Japanese Chileans
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 2,600 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Arica, Iquique, Antofagasta, La Serena, Valparaíso, Santiago, | |
| Languages | |
| Spanish, Japanese | |
| Religion | |
| Roman Catholicism, Buddhism, Shintoism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Japanese diaspora, Japanese Americans, Japanese Canadians, Japanese Mexicans, Japanese Peruvians |
Japanese Chileans (Spanish: Japonés Chileno or Nipo-chileno, Japanese: 日系チリ人 Nikkei Chiri-jin) are Chileans with ethnic origin from Japan. The first Japanese in Chile were 126 immigrants hired to work in the mining industry in 1903. As of 2010[update], Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimated there to be a total of roughly 2,600 Japanese people living in Chile. Among them were 1,108 temporary residents, 504 permanent residents, and about another thousand locally born descendants.
The number of Japanese settlers in Chile never went above 900 between 1910 and 1940. Among those who entered the nation, there was a wide diversity of persons ranging from professionals and businessmen to laborers re-migrating from neighboring countries, especially Peru, where it has the second largest Japanese population in Latin America and the sixth largest in world. They were possibly isolated in the nitrate-rich north and attracted particularly to the southern regions of Valparaíso and Santiago. They found employment in a variety of jobs as salaried workers and in small business interests, especially as barbers. The early Nikkei community was largely male. The majority of Issei men married Chilean women. Their children, the Nisei, were raised with the belief of "If they are going to live in Chile, let them be Chilean".
However, World War II once more motivated anti-Japanese sentiments and interrupted the Nikkei’s process of integration into Chilean society. Starting in early 1943, several dozen Japanese Chileans were forced to move from strategically sensitive areas (such as copper mines) to the national interior. Meanwhile, the Japanese community received bigger unity, offering mutual support in the face of wartime oppositions. These ties would later resurface after the war with the organization of the Japanese Beneficence Society (Sociedad Japonesa de Beneficencia).
By the 1990s, Chilean Nikkei enjoyed middle-class status, a high educational level, and employment in white-collar jobs. Contrary to trends in other Latin American countries with a Nikkei population, only less than 5% of the ethnic Japanese population has gone to Japan to work as dekasegis. The small size of the Japanese community, its lack of unity, and the increase of mixed marriages call into question the future of the Chilean Nikkei. There are an estimated 3,800 Japanese and descendants.
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