Japanese diaspora
Encyclopedia
The Japanese diaspora
, and its individual members known as , are Japanese
emigrants from Japan
and their descendants
that reside in a foreign country. Emigration from Japan first happened and was recorded as early as the 12th century to the Philippines
, but did not become a mass phenomenon until the Meiji Era, when Japanese began to go to North America
, beginning in 1897 with 35 emigrants to Mexico; and later Latin America
, beginning in 1899 with 790 emigrants to Peru. There was also significant emigration to the territories of the Empire of Japan
during the colonial period; however, most such emigrants repatriated to Japan after the end of World War II in Asia.
According to the Association of Nikkei and Japanese Abroad, there are about 2.5 million nikkei living in their adopted countries. The largest of these foreign communities are in Brazil
, the United States
, and the Philippines
. Descendants of emigrants from the Meiji Era still hold recognizable communities in those countries, forming separate ethnic groups from Japanese peoples in Japan.
refers to permanent settlers, excluding transient Japanese abroad. These groups were historically differentiated by the terms issei
(first-generation nikkeijin), nisei
(second-generation nikkeijin), sansei
(third-generation nikkeijin), and yonsei
(fourth-generation nikkeijin). The term Nikkeijin may or may not apply to those Japanese who still hold Japanese citizenship. Usages of the term may depend on perspective. For example, the Japanese government defines them according to (foreign) citizenship and the ability to provide proof of Japanese lineage up to the third generation - legally the fourth generation has no legal standing in Japan that is any different from another "foreigner." On the other hand, in the U.S. or other places where Nikkeijin have developed their own communities and identities, first-generation Japanese immigrants tend to be included; citizenship is less relevant and a commitment to the local community becomes more important.
Discover Nikkei, a project of the Japanese American National Museum
, defined nikkei as follows:
The definition was derived from The International Nikkei Research Project, a three-year collaborative project involving more than 100 scholars from 10 countries and 14 participating institutions.
Despite claims to the contrary, the Japanese are not exceptional in all respects; therefore, it can be anticipated that new cultural identities will occur within the Japanese diaspora.
s. This activity ended in the 1640s, when the Tokugawa shogunate
imposed maritime restrictions
which forbade Japanese from leaving the country, and from returning if they were already abroad. This policy would not be lifted for over two hundred years.
Travel restrictions were eased once Japan opened diplomatic relations
with western nations. In 1867, the bakufu
began issuing travel documents for overseas travel and emigration.
Before 1885, relatively few people emigrated from Japan, in part because the Meiji government was reluctant to allow emigration, both because it lacked the political power to adequately protect Japanese emigrants, and because it believed that the presence of Japanese as unskilled laborers in foreign countries would hamper its ability to revise the unequal treaties
. A notable exception to this trend was a group of 153 contract laborers who immigrated—without official passports—to Hawai'i in 1868. A portion of this group stayed on after the expiration of the initial labor contract, forming the nucleus of the nikkei community in Hawai'i. In 1885, the Meiji government began to turn to officially sponsored emigration programs to alleviate pressure from overpopulation and the effects of the Matsukata deflation in rural areas. For the next decade, the government was closely involved in the selection and pre-departure instruction of emigrants. The Japanese government was keen on keeping Japanese emigrants well-mannered while abroad in order to show the West that Japan was a dignified society, worthy of respect. By the mid-1890s, immigration companies (imin-kaisha 移民会社), not sponsored by the government, began to dominate the process of recruiting emigrants, but government-sanctioned ideology continued to influence emigration patterns.
; early Japanese settlements included those in Lingayen Gulf
, Manila
, the coasts of Ilocos
and in the Visayas
when the Philippines was under the Srivijaya
and Majapahit Empire. In 16th century the Japanese settlement was established in Ayutthaya
, Thailand
., and in early 17th century Japanese settlers was first recorded to stay in Dutch East Indies
(now Indonesia
). A larger wave came in the 17th century, when Red seal ships
traded in Southeast Asia, and Japanese Catholics fled from the religious persecution imposed by the shoguns, and settled in the Philippines, among other destinations. Many of them also intermarried with the local Filipina women (including those of pure or mixed
Spanish
and Chinese descent), thus forming the new Japanese-Mestizo community.
