Okinawa Santos

A documentary from Yoju Matsubayashi

History is always told by the winners. Keeping a record of the war is also done by the winners.

The battle of Okinawa took place between the US and Japan in 1945. When Japan started losing, their army officials knocked the doors of the local Okinawans and handed them some guns, which allowed them to die honourably before they would lose.

A grandfather of one family said, “I do not care about myself, but we cannot kill young ones. My children and grand children should live. I want to preserve my blood line.”

Some young Okinawan families then left Japan and moved to foreign countries, including Brazil. They became workers like fishermen, knowing that they were not welcomed being Japanese, so they lived quietly.

Then one day some German submarines attacked and sank both American and Brazilian ships. The quiet non-white Japanese, allied with the Germans, were also no longer trusted in Brazil.

This time the Brazilian officials knocked the door. Within 24 hours, all Japanese and Germans were ordered to go to the station and take random trains to go somewhere.

Immediately, the neighbours came and seized all possessions of Japanese families such as house, land and farm animals, because they knew that all Japanese had to pack up and leave.

A few kids were excited in the train. “Daddy, are we going to Sao Paulo, the big city?” At that moment they did not understand why their parents were crying.

Then, a new life started for them, all again from scratch. The kids had to help their parents and worked everyday to be able to eat.

Why didn’t they go back to Japan?

“The moment I left Japan, I promised my old folks that I would become rich and come home one day.” They themselves lost everything and were very poor. After all, they were only Okinawans, and not fully treated as other Japanese folks in Japan.

Lack of news created a conflict within the Japanese community in Brazil. Did Japan really lose the war? Anti-government people created some terrorist attacks.

The Brazilian government needed foreign workers and could not ban just the Japanese for political reasons. So, they could remain in Brazil as the most un-welcomed group of immigrants.

The kids were called “the fifth citizen” or “spy” at school. They just focused on their studies, and helped their parents, working at home or in the community. This is the way they grew up and as a result they matured faster than the other kids.

Now they are old. They always felt like “losers”, and so could not even tell their own children and grand children what they had experienced.

The movie director, Yoju Matsubayashi (“The Horses of Fukushima”) has taken three years to film this documentary. He thought he could never finish this project, because at the beginning those elders ignored him and did not want to talk to him.

After a while, the old survivors opened up to him one by one and the project started on its own. An interesting fact is that those old men indeed look visibly old, but they speak from the angle of experience of children. They time-slipped to the past, cried for the first time in front of the camera, and some of them even smiled with a face of relief after the interview.

Everyone needs and deserves a place called home. This is a beautifully documented, untold story (preferred to be ignored or forgotten) of the life of one generation. The old people are now dying and this documentary needs to be told right now.

Japanese Movie Review by Maple Press Canada, May 2024