Sergio Hernández Galindo

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Julio Mizzumi Guerrero Kojima is an acclaimed musician of the son jarocho and fandango movement. To achieve this recognition, this Nikkei musician, who plays the jarana (similar to a guitar), has traveled a long road to understanding that the music and traditions of his people are a part of his identity, an inner essence that gradually flourished and found expression. This process occurred while he was also searching for his Japanese roots and the legacy of Japanese immigrants in the Sotavento region of Veracruz.

Julio Mizzumi heard son jarocho, as the folk music unique to Veracruz is ...

Julio Mizzumi Guerrero Kojima is a folk musician and preschool teacher of Nikkei origin, who was born in a small village in Veracruz on the shores of the Papaloapan River, also known as “river of the butterflies,” in 1970. The village of Otatitlán (which means “place of the bamboo” in the Náhuatl language) where Julio grew up is part of an incredibly rich microcosm in the region called Sotavento (“place of high winds”). The many different cultures flourishing here have intersected in this region of Veracruz for thousands of years.

Adding to an already diverse range of cultures ...

The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 didn't just spark a war between the United States and Japan. Beginning on that day, communities of Japanese immigrants who had settled in several countries in America also became part of the conflict and hostilities.

Several governments in America considered Japanese immigrants to be an invading army of the Japanese empire, and as a result they were forcibly relocated and persecuted despite having settled in those countries decades before. The children of Japanese immigrants, although they were not citizens of Japan, were labeled “foreign enemies” in the countries where they ...

One of the most popular snacks in Mexico is “Japanese peanuts”. This product--which consists of peanuts with a coating made of toasted wheat flour and soy sauce--isn’t originally from Japan. It was actually invented by Yoshigei Nakatani, a Japanese immigrant who arrived in Mexico in 1932.

After coming to Mexico, Nakatani was looking for work and a way to prosper, just like the hundreds of thousands of other immigrants from that country who crossed the Pacific. When he left Japan, he had told his mother: “My goal is to triumph and come back, otherwise I could never return.” At ...

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 ...