(Historical and Cultural Interconnections between Latin America and Asia) Fernando Morais_ Seth Jacobowitz - Dirty Hearts_ The History of Shindō Renmei-Palgrave Macmillan (2021)

HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL
INTERCONNECTIONS BETWEEN
LATIN AMERICA AND ASIA
Dirty Hearts
The History of Shindō Renmei
Fernando Morais
Translated with a Critical Introduction by
Seth Jacobowitz
Historical and Cultural Interconnections between
Latin America and Asia
Series Editors
Ignacio López-Calvo
University of California, Merced
Merced, CA, USA
Kathleen López
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ, USA
This series is devoted to the diversity of encounters between Latin America and
Asia through multiple points of contact across time and space. It welcomes differ-
ent theoretical and disciplinary approaches to define, describe, and explore the
histories and cultural production of people of Asian descent in Latin America and
the Caribbean. It also welcomes research on Hispano-Filipino history and cultural
production. Themes may include Asian immigration and geopolitics, the influence
and/or representation of the Hispanic world in Asian cultures, Orientalism and
Occidentalism in the Hispanic world and Asia, and other transpacific and south-
south exchanges that disrupt the boundaries of traditional academic fields and
singular notions of identity. The geographical scope of the series incorporates the
linguistic and ethnic diversity of the Pacific Rim and the Caribbean region. We
welcome single-author monographs and volumes of essays from experts in the field
from different academic backgrounds.
About the series editors:
Ignacio López-Calvo is Professor of Latin American Literature at the University of
California, Merced, USA and director of the UC Merced Center for the
Humanities. He is author of several books on Latin American and US Latino lit-
erature. He is co-executive director of the academic journal Transmodernity:
Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World.
Kathleen López is Associate Professor in the Department of Latino and
Caribbean Studies and Department of History at Rutgers, The State University of
New Jersey, USA. She is author of Chinese Cubans: A Transnational History
(2013) and a contributor to Critical Terms in Caribbean and Latin American
Thought (2015), Immigration and National Identities in Latin America (2016),
and Imagining Asia in the Americas (2016).
Advisory Board:
Koichi Hagimoto, Wellesley College, USA
Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Brown University, USA
Junyoung Verónica Kim, University of Pittsburgh, USA
Ana Paulina Lee, Columbia University, USA
Debbie Lee-DiStefano, Southeast Missouri State University, USA
Shigeko Mato, Waseda University, Japan
Zelideth María Rivas, Marshall University, USA
Robert Chao Romero, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Lok Siu, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Araceli Tinajero, City College of New York, USA
Laura Torres-Rodríguez, New York University, USA
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15129
Fernando Morais
Dirty Hearts
The History of Shindō Renmei
Translated with a Critical Introduction

by Seth Jacobowitz
Fernando Morais
São Paulo, Brazil
Translated by
Seth Jacobowitz
New York, NY, USA
Historical and Cultural Interconnections between Latin America and Asia

ISBN 978-3-030-70561-9 ISBN 978-3-030-70562-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70562-6
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu-
tional affiliations.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
A Note on Orthography
The spelling of Japanese names that appear in this book reflects the het-
erogeneity of the transnational Japanese diaspora that settled in Brazil
between 1908 and 1942. The mass migration of nearly 189,000 Japanese
immigrants to South America took place after more than a half-century of
trade and immigration with the Anglophone world had already ensured
widespread use of the Hepburn system of Romanization. Thus, while
many prewar Japanese names conform to a familiar English orthography,
still others were phoneticized according to Brazilian Portuguese conven-
tion, or altered in ways that left them nearly unrecognizable as Japanese at
all. In response to these variations, this translation endeavors to preserve
key differences, while also correcting the occasional misspellings that
appear throughout the text and bringing them in line with standard ortho-
graphic practices. For the most part, the only changes that have been made
in this translation were to add long vowel macrons where appropriate and
unobtrusive. The use of the syllable ti instead of chi, and the use of gue
and gui to denote a hard “g” sound, instead of ge or gi, have been left as
is. Thus, the industrialist Chūzaburō Nomura has two long vowel macrons
added, whereas Shindō Renmei enforcers Shiguetaka Takagui and Eiiti
Sakane each preserve their distinctive spellings. All proper names follow
the Western custom of first name, last name.
vii
viii A NOTE ON ORTHOGRAPHY
Only Japanese words deemed unfamiliar to English or Portuguese

readers such as kachigumi, makegumi, tantō, and so on appear in italics
and/or with long vowel macrons.
Lastly, there is a similar diversity of spellings for non-Japanese personal
and place names in the book that is reflective of the varied origins of
Brazil’s immigrants. Wherever possible the spellings and accent marks
have been preserved as per the original text.
Translator’s Acknowledgments
I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Fernando Morias for

granting permission to translate his work, and to series editors Ignacio
López-Calvo and Kathy Lopez for inviting me to participate in this series
about historical and cultural relations between Asia and Latin America.
Editor Camille Davies at Palgrave Macmillan, her staff, and the anony-
mous peer reviewers gave constructive criticism that shaped the direction
of the translation and critical introduction. Greg Robinson shared his
exceptional knowledge of the Japanese American internment and patiently
answered innumerable questions in our many conversations about this
project. I am also grateful for the help of Gabriel Fernandes, who carefully
went over the entire manuscript and made valuable suggestions to improve
the overall reading experience.
Special thanks are due to the many colleagues whose research, insight,
and friendship contributed along the way: Jonathan Abel, Eiichirō Azuma,
Matthew Fraleigh, Christine Greiner, Andre Haag, Lica Hashimoto, Brian
Masaru Hayashi, Ramona Hernandez, Yoshitaka Hibi, Masako Iino,
K. David Jackson, Jeffrey Lesser, Sidney Xu Lu, Christopher Lupke, Ted
Mack, Henoch Gabriel Mandelbaum, Leiko Matsubara Morales, Paulo
Moreira, Aaron W. Moore, Felipe Augusto Soares Motta, Neide Hissae
Nagae, Monica Okamoto, Michiko Okano, Roberto Okinaka, John Treat,
Hideto Tsuboi, and Kaoru “Kay” Ueda.
This translation and introduction are dedicated to the memory of
Professor Kōichi Mori (1955–2019), scholar, mentor, and friend.
The book was published with the assistance of the Frederick W. Hilles
Publication Fund of Yale University.
ix
Contents
Critical Introduction to Dirty Hearts 1

Chapter 1: Seven Japanese Want to Decapitate a Corporal from
the Public Forces: World War II is About to Begin Again 43

Chapter 2: Subjects of the Axis Powers Cannot Have Radios,
Cars, or Money. They Are Not Even Allowed to Speak 67

Chapter 3: A Little Old Man Terrorizes The Japanese Colony:
It Is None Other Than The Wise Colonel Kikawa 93

Chapter 4: Mizobe Appears to be Swimming in the Air: The
First Makegumi Falls Dead121

Chapter 5: The Police Discover the Fumie, the Torture That
Only Harms a Prisoner’s Soul151

Chapter 6: Japanese Are Hunted and Dragged Through the
Streets of the City: The “Day of Reckoning” Has Arrived181

Chapter 7: Eiiti Sakane, The Solitary Rōnin, Prepares a Blood
Bath in Tupã203
xi
xii Contents

Chapter 8: Prestes, Capanema, and Gilberto Freyre Take the
Stand: The “Yellow Mafia” Splits the Constituent Assembly
in Two231
Chapter 9: A Tokkōtai Will Be Tortured and Killed—The End

of Shindō Renmei247

Epilogue: The Final Balance—1000 Imprisoned, 381 Formally
Charged, and 80 Expelled from Brazil, but President
Kubitschek Pardons Them All259
People Interviewed263
Archives Consulted265
Illustration Credits267
Bibliography269
Index273
About the Authors
Fernando Morais (b. 1946) is a Brazilian journalist, writer, and politi-

cian. He is the author of nine books, which include his biographies of
Communist operative Olga Benário Prestes, media mogul Assis
Chateaubriand, Brazilian Air Force Marshal Casimiro Montenegro Filho,
and best-selling author Paulo Coelho. His works have sold over two mil-
lion copies in 19 countries, and four of his books have been made into
films. He received the Prêmio Esso three times and Prêmio Abril four
times for his journalistic work. Corações Sujos (Dirty Hearts; 2000) was
awarded the Jabuti Award, the Brazilian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize,
in the category of Best Nonfiction Book of the Year in 2001.
Seth Jacobowitz is the Interim Resident Director of the Kyoto
Consortium for Japanese Studies. He is author of Writing Technology in
Meiji Japan: A Media History of Modern Japanese Literature and Visual
Culture (Harvard Asia Center, 2015), which won the International
Convention of Asia Scholars Book Prize in the Humanities in 2017. He is
also the translator of The Edogawa Rampo Reader (Kurodahan Press,
2008). His research has been funded by the Fulbright Foundation, Japan
Foundation, and National Endowment for the Humanities.
xiii
List of Figures
hapter 1: Seven Japanese Want to Decapitate a Corporal

C
from the Public Forces: World War II is About to Begin Again
Fig. 1.1 José Lemes Soares (center, in white), Tupã’s “sheriff in
short-sleeves,” interrogated the “Japanese lunatics,”
who refused to accept that Japan had lost the war. The
interrogations went all night until the sun came up 46
Fig. 1.2 After aiding the police, the accountant Jorge Okazaki
(at left) wakes up to find the death sentence “Traitor to
the Nation!” scrawled on the exterior of his house by
the fanatics 48
Fig. 1.3 The “seven heroes” of Tupã, from left to right, after
they left the jail in Marília: Shimpei Kitamura,
Shiguetaka Takagui, Isamu Matsumoto, Sinchō
Nakamine, Eiiti Sakane, Isao Mizushima, and Tokuiti
Hidaka53
Fig. 1.4 Japanese immigrants in Tupã gathered for a photograph
with the seven who tried to decapitate the corporal.
Seated in the first row are Hidaka, Takagui, Matsumoto,
Nakamine, Sakane, Mizushima, and Kitamura 54
Figs. 1.5–1.6 The photographer Masashige Onishi (at right) and the
party held in Tupã’s Japanese colony (at left) to
celebrate the freeing of the “seven heroes” with lots of
sake, threats against the “defeatists,” and not a woman
in sight 54
xv
xvi List of Figures
Fig. 1.7 A group of Japanese immigrants who volunteered to

serve alongside the Paulista forces in the Revolution of
1932: a lesson in the integration of the community into
political life in Brazil 60
hapter 2: Subjects of the Axis Powers Cannot Have Radios,

C
Cars, or Money. They Are Not Even Allowed to Speak
Fig. 2.1 Santos’ newspapers report on the wartime operations of
the police to remove thousands of Japanese from the
coast in twenty-four hours 77
Fig. 2.2 German submarines sink another five Brazilian
merchant ships. The primary suspicions unjustly fall on
the Japanese residents along the coast 78
Fig. 2.3 The kachigumi Shōbei Yassuda threatened to kill anyone
who planted mint or cultivated silkworms, raw materials
that might aid the Allies in the war against Japan 81
Figs. 2.4–2.6 Junji Kikawa (at top left), in the uniform of a colonel in
the Japanese Imperial Army, and two members of the
“general staff” he brought with him from Japan:
Colonel Wakiyama (at top right) and lieutenant Azuma
Samejima (at bottom) 85
Figs. 2.7–2.8 Colonel Kikawa dressed in traditional Japanese costume
(at left) and when he was arrested for a second time (at
right). In the space of two years, he changed his
profession and “grew” 5.5 inches taller 86
Fig. 2.9 Seiichi Tomari, one of Shindō Renmei’s ideologues: he
spent many nights in tears and unable to sleep when he
learned of Japan’s surrender 89
Fig. 2.10 The first encounter of Emperor Hirohito with General
Douglas MacArthur, who wore khakis and posed with
his hands in his pockets to show who was giving the
orders91
hapter 3: A Little Old Man Terrorizes The Japanese Colony:

C
It Is None Other Than The Wise Colonel Kikawa
Figs. 3.1–3.3 At top left, the fake “Throne Speech,” written by the
fanatics of Shindō Renmei. The war had already ended,
but the emperor exhorted his soldiers to keep fighting
for Yamato damashii. At top right, the Instrument of
Surrender in English and Japanese 96
List of Figures xvii
Fig. 3.4 Over a period of months, hordes of Shindō Renmei

followers wandered between the ports of Rio de Janeiro
and Santos as they awaited the imaginary “Japanese
fleet” coming to repatriate the colony 99
Figs. 3.5–3.6 In the first row, two men marked for death by Shindō
Renmei: Ikuta Mizobe in white suit and black tie, and
on his right, Colonel Wakiyama, inseparable from his
“jaguar-hunting hat.” At right, the gala uniform the
colonel wore when he paraded through Bastos 103
Fig. 3.7 The mysterious Tsuguo Kishimoto, seen here in one of
his prison sentences. He was an informant for the Army
and the police, “secretary” to Adhemar de Barros, and
counselor to the Shindō Renmei leadership 107
Figs. 3.8–3.9 Death threats terrorize the colony. The “defeatists”
were informed of this condemnation by handwritten
notes (at right) or by using the macabre sotoba (at left)
nailed to the door of their houses 110
Figs. 3.10–3.11 Shindō Renmei attacks the capital. Chūzaburō Nomura,
the newspaper owner and “Ramie King,” is shot to
death during the night by a tokko t̄ ai operation 118
Fig. 3.12 The elegant Mitsurō “Antônio” Ikeda arrives from the
countryside preceded by his fame as a marksman, but
his first trial by fire proves a resounding failure 119
hapter 4: Mizobe Appears to be Swimming in the Air:

C
The First Makegumi Falls Dead
Fig. 4.1 Young Niseis—the first generation born in Brazil—
provide military service as recruits to the “Tiro de
Guerra” in Tupã. Integration begins to make progress 122
Figs. 4.2–4.3 A diabolical invention of the kachigumi: the “sweet
beaks,” bombs that don’t kill, but impregnate their
victims upon explosion with painful amounts of mustard 125
Fig. 4.4 A letter from the Bastos police to the Japanese
community126
Figs. 4.5–4.6 A tokko t̄ ai spends hours waiting for the right moment
to kill Mizobe (at right). When the police arrive at the
dead man’s house, they discover a live grenade (at left) 129
Figs. 4.7–4.9 The police raid Shindō Renmei headquarters in São
Paulo (at top), and find stockpiles of bombs and the
sect’s registration forms, such as that of Tarō Mushino
(at bottom) 135
xviii List of Figures
Figs. 4.10–4.12 The radio transmitter used to receive news from Japan
(at top left), yellow slickers used by the tokko t̄ ai (at top
right), and weapons utilized in operations, among them
the indispensable tanto ̄ (at bottom) 136
Fig. 4.13 A fake postal stamp from the Philippines, invented by
Shindō Renmei, “alluding to Japan’s victory” 140
Fig. 4.14 Bastos street scene with cars 149
hapter 5: The Police Discover the Fumie, the Torture That

C
Only Harms a Prisoner’s Soul
Fig. 5.1 Wherever Japanese immigrants are concentrated,
Shindō Renmei installs a local branch. In the town of
Assaí, in northern Paraná State, Japanese makegumi
armed themselves and maintained patrols to protect
themselves from the kachigumi157
Figs. 5.2–5.3 “Traitors will be shot on the patio of the Japanese
Consulate” newspaper clipping (at top). Even
imprisoned, Colonel Kikawa (at bottom), continued to
command his tokko t̄ ai and terrorize the colony with
absurd threats. He called for “shooting the traitors” at a
consulate that no longer even existed 159
Fig. 5.4 Shindō Renmei’s counterfeit currencies that “proved”
Japan had conquered the world 162
Figs. 5.5–5.6 Painter Seijirō Mihara (at bottom) and the equipment
he used to compose the “suicide notes” given to the
makegumi (at top) 164
Figs. 5.7–5.8 The body of Colonel Wakiyama, who refused to accept
the offer of suicide: “I am not a traitor to the nation, I
will not commit seppuku”167
Fig. 5.9 The tokko t̄ ai Noboru Nawa (the tallest figure) and
Keishi Gōtō (at left): beaten by judoka and shot in the
back by the dentist Ymai 173
Fig. 5.10 The magazine O Cruzeiro reconstructs the attempt on
the life of the dentist Ymai (at left, in bed), while a
doctor removes the bullet from the back of tokko t̄ ai
Keishi Gōtō177
hapter 6: Japanese Are Hunted and Dragged Through

C
the Streets of the City: The “Day of Reckoning” Has Arrived
Fig. 6.1 The interventor Macedo Soares invites the fanatics to
an audience at the palace to try and put an end to the
killings182
List of Figures xix
Fig. 6.2 The pharmacist Izuyo Suzuki (farthest left) and the
engineer Yutaka Abe (fifth from left) face arson and a
bomb thrown under the bed of Abe’s son 192
Figs. 6.3–6.4 “The City of Osvaldo Cruz is Militarily Occupied” (at
right). Almost fifty Brazilians were needed to take on
the judo black belt Takeikō Massuda (at left) 199
hapter 7: Eiiti Sakane, The Solitary Rōnin, Prepares a Blood

C
Bath in Tupã
Fig. 7.1 The Communists Marighella, Prestes, and Gregorio
Bezerra at the Constituent Assembly insisted no
concessions be made to the “Shindō Renmei fascists” 205
Fig. 7.2 The tokko t̄ ai Eiiti Sakane loses contact with Shindō
Renmei and becomes a ro n ̄ in, a samurai without a
master210
Fig. 7.3 Kanji Aoki standing barefoot on the blade of a sword to
prove his mental fortitude 212
Fig. 7.4 The façade of Nitto’s photography studio, which greets
the dawn, scrawled with the condemnation, “Traitor to
the Nation!” 215
Fig. 7.5 Hayakawa and Suga (shown wearing headbands):
opening the coffers of their business to finance the
sect’s crimes 216
Fig. 7.6 Okazaki (in back at the edge of the table) with Souza
Leão (at left), at the baptism party for his daughter in
Tupã219
Fig. 7.7 The tokko t̄ ai kill the wrong man: instead of Kenjirō, the
man they murdered was his brother Minoru 222
Figs. 7.8–7.9 The town leaders in Tupã call upon the government: a
concentration camp and the death penalty for the
Japanese225
Figs. 7.10–7.11 Sako Fujii, Eso and Sadako Hirama, Toshiko Gōtō, and
Teru Shinai. Out of 800 prisoners, only five were women 227
hapter 8: Prestes, Capanema, and Gilberto Freyre Take

C
the Stand: The “Yellow Mafia” Splits the Constituent
Assembly in Two
Figs. 8.1–8.3 Hundreds of Japanese serve prison sentences on
Anchieta Island: fights with prison guards, sumo
championships, and daily reverence to the Emperor and
imperial family 240
xx List of Figures
hapter 9: A Tokko-tai Will Be Tortured and Killed—The End

C
of Shindō Renmei
Figs. 9.1–9.2 “Tough guy” Napoleon Yagui (at bottom) and his
lieutenant, Pedro Seleiro (top at center, with a
mustache, seated next to Buhati Yagui on his right): a
day of reckoning was about to come for the tokko t̄ ai254
Figs. 9.3–9.5 Namide Shimano (at top) is caught alive by Pedro
Seleiro, but tortured and killed. Two kachigumi (at
bottom) pray at a shrine constructed on the spot where
he fell. 255
Critical Introduction to Dirty Hearts
Seth Jacobowitz
Black Swan Events

On an unseasonably warm day in August 2019, I strolled through the
grounds of Ibirapuera Park in São Paulo after meeting with artist and
curator Roberto Okinaka at the Afro Brazil Museum. I was headed for the
Japanese Pavilion, one of several landmarks downtown that attests to the
prominence of the Japanese Brazilians and their cultural contributions to
the largest city in South America. The pavilion was built in Japan and
donated as an integral component of the park, which opened on August
21, 1954, in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the city. I walked
slowly through the Japanese garden, savoring the beauty of the cherry
blossoms growing in profusion alongside the exhibition hall and boister-
ous koi pond. The traditional shoin style architecture of the building, a
replica of the Katsura Palace in Kyoto, marks a striking departure from the
Brazilian modernism of Roberto Burle Marx’s tropical landscapes and the
curvilinear geometric forms of the museums nearby designed by architect
Oscar Niemeyer. Yet it was the enigma of the cherry blossoms that stopped
me in my tracks. I had just come back from Japan, where the rainy season
was giving way to the blistering heat, humidity, and shrill cicada cries of
summer. Yet here was the classical Japanese symbol for the renewal of
spring, thriving in the balmy weather and blissfully indifferent to the fact
that August in Brazil is actually winter.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
F. Morais, Dirty Hearts, Historical and Cultural Interconnections
between Latin America and Asia,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70562-6_1
2 F. MORAIS
The frisson brought to mind literary scholar Roberto Schwarz’s notion

of “misplaced ideas,” which recognized the incommensurable gap between
an imported Enlightenment ideology and the vicissitudes of slavery in the
formation of Brazilian modernity.1 But this, too, was a juxtaposition of
elements on Brazilian soil, far removed from the cultural context or cycli-
cal rhythms of nature in Japan. Rather than search for authentic roots in
an ancestral homeland, or try to understand the Japanese Pavilion’s artifice
from a Japoniste perspective, I came away with a pragmatic realization that
responds to the dilemma of misplaced ideas: local conditions matter. While
I was lost in thought, balancing the equation in my head, a black swan
floated by to lend further symbolism to this paradoxical scene.
From the moment that I announced my plans to embark on a research
project on the literature and intellectual history of prewar Japanese immi-
gration to Brazil, friends and colleagues unfailingly directed me toward
Fernando Morais’ Corações Sujos as the most popular account of the tur-
bulent experiences of the Japanese Brazilians during World War II and its
aftermath. Not all such voices were uncritical of the book, but there was
unanimity in recognizing that Morais’ blend of literary and investigative
journalism had provided unrivaled visibility to the transformations that the
Japanese Brazilian community underwent during the crucible years of
1942–1947. This included the raft of repressive measures taken against
Japanese immigrants as Axis subjects after Brazil entered the war on the
Allied side. The bloodiest chapter of internecine conflict within the
Japanese Brazilian community erupted in 1946–1947 between the
“enlightened” (esclarecidos) members of the community, who accepted
that Japan lost the war, and the ideological hardliners in the secret society
Shindō Renmei (League of Subjects of the Imperial Way), who violently
enforced the false narrative of Japanese triumphalism. The lines were
swiftly demarcated for the kachigumi, or “victory faction,” and those they
called makegumi, or “defeatists.”
The consequences of Japan’s unconditional surrender and loss of
empire were so dire and wide-ranging that none of the Japanese immi-
grant communities around the world were spared, least of all the most
distant and sizable colony in Brazil. In the first English-language study
dedicated to postwar contemporary Japanese Brazilian literature and film,
Ignacio López-Calvo observes that Morais’ Dirty Hearts is “a hybrid of
1
Roberto Schwarz, Misplaced Ideas: Essays on Brazilian Culture (1992).
CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO DIRTY HEARTS 3
historical essay, novel, testimonial, and biography.”2 As indicated in the

back matter of Dirty Hearts, Morais made extensive use of fifty federal,
state, municipal, and private archives in Brazil, as well as eighty-eight per-
sonal interviews in the course of his research. Largely reproduced in this
translation is also an impressive collection of photographs, maps, newspa-
per clippings, declassified police files, and other forms of material evidence
from the period that impart archival depth and veracity to this combina-
tion of life writing and creative non-fiction.
Originally published by the prestigious Companhia das Letras in 2000,
Dirty Hearts received the Jabuti Award, the Brazilian equivalent of the
Pulitzer Prize, in the category of Best Non-fiction Book of the Year in
2001. Morais (b. 1946) is the author of nine books, which include his
biographies of World War II-era Communist operative Olga Benário
Prestes, media mogul Assis Chateaubriand, Brazilian Air Force Marshal
Casimiro Montenegro Filho, and best-selling novelist Paulo Coelho.
Morais’ works have sold over two million copies in nineteen countries, and
four of his books have been made into films. In 2011, Brazilian cineaste
Vicente Amorim directed a fictionalized adaptation of Dirty Hearts with a
screenplay by David França Mendes that featured a mixed Brazilian and
Japanese cast. It garnered numerous accolades on the domestic and inter-
national film circuit, which culminated in the Cinema Brazil Grand Prize
for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2013. In addition to his career as a journal-
ist and writer, Morais also served for eight years as a state deputy for São
Paulo and held the offices of State Secretary of Culture (1988–1991) and
Secretary of Education (1991–1993).
Morais traces Shindō Renmei’s path to power as the foremost pro-
imperialist militant group that formed in response to the anti-Japanese,
forced assimilation measures that began in earnest under Getúlio Vargas’
dictatorial Estado Novo (1937–1945) and intensified after Brazil declared
war on the Axis Powers in 1942. The group’s membership correspond-
ingly swelled in the mid-1940s as it absorbed smaller factions. It was
widely believed to represent the vast majority of the 250,000 Japanese
immigrants and their Brazilian-born children. In thirteen months of peak
activity from January 1946 to January 1947, Shindō Renmei was respon-
sible for twenty-three assassinations, 147 assaults, and innumerable acts of
arson and intimidation against the “dirty hearts” in their midst, who col-
laborated with the Brazilian authorities or publicly affirmed that Japan had
2
Ignacio López-Calvo, Japanese Brazilian Saudades, 155.
4 F. MORAIS
been defeated. Taking advantage of the leadership and communications

vacuum caused first by the Estado Novo’s prohibitions against “subjects of
the Axis powers,”3 and then the severing of diplomatic relations with
Japan (1942–1952), the group effectuated a near-complete takeover of
the community’s mediasphere. Shindō Renmei used clandestine meetings,
radio broadcasts, and newsletters to communicate with the quarter-mil-
lion strong population during and after the war.
Shindō Renmei is often described in Dirty Hearts as a secret society of
“fanatics” or “cult followers.” In fairness to Morais, such terminology was
not principally his own, but reflects how contemporaneous critics and
opponents in the Japanese Brazilian community characterized the organi-
zation. As sociologist Takashi Maeyama has pointed out, “the victory
group called themselves kyōko ̄ (the tough) and the opposition simply
haisen (the defeatists). The defeat group, on the other hand, called them-
selves the ninshiki-ha (enlightened faction) and the opposition group
kachi-gumi (victory group) or fanaticos (fanatics, in Portuguese).”4
By 1947, nearly the entire organization had been swept up in police
raids on suspected militants led by the Brazilian secret police and public
security service called the Department of Political and Social Order
(DOPS). They ended up incarcerated on Anchieta Island, a penitentiary
island akin to Alcatraz off the coast of São Paulo. Due to Shindō Renmei’s
extremist actions, the Constituent Assembly that ratified Brazil’s Fifth
Constitution on September 18, 1946, vigorously debated an amendment to
ban all future immigration from Japan. What would have been an unprece-
dented prohibition in the history of the nation failed to pass by only one vote.
But in the end, despite the political forces and popular sentiment arrayed
against them, Shindō Renmei’s leadership and death squads avoided having
to pay a higher price for their crimes than ten to twenty years in prison.
Morais insists that by throwing its support behind Adhemar de Barros
3
Decree 383 on April 18, 1938 barred foreigners from political activities or speaking for-
eign languages in public. Radio broadcasts in foreign languages were prohibited, and pub-
lishing in foreign languages was technically only permissible when done in bilingual editions.
Most improbable of all was that the first language taught to children had to be Portuguese,
despite the fact that many recent Japanese immigrants neither spoke the language adequately
nor had access to schools where their children might receive suitable instruction.
4
Takashi Maeyama, “Ethnicity, Secret Societies, and Associations: The Japanese in
Brazil,” 601.
(1901–1969),5 who became the first democratically elected governor of

