Dekasseguis

[queshaw]

I read that a large population (or the largest population) of Japanese speakers outside of Japan are in Brazil. Also, the CIA factbook claims that the 2nd largest immigrant population in Japan is Brazilians, many of whom are the Japanese from Brazil. That must be very strange to be doubly a foreigner.

Here's an article about the Brazilian Japanese, who are called (in Portuguese I think) Dekasseguis.

http://www.clas.berkeley.edu:7001/Research/graduate/summer2001/rivas/index.html

Do you know anything about this?

[two_heads_talking]

someone was speaking of this in another thread, you should search for that.. and reply there

[queshaw]

If you mean the 500 facts thread, it seems like the wrong place to discuess it.

[two_heads_talking]

i actually thought i saw it somewhere else

[queshaw]

Oh, well I see another post. Sawatdee (sorry to single someone out) says in passing that their father was Brazilian Japanese (Kahp kun krap, Sawatdee). There must be a unique Brazilian Japanese culture, but I don't see much about it written in English on the internet.

[keatonatron]

I have a classmate who is from Peru. Her grandparents and parents are all 100% Japanese, but have been living in Peru for a few generations. Het parents don't speak Japanese, and neither did she (that's why she's in school with me!).

She said she lives in a neighborhood full of people from Peru and Brazil. I thought it was strange that I hadn't heard about the large Brazilian population in Japan until recently. I only knew about the Filipinos, Koreans and Chinese...

[queshaw]

I just watched "record of a living being" which is about a man who wants to move his family to brazil because of fear about fallout from the bombing of Japan. In part of the film they show a very dark skinned asian man on a farm in Brazil, as part of film ad the character in the movie is showing to get people to buy land in Brazil.

The movie is interesting, but a short subject. The English subtitles on the DVD that I watched are unusually broken. For example, Brazil is spelled Basil throughout the movie.

[Mike Cash]

I don't know what the Brazilians call it, but the word 出稼ぎ (dekasegi) is a Japanese word that refers to people who work for extended periods far enough away from their homes that they have to live separately. Dekasegi is quite common among farmers from the Tohoku region, who move southward to warmer climes to do work (construction work is common) during the months when farming is impossible at home.

It's interesting if Brazilians use the same term. It would seem to indicate that the initial wave of Japanese emigrants to Brazil envisioned their trip as being of a temporary nature.

[minorinhu]

Well I'm brazilian and my parents are japanese. We use the same word here, "Dekassegui" ... technically speaking it has the same meaning like Mike Cash posted, but here when we say dekassegui it means "sansei or nisei who goes to Japan to work"
Most of the time at factory and industry

[keatonatron]

God, I love it when an 8-month old thread just springs back to life.

HYAAAAAH!!!

[minorinhu]

omg, didn't notice ! blame queshaw for it B)

[Dehitay]

har har, this is an no-way-to-win type situation
Either revive the dead thread and face the wrath of the public, or start a new thread when you could have done a search and face the wrath of the public!

[keatonatron]

Well, the new replies aren't exactly "start a new thread because I want to tell the world" material. I think it's more of a "oh, hey, that applies to me so I might as well contribute since everyone is interested" type thing.

[Mike Cash]

Since the OP is still active on TJP and is participating in the revived thread, no harm done.