In 1898 the Dutch East Indies
colonial government statistics showed 614 Japanese in the Dutch East Indies (166 men, 448 women). During the American colonial era in the Philippines, the number of Japanese laborers working in plantations rose so high that in the 20th century, Davao
soon became dubbed as a Ko Nippon Koku ("Little Japan" in Japanese) with a Japanese school, a Shinto shrine and a diplomatic mission from Japan. There is even a popular restaurant called "The Japanese Tunnel", which includes an actual tunnel made by the Japanese in time of the war.
There was also a significant level of emigration to the overseas territories of the Empire of Japan
during the Japanese colonial period, including Korea
, Taiwan
, Manchuria
, and Karafuto. Unlike emigrants to the Americas, Japanese going to the colonies occupied a higher rather than lower social niche upon their arrival.
In 1938 about 309,000 Japanese lived in Taiwan
. By the end of World War II
, there were over 850,000 Japanese in Korea
and more than 2 million in China
, most of them farmers in Manchukuo
(the Japanese had a plan to bring in 5 million Japanese settlers into Manchukuo).
In the census of December 1939, the total population of the South Pacific Mandate
was 129,104, of which 77,257 were Japanese. By December 1941, Saipan
had a population of more than 30,000 people, including 25,000 Japanese. Over 400,000 people lived on Karafuto (southern Sakhalin
) when the Soviet offensive began in early August 1945. Most were of Japanese or Korean
extraction. When Japan lost the Kuril Islands
, 17,000 Japanese were expelled, most from the
southern islands.
. The Allied powers repatriated over 6 million Japanese nationals from colonies and battlefields throughout Asia. Only a few remained overseas, often involuntarily, as in the case of orphans in China
or prisoners of war captured by the Red Army
and forced to work in Siberia
. During the 1950s and 1960s, an estimated 6,000 Japanese accompanied Zainichi Korean
spouses repatriating to North Korea, while another 27,000 prisoners-of-war are estimated to have been sent there by the Soviet Union; see Japanese people in North Korea
.
There is a community of Japanese people in Hong Kong
largely made up of expatriate businessmen. There are about 4,018 Japanese people living in India
who are mostly expatriate engineers and company executives and they are based mainly in Haldia
, Bangalore
and Kolkata
. Additionally, there are 903 Japanese expatriates in Pakistan
based mostly in the cities of Islamabad and Karachi.
People from Japan
began migrating to the U.S. and Canada in significant numbers following the political, cultural, and social changes stemming from the 1868 Meiji Restoration
. (See Japanese American
and Japanese Canadian).
In Canada, small multi-generational communities of Japanese immigrants developed and adapted to life in outside Japan.
In the United States, particularly after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Japanese immigrants were sought by industrialists to replace the Chinese immigrants. In 1907, the "Gentlemen's Agreement" between the governments of Japan and the U.S. ended immigration of Japanese workers (i.e., men), but permitted the immigration of spouses of Japanese immigrants already in the U.S. The Immigration Act of 1924
banned the immigration of all but a token few Japanese, until the Immigration Act of 1965, there was very little further Japanese immigration. That which occurred was mostly in the form of war brides. The majority of Japanese settled in Hawaii
where today a third of the state's population are of Japanese descent, and the rest in the West Coast
(California
, Washington and Oregon
), but other significant communities are found in the Northeast and Midwest states.
The Japanese diaspora has been unique in the absence of new emigration flows in the second half of the 20th century.
With the restrictions on entering the United States, the level of Japanese immigration to Latin America began to increase. Japan
ese immigrants (particularly from the Okinawa Prefecture
) arrived in small numbers during the early 20th century. Japanese Brazilians are the largest ethnic Japanese community outside Japan
(numbering about 1.5 million, compared to about 1.2 million in the United States
), and São Paulo
contains the largest concentration of Japanese outside Japan. The first Japanese immigrants (791 people, mostly farmers) came to Brazil
in 1908 on the Kasato Maru from the Japanese port of Kobe
, moving to Brazil
in search of better living conditions. Many of them ended up as laborers on coffee farms.
The first Japanese Argentine
Nisei
(second generation), Seicho Arakaki, was born in 1911. Today there are an estimated 32,000 people of Japanese descent in Argentina according to Association of Nikkei and Japanese Abroad.
Japanese Peruvian
s form another notable ethnic Japanese community and count among their members former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori
.
See also Japanese Paraguayan
.
