Conversations at a distance are generally tinged with inconsequentiality - unless it is a discussion - but it is up to each person to maintain an optimal height so that opinion and information become sources of interest that generate curiosity, debate, other opinions and comments.

The poster for his feature-length documentary Nikkei (designed by Kaori) (Courtesy of Kaori Flores Yonekura)

For this first conversation, I asked Kaori Flores Yonekura, a Venezuelan filmmaker who spent a few days in Peru, months ago, if she was interested in generating opinions digitally and thousands of kilometers away (we do not know each other personally).

Kaori's positive response produced a short conversation that, perhaps, awakens sensitivities or old concerns still latent, unresolved in the minds of many Nikkei around the planet.

About Kaori, she is a Venezuelan sansei documentary filmmaker, graduated from the International School of Film and Television of San Antonio de los Baños. He has dedicated his work to topics on Latin American culture, indigenism and human rights. He has made more than thirty documentaries, individually and collectively, and his latest work "Nikkei" is focused on the construction of identity based on Japanese immigration to Latin America.

Main topics of the conversation: Nikkei Youth, Kenjinkai, participation.

VICTOR: What is your general impression of the Nikkei community in Venezuela? In Lima, participation is reduced and they are always the same, those who have the most "commitment" to their ancestors and the institutions that still exist.

The majority continue to be part of the Kenjinkai out of habit and because they were founded by their parents or grandparents, but there is no greater support since the activities are the same and the young people almost do not participate because it is always the same, that is even my case.

The photo taken by Kaori (Courtesy of Kaori Flores Yonekura)

KAORI: I would have liked not to make a comparison of the community... between Peru and Venezuela, but after your comment added to the question, I only have to tell you the following.

I have always thought that vertical structures must be renewed over time, although an institutionalization of the collective is needed to meet financing or support conditions, I believe that the best way is for the community to function as a Network. I do not participate. of traditional activities of the collective, not because I like it, but because from my place within the community I feel represented through my work as a filmmaker, which is initially observational and then activism through rehearsal (with my camera), I use for this what I find moving and powerful about being Nikkei, which is, in the end, one of the forms of Latin American 'being'.

I am sure that, each person from their place and their possibilities, doing what they do: paint, draw, write, cook or trade... and do it well, 'does what they should do' for our community, that would be a job network that through the Kenjinkai as cultural promoters, they could circulate in the media at their disposal... this would be my suggestion, after constantly hearing this issue of lack of participation in institutional activities.

I would invite Nikkei organizations (federations, associations and other types of organizations) to review their philosophical and organizational structure (verticality), if the mountain does not come... we may have to go to it.

VICTOR: I also think that vertical structures must be renewed, I even think that they are not necessary when everyone points in the same positive path. But that is something that has not happened because, despite the will to "give space to the young generations," the general image has not changed, that is, the only aim is for the young to do what the old did and also their parents.

When we returned from Panama - my family and I - I began to participate intensely in all the activities to which I was invited but I gave up, years later, tired of doing the same thing in all the annual celebrations.

Today, I see with different eyes (distant, yes) the Nikkei community in Peru: what there is has been formed because a lot of work was done; An image was built that we try to maintain after 3 or 4 generations of aging.

I understand that thinking but for me it is a regret since the past is repeated.

When I participated I always mentioned the change, the renovation - even the color of the walls - but everything echoed at every institutional level.

Today I am only an assistant when my occupation allows it, generally on walks (it also helps me get a change of scenery).

Regarding the Kenjinkai as cultural promoters, I also suggested showing their future through websites but the idea did not catch on because they wait "to see what happens" after someone ventures to do it... and so far no one has done it.

I think that each Kenjinkai could become a kind of specific promoter such as book publishing, festival organization, photography of Japan, etc. Ideas are infinite but actions are not because they are restricted by the way of thinking.

We Nikkei in Peru have forged an image of being honest, hard-working, responsible and punctual, as well as being quiet and easy to take advantage of. Like everything, there is good and bad.

But this good image does not go any further because the interest of young people, today, is to live what society demands and imposes on them, losing their identification with the ethnic group (nothing is obligatory, of course).

