Sergio Hernández Galindo

The former Temixco Hacienda is home to one of Mexico’s best-known and popular water parks. The vestiges of the hacienda that still remain—including the parish church and extensive gardens—lend a particular beauty to the place. Temixco (a Náhuatl word that roughly translates to “where the rock of feline is”) is near the city of Cuernavaca and has an average temperature of 20º C (68º F).

But hidden deep in this heavenly place where the flowers always bloom is a little-known story of great importance to the history of Mexico and Japanese immigrants.

When war broke out ...

The series of anti-immigration measures being instituted by President Donald Trump, including the proposed elimination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, is a stark reminder of how Japanese-Americans were persecuted after the Pacific War broke out in December 1941.

Enacted by President Obama in June 2012, DACA has enabled 800,000 young people to study and work in the United States without the threat of deportation. These same young people were brought to the United States as children, without immigration documents, by parents who sought jobs and a better future. These immigrants, mostly from Mexico, have worked ...

In October 2017, leading Mexican businessman Carlos Kasuga Osaka celebrated his 80^th birthday. Carlos is known to many as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Yakult, a Japanese company. He has also become very famous as a public speaker, with thousands of followers on social media.

Behind the success of Carlos Kasuga is a story of hard work and dedication, both personal and by the Japanese community. However, this story is not so well known. The son of Japanese immigrants from Nagano Prefecture, Carlos Tsuyoshi (剛), as his parents named him, was born in a small town in ...

José Taro Zorrilla Takeda is a young Japanese-Mexican artist and architect who was educated at prestigious universities in Japan and Mexico. Through his profession and social activism, he has succeeded in combining the training both countries provided to develop his career and dedicate himself to addressing the problems facing both countries.

Taro’s mother, Kazuko Takeda, arrived in Mexico in 1974 as a young woman. She had attended Sophie University (Jōchi Daigaku), where she majored in Spanish. Kazuko was part of a new wave of Japanese people who moved to Mexico, attracted by the country’s culture. During those years ...

Isamu Carlos Shubayama, the son of Japanese immigrants, was born in Peru in 1931. When he was still a boy, his parents, siblings and grandparents were arrested in Lima in response to a request from the U.S. government in 1944. The Shibayamas were taken to the United States, where they were held in detention for two years at a concentration camp in Crystal City, Texas. During the war, the young boy's grandparents were exchanged for citizens of the Allied countries, and Isamu never saw them again.

Shibayama, now 86 years old (going by the name Art), is a ...