There was a small amount of Japanese settlement in the Dominican Republic between 1956 and 1961, in a programme initiated by Dominican Republic
leader Rafael Trujillo. Protests over the extreme hardships and broken government promises faced by the initial group of migrants set the stage for the end of state-supported labour emigration in Japan.
some whose heritage date back to the times when both countries shared the territories of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands; some Japanese communists settled in the Soviet Union
, including Mutsuo Hakamada, the brother of former Japanese Communist Party
chairman Satomi Hakamada whose daughter Irina Hakamada
is a notable Russian political figure. The 2002 Russian census
showed 835 people claiming Japanese ethnicity (nationality).
There is a sizable Japanese community in Düsseldorf, Germany of nearly 8,000.
, and were involved in the pearl
fishing business.
In recent years, Japanese migration to Australia, largely consisting of younger age females, has been on the rise.
(kitsui [difficult], kitanai [dirty], and kiken [dangerous]), Japan's Ministry of Labor began to grant visas to ethnic Japanese from South America to come to Japan and work in factories. The vast majority — estimated at roughly 300,000 — were from Brazil
, but there is also a large population from Peru
(non-Japanese-Peruvian with false documentation that is about 36% of total Japanese-Peruvian population in Japan) and smaller populations from Argentina
and other Latin American countries.
In response to the recession as of 2009, the Japanese government has offered ¥
300,000 ($3,300) for unemployed Japanese from Latin America to return to their country of origin with the stated goal of alleviating the country's soaring unemployment. Another ¥200,000 ($2,200) is offered for each additional family member to leave. Emigrants who take this offer are not allowed to return to Japan with the same privileged visa with which they entered the country. A columnist for the Japan Times, an English language newspaper in Japan, denounced the policy as "racist" as it only offered Japanese-blooded foreigners who possessed the special "person of Japanese ancestry" visa the option to receive money in return for repatriation to their home countries. Some commentators also accused it of being exploitative since most nikkei had been offered incentives to immigrate to Japan in 1990, were regularly reported to work 60+ hours per week, and were finally asked to return home when the Japanese became unemployed in large numbers.
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
, and its individual members known as , are Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
emigrants from Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and their descendants
Kinship
Kinship is a relationship between any entities that share a genealogical origin, through either biological, cultural, or historical descent. And descent groups, lineages, etc. are treated in their own subsections....
that reside in a foreign country. Emigration from Japan first happened and was recorded as early as the 12th century to the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, but did not become a mass phenomenon until the Meiji Era, when Japanese began to go to North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, beginning in 1897 with 35 emigrants to Mexico; and later Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
, beginning in 1899 with 790 emigrants to Peru. There was also significant emigration to the territories of the Empire of Japan
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
during the colonial period; however, most such emigrants repatriated to Japan after the end of World War II in Asia.
According to the Association of Nikkei and Japanese Abroad, there are about 2.5 million nikkei living in their adopted countries. The largest of these foreign communities are in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
. Descendants of emigrants from the Meiji Era still hold recognizable communities in those countries, forming separate ethnic groups from Japanese peoples in Japan.
Terminology
Nikkei is derived from the term in Japanese, used to refer to Japanese people who emigrated from Japan and their descendants. EmigrationEmigration
Emigration is the act of leaving one's country or region to settle in another. It is the same as immigration but from the perspective of the country of origin. Human movement before the establishment of political boundaries or within one state is termed migration. There are many reasons why people...
refers to permanent settlers, excluding transient Japanese abroad. These groups were historically differentiated by the terms issei
Issei
Issei is a Japanese language term used in countries in North America, South America and Australia to specify the Japanese people first to immigrate. Their children born in the new country are referred to as Nisei , and their grandchildren are Sansei...
(first-generation nikkeijin), nisei
Nisei
During the early years of World War II, Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated from their homes in the Pacific coast states because military leaders and public opinion combined to fan unproven fears of sabotage...
(second-generation nikkeijin), sansei
Sansei
Sansei is a Japanese language term used in countries in South America, North America and Australia to specify the children of children born to Japanese people in the new country. The Nisei are considered the second generation, grandchildren of the Japanese-born immigrants are called Sansei and...
(third-generation nikkeijin), and yonsei
Yonsei (fourth-generation Nikkei)
is a Japanese diasporic term used in countries, particularly in North America and in Latin America, to specify the great-grandchildren of Japanese immigrants . The children of Issei are Nisei . Sansei are the third generation, and their offspring are Yonsei...
(fourth-generation nikkeijin). The term Nikkeijin may or may not apply to those Japanese who still hold Japanese citizenship. Usages of the term may depend on perspective. For example, the Japanese government defines them according to (foreign) citizenship and the ability to provide proof of Japanese lineage up to the third generation - legally the fourth generation has no legal standing in Japan that is any different from another "foreigner." On the other hand, in the U.S. or other places where Nikkeijin have developed their own communities and identities, first-generation Japanese immigrants tend to be included; citizenship is less relevant and a commitment to the local community becomes more important.
