Discover Nikkei

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/1134/

Difference Between Past Immigrants and Today’s Immigrants (Japanese)

(Japanese) Well, in our time, Japan had already recovered to some degree. In the old days, Japan’s primary focus was silk production. In other words, the production of non-essential items. It wasn’t the production of necessities. The country producing necessities was Germany. Medicine, for example. That kind of country doesn’t collapse. However, when it comes to production of non-essentials, when people say they don’t want them anymore, it’s over. That kind of country quickly becomes poor. In the Russo-Japanese War, if America and others hadn’t stepped in, Japan would have gone bankrupt.

When Japan was that type of country, the thing supporting Japan was, in fact, people who went overseas and sent foreign currency back to Japan. That saved the country. That’s the way it was back then. In our time, Japan was by then doing OK so we could leave. For example, our parents were rich. Not actually rich, but they were responsible and doing well, so we were able to go overseas and do what we wanted. People from the past sent remittances to Japan. That was admirable. As for us, we just lived the way we wanted. We were so irreverent. The previous generation did so much for Japan. That’s a clear difference.


migration

Date: April 18, 2007

Location: Lima, Peru

Interviewer: Ann Kaneko

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Toshiro Konishi was born on July 11, 1953, the fourth son of a long-established Japanese restaurant owner in Saito City, Miyazaki Prefecture. Having played in the kitchen from around the age of six, at 11-years-old, Konishi began helping out in the kitchen with other chef candidates. Then in 1971, at age 16, he headed to Tokyo and became a chef at the restaurant “Fumi”.

In 1974, he moved to Peru with Nobuyuki Matsuhisa, known in America, Japan, and elsewhere for his Japanese fusion cuisine at his restaurant, “Nobu”. After working at the Japanese restaurant “Matsuei” for ten years, he opened “Toshiro’s” and “Wako” in a Sheraton hotel in Lima. In 2002, he also became manager of “Sushi Bar Toshiro’s” in the San Isidro region.

Aside from running the restaurants, he taught at San Ignacio de Loyola University, participated in culinary festivals around the world, introduced innovative cuisine known as “Peruvian Fusion” (a mix of Japanese and Peruvian cuisines), and received numerous awards. In 2008 he became the first Japanese chef based in Latin America to receive the Japanese government’s Minister's Prize from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. (October 2009)

Michelle Yamashiro
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Yamashiro,Michelle

Great grandfather Asato was a sumo wrestler

Okinawan American whose parents are from Peru.

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Michelle Yamashiro
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Yamashiro,Michelle

Grandfather loved to tell her stories of her great-grandfather Arakaki

Okinawan American whose parents are from Peru.

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Michelle Yamashiro
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Yamashiro,Michelle

Parents leaving Peru to move to California

Okinawan American whose parents are from Peru.

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Monica Teisher
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Teisher,Monica

Grandfather migrating to Colombia

(b.1974) Japanese Colombian who currently resides in the United States

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Masato Ninomiya
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Ninomiya,Masato

What made your parents decide to move to Brazil?

Professor of Law, University of Sao Paulo, Lawyer, Translator (b. 1948)

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Vince Ota
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Ota,Vince

Moving to and living in Japan

Japanese American Creative designer living in Japan

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Kazuo Funai
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Funai,Kazuo

Company in Tokyo burned down (Japanese)

(1900-2005) Issei businessman

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James Hirabayashi
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Hirabayashi,James

Family interrelations between mother and father

(1926 - 2012) Scholar and professor of anthropology. Leader in the establishment of ethnic studies as an academic discipline

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Barbara Kawakami
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Kawakami,Barbara

Going back to Hawaii

An expert researcher and scholar on Japanese immigrant clothing.

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Barbara Kawakami
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Kawakami,Barbara

Picture brides and karifufu

An expert researcher and scholar on Japanese immigrant clothing.

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Roy H. Matsumoto
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Matsumoto,Roy H.

Kibei schoolchildren in Hiroshima, Japan

(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.

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Marion Tsutakawa Kanemoto
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Kanemoto,Marion Tsutakawa

Mother's immigration to U.S. as a treaty merchant

(b. 1927) Japanese American Nisei. Family voluntarily returned to Japan during WWII.

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Mitsuo Ito
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Ito,Mitsuo

Chose to go back to Japan

(b.1924) Japanese Canadian Nisei. Interpreter for British Army in Japan after WWII. Active in Japanese Canadian community

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Seiichi Tanaka
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Tanaka,Seiichi

Coming to America

(b.1943) Shin-issei grand master of taiko; founded San Francisco Taiko Dojo in 1968.

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Enson Inoue
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Inoue,Enson

The reason for coming to Japan

(b. 1967) Hawai`i-born professional fighter in Japan

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