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100th Anniversary of Japanese migration to Brazil | Nikkei film: Gaijin - Ama Me Como Sou | Vancouver
2008 marks the 100th Anniversary of Japanese migration to Brazil. Throughout the year, there have celebrations all around the world marking the centennial of Japanese emigration to Brazil, the unique relationship Brazil and Japan and possibly the most ethnic cool cultural hybrids in the 21st Century.
This weekend, UBC hosts two screenings of Japanese Brazilian filmmaker Tizuka Yamasaki's GAIJIN - AMA ME COMO SOU (Gaijin - Love Me as I Am; 2005) BONUS: The main character is played by Tamlyn Tomita (Karate Kid II; Joy Luck Club):
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Frederic Wood Theatre, UBC (6354 Crescent Road)
7:00 PM Film Screening
RSVP: gaijin.eventbrite.com
MORE: Gaijin - Ama Me Como Sou Official Site | Tons of links in google about the 100th Anniversary of Japanese migration to Brazil | Watch visual trailer of Gaijin - Ama Me Como Sou
"On June 18, 1908, the Kasado-maru arrived at the Port of Santos after the 52-day trip. It carried on board the first group of Japanese immigrants to Brazil." (from the Shibusawa Memorial Museum press release, September 2008).
History (from wikipedia)
The end of feudalism in Japan generated great poverty in the rural population, so many Japanese began to emigrate in search of better living conditions. In 1907, the Brazilian and the Japanese governments signed a treaty permitting Japanese migration to Brazil. The first Japanese immigrants (790 people - mostly farmers) came to Brazil in 1908 on the Kasato Maru from the Japanese port of Kobe, moving to Brazil in search of better living conditions. Many of them became laborers on coffee plantations.
GAIJIN - Love Me As I Am (Ama Me Como Sou) - SYNOPSIS
Gaijin is a film about the Japanese descendants' saga who try to find out their identities.
The pioneer Titoe arrived in Brazil aboard Kasato Maru Ship in 1908, wishing to return to her homeland with the money saved by working in the coffee farms.
In 1935, holding her Brazilian-daughter, Shinobu, and little amount of money she saved, Titoe buys her first piece of land in Londrina City (North of Paraná State) and postpones her desire to go back to Japan.
The Second World War and its consequences to Japan, put off Titoe's promise to come back to Japan. Titoe's grandchildren, Kazumi and Maria, were born in Londrina by the end of the 40's, and then Titoe becomes a "batyan" (grandma).
Maria marries Gabriel, a gaijin (foreigner), son of the Spanish farmer Ramon Salinas and the Italian immigrant Sofia. From this relationship two children were born, Yoko and Pedro. Gabriel's job selling and buying lands are doing well until Fernando Collor de Mello's (Brazilian President) confiscation plan (economic plan) in 1990, bankrupts him. Maria, Gabriel, Yoko and Pedro have to live with Batyan, in the house she built by herself. Having no other choices, Gabriel leaves Brazil and goes to Kobe, Hyogo province, as a dekassegui (temporary worker) like Shinobu did to recover the money she lost in Brazil.
Maria, Shinobu, Batyan and Gina (Maria's sister-in-law) have to reorganise life in Brazil. But after the earthquake in Kobe in 1995, when Gabriel was considered dead, Yoko and Maria decide to go to Japan to look for him. In Japan, Maria and Yoko face prejudices and challenges provided by cultural differences, and deal with the fear about the unknown.
The promise of the old Titoe to return to Japan drives the lives of these four women generations: the ninety-years-old Batyan, her daughter Shinobu, a nisei (second Japanese generation), her granddaughter Maria, a sansei (third generation) and her great-granddaughter Yoko, a half-breed (Japanese/Spanish/Italian).
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Comments
Saw this movie last night and it was very interesting and thought-provoking, although there were some gaps in continuity. Surely worth checking out.
November 23, 2008 at 12:20 AM
Comments (1)
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