Japanese diaspora
The Japanese diaspora and its individual members, known as Nikkei or as Nikkeijin, comprise the Japanese emigrants from Japan residing in a country outside Japan. Emigration from Japan was recorded as early as the 15th century to the Philippines, but did not become a mass phenomenon until the Meiji period, when Japanese emigrated to the Philippines and to the Americas. There was significant emigration to the territories of the Empire of Japan during the period of Japanese colonial expansion ; however, most of these emigrants repatriated to Japan after the 1945 surrender of Japan ended World War II in Asia.
According to the Association of Nikkei and Japanese Abroad, about 4 million Nikkei live in their adopted countries. The largest of these foreign communities are in Brazil, the United States, the Philippines, China, Canada, and Peru. Descendants of emigrants from the Meiji period still maintain recognizable communities in those countries, forming separate ethnic groups from Japanese people in Japan. The largest of these foreign communities are in the Brazilian states of São Paulo and Paraná. There are also significant cohesive Japanese communities in the Philippines, Peru and in the American state of Hawaii. Nevertheless, most emigrant Japanese are largely assimilated outside of Japan.
, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported the five countries with the highest number of Japanese expatriates as the United States, Australia, China, Canada, and Thailand.
Terminology
The term Nikkei, from the Japanese word nikkei, is often used to refer to Japanese people who emigrated from Japan and their descendants. These groups were historically differentiated by the terms issei, nisei, sansei, yonsei, and gosei. In this context emigration refers to permanent settlers, excluding transient Japanese abroad, although the term may not strictly relate to citizenship status. The Japanese government defines Nikkei people as foreign citizens with the ability to provide proof of Japanese lineage within three generations. On the other hand, in the United States and some other places where Nikkei people have developed their own communities and identities, first-generation Japanese immigrants with Japanese citizenship tend to be included if they are involved in the local community.The Japanese American National Museum, based upon a collaborative project that involved more than 100 scholars from 10 countries, has defined Nikkei as follows:
Early history
Japanese emigration to the rest of Asia was noted as early as the 15th century to the Philippines; early Japanese settlements included those in Lingayen Gulf, Manila, the coasts of Ilocos and in the Visayas when the Philippines was under the influence of Srivijaya and Majapahit Empire. In 2009, Japanese and Filipino archaeologists, from the Sumitomo Foundation-funded Boljoon Archaeological Project conducted by the University of San Carlos with the National Museum of the Philippines, discovered ancient Japanese pottery that is believed to have been in existence since the early 1700s. The ancient Japanese pottery that was discovered there has proven that there was trading activity between Japan and Cebu Island Philippines going back to the 16th century. In the 16th century the Japanese settlement was established in Ayutthaya, Thailand and in early 17th century Japanese settlers were first recorded to stay in Dutch East Indies. A larger wave came in the 17th century, when red seal ships traded in Southeast Asia and Japanese Catholics fled from the religious persecution imposed by the shōguns and settled in the Philippines, among other destinations. Many of them also intermarried with the local Filipina women, thus forming the new Japanese-Mestizo community. In the 16th and 17th centuries, thousands of traders from Japan also migrated to the Philippines and assimilated into the local population. In the 15th century AD, shimamono tea-jars were bought by the shōguns to Uji in Kyoto from the Philippines by merchants such as Luzon Sukezaemon which was used in the Japanese tea ceremony. In the latter half of the 16th century the Portuguese Empire purchased and sold on Japanese slaves.File:Justo Takayama monument and historical marker at Plaza Dilao.jpg|thumb|Justo Takayama monument and historical marker at Plaza Dilao in Manila|200x200px
From the 15th through the early 17th century, Japanese seafarers traveled to China and Southeast Asia countries, in some cases establishing early Japantowns. This activity ended in the 1640s, when the Tokugawa shogunate imposed maritime restrictions which forbade Japanese from leaving the country and from returning if they were already abroad. This policy would not be lifted for over two hundred years. Travel restrictions were eased once Japan opened diplomatic relations with Western nations. In 1867, the bakufu began issuing travel documents for overseas travel and emigration.
