65438+800,000 Japanese people gathered in Brazil. Why did they come to the other side of the earth? What's the situation now?

As we all know, Japan is a country with a single ethnic composition, so relatively speaking, the Japanese are also a group with a very strong national consciousness. Therefore, although Japan is an island country, it is not common to emigrate overseas in history. At present, there are 3.8 million people in the world who can be called Japanese except Japan, and nearly half of them, that is, almost 6.5438+0.8 million people live in Brazil, which even exceeds the 300,000 people of Japanese descent living in the United States. So why did the Japanese have a soft spot for Brazil in history, and why did so many people immigrate to Brazil with underdeveloped economy? Why is Brazil important? Can't pull others! It should be said that the formation of large-scale Japanese-American groups in Brazil is the result of a combination of some reasons that appeared in Brazil and Japan respectively. First of all, let's talk about the reasons for Brazil. Many friends who like history probably know that the United States is the most developed area of slave trade in history. However, after entering the19th century, with the increasing condemnation of the slave trade, American countries abolished the slave trade one after another. Brazil, which was highly dependent on slave labor, abolished the slave trade around AD 1850. The early coffee plantations in Brazil were highly dependent on black slaves, because in the19th century, Brazil's main export product was coffee, and black slaves were the main labor force in coffee plantations. Therefore, after the abolition of the slave trade in 1850, although slaves previously sold to Brazil were still widely used in various plantations, the shortage of labor soon appeared. So Brazil brought in Japanese to fill the hole of black slaves? Not exactly. At that time, Brazil was completely controlled by whites, so they were very exclusive to any other race except whites. Therefore, in order to fill the gap in the shortage of black slaves, Brazil first thought of introducing labor from Italy, which was not yet unified at that time and its economy was relatively backward. Because Italians are also white, this is also in line with the established policy of "white" Brazil at that time. Italians immigrated to Brazil at the end of 19, so in the following decades, Brazil introduced a large number of Italian immigrants. However, as I said just now, Brazil introduced Italian immigrants to fill the gap in the shortage of black slaves. Therefore, although Brazil offered to bear all the immigration expenses in order to attract Italian immigrants, after immigrating to Brazil, they will face extremely bad working conditions and extremely low wages. Therefore, with the unification of Italy and the gradual economic development, in 1902, Italy passed a bill prohibiting its nationals from accepting immigration subsidies to immigrate to Brazil, so at this time, Brazil once again experienced a labor shortage. Why do the Japanese go? There's nowhere else to go! Then let's talk about Japan. As we all know, Japan embarked on the road of industrialization after the Meiji Restoration, and Japan almost achieved industrialization at the fastest speed in the world. However, industrialization is not without side effects, because after the Meiji Restoration, the traditional social structure in rural Japan was disintegrated, resulting in a substantial increase in long-term poverty in rural Japan. In order to reduce this burden, Japan began to encourage the rural poor to emigrate overseas. However, there were not many immigrant destinations for Japan to "get rid of the burden" at that time. At that time, people all over the world wanted to emigrate overseas, and the first choice was of course the United States. However, after the US passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, it not only completely banned all immigrants from China, but also imposed more and more strict restrictions on the immigrants of other Asian yellow people. 1907, the United States and Japan * * * reached the "American-Japanese Gentleman Agreement", stipulating that the United States does not restrict Japanese immigrants to the United States in name, but Japan should take the initiative to prohibit its own nationals from immigrating to the United States. So this agreement is tantamount to blocking the way for Japanese to immigrate to the United States. At that time, Australia, another big country that received immigrants, also implemented the "White Australia Policy", which imposed various restrictions on the migration of yellow people in East Asia like the United States, so the rural poor in Japan could not immigrate to Australia. The first batch of Japanese immigrants were brought to Brazil by the Japanese passenger ship Limohamaru, so the situation at that time was that Brazil could not find anyone else and Japan could not find a place to give them away, so both sides could meet each other's needs at that time, although it was not the first choice, so in 1907, Brazil and Japan reached an agreement to allow Japanese to immigrate to Brazil. 1908, the first batch of 790 Japanese immigrants arrived in Brazil on the Japanese passenger ship Lihu Maru. Nearly half of these first immigrants came from the southern part of Ryukyu which was just annexed by Japan at that time. The development of Japanese immigrants in Brazil In the following seven years, there were 3,434 Japanese families,14,983 Japanese immigrants to Brazil. 