From our Bureau of Ancient Cuban History
Once upon a time Cuba was so prosperous that it attracted great numbers of immigrants from many countries and continents. This was especially true between 1900 and 1950.
Cuba’s population in 1900 was around 3 million. But the great wave of immigration brought more than one million foreigners to Cuba. Their presence changed the complexion of the island’s population, literally. And these migrants reproduced at a high rate. By 1958, Cuba had 6 million inhabitants.
This would be comparable to the U.S. taking in 85 million migrants over the next fifty years and doubling its population over that time span from 340 million to 680 million.
Most immigrants were Spaniards from diverse corners of the Iberian peninsula: Asturians, Basques, Canarios, Catalans, Gallegos, Valencians. And there were also a fair number of Europeans of various nationalities. On my block in Havana, we had German, Italian, and French neighbors. In addition, Cuba attracted many Chinese, Lebanese, and Syrian immigrants, as well as Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews, This is well known by most Cubans.
But one group of immigrants is not well known and has received relatively little attention: The Japanese.
This might be due to the fact that the Japanese were called “Chinos” by Cubans, as were also all Filipinos and any other Asians, and their numbers never became large enough to attract attention as a distinct people different from the Chinese. So, unlike the Chinese, who settled in clusters in Cuba’s big cities, the Japanese became invisible in Cuba’s 20th century history.
Another factor caused them to become relatively invisible. Unfortunately, during the Second World War, Cuba’s Japanese community was subjected to the same fate as their compatriots in the United States. They were rounded up and detained in concentration camps on the Isle of Pines between 1942 and 1946 (for several months after Japan’s surrender), and most of Cuba’s Japanese community remained on that island afterwards, unnoticed by Cubans on the main island.
Little has been written about them, or their reaction to the Castro dictatorship. It’s difficult to find reliable statistics. One must ask: how many fled? How many still remain? How many of their descendants are now part of the Cuban diaspora? The video above from Associated Press claims that only about 100 Japanese remain in Cuba, mostly in the Isle of Pines.
So, it seems that as was also true of the Chinese, the Jews, the Lebanese, and the Syrians, and many Europeans, Castro, Inc. drove most of the Japanese away. In other words, chalk up the destruction of ethnic diversity as another great achievement of the “Revolution.”
Loosely translated from Periódico Cubano
Japanese migration in Cuba is so well documented that today we know the name and date of arrival of the first Japanese citizen on the island. This is Pablo Osuna, who arrived on our shores on September 9, 1898, on the ship Orizawa, coming from Mexico.
A year later, the number had risen to eight original Japanese citizens, seven men and one woman. With the expansion of the Cuban sugar industry during World War I, many of them came to the island in search of work.
Between the years 1924 and 1926 the greatest migratory flow took place. A large part of the people who arrived were men, who ended up settling in Cuban territory and married Creoles.
The Isle of Youth currently has the largest number of descendants of Japanese émigrés, known as the Nikkei. According to the historical archives, the first to arrive in the special municipality was Misaro Miyaki, on a trip he made from Havana in 1908. Six years later, around 130 Japanese had settled there.
The farmer Mosaku Harada also settled there in 1924, who arrived with his entire family and gained notoriety for his great results in the agricultural sector. Another of the famous Japanese of the time is Kenji Takeuchi, manager and main person in charge of the Orquideario de Soroa in the western province of Pinar del Río. This renowned horticulturist cultivated nearly 700 species of orchids and conceived the current form of this natural reserve.
The Japanese émigrés, although they were concentrated in greater numbers in the western provinces, had a presence in almost the entire Cuban territory. There are records of them in the central provinces of the country, and even in present-day Holguín. They were used mainly in agriculture, the sugar industry and mining; others learned trades.
During World War II, Japanese migration stopped and those who lived in Cuba were sent to concentration camps on the Isle of Youth and in Havana from 1942 until the end of the war in 1945.
It is estimated that the number of Japanese in Cuban territory is around 1,200. Only 25 of them are among the first migrants. The rest are direct and indirect descendants, and together they make up the Nikkei community.
Very interesting. I have long considered the Japanese superior to the Chinese, and certainly not the same.
Not only did the beast’s rise to power end immigration from Europe to Cuba his “revolution” drove them out and he reversed the trend and filled the country with immigrants from LATRINE AMERICA and other lovelies from the Third World. At one time for example, there were 20,000 Sub-Saharan Africans alone living in Cuba. Castro hated Cuba so much that he managed to change the country’s demographics.
By the way, Cubans shouldn’t have done this. This was shameful. It’s obvious they were following the orders of the US State Department:
“During World War II, Japanese migration stopped and those who lived in Cuba were sent to concentration camps on the Isle of Youth and in Havana from 1942 until the end of the war in 1945.”
Fidel Castro, a monster of selfishness, simply didn’t give a shit about Cuba–it was just a means to his ends, which were all about him and only incidentally about Cuba. Not caring can look a lot like hate and produce the same results. He did hate traditional Cuban society, which had rejected his white trash family even though it had money, but he would have screwed everybody anyway.
True, he was a complete sociopath, and they’re characterized by a lack of empathy and only caring about themselves and whatever works for them. If you’re screwed on the way to a sociopath’s goal, well so be it. Cuba was a means to his end which was to feed his megalomania. What strikes me is how naive the Cuban people were. I’m not pretending to be a Sigmund Freud, but castro was so full of shit that he looked like a walking latrine. How could the Cubans around him not see how supremely narcissistic and histrionic this man was? It’s mind boggling.