Discover Nikkei, a project of the Japanese American National Museum
Japanese American National Museum
The opened its doors in 1992. The idea for the museum was originally thought up by Bruce Kaji with help from other notable Japanese American people at the time. The museum is located in the Little Tokyo an area near downtown Los Angeles, California. It is devoted to preserving the history and...
, defined nikkei as follows:
The definition was derived from The International Nikkei Research Project, a three-year collaborative project involving more than 100 scholars from 10 countries and 14 participating institutions.
Despite claims to the contrary, the Japanese are not exceptional in all respects; therefore, it can be anticipated that new cultural identities will occur within the Japanese diaspora.
Early history
Overseas Japanese have existed since the 15th century; from the 15th through the early 17th century, Japanese seafarers traveled to China and Southeast Asia, in some cases establishing early JapantownJapantown
is a common name for official Japanese communities in big cities outside Japan. Alternatively, a Japantown may be called J-town, Little Tokyo, or Nihonmachi , the first two being common names for the Japanese communities in San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively.-North America:Japantowns were...
s. This activity ended in the 1640s, when the Tokugawa shogunate
Tokugawa shogunate
The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...
imposed maritime restrictions
Sakoku
was the foreign relations policy of Japan under which no foreigner could enter nor could any Japanese leave the country on penalty of death. The policy was enacted by the Tokugawa shogunate under Tokugawa Iemitsu through a number of edicts and policies from 1633–39 and remained in effect until...
which forbade Japanese from leaving the country, and from returning if they were already abroad. This policy would not be lifted for over two hundred years.
Travel restrictions were eased once Japan opened diplomatic relations
Convention of Kanagawa
On March 31, 1854, the or was concluded between Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the U.S. Navy and the Tokugawa shogunate.-Treaty of Peace and Amity :...
with western nations. In 1867, the bakufu
Shogun
A was one of the hereditary military dictators of Japan from 1192 to 1867. In this period, the shoguns, or their shikken regents , were the de facto rulers of Japan though they were nominally appointed by the emperor...
began issuing travel documents for overseas travel and emigration.
Before 1885, relatively few people emigrated from Japan, in part because the Meiji government was reluctant to allow emigration, both because it lacked the political power to adequately protect Japanese emigrants, and because it believed that the presence of Japanese as unskilled laborers in foreign countries would hamper its ability to revise the unequal treaties
Unequal Treaties
“Unequal treaty” is a term used in specific reference to a number of treaties imposed by Western powers, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, on Qing Dynasty China and late Tokugawa Japan...
. A notable exception to this trend was a group of 153 contract laborers who immigrated—without official passports—to Hawai'i in 1868. A portion of this group stayed on after the expiration of the initial labor contract, forming the nucleus of the nikkei community in Hawai'i. In 1885, the Meiji government began to turn to officially sponsored emigration programs to alleviate pressure from overpopulation and the effects of the Matsukata deflation in rural areas. For the next decade, the government was closely involved in the selection and pre-departure instruction of emigrants. The Japanese government was keen on keeping Japanese emigrants well-mannered while abroad in order to show the West that Japan was a dignified society, worthy of respect. By the mid-1890s, immigration companies (imin-kaisha 移民会社), not sponsored by the government, began to dominate the process of recruiting emigrants, but government-sanctioned ideology continued to influence emigration patterns.
To 1945
Japanese emigration to the rest of Asia was noted as early as the 12th century to the PhilippinesPhilippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
; early Japanese settlements included those in Lingayen Gulf
Lingayen Gulf
The Lingayen Gulf is an extension of the South China Sea on Luzon in the Philippines stretching . It is framed by the provinces of Pangasinan and La Union and sits between the Zambales Mountains and the Cordillera Central...
, Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
, the coasts of Ilocos
Ilocos
Ilocos collectively refers to two provinces in the Philippines: Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur. Inhabitants are called Ilocanos and they speak the language Iloko, also called Ilocano.The Ilocos Region, containing four provinces, is named after Ilocos...
and in the Visayas
Visayas
The Visayas or Visayan Islands and locally known as Kabisay-an gid, is one of the three principal geographical divisions of the Philippines, along with Mindanao and Luzon. It consists of several islands, primarily surrounding the Visayan Sea, although the Visayas are considered the northeast...
when the Philippines was under the Srivijaya
Srivijaya
Srivijaya was a powerful ancient thalassocratic Malay empire based on the island of Sumatra, modern day Indonesia, which influenced much of Southeast Asia. The earliest solid proof of its existence dates from the 7th century; a Chinese monk, I-Tsing, wrote that he visited Srivijaya in 671 for 6...
and Majapahit Empire. In 16th century the Japanese settlement was established in Ayutthaya
Ayutthaya kingdom
Ayutthaya was a Siamese kingdom that existed from 1350 to 1767. Ayutthaya was friendly towards foreign traders, including the Chinese, Vietnamese , Indians, Japanese and Persians, and later the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and French, permitting them to set up villages outside the walls of the...
, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
., and in early 17th century Japanese settlers was first recorded to stay in Dutch East Indies
Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....
(now Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
). A larger wave came in the 17th century, when Red seal ships
Red seal ships
were Japanese armed merchant sailing ships bound for Southeast Asian ports with a red-sealed patent issued by the early Tokugawa shogunate in the first half of the 17th century...
traded in Southeast Asia, and Japanese Catholics fled from the religious persecution imposed by the shoguns, and settled in the Philippines, among other destinations. Many of them also intermarried with the local Filipina women (including those of pure or mixed
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
Spanish
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
and Chinese descent), thus forming the new Japanese-Mestizo community.
In 1898 the Dutch East Indies
Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....
colonial government statistics showed 614 Japanese in the Dutch East Indies (166 men, 448 women). During the American colonial era in the Philippines, the number of Japanese laborers working in plantations rose so high that in the 20th century, Davao
Davao
Davao refers to several closely related places in Mindanao in the Philippines. The term is used most often to refer to the city.*Davao Region, an administrative region*Davao del Norte province*Davao del Sur province*Davao Oriental province...
soon became dubbed as a Ko Nippon Koku ("Little Japan" in Japanese) with a Japanese school, a Shinto shrine and a diplomatic mission from Japan. There is even a popular restaurant called "The Japanese Tunnel", which includes an actual tunnel made by the Japanese in time of the war.
There was also a significant level of emigration to the overseas territories of the Empire of Japan
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
during the Japanese colonial period, including Korea
Korea under Japanese rule
Korea was under Japanese rule as part of Japan's 35-year imperialist expansion . Japanese rule ended in 1945 shortly after the Japanese defeat in World War II....
, Taiwan
Taiwan under Japanese rule
Between 1895 and 1945, Taiwan was a dependency of the Empire of Japan. The expansion into Taiwan was a part of Imperial Japan's general policy of southward expansion during the late 19th century....
, Manchuria
Manchukuo
Manchukuo or Manshū-koku was a puppet state in Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia, governed under a form of constitutional monarchy. The region was the historical homeland of the Manchus, who founded the Qing Empire in China...
, and Karafuto. Unlike emigrants to the Americas, Japanese going to the colonies occupied a higher rather than lower social niche upon their arrival.
In 1938 about 309,000 Japanese lived in Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
. By the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, there were over 850,000 Japanese in Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
and more than 2 million in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, most of them farmers in Manchukuo
Manchukuo
Manchukuo or Manshū-koku was a puppet state in Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia, governed under a form of constitutional monarchy. The region was the historical homeland of the Manchus, who founded the Qing Empire in China...
(the Japanese had a plan to bring in 5 million Japanese settlers into Manchukuo).
In the census of December 1939, the total population of the South Pacific Mandate
South Pacific Mandate
The was the Japanese League of Nations mandate consisting of several groups of islands in the Pacific Ocean which came under the administration of Japan after the defeat of the German Empire in World War I.-Early history:Under the terms of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, after the start of World...
was 129,104, of which 77,257 were Japanese. By December 1941, Saipan
Saipan
Saipan is the largest island of the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands , a chain of 15 tropical islands belonging to the Marianas archipelago in the western Pacific Ocean with a total area of . The 2000 census population was 62,392...
had a population of more than 30,000 people, including 25,000 Japanese. Over 400,000 people lived on Karafuto (southern Sakhalin
Sakhalin
Sakhalin or Saghalien, is a large island in the North Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N.It is part of Russia, and is Russia's largest island, and is administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast...
