Yearnings
Most Nikkei-Peruvians came to Japan pressed by the economic crisis
that had taken over the country, come in search of economic prosperity.
The yearning to return home, to their loved ones, is a constant
staggering question in their lives; the economic uncertainty of
Peru, however, keeps them tied down to long hours of factory work.
It is the firm idea of return that does not permit them to
establish a community in Oizumi. There was one particular and
unfortunate story that we heard one afternoon at Comercial E.M.Y.
We met Paco, who was spending his one and only weekend free of
the month having some Peruvian food, and drinking a Budweiser.
He looked melancholic, but yet indifferent to his surroundings.
His looks mirrored his sad story; a story of a man working with
the sole purpose of saving as much money, hoping to someday set
up a small business in Lima, capital of Peru, and be reunited
with his wife. She had returned to Peru soon after their son died,
expecting Paco to follow her footsteps. However, he has been in
Japan for ten years, returning only once or twice to Peru. Both
times failing to establish a small business, yet he still trusts
that someday in the near future he would be back in Peru.
Unfortunate events leave the Nikkei-Peruvian constantly aspiring to emigrate back to Peru or to the United States where they will certainly find what they are yearning for-a community, and a livelier way of life. Paul Connerton states that "it is that in all modes of experience we always base our particular experiences on a prior context in order to ensure that they are intelligible at all; that prior to any single experience, our mind is already predisposed with a framework of outlines, of typical shapes of experienced objects The world is a percipient [one that perceives], defined in terms of temporal experience, is an organized body of expectations based on recollection." (How Societies Work pg.6). Thus, their past recollections and future expectations have forged a fixed idea of someday returning back to Peru.
For more information click below:
Japan: A Promise of Economic stability