Moreover, adapting to a new climate, customs, food, and language were undoubtedly part of a very difficult experience.ĭespite all of that, my grandfather fulfilled his work contract, and then traveled south to the city of Iquique, Chile. My grandfather, along with 99 other peasants who went to work for that company, soon realized that the reality was quite different from the advertising that had motivated them to leave Japan. Kiyoshi arrived in Callao, Peru aboard the Itsukushima Maru on October 16, 1906, with a plan to work for a sugar company in Paramonga. My intense search for answers led me to discover that my grandfather was one of the many peasants from Kumamoto who, during the Japanese diaspora of the Meiji era, immigrated to South America looking for a better life. I was so intrigued with his past that I spent an entire year exhaustively searching online and contacting all the Japanese associations I could find, as well as people with the last name Kuwahara. It was only 55 years after my grandfather’s death that my siblings and I began to ask ourselves: How did our grandfather make his way from Japan to Iquique, Chile? Why did he decide to emigrate? Where was he born? Do we have relatives in Japan? The questions we asked motivated me to find out more about my grandfather and his background. Although my grandmother Matsuno lived for another 16 years, I wasn’t able to spend a lot of time with her because I soon left for the capital to study at university. Life continued its inevitable course and unfortunately, my grandfather Kiyoshi died when I was just 11 years old. I have very few memories of my childhood that don’t involve my grandparents, and therefore, Japan. Although my grandparents spoke Spanish with an accent, it wasn’t difficult to understand them. At the time, my grandfather was a widower with two children, and my grandmother was a widow with a daughter of her own fortunately, the three grew up together like true siblings. They had married ten years after my grandfather’s first wife had died.

I grew up in a tranquil place, accompanied by my grandparents Kiyoshi and Matsuno. My childhood was spent in the city of Iquique, in the arid desert of northern Chile. This eventually led me to obtain my grandfather’s Koseki (Japanese family record), and as a result I developed a clearer image of the person who I now consider my hero: my grandfather, Kiyoshi Kuwahara.

Thanks to Pioneros (Pioneers), a database of Japanese immigrants in Peru (1899-1941), for the first time I was able to obtain information about my grandfather, Kiyoshi. Over time, my concept of who is a hero has changed substantially, and the people I admired for their accomplishments and virtues when I was a girl are not the same people I admire today.

Hikawa kiyushi 2019