Japanese Postwar Migration to Brazil: An Analysis of Data Presently Available

Abstract

In March 1968 the Japan Emigration Service (JEMIS) reported that more than 615000 Japanese and their descendants were residing in Brazil. The figure represented a considerable increase over the 250000 members of Japanese families living in Brazil at the end of the World War II. The rapidity of population growth which these figures would indicate represents a marked departure from the experience of the first half of the century. Japanese migration to Brazil resumed in 1952 after a ten year pause occasioned by the war. The Brazilian government had conceded quotas for the importation of migrants to two Japanese-Brazilians. The late Mr. Yasutaro Matsubara was authorized to settle 4000 Japanese families in central Brazil (southern Brazil was approved later) and Mr. Kotaro Tsuji was authorized to settle 5000 Japanese families in the Amazon region. In practice the two quotas were administered in Brazil by an agent Mr. Akira Ohtani the former sub-manager of the Yokohama Specie Bank’s Rio de Janeiro branch. In Japan the of Japan Overseas Associations was created (1954) for the purpose of recruiting and screening emigrants. The Federation also provided some training and loans of passage money for migrants. Mr. Ohtani became head of the Rio de Janeiro branch of the Federation. (excerpt)