Alberto J. Matsumoto

Located 50 kilometers north of Argentina’s capital city, Buenos Aires, Escobar is known as “the city of flowers.”¹ A flower festival is held in October every year, where they showcase new breed varieties from in and out of the country and have a parade with floats covered with flowers such as carnations, decorated by a number of local groups including the Escobar Nihonjinkai (Japanese Association). They also host a beauty pageant for the flower festival.² As this two-week festival attracts some hundreds of thousands of people from all around the country, the event has become the city ...

Migration from Japan officially began more than 150 years ago, starting with Japanese arriving in Hawaii, the United States, and Canada, and later Peru and Brazil just over 100 years ago. During that time, Japan has faced several wars, notably with China (1894-95), Russia (1904-05), and several Asian countries as a result of the imperial occupation that began in the 1920s. And finally, World War II, a grueling conflict with the United States. Each of these events brought a great deal of uncertainty and misery to Japanese migrants.

In the late 1930s, there were about 300,000 Japanese and Nikkei ...

Any Nikkei leader in the Americas either personally knows or has heard of Carlos Kasuga because of his achievements as a businessman in Mexico, or because of his role in the Nikkei Panamerican Association. Not many are familiar, however, with the story of his migration from Japan to Mexico. According to the Encyclopedia of Nikkei of the American Continent Americano¹, it all began with Enomoto’s efforts to establish a settler colony in Chiapas in 1897. Enomoto was quite the celebrity, having served as Minister of Foreign Relations in the Meiji government, although he had initially fought against the ...

現在、日本の義務教育修了率はほぼ100％で、高校進学率も98％となっており、就学率と修了率は世界一である。大学進学率は53.7%と、先進国の中ではあまり高くないが、専門学校進学率23.6%を合わせると8割以上が高等教育を受けていることになる¹。その内容やスキルの水準はともかく、労働市場で柔軟に対応できる能力を持った人材が育成されていることがこの数字に表れている。いずれにしても中等教育の修了率が高いのは、日本の教育制度が完備しているからである。一方、ラテンアメリカ諸国では義務教育の中退者や不就学が未だに３割前後いるとされており、貧困が深刻な地方都市や農村ではそれ以上だと指摘されている²。

1990年の入管法改正で南米の日系就労者が来日し始めてからすでに30年。現在は日系人人口25万人ぐらいといわれているが、2008年のリーマンショック時には39万人 ...

2018年６月ホノルルで同時開催された「ハワイ日本人移住150周年記念式典」と「第59回海外日系人大会」の場で、６月20日が「国際日系デー」に制定された¹。この「国際日系デー」を提唱したのは、沖縄県名護市に在住している日系アルゼンチン人のアンドレス比嘉さん²と日系ペルー人のアンドレス正（ただし）伊佐さん³である。沖縄出身の先祖を持つこの二人⁴は、世代が進むにつれてルーツが薄ていくことに危機感を持ち、2015年から「世界ウチナーンチュの日 ...