An Ethnography of the Lives of Japanese and Japanese Brazilian Migrants. Ethel V. Kosminsky
itadakimassu and gochissôssama before and after meals (Handa 1987: 730).10
Issei parents raised their children according to Buddhist precepts.11 They criticized waste, taught Nisei “to feel sorry” for things, and to “spare” them. At the same time, parents said to their Nisei children that they would be “punished” if they performed any action without piety. They also told them that those who behave poorly are held responsible for what they do and will have “to pay” for it. Issei parents guided them to always practice good actions, thus they would be performing true “charity.” So the immigrants preserved everyday Japanese Buddhist norms without being aware that their attitudes could have religious meaning. However, those actions were not practiced as a whole; therefore, Handa does not classify them as religious. On the other hand, I think that preserving some of those traits has kept the religion alive considering all the difficulties the immigrants faced.12 As nostalgia for their homeland increased and aspirations to become rich diminished, the immigrants developed the desire to pray to Buddha and the cult of their ancestors in their daily life, as Handa (1987: 730) states.
Mrs. Keiko’s parents were Buddhist:
My father used to say to all his children: you make your decision after you are 18 years old. Parents don’t dictate which religion you should attend. Our school was Catholic, and they pushed us to be baptized, but my father didn’t allow it. He said religion is everybody’s choice. He didn’t coerce us to follow Buddhism either. He used to say everyone has to make their own decision, but only after they reach adulthood. Currently we follow our father. The school forced us to go to mass every Sunday, and my father never prohibited it. My father never instructed us about Buddhism. He used to say that you are free. If you like it, if you want to be baptized as Buddhist you can, but he never forced us. I am the same way as my father; everyone makes his/her own choice. My children are neither Catholic nor Buddhist. But my parents always worship at the Buddhist temple and my children also go to the Buddhist temple. I don’t practice our ancestors’ cult.
When immigrants leave their countries, they bring their religion with them. The Japanese immigrants followed one of these religions: Buddhism, Shintoism, or Catholicism. Most were Buddhist. Buddhism is related to the cult of family and ancestors. The Buddhist tradition remains, while Shintoism has shown a tendency to disappear due to the fact that Buddhism is connected to the cult of family and ancestors (Mori 1992: 580–81). However, for the Japanese immigrants and their descendants, the cult of ancestors or of a deceased relative could only be practiced in Japan, where they could return to the “house” of their family (Mori 1992: 563). That could be one of the reasons that Mrs. Keiko and her husband went to visit the house where their parents lived before emigrating to Bastos, Brazil, in 1930.
According to Mrs. Keiko, she and her husband “never treat in a different way those who were Brazilian or Japanese. Back then everybody was Japanese.” Their lovely relationship with their grandson (a teenager of mixed Afro-Brazilian and Japanese descent) is evident to everybody.
As Mr. Takahashi Akira explained:
Most Japanese were Buddhist. Currently it changes a lot, but back then everybody was Buddhist. Those who attend the Buddhist temple are mostly the elderly. Nowadays it’s rare to find Japanese families without a mixing, almost all the families have a race mixing. I think that there is no family who doesn’t have a son or a grandson married to a Brazilian or a daughter married to Brazilian. Then religion also varies a lot, there is Catholic, Buddhist, Candomblé,13 Evangelical, and each person attends what he/she wants. But, there is something, a church is also a place where young people meet, and eventually date [he laughs]: “I go there because my girlfriend is there.”
Mr. Kawasaki said: “Among all religions there is almost no difference. They have the 7th day mass, one-month mass, one-year.” Mr. Fukui completed this thought: “They perform mass in Catholicism and also in Buddhism, but historically Buddhism is thousands of years old and Catholicism is 2005 years old.” Mr. Takahashi concluded: “Currently, as there are many young people who don’t understand Japanese, the Buddhist temple also performs ceremonies in Portuguese, otherwise it doesn’t attract people. If people don’t understand what they are talking about they don’t go.”
Mrs. Margarida Vatanabe, whose maiden name was Tomy Ikegami, left her village, Makurazaki, in the province of Kagoshima in southern Japan, at the age of eleven years in 1912, in order to work in São Paulo City. She returned to Japan for a short period of time after thirteen years in order to visit her parents’ tombs. At first she went to Makurazaki to visit her parents’ tombs, and then to her uncle’s home, where the ihai 14 of her parents was kept. As she disliked her aunt’s husband’s attitude toward her and her siblings, she moved her parents’ ihai to her oldest sister’s home (Mayeama 2004: 123, 128).
Japanese immigrants lost their properties in Japan, but the “house of family” remained. Mary Okamoto’s grandmother from her father’s side could not afford to pay the tax on her Japanese properties because she and her husband made very little money. After several years when they visited Japan, she found that only the “house of family” remained. Her grandmother was so shocked about her loss, and all the changes in post-war Japan that all her recent memory vanished. She only had recollections of Japan. Suddenly she became very old. “I can imagine all her suffering and anguish. All the time she lived in Brazil, she refused to learn Portuguese, she only spoke ‘não’ [no]. It’s very understandable, the choice of this word.”15
Mr. Roberto said that at ACENBA they celebrate their ancestors, “those who worked for our dear land. This is a Japanese custom to thank them for their passing and their teaching that they left to us.” Mr. Takahashi told us about a Japanese custom that Brazilians have assimilated:
When somebody from a Japanese family dies we are accustomed to bring a certain amount of money in an envelope in order to help this family pay for the burial. Nobody has to do it, but everybody follows this ritual. Even in weddings everybody brings a small contribution. Then, one of the burial agents considered this a very good idea because many families do not have the means to buy a coffin. The family used to go from door to door asking for a monetary contribution in order to have the burial. The family felt humiliated because they had to ask for a contribution for themselves. Among the Japanese there was no such thing; everybody had already bought it. This is a very interesting system, and people [Brazilians] have already integrated it. Every time when there is a burial of a Brazilian family member people already start bringing money. Then, at least here in Bastos, nobody is in a dire need that prevents a family burying its member. This is one of good part of our culture that we also left for the Brazilian society. It’s as my friend just said, we should keep good customs and transfer them to our descendants.
Mr. Keiko’s father allowed her to go to Catholic mass on Sunday following the Catholic school’s persuasion, but he refused to have his children baptized. The number of baptized children in São Paulo City, and other medium-size cities in São Paulo State and also in Brazil, has increased more than in rural areas. The baptism of Nisei was accepted as a “social practice.” The parents followed Buddhism but baptized their children, so that their children were not placed in an inferior position at school.
They also asked Brazilians to become godparents to their sons and daughters, so that they would receive an economic advantage. This practice explained why the Japanese descendants did not become passionate faithful in the 1950s. Thus, the relationship between godfathers/godmothers and godchildren of Japanese origin did not become close, the same as the relationship between godparents and their godchildren’s parents (Mori 1992: 579). The immigrants and especially the Nisei who lived in urban areas perceived the strong link between Brazilian nationalism and Catholicism, even though the Brazilian Republic established the separation of state and religion when it was founded in 1889.
Izumi (1954: 58–59. Cited in Mori 1992: 580) observed an association between an increase in years of schooling and a deeper belief in Catholicism. There was also a difference if immigrants and their children lived in urban or in rural areas. Most of the population who lived in rural areas followed traditional Japanese religions, while most who lived in urban areas were Catholics. There was a greater concentration of Nisei in the cities who attended schools or