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Japan and Brazil: Two countries linked by migration
After decades of Japanese migration to Brazil, Brazilian workers migrated to Japan to work in the country's factories.
By The Immigrant Times
On 18 June 1908, the Kasato Maru arrived at the Port of Santos, carrying 781 Japanese immigrants. The date is now commemorated as Brazil's National Day of Japanese Immigration. More than a century later, Brazilian communities in Japan celebrate their own culture at events including Brazilian Day in Gunma and Festival Brasil & Latino at Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park.
Executive summary
Brazil and Japan are historically, culturally and politically very different countries on different continents, yet more than a century of migration has forged unusually strong ties between them.
Large-scale Japanese migration to Brazil began in 1908, when the Kasato Maru arrived at the port of Santos with 781 immigrants. Most were contracted to work on coffee plantations in São Paulo state. This marked the start of a migration that continued, with interruptions, for much of the twentieth century.
Today, Brazil is home to an estimated 2.7 million people of Japanese descent, the world's largest Japanese diaspora. Over several generations, most have become firmly integrated into Brazil’s multi-ethnic society. Portuguese has largely replaced Japanese as the everyday language, intermarriage has become more common, and religious and cultural practices have evolved.
Towards the end of the twentieth century, another migration occurred in the opposite direction. Brazil’s economic difficulties coincided with labour shortages in an increasingly prosperous Japan. Brazilians began migrating there for work, particularly in manufacturing.
A change in Japanese immigration policy in 1990 accelerated the movement. Although Japan remained reluctant to admit lower-skilled foreign workers, people of Japanese ancestry, known as Nikkeijin, up to the third generation were granted residence status that allowed them to work without occupational restrictions. The policy also benefited Japanese descendants from Peru and other countries.
The result highlighted an important distinction between ancestry and identity. Many Japanese Brazilians arriving in Japan were descendants of people who had emigrated from the country two or three generations earlier. They were ethnically Japanese but grew up in Brazil, spoke Portuguese, and regarded Brazilian culture as their own.
At its peak in 2007, the combined Brazilian and Peruvian population in Japan reached around 377,000. Today, about 211,000 Brazilian nationals live in Japan. Not all are of Japanese descent, but the large-scale migration that created today’s Brazilian communities was overwhelmingly linked to the special immigration provisions for Nikkeijin.
In towns such as Oizumi and in industrial cities such as Hamamatsu, Brazilian restaurants and supermarkets, Portuguese-language services, Brazilian schools, churches and festivals have become part of the local landscape.
Japanese immigration in Brazil
When the Kasato Maru reached Santos on 18 June 1908, its passengers entered a country undergoing profound economic and demographic change.
Brazil had abolished slavery only 20 years earlier. Its rapidly expanding coffee industry needed workers, particularly in São Paulo state, while European immigration, which had supplied much of the labour force, was becoming less reliable. Italy had restricted subsidised migration to Brazil, creating another incentive to look elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Japan was experiencing population growth and economic pressures of its own. Emigration was already being encouraged to destinations including Hawaii and other parts of the Americas.
The first organised movement to Brazil involved both governments and private interests. Ryo Mizuno, whose Kokoku Colonization Company organised the Kasato Maru migration, negotiated an agreement with the government of the state of São Paulo to provide agricultural workers.
Brazil wanted families rather than a predominantly single male workforce. The Kasato Maru therefore carried family groups, although some were families constructed partly to satisfy immigration requirements.
After arriving in Santos, the migrants travelled by train to an immigrant reception centre in São Paulo. They were then distributed among six coffee plantations in the state's interior.
The reality they encountered was very different from what they expected.
Accommodation on some plantations consisted of rudimentary huts, sometimes lacking proper flooring or furniture. Work was closely supervised, and earnings depended partly on the coffee harvest. The newcomers arrived relatively late in a poor harvest year, were inexperienced in coffee picking, and initially earned little.
Language posed another difficulty. The migrants had received some basic Portuguese instruction before departure, but few could communicate effectively with Brazilian employers or neighbours. Many quickly decided that plantation life offered little prospect of the prosperity they had hoped to achieve.
