Japanese settlement in the Dominican Republic

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Japanese expatriates and Japanese descendants in the Dominican Republic
Total population
Figures as of October 2013:[1]
873 Japanese citizens
c. 800 Japanese descendants
Regions with significant populations
Constanza, Jarabacoa, Dajabón, Manzanillo Port, Neiba, Duvergé, Altagracia (Pedernales), Aguas Negras (Pedernales)[2][3]
Languages
Japanese, Dominican Spanish[4]
Religion
Roman Catholicism and Buddhism[5]
Related ethnic groups
Japanese Caribbeans

Japanese Dominicans are Dominican citizens of Japanese origin.[4] Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimates the Japanese descended population in the country at roughly 800. As of 2013, there were also 873 Japanese nationals in the Dominican Republic.[1] These consist of both the settlers who have retained their Japanese citizenship and more recent expatriate residents. The Dominican Republic has the largest Japanese population in the Caribbean and Central American region.

Migration history

Migration from Japan to the Dominican Republic did not begin until after

squatters, by settling them along the country's western border with Haiti.[8]

The Japanese migrants came to the Dominican Republic with the intention of permanent settlement in the country.

civil war, plunged the country into chaos and political violence, leaving many of the governmental promises of assistance and protection broken.[4] The migrants entirely abandoned five of their eight settlements.[10] Beginning in 1961, 70 families fled to other Latin American countries which had agreed with the Japanese government to resettle them, including Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia, while 111 other families returned to Japan.[9]

Japanese settlement in the Dominican Republic never grew to a very large scale; protests over the extreme hardships and broken government promises faced by the initial group of migrants set the stage for the end of state-supported labour emigration in Japan.

bokashi composting technique. By the 1990s, Constanza had become a major area of agricultural production, growing over 90% of the country's vegetables.[5]

Monument dedicated to Japanese Immigration in Santo Domingo (Paseo Bellini)

There is monument dedicated to the Japanese immigration in the Paseo Presidente Bellini.[11] It is a statue of a man, a woman holding a baby on her back and a child looking at the front. You can find a stone with the names of Japanese immigrants.

Political implications

The failure of migration to the Dominican Republic marked an important turning point in Japanese emigration policy. Along with rising wages in Japan due to labour shortages, the widespread reporting of the tragedy faced by emigrants to the Dominican Republic dampened popular and official enthusiasm for emigration; the total number of emigrants from Japan fell by nearly two-thirds from 1961 to 1962, and in 1968, Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs finally abolished its Central-South America Emigration Bureau.[9] Backlash would continue for decades; in 2000, more than 170 of the migrants sued the Japanese government, charging that it lied to them about conditions in the Dominican Republic in order to trick them into leaving Japan. The Japanese government settled the lawsuit in July 2006, paying US$17,000 to each plaintiff as well as US$10,000 to non-plaintiff migrants; then-Prime Minister of Japan Junichiro Koizumi made a formal statement apologising for the "immense suffering due to the government's response at the time".[4]

According to Japanese diplomat Teruyuki Ishikawa, the presence of the remaining Japanese immigrants and their descendants is the major reason why the Dominican Republic is the biggest recipient of official development aid from Japan.[5]

Language and culture

Some of the initial Japanese migrants to the Dominican Republic still speak little

loanword kamera (カメラ) for "camera".[4]

Education

The Colegio Japones de Santo Domingo is a

supplementary Japanese education program in Santo Domingo.[13]

Notable individuals

References

  1. ^ a b Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2013
  2. ^ Diario, Listin (October 31, 2009). "Libro recoge 50 años de la inmigración japonesa a RD". listindiario.com.
  3. ^ Diario, Listin (September 3, 2015). "El embajador de Japón resalta las relaciones de su país con RD". listindiario.com.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Associated Press 2006
  5. ^ a b c d Riley 1999
  6. ^ Azuma 2002, pp. 43–44
  7. ^ Azuma 2002, pp. 44–45
  8. ^ a b Horst & Asagiri 2000, p. 336
  9. ^ a b c d Azuma 2002, p. 46
  10. ^ a b Horst & Asagiri 2000, p. 335
  11. ^ "Monument dedicated to Japanese Dominicans - Avis de voyageurs sur Agricultural and Japanese Immigration Memorial Monument, Saint-Domingue". Tripadvisor.
  12. ^ Riley 1999: "But some of Constanza's inhabitants don't speak Spanish. You're more likely to hear Japanese in a suburb called Colonia Japonesa."
  13. ^ "中南米の補習授業校一覧（平成25年4月15日現在） Archived 2014-03-30 at the Wayback Machine" (Archive). Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Retrieved on May 10, 2014.

Sources

Further reading

  • Peguero, Valentina (2005), Colonización y política: los japoneses y otros inmigrantes en la República Dominicana, Santo Domingo: BanReservas,
    ISBN 978-99934-940-4-1
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