Enrique Higa Sakuda
@kikerenzoEnrique Higa is a Peruvian Sansei (third generation, or grandchild of Japanese immigrants), journalist and Lima-based correspondent for the International Press, a Spanish-language weekly published in Japan.
Updated August 2009
Stories from This Author
CCIPJ: more than 50 years uniting Peru and Japan
Dec. 15, 2020 • Enrique Higa Sakuda
The first 790 Japanese who arrived in Peru in 1899 to work on coastal haciendas were covered by four-year contracts. None of them, nor the thousands of hires who arrived later, had the intention of putting down roots in Peru. If everything had gone according to plan, in 1969—70 years after the start of Japanese immigration—probably no traces of the Japanese presence would have been found in Peru. However, at the end of the 1960s there was a large and …
Okinawan Association of Peru, 110 years of history
Oct. 16, 2020 • Enrique Higa Sakuda
In 1906, immigrants from Okinawa arrived in Peru for the first time. Four years later, they formed what is now the Okinawan Association of Peru (AOP). The coronavirus pandemic has ruined the possibility of celebrating the 110th anniversary as it deserves. That does not mean, however, that its managers and members have stood by and waited for the health crisis to be resolved or mitigated before acting. The AOP did not paralyze its activities due to the restrictions derived from …
Peru Ganbare
Sept. 2, 2020 • Enrique Higa Sakuda
On March 6, the first case of coronavirus was confirmed in Peru. 9 days later, the national government established a total quarantine that, among other measures, closed the country's borders and prevented leaving home except for essential activities such as buying food. The measure came into force on March 16 and, in principle, would be in effect for two weeks. It was then believed that the country was going through a brief exceptional period, a forced pause, after which normality …
Peru Shimpo: 70 years standing
July 15, 2020 • Enrique Higa Sakuda
The Second World War was a disaster for the Japanese community living in Peru. In addition to the deportation to the United States of almost 1,800 people, it led to the closure of schools and institutions, among other measures implemented by the Peruvian government—aligned with that of the United States—against the Japanese and their descendants due to their ethnic origin. One of these attacks deprived the Peruvian-Japanese community of information media. After the war ended, there was a sector of …
The world of Marcela Castillo Tokumori
July 2, 2020 • Enrique Higa Sakuda , Asociación Peruano Japonesa
2019 is the second best year of Marcela Castillo Tokumori's sports career. At the Pan American Games in Lima he won the silver medal in the poomsae modality in taekwondo. If the Games became a great national holiday, it was thanks to people like her. His best year was 2016. That's when his career took off. She was world runner-up and achieved elite athlete status. By a happy coincidence, her two greatest achievements took place in Lima, so her family …
“I was not afraid of this virus, but I did respect it”
June 8, 2020 • Enrique Higa Sakuda
In Spain, around 240 thousand cases of people infected with coronavirus have been registered. One of them is the Peruvian and former dekasegi Gabriel Ueda Tsuboyama, who has lived in the European country for more than 15 years. Luckily, it is also one of the approximately 150,000 recovered so far. It all started with a throat problem that he minimized, attributing it to a different origin than the real one. “It was all a bit comical. It turns out that …
Stories that go away
April 29, 2020 • Enrique Higa Sakuda
“If you want to know something about the family, ask me. Take advantage,” my uncle, the bullfighter and journalist Mitsuya Higa (1932-2020), told me several years ago. He did it laughing, aware that he was in the last part of his life, with his head still full of memories and stories from 60, 70 years ago, and that—being the oldest of all—he was the only one in the family who possessed. I remembered his invitation to delve into the family's …
Five young Nikkei artists share experiences
April 17, 2020 • Enrique Higa Sakuda , Asociación Peruano Japonesa
“ Komorebi ” means “sunlight filtering through the leaves of trees.” It was the word chosen by five Nikkei artists—Sachiko Kobayashi, Meche Tomotaki, Tamie Tokuda, Daniela Tokashiki and Nori Kobayashi—to title a group exhibition at the Peruvian Japanese Cultural Center in which they addressed their ethnic identity and their relationship with Japan, a country with which they are connected through the stories of their ancestors, filters of a distant past that only survives in memories and history books, of a …
The owner of the Pacific Cooperative is the Nikkei society
March 9, 2020 • Enrique Higa Sakuda
In the late 1960s, Peru was governed by a left-wing military dictatorship that had closed the Peruvian economy to the world and nationalized industries. The Nikkei, meanwhile, formed a thriving community that little by little was moving forward after the traumatic years of World War II and the difficult post-war period. In those times, small businesses (restaurants, wineries, beauty salons, etc.) were the heart of the economic activity of the Japanese and their descendants. And the tanomoshi was a fundamental …
The Japan of Augusto Higa
Jan. 17, 2020 • Enrique Higa Sakuda
In 1994, Augusto Higa published Japan does not give two opportunities , a book about his experience as a dekasegi at the beginning of the decade. It was the stark testimony of a Nisei who in the country of his parents crashes against his status as a gaijin, of a middle-aged man of letters who must deal with the exhausting physical work in Japanese factories and roads. 25 years later, the book is revived with a new edition that has …