São Paulo after Vargas’ dictatorship ended, Shindō Renmei exchanged
campaign contributions and the promise of votes for political rehabilita-
tion. In so doing, his argument goes, it helped to set in motion a perma-
nent transformation in the Japanese Brazilian community from a largely
insular colony with intimate ties to the Japanese empire to its new identity
as an ethnic minority in postwar Brazil.
In light of the political and social forces that buffeted the Japanese
Brazilians in the mid-1940s, it is necessary to point out that four-fifths of
the colony were Issei who self-identified as “overseas brethren” (kaigai
do ̄hō) of the Japanese empire. Among the roughly 189,000 Japanese who
migrated to Brazil before the war, more than 160,000 came in the period
from 1921 to 1941. The majority exchanged a hardscrabble life in Japan’s
poorest provinces to work on coffee plantations and brush-cleared farm-
lands in the interior of São Paulo and neighboring Paraná. It was perhaps
inevitable that many bitterly referred to themselves as exiles (kimin) syn-
onymously with immigrants (imin). Nevertheless, they remained spiritu-
ally loyal to the emperor and felt entitled to return to a victorious Japan or
resettle elsewhere in the empire. In their sense of mission and shared sac-
rifice, their lives were not substantially different from their fellow settler
colonists who flocked to Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria. A common goal
was to earn enough money working in Brazil to eventually repatriate and
establish themselves as independent farmers or shopkeepers. They were
not yet a “discontented diaspora,” as historian Jeffrey Lesser has evoca-
tively called the postwar generation, but displaced imperial subjects.6
Unresolved tensions in the status of national belonging had continued
to build for Japanese Brazilians in the decade leading up to the war.
Historian Rogério Dezem insists that “pressured by two nationalisms,
having on one side the militarist Japanese government and on the other
the Vargas dictatorship, the Japanese immigrants, who had consolidated a
high degree of homogenous social and economic organization on Brazilian
territory since the late 1920s (immigrant colonies, cooperative
5
His name is also sometimes spelled Ademar de Barros. He was a veteran politician so
famous for extravagant promises and graft that the popular Brazilian expression rouba mas
faz, “he steals but gets things done,” was coined to describe his governing style.
6
Jeffrey Lesser, A Discontented Diaspora: Japanese Brazilians and the Meanings of Ethnic
Militancy, 1960–1980 (2007).
6 F. MORAIS
associations, schools, etc.), suffered a form of ‘referential crisis.’”7 In the

face of discriminatory policies by the Estado Novo, which further rein-
forced isolation and diminished their ability to earn a decent living, many
immigrants had nowhere to turn to for support but their own ethnolin-
guistic compatriots. It should come as no surprise, moreover, that since
the vast majority of the latest arrivals did not speak Portuguese and had
only a tenuous foothold in mainstream Brazilian society, the path of least
resistance would be to simply go home. Dezem continues, “In reflection
of this, the book Bauru kannai no Ho ̄jin (The Japanese in Bauru), written
in Japanese by Shungorō Wakō, circulated in the colony in mid-1939. […]
It verified that 85% of the immigrants in the region wanted to return to
Japan.”8 The dream of return to a lost or forgotten homeland, epitomized
by the Portuguese-Brazilian concept of saudade, would ensnare these
newcomers, too. What had previously been an economic impossibility also
became a political one during the war years. When Japan was defeated,
however, the once-sacrosanct right of return was foreclosed altogether.
Recognizing the Japanese Brazilian community had everything to lose in
the postwar era, many were willing, or at times coerced, to double down
on the certitude of imperial victory proffered by secret societies such as
Shindō Renmei. The alternative, in their eyes, was simply unthinkable.
* * *
Publication of this English translation of Dirty Hearts is timely for its

coincidence with the resurgence of autocratic movements around the
world. Consideration of one extraordinary historical moment from the
vantage point of another demonstrates that what transpired in postwar
Brazil was not due to an anomaly in the uprooted Japanese national char-
acter, but arose as a direct result of the revanchist tendencies inherent in
modern political culture. Donald Trump and his tropical twin, Jair
Bolsonaro, have governed from the same revenge culture playbook of
twentieth-century authoritarianism, now updated to the latest social
media. Their stock-in-trade techniques have been conspiracy theories, fake
7
Rogério Dezem, “Hi-no-maru Manchado de Sangue: A Shindo Renmei e o DEOPS/
SP,” Imigrantes Japoneses no Brasil: Trajetória, Imaginário e Memória, 244. Here and else-
where, unless otherwise noted, the translations are my own.
8
Ibid., 244.
news, and “alternative facts.”9 These techniques have been utilized to

mobilize and radicalize their base, while intimidating adversaries, both real
and imagined.
Today neo-fascist populism is the political movement that dare not
speak its name. In an alarming echo of Getúlio Vargas, Alberto Fujimori
in Peru, and countless other strongmen, Trump repeatedly attempted to
execute a self-coup (autogolpe) in order to remain in office in the interven-
ing weeks between the national election on November 3, 2020, and the
state-by-state vote counting by the Electoral College on December 14,
2020. Anonymous threats of assassination, bodily harm, and arson by his
militant supporters were similarly leveled against elected officials, poll
workers, reporters, and Democratic activists to deny and nullify the elec-
tion results.
Biden’s victory, which was the strongest showing against an incumbent
president since Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Herbert Hoover in 1932,
may drive underground the most illiberal and radicalized factions of
Trumpism, but it is unlikely to eliminate them. Certainly, it did not pre-
vent convicted National Security Adviser and retired Lt. General Michael
Flynn, whom Trump pardoned on November 25, 2020, from opining
that Trump could declare martial law to invalidate the election results and
try again.10 The accusations of election fraud were repeated by scores of
Republican politicians in the waning months of 2020, while the remainder
of the GOP party leadership stayed silent and refused to publicly acknowl-
edge Biden’s win. This reached its crescendo in Trump’s incitement of an
insurrectionist mob that invaded the United States Capitol on January 6,
2021, to prevent certification of the Electoral College. In effect, an
American kachigumi movement was born from the ashes of Trump’s
defeat and abortive self-coup attempt.
In his essay on the political philosophy of rightwing conspiracy theo-
rists, historian Richard Hofstadter defined the “Paranoid Style in American
9
In an interview on January 22, 2017 on the US political talk show Meet the Press, presi-
dential advisor Kellyanne Conway coined this phrase in reply to a demonstrable lie about the
size of the inaugural crowd told by White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Moderator
Chuck Todd swiftly responded, “Alternative facts are not facts; they’re falsehoods.” See
Aaron Blake, “Kellyanne Conway Says Donald Trump’s Team Has ‘Alternative Facts.’ Which
Pretty Much Says It All,” Washington Post, November 12, 2020.
10
Flynn first made these spurious claims on Twitter on December 1, 2020 and then
repeated them when the far-right media outlet Newsmax interviewed him on December
17, 2020.
8 F. MORAIS
Politics” (1964) as a problem that transcended the particularity of a single

historical moment: “The paranoid style is not confined to our own coun-
try and time; it is an international phenomenon. […] We are all sufferers
from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not
only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.”11
This denial is based on a sense of incomprehensible loss of the traditional
world by forces beyond its control. The desire to renew völkisch ties of
blood and soil, that is, to stage a return to a mythic sense of belonging is
viewed as necessary to overcome the perceived crisis. Hofstadter diag-
nosed the paranoid style in American politics of the 1960s thusly:
[T]he modern right wing, as Daniel Bell has put it, feels dispossessed:
America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they
are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act
of subversion. The old American virtues have already been eaten away by
cosmopolitans and intellectuals; the old competitive capitalism has been
gradually undermined by socialistic and communistic schemers; the old
national security and independence have been destroyed by treasonous
plots, having as their most powerful agents not merely outsiders and for-
eigners as of old but major statesmen who are at the very centers of American
power. Their predecessors had discovered conspiracies; the modern radical
right finds conspiracy to be betrayal from on high.12
The John Birch Society (founded 1958) and subsequent far-right move-
ments such as the Trump era’s QAnon have laid deep roots of discontent
that have continued to fester in the body politic to the present day. Their
will to believe unfounded hoaxes only matches their hostility to civil rights,
science, government regulation, and international affairs.
In the absence of knowledge about Shindō Renmei in Brazil, American
journalists and politicians could still reach into a cultural grab bag of things
Japanese for suitable metaphors about the 2020 election. Commentating
on the refusal of Republicans in Congress to congratulate President-elect
Joe Biden, or even admit that he won the election, Fox News anchor Chris
Wallace observed, “There are a lot who are just silent. And then there are
some, I mentioned Ted Cruz, you know, who are like the Japanese sol-
diers who come out 30 years after the war, out of the jungle, and say, ‘Is
11
Richard Hofstadter, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” Harper’s Weekly,
November 1964.
12
Ibid.
the fight still going on?’”13 Wallace’s remarks resonate with the case of the
Japanese Brazilians more than he was likely aware. Tens of thousands of
Japanese chose to start their lives anew in Brazil when immigration
resumed in 1952. Among those who decided to leave Japan behind for
good was Hiroo Onoda, a second lieutenant and intelligence officer in the
Imperial Army, who spent twenty-nine years hiding in the jungle on
Lubang Island in the Philippines, where he engaged in guerilla warfare
against American and Philippine military and police forces.
The last holdout, Lieutenant Onoda, officially declared dead in 1959, was
found by Norio Suzuki, a student searching for him, in 1974. The lieuten-
ant rejected Mr. Suzuki’s pleas to go home, insisting he was still awaiting
orders. Mr. Suzuki returned with photographs, and the Japanese govern-
ment sent a delegation, including the lieutenant’s brother and his former
commander, to relieve him of duty formally.14
Onoda’s surrender took place in the presence of his former commanding

officer, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, on March 9, 1974. Three days later,
Onoda received a full pardon from Philippine President Ferdinand
Marcos—a former guerilla fighter against the Japanese—who returned his
sword and praised his courage.15 Onoda returned to Japan and was greeted
as a celebrity; but less than a year later, in April 1975, he chose to follow
his older brother, Tadao, to Colônia Jamic in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil,
to raise cattle.
On December 11, 2020, meanwhile, US Congressman Clay Higgins
(R-La.) took to Facebook to offer a grotesque comparison between
Japanese internment and the supposed disenfranchisement of Trump vot-
ers in the national election:
The internment of 120K American citizens of Japanese ancestry during

World War II happened. It was real. It was wrong. It was abhorrent. And it
was challenged in court as a violation of Constitutional rights. The Supreme
13
Emma Colton, “Chris Wallace Compares Ted Cruz to Japanese Soldier Still Fighting
WWII After He Questioned Election Results,” Washington Examiner, November 8, 2020.
14
Robert McFadden, “Hiroo Onoda, Soldier Who Hid in Jungle for Decades, Dies at 91,”
New York Times, January 17, 2014. Suzuki, who is better described as an amateur explorer,
famously declared he was searching for “Lieutenant Onoda, a panda, and the yeti, in that
order.” He succeeded in finding a panda in the wild, but died in an avalanche in the Himalayas
on his quest for the yeti in November 1986.
15
“Marcos Extols Japanese Straggler, Returns Sword,” in New York Times, March
12, 1974.
10 F. MORAIS
Court of the United States did not stop it. Lessons of history. They were
120 thousand. We are 75 million.16
This blatantly false equivalency with the burgeoning sedition movement

elicited a forceful public rebuke six days later from the Japanese American
Citizens League (JACL), which wrote in response:
The Japanese American Citizens League condemns any attempts to equate

the legitimate loss of constitutional rights of 120,000 Japanese Americans
during WWII to the recent election results, in which all registered voters
had the opportunity to cast their votes and be counted, resulting in the elec-
tion of President-Elect Biden. […] For Japanese Americans, there were
absolutely no cases of treason or espionage that might have justified their
mass incarceration. Instead, Japanese Americans demonstrated their loyalty
to our country and the constitution by standing up in many ways. The
442nd Regimental Combat Team, 100th Infantry Battalion, and Military
Intelligence Service consisted of Japanese Americans serving their country
while many of their family and friends were held prisoner. They recognized
the threat of totalitarianism that the Axis powers represented was a greater
threat to our constitution than their own loss of rights.17
The Louisiana congressman’s words are further reminder that not only
Japan, but also Japanese descendants in the Americas, remain for some a
palimpsest upon which their fears and desires can be projected. The injus-
tices borne by those who were denied full citizenship and then wrongfully
accused of having divided loyalties cannot help but cast a long shadow
over American democracy. The same can also be said for Japanese Brazilians
who, during the war, were subjected to discrimination, indemnities, and
other measures meted out in retribution for Japan’s aggression. Yet their
fate during and after the war was to diverge significantly from their breth-
ren to the north.
16
Jordan Williams, “GOP Lawmaker Compares Japanese Internment to Alleged Fraud
That Cost Trump Election,” The Hill, December 11, 2020. Higgins also inflated Trump’s
popular vote count by 777,000.
17
Japanese American Citizens League, https://jacl.org/statements/representative-clay-
higgins-fails-to-understand-the-gravity-of-claiming-a-loss-of-constitutional-rights. Accessed
Sept. 1, 2021.
Trauma and Treason in Narrative Form

This is a book about traitors. Dirty Hearts derives its title from the epithet
leveled by kachigumi extremists at compatriots in the Japanese colony who
accepted Japan’s defeat in World War II or those seen as collaborating with
the enemy to achieve that end. The so-called defeatists and mainstream
Brazilian society, in turn, saw the kachigumi as domestic terroristswhose
illiberal views had so clouded their thinking as to enable them to commit
acts of murder, arson, and extortion for a lost cause.
In the Politics of Storytelling, poet and anthropologist Michael D. Jackson
sheds considerable light on the psychology of humiliation and defeat in
ways that have direct bearing on the fratricide in the Japanese colony in
Brazil. The desire for self-respect, or more accurately, respect for one’s
community, motivates narrativization toward mythic and realpolitik con-
siderations. It is this imperative for those who have become pariahs in their
own society or culture to articulate a worldview that bridges traumatic
events and allows the silenced or marginalized to combat their sense of
dispossession. In the case of Shindō Renmei, Japan’s defeat was purpose-
fully recast into a victory yarn that guaranteed, however temporarily, con-
tinuation of an imperial subjectivity upon which the vast majority of the
immigrants depended. Jackson’s citation of Hannah Arendt bears repeat-
ing here: “The greatest injury which society can and does inflict is to make
[the pariah] doubt the reality and validity of his own existence, to reduce
him in his own eyes to the status of a nonentity” (Arendt 1944:114).18
In a similar vein to the psychology of dispossession, the tidy narra-
tive resolution of military conflict into clear-cut winners and losers can
obscure the lasting consequences of war, which endure spatially and tem-
porally far from the battlefield. Historian Aaron W. Moore has observed
that individual veterans’ wartime memory is oftentimes in tension with
sanctioned versions of collective postwar remembrance:
The content of veterans’ memory writings, as well as their respective roles in

crafting postwar historical memory discourse, is not determinable by divid-
ing them into “winner” and “loser” nations. American veterans, for exam-
ple, do not necessarily accept public representations of the Second World
War, despite the fact that the vast majority of such representations are
triumphalist.19
18
Michael Jackson, The Politics of Storytelling, 50–51.
19
Aaron W. Moore, Writing War: Soldiers Record the Japanese Empire, 272.
12 F. MORAIS
I would have us re-read this statement against the certitudes of Shindō

Renmei, who claimed a crowning victory in the face of crushing loss. The
kachimake (victors/defeatists) split in the Japanese Brazilian community is
a case study of how a nation’s defeat could inspire a decade-long struggle
for power and meaning a world away from its homeland, theaters of war,
or occupied territories. Yet such is the recursive nature of history that the
catastrophic toll of World War II did not spare any of Japan’s subjects or
their descendants around the world. Nor were they inoculated against a
beleaguered afterlife of Nikkei identity that saw many Japanese Brazilians
achieve great success as a model minority in their adoptive land, while oth-
ers would undertake the reverse migration as dekasegi laborers and find
themselves trapped in a cycle of “3D” (dangerous, dirty, and difficult)
marginal employment.20
Dirty Hearts, which begins with the “hoarse and halting voice” of
Hirohito translated and transmitted to the furthest corners of rural São
Paulo State, reprises public pronouncements such as the Jewel Voice
Broadcast and Humanity Declaration meant to announce Japan’s uncon-
ditional surrender and the emperor’s acknowledgment of his loss of divine
status.21 As Morais elucidates, rather than silence the revanchist holdouts,
the contested scripting of Hirohito’s words and image between General
MacArthur and the Imperial Household Institution only escalated the
thought war in Brazil. Shindō Renmei cynically disregarded the objective
truth of these broadcasts, the photographs of Japan’s rendition aboard the
USS Missouri, and other forms of empirical evidence. Instead, they under-
stood it purely as propaganda fit for further manipulation.
In Embracing Defeat, John Dower provides a sobering tally of the war
dead and displaced in Japan proper. “All told, probably at least 2.7 million
servicemen and civilians died as a result of the war, roughly 3 to 4 percent
of the country’s 1941 population of 74 million. Millions more were
20
Dekasegi, which literally means “working away from home,” has become an internation-
ally recognized term for the hundreds of thousands of Nikkei Latin Americans, primarily
from Brazil, who find work in Japan. I adopt the term “3D” from the corresponding “3K”
(kitsui, kitanai, kiken) in Japanese.
21
The English translation of the Jewel Throne Broadcast that appears in Dirty Hearts is
taken from the text recorded by the Federal Communications Commission and published in
the August 15, 1945 issue of the New York Times. The translation of the Humanity
Declaration likewise comes from the January 1, 1946 issue of the New York Times, which
cites the translation provided by Allied headquarters.
injured, sick, or seriously malnourished.”22 The extensive firebombing of

Japan’s cities, not to mention the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, exacted a terrible toll on the home islands. But the devasta-
tion of the war penetrated well beyond the geographical boundaries of the
Japanese archipelago.
In the wake of defeat, approximately 6.5 million Japanese were stranded in

Asia, Siberia, and the Pacific Ocean area. Roughly, 3.5 million of them were
soldiers and sailors. The remainder were civilians, including many women
and children—a huge and generally forgotten cadre of middle- and lower-
class individuals who had been sent out to help develop the imperium. Some
2.6 million Japanese were in China at war’s end, 1.1 million dispersed
through Manchuria. In addition, almost six hundred thousand troops laid
down their arms in the Kurile Islands and the Darien-Port Arthur enclave in
southern Manchuria. Over five hundred thousand Japanese were in Formosa
(Taiwan) and nine hundred thousand in Korea, the countries Japan had
colonized in 1895 and 1910, respectively. The number in Southeast Asia
and the Philippines was close to nine hundred thousand at war’s end, mostly
military personnel. Hundreds of thousands of other remnants of the emper-
or’s shredded army were stranded on scattered islands in the Pacific.23
The homecomings for these veterans and settler colonists were by no

means immediate or painless. Although the majority of the Japanese armed
forces were disarmed by the United States and Kuomintang (Chinese
Nationalist Party), and repatriated in 1946, between 560,000 and 760,000
Japanese military personnel captured in the Soviet Union and Mongolia
were interned to work in labor camps until 1950. The US occupation of
Japan, for that matter, did not end until April 28, 1952, excluding
Okinawa, which only reverted back to Japan’s control in 1972.
Japanese immigrants and their descendants in the Western hemisphere
were also adversely affected by the war and scapegoating that ensued. An
estimated 120,000 Japanese Americans were stripped of their civil rights
and property, and then sent to internment camps (also contemporane-
ously referred to as concentration camps). It is worth remembering that
the confiscation of property was not due to military necessity, but came at
the insistence of white landowners and business competitors as a chief
motivating factor behind mass evacuation and internment. The losses
22
John Dower, Embracing Defeat, 45.
23
Ibid., 48–49.
14 F. MORAIS
were not only individual, but also collective: entire communities were dis-
placed, while industries the immigrants had worked so hard to build were
flagrantly stolen out from under them. In addition to Japanese Americans,
1800 Japanese Peruvians and 29 Japanese Bolivians were illegally deported,
stripped of their citizenship, and sent to internment camps in the United
States as bargaining chips for American prisoners-of-war. Nearly all of
them were deported to Japan after the war.
Under the War Measures Act, 21,000 Japanese Canadians were likewise
forced to relocate to internment camps, road camps, and prisoner-of-war
camps mostly in the interior of British Columbia; the largest fraction of
whom were confined not behind barbed wire, but in remote ghost towns.
In all, 3500 were pressed into labor on sugar beet farms in southern Alberta
and Manitoba. Their property was seized and sold off to pay for the costs of
their confinement in a coordinated effort by the government to perma-
nently erase all traces of their presence from Vancouver and coastal British
Columbia. After the war, Japanese Canadians were presented with the
choice of permanent relocation east of the Rockies or face “repatriation” to
Japan, despite the fact that three-quarters of them were, in fact, Canadian
citizens. An estimated 10,000 were induced to return to Japan before learn-
ing of the extent of the war devastation. Nearly 4000 were sent to Japan in
1946–1947 before a public campaign by the Cooperative Committee on
Japanese Canadians pressured the government to halt the deportations.24
The magnitude of these injustices helps put into context the degree to
which resentment and resistance exploded into the open by kachigumi
adherents in Brazil. Their willingness to defy reality and murder the
“defeatist” traitors must be understood against the threat of permanently
losing all they once held dear.
Secret Societies, Conspiracy Theories, and Fake News

Extremist movements and secret societies regularly employ conspiracy
theories, disinformation, and fake news to create and spread their message.
Although their methods are often a source of contempt or amusement for
intellectuals, we must not fall into the trap of dismissing the paranoid style
as simply impoverished or magical thinking. Its practitioners deliberately
emulate the forms of knowledge production and institutions they seek to
24
Izumi, Masumi. “Lessons from History: Japanese Canadians and Civil Liberties in
Canada.” Journal of American and Canadian Studies 17 (1999): 1–24.
undermine. Political scientist Michael Barkun pinpoints this tendency to

game the system by falsely positing epistemic certainty as follows:
Conspiracy theories purport to be empirically relevant; that is, they claim to

be testable by the accumulation of evidence about the observable world.
Those who subscribe to such constructs do not ask that the constructs be
taken on faith. Instead, they often engage in elaborate presentations of evi-
dence in order to substantiate their claims. Indeed, as Richard Hofstadter
has pointed out, conspiracist literature often mimics the apparatus of source
citation and evidence presentation found in conventional scholarship: “The
very fantastic character of [conspiracy theories’] conclusions leads to heroic
strivings for ‘evidence’ to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that
can be believed.”25
The inherently unfalsifiable nature of conspiracy theories makes them

impervious to the usual fallacy deflating and shaming tactics in the politi-
cal arena. For this reason, they are exceptionally well suited to building a
cult-like following and being weaponized to foment political violence.
The process of radicalization can thus be typified as the movement from
conspiracy theory to actual conspiracy. It is a lesson that we are belatedly
relearning in the era of renewed authoritarianism and neo-fascist populism.
Nowhere is this paradigm more evident than in the Nazi rise to power
when Adolf Hitler revived the stab-in-the-back legend (Dolchstoßlegende)
to explain how the Jews caused Germany’s loss in World War I and brought
about the decadent Weimar Republic. This was the foundational fiction
against which his vision for Nazi Germany was based. Yet Hitler went a
step further in Mein Kampf (1925) when he advanced the propaganda
technique of the “big lie,” which blamed the Jews for their deceptions and
sought to beat them at their own game. It fittingly appears in a chapter
dedicated to exploring the putative reasons for the collapse of the Second
Reich. His analysis of nefarious Jewish methods, however, was precisely
the blueprint for his own stratagem.
All this was inspired by the principle—which is quite true within itself—that
in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad
masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of
their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the prim-
itive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than
25
Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy, 6.
16 F. MORAIS
the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but
would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.26
By adopting the aggrieved position of the victims in an existential struggle

against an implacable foe, the Nazis concealed the nature of their actions
as a defensive position. Indisputably, many Germans and their accomplices
accepted the lie as reality. Yet however skeptical or noncommittal the
remainder of the population might have initially been, they were also
mobilized to serve its purposes. Hannah Arendt grasped the essential dan-
gers this posed to a free society: “If everybody always lies to you, the
consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody
believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature,
have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its
own history.”27
The interlocking mechanisms of the stab-in-the-back legend and the
big lie gave license for Hitler’s plans for total war and genocide to be car-
ried out by millions of Germans and their accomplices with a clear con-
science and nobility of purpose.28 This is borne out very plainly in Heinrich
Himmler’s Posen (Poland) speech of October 4, 1943 to the SS in which
he revealed Germany’s plans for the extermination of European Jewry in
the Holocaust: “We have the moral right, we had the duty to our people
to do it, to kill this people who would kill us. […] We have carried out this
most difficult task for the love of our people. And we have suffered no
defect within us, in our soul, or in our character.”29 It is the nature of
conspiracy theories and disinformation to circumscribe a virtuous victim-
hood and therefore justify extraordinary measures.
Needless to say, the stab-in-the-back legend and big lie converged for
Shindō Renmei in the false narrative that the makegumi gave aid and com-
fort to Japan’s enemies during the war, then engaged in a disinformation
campaign to deny Japan its rightful victory. This calumny against their
26
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. 1, chapter X. http://gutenberg.net.au/
ebooks02/0200601.txt.
27
These comments were made in 1974 during an interview with the French writer Roger
Errera and published in the October 26, 1978 issue of The New York Review of Books.
28
See for instance Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary
Germans and the Holocaust (1996).
29
Heinrich Himmler, “Posen Speech ‘Extermination.’ Trans. Stephane Bruchfield,
Gordon McFee and Ulrich Rössler. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/himmler-s-posen-
speech-quot-extermination-quot. Accessed Sept. 1, 2021.
compatriots helped purify the ideological landscape in the Japanese colony

in order for “victorist” hardliners to seize power and act in the Emperor’s
name, at least until the Imperial Japanese Navy could arrive to repatriate
the faithful. When it was no longer possible to maintain this lie, Shindō
shifted its strategy by making a show of registering as a lawful organization
and entering mainstream Brazilian society as an advocacy group on behalf
of the Japanese immigrants. It never ceased, however, to use disinforma-
tion and political violence as its preferred tactics to dominate the commu-
nity and reject Brazilian sovereignty over its internal affairs.
The kachigumi in Brazil were a world apart from what historian Barak
Kushner identifies as the decentralized “hub-and-spoke” thought system
and propaganda machine of imperial ideology practiced in the home
islands and Japan’s East Asian empire.30 Nevertheless, many of the Brazilian
Issei, who emigrated several decades later than their North American
counterparts, had political and ideological views formed in an era of impe-
rial jingoism. When the moderating influence of the Japanese-language
press was prohibited under the Estado Novo, hardliners set about repro-
ducing a similar discourse suited to their needs. It was a thought system
whose South American spokes were consistent with the ideologues and
radicalized cadres that sought to bring about a second imperial restoration
in Hirohito’s name, and engineered the Manchurian Incident (1931), the
Marco Polo Bridge Incident (1937), and other emergency measures nec-
essary to consolidate their dominion over Northeast Asia.
In his groundbreaking work on the philosophical and legal underpin-
nings of political violence in prewar Japan, historian Walter Skya provides
crucial historical context on the repeated attempts to decapitate Japan’s
civilian government and civil society. This would ignite the “holy war”
(seisen) that its proponents insisted would purify Japan and liberate East
Asia from Western colonial domination. “Political violence and assassina-
tions had become so commonplace that Hugh Byas, a foreign correspon-
dent, political observer, and longtime resident of Japan at the time, wrote
about it in a book, characterizing the pronounced feature of politics in the
early 1930s in Japan as Government by Assassination.”31
30
Barak Kushner, The Thought War: Japanese Imperial Propaganda, 16.
31
Skya elaborates on the severity of political violence, which is worth quoting at length to
provide a complete picture of what “government by assassination” entailed:
Three serving prime ministers (Hara Takashi [1865–1921], Hamaguchi Osachi
[1870–1931], and Inukai Tsuyoshi [1855–1932]) and two former prime ministers (Saitō
Makoto [1858–1936] and Takahashi Korekiyo [1854–1936]) were assassinated between
18 F. MORAIS
Government by assassination was the apotheosis of extremist political

beliefs carried out in the name of the emperor. Shindō Renmei’s loyalists
had already been conditioned by the radicalization of prewar Japanese
politics to observe the same ground rules.
Skya locates the roots of radical Shinto ultranationalism in the thought
of far rightwing constitutional legal scholar Shinkichi Uesugi, who was the
leading advocate of the Imperial Sovereignty School in the 1920s and
1930s. Uesugi, his disciples, and broad-based military supporters pushed
back against the prevailing orthodoxy of Emperor Organ Theory and its
notions that the emperor’s divine right to rule was constrained as set forth
in the 1889 Constitution. Uesugi sought to justify acts of domestic terror-
ism as a legitimate means of purging dissenters and setting the nation back
on what he considered the true imperial path: “This meant in actual prac-
tice seeking death by eliminating individuals who refused to follow what
they considered the true will of the emperor or by destroying corrupt
institutions that stood in the way between the emperor and the masses.
Accordingly, such terrorist activities were directed primarily not against
foreigners, but against Japanese in positions of power and influence who
were considered apostate.”32 This was not an injunction against killing
foreigners per se—the plot to assassinate Charlie Chaplin alongside Prime
Minister Inukai during his visit to Japan on May 14, 1932 only failed due
to an unscheduled change in his itinerary33—but understood the battle for
1921 and 1936. Within the same period, Prime Minister Okada Keisuke (1868–1952) had
escaped an assassination attempt while he was prime minister, and Suzuki Kantarō
(1867–1948), the man who would become Japan’s last prime minister in the prewar period,
narrowly survived an assassination attempt. (The would-be assassin’s bullet remained inside
Suzuki’s body for the rest of his life). Had the assassination attempt on Okada been success-
ful, an astonishing six prime ministers or former prime ministers would have been murdered
within a fifteen-year period and five of them within final six years of this period. It is also
noteworthy that two-time Prime Minister Wakatsuki Reijirō (1926–27 and 1931) had been
slated for assassination by terrorists in the “October [1931] Incident.” In addition to all this,
we can add the number of related high-profile terrorist “incidents” that occurred between
1930 and 1936, resulting in the murder or attempted murder of leading intellectuals, politi-
cal figures (including entire cabinets), top military officials, and prominent business leaders
(Japan’s Holy War: The Ideology of Radical Shinto ̄ Ultranationalism, 229–230).
32
Ibid., 310–311.
33
See Miriam Silverberg’s Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern
Times for a recounting of this episode, including how Chaplin was seen as a high-value target
for Japan’s ultranationalists in order to provoke the long-anticipated war with the United
States, 1–3.
hearts and minds as taking place primarily within the context of Yamato
damashii (Japanese spirit).
Skya argues that ultranationalist extremism in Japan was not unified
into a single party structure, and eschewed an explicit affiliation with fas-
cism or State Shinto: “Unlike in the case of the Nazi Party in Germany or
the Fascist Party in Italy, no single extreme nationalist movement seized
state power in Japan. Hundreds of Shintō ultranationalist groups sprouted
up in the post-Meiji era that often engaged in violent struggle with one
another and did not specifically refer to themselves in any obvious way as
being Shintōists.”34 A similar phenomenon can be observed in organized
Japanese Brazilian responses to the war, demonstrated by the numerous
pro-imperial associations and secret societies that formed during the war,
which were eventually absorbed into, or overshadowed by Shindō Renmei:
“By 1942, the Japanese has divided themselves up amongst almost thirty
associations they created in Brazil. Although they were officially defunct
according to the wartime national security laws, many continued to oper-
ate in secret.”35 Notwithstanding a lone veterans’ association, or the pres-
ence of a handful of former Imperial Army and Navy officers among
Shindō Renmei’s leaders (as well as among their targets for assassination),
what is most conspicuous about these groups is that they were almost
entirely made up of ordinary civilians.
Colonel Kikawa and his Shindō lieutenants were not necessarily well
versed in the finer points of imperial sovereignty theory, nor, for that mat-
ter, were they particularly astute tacticians. In Morais’ accounting, they
succeeded largely by dint of the Brazilian authorities’ incomprehension of
the scale or nature of the crisis. The precocious Japanology of Macedo
Soares, the interventor (interim governor) of São Paulo, which is discussed
at length in Chapter 6 only further emboldened the group to force its will
into the mainstream.
We cannot overlook what is arguably the most salient fact about Kikawa
and Shindō Renmei’s improbable ascent to power: they were also benefi-
ciaries of the power vacuum left by the Japanese government when it shut-
tered its embassy and consulates after Brazil entered the war on the Allied
side. It was justly claimed by Shindō Renmei and the community at large
that they had been abandoned by their homeland. Tellingly, however, at
34
Walter Skya, Japan’s Holy War: The Ideology of Radical Shinto ̄ Ultranationalism, 26.
35
Dirty Hearts, 106.
20 F. MORAIS
no point did the organization look back to Japan for official instructions.
Instead, they methodically falsified documents in the Emperor’s name, all
the while refusing to accept the legitimacy of official documents, print
media, and film footage brought from Japan by American and Brazilian
authorities to dispel their lies.
Xenophobic and eugenicist Brazilian politics met their match in the
ultranationalist philosophy of Shindō Renmei. Extremists on both sides
viewed one another as racially inferior, eschewed racial mixing, and viewed
their own community as sacrosanct. If the goal of anti-Japanese politicians
was to restrict further Japanese immigration and forcibly integrate the
existing colonies into the mainstream, Shindō Renmei conversely sought
to preserve the community as loyal subjects of the Emperor. They held out
the fantasy that Japan’s victory would set the overseas Japanese at the van-
guard of the Yamato race, who, as prewar Japanese propaganda styled it,
would be “planted in the soil” throughout the world.36
The prewar years in both Brazil and Japan were awash in political con-
spiracy theories that strategically used disinformation to ideologically
mobilize populations and assert authoritarian control. The Cohen Plan,
hatched in September 1937, was a forged Communist conspiracy con-
cocted by Olímpio Mourão Filho, a captain serving in the Brazilian Army
General Staff and director of the fascist-leaning Brazilian Integralist Action
Party’s secret service.37 War Minister Eurico Dutra revealed the document
during a radio broadcast on September 29, 1937, claiming it was a legiti-
mate plot to overthrow the Vargas administration. Dutra used it as a pre-
text to call for a renewal of the State of War emergency measures. The real
conspiracy, then, was the fascist takeover of Brazil’s democratic institu-
tions. The Constitution of 1934 was suspended under the Estado Novo,
which introduced new policies meant to Brazilianize the “Axis subjects”
that tended to fall disproportionately on Japanese immigrants.
36
Walter Skya, Japan’s Holy War: The Ideology of Radical Shinto ̄ Ultranationalism, 323.
37
In an interview with the magazine Manchete on November 11, 1958, now-General
Mourão (who also went on to play a key role in the 1964 coup d’état) attributed the name
of the plan to Gustavo Barroso, the virulently anti-Semitic Integralist doctrinaire, politician,
and three-time president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. Barroso’s Paulista Synagogue
(1937) was a screed in which he alleged “the voracious Jewish Colony” was behind the
scenes controlling Brazilian and international affairs primarily through capitalist machina-
tions. Among the scores of works that Barroso authored and translated into Portuguese were
Henry Ford’s The International Jew and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Another prominent conspiracy theory of the era was The Tanaka

