Laura Honda-Hasegawa
@laurahhBorn in São Paulo, Brazil in 1947. Worked in the field of education until 2009. Since then, she has dedicated herself exclusively to literature, writing essays, short stories and novels, all from a Nikkei point of view.
She grew up listening to Japanese children's stories told by her mother. As a teenager, she read the monthly issue of Shojo Kurabu, a youth magazine for girls imported from Japan. She watched almost all of Ozu's films, developing a great admiration for Japanese culture all her life.
Updated May 2023
Stories from This Author
Episode 34: Sudden return to Japan due to COVID-19
Sept. 4, 2020 • Laura Honda-Hasegawa
We came to Japan in 1997. My sister was 26 and I was 18. Her husband, Masao, had been working at a factory in Toyohashi for six months, so we looked for jobs in the same town so we wouldn't be separated. Finally, my sister got a job at a bakery and I got a job at a store selling Brazilian products. Time passed, and in 2008, my sister and her husband returned to Brazil with their two children. At …
Community Bonding During the Pandemic – Part 2
July 22, 2020 • Laura Honda-Hasegawa
Read Part 1 >> Reuniting with nostalgic Japanese songs During the stay-at-home period, I started to exchange more videos of Japanese TV programs and Japanese pop songs with my friends. The first video that arrived on my smartphone was "Ue o Muite Arukou." I felt very nostalgic when I heard Kyu Sakamoto's voice singing it. This is because this song was the theme song of the radio program I hosted from 2001 to 2007. Every morning, with that beautiful melody …
Community Bonding During the Pandemic – Part 1
July 21, 2020 • Laura Honda-Hasegawa
A new life in Londrina It was exactly one year ago that I decided to leave my hometown of São Paulo and move to Londrina, Paraná. I had been retired for 19 years and was already 73 years old. This was the result of a lot of thought. The reason I decided to move to Londrina is because it is a place where I can trace my roots. The farm that my maternal grandfather built up with hard work remains …
Episode 33 "Karen won't come back to Japan"
Aug. 30, 2019 • Laura Honda-Hasegawa
Toshie, a high school student, married her classmate Ivan and gave birth to twins five months later. Ivan, who was 19 at the time, gave up on going to college and changed jobs several times, including as a supermarket cashier, an auto parts store clerk, and a taxi driver. However, the family's finances were tight, so he left his family behind and went to Japan to earn money. The twins Karen and Karina are growing up and are now three …
Episode 32: Only 5 months of dekasegi life
July 15, 2019 • Laura Honda-Hasegawa
Mari had no children and, after her husband died early, she focused solely on work. After graduating from a vocational school, she worked as an elementary school teacher while finishing university. She met her husband at university, who shared the same aspirations as Mari: "I want many children to know the joy of studying." After the two got married, Mari taught mathematics at a junior high school in a neighboring town while helping out at the cram school her husband …
Episode 31 Yuji is great!
June 10, 2019 • Laura Honda-Hasegawa
Yuji and I are childhood friends. We've been together since we were little, and our houses were close to each other. We used to wander around on the way home from school, and we would often get scolded when we got home. We went to the same elementary school, but when I got to junior high school, I started going to a private school. Thanks to the money my father sent home from Japan to work, our life became stable, …
Episode 30 (Part 2) Joanna's Great Adventure
May 22, 2019 • Laura Honda-Hasegawa
Read the first part >> Joana had never left the rural area where she was born and raised, but when she was 49, her daughter Luisa decided to attend nursing school in São Paulo and she went to live with her there until she had settled down. She rented a small house in the suburbs and commuted to work on a crowded bus. For her daughter, she tried many things she was not used to. City life, which was completely …
Episode 30 (Part 1) Joanna's Great Adventure
April 17, 2019 • Laura Honda-Hasegawa
Even as a child, Joana was a hard worker, going to the fields early in the morning with her parents and three older brothers, returning home at 11:30 and eating lunch with her two younger brothers before going to school with them. When Joana was just three months away from graduating from elementary school, her mother fell seriously ill. Joana had to take care of her mother and also work in the fields. She could no longer go to school, …
Japanese music and me
Oct. 11, 2018 • Laura Honda-Hasegawa
When I was eight years old, I attended Japanese language school for a while and the only memory I have of it is Gakugei-kai , when students performed musical numbers and plays for a small audience of parents and teachers. The most graceful girl in the class always took on the coveted role of princess in history and those with musical talent sang traditional children's songs. I was never chosen to be the princess nor was I good at singing, …
Episode 29: The Song of Dekasegi
Aug. 17, 2017 • Laura Honda-Hasegawa
Eric and Emily are twin siblings. When they were five years old, their parents divorced and their father took them in. Two years later, their father went to work in Japan, and their paternal grandparents took care of them in Brazil. Although their grandfather ran a Japanese grocery store and their grandmother ran a beauty salon, Eric and Emily were raised with a lot of love, despite being busy families. Their grandparents, who were second-generation Japanese Americans, were skilled in …
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