Within months of their arrival, large numbers had left the plantations to which they had been assigned. A Japanese official investigating conditions found that only 359 of the original migrants remained on the six plantations by the end of 1908. By the following year, the number had fallen further.
Some moved to São Paulo or Santos and found work as domestic servants, carpenters, cooks or baggage handlers. Others worked on railway construction or travelled elsewhere in Brazil, even to Argentina. The first experiment had been troubled, but it did not end Japanese migration to Brazil.
Conditions improved for subsequent arrivals. Migrants became more familiar with Brazilian agriculture, and some plantation workers supplemented their income by growing rice, maize, beans and vegetables or by keeping livestock. For many, plantation labour became a first stage rather than a permanent occupation.
Japanese families increasingly acquired or rented land and established themselves as independent farmers. Communities developed in the interior of São Paulo and later in Paraná and other parts of Brazil. Japanese farmers became associated with a range of crops and played an important role in opening up new agricultural areas.
Japan formally adopted emigration to Brazil as national policy in the 1920s, and the movement reached its pre-war peak in the early 1930s. By then, Japanese settlements, schools, newspapers, associations and businesses were forming an increasingly established community.
But acceptance was far from universal. Brazilian debates about immigration during the period were shaped by racial theories and nationalist ideas that favoured European immigration and cast doubt on whether Japanese migrants could or should assimilate. Anti-Japanese attitudes became particularly pronounced under the nationalist government of Getúlio Vargas.
Restrictions on foreign-language education and publications affected Japanese communities. During the Second World War, when Brazil eventually joined the Allies against Japan and the other Axis powers, Japanese-language newspapers and schools faced severe restrictions, and the community was subjected to suspicion and controls.
Immigration from Japan effectively ceased during the war. It resumed in the post-war period, although the nature of migration gradually changed. Japanese government agencies again supported agricultural settlement, and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) estimates that about 71,000 Japanese moved to Brazil through post-war government programmes.
A much smaller programme, beginning in 1961, brought around 2,700 Japanese technicians to Brazil to work in areas including engineering, production and chemistry.
By then, however, the descendants of the earlier immigrants were increasingly moving away from the agricultural settlements where their parents and grandparents had lived.
The transformation from the Japanese immigrant community to the Japanese-Brazilian population occurred gradually over generations. Education was particularly important. Children and grandchildren of immigrants attended Brazilian schools and universities and entered professional, commercial and urban occupations. São Paulo became the principal centre of Japanese-Brazilian life.
Japanese was naturally dominant among the original immigrants and remained important within many families in the second generation. Over subsequent generations, Portuguese increasingly became the principal language. Research on Japanese-Brazilian communities has documented the progressive replacement of Japanese by Portuguese, as well as increasing intermarriage and changing religious affiliation.
Religion itself became more diverse. The original immigrants brought Buddhist and Shinto traditions, but Japanese Brazilians subsequently became Catholics, Protestants, members of Japanese-origin religious movements, or people with no religious affiliation. Research in communities such as Tomé-Açu in Pará (northern Brazil) has found Japanese Brazilians identifying with Buddhism, Catholicism, Protestant Christianity, and other positions.
Food perhaps provides its most visible legacy. Japanese cuisine has become popular across many parts of Brazil. Festivals and cultural associations continue to celebrate Japanese traditions. Annual events such as Curitiba’s Imin Matsuri, or Festival of Japanese Immigrants, continue to celebrate Japanese culture and the history of migration. Martial arts, manga and contemporary Japanese popular culture have attracted audiences with no Japanese ancestry.
Nowhere is the connection more evident than in São Paulo’s Liberdade district. Historically associated with Japanese immigrants, it remains filled with Japanese and wider East Asian restaurants, shops, cultural institutions and festivals, even though the neighbourhood itself has become considerably more diverse.
As a result, the relationship between ancestry and identity has changed. A fourth- or fifth-generation Brazilian may have a Japanese surname and Japanese ancestry while speaking little or no Japanese and living culturally much like other Brazilians.
