Enrique Higa Sakuda

@kikerenzo

Enrique Higa is a Sansei (third-generation or grandchild of Japanese immigrants) from Peru. He is a journalist and Lima correspondent for International Press, a Spanish-language weekly paper published in Japan. He is also a co-editor and writer for Kaikan magazine, published by the Japanese-Peruvian Association.

Updated July 2024

Stories from This Author

Children of Dekasegi, Bilingual and Educated in Japan: The New Generation of Nikkei - Part 2

Nov. 24, 2010 • Enrique Higa Sakuda , Asociación Peruano Japonesa

Part 1 >> How difficult was it to return to your lives in Peru? Was it a shock, or did you both get used to quickly?JBK: It was a big shock for me because I didn’t speak Spanish. The first months, the first year, I didn’t have a way to communicate with people, including, for example, with my aunts; I always had a dictionary in my hand. In addition to this, I would leave my house for a walk and …

children dekasegi foreign workers identity Japan Nikkei in Japan Peru

Children of Dekasegi, Bilingual and Educated in Japan: The New Generation of Nikkei - Part 1

Nov. 17, 2010 • Enrique Higa Sakuda , Asociación Peruano Japonesa

José Iraha Flores is twenty-three years old and studies communications in the University of Lima. José Bravo Kohatsu is twenty-six and works in the Japanese consulate. Both are children of dekasegi1 who were born in Peru but raised and educated in Japan where they learned Japanese. Why did they return to Peru? Do they miss Japan? We wil explore these and other questions with them. You went to Japan as young children and were educated there. Afterwards you returned to …

children dekasegi foreign workers identity Japan Nikkei in Japan Peru

It’s good to say “I’m Nikkei” because I am part of something - Part 3

Nov. 9, 2010 • Enrique Higa Sakuda , Asociación Peruano Japonesa

Part 2 >> The Nikkei in Peru Kaori is impressed by the way the Nikkei community in Peru has preserved its identity. “What I really find admirable is that there is a place (Japanese-Peruvian Cultural Center) that seeks to maintain the Nikkei identity in some fashion; there’s no reason to analyze something which is always present: What it means to be Nikkei. Even offering a class on taiko is important enough. It’s like a down payment of sorts; if afterward …

families filmmakers Kaori Flores Yonekura Peru Venezuela

It’s good to say “I’m Nikkei” because I am part of something - Part 2

Nov. 2, 2010 • Enrique Higa Sakuda , Asociación Peruano Japonesa

Part 1 >> Nikkei Identity Kaori was raised by her grandmother in a Japanese environment. “Our relationship within our Japanese home was one of constant silence; it took just a simple stare of disapproval to know that I did something wrong. My grandmother did not have to say anything for me to run away. This kind of Japanese behavior is a sign of environment rather than verbal rules,” she recalled. Just like any typical Japanese home, you are taught by …

families filmmakers Kaori Flores Yonekura Peru Venezuela

It’s good to say “I’m Nikkei” because I am part of something - Part 1

Oct. 26, 2010 • Enrique Higa Sakuda , Asociación Peruano Japonesa

Two years ago a photograph changed Kaori Flores Yonekura’s life, a Venezuelan filmmaker whose grandparents were Japanese. It was a photo of Mr. Takeuchi, who at the time of the photograph was president of the Nikkei Association of Venezuela. What was it about the photograph that changed Kaori? It showed some Japanese dressed in rural garb and eating arepas (bread made of corn flour) on a hillside. Kaori discovered that the people in the photograph were in Ocumare del Tuy, …

families filmmakers Kaori Flores Yonekura Venezuela

Bridge between two cultures

July 19, 2010 • Enrique Higa Sakuda , Asociación Peruano Japonesa

1960s. The painful times of war were gone. The Japanese colony had turned the page and was beginning to take off. Their businesses prospered and the children of Japanese immigrants occupied the top positions in schools or excelled in universities. However, the Central Japanese Society, the institution that represented and ensured the well-being of the Japanese and their descendants in Peru (today the Peruvian Japanese Association), did not have a space worthy of its importance. In this context, in 1964 …

culture Peru

A Nikkei way of being

Sept. 22, 2009 • Enrique Higa Sakuda

1999: Copa América football. Peru is going to play against Japan and the employee of the bakery where I just bought an empanada, one block from the office where I work, asks me: And who are you going to? To Peru or Japan? To Peru obviously, I answer. I am perplexed. If I am Peruvian, why do you have to ask me if I am going to support 1 for my country or for Japan? It is not obvious? There …

identity Peru