Interviews

1. Decided to leave Japan to Argentina (Spanish)

2. Tango makes him to stay in Argentina (Spanish)

3. Leaving to Argentina (Spanish)

4. His first jobs in Argentina (Spanish)

5. Learning Spanish (Spanish)

6. Journalism as Vocation (Spanish)

7. Marriage to a non-Japanese (Spanish)

8. No more close family in Japan (Spanish)

9. Conflicting relations between Argentina and Japan (Spanish)

10. To feel uncomfortable in Japan (Spanish)

11. Argentina is my home (Spanish)

12. Generational Gap (Spanish)

13. Need generational change in Japanese community (Spanish)

14. No discrimination in Argentina (Spanish)

15. Nikkei identity (Spanish)

Takagi,Kazuomi

(1925-2014) La Plata Hochi, Journalist

Marriage to a non-Japanese (Spanish)

(Spanish) Many Japanese wanted to marry me, but miai, do you understand miai? What one calls (but I am unsure) ‘Japanese style.’ This was done, but the situation told me, “he is in my house the day after tomorrow, and he is going to prepare dinner because there is a pretty young Nisei…but you don’t have to say no,” he said. It will reflect the ‘miai’, if I cannot say no. Therefore, [I say] no. Besides I was working on the radio and making contact with many more Argentine girls than Japanese girls. I eventually married a western girl.

arranged marriages marriages matchmaking omiai

Date: February 23, 2007

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Interviewer: Takeshi Nishimura, Ricardo Hokama

Contributed by: Centro Nikkei Argentino

Interviewee Bio

Takagi Kazuomi was born in Japan on March 27, 1925, in the Mie province. He arrived in Argentina as a tourist and never returned to Japan. By chance he started out in journalism, a profession that provided employment for more than fifty years on radio and in the graphic arts. Today, at eighty-one years old, he continues to fervently work as a journalist for the newspaper of the Japanese collectivity, La Plata Hochi (Japanese Section), including acting stints in various forms of publicity. He passed away on November 10, 2014 at age 89. (January 2021)