Yet Japanese heritage has not simply disappeared. It has become one strand in Brazil’s much larger multi-ethnic society. Japan’s development agency, JICA, estimates that approximately 2.7 million people of Japanese descent live in Brazil. No other country outside Japan has a comparable population.
That successful integration would have an unexpected consequence when economic circumstances shifted in the 1980s.
Brazilian immigration in Japan
Brazil entered a prolonged period of economic instability in the 1980s. High inflation, unemployment and limited opportunities prompted Brazilians to seek work overseas.
Japan was facing almost the opposite problem. Its economy had expanded rapidly, unemployment was low, and factories were increasingly struggling to recruit workers for jobs many Japanese workers no longer wanted. Yet Japan remained resistant to large-scale immigration of lower-skilled foreign labour.
Japanese Brazilians offered an apparent solution. People of Japanese ancestry began travelling from Brazil to Japan in increasing numbers in the late 1980s. They became known as dekasegi, a Japanese term traditionally used to describe temporarily leaving home to earn money elsewhere.
A major change came with the revision of Japan’s immigration legislation in 1989, which took effect the following year. The new arrangements created a long-term resident status for people of Japanese ancestry up to the third generation. Unlike many other foreign workers, those admitted under ancestry-based residence categories could work without restrictions on their occupation.
The policy was not limited to Brazil. Japanese descendants from Peru also migrated to Japan in substantial numbers. Peru, like Brazil, had received significant Japanese immigration from around the turn of the twentieth century. The Peru-Japan relationship deserves separate treatment and will be examined by The Immigrant Times in a future article.
Japan generally did not open its labour market to low-skilled immigration. Instead, ancestry created a privileged route to immigration for descendants of Japanese emigrants.
The ancestry-based policy reflected an assumption that Japanese descendants would have cultural and social ties to Japan. In practice, many had few such advantages.
By the second and third generations, Japanese Brazilians had grown up in Portuguese-speaking Brazil. Many knew little or no Japanese. Their education, religion, food, social habits and understanding of everyday life had been shaped in Brazil. Japanese ancestry gave them access to Japan. It did not make Japan culturally familiar.
According to the OECD, the combined number of Brazilians and Peruvians in Japan rose from fewer than 3,000 in 1986 to about 20,000 in 1989, 67,000 in 1990, and 136,000 in 1991. By 2000, it had reached approximately 300,000 and peaked at around 377,000 in 2007. Many migrants were recruited through labour agencies and entered the manufacturing sector.
Brazilian workers became particularly concentrated in industrial areas producing automobiles, vehicle components, electronics and other manufactured goods. Their geographical distribution therefore reflected employment opportunities rather than the appeal of Japan’s largest metropolitan centres.
Aichi and Shizuoka in central Japan became important destinations, as did parts of Gunma, north-west of Tokyo. (For international readers, the towns tell the story more clearly than the names of prefectures.)
Hamamatsu, an industrial city between Tokyo and Nagoya, developed one of Japan’s largest Brazilian communities. Its factories and the surrounding manufacturing industries attracted thousands of foreign workers. Oizumi, approximately 80 kilometres north-west of central Tokyo, offers an even more concentrated example.
Factories in and around the town recruited Brazilian and other South American workers. As the population grew, businesses and services developed around these workers. Portuguese became increasingly visible alongside Japanese.
The original dekasegi model assumed temporary migration. Workers could earn substantially more in Japan than in Brazil, save money, and eventually return home. Labour agencies helped arrange jobs and accommodation, while Portuguese-speaking intermediaries reduced the immediate need to learn Japanese.
That system also contributed to separation from mainstream Japanese working life. The OECD has described many Nikkeijin workers as occupying a parallel labour market dominated by employment agencies. Even when they worked for long periods in the same factories, they were often employed as dispatched or temporary workers rather than as regular employees.
Once spouses and children began living in Japan, questions that had mattered less to temporary workers became unavoidable: schools, healthcare, housing, language and relations with Japanese neighbours.
Foreign children could attend Japanese public schools, but some Brazilian parents opted for private Brazilian schools, particularly when they expected to return to Brazil. Children educated primarily in Portuguese would then struggle to enter Japanese higher education or secure employment. Conversely, children educated entirely in Japanese could face difficulties if their families subsequently returned to Brazil.