Memorial. It breathlessly amplified Japan’s imperial ambitions in East Asia
onto the world stage and implicated the Japanese diaspora as a fifth col-
umn. The Tanaka Memorial was widely held to be an imperial Japanese
strategic planning document written by Prime Minister Giichi Tanaka in
1927 that was translated first into Chinese (1929), then into English and
Portuguese in the early 1930s. It featured prominently in two of the US
War Department-sponsored Why We Fight films (1942 and 1944) and in
Know Your Enemy: Japan (1945), all three directed by Frank Capra. Last
to the party was Frank Lloyd’s spy thriller film, Blood on the Sun (1945),
starring James Cagney. It portrayed an intrepid American reporter in
1930s’ Tokyo, who tries to smuggle an official copy of the Tanaka
Memorial out of the country to warn the United States about Japan’s
plans for global domination.
In the hands of Brazil’s Integralist and eugenicist politicians, The
Tanaka Memorial was upheld, like the Cohen Plan, as proof of long-held
suspicions about Japan’s designs on conquering Brazil, using the immi-
grant population as its forward guard. As Lesser recounts, it was in excel-
lent company with other instruments of disinformation such as “Carlos de
Souza Moraes’s 1937 A ofensiva japonesa no Brasil (the Japanese offensive
in Brazil), replete with the superimposition of evil-looking Japanese sol-
diers, warships, and dragons over maps of Brazil.”38 The Vargas adminis-
tration also participated in fomenting race panic against the Japanese
community in the wake of severed diplomatic relations: “The Department
of Press and Propaganda (DIP), charged with spreading the regime’s ide-
ological and cultural directives, reported that a Nikkei informer had dis-
covered a secret Japanese plan to occupy São Paulo with twenty-five
thousand troops.”39
Another source of considerable anxiety about Japan’s imperial aims was
the Black Dragon Society (Kokuryu ̄kai), the infamous Japanese secret
society widely reputed to have played a hand in destabilizing China, Korea,
and Manchuria. Named for the Amur River bordering Russia, Manchuria,
and China that marked the boundaries for Japan’s Northeast Asian expan-
sionist ambitions, it established a fearsome reputation for espionage, disin-
formation campaigns, and assassination. In the 1930s, it achieved global
notoriety by sending its agents to promote Pan-Asianism and
38
Jeffrey Lesser, Negotiating National Identity, 135.
39
Ibid., 135.
22 F. MORAIS
independence movements in Ethiopia, Turkey, Morocco, and Southeast

Asia. In the United States, a man named Naka Nakane suddenly appeared
in Chicago and Detroit, who claimed to be a retired major of the Imperial
Japanese Army under the alias Satokata Takahashi, and confidentially
declared himself a representative of the Black Dragon Society.40 He estab-
lished organizations such as the Pacific Movement of the Eastern World
(PMEW) and Society of Development of Our Own (SDOO) in close part-
nership with African American leaders of what would become the Nation
of Islam. The PMEW and SDOO spread through mostly Midwestern
American cities in the early 1930s and sought to gather African American
support under the aegis of a Japanese liberation for all people of color.41
The Black Dragon Society’s softening of Northeast Asia for Japanese
imperial conquest was thus complemented by anticolonial inroads into the
heartland of the United States.
The secret society was frequently caricatured in American films, comic
books, and other popular cultural reference points in the 1940s. The best-
known work is Black Dragons (original title: The Yellow Menace), directed
by William Nigh and starring Bela Lugosi, released on March 6, 1942.
The film was rushed into production following the attack on Pearl Harbor
to capitalize on anti-Japanese sentiment. It was set prior to the war and
proposed a ludicrous scheme where the Black Dragon Society conspired
with the Germans to defeat the United States. The Nazi plastic surgeon
Melcher, played by Lugosi, surgically operates on six Japanese men to
resemble American industrialists, whom they murder and whose identities
they steal in order to accomplish their mission. Melcher is held by the
Japanese, lest he divulge the secret plan, but he escapes by switching iden-
tities with an American prisoner, a veritable lookalike for Melcher that was
40
Takako Day has found that under questioning by the FBI, Nakane disclosed that “he was
more or less a self-styled representative of the Kokuryūkai,” that “he received no compensa-
tion and it was just generally understood between the president of this organization and
himself that they were working toward the same end,” and that “he was, as well as The
Development of Our Own, spiritually joined with the Kokuryūkai because of his contacts
made while in Japan.” (FBI Detroit Report 62–709, March 20, 1940, #65–562-43).
41
In “When Japan Was ‘Champion of the Darker Races:’ Satokata Takahashi and the
Flowering of Black Messianic Nationalism,” Ernest Allen, Jr. characterizes the utopian vision
behind the PMEW as follows: “Torn between the demand for full citizenship rights in the
U.S. and the desire for political self-determination through emigration, the PMEW’s line
alternatively vacillated between support for a Japanese military invasion of the U.S. with the
aim of securing black equality at home, and emigration to Africa, Japan, or Brazil with the
presumed help of the Japanese government” (The Black Scholar 24 [Winter 1994]: 26).
also conveniently performed by Lugosi, and pursues the imposters to take

his revenge.
The farfetched Hollywood plot notwithstanding, an article entitled
“Black Dragon Men Arrested in Brazil” appeared two months after the
film’s debut in the New York Times. It points toward American and
Brazilian worries about divided loyalties in Japan’s largest overseas immi-
grant community.
Subversive operations of Bratac, the Japanese commercial monopoly in

Brazil said to be controlled by the Mitsui family, jointly with the Japanese
Black Dragon society [sic] were indicated in the arrest here today of three
Japanese on charges of espionage. The three men, declared to be members
of the Black Dragon, were on the staff of Bratac. They also held jobs as
translators at Sao Paulo police headquarters and are accused of having
worked as spies for Japan there. Their positions gave them a chance to do
propaganda work to bind Japanese settlers in this region to Tokyo.42
In presenting the dangers of a Japanese global conspiracy, whose spies

could infiltrate the Brazilian police or radicalize the Japanese Brazilian
population, the article presaged Shindō Renmei’s founding in August
1942, which would realize the worst fears attributed to the Japanese gov-
ernment’s legendary superspies. Lesser notes “U.S. military attempts to
confirm a Shindo Renmei—Black Dragon Society connection were
inconclusive,”43 although the fact that such linkages were suspected speaks
of the degree to which the two secret societies were indelibly marked in
the US and Brazilian popular imagination as evidence of Japanese treach-
ery, espionage, and ideological extremism.
After the war, another direct correlation was made in the January 9,
1947, issue of the New York City-based Japanese American newspaper,
The Nisei Weekender. Entitled “Brazil’s Shindo Renmei Says, ‘So Sorry
Please!’” it reproduces a public apology, signed by eight unnamed leaders
of the group, which was translated into English translation although no
original source is provided:
We, the undersigned, arising from an illusory dream which lasted one year,
declare that we recognize and accept as concrete truth the real situation of
our fatherland, Japan, embodied in the Imperial Rescript published on
42
“Black Dragon Men Arrested in Brazil,” in the May 12, 1942 issue of the New
York Times.
43
Jeffrey Lesser, Negotiating National Identity, 233.
24 F. MORAIS
August 14, 1945, by which Japan—unfortunately—was defeated in the last

great war. Complying in this way with the reality, we are sorry for our past
mistake, and promise to do our best in order to encourage enlightenment of
those who still remain in the illusion.44
In keeping with the wartime actions of the Japanese American Citizens

League, which complied with the internment and military service, the
article can be seen as an extension of Nisei American patriotism that
regarded kachigumi activity as equal parts treason and collective insanity.
The multitude of Japanese-language newspapers across the Americas
had long kept the transnational Japanese diaspora in contact with one
another, but this informal network suffered a severe breakdown when the
majority of them were shuttered during the war. When publication
resumed in the postwar era, the lines of national and linguistic subjectivity
had been irrevocably redrawn. The Nisei Weekender, which was an exclu-
sively English-language periodical, expresses this new reality in a parting
shot at Shindō Renmei: “And we are thankful that the long octopus arm
of Japanese propaganda could not reach as easily into a more democratic
America as into a semi-feudal Brazil. Fascism can grow only on coercion
and terror, whether it be the Shindo Renmei in Brazil, the Black Dragon
in Japan, or the Ku Klux Klan in America.”45 The editorial echoes
contemporaneous, mainstream Brazilian publications which held that

Shindō Renmei was the “Japanese KKK,” and injurious to postwar democ-
racy for violently promoting ideas of racial supremacism.
Shindō Renmei was a prodigious producer of alternative history and
political science fiction in its own right, which was circulated by clandes-
tine Japanese-language pamphlets, newsletters, and radio broadcasts. They
not only flipped the official evidence of Japan’s rendition into one of vic-
tory, but also forged innumerable imperial proclamations, pamphlets, and
a bimonthly “ideological” magazine directing the overseas Japanese to
keep the faith. Their allohistorical contribution was a new world order
under Japan’s hegemony. More than a half-century in advance of Philip
Roth’s The Plot Against America (2004), the fabulists of Shindō Renmei
44
“Brazil’s Shindo Renmei Says, ‘So Sorry Please!’” January 4, 1947 issue of The Nisei
Weekender, p. 3. No source for the original text is given. For further reading on the postwar
Japanese American community in New York, see Greg Robinson’s “Nisei in Gotham: The
JACD and Japanese Americans in 1940s New York,” Prospects: An Annual of American
Cultural Studies, vol. 30 (2005): 581–595.
45
Ibid.
had already concocted an elaborate and immersive hoax in which

Lindbergh was appointed acting president of the United States by Japan.
This world-building exercise likewise involved the minting of various
world currencies and postage stamps by Shindō’s counterfeiters as proof
of imperial Japan’s global dominion. Independent operators piggybacked
onto the grand conspiracy theory by selling worthless yen to the true
believers intent on a triumphant return home to Japan. DOPS would dis-
cover Shindō’s own batches of phony yen when it raided their headquar-
ters, showing they, too, cashed in on the bonanza.
There was a veritable gold rush selling nonexistent land-shares in Java,
Borneo, and Sumatra as well, which deceived the demoralized
Japanese immigrants by promising them a better life under the imperial
flag. This remarkable state of affairs was enthusiastically picked up by the
mainstream Brazilian press, which fed it to foreign news services. An arti-
cle in the August 26, 1946 issue of Time magazine, which called out these
“victory swindlers,” is cited Chapter 5 of Dirty Hearts. It is worth provid-
ing an additional passage, however, that underscores the growing anger
with which mainstream Brazilian society regarded the kachigumi
phenomenon.
Such banzai tactics have set Brazilians on edge and stiffened the nation’s
previously tolerant temper against the Japanese. As police rounded up 27
leading terrorists in São Paulo State, President Eurico Gaspar Dutra last
week ordered the deportation of 76 others. Said Rio’s Correio da Manhã:
“We should not try to change their mentality—only their addresses.”
Correio’s suggested new address: c/o Douglas MacArthur, Tokyo.”46
Fortuitously, an article on Hirohito entitled “Rules for an Ex-God” pre-

ceded the reportage on Shindō Renmei in the same issue of Time. It com-
ments on his straitened circumstances, noting he “read in his morning
newspaper the first draft of a new Imperial Household Law, drawn up by
the Japanese Government to replace a statute in effect since 1889.”47 Best
known for its prohibition of women from ascending to the throne, this
new law enacted in 1947 would dramatically shrink the size of the Imperial
46
“Honorable Homicide,” in the August 26, 1946 issue of Time (48:9): 34.
47
“Rules for an Ex-God,” August 26, 1946 issue of Time (48:9): 32.
26 F. MORAIS
Family and bring it in line with Japan’s new, American-written Constitution.

Such, then, were the disparities between those living in reality and fantasy.
The Letter from São Paulo

In contrast to the heights of Shindō Renmei militancy in Brazil
(1942–1947), the closest approximation in the United States might be
considered the approximately 12,000 Japanese American men and women
who resisted loyalty tests, forced evacuations, internment, and other
repressive measures against the Japanese American population. The com-
parison is admittedly inapt, given that the majority of Japanese American
resistance was made against the unconstitutional denial of their rights, not
because of an avowed loyalty to Japan. This section reads John Okada’s
novel No-No Boy (1957) for its reference to the intersection of Japanese
American and Japanese Brazilian responses to the war and Japan’s defeat.
I call attention in particular to a mysterious letter, handwritten in Japanese
and postmarked from São Paulo, which registers the insurmountable
divide between the Nisei protagonist, Ichiro Yamada, and his mother.
No-No Boy ostensibly takes its title from the derisive nickname given to
young men who refused to affirmatively answer questions 27 and 28 on
the War Relocation Authority (WRA)’s loyalty questionnaire. It depicts
the return to Seattle of a young draft resister who spent two years in an
internment camp and two years in federal prison for refusing to fight for
the United States. In his introductory essay to John Okada: The Life and
Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy, Frank Abe points out that
the title and certain key details in the novel are a misnomer: “The title of
Okada’s novel, the way Ichiro is addressed, and Ichiro’s own statements all
foster the misperception that Ichiro was part of the ‘no-no’ group. The
author himself, whether it was an artistic choice, or in error, twice con-
flates ‘no-no boys’ and draft resisters in his text.”48 This issue has bedeviled
the novel since it was rediscovered and championed as a classic of Asian
American literature in the 1970s. As journalist Martha Nakagawa explains
in her essay in the same edited volume, for the Nisei during the war,
Anxieties arose over whether answering “yes” to question 27, asking about
willingness to serve in the armed forces of the United States, meant a person
was automatically volunteering for the army. Also problematic was question
48
Ibid., 6.
28, asking a compound question of swearing allegiance to the United States

and forswearing allegiance to the Japanese emperor, since a “yes” answer
implied that the respondent had once sworn an allegiance to the emperor of
Japan that they never had. For those who answered “no” to these poorly
written questions, the unintended consequence was to create, on paper, a
class of so-called disloyals who could then be easily segregated from the rest.
They were shipped off to the Tule Lake Segregation Center, which the gov-
ernment designated for “disloyals.” The Japanese American community
itself bought into the notion that these men and women were “disloyal” and
came to refer disdainfully to segregees as “no-nos.”49
In her examination of Nisei critiques of the novel, moreover, Nakagawa

clarifies that Ichiro was often panned for being weak-minded and indeci-
sive, and identifies missed opportunities where Okada could have repre-
sented principled resistance and ethnic pride.50
Resistance to the WRA loyalty test was not necessarily a ringing endorse-
ment of the imperial ultranationalism à for which so-called “disloyals”
were suspected. Historian Brian Hayashi documents in his pivotal study
Democratizing the Enemy that coercion, intimidation, and incentives given
by camp administrators each played a role in increasing “yes” answers to
the questionnaire, while peer pressure, a lack of privacy in camp, and
neighbors’ sentiments forced responses to go in the opposite direction.
Considerations based on generation, social class, and place of origin in
Japan likewise influenced their decision-making. For instance,
Manzanar Community Analyst Morris Opler talked with two Kibei boys and
found that they couldn’t voluntarily turn their backs on the Emperor
because it meant they couldn’t return to their village in Japan and it would
negatively impact their relatives living there. “If our relatives ever found out
that we did this, even if they found out after the war,” one of the boys
explained to Opler, “they could not hold up their heads in their villages.”51
Hayashi’s analysis of the sociological and managerial factors involved in

the questionnaire points toward the inherent tensions in ideas of race,
culture, and loyalty that structured the thinking of the government and
49
Martha Nakagawa, ibid., 278.
50
Another example of principled resistance left unmentioned in the novel is the handwrit-
ten Japanese-language journal Tessaku (Barbed Wire), which Japanese American dissenters
self-published at Tule Lake in 1944.
51
Brian Masaru Hayashi, Democratizing the Enemy, 145.
28 F. MORAIS
military officials, yet also reflected countermeasures embraced by the

majority of respondents.
The central conflict in No-No Boy lies between Ichiro and his mother,
who was behind his refusal to serve in the military. The kachigumi per-
spective and letter from São Paulo therefore cannot be dismissed as mar-
ginal or incidental to its diegesis. Whether or not it reflected a widespread
sentiment in the Japanese American community, the fact remains that it is
fundamental to our understanding of the fictional No-No Boy’s moral and
psychological landscape. To the extent that Okada streamlined or flat-
tened multiple lines of resistance, he did so in order to present his view of
the conflicts of identity within the Japanese American community as prob-
lems that could only be overcome by a badly flawed, but still deeply aspi-
rational ethos of American exceptionalism.
In the preface to the novel, which opens the narrative, Okada depicts
the reactions of a handful of white Americans from different walks of life
in Seattle upon learning of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7,
1941. Among them are a college professor, a prostitute, and a Jewish mer-
chant, who experience pangs of helpless sympathy for the Japanese
Americans, sensing what lies in store for them. Through the Jewish mer-
chant’s mournful eyes, Okada keenly grasped the symmetry of race hatred
that led to internment and concentration camps on both sides of the
Atlantic.
Herman Fine listened to the radio and cried without tears for the Japanese,
who, in an instant of time that was not even a speck on the big calendar, had
taken their place beside the Jew. The Jew was used to suffering. The writing
for them was etched in caked and dried blood over countless generations
upon countless generations. The Japanese did not know. They were proud,
too proud, and they were ambitious, too ambitious. Bombs had fallen and,
in less time than it takes for a Japanese farmer’s wife in California to run
from the fields and give birth to a child, the writing was scrawled for them.
The Jap-Jew would look in the mirror this Sunday night and see a Jap-Jew.52
This was not a harmonization of cultural forces in Western civilization akin

to the utterance “Jewgreek is greekjew” in James Joyce’s Ulysses, but an
unlooked-for kinship or mirror image found in the figure of the scapegoat.
52
John Okada, No-No Boy, viii.
In Chapter One, upon returning home from prison, Ichiro is con-

fronted by his mother’s intransigence in declaring that Japan won the war
and that faithful overseas brethren would be rewarded with repatriation
back to Japan. She presents him with the letter received from abroad.
“The boat is coming and we must be ready.”

“The boat?”
“Yes.” She reached into her pocket and drew out a worn envelope.
The letter had been mailed from Sao Paulo, Brazil, and was addressed to
a name that he did not recognize. Inside the envelope was a single sheet of
flimsy, rice paper covered with intricate flourishes of Japanese characters.
“What does it say?”
She did not bother to pick up the letter. “To you who are a loyal and
honorable Japanese, it is with humble and heartfelt joy that I relay this
momentous message. Word has been brought to us that the victorious
Japanese government is presently making preparations to send ships which
will return to Japan those residents in foreign countries who have stead-
fastly maintained their faith and loyalty to the Emperor. The Japanese gov-
ernment regrets that the responsibilities arising from the victory compels
them to delay in the sending of the vessels. To be among the few who
remain to receive this honor is a gratifying tribute. Heed not the propa-
ganda of the radio and newspapers which endeavor to convince the people
with lies about the allied victory. Especially, heed not the lies of your trai-
torous countrymen who have turned their backs on the country of their
birth and who will suffer for their treasonous acts. The day of glory is close
at hand. The rewards will be beyond our greatest expectations. What we
have done, we have done only as Japanese, but the government is grateful.
Hold your heads high and make ready for the journey, for the ships are
coming.”
“Who wrote that?” he asked incredulously. It was like a weird nightmare.
It was like finding out that an incurable strain of insanity pervaded the fam-
ily, an intangible horror that swayed and taunted beyond the grasp of reach-
ing fingers.
“A friend in South America. We are not alone.”53
Asian American literary studies have largely overlooked the significance of

this letter, which powerfully attests to the affective ties that bound the
transnational Japanese diaspora before the war. Although Ichiro disavows
53
Ibid., 14–15.
30 F. MORAIS
Mrs. Yamada’s views as tantamount to madness, Okada raises the painful

and humiliating prospect that the contagion of Japanese Brazilian denial-
ism on occasion found a warm reception in the United States.
The letter resurfaces when Ichiro and his mother pay a visit to their
friends, the Ashida family. Mrs. Ashida is a true believer in the Japanese
victory. She relates the distasteful experience of meeting another young
returnee to Seattle, a Kibei named Watanabe, who had been to Japan and
saw the destruction of the war: “He had many [photographs] of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki and I told him that he must be mistaken because
Japan did not lose the war as he seems to believe and that he could not
have been in Japan to take pictures because, if he were in Japan, he would
not have been permitted to remain alive.”54 Upon hearing her denials in
the face of incontrovertible evidence, Watanabe exchanged angry words
with Mrs. Ashida until finally, in exasperation, he screams at her, “How
do you know you’re you? Tell me how you know you’re you!”55 When
Mrs. Ashida finishes speaking, Ichiro’s mother produces the letter and
shares it with her friend as external confirmation of their own kachigumi
beliefs.
His mother took the envelope from Sao Paulo out of her dress pocket and
handed it to Mrs. Ashida.
“From South America.”
The other woman snatched at the envelope and proceeded to read the
contents instantly. Her face glowed with pride. She read it eagerly, her lips
moving all the time and frequently murmured audibly. “Such wonderful
news,” she sighed breathlessly, as if the reading of the letter had been a deep
emotional experience.56
Ichiro bears silent witness to their declarations of Japanese victory for

which he not only unwillingly betrayed his country, but also his patriotic
convictions. In the exchange between Mrs. Yamada and Mrs. Ashida,
South America becomes a byword for ideological resistance similar to the
ratlines and safe havens for the Nazis and European fascists who fled there
after the war.
Based on the chronology provided in the novel’s opening lines, the
events described in the letter take place in autumn 1945, when Ichiro is
54
Ibid., 22.
55
Ibid., 24.
56
Ibid., 24.
twenty-five years old. This suggests that if the letter had truly originated in
São Paulo, it must have been penned several months prior to Shindō
Renmei’s terrorist campaigns got underway. The translation of Dirty
Hearts now makes it possible to engage in a simultaneous reading with
No-No Boy of the radical break in subjective agency that followed the war.
In effect, both capture the twilight of imperial Japan’s dream of overseas
brethren universally linked by linguistic, cultural, and economic ties to the
home islands. It is fitting, then, that Ichiro’s inability to read the letter in
Japanese and failure to comprehend his mother’s belief system puts him
beyond the reach of this imperial solidarity.
In spite of the novel’s emphatic depiction of divided loyalties in terms
of one family’s intergenerational rift, Okada also situated Ichiro alongside
other Nisei entrapped by the war and internment. Ichiro is reunited with
his childhood friend Kenji, whose honorable military service during the
war resulted in an amputated leg. Kenji’s premature death due to compli-
cations from his injury toward the end of the novel is a stark indication of
the high costs of war. There is also the fifty-year-old World War I veteran
named Mike, who refused on principle to comply with the loyalty test.
This had catastrophic results for his life and liberty, as Ichiro’s lover Emi
explains:
[H]e burst into a fury of anger and bitterness and swore that if they treated
him like a Japanese, he would act like one. Well, you know what happened
and he stuck to his words. Along with the other rabidly pro-Japanese, he
ended up at the Tule Lake Center, and became a leader in the troublemak-
ing, the strikes and the riots. His wife and children remained in this country,
but he elected to go to Japan, a country he didn’t know or love, and I’m
sure he’s extremely unhappy there.57
In spite of the humiliation Ichiro feels personally and in the eyes of others,
Emi implores him to forgive himself, rightly insisting that the choice thrust
upon him was inherently unjust. When Ichiro’s mother commits suicide,
evoking well-worn tropes of fatalism and ritual suicide in traditional
Japanese culture, it paradoxically serves as a catharsis for the protagonist,
who reproached her in his heart for leading him astray. The novel con-
cludes on an indeterminate but hopeful note that Ichiro has found the
57
Ibid., 98.
32 F. MORAIS
courage to pursue his future free from the grip of a shameful past. His
story of American redemption only truly begins at the end of the narrative.
We might compare Ichiro with an actual “no-no boy,” who appeared in
American national news coverage in August 2020 in commemoration of
the seventy-fifth anniversary of the war’s end. NBC News profiled Tamura
Hidekazu, a ninety-nine-year-old Japanese American man, who was born
in Los Angeles, but permanently relocated to Japan immediately after the
war. As a young man, Tamura had been interned at Tule Lake for refusing
to sign the loyalty oath, and then transferred to the higher security camp
at Santa Fe due to the militant activities he embraced in resistance to his
incarceration. He was one of the 366 Japanese Americans who relin-
quished their US citizenship under the Renunciation Act of 1944 (Public
Law 78–405). They were then reclassified as “enemy aliens” and sent to
Japan, adding to the 2255 Japanese Americans who chose repatriation to
Japan in 1942 over incarceration without due process.
Government records show that Tamura was at Tule Lake starting Oct. 8,
1943, and was sent to Santa Fe Internment Camp on Dec. 27, 1944.
Records provided by the Tule Lake Committee show Tamura was a member
of the Hōkoku Seinen Dan’s [a pro-imperialist group] leadership. At Santa
Fe, he heard the Japanese emperor’s mid-August surrender broadcast while
listening to a handmade radio. But Tamura wasn’t convinced the war was
over and thought the address was propaganda. He still didn’t believe the
war had ended when he was released from Santa Fe and boarded a ship in
Seattle in November 1945 for the two-week trip back to Japan. On his 25th
birthday, in December 1945, he arrived at the Japanese port of Uraga and
asked a woman cooking over a clay stove on the street, “Did Japan win?”
The woman angrily gestured at the surrounding area, which was still ashes
and rubble. “Of course we lost. Look around you,” she said.58
It is highly improbable that Tamura’s life would have turned out this way
had he not been subject to a series of emergency laws specifically designed
to evacuate, incarcerate, punish, and expel Japanese American citizens. His
radicalization in camp was the predictable result of a series of hostile
actions by the US government that encouraged the very forms of extrem-
ism it was intended to prevent.
58
Emily Wang. “75 Years Later, Japanese Man Recalls Bitter Internment in U.S.,”
Associated Press, August 31, 2020. Accessed online: https://abcnews.go.com/US/
wireStory/75-years-japanese-man-recalls-bitter-internment-us-72739762.
Ideological convictions that Japan won the war were also present
among a minority of Japanese Americans in Hawaiʻi, a situation exacer-
bated by the discriminatory treatment meted out to their community. An
estimated 320 Japanese Americans were detained at the Honouliuli intern-
ment camp, not far from Pearl Harbor, between March 1943 and
November 1944. It was the largest and most permanent of seventeen loca-
tions for interning Japanese Americans, and was primarily used to house
several thousand prisoners of war on Oahu until 1946.59 As historian Kelli
Y. Nakamura elaborates, kachigumi groups in Hawaiʻi initially arose in
secret in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack, but persisted in various
forms even after the war ended. She calls attention to several pro-Japanese
patriotic associations that formed in Oahu, ostensibly to look after Japanese
prisoners of war:
They included Tōbu Dōshi-Kai (“Eastern Association of Kindred Spirits”)

in Waialae, Kōsei-Kai (“Association for Rehabilitation”) in Palama, and
Hakkō-Kai (“Association of Brotherhood”) in Kalihi. While disputing
claims of Japan’s defeat, the main purpose of these organizations was to
provide Japanese lunch for prisoners of war every day for nearly two years.
Many of these members had split from Hawaiʻi Dōshi-Kai (“Hawaiʻi
Association of Kindred Spirits”) and Shosei-Kai (“Holy Righteous
Association”), which were originally organized to help “bewildered”
Japanese during the period of “mental and emotional confusion” following
the war and to help them “pursue the proper course as Japanese and to
educate other Japanese following erroneous paths.” One of the activities
embraced by these organizations was the entertainment of Japanese prison-
ers of war incarcerated in Hawaiʻi. The most aggressive group in propagat-
ing pro-Japanese notions was Hisshō-Kai (“Absolute Victory Group”),
which was known as a “kattagumi,” an organization which believed victory
had been achieved.60
59
These Japanese Americans were either released on parole or transferred to mainland
camps. Honouliuli would hold some 4000 prisoners of war and non-combatant laborers
consisting of Japanese, including Okinawans, Koreans, and Taiwanese under Japanese colo-
nial rule, as well as Italian and German Americans. It was designated Honouliuli National
Monument by Presidential Proclamation by President Barack Obama (who was born and
raised in the state) on February 24, 2015.
60
Kelli Y. Nakamura, “Kachigumi,” Densho Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.densho.
org/Kachigumi?fbclid=IwAR1zH8cLg1souDsNwirHpAfoeUk8INnTMaCAzdNfHsVWxt
EDduwr-q9YCgw#cite_ref-ftnt_ref11_11–0. Last accessed Sept. 1, 2021. I am indebted to
Levi McLaughlin for drawing my attention to this connection.
34 F. MORAIS
The percentage of the population involved in these groups was vanishingly

small relative to the roughly 160,000 Japanese Americans in Hawaiʻi, and
likewise paled in comparison to support for Shindō Renmei in Brazil.
“Although exact figures are unavailable, the president of Hisshō-Kai
claimed that there were between 3500 and 4000 members in the organi-
zation. Others have provided more conservative figures of 1000 total par-
ticipants, with many holding membership in other organizations.”61
Conclusions and New Beginnings

Dirty Hearts explores the conditions that empowered Shindō Renmei and
provoked a discursive rupture in the Japanese Brazilian community, yet it
has not always been treated favorably for its efforts. The documentary
Yami no Ichinichi: O Crime que Abalou a Colônia Japonesa no Brasil (A
day of infamy: the crime that shook the Japanese colony in Brazil, 2012),
directed by Mario Jun Okuhara, is an unabashed kachigumi apologia
focusing on convicted Shindō Renmei assassin Tokuiti Hidaka, who was
sentenced to eighteen years in prison for the murder of Colonel Jinsaku
Wakiyama. Articulated in large part as a rebuttal to Dirty Hearts, the film
provides historical background on wartime Japan and Brazil principally via
lengthy interviews with writer Osamu Toyama and journalist Masayuki
Fukasawa, who portray the kachigumi as upholding the honor of the
immigrant community in the face of unrelenting discrimination by main-
stream Brazilian society. Although Okuhara intersperses his interviews of
Hidaka with testimonials from Wakiyama’s three surviving grandchildren,
the film whitewashes the murders, assaults, arson attacks, and protection
rackets enforced on their fellow immigrants as spontaneous in nature, not
organized attacks. Fukasawa even contradictorily protests that the out-
sized role Shindō is accused of playing is nothing more than makegumi
revisionist history.
The elderly Hidaka, who was nineteen years old and fresh from the
countryside when he took part in the four-man death squad that shot and
killed Wakiyama, denies any prior involvement in Shindō Renmei. He
accuses Morais, who is interviewed separately in the film, of rank sensa-
tionalism.62 Okuhara’s heavy-handed approach nevertheless leaves the
Ibid.
61
Hidaka claims the flag incident in which the “seven samurai” sought revenge on Corporal
62
Edmundo with drawn swords was pure invention. Curiously, Okuhara never asks Morais to
director as only the latest partisan to manipulate the unsuspecting Hidaka.

