In March 1968 theJapan Emigration Service UEMIS) reported that more than 615,000 Japanese and their descendants were residing in Brazil. The figure represented a considerable increase over the 250,000 members ofJapenese families living in Brazil at the end of World War II.! The ra pidity of population growth which these figures would indicate represents a marked departure from the experience of the first half of the century.

Japanese migration to Brazil resumed in 1952 after a ten year pause occasioned by the war. The Brazilian government had conceded quotas for the importation of migrants to two Japanese-Brazilians. The late Mr. Yasutaro Matsubara was authorized to settle 4,000 Japanese families in central Brazil (southern Brazil was approved later) and Mr. Kotaro Tsuji was authorized to settle 5,000 Japanese families in the Amazon region. In practice, the two quotas were administered in Brazil by an agent, Mr. Akira Ohtani, the former sub-manager of the Yokohama Specie Bank's Rio de Janeiro branch. In Japan the" Federation ofJapan Overseas Associations" was. created (1954), for the purpose of recruiting and screening emigrants. The Federation also provided some training and loans of passage money for migrants. Mr. Ohtani became head of the Rio de Janeiro branch of the Federation. Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida ofJapan then negotiated an emigration loan of $15,000,000 from the Bank ofAmerica, the Chase Manhattan Bank and the First National City Bank ($5,000,000 each). The" Japan Emigration Promotion Co., Ltd." was created (1955) to administer the funds and to make the necessary loans to migrants and investments in colonial settlements. Two Brazilian subsidiaries of the Company were created (1956); the" JAMIC-Immigrar;: ao e Colonizacao, Ltda." and