7. Alienating Japanese Immigrants Via Forced Assimilation
Nearly all Japanese immigrants in Brazil were hard workers, who kept themselves busy as they productively engaged in the innocent pursuit of creating a better life for themselves and their families. However, assimilation was difficult. Brazil was a completely different country with a different language, religion, customs, climate, and food. So quite a few reacted by becoming hyper-Japanese, and embraced their birth country’s traditions, mores, and nationalism, with a fervor that exceeded that of those who actually lived in Japan. In the 1930s, Brazil’s government embarked on a course of forced assimilation, which effectively banned Japanese language media. Since many Japanese could not speak Portuguese, they were effectively cut off from news beyond their immediate immigrant community.