) when the Soviet offensive began in early August 1945. Most were of Japanese or Korean
Sakhalin Koreans
Sakhalin Koreans are Russian citizens and residents of Korean descent living on Sakhalin Island, who trace their roots to the immigrants from the Gyeongsang and Jeolla provinces of Korea during the late 1930s and early 1940s, the latter half of the Japanese colonial era...
extraction. When Japan lost the Kuril Islands
Kuril Islands
The Kuril Islands , in Russia's Sakhalin Oblast region, form a volcanic archipelago that stretches approximately northeast from Hokkaidō, Japan, to Kamchatka, Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean. There are 56 islands and many more minor rocks. It consists of Greater...
, 17,000 Japanese were expelled, most from the
southern islands.
After 1945
After World War II, most of these overseas Japanese repatriated to JapanWorld War II evacuation and expulsion
Forced deportation, mass evacuation and displacement of peoples took place in many of the countries involved in World War II. These were caused both by the direct hostilities between Axis and Allied powers, and the border changes enacted in the pre-war settlement...
. The Allied powers repatriated over 6 million Japanese nationals from colonies and battlefields throughout Asia. Only a few remained overseas, often involuntarily, as in the case of orphans in China
Japanese orphans in China
Japanese orphans in China consist primarily of children left behind by Japanese families repatriating to Japan in the aftermath of World War II. According to Chinese government figures, roughly 2,800 Japanese children were left behind in China after the war, 90% in Inner Mongolia and northeast...
or prisoners of war captured by the Red Army
Japanese prisoners of war in the Soviet Union
By the end of :World War II there were from 560,000 to 760,000 Japanese POWs in the Soviet Union and Mongolia interned to work in labor camps. Of them, about 10% died , mostly during the winter of 1945–1946....
and forced to work in Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
. During the 1950s and 1960s, an estimated 6,000 Japanese accompanied Zainichi Korean
Zainichi Korean
Koreans in Japan are the ethnic Korean residents of Japan. They currently constitute the second largest ethnic minority group in Japan. The majority of Koreans in Japan are Zainichi Koreans, also often known as Zainichi for short, who are the permanent ethnic Korean residents of Japan...
spouses repatriating to North Korea, while another 27,000 prisoners-of-war are estimated to have been sent there by the Soviet Union; see Japanese people in North Korea
Japanese people in North Korea
Japanese people in North Korea consist mainly of four groups: prisoners-of-war in the Soviet Union, Japanese accompanying repatriating Zainichi Korean spouses, defectors, and kidnapping victims...
.
There is a community of Japanese people in Hong Kong
Japanese people in Hong Kong
Japanese people in Hong Kong are composed primarily of expatriate businesspeople and their families, although there are also a sizable number of single women. Their numbers are smaller when compared to the sizable presence of Americans, British and Canadian expatriates. , 21,518 Japanese citizens...
largely made up of expatriate businessmen. There are about 4,018 Japanese people living in India
Japanese people in India
There is a small community of who are mainly expatriates from Japan. Most of them in live in Bangalore, Kolkata and most notably, Haldia.-Haldia:...
who are mostly expatriate engineers and company executives and they are based mainly in Haldia
Haldia
Haldia has a typical moderate climate with winter temperatures ranging from a low of around 7 degrees Celsius to a high of 22 degrees Celsius. Winters are chilly and is when the residents hold the Haldia Utsav festival. Summers can be very hot and humid. Usual summer temperatures in May, the...
, Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
and Kolkata
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
. Additionally, there are 903 Japanese expatriates in Pakistan
Japanese people in Pakistan
Japanese in Pakistan form a small expatriate community. , 903 Japanese lived in the country, according to the statistics of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs...
based mostly in the cities of Islamabad and Karachi.
Americas
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
began migrating to the U.S. and Canada in significant numbers following the political, cultural, and social changes stemming from the 1868 Meiji Restoration
Meiji Restoration
The , also known as the Meiji Ishin, Revolution, Reform or Renewal, was a chain of events that restored imperial rule to Japan in 1868...
. (See Japanese American
Japanese American
are American people of Japanese heritage. Japanese Americans have historically been among the three largest Asian American communities, but in recent decades have become the sixth largest group at roughly 1,204,205, including those of mixed-race or mixed-ethnicity...
and Japanese Canadian).
In Canada, small multi-generational communities of Japanese immigrants developed and adapted to life in outside Japan.