Frail with age, but still blinking in surprise at being treated like a villain,
Hidaka maintains he acted, however misguidedly, according to patriotic
and ethnic values. Okuhara insists Hidaka is a victim in world-historical
narratives beyond his control or comprehension. It is, in short, an attempt
to rehabilitate the kachigumi as well-intentioned naïfs, who believed
themselves to be the most loyal Japanese subjects.
In the film’s final sequence, Okuhara allows discredited Brazilian fed-
eral police officer and then-Congressman Protógenes Queiroz63 to supply
a would-be healing role on behalf of the authorities by portentously
declaring that the Japanese people in Brazil “left the legacy that they
should never lose their origins, their culture, or their honor.” Okuhara
then conveniently cuts back to Morais, who in a separate interview
describes the kachimake events as “universal” and possessing much in
common with similar conflicts elsewhere. There is no question, however,
from even a cursory reading of Dirty Hearts that Morais does not regard
Hidaka’s rationalizations as exculpatory for murder. In Yami no Ichinichi’s
emotional final scene, two Nikkei men unfurl the Hinomaru flag on the
dock as Hidaka prepares to depart from Anchieta Island, where he had
once been held as a political prisoner. The visibly startled Hidaka musters
a delighted cry of “Banzai!” as a mournful violin and piano swell to accom-
pany the old martyr on his way home.
The pushback against Dirty Hearts is not altogether surprising, given
that Morais not only shows the full extent of Shindō Renmei’s extremism,
but just as often their bungling ineptitude: Shindō operatives have to look
up the addresses of would-be victims in the phonebook; rural hitmen get
hopelessly lost in big-city São Paulo; and the assassination attempts as
often as not backfire or kill the wrong target altogether. The alternate real-
ity that Shindō Renmei threw up in defense from Japan’s shocking defeat,
which Morais portrays with a mixture of sympathy and irony, has much in
reveal his sources for the famous episode, nor does he question Hidaka how he came into
possession of the customary paraphernalia—the ritual dagger, “suicide note,” four pistols,
and Wakiyama’s address—if he had no association with the secret society that killed or
wounded scores of others using the same methods.
63
Queiroz served in the Chamber of Deputies representing the Communist Party of Brazil
from 2011 to 2015. He was fired from the Federal Police for abuse of power relating to a
financial crimes investigation whose convictions were annulled due to Queiroz’s authoriza-
tion of illegal wiretaps. He fled the country upon losing parliamentary immunity and received
asylum to Switzerland in 2016.
36 F. MORAIS
common with postmodern genre films by Quentin Tarantino and Takashi

Miike. Against the backdrop of the Allies defeating the Axis powers to cre-
ate a new world order, the inverted morality play of Shindō Renmei at
times comes across as a Brazilian spaghetti Western remixed with Cold
War espionage, and served with generous helpings of Japanese gangsters,
martial artists, and ninja assassins. The Wild West setting, meanwhile, is
transposed onto the city and countryside of São Paulo, only now the recal-
citrant outlaws belong to Shindō Renmei, who face off against the DOPS
cavalry brigade.
In the face of heterodox obfuscation or the desire to caricature what
seems outlandish, it is essential to preserve an understanding that the prec-
edents for subterfuge and disinformation were already well established by
Japanese and Brazilian authorities in the prewar era. The roots of Shindō
Renmei’s political violence lay in feelings of dispossession from both coun-
tries, which resulted in the production of a false counter-narrative to shore
up their collective subjectivity against terrifying uncertainties. In addition
to shedding light on this controversial transitional period that witnessed
the defeat and collapse of the Japanese empire as well as Brazil’s turbulent
return to democracy, it serves as a reminder of the need to confront the
denialist and revanchist propensities in our contemporary political
discourse.
Dirty Hearts concludes with the election of Adhemar de Barros as
Governor of São Paulo and the demise of Shindō Renmei. Morais pro-
vides an epilogue and back matter that take into account the judicial deci-
sions pursuant to the organization’s terrorist activities. In 1946, the
Brazilian Ministry of Justice identified 381 suspects for formal indictment
from the 31,380 Japanese immigrants rounded up in the mass arrests. In
understated but programmatic fashion, Morais lists all of their names in
alphabetic order, followed by the eighty individuals in the organization’s
leadership and death squads whom President Eurico Gaspar Dutra decreed
at the end of 1946 would be expelled from Brazil for their crimes.
The tenacity with which some in the community clung to their convic-
tions is well attested in statements by prominent Nisei such as journalist
and writer José Yamashiro. In his memoir Trajetória de duas vidas (A
Trajectory of Two Lives, 2001), Yamashiro describes his involvement in
the launch of the postwar Japanese Brazilian newspaper, the Jornal Paulista
(Japanese title, Paulista Shimbun; not to be confused with the São Paulo
Shimbun mentioned in Dirty Hearts), on January 1, 1947,64 which pro-

vided accurate information about the war’s end and current state of affairs
in the world. The task was not an easy one, as Yamashiro recounts,
The Jornal Paulista began amidst the confusion created by the ‘victorists’
campaign. It is estimated that 90% or more of the Japanese residents of
Brazil did not accept or believe in their homeland’s military disaster. […]
The editors and administration of the newspaper, whose offices were located
on Rua Bueno da Andrade, received frequent threats to attack or even mur-
der those deemed responsible. Given their understanding of the situation,
the police stationed a guard at the newspaper’s entrance.65
In a similar respect, Nikkei Brazilian modern artist Jorge Mori was asked in
an interview conducted by art historian Aracy Amaral about his encounters
in Paris in the mid-1950s with Tsuguharu “Léonard” Foujita, who emi-
grated to France in disgrace after serving as a leading propagandist for
Japanese imperialism during World War II. Mori replied that he preferred to
separate art from politics, but frankly added that the elder artist’s views on
revering the Emperor were not so different from those of his own father.66
The kachigumi narrative dragged on well into the mid-1950s, but not
without unexpected twists and turns of its own. Despite Dutra’s bold pro-
nouncement, the judicial proceedings for expelling Shindō Renmei’s lead-
ers carried on for another decade. In the interim, a new fringe Japanese
Brazilian movement called the Sakura Teishin-tai came forward to press
for lost rights, chief among them restoration of their Japanese citizenship
and subjectivity. Sociologist Kōji Sasaki deftly summarizes this episode
that threatened to explode into political violence:
During this tremendous turmoil and confusion, the Sakura Teishin-tai

(Sakura Volunteer Army) was formed as a “cult of return” in 1953. Although
the agenda was fundamentally driven by a desperate desire to return to
Japan, they presented their proposals as highly political projects. The leaders
urged Japanese immigrants to participate in the “UN forces” in the Korean
War, but at the same time to “fight with communists to liberate Taiwan.”
They also advocated “forced repatriation of all Japanese immigrants in
64
In 1998, the Jornal Paulista merged with another Japanese Brazilian newspaper, the
Diário Nippak, to become the Nikkey Shimbun. It remains in circulation today.
65
José Yamashiro, Trajetória de duas vidas, 195.
66
Aracy Amaral, Um Círculo de Ligações: Foujita no Brasil, Kaminagai e o Jovem Mori, 237.
38 F. MORAIS
Brazil.” They organized street demonstrations and even a collective hunger

strike, only to be scorned by the general public due to its deeply contradic-
tory agenda. In 1955, the frustrated members attacked the Japanese
Consulate in São Paulo, injuring several officials.67
The Sakura Teishin-tai’s agenda was clearly incompatible with Shindō

Renmei’s. The latter’s objectives had largely been accomplished or ren-
dered moot in the intervening years, yet its incarcerated members would
imminently receive closure to their legal woes. On Christmas Day, 1956,
President Juscelino Kubitschek commuted the sentences of those still in
prison and set them free.
It is fair to say that Shindō Renmei lost the war twice: first with Japan’s
defeat in World War II, and again in their eventual subjugation by the
Brazilian authorities and makegumi opposition. But as Morais insists, their
rout was hardly clear-cut and could even be re-spun as a victory of sorts.
After all, none of the worst offenders were deported, while those such as
Hidaka, who had been caught and jailed, received pardons. In the end,
Morais’ thinking runs, the community was transformed into an ethnic
minority in Brazil’s racial democracy with the aid of São Paulo’s powerful
governor.
Nonetheless, Adhemar de Barros and his political machine can hardly
be given exclusive credit for shepherding the process to completion.
Adhemar was governor only until January 31, 1951. He would later be
elected mayor of the city of São Paulo, but that did not happen until 1957.
Takashi Maeyama provides illuminating insights into the gradual stages of
reconciliation that came about through painstaking efforts by those in the
enlightened faction during this same period of time. Only after the leaders
and cells of Shindō Renmei had been shut down could steps be taken
toward reuniting and healing the community:
[T]he leaders of the other faction organized Nihon Sensai Dōho ̄ Kyuē n Kai
or Comité de Socorro às Vítimas de Guerra do Japão (Committee for the
Relief of War Victims in Japan, hereafter simply Kyūen Kai) to send money
and subsistence items to their home country and to help brothers in diffi-
67
Kōji Sasaki, “Moral Mobility: Return in the Japanese Community in Brazil 1908–1955,”
The Newsletter 50:6 (2009).
culty. In practice, however, this was an effort to put an end to factionalism

and reorganize all the Japanese into an integrated structure.68
After three years, the Kyu ̄en Kai shifted from mutual aid to Japan toward
planning the 400th anniversary of São Paulo. The organization increas-
ingly saw itself thereafter as a go-between on behalf of both countries.
Upon completion of the Japanese Pavilion in 1954, which was given to
the city as a gift in cooperation with the Japanese government, the enlight-
ened faction continued to evolve into its present form. Maeyama explains:
In 1955, as soon as the objective of the committee had been accomplished,

it transformed itself again into another (this time more permanent) organi-
zation, namely, the Sociedade Paulista de Cultura Japonesa (Sao Paulo
Society of Japanese Culture). This Sociedade functioned as the headquarters
of all the Japanese local communities in Brazil. In 1970, it quietly changed
its name to the Sociedade Brasileira de Cultura Japonesa (Brazilian Society
of Japanese Culture), which occasioned little public attention because in fact
it signified no change; it had already been the de facto Brazilian headquar-
ters. Thus, an overall ethnic structure was finally established by the immi-
grants themselves (my emphasis).69
In this way, the Japanese Brazilian community evolved its own diasporic
and national subjectivity in tandem with a regional and national cultural
heritage organization that acted on its behalf. The Brazilian Society of
Japanese Culture and Social Assistance, better known by its Japanese acro-
nym, Bunkyō, remains to this day the community’s leading cultural orga-
nization from its headquarters, archive, and museum at Rua São Joaquim,
381 in Liberdade, São Paulo.
68
Takashi Maeyama, “Ethnicity, Secret Societies, and Associations: The Japanese in
Brazil,” 602.
69
Ibid., 603.
40 F. MORAIS
Select Bibliography
Abe, Frank and Greg Robinson and Floyd Cheung, eds. John Okada: The Life and
Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy. Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 2018.
Allen, Ernest, Jr. “When Japan Was ‘Champion of the Darker Races:’ Satokata
Takahashi and the Flowering of Black Messianic Nationalism,” The Black
Scholar 24 (Winter 1994): 23–46.
Barkun, Michael. A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary
America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013.
Barroso, Gustavo. A Sinagoga Paulista. Rio de Janeiro: Empresa Editora, 1937.
Carneiro, Maria Luiza Tucci and Marcia Yumi Takeuchi, eds. Imigrantes Japoneses
no Brasil: Trajetória, Imaginário e Memória. São Paulo Editora da USP, 2010.
_____, ed. São Paulo, Metropolis das utopias. São Paulo Companhia Editora
Nacional, 2009.
Carvalho, Diego Avelino de Moraes. O Martírio no Sol Poente: das agruras
(e)(i)migratórias à formação de milícias ultranacionalistas no contexto do pós
guerra no Brasil o caso Shindo-Renmei (1868–1965). 2017. Universidade
Federal de Goiás. Ph.D. Dissertation.
Day, Takako. “Suspicious Points of Contact in Pre-War Chicago: The Black
Dragon Society and Naka Nakane,” February 1, 2021. Personal collection of
the author.
Dirty Hearts (Corações Sujos). Directed by Vicente Amorim. Downtown
Filmes, 2012.
Dower, John. War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. New York:
Pantheon, 1986.
Fujisaki, Yasuo. Heika wa ikite orareta! “Burajiru kachigumi” no kiroku. Tokyo:
Shinjinbutsu Ō raisha, 1974.
Freitas, José de. O plano secreto japonês para a conquista do mundo. Lisbon: Livraria
Francesa, 1944.
Handa, Tomoo. O imigrante japonês: história de sua vida no Brasil. São Paulo:
Centro de Estudos Nipo-Brasileiros, 1987.
_____. Memórias de um imigrante imigrante japonês no Brasil. São Paulo Centro
de Estudos Nipo-Brasileiros, 1980.
Hayashi, Brian Masaru. Democratizing the Enemy: The Japanese American
Internment. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004.
Hernandez, Jesus. ¡El Japon ganó la guerra! Barcelona: Melusina, 2016.
Hofstadter, Richard. “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” Harpers Weekly.
November 1964.
Jackson, Michael. The Politics of Storytelling: Violence, Transgression and
Intersubjectivity. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2002.
Jacobowitz, Seth. “A Bitter Brew: Coffee and Labor in Japanese Brazilian

Immigrant Literature.” Estudos Japoneses 41:1 (2019): 13–30.
_____. “Militancy and Imperial Masculinity in Sugi Takeo’s ‘Revenge’ and Vicente
Amorim’s Dirty Hearts,” in Axel Gasquet and Gorica Majstorovic, eds.
Historical and Cultural Interconnections Between Latin America and Asia.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
Kushner, Barak. The Thought War: Japanese Imperial Propaganda. Honolulu:
University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2006.
Lesser, Jeffrey. A Discontented Diaspora: Japanese Brazilians and the Meanings of
Ethnic Militancy, 1960–1980. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.
_____. Immigration, Ethnicity and National Identity in Brazil, 1808 to the Present.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
_____. Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities, and the Struggle for
Ethnicity in Brazil. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.
_____, ed. Searching for Home Abroad: Japanese Brazilians and Transnationalism.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.
López-Calvo, Ignacio. Japanese Brazilian Saudades: Diasporic Identities and
Cultural. Production. Louisville, CO: University of Colorado Press, 2019.
Maeyama, Takashi. “Ethnicity, Secret Societies, and Associations: The Japanese in
Brazil.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 21:4 (1979): 589–610.
Masterson, Daniel M. and Sayaka Funada-Classen. The Japanese in Latin America.
Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004.
McConahay, Mary Jo. The Tango War: The Struggle for the Hearts, Minds and
Riches of Latin America During World War II. New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 2018.
Miranda, Mario Botelho de. Shindo Renmei—Terrorismo e extorsão. São Paulo:
Saraiva, 1948.
Miyao, Susumu. “Shindō Renmei: Imin kūhaku jidai to dōhō shakai no konran,”
in Jinmonken kenkyu ̄ so ̄sho, 2003:2.
Moore, Aaron W. Writing War: Soldiers Record the Japanese Empire. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2013.
Okada, John. No-No Boy. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998.
Ota, Tsuneo. Nihon wa kōfuku shite inai. Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 1995.
Reynolds, E. Bruce, ed. Japan in the Fascist Era. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2004.
Robinson, Greg. “Nisei in Gotham: The JACD and Japanese Americans in 1940s
New York.” Prospects: An Annual of American Cultural Studies, vol. 30
(2005): 581–595.
_____. A Tragedy of Democracy: Japanese Confinement in North America.
New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
_____. The Unsung Great: Stories of Extraordinary Japanese Americans. Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 2020.
42 F. MORAIS
Saaler, Sven. “The Kokuryūkai (Black Dragon Society) and the Rise of Nationalism,
Pan-Asianism, and Militarism in Japan, 1901–1925.” International Journal of
Asian Studies 11:2 (2014): 125–160.
Saitō, Hiroshi and Takashi Maeyama. Assimilação e integração dos Japoneses no
Brasil. Petrópolis: Editora Vozes, 1973.
_____. Atarashii Burajiru: rekishi to shakai to Nikkeijin. Tokyo: Saimaru
Shuppankai, 1984.
Sasaki, Kōji. “Moral Mobility: Return in the Japanese Community in Brazil
1908–1955,” The Newsletter 50: 6. Leiden & Amsterdam: International
Institute for Asian Studies, 2009.
Schwarz, Roberto. Misplaced Ideas: Essays on Brazilian Culture. New York: Verso
Books, 1992.
Shoji, Rafael. “The Failed Prophecy of Shintō Nationalism and the Rise of Japanese
Brazilian Catholicism,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 35:1
(2008): 13–38.
Silverberg, Miriam. Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese
Modern Times. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.
Skya, Walter. Japan’s Holy War: The Ideology of Radical Shinto ̄ Ultranationalism.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.
Takagi, Toshirō. Kyos̄ hin. Tokyo: Kadokawa Bunko, 1978.
Weinstein, Barbara. The Color of Modernity: São Paulo and the Making of Race and
Nation in Brazil. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015.
Yami no Ichinichi—O Crime que Abalou a Colônia Japonesa no Brasil. Directed by
Mario Jun Okuhara, Independent documentary, 2012.
Chapter 1: Seven Japanese Want
to Decapitate a Corporal from the Public
Forces: World War II is About to Begin
Again
The hoarse and halting voice seemed to come from another world. At
exactly 9 a.m. on January 1, 1946, it was broadcast from radio speakers
throughout Japan. The utterance of the first syllables was enough for one
hundred million people to know who was talking. It was the same voice
that, four months earlier, had addressed the Japanese people for the first
time in the country’s 2600 year history to announce that the moment to
“endure the unendurable” had arrived: Japan’s surrender to the Allied
Forces in World War II. Now, however, the possessor of that voice, His
Majesty Emperor Hirohito, had even more shocking revelations for his
subjects. Although he spoke in keigo, an archaic form of language replete
with Chinese expressions that were not readily comprehensible to the
average listener, everyone understood what Hirohito said. Contrary to
what the Japanese had believed since time immemorial, he was not a deity.
The emperor read a declaration, no more than a few lines, written in his
own hand. It was another imposition made by the victors of the war. This
“Humanity Declaration” was one of the demands made by the Allies if he
was to remain on the throne. It amounted to the public renunciation of
his divinity, which at that moment Hirohito undertook with resignation:
“The ties between Us and Our people have always stood upon mutual
trust and affection. They do not depend upon mere legends and myths.
They are not predicated on the false conception that the Emperor is
divine.”

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70562-6_2
44 F. MORAIS
Petrified, millions of Japanese became aware of the truth that no one

imagined they would ever hear. Unlike what they had been taught in
school and at Shinto shrines, Hirohito recognized he was the child of two
human beings, Emperor Taishō and Empress Sadako, not a descendant of
Amaterasu Ō mikami, the sun goddess. It was tantamount to throwing salt
in the wounds that the surrender, which occurred in August of the previ-
ous year, had opened in the souls of the Japanese. The Allies had annihi-
lated the mighty Imperial Japanese Army, whose predecessors had never
suffered a single defeat in an inconceivable 2600 years of warfare. Now the
new shogun, the supreme commander of the Japanese people, was a gai-
jin, a foreigner, the American general Douglas MacArthur, whom they
were required to respectfully refer to as Makka-san. As if they had not
been through enough, the Japanese discovered Emperor Hirohito was a
mere mortal, the same as any of a hundred million other citizens.
Despite being recorded into a microphone and further distorted via
radio waves, the halting voice made its way around the planet, arriving at
the most distant place possible from the Sakurada Gate of the Imperial
Palace in Tokyo, where Hirohito made that short and humiliating pro-
nouncement. In Brazil it was 9 p.m. when the voice was captured on a
small “Vestingal” radio, as the devices made by Westinghouse were called,
in the house of an anonymous Brazilian farmer in the neighborhood of
Coim, on the outskirts of the city of Tupã, 335 miles from São Paulo.
Coim was one of hundreds of colonies where, since the beginning of the
century, Japanese immigrants had settled. Retransmitted to Brazil by
shortwave courtesy of Radio Record, this “speech from the throne” was
almost simultaneously translated into Portuguese. Toward the end of the
broadcast, the farm laborer felt confident in confronting the Japanese in
the neighborhood with whom he was often at odds.
He didn’t need to take more than a hundred steps to arrive at the gate
of his neighbor, Shigueo Koketsu. As with nearly all of his countrymen
residing in Coim, Koketsu lived in a poor dwelling, little more than a
wooden shack covered by a roof of zinc sheets. Instead of finding people
in tears, the Brazilian witnessed a lively party underway. Surrounded by
guests, all of them Japanese, Koketsu was commemorating the New Year
that had just begun. Not that of the Brazilians, but oshōgatsu, the start of
the twenty-first year of the Shōwa Era, the reign of Emperor Hirohito.
Right in front of the gate he interrupted the festivities, bellowing, “Look
here, you band of goats! It’s just off the radio that king of yours is no fuck-
ing god. He’s a person the same as me, who pisses and shits the same as
CHAPTER 1 45
me. Japan lost the war, now you’ll see who’s in charge around here.”
When the Brazilian halfway turned to leave, he caught a glimpse of a bam-
boo pole with a silk Japanese flag affixed to it, planted in the ground
behind a tree. Instead of going home, he climbed into his wagon parked
at the gate and set off on the direction of Tupã to report what was still
considered a crime against national security: the raising of a flag belonging
to the three Axis Powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—whom Brazil had
fought against in World War II until three months earlier.
It was 9:30 p.m. when Edmundo Vieira Sá, corporal of the public forces
in São Paulo (now the military police) and commander of the Tupã detach-
ment, reached Koketsu’s house accompanied by a half-dozen servicemen.
Known in the colony for the truculence with which he treated the Japanese,
he declared everyone before him to be under arrest. While shouting and
meting out blows to Koketsu’s astonished guests, he gave orders to seize
anything that could be considered “proof of the crime,” whether chil-
dren’s books in Japanese, schoolbooks, or even small Shinto prayer books.
The corporal reserved for himself the honor of capturing the trophy of the
expedition, the Japanese flag. He yanked it down from the improvised
flagpole, and as he passed through the yard in the direction of the truck
where those arrested were being taken away, he heard someone protest in
broken Portuguese, shouting,
“Don’t touch the Japanese flag! The Hinomaru is sacred, it must not be
dishonored!”
The officer turned back to see where the cry came from. It was the
master of the house. Next to Edmundo, who was a mulatto nearly six feet
tall, the diminutive Koketsu appeared even smaller. The corporal took a
wooden baton from his belt and delivered a violent blow to each of the
man’s shoulders. Writhing on the ground, Koketsu saw the officer prove,
between shouts, he was not there to joke around. “The flag is sacred, huh?
Then look here and see what I do with your flag, you stinking goat. I’ll
wipe cow shit off my boots with it!”
Edmundo crouched down and laughingly rubbed the piece of red and
white silk back and forth over his dirty army boots while giving orders to
his subordinates. “Take these little lunatics and put them in the truck.
We’ll cart them off to jail and charge ten cruzeiros apiece for the ride
to Tupã.”
46 F. MORAIS
Fig. 1.1 José Lemes Soares (center, in white), Tupã’s “sheriff in short-sleeves,”
interrogated the “Japanese lunatics,” who refused to accept that Japan had lost the
war. The interrogations went all night until the sun came up
It was well past midnight when the deputy chief, José Lemes Soares,
was awoken at home to lead the interrogation of the detainees (Fig. 1.1).
Since the majority barely spoke Portuguese, the police needed to arrange
for an interpreter in a hurry. It was decided the businessman and accoun-
tant Jorge Okazaki, an old friend to the police in the city, would be it. He
had been called in more than a dozen times before on similar cases that
occurred in the city. However, when he finished interrogating the first
detainee, the policeman heard Okazaki prudently whisper in Portuguese,
“Sir, ask them who won the war, Brazil or Japan.”

CHAPTER 1 47
Without really understanding the purpose of the question, the deputy

chief repeated it to the prisoners, who responded with conviction,
“Japan won the war. Everyone in Coim knows this. If Japan had been
defeated, all of the Japanese would be dead. Japan has never lost a war, so it
won this war, too.”
José Lemes Soares finished the interrogations at 2:30 in the morning.

He was convinced they’d incarcerated a band of madmen. In the end, his
question received the same answer, repeated by each of the six prisoners,
“Japan won the war.”
By the time the sun rose the next morning, the news had already
reached the colony. In addition to the details of the police raid at the party,
word spread that Koketsu had been tortured during the night in jail.
There were two other facts, however, which aroused hatred among the
Japanese: the humiliation of seeing the police officer wipe his boots with
the flag, and the inexplicable presence of a compatriot, Jorge Okazaki, col-
laborating with the police.
The next day, January 2, passed without incident. But when he left for
work on the morning of January 3, Jorge Okazaki blanched when he set
foot on the street. During the night, someone had painted in enormous
Chinese letters on the exterior of his house the threatening inscription,
“Traitor to the Nation.” A note shoved under the gateway was more enig-
matic and said only “Wash your throat!” Nevertheless, Okazaki under-
stood what it meant (Fig. 1.2).
“Wash your throat” was an expression used by the Japanese militarists
before an execution. In order to prevent the “dirty” skin of a traitor from
contaminating the blade of a katana, the traditional sword of the samurai,
the executioner called upon the condemned to wash his throat before he
died. Okazaki ran to the police station, but not before taking the precau-
tion of covering the graffiti with two sheets of newspaper, which was the
most expedient way he could think of to hide the insult from the eyes of
the 13,000 Japanese residents of Tupã, at that time a city of 45,000 inhab-
itants. The vice-chief was intrigued when he heard the threat came from a
Japanese secret society, militaristic and fanatically loyal to the emperor,
and which already had militants dispersed throughout the region. It was a
sect, moreover, that maintained Japan had won World War II. Still, several
48 F. MORAIS
Fig. 1.2 After aiding the police, the accountant Jorge Okazaki (at left) wakes up
to find the death sentence “Traitor to the Nation!” scrawled on the exterior of his
house by the fanatics
hours later Soares started to wonder if perhaps Okazaki weren’t a patho-

logical liar and the prisoners from the day before mere idiots.
At nine o’clock that night, seven barefoot Japanese men, serious and
with a determined air, ages ranging from twenty to forty-one, appeared
like ghosts out of thin air and took up positions outside the police station.
Several carried wooden clubs fashioned into baseball bats. The others were
armed with deadly katanas, sabers sheathed in woven bamboo, each con-
cealing a sharp, curved steel blade just over two and a half feet long. They
wore trunks or had their pant legs rolled up to the knees as if they had just
finished working in the coffee fields. Although facial hair was common
among the immigrants—hence the nickname “goats” given to them by
the Brazilians—only one of the men, Eiiti Sakane, had a mustache, goatee,
and traces of a beard along the jawline. Since the police building was
located on Avenida Tamoios in the town center, the men had had to cross
Tupã in the dark—an apparition that terrified the residents in the immedi-
ate vicinity, who shut their doors and windows at the silent group’s
approach. Something bad was about to happen. When he saw the “seven
samurai,” as the group popularly came to be known, try to force open the
front gate to the station, the soldier Juventino Leandro, the prison guard
on duty, came out to the sidewalk wielding a rifle and pointed it at the
bearded man who seemed to be the leader of the group.
CHAPTER 1 49
“Have you lost your mind, Japanese? Don’t hold your breath thinking you
can just waltz in here and free the prisoners! I’ll run through half of you with
my bayonet and shoot the rest!”
The supposed leader, the medic Eiiti Sakane, thirty-eight years old,
stepped in front of the group, protected by Shimpei Kitamura, a twenty-
six-year-old dry cleaner who looked even more threatening, thanks to the
white turban wrapped around his head. Neither appeared frightened by
the soldier’s threats. It was Sakane who responded. As he withdrew the
sword from its bamboo sheath, he challenged the soldier in rough
Portuguese,
“No one came to free prisoners. We came to kill Corporal Edmundo who
disrespected the Japanese flag. Get out of the way. This has nothing to do
with you.”
Juventino blocked the gate as though he were trying to protect it with

his body, and cocked his rifle, shouting,
“Anyone who tries to enter will be shot! Edmundo is not in the station!
There’s no point in your coming here, he’s not on duty!”
The scene was observed from a distance through cracks in the doors
and windows. Their curiosity was immense, but few could understand the
mixture of Japanese and Portuguese being spoken. After a few tense
moments, the Japanese men decided one of their own would go inside to
confirm the corporal wasn’t there. While Sakane, sword in hand, “guarded”
the soldier on the sidewalk, Kitamura entered the building, checked all the
rooms, and returned, saying in Japanese to his companions,
“He fled. So he’ll die at home instead.”
On the short march of 400 yards between the prison and the Santa
Terezinha boarding house where the corporal lived, the astonishing sight
of the seven Japanese men crossing the city beneath the canopy of mango
trees that spread over the streets sent chills down the spines of the hidden
Brazilians who spied them from afar. The light from a scattering of lamp-
posts glinted off the blades of the swords they held in their hands, which
were now all unsheathed. When they arrived at the boarding house, the
group stopped a terrified maid, who only managed to babble a few words.
50 F. MORAIS
“Edmundo isn’t here.”
Without waiting for permission, the Japanese entered the corridor and
broke down the door of the room where the officer lived, but he was
clearly not hiding there. Faced with the visitors’ grim determination, the
maid had no alternative but to say what she knew.
“Edmundo left earlier saying he was going to the Tennis Club.”
The seven disappeared silently again into the night. Moments after they
had left the station, however, Juventino ran to the Avenida Hotel, the resi-
dence of one Captain Gil Moss, Commander of the Army’s Fifth Company,
which was based in the city. Alerted in the middle of a card game of buraco,
the captain went straight to the barracks. Consequently, no sooner had the
Japanese reached the gate of the club than they heard the arrival of a pla-
toon of army soldiers armed with rifles. Surrounded by the troops, they
were placed under arrest. Eiiti Sakane explained they had nothing against
the army or the Brazilians.
“We only came here to kill Corporal Edmundo, who wiped his boots with
the Japanese flag.”
The officer ordered the Japanese to shut up. He announced they would
be disarmed right then and there, and taken to jail. The presence of the
troops emboldened Edmundo, who unexpectedly emerged from the dark-
ness, baton in hand. When he got close to the smallest and youngest one,
Tokuiti Hidaka, ready to strike him, he saw the Japanese leap toward him
with sword raised. Five soldiers pounced on Hidaka and disarmed him.
If not for the swords and clubs they carried, the seven could have been
mistaken for peaceful farmers from the various colonies of Japanese immi-
grants sprinkled throughout the region. Only one among them declared
he spoke Portuguese fluently, the accountant Shiguetaka Takagui, twenty-
six years old, whose prescription eyeglasses gave him the look of a primary
school teacher. With the exception of the medic Sakane, the rest were
coffee plantation workers, Buddhists, and barely spoke Portuguese. There
was Isamu Matsumoto, the oldest at forty-one years old, Sinchō Nakamine,
thirty-eight, and the two youngest, Isao Mizushima and Tokuiti Hidaka,
both twenty years old.
CHAPTER 1 51
House windows opened slightly, just enough to watch the procession

