Interviews

1. From the "middle" Nikkei (Spanish)

2. Growing up with some Japanese families (Spanish)

3. The various realities of Nikkei in Latin America (Spanish)

4. The political effects on Nikkei during the war (Spanish)

5. Retaining Japanese customs (Spanish)

6. Advantages of being Nikkei (Spanish)

7. To be more Japanese than you really are (Spanish)

8. Nikkei vs. Nisei (Spanish)

Hirose,Roberto

(b. 1950) Nisei Chilean, Businessman

The various realities of Nikkei in Latin America (Spanish)

(Spanish) I think that the development of this thing called Nikkei has been somewhat distinct from country to country. I’m referring to Latin America in general. Through the Pan-American Association of Nikkei, I’ve had the opportunity to come into contact with various Nikkei realities, and yes, there are some common roots, however there are also certain differences. Perhaps the greatest difference I see comes from the number of Japanese that settled in a given place. In places where there are a lot of Japanese, there are obviously Japanese schools. There are Japanese clubs, Japanese churches, or Buddhist temples – whatever, I don’t know! By contrast, in countries like Chile, there was none of that. Therefore, in the development of countries where there were a lot of Japanese, maybe the customs, the culture lasted longer. Maybe it wasn’t growing, but it lasted longer in those places. In the case of Chile, in my case, I think we drifted quite a bit towards adapting to Chilean society, and as fast as possible in order to get by as best we could. So, for example, within this context you see that in religion, for example, in Chile there’s no…uh…the majority religion is Catholicism, and perhaps therefore all of us ended up embracing that religion. Something else, for example, is that since the nucleus of Japanese and Nikkei was so small, weddings, marriages to locals was much greater than in other places. Naturally, this led to, among other things, a very rapid loss of the language.

Chile communities culture immigration

Date: October 7, 2005

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Ann Kaneko

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

Interviewee Bio

Roberto Hirose was born in Quillota, Chile on August 8, 1950. He spent his childhood in an agricultural environment where he met a variety of the local Japanese in Chile. He attended school in Quillota and later in Copiapó. In Copiapó, he had the opportunity to meet people from Japan who had come to the mining area of Chile for work. He studied electrical engineering at La Universidad de Chile, in Santiago (1968-1973). Subsequently, he was awarded a six month scholarship by the Ministerio de Educación de Japón to study Japanese at the University of Foreign Languages in Osaka, and research electrical engineering at the University of Hiroshima for one year. For over a decade, Roberto worked in the machinery department at Mitsui Chile Ltda. In 1986, he worked at Industrias Vinycon (as a manufacturer of industrial fishing materials). In 2002, he managed the diversification of Vinycon in northern Chile, specifically in Caldera, where he directed an agricultural center for the cultivation of abalone. In regards to Nikkei activities in Chile, Roberto actively participated in the Sociedad Japonesa de Beneficencia from 1968 to 1986. Afterwards, he became involved with the Corporación Nikkei de la Región de Valparaíso (formerly the Agrupación Nikkei de Valparaíso) of which he is still a part of today. (May 2, 2007)