In the United States, particularly after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Japanese immigrants were sought by industrialists to replace the Chinese immigrants. In 1907, the "Gentlemen's Agreement" between the governments of Japan and the U.S. ended immigration of Japanese workers (i.e., men), but permitted the immigration of spouses of Japanese immigrants already in the U.S. The Immigration Act of 1924
Immigration Act of 1924
The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the National Origins Act, and Asian Exclusion Act , was a United States federal law that limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already...
banned the immigration of all but a token few Japanese, until the Immigration Act of 1965, there was very little further Japanese immigration. That which occurred was mostly in the form of war brides. The majority of Japanese settled in Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
where today a third of the state's population are of Japanese descent, and the rest in the West Coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
(California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, Washington and Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
), but other significant communities are found in the Northeast and Midwest states.
The Japanese diaspora has been unique in the absence of new emigration flows in the second half of the 20th century.
With the restrictions on entering the United States, the level of Japanese immigration to Latin America began to increase. Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese immigrants (particularly from the Okinawa Prefecture
Okinawa Prefecture
is one of Japan's southern prefectures. It consists of hundreds of the Ryukyu Islands in a chain over long, which extends southwest from Kyūshū to Taiwan. Okinawa's capital, Naha, is located in the southern part of Okinawa Island...
) arrived in small numbers during the early 20th century. Japanese Brazilians are the largest ethnic Japanese community outside Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
(numbering about 1.5 million, compared to about 1.2 million in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
), and São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
contains the largest concentration of Japanese outside Japan. The first Japanese immigrants (791 people, mostly farmers) came to Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
in 1908 on the Kasato Maru from the Japanese port of Kobe
Kobe
, pronounced , is the fifth-largest city in Japan and is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture on the southern side of the main island of Honshū, approximately west of Osaka...
, moving to Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
in search of better living conditions. Many of them ended up as laborers on coffee farms.
The first Japanese Argentine
Asian Argentine
An Asian-Argentine is defined as an Argentine of Asian ancestry, either born within Argentina, or born elsewhere and later to become a citizen or resident of Argentina. Asian-Argentines settled in Argentina in large numbers during several waves of immigration in the twentieth century...
Nisei
Nisei
During the early years of World War II, Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated from their homes in the Pacific coast states because military leaders and public opinion combined to fan unproven fears of sabotage...
(second generation), Seicho Arakaki, was born in 1911. Today there are an estimated 32,000 people of Japanese descent in Argentina according to Association of Nikkei and Japanese Abroad.
Japanese Peruvian
Japanese Peruvian
Japanese Peruvians are people of Japanese ancestry who were born in or immigrated to Peru. The immigrants from Japan are called the Issei generation. Second and third generation Peruvians are referred to as nisei and sansei in Japanese...
s form another notable ethnic Japanese community and count among their members former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori
Alberto Fujimori
Alberto Fujimori Fujimori served as President of Peru from 28 July 1990 to 17 November 2000. A controversial figure, Fujimori has been credited with the creation of Fujimorism, uprooting terrorism in Peru and restoring its macroeconomic stability, though his methods have drawn charges of...
.
See also Japanese Paraguayan
Japanese Paraguayan
Japanese Paraguayan is a Paraguayan citizen with Japanese ethnicity.-History:...
.
There was a small amount of Japanese settlement in the Dominican Republic between 1956 and 1961, in a programme initiated by Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
leader Rafael Trujillo. Protests over the extreme hardships and broken government promises faced by the initial group of migrants set the stage for the end of state-supported labour emigration in Japan.
Europe
The Japanese in Britain form the largest Japanese community in Europe with well over 100,000 living all over the United Kingdom (the majority being in London). In recent years, many young Japanese have been migrating from Japan to Britain to engage in cultural production and to become successful artists in London. There are also small numbers of Japanese people in RussiaJapanese people in Russia
Japanese people in Russia form a small part of the worldwide community of Nikkeijin. They count various notable political figures among their number.-Early settlement:...
some whose heritage date back to the times when both countries shared the territories of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands; some Japanese communists settled in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, including Mutsuo Hakamada, the brother of former Japanese Communist Party
Japanese Communist Party
The Japanese Communist Party is a left-wing political party in Japan.The JCP advocates the establishment of a society based on socialism, democracy and peace, and opposition to militarism...
chairman Satomi Hakamada whose daughter Irina Hakamada
Irina Hakamada
Irina Mutsuovna Khakamada is a Russian politician who ran in the Russian presidential election, 2004. She is a member of The Other Russia coalition.-Biography:...
is a notable Russian political figure. The 2002 Russian census
Russian Census (2002)
Russian Census of 2002 was the first census of the Russian Federation carried out on October 9 through October 16, 2002. It was carried out by the Russian Federal Service of State Statistics .-Resident population:...
showed 835 people claiming Japanese ethnicity (nationality).