make its way through the city. The Japanese went silently back to the
police station in single file, disarmed and with their hands tied behind
their backs, but with their heads held high in a victorious air. Back at the
station, a new surprise awaited the curious onlookers who gathered in
Deputy Chief Soares’ office when he instructed that the men to be
searched for weapons beneath their clothing. Each of them had a silk
Japanese flag wrapped around his torso between clothing and skin. It was
not the traditional kind, but the imperial flag with red rays radiating out-
ward from the sun at the center against a white background.
Placed in cells and called one after the other to testify, the Japanese
found themselves in the presence of the accountant Jorge Okazaki, again
assisting the police chief as an ad hoc interpreter. No one uttered a word.
They maintained they were not there in the city to commit a crime, but to
kill Edmundo and wash away the insult to the Japanese flag with corporal’s
blood. As he passed by Okazaki, Eiiti Sakane glared at him and warned,
“You have a dirty heart. Wash your throat, traitor.”
When the last one was returned to his cell, night had turned to day, and
the only topic of discussion among them was the involvement of Jorge
Okazaki, the improvised interpreter, who aided the police chief in the
interrogations. One of the jailers had taken it upon himself to wind them
up even further by telling them the beating sustained by Koketsu in jail
had occurred at the orders of their compatriot. And during their testimo-
nies, he was the one who insisted in Portuguese that the police bear down
on the prisoners in search of information about that fanatical sect.
Nevertheless, each time Soares touched on the subject, the answer he got
was the same: no one had ever heard of such a thing. None of them had
any doubt Jorge Okazaki was in the service of the police against Japan.
The chief could sense there was something more serious going on than
the squabble between the Japanese and the corporal. On January 5, he
ordered Edmundo to be hidden in a safe location and reported the prob-
lem to his immediate superior, the regional police chief. Protected by a
public forces escort, the seven prisoners were taken to the city of Marília,
forty-six miles away from Tupã. An official letter was sent along with them,
addressed to the regional chief Renato Imperato, in which Soares expressed
his apprehensions and confirmed the seven’s suspicions that Okazaki col-
laborated with the police.
52 F. MORAIS
I request that an investigation be conducted at the nearest opportunity for the

accused to reveal the truth, which they refused to do here; also send to Tupã a
group of specialized investigators as there are larger groups in this municipality
who should be brought to jail and processed, not least to safeguard the life of one
who has been targeted as our loyal informant and is well-esteemed within our
social circles.
The day after they arrived in Marília, the prisoners began to be ques-
tioned. Not by personnel in the local police station, but by a certain “Dr.
Rui,” chief of the Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS), who
came from the capital expressly to interrogate them. In their first contact
with him, the Japanese found themselves dealing with yet another koku-
zoku, or traitor to the nation. To facilitate interpretation, the DOPS police
brought with him a Nisei student of engineering, Yoshikazu “Paulo”
Morita. This one, too, blanched when he passed Sakane in a corridor and
heard him repeat the enigmatic threat he’d made to Okazaki,
“You have a dirty heart. You’d better keep your throat clean…”
Questioned dozens of times while held in Marília, the seven did not
utter a single syllable apart from what they’d already said in Tupã. They
said nothing even when the police started to show them pamphlets written
in Japanese that claimed Japan had won World War II. Separately or dur-
ing questioning, they maintained they’d never seen such bulletins before.
Their recalcitrance paid off. On January 28, the prisoners learned a
generous patron had contracted the services of criminal defense lawyer
Paulo Lauro, a young but much-celebrated black lawyer. Lauro was a fel-
low parishioner with the former Paulista federal controller Adhemar de
Barros, who months earlier helped in the creation of the Progressive Social
Party (PSP). Accompanied by a lawyer from Tupã, Quirino Travassos,
Paulo Lauro arrived in Marília to free the Japanese. He paid their bail and
took care of the legal formalities. As they were preparing to leave the sta-
tionhouse, Lauro heard an investigator utter a doubly racist provocation
that spoke volumes about the environment for the Japanese immigrants
who were living in the region. Directed at the recently freed prisoners, the
policeman disparagingly called out,
“You say Brazil isn’t democratic? In Japan you would already have been gut-
ted. Here you are, yellow men, guests in a country of white men, trying to
CHAPTER 1 53
kill a mulato and now being defended by a black man. Then you’ll go and
say you’re discriminated against!”
Upon return to Tupã, the seven were greeted in the colony as heroes. The
photographer Masashige Onishi had already reserved the party room in
the back of a restaurant in front of his photography studio. Before bring-
ing them to greet the crowd, however, Onishi thought he should capture
this historic moment. Across the street in his studio, he assembled the
group dressed in the same clothes they wore that day marching through
the city, the day they were imprisoned. He suggested a pose and took a
photo whose copies were sold in the colony as a symbol of the pride of the
Japanese. Later on, he would have to take many other photos of the seven,
surrounded by their suit-and-tie-wearing admirers (Figs. 1.3–1.6). It was
only after a quick visit to the Aikoku Seinendan, the Association of Patriotic
Japanese Youth, that they were finally able to enter the party room crowded
with supporters—many already feeling the effects of sake, which flowed
abundantly—where they were received with cries of “Nippon Banzai!”
Fig. 1.3 The “seven heroes” of Tupã, from left to right, after they left the jail in
Marília: Shimpei Kitamura, Shiguetaka Takagui, Isamu Matsumoto, Sinchō
Nakamine, Eiiti Sakane, Isao Mizushima, and Tokuiti Hidaka
Fig. 1.4 Japanese immigrants in Tupã gathered for a photograph with the seven
who tried to decapitate the corporal. Seated in the first row are Hidaka, Takagui,
Matsumoto, Nakamine, Sakane, Mizushima, and Kitamura
Figs. 1.5–1.6 The photographer Masashige Onishi (at right) and the party held
in Tupã’s Japanese colony (at left) to celebrate the freeing of the “seven heroes”
with lots of sake, threats against the “defeatists,” and not a woman in sight
CHAPTER 1 55
(Long Live Japan!). Curiously, among the hundreds of guests, there

wasn’t a single woman. And in spite of the fact that Brazil still had a war-
time law in effect, namely the prohibition of public gatherings by “Axis
subjects”—immigrants from Germany, Italy, and Japan—no authorities
dared to disturb the party, which went on until four in the morning,
The next morning, upon leaving his house, Jorge Okazaki realized it
had made no difference to have the entrance painted to hide the graffiti
scrawled a few days earlier. There again was the threat, written in even
larger Chinese characters, “Traitor to the Nation.” Convinced he had
been sentenced to death, Okazaki was the first person to realize, four
months after the signing of a peace accord between Japan and the Allies,
that a new war had begun. It was a war infinitely smaller than World War
II, of course, but profoundly painful because this time it pitted Japanese
against Japanese.
* * *
The “seven heroes” of the Tupã colony had little in common other than
being Japanese immigrants. They had arrived in Brazil at different times
and came from provinces distant from one another. When they became
acquainted several weeks prior to the “flag incident,” they realized,
however, there was something greater than coincidences in geography
or time that united them. In the first place, they shared a nearly reli-
gious devotion to Emperor Hirohito and the dream of accumulating
enough money to return to their homeland. In addition, the seven con-
sidered the lack of patriotism among some immigrants as symptomatic
of the way the Japanese were being victimized since Brazil entered
World War II. As far as they were concerned, if the colony hadn’t been
contaminated by defeatist forces, the Brazilian government would not
have had the courage to treat them in such a humiliating way as had
come to pass.
The rigid restrictions imposed during the war years on the Japanese
residents in Brazil, meanwhile, was but another chapter in the calvary of
trials they lived through since June 18, 1908, when the ship Kasato Maru
landed in the port of Santos with the first 165 farming families on board,
or 781 people in total. From there they were taken and screened at the
Hospedaria dos Imigrantes (Immigrants’ Hostel) in the capital of São
Paulo, where they experienced the first of innumerable culture shocks:
Brazilian food was indigestible to the Asian palate. Accustomed to meals
56 F. MORAIS
built around vegetables, rice, and fish from the sea, the Japanese were
nauseated by the greasy food they were given. Seasoning beans with salt,
which they only knew as an ingredient in sweets, seemed a diet expressly
designed to induce diarrhea.
In spite of the initial scare, they continued onward confidently toward
western São Paulo State where the forest was being cleared to make way
for a green wave of coffee plantations. In a few days’ time, the families
were spread out over regions like the Alta Paulista (Paulista Highlands),
Noroeste (Northeast), Mojiana, Sorocabana, and, to a lesser extent, Santos
and the coastal cities. It would take only a few weeks for them to realize
the country they had chosen had little or nothing to do with the Eden
they’d been promised by the emigration agencies in Japan. They were in a
place with a different climate, where they didn’t understand the language,
and had to live among people whose customs, religion, and even faces
were different from their own. Their own habits, such as taking a bath
lying down in an ofurō, a circular wooden bathtub, were ridiculed by the
Brazilians. The women were called “monkeys” by their neighbors because
they carried their babies tied to their backs. Men who went out into the
street wearing jikatabi—Japanese shoes in which the big toe is separated
from the rest, like the hoof of an animal—were immediately nicknamed
“cow hooves.” The accommodations they were offered left the women in
particular desolate, as they spent much of the time in the house. Sizue
Abe, perhaps because she was the daughter and granddaughter of samurai,
could not hold back and burst into tears upon seeing the houses they were
given with palm wood walls and zinc roofs in the Braúna region. Working
under what was often a semi-slave regime with no medical care or schools
for their children, it was inevitable for breakdowns in the immigration plan
to occur. A year after the first ship arrived, only 191 immigrants remained
on the plantations to which they had been assigned. The prospect of
someday being able to buy a tract of ten alqueires or twenty-four hect-
ares—practically a plantation by Japanese standards—did not succeed in
lifting their spirits. After all, what was the point of buying land in Brazil if
the goal was to return to Japan with some savings? The remedy was to
keep their heads down, eat little, dress poorly, and save money for
the return.
Notwithstanding these setbacks, the Japanese ships continued disem-
barking immigrants at the port of Santos. In the first seven years of the
accord between the two countries, Japan sent to Brazil 3434 families, or
14,983 people. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the migratory
CHAPTER 1 57
flow acquired a vertiginous rhythm. Between 1917 and 1940, 164,000

more Japanese moved to Brazil, with only twenty-five percent of them
headed to Paraná, Mato Grosso, and other states. The majority decided to
settle in São Paulo. The Japanese “colonies” or neighborhoods multiplied
like mushrooms in the west of the state. Around the first residences sprung
up warehouses, pharmacies, butchers, sawmills, and greengrocers. All,
without exception, were identifiable by signs written in Japanese. Every
two or three weeks, the colonies bore witness to the case of someone like
Gengo Matsui, the first immigrant to put down his hoe and become a film
projectionist. He earned a living screening Japanese films in a different
village each day. Unable to understand what was playing in the cinemas in
the city, they eagerly awaited the arrival of melodramatic productions such
as Trail of Death and Tokyo Romance.
Although they had apparently decided not to integrate into their new
country, they succumbed to very Brazilian temptations like the jogo do
bicho (lit., “the animal game,” equivalent to “playing the numbers”)—an
activity that sometimes surged faster into the villages than legal commerce.
Besides gambling, another typical institution at the opening of the agricul-
tural frontiers was the ever-popular red-light district. The seductive pow-
ers that the “district” exercised on Japanese men in the colony were such
that in Marília, a city of 80,000 inhabitants, of which 20,000 were
Japanese, the statistics were shocking. By the end of the 1930s, out of 653
buildings constructed in the city, 87 were brothels. The success of these
rendezvous, as these houses of ill repute were called, happened in spite of
the fact that only four percent of the immigrants were single men. In con-
trast to the flow of Japanese to Canada and Hawai‘i, immigration to Brazil
was based on the family unit, not the individual. Each contract counted on
providing labor from at least three adults, which led the immigrants to
resort to what were called composite families, whose formation required
them to incorporate distant relatives to qualify for the journey.
Within the confines of the Paulista countryside, the cities continued to
grow. In the absence of government authority and public services, coop-
eratives exercised these functions as soon as they came into existence.
Alternatively, the immigrants relied on the auspices of Bratac and the
Kaigai Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha (KKKK), the Japanese immigration
agency, which oversaw some 240,000 hectares in São Paulo and Paraná
where the majority of the Japanese were settled. The installation of tele-
phone posts, the opening of back roads, and sometimes even the functions
of police and prefecture were undertaken by private entities linked to the
immigrants, without a single serious incident occurring.
58 F. MORAIS
For all their good works, the Japanese were met with constant rejec-
tion. The sudden rise, in only a few decades, of a foreign colony in such
great numbers awakened nationalist hatred in an openly racist fashion. In
the name of “a theory for improving the racial type,” public thinkers such
as Miguel Couto, Félix Pacheco, and Xavier de Oliveira, among others,
inflamed the Constituent Assembly of 1934 in a crusade against “the yel-
low peril.” Federal deputy from Minas Gerais, Fidélis Reis, was proud of
being the author of what would be considered “the first anti-Japanese
bill.” Many years prior to the onset of World War II, the “eugenicists”
already saw the Japanese immigrants as a problem, and received the undis-
guised support of the conservative Catholic Church under the leadership
of Sebastião Leme, archbishop and cardinal of Rio de Janeiro. It was a
threat that required “extreme caution and attentive vigilance.” Influenced
by these ideas, the majority of the press referred to the nucleus of immi-
grants as “Asiatic cysts.” The doctor Miguel Couto, deputy for Rio de
Janeiro, presented the proposal for a constitutional amendment limiting
the annual quota of immigrants from each country to “a maximum of two
percent of the total number of people with the same nationality over the
past fifty years.” Convinced that approval of the amendment would be an
act of aggression so serious to Japan it would “necessarily involve having
the Japanese ambassador turn in his passport,” Getúlio Vargas instructed
his parliamentary bench to give an opinion contrary to the proposal.
Miguel Couto responded with a theatrical declaration.
“If the amendment is not approved, all that remains is for me to teach my
grandchildren Japanese, because at any moment Brazil will be made captive
to Japan.”
There was no need to worry. The amendment was approved and incor-
porated into the Constitution. According to the new law, Japan, which by
the start of the 1930s had sent up to 25,000 immigrants per year to Brazil,
was limited to an annual quota of 4000 immigrants.
It was not only pestilential politicians who conspired against the
Japanese. A short outbreak of malaria, a disease totally unknown to the
Japanese, was sufficient to produce tragedies. For example, there was the
one experienced by the residents of Colônia Hirano, created in Cafelândia
by the pioneer Umpei Hirano, who had been a passenger on the Kasato
Maru. Within a few days, malaria caused eighty fatalities. No sooner had
they buried their dead than a black cloud rose in the skies of their colony,
CHAPTER 1 59
seeming to advance with tremendous velocity, spurred on by the wind. It

was indeed a cloud, but one of locusts, which devastated their coffee fields
in a matter of hours.
* * *
The first-wave immigrants were the indifferent contemporaries to some of

the most important crises and political changes to occur in Brazil during
the twentieth century. Still considering themselves to be Japanese, events
such as the Revolt at Copacabana Fort in 1922, the Prestes Column from
1924 to 1926, and even the Revolution of 1930 meant little or nothing to
them. In the Revolution of 1932, São Paulo had Niseis in its trenches, but
nothing that signified the serious commitment of the colony to the cause
(Fig. 1.7). At the end of 1938, however, measures taken by President
Getúlio Vargas to combat “internal enemies” were to have harsh repercus-
sions for the Japanese community. Three years after the defeat of the
Communists in the revolt of 1935, Getúlio was awoken at dawn on May
11, 1938, with news that he was besieged at his own official residence, the
Guanabara Palace. Outside, three-dozen supporters of the Integralist
leader, Plínio Salgado, armed with rifles and machine guns, attacked the
presidential palace with gunfire. Contained in just a few hours by aides to
the president—among them his daughter, Alzira Vargas—the right-wing
putsch gave the government the desired pretext to further strangle demo-
cratic liberties. The ones that remained had been threadbare since
November 10, 1937, when the president instituted the Estado Novo by
shutting down Congress and political parties, putting the press under cen-
sorship, and suspending the presidential elections scheduled for 1938. But
since the Japanese didn’t vote, and hardly any of them read Portuguese,
censorship and the political vise-grip were issues that did not much con-
cern them.
The Brazilian Integralist Action Party that inspired the frustrated coup
against the palace, however, maintained notorious ties to Italian fascism
and the Nazis in Hitler’s Germany. The police discovered the revolution-
aries had requested arms from the Third Reich for the inevitable military
resistance they expected to face from the government. Newly transformed
into enemies of Brazil, the “exotic ideologies” that in 1935 were dissemi-
nated by Communists from the Soviet Union, now had Italian and German
origins as well. In the repressive upsurge against anything foreign, Getúlio
issued a decree on August 20, 1938, prohibiting publications in foreign
60 F. MORAIS
Fig. 1.7 A group of

Japanese immigrants
who volunteered to
serve alongside the
Paulista forces in the
Revolution of 1932: a
lesson in the integration
of the community into
political life in Brazil
languages without prior permission from the Ministry of Justice. It was

the first serious blow against the Japanese colony. In those days, there
were nearly two-dozen regular publications in Japanese circulating in São
Paulo, of which five newspapers were major players: Seishu ̄ Shimpō, Brasil
Asahi, Nambei, Nippak Shimbun, and Burajiru Jihō. Together, their com-
bined editions exceeded 50,000 copies and were the sole source of infor-
mation for the nearly 200,000 Japanese residents of São Paulo. Without
apparently intending to do so, Getúlio had ordered the slow death of the
Japanese press in Brazil. A few still managed to survive, but it was humanly
CHAPTER 1 61
impossible to submit every day, in the case of daily newspapers, to the

somnolent bureaucracy of the Brazilian government to obtain the required
permissions. Others opted to publish in Portuguese, only to shutter their
doors when they discovered there was no one to read them.
The Japanese immigrants saw in the decree, however, a detail that left
them even more apprehensive. Proclaiming the necessity of preventing
“the excessively active cultivation of foreign languages, traditions, and
habits in a given zone,” the government was not only prohibiting newspa-
pers and magazines, but also editions of books in foreign languages. Since
practically all the Japanese educated their children in their mother
tongue—with books written in Japanese either imported or printed in
Brazil—the decree meant their children were the latest victims of Brazil’s
internal problems.
In September 1939, the German Army invaded Poland. Two days later,
France and England declared war on Germany and World War II began.
For the next two years, neither the onset of the war nor the general con-
flict provoked major changes in the lives of the Japanese residents of Brazil.
The invasion of Denmark, Belgium, and Norway by troops of the Third
Reich, the entrance of Mussolini’s Italy into the war on the side of the
Germans, and even the capitulation of France to the Nazis were news far
removed from their day-to-day lives. But on November 27, 1940, Japan
joined the alliance dubbed the “Axis,” created in 1936 and made up of
Hitler’s Germany and Fascist Italy. The presence in the war of the invin-
cible Imperial Japanese Army, however, was something that spoke to the
Japanese spirit. Not only Japan, but all Japanese subjects, wherever one
might find them, were at war. Included among them were the now nearly
250,000 residents in the State of São Paulo.
In spite of the aggressions Brazil had suffered since the start of the war,
the dictator Getúlio Vargas waited a long time before taking sides in the
conflict. Between September and December 1939, three Brazilian com-
mercial ships, the Siqueira Campos, the Buarque, and the Itapé, were cap-
tured by the British Navy and confiscated for transporting goods of
German origin, bound for Brazil. In the case of the Itapé, in addition to
seizing the cargo, the English forced twenty-two Germans to disembark
and imprisoned them. These initiatives generated powerful anti-British
sentiments in Brazil.
In March 1940, Getúlio Vargas delivered his first message to immi-
grants when he gave a speech in the city of Blumenau, Santa Catarina, the
region in which the majority of Germans living in the country was
62 F. MORAIS
concentrated. “Brazil is neither English nor German!” the president

insisted. Getúlio reminded the foreigners that “here we are all Brazilians,
because we were born in Brazil, because here we had our upbringing!”
The Japanese in São Paulo breathed a sigh of relief at not having been
mentioned by the president. But it would prove only a short respite.
As the war intensified, German attacks on Brazilian commercial ships
mounted. By the middle of 1941, the Santa Clara disappeared from the
high seas. Weeks later, the Siqueira Campos was stopped by canon fire
from a German submarine and the Taubaté was strafed in the Mediterranean
by a German airplane, an episode in which one sailor died and thirteen
were injured. Nevertheless, Brazil maintained its neutrality for another few
months. On December 7, 1941, however, the world awoke to the shock-
ing news that the American Pacific fleet had been destroyed by the Japanese
at the naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawai’i. The next day, the United States
declared war against Japan. Now, without question, Brazil would have to
choose a side to take.
Still, Getúlio did not give indications of already having chosen partners.
At the start of the year, President Roosevelt gave the authorization to lend
$100 million to Brazil under the Lend and Lease Act, the American law to
provide military equipment to countries victimized by aggression. Surprises
awaited those who believed this money sealed the marriage between the
two countries, however. On April 20, Vargas sent a congratulatory tele-
gram to the Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler, on his 51st birthday. Vargas’ mes-
sage and Hitler’s response were made public by the palace of the Brazilian
government. As if to deliberately confuse political analysts, at the same
time as the wooing of Hitler, the papers reported the trip to Rio by Warren
Pierson, president of the American Export-Import Bank, or Ex-Im Bank,
just a few days before, which gave Brazil generous contracts for the expor-
tation of rubber, diamonds, quartz, and manganese to the United States.
Brazil’s neutrality, however, stimulated the emergence of pressure groups
both inside of the government and within society. The National Student
Union, or UNE, and what remained of the syndicalist movement con-
trolled by the Estado Novo, took to the streets a discussion that could no
longer be contained in cabinet meetings: they demanded that Brazil enter
the war, but on the Allied side. The differences between the Minister of
Foreign Relations, the pro-Allied Powers Osvaldo Aranha, and the chief of
police for the Federal District, the Germanophile Filinto Müller, also
ended up transferred to the public arena.
CHAPTER 1 63
On July 4, the students decided to celebrate the anniversary of American

independence with a gigantic demonstration, calling on Brazil to enter the
war against the Axis Powers. “The Anti-Totalitarian Student Rally,” which
was the first unauthorized public demonstration since the creation of the
Estado Novo, came with the discreet approval of Osvaldo Aranha, the
Controller for the State of Rio and son-in-law of the president, Ernani do
Amaral Peixoto, and the Acting Minister of Justice, Vasco Leitão da
Cunha. The powerful Filinto Müller was openly against the rally and
decided to confront Leitão da Cunha, but wound up being placed under
arrest by him during a squabble at the Ministry of Justice. The rally was a
success. Days later, Getúlio gave another indication of the way he would
go by firing Filinto Müller, his old and loyal comrade.
While the Brazilians argued, the Germans attacked. In the period of a
few weeks, between June and July, another five Brazilian ships were sunk
in the Caribbean. In August, the Baependi and the Araraquara were
bombarded off the coast of Sergipe. The next day, it was the Aníbal
Benévolo’s turn, and two days later, the Itagiba and Arará were sent to the
bottom of the Bahian seashore. In three days, German torpedoes had
killed 610 Brazilians. Getúlio, however, remained indecipherable. At the
end of August, new demonstrations against the Axis filled the streets of
Rio de Janeiro and other Brazilian cities. In what was then the very capital
of the Republic, the demonstrations blocked off the entrance to the
Guanabara Palace with their supporters. Getúlio addressed them from a
balcony, promising reprisal measures against the attackers, but was silent
on what they most wanted to hear. The demonstrators went home with-
out knowing if Brazil would go to war. Or which side it would take, for
that matter.
The first signal of which position would be taken by the government
only came months later. If Vargas needed a stronger motive to decide, it
happened in December 1941 with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. On that
same day, he convened his ministers and indicated that by unanimous
decision the government should declare its solidarity with the Americans.
In the New Year’s address aimed at the body of officers from the three
branches of the military, Getúlio reaffirmed the caveat, to make things
clear, that making good on this gesture depended on the United States
meeting Brazil’s requests for military equipment. When his intentions
were made public, it stirred jealousy and fear in the Germans with whom
he had flirted. Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Reich’s Foreign Minister,
requested that the Portuguese dictator, António de Oliveira Salazar, whose
64 F. MORAIS
regime was sympathetic to the Nazis, convince the Brazilian president to

stay neutral in the conflict.
It was with relief that Brazilian society saw the President of the Republic
begin to signal the direction Brazil would take. But Vargas guarded a
secret: he and Roosevelt had already chosen course. The country would
align with the democracies and sever relations with the Axis. In return, the
United States would assume responsibility for modernizing Brazil’s econ-
omy and military. The date given for the end of Brazil’s neutrality was
January 15, 1942, when Rio de Janeiro would host the Third Meeting of
Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the American Republics.
Getúlio opened the conference, which would be the stage for a dra-
matic political and military game of chess, with a frank announcement of
solidarity with the United States. Roosevelt responded with a short tele-
gram expressing gratitude, and whose final words left no doubt as to what
had been agreed upon: “I understand and have evaluated the necessity of
material, whose delivery I guarantee will commence immediately.” Feeling
betrayed, and using the occasion of the conference for a demonstration of
force, the enemies responded with outrageous provocation. As Getúlio
made his address at the opening of the conference, the ship Buarque was
sent to the bottom of the sea by a German U-432 submarine in the vicin-
ity of Norfolk on the Atlantic coast of the United States. Although it car-
ried seventy-four passengers and eleven sailors on board, only one perished.
The next day, the torpedoing impacted further on the Meeting when news
came that another Brazilian commercial vessel, the Cabedelo, had been
sunk by an Italian submarine, the Leonardo da Vinci.
The two main aides to Getúlio, generals Eurico Gaspar Dutra and
Pedro Aurélio de Góis Monteiro, who were Minister of War and Army
Chief of Staff, respectively, were firmly against the proposal to break off
relations with the Axis. In their view, it was for purely military reasons: the
Armed Forces were badly equipped and could not protect navigation of
the Brazilian coastline from the shooting gallery of the German subma-
rines’ artillery. The military men advocated that Brazil only announce the
severed relations after receiving the promised American armaments.
Getúlio appeared not to heed the prophetic words of Dutra and Góis
Monteiro. He decided to close the Meeting of Foreign Ministers on
February 28 with a bigger impact than the opening. On this day, he
declared the official severing of diplomatic and commercial relations with
Germany, Italy, and Japan.
CHAPTER 1 65
The news could not have arrived in a more brutal form to the Japanese
colony settled in São Paulo. On that same night, in a village in the vicinity
of Marília, six hundred miles from the palace where Getúlio spoke, the
coffee farmer Itirō Tamura went into the Hirata general store, and asked
its owner across the counter for two gallons of kerosene. As always, he
asked in Japanese, the only language he spoke. A plainclothes soldier from
the Public Forces drinking alone in the canteen heard the conversation
and snarled,
“Speak Portuguese, you goat… It’s now prohibited to speak Japanese in

public.”
The owner attempted to come to his customer’s defense.
“But he only speaks Japanese.”
The soldier didn’t blink. He grabbed Itirō by the arm and announced,
“Then you’re under arrest. By orders of Dr. Getúlio.”
Chapter 2: Subjects of the Axis Powers
Cannot Have Radios, Cars, or Money. They
Are Not Even Allowed to Speak
The severing of relations between Brazil and Japan transformed the life of
the colony into a living hell. Two old laws that had never been applied
were dusted off and put into practice. The first, from 1933, was approved
in the xenophobic boom of the “eugenicists,” which prohibited teaching
the Japanese language to all children younger than ten years of age regard-
less of nationality. The second and more recent law, promulgated in 1938
on the pretext of controlling “foreign ideologies,” was also never effec-
tively regulated, but now came into effect with increased force. It was
determined that the Portuguese language should be required for teaching
all subjects; that rural schools—where the majority of the Japanese were
concentrated—be governed by Brazilian-born persons; that the minimum
age for children to be permitted to learn foreign languages be raised from
ten to fourteen; and finally, that all books intended for primary education
be written in Portuguese. Responsible for applying the restrictions passed
by the federal government, the Paulista authorities decided to strengthen
them even further. On January 29, the Superintendent for Political and
Social Security in São Paulo issued the order calling for “regulating the
activities of naturalized aliens from the Axis nations:”
In the face of Brazil’s severed diplomatic relations with Germany, Italy and
Japan, I publicly declare subjects of these countries residing in this state
prohibited from the following:

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70562-6_3
68 F. MORAIS
1. To disseminate anything written in the languages of their respective

nations;
2. To sing or play the national anthem of said nations;
3. To use the peculiar greetings from said nations;
4. To use the languages of said nations in groups or public places
(cafés, etc.);
5. To exhibit in accessible locations or to display in public portraits of
government figures of said nations;
6. To travel from one locality to another without a safe conduct pass
furnished by the Superintendent;
7. To gather even in private homes for the purposes of private
celebrations;
8. To discuss or trade ideas in public places about the international
situation;
9. To use arms even when the necessary license was previously obtained,
as well as to conduct business in arms, ammunition, explosive materials or
materials that can be used to make explosives;
10. To change residences without previous communication with the
Superintendent;
11. To utilize aircraft in their possession;
12. To travel by air without special license granted by the Superintendent.
Safe conduct passes will be furnished every business day from 9:00 to 11:00
a.m., from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m., and from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. On Sundays
from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Olinto de França Almeida e Sá, Army Major, Superintendent of Political