19 14 After the outbreak of World War I, the number of Japanese immigrants to Brazil further increased. Between 19 17 and 1940, another 164000 Japanese immigrated to Brazil, most of whom went to Sao Paulo, because the coffee plantations in Brazil are mainly located in this state. Japanese immigrants who just arrived in Brazil in the early days, so the Japanese who came to Brazil in the early days actually mainly worked in plantations. Moreover, when they came to Brazil, they actually had the same ideas as many China people who went to Nanyang at that time. They don't want to take root in the local area, just want to earn some money by working and then go back to their hometown to live. But after coming to Brazil, the situation was quite different from their previous expectations. At that time, the planters in Brazil introduced Japanese from the beginning to fill the gap of black slaves, so although these people were not slaves in name, their treatment was not much different from that of slaves. Japanese working in Brazilian plantations work very long hours every day and their wages are extremely low. At the same time, they must buy all the daily necessities they need from the landlord. Japanese who have just arrived in Brazil are usually penniless, which means that they basically have to borrow money from the landlord at the beginning of their lives, and then the wages earned from their work will be used to pay off their debts. So it can be said that there are very few Japanese who are making money in Brazil and then returning home in clothes. At that time, many Japanese wanted to return to China, but because they signed a long-term contract before coming, if they broke it, they would have to pay a lot of compensation to the planters in Brazil, so no one could afford it. So these Japanese were forced to take root in Brazil. Japanese girls are engaged in sericulture in Brazil, but as we mentioned just now, Brazil * * * is completely controlled by whites, so Brazil * * * has been pursuing the policy of "albinism" in the early days, that is, it is necessary to adopt various ways to forcibly assimilate other existing races in Brazil. Therefore, although Brazil took the initiative to introduce Japanese immigrants in the early days, in 192 1, Brazil passed a bill to restrict Asian immigrants, requiring that the number of immigrants from Asia should not exceed 5% of the existing Asian immigrants in the region every year. Since 1934, the immigration policy has been written into the Brazilian Constitution, and Brazil has begun to implement the compulsory assimilation policy for Japanese, Italian, Jewish and German descendants. At that time, Japanese families working in coffee plantations in Brazil, although Japanese immigrant groups have begun to have a second generation, because they studied in Japanese schools set up by the Japanese themselves since childhood, their life circle was basically confined to Brazilian Japanese groups, which also became the main goal of Brazil's compulsory assimilation policy. The outbreak of World War II also provided Brazil with an entry point to implement the compulsory assimilation policy, and all daily newspapers and schools in Brazil were quickly closed down. 1942 After Brazil declared war on axis countries such as Japan in August, Japanese people had to have safety passes when going out, and many Japanese shops closed down. However, during this period, the Japanese still tried to maintain their national identity through various channels, so they were once called "assimilated immigrants" by Brazilians. Japanese immigrants are in the process of assimilation, so after the war, Brazil once considered completely banning Japanese immigrants from entering Brazil. 1946, the Brazilian parliament voted on the bill prohibiting Japanese from immigrating to Brazil, but the voting result turned out to be 99 votes in favor and 99 votes against. Finally, the vote of the Brazilian Speaker in the draw decided the fate of Japanese immigrants in Brazil. He voted against banning Japanese immigrants, so that Brazil did not ban Japanese immigrants in the end. However, in the following decades, with the rapid development of Japan's economy, the number of new immigrants from Japan decreased significantly. Moreover, because Japanese immigrants still maintain various contacts with their countries of origin, the Japanese immigrant groups in Brazil have also taken a ride on the rapid development of Japan's economy to a certain extent, and have rapidly changed from an unpopular poor group to a relatively high-income and popular group in Brazil. 1960s A Japanese couple married other nationalities, but while the Japanese gradually got rid of the difficulties and discrimination in Brazil, the Japanese Brazilians were gradually assimilated by Brazil. Young third-generation Japanese Brazilians can speak less and less Japanese, and Portuguese has gradually become their mother tongue. At the same time, with the mainstream of Brazilian society, more and more people believe in Catholicism. In addition, interracial marriage, a phenomenon that almost did not exist in Japanese groups before World War II, has now become very common among Japanese Brazilians. Statistics show that among the third generation of Japanese Brazilians, only 10% or more still speak Japanese with their parents at home. Brazilian-Japanese who believe in Catholicism have accounted for 60% of the total, and only 25% maintain traditional Japanese beliefs. Among the current Japanese Brazilians, the number of people of other ethnic origins has accounted for 28%, while among the newly emerging fourth-generation Japanese Brazilians, the proportion of mixed-race people has reached 6 1%. Therefore, the Japanese, once regarded as an assimilable nation in Brazil, are actually being assimilated at an alarming rate in Brazil today. Japanese Brazilians celebrating traditional Japanese festivals in Curitiba, Brazil, some Japanese Brazilians immigrated back to Japan because Japan's modern economy far surpassed Brazil's. However, these Japanese Brazilians who immigrated back to Japan, because of their long-term living background in Brazil, are very different from native Japanese after returning to Japan, and even feel that they are Japanese in Brazil and Brazilian in Japan. For example, when Japanese Brazilians were in Brazil, they rarely participated in samba or carnival, but some Japanese Brazilians who immigrated back to Japan became active promoters of such activities in Japan, so that the world's largest Brazilian carnival was held in Japan outside Brazil. At present, there are about 300,000 Brazilians living in Japan, and 20,000 people have been naturalized in Japan, most of whom are Japanese Brazilians.