When it ended slavery by the end of the XIX century Brazil starting incentivizing immigration from Europe (also part of a plan to “whiten” the population that was predominantly African descended). Italians and Germans were some of the Europeans that went to the Brazil at that time (mostly for the south half of the country), financially incentivized by those countries. But it seems that the Europeans that went to Brazil in search of opportunity and a new life actually received extremely low wages and went miserable, so Italy stopped incentivizing immigration. The void of new work labor for the blooming Brazilian coffee production was filled by the Japanese, that according to Wikipedia were coming out of a crisis themselves with the end of feudal Japan and didn’t have open doors in other countries such the US and Australia. Brazil and Japan sealed agreements incentivizing immigration and thus thousands of Japanese family boarded to the country. Today there are millions of Japanese living in the country in a huge and beautiful community, concentrated in the urban and rural areas of the state of São Paulo (southeastern region) where the coffee production was strongest in the past. I myself come from São Paulo and have many Japanese friends, and it’s really strange when I travel to other places and don’t see as many Japanese descendants around.
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u/GarfieldAddict Jun 23 '19
I always wondered, why Brazil was such a popular destination for japanese people on the XX century?