Overseas Emigration Day

What Is Overseas Emigration Day?

Every June 18th is "Overseas Emigration Day" (海外移住の日, Kaigai Ijū no Hi) in Japan. On June 18, 1908, the steamship Kasato Maru (笠戸丸) departed Kobe Harbor carrying 781 Japanese immigrants bound for Brazil — Japan's first large-scale organized emigration to Latin America. This voyage inaugurated a major chapter in Japanese history: over the following decades, hundreds of thousands of Japanese emigrants would settle in Brazil, Peru, Mexico, and other Latin American countries, establishing communities whose descendants number in the millions today.

The Kasato Maru Voyage

The 781 emigrants aboard the Kasato Maru were mostly from rural Okinawa and other prefectures, recruited by emigration companies with promises of work on Brazilian coffee plantations. The conditions they encountered — hard labor, language barriers, disease, and social isolation — were often far harsher than advertised. Yet the pioneers persisted, and subsequent waves of Japanese emigrants built thriving communities across Brazil, particularly in São Paulo state. The Kasato Maru's departure on June 18, 1908 is marked as the symbolic beginning of the Japanese Brazilian community.

The Nikkei Community

Japan-descended communities outside Japan are collectively known as "Nikkei" (日系). Brazil today is home to approximately 1.5 million Nikkei — the largest Japanese-descended community outside Japan. Peru, the United States (especially Hawaii and California), Canada, and Australia also have significant Nikkei communities. The global Nikkei diaspora has made extraordinary contributions to their adopted countries while maintaining deep connections to Japanese culture, language, and identity.

Japan's Emigration History in Context

Japanese overseas emigration began in the Meiji era as a response to rural poverty and land pressure. It was actively promoted by the Japanese government as a means of relieving population pressure while establishing overseas commercial networks. The experiences of emigrants — from the harsh early years to the flourishing of subsequent generations — are a complex and often painful chapter of Japanese history, touching on issues of discrimination, wartime internment (in the United States), and the negotiation of identity between two cultures.

Fun Facts

• Brazil's Japanese community: São Paulo's Liberdade district (リベルダージ) is the center of South America's Japanese community and was historically the largest concentration of Japanese and Nikkei outside Japan.
• Dekasegi: In the 1980s and 1990s, a reverse migration wave saw hundreds of thousands of Brazilian Nikkei (日系ブラジル人) travel to Japan to work in factories — a phenomenon known as "dekasegi" (出稼ぎ, working away from home).