Interviews

1. Reasons for immigrating to Brazil (Japanese)

2. Opening a Japanese-style all-girls' school in Brazil (Japanese)

Michie Akama

Issei, Pioneer of women's education in Brazil

Reasons for immigrating to Brazil (Japanese)

（Japanese) The purpose of our immigration to Brazil… well, my husband is a graduate of Suisan University of Japan, and so he had this vision and hope of expanding the irrigation business in Brazil, and that’s what brought us here. But I actually didn’t want to come. 10 years ago, well, I basically cried about having to live here all the time. We came into a place called Cafelândia in Noroeste, and we stayed there for about three months. We had a child, so, at least in our estimation, there was no way we could get involved in farming, so I began to teach Japanese in a place called Registro… Here, foreigners weren’t allowed to teach. Nowadays you can do anything, but back then, you couldn’t. It was only agriculture and there was nothing else. But even then, out of necessity, we began to run a school together… First we started in Conselheiro Furtado, and then we went to São Joaquim. Then Tamandaré, and then Vergueiro, and finally we ended up here.

Brazil immigration

Date:

Location: Brazil

Contributed by: Caminho da memória - 遥かなるみちのり. São Paulo, Brazil: Comissão de Elaboração da História dos 80 Anos de Imigração Japonesa no Brasil, 1998. VHS.

Interviewee Bio

Michie Akama, along with her husband, Jyugo, left her hometown in Miyagi prefecture for Brazil in 1930. She followed her husband, a marine biologist, in his pursuit of researching the deep-sea animals of Brazil. Not long after arriving in Brazil, Mrs. Akama would become an active figure in leading the education of Nikkei women. It was a time that widely encouraged farming families to send the young women of their household to school, primarily for education in obtaining such skills as tailoring. In 1993, she founded the first ever women’s school that targeted Japanese and Nikkei women. With Japanese philosophy as the base, the school picks up topics that cover both Japanese and Brazilian ideals, and aims to nurture the development of these young women in hopes of their success in society. (June 22, 2007)