A little over a year ago, the painter Venancio Shinki Huamán, one of the great names of Peruvian art, left us. His children Hugo, Titi and Iván remember the father who always wanted them to maintain contact with his Japanese roots, the Nisei who for much of his life dragged along an identity conflict that he finally managed to overcome and the artist completely dedicated to his vocation. .
FROM DAZZLE TO LONGING
The first thing Titi remembers about her father is his insistence that they had to behave in a certain way, following a kind of Nikkei pattern. In her case, the emphasis was greater when it was a woman.
“My dad always wanted to emphasize that we were Nikkei and that we had to keep traditions. For example, when I was laughing, my dad would grab me like that (by the arm), (and say in a reproachful voice) 'don't laugh like that, we Japanese are more discreet', and it made me laugh more (laughter). And not just once, there were several. When we were at a cocktail party, for example, (he said) 'it's okay to greet people, but don't be so effusive because we Japanese don't transmit that many emotions.' What's more, I did it for the sake of scrubbing, (I laughed) 'hahahaha' by force, so that he would get angry. And he got angry.”
Keeping traditions meant for him, among other things, having a Nikkei partner. Iván reveals a fragment of the fun conversation he had with his father regarding his brother Hugo's marriage:
“The comment my dad made was hilarious. 'Hey, do you know that Hugo is getting married?' 'Sure Dad'. 'But Ivan, you and your brother, why don't you marry a Nikkei?' I started laughing my ass off. I tell him: 'Dad, don't go too far, you separate yourself from a Nikkei to be with an American, and you're telling us...'. My dad's expression was hilarious: 'Son, I speak to you with knowledge of the facts' (laughs). He told me: 'Iván, from the food, they won't understand many things. You will save a lot of time and avoid many arguments if you marry someone who has a culture similar to yours.' That was his way of thinking. "It seemed very annoying to me, but it made sense."
Venancio separated from the mother of his children and later joined the artist Elda di Malio, born in the United States and of Italian ancestors.
Until then, his world had been Nikkei, since his childhood on the San Nicolás hacienda, north of Lima, where his father settled like many Japanese immigrants. After being orphaned at the age of 14, he lived with families of Japanese origin who took him in, first in San Nicolás and later in Lima. As an adult, he married a Nikkei woman, Keyko Higa.
Upon joining Elda he began what his children call his Western life. Elda opened the doors to a new world. Hugo says:
“When you enter a Western world you are dazzled because it is a new world, and especially if they receive you as a winner because professionally you are entering through the front door. Many things dazzle you, but they stop dazzling you when you get used to it. When you get used to it, you start to think about your origin, you start to value what you left behind.”
Your origin, what you left: San Nicolás, the nihongo, the customs, the food...
Titi: My dad really longed for Japanese things. Food for him was a blessing. I enjoyed Japanese food.
Iván: Every time I ate Japanese food it was a party. You can't imagine the happy face he had and made quite a spectacle.
Titi: Yes, when I looked at the one at (the restaurant) Costanera 700, (Humberto) Sato, I looked at him with devotion.
Iván: My dad adored Sato.
Titi: I congratulated Mr. Sato and he told me: “Why are you doing that? Your dad's work will transcend time, but the things I do, you eat them and it's over." I told that to my dad. “No, how can you say that, my stomach is happy” (laughs). He loved it. Truly, I was devoted to him.
THE JAPANESE PARADISE
When he was little, Venancio, the son of an immigrant from Hiroshima and a Peruvian woman, spoke Japanese. However, not when I grew up. Iván believes that he could speak it, but that he did not dare to do so out of shame due to his lack of practice, so many years without using it. In any case, I did understand it. And he was pleased to hear it. “He really liked listening to nihongo. He liked it when someone spoke beautifully, pronounced well,” says Iván.
He collected Nikkei publications, and not because he appeared in them, but because in this way he felt linked to the community, even though it was not part of his social life. In reality, his social world was small.
“The very profession (of painting) is an unsociable profession. A painter works with himself. So all his work time, which was every day, was with himself. In the last twenty years he was limited to having a relationship with basically four families. Nothing to do with the colony, nor with art. They went to someone's house to play chess, or they went on a trip, they went to Europe, Asia, Africa. Because of him, he didn't leave his house. Elda pulled him to go to such an exhibition, in some way it is because of her that he has friends,” says Hugo.
Therefore, he appreciated every opportunity to reconnect with the Nikkei world, such as when they called him to give him recognition, interview him, and even request a favor.
“When they asked him for a favor he was happy to be asked. He did the favors (lending a painting, making a cover, etc.) with affection, because it linked him back to his childhood,” says Hugo.
His childhood was Saint Nicholas.
“He always told me that despite the many problems they had, it was a childhood that he remembered with great affection. And it is a childhood that is surrounded by an entire Japanese world. I had that feeling of having lived in paradise because I lived in San Nicolás. I think he thought it was because he lived in a Japanese environment. He wanted us to also cultivate Japanese things, to marry Japanese women and all that so we could live in that paradise that he lived, even if it was fictitious,” says Hugo.
THE DECISIVE TRIP TO HIROSHIMA
A milestone in the life of the Nikkei painter was his visit to Hiroshima. On the occasion of the centenary of Japanese immigration to Peru (1999), the Hiroshima prefectural government invited him to visit the land of his paternal ancestors.
Venancio arrived in Hiroshima ignoring the surprise that the prefectural authorities had in store for him: his family. It was a shock to him to discover that he had relatives in Japan.
Iván: My dad said: “With the (atomic) bomb we are going to find our family, with the bomb everything will have been lost.” Turns out not and it was great for him to know there was an ancestry. From there we learned the whole story of the grandfather, that he had had another wife, other children, and had escaped to Peru.
Titi: In Nihon the grandfather had two more children, he was married to a Japanese woman. These children were much older than my dad. My dad, being the brother, was younger than the nephew.
The family received him well (his brothers had already died). However, as happened to many Peruvian Nikkei when they met their Japanese relatives, Venancio noticed a certain apprehension. The Shinki of Japan were concerned about the possibility that the son from Peru would claim the family properties. Venancio realized the situation and decided to clarify things, as Iván remembers:
“Just in case, I have not come to claim anything. I am happy to know them, but in Peru I have my house, I have work. Don't worry, I don't plan to come to live in Japan, I don't plan to complain and my children don't plan to complain either."
The painter was particularly moved to learn that the Shinki in Hiroshima had placed an ihai of his father in the cemetery (his remains rest in Peru).
“The return to Japanese is strengthened with this trip to Hiroshima. In the last twenty years I always felt, we all have felt, that my daddy was very longing for Japanese things,” says Titi.
© 2017 Enrique Higa