There is a sizable Japanese community in Düsseldorf, Germany of nearly 8,000.
Oceania
Early Japanese immigrants lived in Broome, Western AustraliaBroome, Western Australia
Broome is a pearling and tourist town in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, north of Perth. The year round population is approximately 14,436, growing to more than 45,000 per month during the tourist season...
, and were involved in the pearl
Pearl
A pearl is a hard object produced within the soft tissue of a living shelled mollusk. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is made up of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other...
fishing business.
In recent years, Japanese migration to Australia, largely consisting of younger age females, has been on the rise.
Return migration to Japan
In the 1980s, with Japan's growing economy facing a shortage of workers willing to do so-called three 'K' jobsDirty, Dangerous and Demeaning
Dirty, Dangerous and Demeaning , also known as the 3Ds, is an American neologism derived from an Asian concept, and refers to certain kinds of labor often performed by unionized blue-collar workers.The term originated from the Japanese expression 3K: kitanai, kiken, and kitsui, and has...
(kitsui [difficult], kitanai [dirty], and kiken [dangerous]), Japan's Ministry of Labor began to grant visas to ethnic Japanese from South America to come to Japan and work in factories. The vast majority — estimated at roughly 300,000 — were from Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, but there is also a large population from Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
(non-Japanese-Peruvian with false documentation that is about 36% of total Japanese-Peruvian population in Japan) and smaller populations from Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
and other Latin American countries.
In response to the recession as of 2009, the Japanese government has offered ¥
Japanese yen
The is the official currency of Japan. It is the third most traded currency in the foreign exchange market after the United States dollar and the euro. It is also widely used as a reserve currency after the U.S. dollar, the euro and the pound sterling...
300,000 ($3,300) for unemployed Japanese from Latin America to return to their country of origin with the stated goal of alleviating the country's soaring unemployment. Another ¥200,000 ($2,200) is offered for each additional family member to leave. Emigrants who take this offer are not allowed to return to Japan with the same privileged visa with which they entered the country. A columnist for the Japan Times, an English language newspaper in Japan, denounced the policy as "racist" as it only offered Japanese-blooded foreigners who possessed the special "person of Japanese ancestry" visa the option to receive money in return for repatriation to their home countries. Some commentators also accused it of being exploitative since most nikkei had been offered incentives to immigrate to Japan in 1990, were regularly reported to work 60+ hours per week, and were finally asked to return home when the Japanese became unemployed in large numbers.
See also
- List of Japanese Americans
- IsseiIsseiIssei is a Japanese language term used in countries in North America, South America and Australia to specify the Japanese people first to immigrate. Their children born in the new country are referred to as Nisei , and their grandchildren are Sansei...
- NiseiNiseiDuring the early years of World War II, Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated from their homes in the Pacific coast states because military leaders and public opinion combined to fan unproven fears of sabotage...
- SanseiSanseiSansei is a Japanese language term used in countries in South America, North America and Australia to specify the children of children born to Japanese people in the new country. The Nisei are considered the second generation, grandchildren of the Japanese-born immigrants are called Sansei and...
- YonseiYonsei (fourth-generation Nikkei)is a Japanese diasporic term used in countries, particularly in North America and in Latin America, to specify the great-grandchildren of Japanese immigrants . The children of Issei are Nisei . Sansei are the third generation, and their offspring are Yonsei...
External links
- Discover Nikkei, A site co-ordinated with the Japanese American National MuseumJapanese American National MuseumThe opened its doors in 1992. The idea for the museum was originally thought up by Bruce Kaji with help from other notable Japanese American people at the time. The museum is located in the Little Tokyo an area near downtown Los Angeles, California. It is devoted to preserving the history and...
and affiliated with academic, community programs, and scholars. - Japanese Ministry of Foreign AffairsMinistry of Foreign Affairs (Japan)The is a cabinet level ministry of Japan responsible for the country's foreign relations.The ministry is due to the second term of the third article of the National Government Organization Act , and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Establishment Act establishes the ministry...
(MOFAMinistry of Foreign Affairs (Japan)The is a cabinet level ministry of Japan responsible for the country's foreign relations.The ministry is due to the second term of the third article of the National Government Organization Act , and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Establishment Act establishes the ministry...
): Future Policy Regarding Cooperation with Overseas Communities of Nikkei - APJ, A non-profit organization representing Japanese Citizens living in Peru and their descendants.
- NikkeiCity, Information of the nikkei in Peru.