Asahi Editorial On Brazilians In Japan

[Mulboyne]

Asahi: Brazilian immigration
As dusk descended on April 28, 1908, at the Port of Kobe, the steamship Kasato Maru departed with 781 Japanese aboard, bound for Brazilian shores. Last Monday marked the 100th anniversary of the departure of this first contingent of immigrants to Brazil...A reversal of that flow, and a swift increase of migrant workers in Japan, was triggered by the 1990 revisions to the immigration control law. At the request of the business community, second- and third-generation Japanese from Brazil were granted residence status without employment restrictions...These Japanese-Brazilians are now 310,000 strong, exceeding the number of Japanese who originally moved to Brazil. While more of them have permanent residency, how to educate their children has become a particularly acute problem. There is no shortage of cases in which such children stop attending school due to the language barrier and descend into delinquency... The education of these children, who will bear the burdens of the future, should not be left only up to municipalities. The central government must also support them. Assistance for immigrants having difficulties communicating in Japanese requires the help of nonprofit organizations and other groups. We suggest that firms, which have employeed Japanese-Brazilian workers and made profits, should pay some of the costs. With the number of workers nationwide shrinking, the nation's response to Japanese-Brazilians is shaping up as a litmus test for acceptance of other immigrants into Japan. One reason that so many first-generation Japanese immigrants to Brazil succeeded there was that Brazilian society opened its arms to those settlers, despite their different culture and customs. We want to help these ethnic Japanese, who have returned to the land of their ancestors, blend into communities here and raise their children without anxiety.