Shindo Remmei: Japanese Nationalism in Brazil
O RGANIZED JAPANESE EMIGRATION to Latin America began in 1899, and continued until interrupted by World War IJJ1 The majority of some 230,000 Japanese who emigrated there in this period were poor farmers under contract to work in plantation agriculture in Brazil, Peru, and Mexico. Brazil alone received 188,615 of these immigrants.2 An estimated 140,000 Issei3 and 250,000 Nisei4 are in Brazil today, chiefly in the states of Sdo Paulo, Parana, and Mato Grosso. Both Issei and Nisei are still predomilnantly farmers; however, the Nisei, in steadily increasing numbers, are being drawn to urban occupations. From the earliest years of their elntry into Brazil, the Japanese tended to form homogenous population clusters which the Brazilians refer to as quistos, or cysts. These communties help to preserve the traditional Japanese culture and have proved a major obstacle to assimilation and acculturation. A survey made in Brazil in 19335 proved that the Japanese were widely regarded as being a great asset to the economy of that country, but even this did not deter the Brazilian government from imposing severe restrictions on Japanese immigration the following year.6 The existenee and implications of