since the end of the last millennium have we observed the efforts that indigenous people are making to claim their presence and rights in these lands...

What would the American continent have been like if it were “colonized” by orientals?

Current situation in Paraguay

With the opening of diplomatic relations between Paraguay and Japan in 1919, the prohibition of the entry of immigrants of the yellow race has excluded the Japanese from that classification, and both governments agreed in 1936 on the entry of the first 100 Japanese families on an experimental basis for which regulations have been established that both parties would have to comply with. Likewise, the Ministry of Emigration of Japan established specific regulations for emigrants to Paraguay.

Since then, no apparent discrimination has been perceived between these two ethnic groups, except for some sporadic and individual reactions from nationals who consider Orientals as differentiated beings and try to prevent them from accessing positions of political and social relevance. The majority of the population admires the Japanese and Nikkei professionals who contribute effectively to the development of the country in the area of ​​agriculture and agro-industry, as well as to commerce, as beings endowed with human virtues and responsibilities.

The influence in the current world of systems: neoliberal and European capitalism had an impact in some way on Nikkei merchants with the desire to get rich and influence the environment, enjoy a good life, and with sufficient resources in the bank and a comfort of life as an ideal and real parameter to obtain social prestige in the environment.

On the other hand, the ancient solidarities and human virtues that had been practiced over the years since his arrival from Japan were observed as a temporary parenthesis that remained as a distinctive hallmark, especially in the Japanese colonies.

As a reflection

The new millennium has entered about seven years ago with much hope for all of humanity, however, the human crisis attacks with more ferocity within the global environment, ethnic and cultural discrimination persists in the environment, where competition and power acquisition comes into play. An attempt has been made to overcome the idea of ​​race by the term “ethnic” and called differentiated ethnicities with a new assessment and categorization in terms of the global context.

What would be the role of the Nikkei in this context. The generality remains at an intermediate and medium-high socio-economic level. They were not affected by poverty or the economic crisis in Latin America. It mostly preserves the culture and discipline inherited from its Japanese ancestors, without getting involved in global or local problems. However, it is necessary to resume the Nikkei leadership position that has begun to emerge in the eighties and nineties, precisely now, when the crisis of human behavior, especially in Latin America, is the cause of the tremendous social, economic and political deterioration. .

New leaders with ethical values ​​of the Nikkei are necessary in these circumstances and it is time to join forces to work for a better America. We are members of a Pan-American community. And in the Pan American countries are our home, our beloved homeland and the hope of the future.

I invite you to reflect on the paragraph that is inserted in this work: What would the American continent have been like if it were “colonized” by orientals?

Like Nikkei.
Like Pan American.
As a citizen of the world

© 2006 Emi Kasamatsu