Many bakufu era travellers were the children of affluent and influential families, such as the Satsuma 15 student Nagasawa Kanaye, who initially travelled to the UK in 1865, then made his way to the US, and the Aizu retainers who founded the Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony in California in 1869. American descendants of Wakamatsu colonist Masumizu Kuninosuke are now in the seventh generation through his marriage to an African/Native American woman in 1877.
Before 1885, few Japanese people emigrated from Japan, in part because the Meiji government was reluctant to allow emigration, both because it lacked the political power to adequately protect Japanese emigrants and because it believed that the presence of Japanese as unskilled laborers in foreign countries would hamper its ability to revise the unequal treaties. A notable exception to this trend was a group of 153 contract laborers who immigrated—without official passports—to Hawaii and Guam in 1868. A portion of this group stayed on after the expiration of the initial labor contract, forming the nucleus of the Nikkei community in Hawaii. In 1885, the Meiji government began to turn to officially sponsored emigration programs to alleviate pressure from overpopulation and the effects of the Matsukata deflation in rural areas. For the next decade, the government was closely involved in the selection and pre-departure instruction of emigrants. The Japanese government was keen on keeping Japanese emigrants well-mannered while abroad in order to show the West that Japan was a dignified society, worthy of respect. By the mid-1890s, immigration companies, not sponsored by the government, began to dominate the process of recruiting emigrants, but government-sanctioned ideology continued to influence emigration patterns.
Asia
Before 1945
In 1898, the Dutch East Indies colonial government statistics showed 614 Japanese in the Dutch East Indies. During the American colonial era in the Philippines, the Japanese population of Davao, most of whom first started out as laborers working in abaca plantations in Davao, were recorded in statistics as only numbering 30 in 1903, then 5,533 by 1920, then 12,469 by 1930, then later increased to 20,000 by 1941. The number of Japanese laborers working in plantations rose so high that in the early 20th century, Davao City soon became dubbed as Davaokuo or with a Japanese school, a Shinto shrine, and a diplomatic mission from Japan. The place that used to be "Little Tokyo" in Davao was Mintal. There is even a popular restaurant called "The Japanese Tunnel", which includes a tunnel made by the Japanese in time of the war.In the Philippines, Halo-halo is believed to be an indigenized version of the Japanese kakigori class of desserts, originating from pre-war Japanese migrants into the islands. Odong or of Davao Region and Visayas is inspired by Japanese udon. During the early 1900s, there was a large community of Japanese laborers in Davao, half of them Okinawans, and in this period, the Japanese manufactured odong.
There was also a significant level of emigration to the overseas territories of the Empire of Japan during the Japanese colonial period, including Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria and Karafuto. Unlike emigrants to the Americas, Japanese going to the colonies occupied a higher rather than lower social niche upon their arrival.
In 1938 about 309,000 Japanese lived in Taiwan. By the end of World War II, there were over 850,000 Japanese in Korea and more than 2 million in China, most of them farmers in Manchukuo.
Over 400,000 people lived on Karafuto when the Soviet offensive began in early August 1945. Most were of Japanese or Korean descent. When Japan lost the Kuril Islands, 17,000 Japanese were expelled, most from the southern islands.
After 1945
During and after World War II, most of these overseas Japanese repatriated to Japan. The Allied powers repatriated over 6 million Japanese nationals from colonies and battlefields throughout Asia. Only a few remained overseas, often involuntarily, as in the case of orphans in China or prisoners of war captured by the Red Army and forced to work in Siberia. During the 1950s and 1960s, an estimated 6,000 Japanese accompanied Zainichi Korean spouses repatriating to North Korea, while another 27,000 prisoners-of-war are estimated to have been sent there by the Soviet Union; see Japanese people in North Korea.There is a community of Japanese people in Hong Kong largely made up of expatriate businessmen. Additionally, there are 19,612 Japanese expatriates in Indonesia based mostly in the cities of Jakarta and Bali.