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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Read the first part >> Masahiro Shibata, 46, has been living in Japan for 25 years, but this is his first time back in Presidente Prudente, where he was born and raised, in 27 years. The town hadn't changed as much as he had thought. Just as he thought, "There's …
The other day I read “ Astro ”, written by Hudson Okada and published on this website and, at the same time, I remembered an event that happened to me years ago. I was born in the Capital of São Paulo, daughter of a Japanese father and a Nikkei mother, …
In our January e-newsletter, Discover Nikkei put out a call for Oshogatsu stories. We asked our Nikkei readers from around the world to show us, through photos and words, how they welcomed the New Year. We received several stories written in English, Japanese, and Portuguese. One story, by Justin Inahara, …
"Massa is coming back!" "Eh?! Shibata's?" "That's right. My third son, Masahiro, is coming home!" "How many years has it been?" "Maybe 20 years or so?" Masahiro left Presidente Prudente, where he was born and raised, around May 1990 when he was 19 years old. When I was a child, …
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