In June 1908, a passenger ship called the Kasato Maru set sail from the port of Kobe and crossed the ocean to the port of Santes, Brazil, carrying 781 young Japanese immigrants, who were among the first recorded Japanese immigrants.
The vast majority of these Japanese immigrants were indentured agricultural laborers, who were sent to Brazil under the Immigration Treaty signed by Japan and Brazil in 1907, mainly working on coffee plantations in Brazil, and they also opened the window for the subsequent flow of Japanese immigrants to Brazil.
The Japanese government has always advocated that its citizens go overseas to "expand their territory", and with these migrant laborers as pioneers, the Japanese government further used the power of the state to organize many large-scale immigrants, and after these Japanese immigrants reached Brazil, they spread Japanese culture and militarism everywhere.
With the increase in the number of Japanese residents at an abnormal rate, the Japanese gradually grasped some of the voice in the civil community and even in the political circles, which immediately aroused the high vigilance of the Brazilian government, and Brazilians also began to resist the Japanese immigration plan, and attacks on Japanese immigrants were frequent.
Went to Cuba to earn a living, and was oppressed by colonization
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has awakened Brazilians to the fear that the misfortune of Palestine will be repeated in Brazil, and in the final analysis, it is the result of the greed and cruelty of Japan and Israel.
Compared with Japan, the Chinese laborers who entered Cuba more than 100 years ago are much more respectable.
At that time, Cuba was in a prosperous colonial period, and a large number of sugar cane plantations were spurred by the external market. This required more labor, but after the abolition of slavery, the source of cheap labor was no longer guaranteed.
Under the leadership of the Cuban Development Council and the British company Sulueta, Cuba set its sights on Chinese workers, who were first formally introduced in 1847. 206 Chinese workers took the Spanish ship "Octo" from Xiamen to the port of Havana.
According to statistics, between 1847 and 1874, a total of 143,040 Chinese boarded ships bound for Brazil, and most of these indentured Chinese laborers were Cantonese and Fujian, but only 126008 arrived safely.
The Chinese laborers who worked in the sugar cane plantations of the Spanish colonizers were actually worse than the black slaves, and they did the hardest and most tiring work.
Working more than 14 hours a day under the threat of whips and sticks, many Chinese workers died before their eight-year contracts expired.
Chinese workers who were lucky enough to survive until the end of their contracts were either expelled by the Spanish colonists or renewed their contracts until they were exhausted. The unbridled oppression of the Spanish colonizers aroused the strong indignation of all Chinese workers.
When the Cuban War of Independence broke out in 1868, a large number of Chinese laborers who had long been exploited by the Spanish colonizers joined the fight without hesitation, and soon became the mainstay of the rebel army.
The Chinese have always been industrious and not afraid of hardship, let alone trouble, and just want to bury their heads in their own lives, but once the oppression is too much, the will to fight that bursts out of the unbearable is enough to destroy the withering and decaying.
Sacrifice your life to fight and gain respect
On one occasion, the colonists sent 2,000 troops to attack a rebel army of only 500 men.
In this battle of disparity in strength, the two squads of Chinese soldiers at the rear of the palace ran out of bullets and fearlessly fought the enemy in hand-to-hand combat, while the Chinese soldiers relied on only the butts and teeth of their guns.
The bravery of the Chinese soldiers is engraved in their bones, just like the American veteran Nemo said that the volunteers were not afraid of death when he recalled the Korean battlefield.
When the American GIs went to the battlefield to think about how to save their lives, the volunteers did not hesitate to die with the enemy, which made the American soldiers very afraid.
During Cuba's 30-year war of liberation, thousands of Chinese workers joined the rebels, but when the Cuban independence government issued a decree to allow Chinese soldiers to receive pensions, only 44 came to register, and the rest chose to be self-reliant.
After success, he will retire, but once the crisis is present, the Chinese will not hesitate to come forward.
In the 50s of the 20th century, the revolution broke out again in Cuba, and a large number of overseas Chinese and Chinese people joined it, and the three Chinese generals Cui Guangchang, Cai Guoqiang, and Shao Huang were outstanding representatives.
General Gonzalo de Quesada, the founding father of Cuba, once praised: "Not a single Chinese is a traitor, not a single Chinese is a deserter." ”
This sentence is also engraved on the memorial to the overseas Chinese participating in the war, which stands in the central square of Havana, the capital of Cuba.
General Texas's words were widely praised in Cuba, and the participation of Chinese in the Cuban War of Independence raised the social status of the entire Chinese community in Cuba to an unprecedented level.
This is also the main reason why many second- and third-generation Cubans are proud to have Chinese ancestry.
Nourished by Chinese culture, we are proud of our Chinese ancestry
Born in Hong Kong's lower-middle-class photographer, Liu Bozhi, has been paying attention to overseas Chinese for more than 50 years since the 70s of the last century.
He has traveled to a total of 40 countries around the world, using his camera to record the survival stories of overseas Chinese, especially those living at the bottom.
Liu Bozhi has seen Chinese couples in San Francisco, living in cramped and dimly lit rooms, and he has also seen how Chinese with slightly better conditions tremble in Pennsylvania, where robberies are frequent.
Many Chinese are unable to return to China for various reasons, so they can only miss their motherland by placing statues of Guan Gong and hanging Yellow New Year paintings.
In the process of contacting the low-level Chinese in various countries, Liu Bozhi was most impressed by the Cuban Chinese.
In today's Cuba, it is very rare for Chinese to have pure Chinese blood, but there are many Cubans who have close ties with the Chinese. They may be the adopted sons and daughters of those indentured Chinese laborers, or they may be the descendants of Chinese laborers who married local women.
At that time, 99% of the coolies who went abroad to work were men, and those who chose to stay in Cuba after the contract expired would marry local indigenous Indians or black or white women, and give birth to second or even third generations of Chinese Americans.
Liu Bozhi has been to Cuba a total of 5 times, and first met the Cuban woman He Qiulan.
He Qiulan is a purebred white Cuban, but under the words and deeds of her adoptive father Fang Biao, she fell in love with Cantonese opera since she was a child, and became a drama troupe at the age of 15.
Fang Biao is a native of Taishan, Guangdong, and He Qiulan, who is familiar with it, not only eats bitter gourd and tempeh fried pork ribs, angelica soup and other Taishan special soup dishes, but also behaves very similar to Guangdong women.
Despite having no Chinese ancestry at all, Ho firmly believes that she is Chinese.
Growing up in the nourishment of Chinese culture, He Qiulan transcends kinship and bloodline, identifies her Chinese identity, and spares no effort to inherit the essence of Chinese culture such as Chinese characters, Cantonese, and Cantonese opera.
And the Cuban Chinese who really have some blood have a deep affection for China.
Liu Bozhi said in his autobiography that the Chinese Cuban Americans miss their ancestors deeply, and when they talk about it, they can't help but redden, and such warm feelings are something he has never seen when he interviews other people.
People of Chinese descent in Cuba are not only not discriminated against, but are also highly respected, unlike in Western countries.
In 1989, Cuban Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro specially allocated special funds to expand Chinatown, which shows the importance he attaches to it.
The Chinese also brought Cuba amazing traditional Chinese medicine, so much so that there is a local proverb that "this man is terminally ill, and even the Chinese doctors can't cure him".
In all this way, how can Chinese Cubans not regard it as an honor to have Chinese ancestry?