—
and Social Security
A salesman who knocked at the door of the police district in Penápolis

to learn the limits of the new prohibitions received a disconcerting reply
from the police chief:
“The Japanese can keep doing everything as usual. They can work, fish, play
soccer. They just can’t speak Japanese. And whoever doesn’t know how to
speak Portuguese can say nothing.”
And nothing it was. Several days later, a Buddhist priest was arrested in
Valparaíso for conducting a ceremony in the only language he spoke,
Japanese. By the end of February 1942, circulars from São Paulo arrived
daily in the police districts reiterating the prohibitions or announcing new
ones. To exercise more rigorous control over the activities of immigrants,
CHAPTER 2 69
a ministerial order from the Secretary of Public Security required 12,000

plus Japanese residents of São Paulo to appear before the police to renew
their registration. The nightmare seemed unending: on September 13, the
Japanese were required to hand over to the police all radios in their homes
and places of work. A week later, they were informed they could no longer
use their automobiles, trucks, motorcycles, and boats, which would be
under police guard.
At the start of the year, the Germans sank two more Brazilian ships, the
Arabutan and the Cairu, both torpedoed off the coast of the United
States. Getúlio responded in his foreign policy with a special measure by
authorizing Roosevelt to begin construction of bases in the Brazilian
Northeast. And domestically he tightened the noose even further on “Axis
subjects:” on March 11, 1942, the Diário Oficial published a decree that
would be responsible for asphyxiating nearly all activity by German, Italian,
and Japanese immigrants. Vargas decided that all losses arising from the
Axis powers’ aggressions against the Brazilian state would be covered by
bank deposits from immigrants residing in Brazil, whether “natural or
legal persons.”
To ensure the indemnification payments, the government decreed it
would confiscate between ten and thirty percent of all bank deposits
greater than two contos held by German, Japanese, and Italian subjects.
Two contos at that time was the cost for ten good cows, or about five hect-
ares of land. The seizure was carried out according to the following pro-
portions: immigrants with deposits and obligations up to 20 mil-réis
would have ten percent of their finances transferred to Banco do Brasil; up
to 100 mil-réis had twenty percent confiscated; and greater than 100 mil-
réis thirty percent. The government’s appetite was insatiable: the decree
determined that all natural and legal persons, whether foreign or Brazilian,
who made payments greater than two contos to Germans, Japanese, or
Italians had to require proof of compliance with official requirements from
these “subjects.” The only way to avoid the law was to hide the money in
boxes, cans, or bottles, and bury it in a hole in the ground. This was to
hide or “treasure” away, as Finance Minister Artur de Souza Costa called
it as he showed journalists a rotten mil-réis bill confiscated by the police
from a well in Getulina.
Several days after the measure was implemented, even more draconian
commercial restrictions were enacted: all financial transactions with busi-
nesses run by Japanese, Italians, and Germans had to receive previous
authorization from Banco do Brasil. To avoid trouble with the govern-
ment, most people preferred not to do any business at all with the foreign-
ers targeted by the decree. The tightening of the cordon sanitaire with
70 F. MORAIS
respect to the Japanese came weeks later when the government decided to
intervene in all companies controlled by “subjects of the Axis” by firing
the directors and installing in their place Brazilian counterparts.
It should not be surprising, then, that returning to their native land was
the dream of eighty-five percent of the Japanese residents in São Paulo at
the onset of the war, according to a study conducted by the government.
But they knew that for the duration of the war, returning to Japan was just
that, a dream. The confiscation of their assets, the prohibition to gather in
groups of more than three people, the shuttering of the Japanese newspa-
pers, the prohibition against travel, to bear arms, or even to speak, this all
seemed to be the “unendurable” that the emperor had asked his subjects
to withstand. At night, before going to sleep, the families prayed in silence
for the blessings of Fūdō, the Buddhist deity charged with combating
demons, and Kannon, the goddess of mercy.
None of the measures, however, wounded the Japanese soul as much as
the order to close their children’s schools. It wasn’t so much a question of
learning their letters, which could be done in another language. The prob-
lem was that without their Japanese schools the children would be pre-
vented from learning Yamato damashii—the doctrine of “Japanese spirit”
and “Japanese way of life.” It was in school that boys and girls acquired
the Japanese model of behavior—they learned how to be good and loyal
subjects of Emperor Hirohito. And this, their parents knew, was some-
thing that no Brazilian school or gaijin teacher would teach. Of all the
prohibitions imposed on the disciplined Japanese residents in Brazil, this
was the only one they were resolved to disobey. If they could not educate
their children in the open, they would do so in secret.
A bonafide game of cat and mouse began between the Japanese, the
police, and the horde of snitches, nearly always Brazilians. Although the
“block inspectors” had the authority closest to the Japanese, and were
therefore the most feared, the immigrants knew they could not trust any-
one. Determined not to admit defeat, they opened another secret school
for each that was closed. Classes were held at night in the back of houses
with books and notebooks that were hidden by the teacher when they
were finished. Children up to seven years old had to attend classes at night
when everyone was asleep and the chance of being discovered was lowest.
If anyone suspected there was a secret school in the neighborhood, the
police were the first to know. Disputes between neighbors, unpaid debts,
and even squabbles between children were reasons for the Japanese to be
anonymously reported to the authorities. In the majority of cases,
CHAPTER 2 71
however, the Brazilians openly denounced them, convinced they were

doing their patriotic duty. Odilon Martins Cruz, a teacher in the public
school system for thirty-three years, took pride in having been personally
responsible for the closure of over a hundred schools in the Alta Paulista
region. Although he was a resident of Pompéia, Cruz saw his fame as “the
closer of Japanese schools” spread throughout the region, which led to his
receiving denouncements from various municipalities.
The police raids to shut schools were always noisy and invariably dra-
matic affairs. On one of these occasions, Cruz learned of a secret school
on a site in Fazenda Jacutinga, in his own city. It was late at night, but he
dragged out of the house the police chief Antônio Dourado and four
armed soldiers to lead them to the scene of the crime. At ten o’clock that
night the scene unfolded as usual: Cruz banged on the front door of the
suspected house, while the police chief and soldiers, weapons drawn,
broke down the back door. The silence from the interior of the house
made the teacher wonder whether the denouncement had been false. No
one could keep children quiet in a classroom for so much time. When the
soldiers broke into a shed behind the house with rifles cocked, they found
the perpetrators in clear violation of the law: fifty-six children and adoles-
cents were squeezed into school desks and chairs, and sitting on tatami
mats on the floor. Despite the cries and protests of their students, the
three makeshift Japanese teachers were arrested on the spot. Along with
them, a fifteen-year-old boy, Antônio Kukoki, was taken into custody. His
testimony left the police buzzing when they heard him confess the teacher
taught them “you may have been born in Brazil, but you remain Japanese.”
The evidence confiscated from that building filled the trunks of two
“buckwheat” taxis as Ford cars from the 1930s were called in the region.
It was impossible to see the risks to national security posed by this “sub-
versive material” gathered hours later by a police clerk: a blackboard; fif-
teen children’s magazines of various sizes printed in Japanese; seven
notebooks that were already used; ten notebooks for Japanese calligraphy;
fourteen Japanese textbooks; four cloth handkerchiefs (furoshiki) for
wrapping the books; eighteen instructional books in Portuguese; various
children’s stationary cases made of wood, empty cans, and a kind of plastic
called galatite; a blackboard eraser; and a box of chalk. Absent at the time
of the raid, the owner of the property, Matsuhiro Kunii, was only taken
into custody at dawn, when he was found hiding in a relative’s house. The
night ended, according to the police chief, “with quiet and confidence
reestablished in the bosom of the Pompéia family.”
72 F. MORAIS
Episodes identical to the one in Pompéia occurred on a daily basis in

the region. Alceu Guerner Gonzalez, a professor in the city of Bastos,
sought the police to tell them he’d single-handedly shut a rural school in
whose courtyard, he claimed, Japanese children were being militarily
trained. Gonzalez told the police that at the house where the school was
located, he saw 200 boys training with wooden rifles. Although not a
single such gun was ever found, the story raced through the interior of the
state as if it were true. Little by little, the colony was converted into a
wake. Forbidden from speaking in public or gathering in groups, the
Japanese scalded by episodes like the “flag party” at Koketsu’s house, even
had to curtail social activities and sporting events that previously had
united the families on the weekends. They could no longer hold the undo-
kai, an Eastern gymkhana, or take part in kendo matches, the art of
Japanese fencing. All that remained was hanafuda, a popular card game
played silently in pairs, without the need to open their mouths.
The interminable trials suffered by the Japanese in the interior of the
state were no less harsh for those in the capital city. Approximately 20,000
immigrants lived there, the majority concentrated in the central neighbor-
hood of Liberdade. This “Japantown” was located near Bela Vista, or
“Bexiga,” where the Italians, those other “subjects of the Axis,” lived. The
Japanese who lived in the capital represented roughly ten percent of the
colony and were nearly all ex-coffee workers. Although the immigrants
had come to work in the fields, the inhospitable way of life in the country-
side led them to head for São Paulo, where they basically divided into two
groups. Many preferred to continue with farming and spread out across
the cities surrounding the capital, where they started to grow what years
later come to be known as the “green belt”—a gigantic ring of small farms
that produced vegetables, leafy greens, and fruits consumed by the city
residents. The remainder became peddlers, dry cleaners, photographers,
and small business owners. In addition to being subject to the same restric-
tions imposed on their countrymen in the interior, the Japanese in the
capital who were tenants suffered another punishment: evictions by
the police.
The first evictions took place several days after Brazil broke off relations
with Japan. In the middle of the night, the residents of Rua dos Estudantes
and Rua Conde de Sarzedas were awoken by the sound of the Public
Forces trucks that arrived together with cars from DOPS. A commander
distributed to the soldiers and investigators mimeographed copies of the
order that would be directly handed out to the residents at that
CHAPTER 2 73
moment—a ministerial order that determined, for “reasons of national

security,” all subjects of the Axis powers in these two streets must evacuate
the buildings within twelve hours. In response to the question echoed
from every doorway, “But move to where?” the police answered in the
same way:
“That’s not our problem.”
The most the police felt obligated to do was transfer furniture for those
moving to other neighborhoods in the city using the trucks already parked
in the streets of Liberdade. Anyone moving to the interior of the state was
required to pay their moving expenses out of pocket.
By afternoon the next day, roughly 400 families had been put out of
their homes. Hundreds of men and women, not to mention children and
the elderly, many of them employed by or owners of small businesses only
a short distance from their homes, ended the night camped out in the
homes of friends and relatives, or in the modest pensions in the heart of
the Japantown. Over the course of 1942, these forced relocations would
be repeated three more times. When the “evacuation” wasn’t taking place
on Rua Conde de Sarzedas or Rua dos Estudantes, it might happen on
Rua do Carmo or Rua Conde do Pinhal. When reporters inquired about
the fate of the Japanese, the police always responded they’d received
denouncements of some kind of sabotage being planned in the targeted
area, and temporary evictions were the only solution. The presence of
armed troops became a regular part of life in the Japantown. At least once
a week Public Security trucks would be parked at the door of one of the
bookstores in the neighborhood. The soldiers would climb down, seize
boxes of books and magazines printed in Japanese—the contents didn’t
matter since the policemen couldn’t read a word of it, anyway—and throw
this “subversive material” into the body of the vehicle and leave. One day,
Endō Bookstore on Rua Conde de Sarzedas would be the victim of con-
fiscations. Days later, new police blitzes would occur at the Orient
Bookstore, the Toyoyoshi or the Nambei. The Japanese seemed deter-
mined not to respect the law prohibiting the circulation of foreign publi-
cations. The Cristal Hotel, whose bar was the gathering spot for Japanese
immigrants to have a gulp of sake at the end of the day, meanwhile, was
starving for customers. Convinced the laws and restrictions against “sub-
jects of the Axis” were being exclusively applied to them, the Japanese saw
the prejudice of the Brazilians everywhere they went. When Brazil severed
74 F. MORAIS
relations with the three Axis countries, for example, they found it strange
that the Diário da Noite and Meridional News Agency promoted the reg-
ular exchange of letters between Italian immigrants and their families in
Europe, but it never occurred to the journalists to do the same for Japanese
families.
The anguished atmosphere in which the colony was bathed can be
gleaned from a letter from this time sent by the Bastos Agricultural
Cooperative (Bratac) in São Paulo:
Aware that they live in an enemy country, but believing in final victory, all of
the colonists are patient and prudent, and obey Brazilian law. They maintain
a peaceful attitude, trying only to increase production, […] However, being
Japanese, they can no longer travel at will, write letters in Japanese, gather
freely or listen to the radio. To make matters worse, ill-mannered Brazilians
are mistreating the colonists simply for being Japanese, and they have to be on
guard just to read a book in Japanese. The general situation in the colony is
truly lamentable. […] It is natural that eighty percent of them want to live
under the Hinomaru [Japanese flag] and we observe the majority plan to re-
immigrate to the South Seas Islands where the Japanese government should hold
power after the war.
The suffering was self-justifying. For reasons the Japanese immigrants

couldn’t understand, it became a mania in São Paulo to blame them for all
the privations the war inflicted on Brazilians. When food rationing began,
for example, the newspapers tossed blame at the Japanese. “The Japanese
colony leases land, robs all its fertility and then abandons it, then sets
about repeating the feat again wherever possible,” ranted an editorial in
the Diário da Noite. “These vampires of the soil are, in part, responsible
for the scarcity of essential goods.” All that was left was to blame them for
torpedoing Brazilian ships. But it would not be long before this, too,
occurred.
Throughout the year 1942, German submarines sank more than six-
teen Brazilian ships, provoking the death of dozens of people and causing
tremendous material harm to the nation’s merchant marines. The anti-
foreigner sentiment grew in the same proportion among the Brazilians,
which could be seen even in the little notices buried in the crime pages of
the newspapers. “Gave his son the name Rommel. Has been arrested and
will be prosecuted,” announced one of them, referring to a Germanophile
who paid homage to Field Marshal Erwin von Rommel, one of the most
CHAPTER 2 75
decorated commanders in the German Army. The purge did not spare
even the innocent São Paulo Conservatory of Drama and Music, which
the police claimed had been transformed into “a branch office of the fas-
cist Mussolini.” According to the newspapers, a police inquest into the
conservatory discovered it had turned into “a veritable stronghold of the
fifth column.” The inquiry mounted by DOPS found the conductor
Francesco Casabona, an Italian immigrant, was accused of “disrespecting
national laws, misusing public funds, and persecuting Brazilian students
and teachers, to put Italians and their Italic sons in their place.”
On three successive days in August, another six Brazilian ships were
sent to the bottom of the sea by German submarines. Students at the
University of São Paulo Law School organized a demonstration to “make
a show of force against the fifth column.” More than 200,000 people (fif-
teen percent of the population in the Paulista capital) crowded into the
Praça da Sé, situated in the heart of the Japanese neighborhood. This mass
gathering frightened the residents in the area, as years later the immigrant
artist Tomoo Handa recalled:
The streetcars came back from Praça João Mendes. In the evening you could
hear the music from a band coming from the Praça da Sé, where the crowds
were milling. As someone from an Axis country, I headed for home and limited
myself to imagining the heated demonstration listening to the radio of my
Brazilian neighbor. It sounded like the demonstration was full of dignified and
eloquent speeches followed by great applause and closed with the national anthem.
Although invited, Getúlio preferred to send a personal message to be read

at the demonstration. The open wounds from the Revolution of 1932,
when the Paulistas took up arms against the federal government while
demanding elections still had not healed sufficiently for him to face a mass
gathering such as this in São Paulo. In the note addressed to the students,
the president promised if the attacks against Brazilian ships continued they
would “intern,” that is, compulsorily transfer to the interior of the coun-
try, all fifth column residents on the coastline. The immigrants greeted the
threat with apprehension, as they understood loud and clear what Vargas
meant: the fifth column was them.
As history would later confirm, however, the only colony of “subjects
of the Axis” that in fact justified the rigorous vigilance of the police was
the German one. Contrary to the suspicions of the Paulista authorities,
information about the positions of Brazilian ships was not transmitted to
76 F. MORAIS
the German submarines by Japanese immigrants, but a monumental espi-

onage network set up by the German Reich in Brazil. In spite of Filinto
Müller’s unwillingness to investigate, an officer with DOPS in São Paulo,
Elpídio Reali, wound up counting on the support of Osvaldo Aranha to
disband the largest organization of Nazi spies in the Southern Hemisphere.
Powerful radio stations installed by Germany in Rio and São Paulo, with
the firm approval of German businessmen residing in Brazil, were respon-
sible for sending messages to the German submarines. Fearful of reprisals,
the German immigrants who founded an elegant recreational club for the
colony, the Germânia, at the end of the nineteenth century hurriedly
decided to rename it Pinheiros Sports Club after the neighborhood in São
Paulo where its headquarters was built.
In August, Getúlio declared war on the Axis, a decision accompanied
by further restrictive measures against immigrants from the three coun-
tries. The first of these authorized employers to rescind, without payment
of any rights, labor contracts with “subjects of the nations with whom
Brazil has severed diplomatic relations or finds itself in a belligerent state.”
The second, an order from the Ministry of Justice, prohibited sale of
radios without permission from the police. The final blow came with the
president’s decision to decree the extrajudicial sale of all businesses, indus-
tries, and banks controlled by “subjects of the Axis.” Only small businesses
escaped this measure. Large Japanese corporations such as Bratac, Tōzan,
and the Bank of South America, or German ones such as Schering
Laboratories and the Transatlantic German Bank, were seized in a matter
of days. At the end of 1942, Getúlio Vargas surprised even his own minis-
ters by announcing the formation of an expeditionary force composed of
Brazilian soldiers to fight against the Axis in Europe. The president’s proj-
ect foresaw sending three divisions totaling 100,000 men.
At the beginning of 1943, Vargas made a public demonstration of con-
solidating good relations with the United States, reuniting with President
Roosevelt in Natal to inspect the American bases installed there. The
enemy did not delay its response, and retaliation once more was carried
out against the Brazilian merchant fleet. In the first months of the year,
German submarines sank another six ships in Brazilian waters, taking the
lives of 147 people. Since the German transmissions had already been
silenced by the police, next in line to be suspected by the authorities were
the Japanese who lived on the coast. At the start of July the Pelotas Loíde,
which was borrowed from the American government, made its way
between Port of Spain in Trinidad, in the Caribbean, and Recife. When it
CHAPTER 2 77
approached the Brazilian coast north of Belém do Pará, it was sunk by a

German submarine in an attack that left five Brazilian crewmen dead
(Figs. 2.1–2.2). In response to this aggression, on July 9, Getúlio
announced the decision to make good on the promise he had made the
previous year to the law students: orders were given to the federal auditor
in São Paulo, Fernando Costa, to “intern” by a distance of at least sixty
miles “the subjects of the Axis” from the coastline. The next morning, the
city of Santos awoke beleaguered by troops from the Army and Public
Forces, who carried out the “evacuation” of roughly 10,000 immigrant
residents of Baixada Santista to the interior of the state, of whom nearly
9000 were Japanese and the rest German and Italian. In the railroad sta-
tion in the city stood endless lines of train cars that had been ordered by
the Army and were waiting to climb the mountains heading toward São
Paulo. No one had time to settle accounts, dispose of property, or say
Fig. 2.1 Santos’ newspapers report on the wartime operations of the police to
remove thousands of Japanese from the coast in twenty-four hours
78 F. MORAIS
Fig. 2.2 German submarines sink another five Brazilian merchant ships. The
primary suspicions unjustly fall on the Japanese residents along the coast
goodbye to friends. Coffee workers, who arrived from farms on the out-
skirts of Santos, desolately witnessed their families and all their belongings
loaded onto trucks. The sick were transported on improvised stretchers
and laid down on the floors of the train cars. To prevent anyone from
escaping from their clutches, one of the officials running the operation
alerted all hoteliers, pension owners, and owners of houses to rent on the
coast that it was “expressly prohibited to give lodgings to any citizen of
German or Japanese nationality” (the Italians were inexplicably excluded
from this prohibition). In various parts of the city, according to the news-
paper A Tribuna, impromptu flea markets formed in the middle of the
streets where the Japanese made the best of the situation and tried to sell
whatever they could:
Taken by surprise by the latest measure from Social and Political Order, numer-
ous Japanese tried to dispose of their belongings. In Marapé, Ponta da Praia,
and Santa Maria, there was a veritable race to sell pigs, fowl, mules, etc. The
Japanese—nearly all farm owners—were forced to sell nearly everything they
had. They accepted any price, having no time to haggle. In order to liquidate
his farm in Santa Maria, one is known to have sold three pigs, a wagon and a
mule for a thousand cruzeiros. And chickens? They were sold for two or three
cruzeiros a head.
CHAPTER 2 79
Faced with the despair of thousands of people, who saw a lifetime of work
evaporate before their very eyes, the police chief in the city distributed a
curious notice. In it, the police asked the population of Santos to maintain
“vigilance over the properties, goods, livestock, and crops left by their
owners, and with no one to watch over them.” Concerned, however, that
someone might profit from the misfortune of the Japanese, he requested
that the police be informed of “any fact that would belie the nobility and
civilization that have always been an appanage of this land of Santos.” Less
than forty-eight hours after Getúlio’s announcement, the Santos press cel-
ebrated the speed with which the coast had been “swept clean of all harm-
ful elements to Brazil,” and reassured their readers that there was no
longer “a single subject of Japan or Germany in our city.”
Upon arrival in the Brás station in São Paulo, the passengers were
loaded into trucks and dropped off at the Immigrant Inn, provisionally
transformed into a prison and triage center for the “evacuees.” The
Japanese who years earlier had entered the doors of the old building on
Rua Visconde de Parnaíba, eyes bright with hope, now returned humili-
ated, treated like animals or mere objects, and buffeted from all directions.
The “internment” and “evacuation” of Axis subjects did not take place
on the Paulista seaside alone. In Santa Catarina, the Army had already
removed dozen of German “cysts” from the coast to the mountains. In
the North and Northeast, controllers repeated, to a lesser degree, the
operation carried out in Santos. In Bahia, General Pinto Aleixo ordered
the transfer of some 300 “Axists” from the coast to the cities of Andaraí,
Lençóis, Mocupé, and Seabra in the state’s interior. Among the “intern-
ees” were the German friars from the Cajuru Convent, who were sus-
pected of espionage. In the state of Pará, in whose waters various Brazilian
ships had been sent to the bottom by German submarines, the dreaded
Colonel Magalhães Barata isolated in Acará, in the middle of the jungle,
all of the Japanese, Italians, and Germans found in the northern region. In
1929, forty-three Japanese immigrant families had moved to this city, ded-
icating themselves to cultivating black pepper. Half a century later and
now known by the name Tomé-Açu, Acará has transformed into a world-
class model of agricultural productivity, thanks to the Japanese colony that
took root there after its forcible relocation.
In time, the sacrifices imposed on the immigrants would prove to have
been in vain. The internments did nothing to diminish the aggression of
the German subs. Three weeks after the operations were finished, word
came that the ship Bagé was torpedoed and sank off the coast of Sergipe,
80 F. MORAIS
leading to the death of the captain, nineteen crewmen, and eight passen-
gers. Despite already having caused hundreds of deaths, the Germans
would continue to drench the Brazilian coast in blood for some time to
come. In total, between November 1939 and July 1945, they sank 32
merchant ships and three Brazilian warships, taking 1439 lives consisting
of crewmen, passengers, and military men—three times more than the
casualties suffered by the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (BEF) in Italy.
The brazenness of the attacks led the Third Meeting of Consultation of
Foreign Ministers of the American Republics, which met in Rio de Janeiro
in January 1942, to approve a resolution authorizing the member coun-
tries to expel Axis citizens from their territory or confine them in concen-
tration camps. The measure went into effect immediately by the
governments of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica, and
Panama, who arrested and deported some 1300 Japanese to the United
States. The practice was also adopted by the United States the following
month. Issued with the approval of Congress, the controversial Executive
Order 9066 created on the West Coast of the country so-called evacuation
zones, as the concentration camps distributed across California, Idaho,
Wyoming, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and Arkansas were called.
Profoundly tied to their homeland, to which they planned to return
before long, the Japanese colony in Brazil apprehensively followed the
unfolding of the war. The immigrants resented what they considered a
lack of patriotism by Japanese diplomats, who left the country immedi-
ately after relations were broken off with Brazil, abandoning more than
200,000 persons to their own fate. In the months to come, the only
sources of communication about the progress of the war came from the
rare countrymen who decided to defy the prohibition and keep portable
shortwave radios hidden in their homes. Tuned into Radio Tokyo they
could stay abreast of news of the war. In this way, the colony received, and
silently celebrated, propaganda such as how 120 kamikaze pilots had
thrown their fighter planes against Allied targets in the islands of the
Caribbean around Puerto Rico. Or how London was under heavy bom-
bardment by the German V-2 rockets. Those without radios saved special
treatment for the peddlers and travelers who always delivered fresh news.
When they spoke of Allied victories, however, the reaction from the
Japanese was always the same: “That’s American propaganda.” Still, if pro-
paganda was an effective weapon on the battlefield, in the interior of São
Paulo, both sides went so far as to take confidence in popular belief and
supernatural stories to drive the enemy into a corner. When Brazil declared
CHAPTER 2 81
the first escalation of the BEF in the war for Europe, the superstitious
among the Japanese commented among themselves, “They will all die, the
baby-monster foretold it.” The story invented by the colony, originated in
Marília, a city where a baby was said to have been born with a human head
and the body of an animal. Minutes before it died, the baby made a proph-
ecy: “The war will end this year, and the Axis nations will be victorious.
After the war, an epidemic will overwhelm Brazil.” In counterpoint to the
baby prophet, a newspaper wrote of a comet in the skies in Mato Grosso,
whose tail traced the “V” for victory, an “indisputable signal” that the
Allies would be defeated in the war.
At the beginning of 1944, Geraldo Cardoso de Mello, the chief of
DOPS’ secret service, learned that a police chief in the Marília area had
apprehended Shobei Yassuda, who was accused of threatening the lives of
Japanese farmers who were planting mint and cultivating silkworms
(Fig. 2.3). With his enormous white beard, which gave him the look of a
peaceful monk, Yassuda promised to murder whoever produced the raw
materials, which he claimed “were being used by the Allies in the war
effort.” The silkworms raised in Brazil, it was said, were being exported to
Fig. 2.3 The kachigumi Shōbei Yassuda threatened to kill anyone who planted
mint or cultivated silkworms, raw materials that might aid the Allies in the war
against Japan
82 F. MORAIS
manufacture parachutes for Allied soldiers. To dissuade the mint farmers,

an enigmatic leaflet circulated in the colony entitled Hakka kokuzokuron,
or “A theory of cultivating mint as treason against the nation,” which was
attributed first to a “German chemist,” then to a certain “Dr. Sentarō
Takaoka.” One of the copies fell into the hands of the police and pro-
claimed the following:
The Use of Menthol in Wartime:

1. To augment explosions and flame propagation: a) Added to nitroglycer-
ine, it augments three hundred times the power of explosives; b) Added to
explosive canisters, it augments flame propagation multiple times (or else,
its radius)
2. Added to poison (or toxic) gas, it augments its penetration, rendering the
gas masks currently in operation useless. Since poison gas is heavier than air,
it concentrates in low-lying areas. If the gas doesn’t spread out, it won’t
work properly, but with the addition of menthol, it acquires a greater degree
of diffusion.
3. Menthol is indispensable for cooling high rotation motors.
According to the police, the leaflet was distributed throughout the state
by a clandestine organization called the Sokoku Aikoku Sekiseidan, whose
objective was to destroy mint farming and the silk thread industry in the
Alta Paulista highlands, and to combat “with all available weapons” the
production of articles that facilitated the continuation of the war against
Japan by its enemies. To demonstrate they weren’t joking, the group had
already burned mint plantations and silkworm incubators. It was another
manifesto that circulated in the colony, however, also mimeographed in
Japanese that put the police on guard. In it, the author lamented not
being on the battlefield with his countrymen:
[…] The fact that we, 300,000 compatriots, cannot take part in this divine
trial—the rarest of opportunities—is a cause among us for great shame, which
profoundly wounds our spirits. If even a single unworthy individual falls
within the above description, how can we, the Japanese settled in Brazil, face
our homeland?
The pamphlet ended with a threat: whoever the author was, he prom-
ised to “carry out a complete cleansing operation in the colony, wiping
out all the impurities amongst our brethren residing in Brazil.” The police
spent the next few months scouring the cities of the interior for the move-
ment’s leader. In the meantime, things took a turn for the worse as vio-
lence broke out from the “nationalists” attacking the “traitors,” who
CHAPTER 2 83
insisted on continuing to produce spearmint, peppermint, and silk. Entire

crops would be destroyed by night. Sheds for incubating silkworms were
burned to the ground. Wrapped in a delicate cocoon of natural silk fiber,
millions and millions of larvae and eggs disappeared within seconds
beneath the flames. The zeal with which the fanatics acted was such that
in Mirandópolis, one Japanese couple provoked the derailment of a ship-
ment along the Noroeste Railroad that was transporting bales of silk to
São Paulo.
The Secretary of Agriculture alerted DOPS to a problem their experts
began to recognize: the skirmish between the Japanese threatened to
become an economic problem. Thanks to the war, the price per kilo of
cocoons on the international market had gone through the roof, rising
from five to fifty contos de reís in only a few years. For the police to have
some idea how much money would be lost if this boycott were successful,
the document simply cited the example of Bastos, one of the main centers
for silkworm production in the state. The city, which before the start of
the war produced close to forty tons of cocoons per year, should have
produced more than six hundred tons in the current year. This, to be sure,
could only occur if the police succeeded in apprehending the lunatics who
promised to carry out that “cleanup operation” in the colony.
Notwithstanding the cost of dozens of prisons—and plenty of tor-
ture—it was only in September 1944 that DOPS succeeded in unraveling
the ball of thread. During investigations into the author of the pamphlet,
the police heard in various places of someone whom the Japanese referred
to as “the admirable Colonel Kikawa.” The adjective shifted from city to
city. In one place it was “the implacable,” in another “the just,” “the
wise,” or even, “the sincere Colonel Kikawa.” His fame preceding him,
the man who opened the door to his house one Thursday night, surprised
DOPS officer Eduardo Saad, who came to arrest him. Instead of the
Genghis Khan he’d imagined meeting, he found instead a five-foot-tall
sexagenarian of fragile appearance, who never in a million years could be
seen as “the implacable Colonel Kikawa,” about whom the people from
the countryside spoke with their eyes shining.
Junji Kikawa was born sixty-seven years earlier in the city of Niigata. As
the oldest child of a poor family, he sought in the Japanese Imperial Army
an escape from the brutal unemployment his country faced in the early
twentieth century. He acquitted himself brilliantly in his thirteen years at
the military academy, leaving there a cavalry officer. Energetic, methodi-
cal, and a follower of rigid Japanese traditions, Kikawa found in the Army
84 F. MORAIS
two kindred spirits: Colonel Jinsaku Wakiyama and Captain Kiyo Yamauchi,
an ex-combatant of the Russo-Japanese War from the turn of the century,
who became his best friends. When he turned forty-five years old, in the
middle of the 1920s, Kikawa discovered he was the victim of a powerful
myopia that forced him to use glasses. An ardent believer in the theory
that a component of the Imperial Army could not have any physical
defects, he decided to step down into the military reserve as a lieutenant
colonel (Figs. 2.4–2.6).
The father of seven children and sole provider for his widowed mother,
Junji Kikawa despaired of the economic crisis his country experienced, and
above all, what he considered its gravest consequence: the impossibility of
offering a quality education to his children. For ten years, he did every-
thing he could to sustain his family. He was a baker, a kendo instructor, a
dry cleaner, and professional narrator in theatrical pieces and Noh plays,
the traditional form of Japanese theater where men play all the roles,
including those of women. In 1933, at the age of fifty-five, and tired of
breaking his back, he resolved to follow the example of the thousands of
his countrymen in similar situations and emigrate to Brazil. Along with
him, that year more than 25,000 Japanese were bound for the port of
Santos, forming the largest contingent in the entire Japanese migration to
Brazil, which at the time already consisted of a community 130,000
strong. Kikawa took with him a veritable army staff: in addition to inviting
his friends Yamauchi, sixty-six years old, and Wakiyama, sixty-two years
old to accompany him on the adventure, he also seduced with the Brazilian
dream the lieutenants Seiichi Satō and Azuma Samejima, sergeant Nisuke
Shigueto, and the private Takeichi Maeda, who had been stationed in
Oregon, before returning to Japan. The leadership the diminutive Kikawa
exercised among his countrymen during the voyage led the ship’s captain
to call him one of the three “bosses” on board.
Upon arrival in Brazil, the group dispersed. Captain Kiyo Yamauchi
decided to remain in the capital of São Paulo. Colonel Wakiyama wound
up choosing to live in Bastos. Kikawa dragged his mother, wife, and seven
children to the backwoods of the state and settled in Rancharia, more than
300 miles from the capital, where he established himself as a cotton planter
on land owned by a cooperative farm. Despite the distance, he maintained
practically the same daily routine as he had in Japan: he rose early, ritually
donned a colorful silk kimono, covered his head with a cap, and paid his
time-consuming reverences in the direction of the rising sun. The first
greeting of the day was reserved for the emperor. Next, he recited a short
CHAPTER 2 85
Figs. 2.4–2.6 Junji Kikawa (at top left), in the uniform of a colonel in the
Japanese Imperial Army, and two members of the “general staff” he brought with
him from Japan: Colonel Wakiyama (at top right) and lieutenant Azuma Samejima
(at bottom)
86 F. MORAIS
Shinto prayer to the goddess Amaterasu Ōmikami, and prayed for a few
minutes with palms clasped together. Only when this was done would he
speak the first words of the day to his family. Despite being a taciturn man
who rarely smiled, Kikawa became a popular figure in the colony’s festivals
for his recitals of Noh. His countrymen referred to him solemnly and rev-
erently. “He has the dignity of a great leader,” said one. “He’s not two-
faced,” said another. His admirers found it important to remember that
even when he lost his patience with someone “he was the admirable
Colonel Kikawa.” His prestige led to his being elected the first president
of the Japanese Associations of Rancharia, but even this wasn’t sufficient
to keep him in the town. After seven years with no grand success at farm-
ing, he decided to move to the capital (Figs. 2.7–2.8).
In São Paulo, Kikawa set himself up with his family in a modest rented
loft at the end of Rua Vergueiro, near to Japantown. On the ground floor,
where previously had been a mechanic’s garage, he started a dry cleaners.
Despite his eternally mopish air and interminable silences, the old man was
still “the admirable Colonel Kikawa.” One year after his arrival in the capi-
tal, anonymous among the thousands of other Japanese, he was elected
president of the Japanese Dry Cleaners’ League in São Paulo. When held
by DOPS, Kikawa did not deny any of their accusations. He took respon-
sibility not only for the pamphlets threatening whoever planted pepper-
mint and produced silk, but also various documents mimeographed in
Japanese that were periodically distributed in cities of the interior and the
Figs. 2.7–2.8 Colonel Kikawa dressed in traditional Japanese costume (at left)
and when he was arrested for a second time (at right). In the space of two years,
he changed his profession and “grew” 5.5 inches taller
CHAPTER 2 87
Japanese inns in the capital, titled Kikawa’s Ideas. In these reflections