The vulnerability of the employment model became evident during the global financial crisis of 2008–09. Manufacturing contracted sharply, and temporary foreign workers were among those most exposed to unemployment.
Japan subsequently offered financial assistance to unemployed Nikkeijin who agreed to return to their countries of origin. The programme provided ¥300,000 to eligible adults, with additional payments of ¥200,000 for each dependent family member. By early 2010, around 20,000 people had accepted the assistance.
The number of Brazilians in Japan fell sharply in the aftermath of the crisis. But many had already acquired permanent residence or built family and economic ties that made Japan their long-term home. Migration also resumed.
At the end of June 2025, Japan’s Immigration Services Agency recorded 211,229 Brazilian nationals living in the country. Established families have made Brazilian culture increasingly visible across parts of Japan.
Oizumi is perhaps the clearest example. Portuguese-language signs and municipal information coexist with Japanese. Brazilian supermarkets and shops stock familiar foods and imported products. Restaurants serve Brazilian dishes. Churches cater to Portuguese-speaking congregations. Brazilian schools and language services have developed alongside Japanese institutions.
The cultural exchange extends beyond places with particularly large Brazilian populations. Brazilian restaurants, music, football and festivals are visible in larger Japanese cities as well.
Brazilian migrants introduced their culinary traditions to Japan. Churrasco restaurants, Brazilian bakeries and supermarkets selling Brazilian products are now familiar features of several communities with substantial Brazilian populations.
Religion likewise illustrates how ancestry and culture can diverge. Many Brazilian migrants of Japanese descent are Christian, including Catholics and evangelical Protestants. Their religious lives therefore bear little resemblance to what an observer might expect from their Japanese ancestry. Consequently, Portuguese-speaking churches have become important community institutions in some areas.
A Japanese Brazilian can look ethnically indistinguishable from other Japanese people yet be unable to communicate fluently in Japanese. Conversely, children born or raised in Japan may speak Japanese considerably better than their parents and sometimes even better than Portuguese.
The Brazilian experience has wider relevance for Japan’s continuing debate about immigration. The 1990 policy effectively assumed that Japanese ancestry provided a useful basis for admitting workers at a time when Japan needed labour but remained reluctant to embrace lower-skilled immigration more generally.
In practice, shared ancestry did not eliminate the familiar challenges of migration. Language still mattered. Employment conditions mattered. Children needed schools. Families needed housing and access to services. Communities developed their own institutions when mainstream ones were difficult to navigate.
The experience also showed that ethnic origin and cultural identity can develop independently. The Japanese who arrived in Brazil from 1908 onwards gradually integrated into Brazilian society. Their descendants retained varying degrees of Japanese heritage, but after several generations many were culturally and linguistically Brazilian.
When some later migrated to Japan, they did so primarily for the same reason that has driven migration throughout history: the prospect of a better economic future.
Japan expected workers of Japanese descent, but Brazilians arrived.
Sources
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Japanese migration to Brazil, the post-war migration programmes, Japanese technicians in Brazil, and the current estimate of approximately 2.7 million people of Japanese descent. National Diet Library of Japan, 100 Years of Japanese Emigration to Brazil — Kasato Maru, the 1908 migration, settlement on coffee plantations and the early history of Japanese migration to Brazil. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan — diplomatic and historical records concerning the Kasato Maru and early Japanese migration to Brazil. OECD, Recruiting Immigrant Workers: Japan 2024 — particularly valuable for the 1990 immigration reform, Nikkeijin, Brazilian and Peruvian migration, manufacturing employment, labour agencies, education and integration. Immigration Services Agency of Japan — current foreign-resident statistics, including the 211,229 Brazilian nationals recorded at the end of June 2025. Academic studies cited or consulted on Japanese-Brazilian language change, religion, identity and integration, and on Brazilian communities, education and employment in Japan.
Further reading from The Immigrant Times: Immigration has made South America the most diverse region in the world || Foreign workers in Japan || Japan debates immigration || A Japanese mayor who supports immigration ||
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