User:Shadowminer 55/Brazilians in Japan

Migration history

See also: Japanese immigration in Brazil

Signification migration of Japanese Brazilians first began in the 1980s, due to hyperinflation and economic problems in Brazil. Many Japanese Brazilians, mainly Japanese citizenship holding first and second generation, went to Japan as foreign guest workers, where a prosperous Japan offered average wages eight to ten times higher than in Brazil. They were termed "dekassegui".

In 1990, the Japanese government authorized the legal entry through visas of Japanese and their descendants until the third generation in Japan. At that time, Japan was receiving a large number of, often illegal, foreign workers from Pakistan, Bangladesh, China and Thailand. The legislation of 1990 was intended to select immigrants who entered Japan, giving a clear preference for Japanese descendants from South America, especially Brazil. Like other foreign guest workers, these people were expected to work in hard manual labor (the so-called "three K": Kitsui, Kitanai and Kiken – dirty, dangerous and demeaning). Many Japanese Brazilians began to immigrate. The influx of Japanese descendants from Brazil to Japan was and continues to be large. By 1998, there were 222,217 Brazilians in Japan, making up 81% of all Latin Americans there (with most of the remainder being Japanese Peruvians and Japanese Argentines).

Because of their Japanese ancestry, the Japanese Government believed that Brazilians would be more easily integrated into Japanese society. In fact, this easy integration did not happen, since Japanese Brazilians and their children born in Japan are treated as foreigners by native Japanese. Even people who were born in Japan and immigrated at an early age to Brazil and then returned to Japan are treated as foreigners. Despite the fact that most Brazilians in Japan look Japanese and have a recent Japanese background, they do not "act Japanese" and have a Brazilian identity, and in many if not most cases speak Portuguese as their first or only language. This apparent contradiction between being and seeming causes conflicts of adaptation for the migrants and their acceptance by the natives. (There have been comparable problems in Germany with Russians of ethnic German descent, showing that this phenomenon is not necessarily unique to Japan.)

In April 2009, due to the financial crisis, the Japanese government introduced a new program that would incentivize Brazilian and other Latin American immigrants to return home with a stipend of $3000 for airfare and $2000 for each dependent. Those who participate must agree not to pursue employment in Japan in the future.

As of June 2023, there were 210,563 Brazilian nationals in Japan, of whom 114,744 were permanent residents.