Emi Kasamatsu
Emi Kasamatsu is a Paraguayan Nisei, a researcher on Japanese immigration and gender, a graduate of the Bachelor of Arts and a Master's in Gender and Development from the National University of Asunción. Abroad, she took courses in Applied Anthropology; Research Methodology; Governance and Leadership; Social Feminist Economy; Ethics, Social Capital and Development; and Care Economy. She belonged to INRP (International Nikkei Research project). She gave numerous lectures on these topics.
Publications: Japanese Presence in Paraguay ; History of the Pan-American Nikkei Association ; Life Path in Bushido ; Evocations . In group: Encyclopedia of Japanese descent in America; New worlds, New lives; “When the East arrived in the Americas”; “Bicentennial of the independence of Paraguay (1811-2021)” and has appeared in numerous anthologies.
Distinctions: Decoration of the Rising Sun with Gold and Silver Rays, Red Cross of Japan, Academic of the Paraguayan Academy of History, Honorary President of the PEN Paraguay Center. Ambassador of Kagawa.
Last updated November 2024
Stories from This Author
In the footsteps of the different nomenclatures
Nov. 14, 2024 • Emi Kasamatsu
Over time I realized that they called me by different names. It was like juggling identities: I was Enko, Enchan, Yumiko, Emicita, Nenita, Bichito, Yboty, Ojimesama. Even though my real name was Emilia Yumi. My childhood was spent in the first Japanese colony in Paraguay, La Colmena, a community organized by my father Hisakazu Kasamatsu, who was an official of the Paraguay Takushoku Kumiai (Paraguay Colonizing Company), whose members have always tried to maintain the importance of Japanese culture and …
Economist Cristina Matsumiya from Paraguay
Dec. 24, 2014 • Emi Kasamatsu
Cristina Matsumiya was born in 1957, in the Colonia Presidente Chaves in the Department of Itapúa in Paraguay. She did her basic studies in her hometown and then entered the Faculty of Economic, Administrative and Accounting Sciences of the National University of, completing her studies in 1983 as the best graduate in Economics. Cristina began her career in the Insurance area, as an administrative assistant at “Seguros La Rural”, of which her father was one of the owners. Such a …
The impact of the Nikkei of Paraguay in the workplace
Aug. 29, 2014 • Emi Kasamatsu
It had been diagnosed that the 21st century would be the era of women. Reflecting, in a Discover Nikkei from 2014, such an idea would still seem to be a utopia, after the hegemony of men who for millennia had ruled the world in an absolute way, implementing systems of domination and oppression of a weak nature and submission of women. Only at the end of the millennium, after having waged a series of attempts to vindicate women in the …
The cooperation of Japanese and Nikkei immigrants from Paraguay in agriculture
April 28, 2014 • Emi Kasamatsu
The immigration of Japanese to Paraguay is relatively new, compared to other countries where it had begun in the last decade of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century. Initially, the Government of Japan did not plan to send immigrants to Paraguay due to several circumstances, such as lack of access to the sea coast, a small and unknown country with very little information regarding the country. However, due to the problem that arose with the …
Old age versus wisdom
May 18, 2010 • Emi Kasamatsu
When you are young you think that it takes a long time to reach old age and that there is no problem to be solved by young people, that is what adults are for. However, time passes and, without realizing it, one is approaching that age that every human being inevitably has to live, following the cycles of life. Therefore, it is important to consider this issue in more depth among all the Japanese communities in the Americas, exchanging valid …
The steps of Nikkei volunteering for the Elderly in Paraguay
April 5, 2010 • Emi Kasamatsu
First of all, I would like to express my greetings to the readers as a volunteer for more than 30 years in different areas of cultural, social and charitable development; By posing this question I also make a reflection: What is volunteering? “ Hito no tame ni tsukusu, Hito no shiawase o mitsukete ageru koto desu ” means “Serve others and seek the happiness of others .” In the beginning this phrase was not understandable among the Japanese of Paraguay. …
Volunteering among the Japanese and Nikkei of Paraguay
Feb. 4, 2010 • Emi Kasamatsu
In today's life, according to Patricio Alwyn - former president of Chile and student of the social problems of Latin America - a materialistic and economic culture prevails in which “having is worth more than being” and people become slaves to things. and, consequently, consumerism and competitiveness within society. Concern for one's own life alone, the acquisition of goods and the privilege of power seem to be the purpose of human existence. This problem affects the majority of the planet's …
Managing the cultural hybridization of the Nikkei
Sept. 1, 2009 • Emi Kasamatsu
To be Nikkei in America is to carry two cultures under your belt, on the one hand being Japanese that is received through education and the discipline instilled by Japanese parents from the child's first breath of life. His first steps in life are in the Japanese way, where he lays the foundations that will last through time. Hence the way of thinking and acting, the somewhat differentiated attitude of the Nikkei. According to Chie Nakane, there is a homogeneous …
The discreet character of the Japanese and Nikkei
May 5, 2009 • Emi Kasamatsu
The ancestral culture impregnated in the soul of the Japanese people has formed a distinctive ethos , in which virtues and defects have been carefully separated by categories perhaps difficult to understand in the Western world. This can be observed, for example, in the tea ceremony or chanoyu , created in the 16th century by the monk Sen no Rikyu of the Zen Buddhism sect. He gave form and philosophical meaning to the act of drinking tea as a ritual …
The melting pot of the race, what is it for the Nikkei?
March 3, 2009 • Emi Kasamatsu
Etymologically, crucible means that, from creation or birth, it must be propped up towards excellence or given a sense of purity to the essence. The “Melting Pot” comes from there; that is, trying to maintain the purity of a race including culture and civilization. That word was used a lot in the 18th and 19th centuries during the conquests and subsequent population movements, especially from Europe to the new American continent, and it was about protecting and consolidating the white …
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