Discover Nikkei

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Help from fellow Japanese (Spanish)

 (Spanish) I left the house and saw in the distance an old man with a stick larger than a cane, walking slowly and I said, “This guy looks like my dad.” I approached him slowly and saw that it was indeed my father! When I recognized him I said: “Papá, what are you doing here?” He was sick, real sick. He said: “Venancio, please bring me some water to drink.” I ran to the house but said nothing to my mother. I filled up a glass with water and then ran to give it to him. He drank the water, and then I accompanied him to the house.

He arrived at the house, [and] immediately I [began to write]…at that time I knew how to write in nihongo (Japanese). I wrote in nihongo to Mr. Tsukeo Isayama, who was the head of the Japanese community in San Nicolás. This letter left my hands and passed into the hands of every family in San Nicolás, each of which commented on what I had written. I was nine years old at the time.

On the third day, two empty trucks arrived [without goods inside], and those [folks] inside [were] dressed in black because they thought my father had died. One of them wore a tie, Isayama ojisan with a tie. “Is he alive?” “Yes, but in critical condition,” I told him. “Ah, yokatta ne?” “Great news, no?” he asked. Then we were going to see what to do next. We began to carry the things [from the trucks], first the things and then they placed him on a mattress, a sheet, placing his body on it, they covered him up very nicely, and afterwards the things behind him, and on the other truck the things that remained in the house.

A whole bunch of stuff remained inside the house, and then we left Llamachupán. We arrived at San Nicolás; everything had been arranged. The Japanese were very much united, they came to see Shinki, we are going to unload the trucks and place his things in this house. They gave us a small house on the San Nicolás Hacienda, we were so comfortable in that house, and there my father lived only for a while…


Peru World War II

Date: September 6, 2007

Location: Lima, Peru

Interviewer: Harumi Nako

Contributed by: Asociación Peruano Japonesa (APJ)

Interviewee Bio

Venancio Shinki (born 1932 in Supe, Lima, Peru) is one of the most outstanding Peruvian painters. The son of a Japanese father (Kitsuke Shinki of Hiroshima Ken) and a Peruvian mother (Filomena Huamán), Venancio was raised on the San Nicolás hacienda in Supe, north of Lima, an area with a large concentration of Japanese immigrants in the early years. He studied at the National School of Fine Arts of Peru, and graduated with the best grade in his class in 1962.

His paintings recall Eastern, Western, and Andean traditions, with a distinctive surrealism that shows an unknown and intriguing universe, set off by a purified technique and a renovated figuration, which links Venancio with other great Latin American artists. Venancio has received many accolades and has participated in a variety of individual and group exhibits in Peru, Japan, Italy, United States, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Venezuela, Panama, and Mexico, among others. In 1999, the year of the centenary marking Japanese migration to Peru, Venacio was invited to exhibit his work in the Museum of Man in Nagoya, Japan. His most recent works were displayed in November 2006 during the 34th Annual Japanese Cultural Week in Lima, Peru. He passed away in 2016. (October 2017)

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