I didn't know until recently that South America is home to many Japanese communities. The communities flourished as early as the beginning of the 20th century as a result of the South American countries' effort to work closely with the Japanese in advancing their agricultural sector. This is noteworthy because the Japanese are not known to venture out in large number to foreign countries, compared to the Chinese or Indians.
Today South American Japanese are comfortably at home, assimilated while still holding on to the identities that defines them as Japanese. Brazil is now home to the biggest Japanese outside Japan. In Brazil-maru, novelist Karen Tei Yamashita takes us back to 1925, when a ship of hopeful immigrants makes it way to a new world entirely alien to them.
This situation brings up a very important question, "When a community is first starting out, what should it concerns itself first?" With limited resources and very few people, some agenda have higher priority than others. How would money, for example, be allocated? If we recall the Sirah, when Rasulullah SAW arrived in Madinah (or Yathrib at the time), he immediately build the masjid. The masjid functions not only as place of worship but also as the centre of governance and administration, learning and a venue to address social needs. One well-planned institution can solve many of the community's issues at once.
In the novel, the community leaders discussed at length how should the community be developed. I find it interesting that they believed some area should be cleared to allow the children to play baseball. I wonder if the penghulus of our kampungs was concerned about the children's needs when they first settled.
As novel, the community is only a stage where the real story is played out by several important people in it. The first to tell the story is Terada Ichiro, who was child when the he and his family boarded the Brazil-maru and practically grew along the community itself. They chose a area called Esperança, a place reasonably near to other other Japanese immigrant farming communities, although they were largely invisible. Ichiro was the character I sympathised with the most.
Throughout the story one name stands out the most. Uno Kantaro. Charismatic even since he was a young man and just a few year older than Ichiro, Kantaro seemed destined to become a pivotal figure in the community's history. It's not surprising to see someone like him to rise in his society, especially when he's showing a lot of leadership potential. What's interesting was seeing how loyal the community was to their leadership, even when the leaders are making bad decisions.
Brazil-maru made me think about how a community, and eventually society and civilisation, develops. We are here in this society because of the actions and decision of the previous generations. They had very little idea about how their lives would impact us, as are we totally ignorant about how our lives might impact the lives of our children and grandchildren. Time and place may differ, but we are still sailing on the same ship.