That's why I chose to write (in addition to being a relief) so that, through reading, small reflections can be given at a time.

KAORI: This reflection of yours "living what society demands and imposes on them, losing their identification with the ethnic group" (far from dismissing the efforts of the Nikkei collective in the construction of their image), I always visualize it as a kind of throne of virtue, I know it may seem exaggerated, but it is a metaphor that I use to explain that all this 'demand for virtues' can turn against us as a collective due to its rigidity: rather than enjoying sitting on the throne, you end up carrying it on your back.

And as I say, it is not a matter of it being wrong to instill moral values ​​regarding correct performance at work and in society, but rather the fact of the rigidity with which one 'must' comply with it, and thus we have come to create a stereotype of a community, highly demanding, with positive and other negative results that should not be made invisible:

• A tangible example is the results of the frustration of some people in Japan when they fail to comply with social demands: Hikikomori and even suicides among others.
• Second tangible example: the self-exclusion of the Nikkei from the collective's activities.

There is an interesting novel called "Unworthy of a Human Being" by Osamu Dazai, of whom Mishima said: "Dazai was a writer who strove to expose precisely what I most wanted to hide from myself."

VICTOR: What you call the Throne of Virtue is true; They are the ideals and desires inherited (and poorly inherited, in many cases) maintained until today, without solid foundation. These "old" ideas are what make the Nikkei youth "open up" from their Eastern origins to try to make their own life - as it should be whenever we want to learn to Live.

For this reason, Nikkei youth do not participate, not so much due to lack of interest as they are judged, but due to lack of motivation.

The "old people" want the young people to do the same as them but they only try to impose their way of thinking, acting, speaking and even dressing, but the media invasion - one of the variables that youth must endure - is stronger than expected. inherited.

There is still an effort by the Peruvian Nikkei community to remain over time (I imagine that all Latin American communities are experiencing a similar situation) but only through insistence, not through new proposals, new collective structures, new forms of communication; Thus, the identification of youth continues to be lost, increasingly faster.

They say that we are in the sixth generation but, from the third, many only have oriental eyes left as identification with their genes.

It is true what you mention about the rigidity that they try to impose on us to comply with what they also try to impose on us. In this way, many grow up doing things out of obligation and not because they want to, producing frustrated and twisted lives full of anger and intolerance as well as self-repression (masked as tolerance and acceptance) when they are surrounded by their "peers", other Nikkei.

The self-exclusion of the Nikkei with respect to the group is also true, but I detail that the first group is society in general: many Nikkei have only Nikkei friends, do business only with Nikkei and eat only in Nikkei restaurants. It is discrimination in reverse, it could even be self-discrimination since the changing society offers us much more than that small and always the same world.

Furthermore, it must be mentioned that there are Nikkei who exclude themselves from their own community in denial of their origins (I have seen it in my family) such that they do not participate in any activity, they do not eat any food with Japanese traces (today there is a lot of fusion, which best of both cultures and many times better than both), they do not use Japanese words and even less do they perpetuate customs of the home in which they were raised. This is a product of the imposition that created youthful traumatization and that makes them deny, in weakness instead of facing, what they did not like about their family lives.

We all want to hide what we don't like about ourselves and we reject that same thing when we see it in others, like a mirror.

The Nikkei community has a lot to do within itself, as a group and as individuals. From the first, opening oneself to society, integrating without discrimination or preferences and from the second, internal change in each person towards Goodness since I believe it is easier because the community has always been passive - except for angry and intolerant exceptions - and therefore therefore willing to listen, listen to yourself and self-evaluate.

Thank you very much, Kaori, for your time and dedication.

With small actions like this we can call for reflection so that everyone knows more about the Nikkei and that the Nikkei themselves reflect on their situation so that a change occurs for the benefit of the entire Nikkei community and this is reflected in the societies they serve. they belong.

Kaori recording at the JICA Overseas Immigration Museum in Yokohama (Photo taken by Eriko Aparcero, Courtesy of Kaori Flores Yonekura)

© 2012 Victor Nishio Yasuoka