University Professor, Just Back From Brazil, Tells Of Jap Colonies

By Ray. Ingham "Nearly 300,000 pure - blooded Japanese now are settled in their own colonies in Brazil,” Prof. Robert B. Hall, of the University geography department, said yesterday in an interview," but they have been under sharp observation surveillance by the Brazilian government for some months." 1 Prof. Hall, who recently returned to Ann Arbor after a year's study of oriental settlements in the Latin American nations, at present is engaged in the preparation of confidential reports for the Federal government. He also is preparing to publish various of the findings of his 12 months of research which included each of the South American nations, beginning with Mexico. The main concentrations of Japanese in Brazil, he said, are in farmlands surrounding the port of Sao Paulo on the southeast coast, to the north in the up-country states of Matto Grosso, Goiaz and Minas Geraes, and in several colonies along the Amazon river in the north, from Belem near its mouth almost to the Andes. Probably 250,000 alone are situated in the state of Sao Paulo, behind the port of the same name. Only a few thousand have penetrated into Goiaz, but Minas Geraes has 20,000, Matto Grosso another 10,000 and the Amazon valley probably 5,000 all told, Prof. Hall says. Japs Are Farmers Virtually all the Japanese in Brazil, it was stated, are farmers and, to the Brazilian government's embarrassment, extraordinarily good ones. However, they now dominate the rice and cotton markets, among Brazil's important food and export crops, respectively, and are becoming influential in the upcountry coffee regions, he added. 1 In Brazil, as everywhere else they have settled, the Japanese have proven themselves poor frontiersmen, he explained. Unlike the Germans and settlers of other nationalities in Brazil, who have pioneered and opened new frontiers much as the early settlers in North America were forced to do, the Japanese have been content to go only so far as the inside border of the back country. And invariably, in Brazil at least, according to Prof. Hall, they have followed out the main railroad lines and highways. Ever since the first Japanese settlers arrived in Brazil around the turn of the century, he continued, their mode of settlement has been characteristic. They do not mix in any way with the native population. They bring their wives, household goods and implements with them, and they settle in large, close-knit, national colonies, with their own schools, publications and pastimes. Send Sons Home Especially in the past 15 years in Brazil, he pointed out, have they sent their sons home to Japan to finish their education and to take one or two years of military training. The Imperial Japanese government considers pure-blooded Japanese people everywhere as citizens of Japan, and the Brazilian Japanese is very conscious of his national dependency. This factor, Prof. Hall said, probably was fundamental in leading the Brazilian government to pursue its strong policy of the past few months. In that time the Japanese schools have been closed and Japanese children sent to regular Brazilian schools for their education. The complex and potent Japanese consul system, with an imperial! representative in most cities and colonies, has been checked and brought into the open. The multitude of social organizations, ranging from "flower-arranging and judo societies, up and down" have generally been disbanded by the Brazilian government. In the Amazon Valley, the contract to a tract of land five times, the area of Cuba, which was granted to the Japanese by one of the Brazilian states in 1928, early this year was cancelled. Many Japs Leave Brazil Under the pressure of such action, many Japanese last year were quitting Brazil, passing west into Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina, according to Prof. Hall. Uruguay, the said, has allowed them passage through the country, but has opposed their settling in it. Paraguay suffering from a shortage of agricultural labor has tolerated their settling there, but only as farmers. The few thousand who have - penetrated Bolivia, north of Brazil already are beginning to constitute a minority problem to that -country he added A certain parallel he pointed out exists between the German and Japanese attitudes of the past years regarding their minorities in other lands. When the first Japanese farmers, accompanied by a few of their inevitable artisans and craftsmen, first came to Brazil they were much like the average farmer seeking new opportunities Tin regions where land is cheap plentiful and fertile, he said. What they wanted most was the chance to get ahead and to be let alone But one way or another they have been continually reminded that they are Japanese, not Brazilian citizens and that their first loyalty was to the home country. As a result of an energetic and careful program of administration during the past few years, it is probable that the Brazilians now have the Japanese settlers under control," Prof Hall concluded, and that the Japanese in Brazil have lost some of that strength their consuls were so carefully building in the preceding 15 year period But by virtue of their numbers organization and concentration and their agricultural dominance in country sovast as Brazil there is no doubt that they still stand as a potential problem to Brazilian security".