Leaving

At the beginning of the 20th Century, many families from Japan arrived in Brazil with the dream of prosperity in a far away land. The pursue of these dreams gave birth to the largest Japanese and Nikkei community in the world.

Later on, in the 1990's, the world saw a new movement of population between these two countries, but this time it was the Brazilian-born nikkei who was taking a jouney "back" to Japan, holding essentially the same dreams of prosperity in a "strange land". I am one of the Brazilian-nikkeis who migrated to Japan, the so-called Brazilian dekasegui.

For me, we are implicitly part of a much larger movement. We live the beginning of a new era in our history. An era of reflection, characterized by unpreceded technological advance and global scale migration - A real re-organization of the human family.

In Brazil, 2008 is the year we celebrate the "Centenary of Japanese imigration to Brazil". Or, in Japanese authority´s terms, the "Centenary of relations between Japan and Brazil".

To help preserving the history of the individuals who are part of these movements of population, I present here an album of images from LEAVING, a photographic documentary about the Brazilian dekassegui community in Japan. This album aims to present a new aspect of our time, approaching people of different status and conditions to show, with no statements or appologies, a fundamental equality.