replete with metaphors and symbolism, the colonel defended the blind
obedience of the colony to Emperor Hirohito, and faithful adherence to
Yamato damashii, the “Japanese spirit,” the code of ideal conduct adopted
as doctrine by the ultranationalist Japanese military. Poking around in the
DOPS records, Saad discovered that this wasn’t Kikawa’s first run-in with
the police. In April 1942, two and half years earlier, he was arrested for
“threatening reprisals against Brazil”—but the file didn’t specify exactly
what the offense had been. Although he was criminally identified, he was
set free a few days later.
The officer amused himself, comparing the two files on Kikawa. In the
one from 1942 he referred to himself as a “dry cleaner,” whereas in the
current one, when asked his profession, he responded “lieutenant colonel
in the Imperial Army.” He always spoke through an interpreter, of course,
as he never made any effort to learn Portuguese. Another change that
occurred between the two files regarded Kikawa’s stature. If while impris-
oned he conceded to being five feet tall, when asked again he responded
without hesitation, five feet five inches tall. Sensing that this time, however,
things would go differently, the colonel did not resist arrest, but before
being taken into custody by DOPS, he demanded his right to compose, in
Japanese, a “letter of protest” against what he considered its arbitrariness.
If the Brazilian authorities force the present judgment to take effect, it will be
evident as a stratagem to condemn innocent Japanese. We, the accused, accept
whatever punishment no matter how severe, but the Japanese in Brazil will not
allow such illegal acts to come to pass. Once diplomatic relations are reestab-
lished, Japan will protest on our behalf. Based on the circumstances, it is possible
that we will come to the point where diplomatic relations are severed again, or
that we go to war.
Formally accused of sabotage, Junji Kikawa saw his case spend fourteen
months in line at the National Security Court, during which period he
remained imprisoned in São Paulo, only regaining his liberty in November
1945. Despite being in jail, the “admirable colonel Kikawa” succeeded in
consolidating his leadership over the nationalist currents in the colony.
From the cell where he was confined, in the Detention House, he contin-
ued to compose in fits and spurts, successive editions of Kikawa’s Ideas,
which at times resembled something more like Kikawa’s Way of Thinking.
The focus of his preaching was simple: disorder had reigned in the Japanese
community in Brazil ever since it was “reduced to the cruelest
88 F. MORAIS
abandonment,” when relations were broken off between the two coun-
tries. This near-sighted and balding old man would not seem to inspire
fear in anyone. Least of all the wardens in the Detention House, who in
exchange for modest bribes, let Kikawa write openly, and looked the other
way when some visitor left his cell with another copy of Kikawa’s Ideas.
Mimeographed, the pamphlet was distributed clandestinely in the colony.
The first of them circulated mere days after his imprisonment:
The disorderly situation amongst the Japanese arose in such an indecorous fash-
ion that one hardly knows where to look. The number of Japanese who do not
care about an unfavorable result to our nation has greatly risen, and our coun-
trymen in Brazil only think of their own enrichment. I have heard it said there
are Japanese who impetuously say, “It doesn’t matter if Japan loses the war,” or
who would “dare to raise revolt against the emperor,” and in the face of this, I
feel an enormous bewilderment about the future of the Japanese in Brazil. It
can be said that overnight more than ten years’ worth of experience by the
Japanese in Brazil was lost. The ambassador and consuls, who should have been
the top leaders of the Japanese in Brazil, had the obligation to show, when rela-
tions were broken off between the two countries, concrete attitudes of conduct to
our countrymen, to provide some adequate orientation to overcome the oppres-
sion. […] However, when they received the order to repatriate, they took full
advantage of the opportunity, returning without delay to Japan, by practically
fleeing the country. At a time when all Japanese soldiers take up arms on the
battle front and our 100 million compatriots on the home front attempt to
overcome national difficulties, each with the spirit of the tokkōtai, what must
they who fled think of their compatriots in Brazil? If they were true gentlemen,
upon receiving the repatriation order, they should have resigned their posts and
remained with their 300,000 compatriots in Brazil, simply as immigrants and
remained with them for life or death. And if they were unable to do so, they
should have taken their own lives without hesitation.
For a large segment of the colony, words such as these inflamed hopes
that the war seemed to have buried forever. Finally, someone had spoken
out about nationalism, respect for the Imperial Family, Yamato damashii,
and, above all, the possibility of realizing the dream for the majority of
them to return to Japan. Prison did not appear to inhibit Kikawa’s activity.
During his time in prison, the colonel transformed visiting hours into
work meetings with his staff. The most frequent presence was his old trav-
eling companion, Captain Kiyo Yamauchi. The third member of the group
from the ship, Colonel Jinsaku Wakiyama, due to his advanced age and the
fact he lived almost fifteen hours’ distance from the capital, did not once
appear at the Detention House. In addition to his wife, Fumi, and
CHAPTER 2 89
Fig. 2.9 Seiichi Tomari, one of Shindō Renmei’s ideologues: he spent many
nights in tears and unable to sleep when he learned of Japan’s surrender
Yamauchi, Kikawa was often visited by two other men: the engineer
Ryōtarō Negoro, sixty-four years old, and Seiichi Tomari, a taciturn
Japanese, forty years of age, who sometimes introduced himself as a chem-
ist, other times as a greengrocer (Fig. 2.9).
On August 15, upon receiving word of the surrender, the desolate
Tomari recorded in his diary—a common habit among the Japanese:
“Today should have been a day of great celebration. However, I heard of
Japan’s unconditional surrender, deceived by the fake news coming from
the United States. It is a day of shame for us. I spent the night crying,
unable to sleep. I wait until tomorrow when I can see old Kikawa.” The
meeting seemed to reinvigorate him, judging from what he jotted down
the next day: “His words gave me great peace of mind. In short, his con-
clusion is that it was a great victory for Japan. I could not refrain from
shedding tears of joy. Only joy… nothing else occurred to me.”
After two months, the lawyers contracted by Tomari freed Kikawa from
jail. The colonel himself revealed later in one of his writings his surprise at
receiving his liberty. He was a foreigner, subject of a country hostile to
Brazil, jailed for sabotage, and sent to the Security Court celebrated for
90 F. MORAIS
the severity with which it defended what the judges considered the inter-
ests of the Brazilian State. And yet, he was granted his liberty due to a legal
formality. One of the judges on the court considered his detention “ille-
gal” since, as occurred with dozens of others, it was not carried out with a
legal warrant. It is possible the court of the dictatorship also took into
account, in making their decision, the state of Kikawa’s health. He suf-
fered vascular problems that at times left him unable to walk.
On the day he was set free, November 17, 1945, it was already two
months since the war had ended. Japan had been razed to the ground by
Allied bombings. Following the example of the Minister of War, General
Korechika Anami, various officers took their own lives by “hara-kiri” or
seppuku—a ritual form of suicide by which the Japanese sought to recover
the honor lost in life. The Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers
seemed intent on imposing a humiliating defeat on the Japanese. The
same rigor by which he decided, pure and simple, to dissolve the invincible
Imperial Army now descended into minutiae considered outrageous by
the defeated. On September 27, for instance, Hirohito met General
MacArthur at the American embassy for the first time since the surrender.
Led by a vehicle that transported the emperor—a wine-colored Mercedes
Benz limousine that had been given to him by Adolf Hitler in 1933—the
entourage went a few hundred yards down the streets of Tokyo before
coming to an unexpected stop. Hirohito inquired what the problem was
and heard an aide-de-camp respond disconcertedly,
“The signal is red, Your Majesty. Now we, too, must stop. Orders from
Supreme Command.”
Hirohito knew that the Americans were extracting a high price for
allowing him to remain on the throne. Three weeks earlier the Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Mamoru Shigemitsu, decorated with the imperial Order
of the Rising Sun, arrived at the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, provided
with a letter from the emperor authorizing him to sign the Instrument of
Surrender delivered by MacArthur. A septuagenarian with an artificial leg
(a bomb had torn off his leg fifteen years earlier), Shigemitsu made his way
with no assistance up the ninety steps of the stairway that connected to the
ship’s deck, which required a nearly superhuman effort. Upon arriving at
the top, he requested a cup of water from Admiral William Haley, only to
hear the American officer issue a sonorous “No.”
The emperor, then, had plenty of good reasons to fear meeting the
American general. Despite being told Hirohito had dressed for their
CHAPTER 2 91
meeting in formal attire, and was wearing a coat with tails and top hat,
MacArthur did not seem to want to leave any doubts about who was giv-
ing the orders in the country. He received Hirohito dressed in his com-
manding officer’s khakis, in his shirtsleeves, without tie or cap. At the
moment of the official photograph standing alongside His Majesty, the
American general did not hesitate to place his hands on his hips (Fig. 2.10).
The Japanese tried to prevent the publication of the humiliating image,
Fig. 2.10 The first encounter of Emperor Hirohito with General Douglas
MacArthur, who wore khakis and posed with his hands in his pockets to show who
was giving the orders
92 F. MORAIS
but MacArthur overruled them, and so it became the photograph distrib-

uted by the press. The empire pompously baptized “The Greater East
Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere,” with which Hirohito had dreamed of trans-
forming Japan, had turned to dust.
The entire world appeared to know this—except for “the admirable
colonel Kikawa.” As he signed the release papers in the office of the
Detention House, one of the police interpreters approached him and asked,
“Say, colonel, are you sad about Japan’s defeat?”
Kikawa answered without bravado, as if he were saying the most natural

thing in the world, “Japan was not defeated. Japan won the war.”
The interpreter insisted, “But colonel, everyone has heard Hirohito on
the radio reading the Imperial Rescript of unconditional surrender.”
The old man put an end to the exchange thusly: “The Imperial Rescript
does not contain either of these two words. Neither unconditional nor
surrender. Japan won the war.”
The circle of policemen gathered around him exploded with laughter.
Chapter 3: A Little Old Man Terrorizes
The Japanese Colony: It Is None Other Than
The Wise Colonel Kikawa
Colonel Junji Kikawa must have been crazy, or so imagined the police who
heard him leaving the prison. But at least in the case of the Imperial
Rescript, he had a point. Even though his conviction could be attributed
to ambiguities in the Japanese language, which could allow for more than
one interpretation of the text, the truth is the document signed by
Hirohito did not use the word surrender, much less unconditional. He
may have been defeated, but the emperor had a trump card up his sleeve:
the United States worried that once peace was consolidated, Japan might
tilt toward the Communist side. The main obstacle to the ambitions of
Joseph Stalin, supreme leader of the Soviet Union, the Americans knew,
was maintaining Hirohito on the throne—if only symbolically—and he
was determined to take advantage of it. If it had been left up to President
Harry Truman, Hirohito would have had to personally surrender to
MacArthur, but thanks to the intervention of the British premier Clement
Atlee and the Chinese president Chiang Kai-shek, he was allowed to have
the Minister of Foreign Affairs replace him at the ceremony. Going against
the hardliners in the State Department who wanted to put the emperor in
the docket as a war criminal, MacArthur insisted on sparing him. It had
nothing to do with sympathy or mercy, but for the reason he sent Truman
in a secret message: if the decision were made to remove Hirohito, it
would take a million soldiers to hold back the Japanese people. The most
the emperor could do was make small changes to the text sent back to the

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70562-6_4
94 F. MORAIS
Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces. At the suggestion of the

Minister of War, Korechika Anami, who committed suicide hours later,
Hirohito asked that one phrase be replaced. Instead of “the situation of
the war turned unfavorable for us,” it went “the war situation has devel-
oped not necessarily to Japan’s advantage.” It was a change, which, while
not drastic, cost an entire night for the monarch with the allied commander.
It always bears repeating, as General MacArthur did, that the rescript
was just a piece of paper, and that the war had in fact been won on the
battlefield, not ministry offices in Tokyo. The final version of the docu-
ment, however, was a veritable exercise in dissimulation.
To Our Good and Loyal Subjects:

After pondering deeply the general trends of the world and the actual
conditions obtaining in Our Empire today, We have decided to effect a set-
tlement of the present situation by resorting to an extraordinary measure.
We have ordered Our Government to communicate to the Governments
of the United States, Great Britain, China and the Soviet Union that Our
Empire accepts the provisions of their Joint Declaration.
To strive for the common prosperity and happiness of all nations as well
as the security and well-being of Our subjects is the solemn obligation which
has been handed down by Our Imperial Ancestors, and which We lay close
to the heart. Indeed, We declared war on America and Britain out of Our
sincere desire to ensure Japan’s self-preservation and the stabilization of
East Asia, it being far from Our thought either to infringe upon the sover-
eignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandisement. But
now the war has lasted for nearly four years. Despite the best that has been
done by every one—the gallant fighting of military and naval forces, the dili-
gence and assiduity of Our servants of the State and the devoted service of
Our one hundred million people, the war situation has developed not neces-
sarily to Japan’s advantage, while the general trends of the world have all
turned against her interest. Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a
new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed,
incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to
fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the
Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civi-
lization. Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our sub-
jects, or to atone Ourselves before the hallowed spirits of Our Imperial
Ancestors? This is the reason why We have ordered the acceptance of the
provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers.
We cannot but express the deepest sense of regret to Our Allied nations
of East Asia, who have consistently cooperated with the Empire towards the
emancipation of East Asia. The thought of those officers and men as well as
CHAPTER 3 95
others who have fallen in the fields of battle, those who died at their posts of
duty, or those who met with untimely death and all their bereaved families,
pains Our heart night and day. The welfare of the wounded and the war-
sufferers, and of those who have lost their home and livelihood, are the
objects of Our profound solicitude. The hardships and sufferings to which
Our nation is to be subjected hereafter will be certainly great. We are keenly
aware of the inmost feelings of all ye, Our subjects. However, it is according
to the dictate of time and fate that We have resolved to pave the way for
grand peace for all the generations to come by enduring the unendurable
and suffering what is insufferable.
Having been able to safeguard and maintain the structure of the Imperial
State, We are always with ye, Our good and loyal subjects, relying upon your
sincerity and integrity. Beware most strictly of any outbursts of emotion
which may engender needless complications, or any fraternal contention
and strife which may create confusion, lead ye astray and cause ye to lose the
confidence of the world. Let the entire nation continue as one family from
generation to generation, ever firm in its faith of the imperishableness of its
divine land and mindful of its heavy burden of responsibilities, and the long
road before it. Unite your total strength to be devoted to the construction
for the future. Cultivate the ways of rectitude; foster nobility of spirit; and
work with resolution so as ye may enhance the innate glory of the Imperial
State and keep pace with the progress of the world.
Hirohito [Imperial Seal]
Fourteenth day of the eight month of the twentieth year of the Shōwa Era
Just as Colonel Kikawa insisted, the word surrender was not used a
single time in the document. The conviction with which the colonel spoke
of Japan’s victory, upon leaving jail, reinforced the suspicions of Officer
Cardoso de Mello that the ex-military man was more than a delirious old
man. Slightly before the decision handed down by the court, the head of
the secret service of DOPS sent the court a dispatch in which he expressed
his apprehensions in the case. “I am against his release,” wrote the police-
man, “at the moment when, in certain localities in the state, there has
begun amongst the Nipponese a peculiar movement to revel in the sup-
posed ‘victory of the Empire of the Rising Sun’” (Figs. 3.1–3.3).
By the time Kikawa was set free, however, this peculiar movement had
already set the colony aflame. It was difficult to find anyone in the Japanese
community who believed Japan lost the war, or, at least, who said so in
public. The minority who accepted the official version feared doing so in
public and being branded a “traitor” or “defeatist.” Although all Brazilian
96 F. MORAIS
Figs. 3.1–3.3 At top left, the fake “Throne Speech,” written by the fanatics of
Shindō Renmei. The war had already ended, but the emperor exhorted his soldiers
to keep fighting for Yamato damashii. At top right, the Instrument of Surrender in
English and Japanese
newspapers had published the entire Imperial Rescript, the Japanese who
disputed its veracity had a ready answer when the topic came up: “That is
American propaganda.” The Diário da Noite put reporters on the streets
of the Japanese neighborhood to find someone who was willing to make a
declaration. No one wanted to say anything, until finally they found a
volunteer who responded with absolute assurance: “Japan did not lose the
war.” The journalist retorted it was official news that the emperor himself
read on Radio Tokyo, whose broadcast was repeated around the entire
world, but the interviewed man remained impassive. “That was an
CHAPTER 3 97
American transmission made in Japanese.” What about the Imperial

Rescript? “The rescript is fake, the emperor never errs.” There was no way
to hide that the war’s end had splintered the colony. On one side, clearly
in the minority, were the makegumi, “enlightened ones” or “defeatists,”
the wing made up of Japanese whose economic situation and cultural level
were more elevated, who were integrated into Brazilian society, spoke
Portuguese, and were not sustained by dreams of returning to their ances-
tral land. At the extreme opposite were the majority of the community,
those who called themselves the kachigumi, “patriots” and “victors”—
coffee plantation workers, peddlers, dry cleaners, and ex-military men,
people of humble means who had emigrated to Brazil with only one
objective: improve their condition and return to Japan. They were devoted
to the most rigid Japanese military traditions, blindly loyal to the emperor,
and sustained by theories of Japan’s victory with arguments they consid-
ered indisputable. In 2600 years Japan had never lost a war, so it wasn’t
remotely conceivable their homeland had been defeated. Otherwise, the
world would have testified to the “honorable death of 100 million
Japanese” that committed collective suicide following the same gesture by
the emperor. That was effectively what had not occurred. Since August
15, 1945, the Japanese colony residing in Brazil was irredeemably divided
into two factions, the kachigumi and the makegumi.
The police still had hopes this was merely a fight confined to residents
in the capital, until the police chief in the city of Pompéia, Antônio
Dourado, appeared at DOPS in person with a document he had seized in
Quintana from the nationalist Massayuki Kawasaki that he considered
“pure gold.” It was two versions of the original Imperial Rescript of
Surrender, with the seal of Hirohito applied at the end. The police offi-
cers’ joy turned to shock when the translator arrived. Identical to the real
Pronouncement of the Throne in appearance only, the first document
clarified practically nothing.
Pronouncement of the Throne intended for the patriots who find them-
selves abroad
The patriots who find themselves abroad should engage in mutual aid, to not
take advantage of the situation for personal gain, to do their utmost to endure
these trials and suffering, and to preserve the beauty of Yamato damashii—the
Japanese spirit.
August 3rd in the Twentieth Year of the Show ̄ a Era
Hirohito
[Name and seal of the emperor]
98 F. MORAIS
The second document, post-dated to the end of the war, were words of
encouragement from a monarch to his soldiers:
Pronouncement of the Throne to the Army and Navy

The Army and Navy who prosecuted the war for perpetuating our people
must bring the war to its objective.
August 17th in the Twentieth Year of the Sho ̄wa Era
Hirohito
[Name and seal of the emperor]
The two documents were identical in all respects to the original, includ-
ing the signature, and appeared to emanate from the hands of calligra-
phers from the Imperial Household Agency, but in actuality were as
fraudulent as a three-dollar bill. The police discovered a “victory” dry
cleaner had falsified the text and another kachigumi, Mitsurō Ikeda, owner
of a small rubber stamp factory in Tupã, had made the Imperial Seal.
When a copy of said documents arrived at DOPS, thousands had already
been sold clandestinely in the colony as proof the war was proceeding
apace and Japan would remain undefeated.
The “strange movement of rejoicing” the policeman described did not
stop there. Soon the police discovered the state had not only been inun-
dated with false imperial proclamations, but also dozens of anonymous
pamphlets, false notices, and even doctored photographs of the surrender
ceremony aboard the Missouri. In September, the police were surprised by
the unanticipated movement of Japanese from the interior heading into
the capital. Hotels and inns in the Japanese neighborhood already had no
vacancies, and the tangle of streets and alleyways comprising the area
between Várzea do Glicério and the Praça da Sé, where the Japanese were
concentrated, experienced extraordinary commotion. The mystery was
cleared up when a pamphlet fell into police hands that transcribed what
was supposedly a notice transmitted by Japan’s central military broadcast-
ing. The leaflet announced that on September 11, 1945, a squadron of the
Imperial Navy would arrive in Santos to repatriate all Japanese residents in
Brazil. In actuality, on that day central military broadcasting lay in rubble,
bombarded by the Americans, and the Japanese Navy had already been
dissolved by an act under MacArthur’s authority. Nevertheless, 2000
Japanese from the interior and the capital descended on the coast heading
for the port. Two days went by, naturally, without any Japanese ships arriv-
ing. The desolate immigrants returned to São Paulo, where another
CHAPTER 3 99
pamphlet awaited them explaining the Japanese mission had been delayed
until September 24 and transferred to the port of Rio de Janeiro. The
document recommended that members of the colony relocate to Rio, “if
possible bearing the Japanese flag to welcome their compatriots arriving to
bring them home” (Fig. 3.4).
To the “enlightened” in the colony this was an unforgivable mass delir-
ium. It was humiliating to be confused in the street with a fanatic or idiot
who believed such nonsense. And it was a makegumi, the “enlightened”
Shibata Miyakoshi, who recommended to the police a solution to put an
end to what he called “the farce heaping embarrassment on the Japanese
colony.” Although he hadn’t lived in Brazil for a long time (he came
Fig. 3.4 Over a period of months, hordes of Shindō Renmei followers wandered
between the ports of Rio de Janeiro and Santos as they awaited the imaginary
“Japanese fleet” coming to repatriate the colony
100 F. MORAIS
among the last wave of immigrants in the 1930s), Miyakoshi became well
known and respected in the colony as the director of the KKKK, one of
the companies responsible for overseeing the immigration. After the war
ended, he was in the city of Álvares Machado and angered the nationalists
in the region by saying as many times as it was asked of him that the war
was over and Japan was defeated. His arguments to the police seemed to
have irrefutable logic:
If a Brazilian said to these lunatics the Earth was round, they wouldn’t
believe it. If anyone can truly convince them, it has to be a Japanese.
Authorized by DOPS, Miyakoshi proposed they copy the original sur-

render documents and distribute them in abundance in the colony with
the endorsement of names known to the immigrants. With the help of the
police and Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Relations, they set up an opera-
tion to bring an authentic copy of the Imperial Rescript to São Paulo. The
document was sent from Tokyo to the Red Cross headquarters in Genoa,
Italy, which remitted it to the organization’s offices in Buenos Aires. The
rescript was taken by hand from the Argentine capital to São Paulo, where
it was delivered by Dag Heagler, the Red Cross’ head official in Brazil to
the Italian padre Guido del Toro. It was a strange choice considering the
Jesuit had already spent two months in jail, thanks to DOPS, accused of
ministering the catechism in Japanese at the Saint Francis Xavier School,
which specialized in offering a Christian education to Japanese children
who were not Buddhists. Translated from Japanese into Portuguese,
English, and French, the documents were accompanied by a message from
Minister Tōgō from the Foreign Ministry, addressed to “our compatriots
residing abroad”.
These were the documents that the padre delivered into hands of
Shibata Miyakoshi, the makegumi who had given them the idea of enlight-
ening the colony about the outcome of the war. After considerable discus-
sion between the police and representatives from the Japanese community,
it was decided there was only one truly effective way to ensure the docu-
ments arrived in the hands of all interested parties: to publish them in the
Paulista newspapers and, moreover, to print hundreds of thousands of
copies for distribution in regions with a high concentration of the immi-
grants. At Miyakoshi’s suggestion, the Imperial Rescript was accompanied
by an explanatory note signed by the most outspoken members of
the colony.
CHAPTER 3 101
Colonel Junji Kikawa was still in prison at the beginning of October,

when another inmate tossed into his cell a copy of the newspaper A Gazeta
with the unusual headline “To our compatriots residing in Brazil” embla-
zoned on the front page:
The present is intended to report to you, with the consent of the law enforcement
authorities in the capital of São Paulo, of the official notice from Japan’s
Ministry of Foreign Affairs appraising us of the critical situation our home-
land faces. This notice delivers to us the imperial proclamation from August
14, and the message by then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Toḡ o,̄ as per the
appended translation. […] We have undertaken to translate it word for word.
It is however, merely a translation. We cannot claim there are not certain dif-
ferences in vocabulary when transposing one language into another. We are
certain, nonetheless, that we endeavored not to commit a single error in respect
to the substance of the original text. Note that in the preface to the official docu-
ment we may detect the concern of our government in the following terms:
“[…] since we cannot deny the risks faced by subjects of the Japanese Empire
residing in enemy states or where diplomatic relations have been severed, we ask
that you transmit this official notice to those who may feel driven to commit
senseless and grave acts […].”
Our homeland Japan confronts in this moment difficulties never before
experienced since her founding. To overcome them it is necessary for her sons to
unite as one man and one heart to rebuild a new Japan, tolerating the intoler-
able, suffering the insufferable, cautioning against explosive emotions in con-
formity with the venerated wishes of His Majesty the Emperor. We hope and pray
that you preserve your lives and dignity.
São Paulo, October 5, 1945

Jinsaku Wakiyama, Shiguetsuna Furuya, Kunito Miyasaka, Kiyoshi
Yamamoto, Senichi Hachiya, Shibata Miyakoshi, Kameichi Yamashita
That night, Junji Kikawa wrote in his diary, “Seeing the name of my old
friend Wakiyama heading that list of traitors felt like a steel dagger had
stabbed me in the heart.” This explained why his traveling companion had
not visited him a single time in prison: the highest ranked former member
of the Japanese military in Brazil had crossed over to the side of “the
enemy and the Japanese with dirty hearts.” His surprise was justified, since
Kikawa knew almost all the other signatories. Kunito Miyasaka was the
director of Bratac and one of the founders of the Banco América do Sul;
Kameichi Yamashita was president of the powerful Cotia Agricultural
Cooperative; Shiguetsuna Furuya had been Ambassador of Japan to Korea,
102 F. MORAIS
Mexico, and Argentina before moving to Brazil, where he became a great

