The Failure Of Imperial Japan And The Brazil Japanese Immigrant Society

In the early 20 th century,the Japanese began immigrating to Brazil. Just before the World War II, Japanese immigrants in Brazil had reached more than 19 million and constructed their own immigrant community. However, with the outbreak of World War II, Japanese immigrants in Brazil suffered hostile and suppression which came from the anti-fascist alliance countries. On August 15 th, 1945, the Japanese government announced to surrender. The news that Japan was defeated in the Second World War spread to Brazil soon and it caused tremendous shock in the Brazilian society of Japanese immigrants. Japanese immigrants unfolded a fierce debate surrounding the outcome of the war and the immigrant community quickly split into "win" and "defeat" two groups. The conflict between the two groups became increasingly intense and sharp. Eventually it led to a great disturbance which involved all sectors in Japanese immigrant community. There were deep social roots that caused such a big disturbance, such as the features of immigrant society itself, immigrant identity and psychology. During the World War II, Brazil government suppressed its internal Japanese immigrants because of their identity. This action stimulated their nationalist sentiment. And many defects existed in the immigrant community was further enlarged due to the special wartime environment. These constituted together the roots of disturbance. Furthermore, the Japanese government did not pay attention to Brazil and Japanese immigrants and were struggled with the difficult situation in the post-war country, so that the Japanese government did nothing during the disturbance. This disturbance did not solve for a long time also because the Japanese government obscured the fact of invasion and avoided and distorted its responsibility of war. In addition, such a disturbance imposed serious impacts on the Japanese immigrant community in Brazil. It destroyed the old social system and urged the Japanese immigrants freed from the previous identity. The former meant that the post-war new system of the Japanese immigrant community in Brazil would be reconstructed. The latter represented that the Japanese immigrant community would be assimilated and integrated into the local Brazilian community along with the change of identity.