producer and exporter of bananas; Senichi Hachiya was one of the pio-
neers of immigration to Brazil, and owned an import company. Well
informed despite being in prison, Kikawa knew that another countryman
provided the documents and the only reason he did not appear on the list
was because he was away the day of its disclosure. It was the industrialist
Chūzaburō Nomura, the cultured ex-director of the Nippak Shimbun
newspaper and owner of a small empire in fiber crops that earned him the
nickname “The Ramie King.” After all, wondered Kikawa, what was
Colonel Jinsaku Wakiyama, a patriot who’d already been jailed by DOPS
under suspicion of spying for Japan, doing among these entrepreneurs,
journalists, and diplomats?
Yet the “all-knowing” Colonel Kikawa didn’t know that the two years
separating them had produced profound changes in Wakiyama’s head. He
was not the fervent Shintoist his friend was, and he’d begun to entertain
doubts about the virtues of military extremism in Japan. These transfor-
mations coincided, ironically, with the onset of the war during a visit to
the homeland, when Junji Wakiyama represented the colony at the festivi-
ties commemorating the 2600th anniversary of the founding of the
Japanese Empire. The journey ended with four days in jail at DOPS upon
his return to Brazil. All that remained of the militarist Wakiyama from the
old days was a bit of eccentricity that delighted the population of Bastos,
where he lived. At sunset, when he finished working in the fields, he
repeated the same ritual: after a long soak in the bath, Wakiyama donned
his starched dress uniform as a colonel in the Imperial Army, fastened to
his belt a sword with a golden handle, and headed toward the center of
town for his daily chat with friends. None who witnessed it could forget
the sight of this diminutive figure of almost seventy, still unbent by age
with a carefully trimmed mustache and prescription glasses, resplendently
arriving in town on his imposing white horse. Tailored in navy blue cash-
mere, the military dolman was a three-quarter model that ended below
the knees. In front on each side were sewn two rows of seven golden but-
tons. Patent epaulets came down from the collar surrounded by edging
bordered in red, the color also used on the outer stripes of his navy blue
trousers. On his head, Wakiyama carefully adjusted a colonial English cap
that concealed his almost complete baldness, and which the local people
called his “jaguar-hunting hat.” The whimsical vision made by his arrival
in the town square of Bastos at dusk was an almost supernatural apparition
(Figs. 3.5–3.6).
CHAPTER 3 103
Figs. 3.5–3.6 In the first row, two men marked for death by Shindō Renmei:
Ikuta Mizobe in white suit and black tie, and on his right, Colonel Wakiyama,
inseparable from his “jaguar-hunting hat.” At right, the gala uniform the colonel
wore when he paraded through Bastos
The last time Kikawa saw him decked out this way was more than three
years prior. In August 1942, at the peak of restrictions imposed by law
during the war, the situation for the Japanese seemed insufferable. Letters
and documents that changed hands in secret by their “patriotic” leaders
concluded it was impossible to leave a community of 200,000 by the way-
side, isolated in the world, submitted to the worst humiliations, and pro-
hibited from nearly everything, including to speak. In the countryside, the
Japanese were under constant watch by the police and their neighbors. In
the capital, the Japantown had been converted into a ghetto, where peo-
ple felt like prisoners in their own homes. Every announcement of a
Japanese military defeat left the immigrants prostrate and distraught. In
Kikawa’s mind, it was time for someone “to unify the colony once more
under the banner of Yamato damashii, or Japanese spirit.” Since gather-
ings of Axis subjects were prohibited, two families in Marília succeeded in
obtaining special permission from the local police chief, Pahim Pinto, to
hold a wedding party for their children at the Hotel Sawaya, the best in
the city. The population was surprised by the affluence of guests far too
numerous for a ceremony bringing together a couple from modest farm-
ing families. Almost 400 Japanese came to Marília from all corners of the
state. The majority could only arrive there illegally, as might be imagined,
104 F. MORAIS
since permission for so many safe conduct passes to the same destination
would certainly raise suspicions by the police. The anti-Japanese sentiment
expressed at the time was profoundly hostile: over the previous seventy-
two hours, five more Brazilian ships had been sent to the bottom by Axis
submarines. In three days the steamships Baependi, Aníbal Benévolo,
Itagiba, Araras, and Araraquara were sunk. Seeing the Japanese circulate
around town with complete ease left the locals disturbed. In the middle of
the festivities, word got out, spread by an employee at the Hotel Sawaya,
that the wedding was just a pretext. In actuality, the Japanese inside were
having a subversive gathering, “with a portrait of the Emperor and the
Japanese flag on the wall.”
The small groups of Brazilians who began to gather on the street cor-
ners were egged on by those who claimed to be “indignant at the nerve of
the Japanese fifth column.” According to the report filed by a correspon-
dent for the Díario de S. Paulo, “hundreds of Japanese under official police
protection banqueted at one of the most sumptuous feasts Marília has ever
seen.” An additional crowd formed in the vicinity of the hotel. Every so
often, someone shouted along the lines of “this banquet is an affront to
our dead!” A reunion of the “goats” right in the heart of town with pho-
tos and flags was a sign of “incomprehensible tolerance” by the authori-
ties. So, if they wouldn’t take action, the brave Brazilians of Marília would
take up the grave responsibility of defending their homeland against
enemy actions. It didn’t take long before intentions gave way to real ges-
tures. When these groups scattered throughout the city converged, they
formed a small crowd, which perhaps emboldened them to march down
Avenida Brasil and invade the Hotel Sawaya. Regardless of what was tak-
ing place inside—whether it was a political assembly or a wedding—the
ceremony was interrupted by a flurry of clubs. Men, women, children, the
elderly, no one was spared. The Japanese flag and an enormous banner of
silk with an image of Hirohito were torn down from the walls and burned
in the middle of the street. In the hotel ballroom, amid the commotion
provoked by the attackers’ actions, a small group of Japanese youths took
advantage of the confusion to escort five of the “invited guests” to the
back of the hotel, put them inside “buckwheat” taxis, and disappeared
into the night. Among them were Colonel Kikawa, Captain Kiyo Yamauchi,
and Colonel Jinsaku Wakiyama with his flashy dress uniform.
The skirmish was ugly. Dozens of the injured were hospitalized at Santa
Casa de Misericórdia, and calm was restored to the city only at the end of
the night when a troop of forty soldiers arrived in Bauru. Despite their
CHAPTER 3 105
shock, a mile away, the three old-timers who’d been extracted from the
hotel celebrated the success of the endeavor in a barn on a farm in Quintana
with a hundred of their countrymen. The festive atmosphere could not
negate the fact that all assembled there had narrowly escaped from a lynch-
ing. On the wall of the barn was hung an enormous photograph of
Hirohito in his Field Marshall uniform, and alongside it, the Japanese
flag—the flag of the Japanese Imperial Navy with rays of a red sun invad-
ing the white background. Standing behind a small table, Junji Kikawa
made a gesture for two men to join him along with Wakiyama and
Yamauchi: Ryōtarō Negoro and Seiichi Tomari, who were his most fre-
quent visitors during the fourteen months of his incarceration. He poured
sake from a ceramic bottle into tiny white cups which he passed out to
each man seated at the table. He called upon everyone to rise and “spiritu-
ally” take part in the toast he raised:
In times of war, the only way to show our loyalty to our homeland is to fulfill
our obligations as subjects of the emperor. The colony is no longer orphaned.
The emperor will be insulted no more! Today, Shindō Renmei, the League
of the Way of Imperial Subjects, is born. Long live Shindō Renmei!
The toast, emulated by all, the ceremonial solemnity, and even the con-
tent of the very short speech by Colonel Kikawa were apparently nothing
new to the members of the colony. By 1942, the Japanese had divided
themselves up among almost thirty associations they created in Brazil.
Although they were officially defunct according to the wartime national
security laws, many continued to operate in secret. They were small local
organizations, nearly all devoted to the cult of patriotic values, whose
objectives were emblazoned in their very names: Aikoku Dōshikai
(Patriotic Association United in Thought), Chūdōkai (Association of the
Way of Loyalty to the Emperor), Kōdō Jissen Renmei (League for the
Practice of Imperial Conduct), Kokusui Seinendan (Nationalist Youth
Group), Sei Aikokudan (True Patriots’ Group), Seika Renmei (League of
Pure Spirit), and Zaihaku Zaigo Gunjinkai (Association of Japanese
Veterans in Brazil). Since the Japanese were raised in a culture in which
women’s roles were always secondary, there was only one group that
accepted women, the Zaihaku Seika Fujinkai (Association of Pure-Spirited
Japanese Wives in Brazil).
If the decision had been left to Wakiyama and Yamauchi, the name of
the group would have been the Kōdōsha (Unifying Movement) and not
106 F. MORAIS
Shindō Renmei. But Junji Kikawa insisted, and as almost always, he got his
way. It was as the Shindō Renmei that the group functioned for three and
a half years without the police even being aware of its existence. During
the period when Kikawa was imprisoned, Captain Kiyo Yamauchi provi-
sionally served as its president. Still, it was a mere formality as the orders
still came from Kikawa, behind bars or not. Yamauchi’s tenure at the head
of the organization proved short-lived. Internal discord (starting with the
name, which he did not agree with) ended with his breaking with the
group and secretly resuming the activities of his former Zaihaku Zaigo
Gunjinkai, the association of Japanese veterans. When he left the organiza-
tion with Kikawa still in prison, the leadership position went to the engi-
neer Ryōtarō Negoro.
Despite their not having been formally chosen as such, the roughly 400
Japanese at the Hotel Sawaya seemed to effectively represent the aspira-
tions of the colony. When they penetrated the organization years later,
DOPS discovered that Shindō had nearly one hundred thousand officially
designated contributors spread out over sixty-four municipalities in greater
São Paulo and another sixty thousand “sympathizers” who backed them,
but did not want to run afoul of the Brazilian authorities. Some twenty
members in leadership were professionalized: receiving salaries by Shindō,
they abandoned their occupations and dedicated themselves exclusively to
the organization. Only Colonel Kikawa, at his own request, was not paid
by Shindō, preferring to continue living off the modest earnings of his dry
cleaning business. In the end, it made little difference as the salaries paid
by the association were miserable.
Seiichi Tomari, for example, considered the “ideologue” of Shindō,
received a modest thousand cruzeiros per month for remuneration (the
Brazilian currency, the mil-réis, changed names in 1942). The most sig-
nificant payments were always registered as being directed to the same
mysterious person, Tsuguo Kishimoto (Fig. 3.7). Innumerous payments
made to him—from 3.5 to 20 thousand cruzeiros—frequently appeared in
the account books of Shindō as funds utilized to “grease the wheels” with
the authorities and secure the freedom of jailed militants. The bulk of the
hoarded funds of the colony were spent purchasing mimeographs, radio
transmitters, printing offices, and photography studios, which were
secretly installed in Japanese homes in various places throughout the state.
Between its foundation in 1942 and the end of the war in August 1945,
Shindō seemed to be more intent upon unifying the colony. To confound
CHAPTER 3 107
Fig. 3.7 The mysterious Tsuguo Kishimoto, seen here in one of his prison sen-
tences. He was an informant for the Army and the police, “secretary” to Adhemar
de Barros, and counselor to the Shindō Renmei leadership
police surveillance and avoid the indiscreet gaze of Brazilian gaijin, 30,000
cruzeiros donated by a Japanese plantation owner in the Alta Paulista were
used to set up a wholesale company, the Casa Paulista, located in the capi-
tal. It functioned as a front for the organization to be able to send its
grooming agents disguised as peddlers. These “peddlers” from Casa
Paulista supervised by Kikawa, Tomari, and Negoro were the principal
means by which tens of thousands of contributors and sympathizers were
recruited and flocked to Shindō statewide. And it was post box 5784
owned by the firm, which daily gathered hundreds of envelopes from the
interior, filled with messages, requests for further orders, and money. Since
every follower made a monthly contribution that varied from two to ten
cruzeiros, the police concluded that Shindō Renmei brought in a small
fortune each month of seven hundred cruzeiros each month, equivalent to
approximately five hundred thousand dollars (eight hundred thousand
reais) in today’s money, seventy years later.
108 F. MORAIS
In the years 1944 and 1945, Shindō carried out a silent but frenetic
endeavor of patriotic organization and grooming of its supporters.
According to a report made by the police at the end of the war, “a bonafide
army of farmers, greengrocers, dry cleaners, traveling salesmen, and cob-
blers” had penetrated the state from one end to the other. Behind the
façade of Casa Paulista, the suitcases of the phony peddlers concealed bul-
letins, pamphlets, and newspaper and magazine clippings whose content
could be summarized with a consistent theme: their homeland was making
excellent headway in its conduct of World War II; Japan had never lost a
war; the Emperor was alive and well; and so forth. In addition to these
notices—almost invariably false—each agent carried in his pocket a pam-
phlet titled “How to install branch offices,” that served as a script for
meetings. It contained generic instructions, the objectives of Shindō
Renmei, and the means to select branch office directors, as well as reli-
gious and political guidance. It instructed them to take care their corre-
spondence not be intercepted by the police and even how to successfully
sabotage “activities productive to the enemy’s military interests.” Each
associate was required to not only have firm patriotic convictions, but to
have “an unblemished past of moral rectitude.” But it was the last part of
these instructions that lifted their spirits. The final chapter in these conver-
sations was the organization’s dedication to repatriation. However, the
mass return of all the Japanese in Brazil was not to Japan, but to the prom-
ise of “Greater East Asia,” into which their homeland would be trans-
formed following victory over the Allies.
The preaching finished, hundreds of mimeographed copies of a manu-
script by the “ideologue” Seiichi Tomari were left in the city for distribu-
tion among the new associates. Entitled “Hierarchical Classification of
Our Co-Religionists,” the document divided the colony into five
categories.
1. Fervent patriots, correct in their mode of conduct, who simultaneously

combine enthusiasm and courage, and do not sacrifice their honor for
material benefit. Those who ultimately recognize the present situation
calls for true patriotic spirit (this category can be divided in two: those
who lend their support through actions and those who lend
moral support);
2. Those who may belong to the above category, but are limited by special
circumstances;
CHAPTER 3 109
3. Those who may possess patriotic spirit, but who lack courage. Although
their words and actions may be in harmony and they proclaim victory
in East Asia, for purely self-serving reasons, in reality they are simply
driven by material benefit;
4. The lazy among us, similar to those who have lost their sense of patrio-
tism, who dedicate themselves to producing supplies for the benefit of
the enemy;
5. The bad actors (or leaders) and informants.
Along with this leaflet, the “peddlers” also distributed mimeographed

copies of a confused manuscript by Tomari, in which he mixed administra-
tive guidance with Shintoism, matters of security, moral conduct, sports,
and even advice on hygiene. At the bottom of each pamphlet the author
never failed to leave the same reminder: “Education and spirit before
wealth.” In the middle of August 1945, when news of the war’s end
reached their peak, Tomari visited DOPS to consult with Kikawa. The two
agreed this devastating campaign could only be American propaganda to
claim the war was over and Japan its loser. On the radio, in newspapers,
and magazines, no one talked of anything else. Hadn’t Shindō Renmei
undertaken the responsibility of being the colony’s compass? Kikawa rea-
soned, in order to conclude for himself, the “peddlers” alone were not
enough to combat the wave of defeatist rumors. It was necessary for the
two main leaders at liberty to travel across the state offering a living voice
of leadership to their followers. If possible, Kikawa would have liked to do
so personally. Hampered by prison, however, he delegated the mission to
Seiichi Tomari and Ryōtarō Negoro.
Since neither had criminal records, the pair headed for the interior with
no special security measures. Tomari requested a safe conduct pass on the
pretext of “visiting sick relatives in Campo Grande in Mato Grosso,” and
Negoro declared to the police that he was going to “conclude an urgent
business matter with the owner of Ramie Plantation, in Pirianito, located
at Pirianito Station, in the north of Paraná State.” With these two destina-
tions of safe conduct, they made a wide circle around the entire Alta
Paulista and Noroeste regions. Any city in which they might be stopped by
police on the beat was considered along the way to North Paraná or
Campo Grande.
Between the end of August and the middle of November, Tomari and
Negoro visited more than forty towns, villages, and neighborhoods where
Japanese immigrants were concentrated. In this period the two met only
110 F. MORAIS
Figs. 3.8–3.9 Death threats terrorize the colony. The “defeatists” were informed
of this condemnation by handwritten notes (at right) or by using the macabre
sotoba (at left) nailed to the door of their houses
once, in a hostel in Lucélia, to trade information about their results thus

far. Their reports did not differ much from one another. Ryōtarō Negoro
preferred to hand over to Tomari entries in his diary referring to work
with the colony. It was a jumble of mismatched opinions, gossip, and
accusations by their supporters. To maintain the “secret” character of their
information, some people and places had the names substituted by a single
letter. That, however, revealed a rank amateurism any elementary school
child could figure out. For example, “Mr. F. in H. City” could only mean
Herculândia, the only town among the almost 600 Paulista municipalities
that began with the letter h (Figs. 3.8–3.9).
In Bastos, Mr. F. verified that every day at sunrise he finds his house peppered
with sayings alluding to his treachery. That is why he doesn’t sleep soundly. His
grave is ready because he is a defeatist. Even in his truck and other belongings,
he finds these scribblings.
In V., the Brazilian son of a Japanese farmer, a student in São Paulo who
returned to his father’s farm, got in an argument with his Brazilian neighbor,
who said Japan lost the war. “Japan won the war!” retorted the Brazilian son
of the Japanese. The Brazilian neighbor was left mouth agape and said nothing
more, he was so surprised.
Mr. F. in H. City is an idiot. He worked in an old Japanese bookstore. This
individual was used to calling the Emperor simply “Hirohito,” but called
Chiang Kai-Shek “emperor.” This same individual said that as Japan had lost
the war, it should vanish altogether. His younger brother, who was in the mili-
CHAPTER 3 111
tary, fought with him over it, criticizing his attitude and alleging he was
already blacklisted. They cut relations. The younger brother, in any case, is an
upstanding man and exemplary member of Shindo ̄ Renmei.
In the Noroeste, in P. City, one of our countrymen, who was employed at
Casa Tozan and is considered a defeatist, went to São Paulo to denounce his
fellow countrymen to the authorities in the Department of Social and Political
Order. He told them they celebrated Japan’s victory in the interior. He then
asked the police to put a stop to it. The authorities responded “We don’t get
involved in this business any longer.” And the defeatist was left not knowing
what to do.
The police have received a lot of money from Japanese defeatists to work
against Shindo ̄ Renmei. The press as well. But when the money runs out, they
won’t write anything else against Shindo ̄ Renmei.
The head of the Secret Service of Police told the Justice Minister that if they
didn’t eliminate Shindō Renmei, there would be no end of these occurrences. It
seems the Justice Minister went to São Paulo to verify these occurrences and
thought Shindo ̄ Renmei wasn’t responsible. The lawyer Mr. Moraes said it was
the position of the Security Secretary that Shindo ̄ Renmei did not represent
a threat.
A defeatist Japanese, the “police dog” Paulo Morita, received a lot of defeat-
ist money and distributed it to the chief of inspectors for the police Secret Service.
That’s why the police dispute the opinion of the Justice Minister. How
unfortunate!
The despondent Seiichi Tomari’s report was verbal and objective. He

recounted what happened at each visit and only went into detail about two
towns, Presidente Prudente and Bastos. When he arrived at the former, he
discovered that, as with other locales, there was already a clandestine
Japanese association in operation. It was the Kōdō Jissen Renmei (League
for the Practice of Imperial Conduct) that Tomari had thought defunct.
He repeated in Prudente the same speech that previously yielded positive
results. The ideal situation for patriotic spirit and for Japan’s interests was
for the colony to unite into one society. For this reason, Shindō proposed
merging with Kōdō, exactly as the majority of associations had done. But
for the first time on this journey, Tomari was told no. Motoi Bam, the
president of Kōdō, put his foot down and said they would not merge with
any other organization. In Bastos, after Tomari had installed a branch
office, the countrymen had alerted him to the self-assured way that Ikuta
Mizobe, the president of the local cooperative, boasted of Japan’s defeat
in the war. The traitor, his informants told him, was daring to the point of
writing this blasphemy and signing his name to it. The evidence, which
112 F. MORAIS
Tomari had in his possession, was shown to Negoro: a brief circular dis-
tributed by Mizobe to the employees of the Bastos Cooperative on August
15, 1945.
To the Section Chief,
Allow me to communicate to you the following. I heard today (August 15) that
at seven o’clock in the morning it was broadcast in Japan that “the Government
of Japan was forced to accept the terms of the Four Powers.” This leads us to
understand they have reached a state of cessation of hostilities. It is impossible to
anticipate any future changes in the situation. In the face of this we hope the
Japanese residents in the region will comport themselves in a manner that
avoids any senseless acts.
Ikuta Mizobe (Bastos Agricultural Cooperative)
When asked what orders Tomari gave their countrymen in Bastos

regarding Mizobe, Negoro heard a death sentence pronounced. “I didn’t
have to say anything. Our brethren have already warned this ‘dirty heart’
he’d better wash his throat.”
* * *
The Paulista police had bigger problems to deal with than the delusions
of a band of unbalanced Japanese. Popular uprisings that had been
repressed by fifteen years of dictatorship were now overflowing in the
streets. According to a report by DOPS, the political amnesty Getúlio was
compelled to grant had resulted in liberty for “pernicious elements who
immediately took to the streets to agitate the proletarian masses.” From
night to day, they sprouted “committees,” “commissions,” and “move-
ments” on every corner. To the police’s consternation, even the Communist
Party was legalized, and was now pulverizing the country with cells where
they undertook “a frank and abusive campaign against the authorities,
agitating the working masses who for many years had not demonstrated in
such a violent fashion,” as one official report denounced. Strikes popped
up throughout the state. Either openly or through the Workers’ Unification
Movement, the Communist Party was accused by DOPS in São Paulo of
having under its control the stevedores in the Port of Santos; the workers
at Light, the electric company that supplied the state; the bank tellers; the
CHAPTER 3 113
bus drivers; the metallurgists; and railroad workers from Sorocabana and a
private railroad that existed in those days called the São Paulo Railway.
There weren’t sufficient numbers of policemen to cover so many strikes.
The first took place in April 1945 on the Santos docks. For several weeks,
the country’s main port was closed and the government’s attempts to get
the stevedores back to work were fruitless. The use of troops from the
Marine Corps to suppress the picketers had no effect. The workers only
ceased their activities once their demands were met: a thirty-eight percent
raise in their salaries and adoption of a “fifty-two-minute hour” for over-
time pay. The success of the strike by the Santos stevedores led to several
other consequences. Censorship of the press had fallen by the wayside
without requiring an official act to abolish it. Freed from the presence of
government censors, the newspapers enjoyed a honeymoon with freedom
of expression—and published everything they got their hands on, includ-
ing news of the strikes. From the paralysis at the Port of Santos until the
end of 1945, DOPS counted 491 strikes in São Paulo State that led
350,000 workers to link arms. The dictatorship was defeated and the
repressive machinery of the Estado Novo collapsed in October 1945, leav-
ing the labor syndicates uncontrollable. In December 1945 and January
1946, calls for salary hikes were combined with Christmas bonuses and
practically paralyzed the state.
Ill-suited for dealing with social movements in a democracy, the DOPS
teams were forced to repress picketing at the entrances of factories, banks,
and public offices, always with an eye on the press, which was now on
guard against abuses by the police. In the first quarter of 1946, with the
country now under the government of General Dutra, who was elected
President of the Republic after the ouster of Getúlio Vargas, a new focus of
political agitation would come to be added to the general strikes. When
elections were called for January 19, 1947, the campaign for governor
blanketed the state with four registered candidates: Adhemar de Barros
(PSP), Hugo Borghi (PTN), Mário Tavares (PSD), and Antonio Almeida
Prado (UDN). Although legal and registered with the electoral offices, the
Communist Party decided not to run their own candidate and instead
backed Adhemar de Barros, the old controller for the dictatorship in
the state.
Since the police were faced with these headwinds, it is understandable
they let the convulsions that shook the Japanese community pass unno-
ticed. Unbeknownst to DOPS, the colony was inundated with fraud, intim-
idation, and falsified documents. Threatening signs written in Japanese
were left at the houses of the “defeatists,” the makegumi who insisted on
114 F. MORAIS
saying Japan lost the war. If threats in the capital were slipped right under
people’s doors, in the countryside they were done with more sophistica-
tion. There Shindō Renmei painted the names of their enemies on a sotoba
or ihai—a wooden strip or plaque placed on a Buddhist altar with candles
on which the name of the dead is inscribed—and nailed these sinister
threats to the doors of the defeatists. DOPS, however, seemed more preoc-
cupied with Luís Carlos Prestes’ Communists than some crazy Japanese.
Inspired by police indifference, Shindō grew bolder. On the morning
of January 6, 1946, Colonel Kikawa made a surprise return to DOPS
where he had spent more than a year behind bars. Accompanied by
Ryōtarō Negoro and five other Japanese, he claimed he wished to speak
“with an authority.” The police chief Cardoso de Mello was in no mood
to hear more whimpering from the Japanese, and ordered the interpreter
Mário Botelho de Miranda to attend to them in the inspectors’ lounge.
Kikawa was annoyed at being received by a subordinate, but had no choice
in the matter. He passed over a sheet of paper written in Japanese and
explained to Miranda the reason for the visit.
“I have come to request government authorization for the operation of

Shindō Renmei.”
When the interpreter asked what Shindō Renmei was, Kikawa answered
in detail.
“Shindō is an association for cultivating Yamato damashii, the Japanese

spirit, and to unify the Japanese without criticizing or defaming the name of
the emperor as the defeatist Japanese do. We ask that the authorities pro-
hibit propaganda that some of our countrymen are pointlessly spreading in
the colony, preaching defeatism. With this unscrupulous Jewish propaganda
preaching Japan’s defeat, no work gets done in the fields and it harms
Brazil’s economy.”
Miranda responded that since all foreigners’ associations were prohib-

ited it was impossible to authorize the registration of Shindō Renmei.
Whether or not they believed in Japan’s defeat, they could return to work
and end this inane conversation. The response angered Kikawa, who
responded exultantly,
CHAPTER 3 115
“In that case, we want to be arrested. But DOPS doesn’t have space for us all.
There are over 120,000 of us. If the police won’t issue a license, our people will
be enraged. They are young, hot-headed, surely you can understand…”
The functionary, who seemed to take little interest in the conversation,

handed back the petition.
“And another thing, colonel: all documents submitted for public petition in
Brazil must be written in Portuguese. You must take this back and have it
translated. But you already know even in Portuguese it will not receive
authorization. You may go now, this meeting is over.”
Hours later, the group returned, bringing with them a sheet of paper
typed in Portuguese and signed by a list of ten persons, headed by Kikawa,
Negoro, and Tomari.
Dear Chief Delegate of Political and Social Order,

The undersigned, Junji Kikawa, Japanese, married, sixty-seven years old, a
business owner and resident at Rua Vergueiro no. 3424 in this capital, respect-
fully solicits Your Excellency to deign to consider licensing to organize an asso-
ciative league denominated as the Shindō Renmei league, with a cultural
purpose in accordance with a copy of the bylaws annexed, headquartered at
Rua Paracatu, no.98, in this capital, the applicant being the president of that
institution, constituted by the following members of the board.
Junji Kikawa
São Paulo, January 6, 1946
The colonel and other board members who signed the document with
him did not request a single receipt, protocol, nothing. It was enough
they accepted the document. That, and the boxes that were left in the cor-
ridors of DOPS, containing thousands of sheets of paper crammed with
signatures, which, according to Kikawa, were from all 120,000 members
of Shindō Renmei. Even after being relieved of this cargo, Kikawa grum-
bled his megalomania through the corridors. “If they didn’t accept us
here, we’d take this petition to the highest authority,” he fumed. “To the
President of the Republic, General Dutra.”
The version of the meeting Kikawa related to his associates was another
piece of propaganda—a lie—more than an actual report. Shindō Renmei’s
daily bulletin for January 7 opened on the subject saying,
116 F. MORAIS
[…] On Jan. 6, Massao Sato, Kanji Waki, Muneo Takabatake and Toshio
Mori presented themselves to the police to deliver the petition and proclamation
of Shindo ̄ Renmei. Their persistence lasted seven hours and showed the tokkōtai
spirit, like a special attack unit. They were forced out and returned numerous
times, but finally succeeded in achieving the following concessions:
—the police will authorize the registration of Shindō Renmei, if it is specially

applied for.
—now that the war is over, the police will treat the Japanese the same as the
English, the Americans, etc. It is necessary, however, to obey their national
laws. […]
—it was the lack of registration that led them to believe Shindo ̄ Renmei was a
secret society. Our representatives returned today to the police and presented
them an official form, signed by the president and other members of the board,
but the police said the matter was outside their jurisdiction, and recommended
presenting the said form to the Ministry of Justice, providing us with instruc-
tions in that respect. […]
—by virtue of our actions, the police recognized the real objective of Shindō
Renmei. Even before receiving authorization from the Ministry of Justice, the
police won’t intervene in Shindo ̄ Renmei.
As of now, Jan. 7, at 6 pm, this is our present situation. The central headquar-
ters resolved to present the registration form to the Ministry of Justice in accor-
dance with the police instructions. It will take some time before authorization
is granted, but we have a high probability of obtaining it. In conformance with
this, the wishes of Shindō Renmei are coming to fruition, thanks to the momen-
tous decision of the members at headquarters, our branch office representatives,
and all our members. Soon enough, the laurels of victory will crown your heads!
Instead of trying to justify the Japanese enthusiasm, the police smelled a

rat in Kikawa’s and his friends’ boldness. Tasked by the police commission-
ers to resume contact with the group, Miranda decided to have a look at
their documents. Although he was fluent in Japanese as a translator, he had
difficulty understanding what was being said in the confusing brambles of
what the colonel called “statutes.” The paperwork said that Shindō came
into existence to “repel and correct the Japanese defeatists who spread false
news of the unconditional surrender of Japan, committed inhuman acts,
and used shameful words.” To avoid problems with the police, however,
they made clear “our Shindō Renmei is not a political organization, nor a
secret society of barbarism as the defeatist rumors spread.” The chapter that
handled the question of repatriation seemed more like an excerpt from a
CHAPTER 3 117
letter between friends than the statute of a political organization, but it left
no doubt about the hurt inflicted on the immigrants by the Brazilians:
It is natural to want to return to one’s native land to see one’s kin. It is so for
all races. But […] it seems to us that the Brazilians do not like the Japanese.
During the Second World War many of our brethren were mistreated and
insulted. They called us “Japan,” “alien,” and “fifth column.” The Japanese
were mistreated spiritually and materially. It appears the ones who want the
Japanese to go back to their country of origin are the Brazilians themselves.
When the representatives of the Japanese government arrive we will bring it to
their attention directly.
The document finished with a request to register the organization; a

solicitation undersigned by “the signatures attached representing the
120,000 members of Shindō Renmei spread throughout every corner of
Brazil.”
Skeptical, the police translator read and re-read several times the mani-
festo signed by Kikawa, Negoro, and the five other immigrants.
Rummaging through the boxes full of signatures brought by the Japanese,
he found they did not have 120,000 signatures as they claimed, but closer
to 40,000, according to his calculations. He grabbed several bundles of
paper at random and checked: every one, in addition to the signature,
included the full name and respective FRC number, or Foreign Registration
Card. There was no bluff here, Miranda realized. The Japanese had
decided to make a demonstration of force to the police.
In the coming weeks, it seemed like the heat was turned up on the col-
ony. The threats multiplied. In Santópolis, a neighborhood in the city of
Coroados, a farmer asked permission from the police to carry a gun, after
his house was vandalized by signs written in Japanese: “Shirakura, you trai-
tor! Santópolis branch manager for Jewish propaganda! Divine punish-
ment is coming! Wash your throat!” The roadsides in areas with the
greatest concentration of immigrants were blanketed with nationalist signs
in Japanese: “Long live the Japanese spirit!” “Long live Japan!” “Glorious
military victory!” In addition to these threats, the police were intrigued by
an unexpected flow of yen in São Paulo—something unusual for a currency
whose value had been reduced to dust after war’s end. There was no end
to the problems caused by the fanatics. Called to the state governor’s office
of Macedo Soares, the head of the Secret Service of DOPS was informed
that agricultural production in the “Japanese sector” had fallen in half.
Pressed by his superiors, Cardoso de Mello reinstated prison terms for
suspected leaders and agitators among the Japanese nationalists. One of
118 F. MORAIS
the first arrests was Isamu Matsumoto—the oldest of the seven in the “flag
case” that occurred in Tupã—who ended up confessing to being the leader
of Shindō Renmei in his city. Next to be jailed were Negoro and Tomari,
but without knowing they had in their hands Kikawa’s lieutenant and
Shindō Renmei’s ideologue, DOPS wound up freeing them only a few
days later. When the Second Military Region succeeded in convincing the
Ministry of Justice to decree preventative detention for the organization
leadership in February, the prudent Colonel Kikawa had already disap-
peared from home and headed to an undisclosed location.
Already suspicious that something was about to explode in the colony,
police commissioner Geraldo Cardoso de Mello was not surprised when he
was awoken in his home in the early hours of the morning of April 2, 1946,
by two of his subordinates to interrogate two Japanese who were arrested
at dawn, moments after a failed attempt to kill ex-diplomat Shiguetsuna
Furuya, the idealist and signatory of the “defeatist” document released at
the end of 1945. On the way to DOPS, the commissioner learned that,
along with the two captured, there were three other Japanese who man-
aged to escape. When he arrived in the interrogation room, Cardoso de
Mello found two young Japanese in handcuffs, wearing rubberized yellow
slickers like the kind worn by peddlers. They were Tatsuo Watanabe,
twenty-seven years old, and Mitsurō Ikeda, aged twenty-nine. Wrapped
around their bodies, beneath the slickers, each one wore the imperial
Japanese flag. The interrogation had not yet begun when an investigator
entered the room and breathlessly delivered more news (Figs. 3.10–3.12).
Figs. 3.10–3.11 Shindō Renmei attacks the capital. Chūzaburō Nomura, the
newspaper owner and “Ramie King,” is shot to death during the night by a tokkot̄ ai
operation
CHAPTER 3 119
Fig. 3.12 The elegant Mitsurō “Antônio” Ikeda arrives from the countryside
preceded by his fame as a marksman, but his first trial by fire proves a resound-
ing failure
120 F. MORAIS
“Dr. Geraldo, another group of five Japanese have just killed the business-
man Chūzaburō Nomura, the ‘Ramie King.’ They killed the victim in his
home in front of his family and fled.”
The director of the Secret Service of DOPS once more donned the coat
he’d hung on a chair. Before leaving, he gave orders to an assistant,
“Identify these bums and then put them behind bars. Their interrogation
can wait. I’m going to the Nomura house and then to the palace to speak to
the interventor. Call up all the police in apprehensions, I’m afraid the kill-
ings have begun.”
Chapter 4: Mizobe Appears to be Swimming
in the Air: The First Makegumi Falls Dead
The killing had already begun; the police just didn’t know it. The first
fatality of Shindō Renmei had fallen twenty-five days earlier in Bastos: it
was Ikuta Mizobe, the director of the city’s Agricultural Cooperative,
CAB. His fate was sealed on the day the war ended in August of the previ-
ous year. Upon receiving the short circular of seventy-seven words signed
by Mizobe informing them the war had come to an end and that Japan
had been defeated, the staff at CAB and the populous Japanese commu-
nity in Bastos already knew his days were numbered. Mizobe lived in a city
where the colony was proud of a key statistic: seven of its nine thousand
residents were Japanese (and among them, according to later police esti-
mates, 3500 contributed to Shindō Renmei’s coffers). A stranger who
arrived in town might have imagined he was in Japan. Not only because of
the physical appearance of the majority of the population, but also due to
the local shops which were almost all identified by Japanese signboards. In
the late afternoons, the parade of the local “Tiro de Guerra,” small army
units where countryside recruits did their military service, created a curi-
ous image: young Niseis, sons of the first immigrants, born in Brazil, did
their military training in the plaza wearing the starched olive-green uni-
forms of the Brazilian Army. Since all of the athletes in the baseball clubs
in the city were Japanese, at times the Brazilian national team was made up
of players who came exclusively from these Bastos teams (Fig. 4.1).

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70562-6_5
122 F. MORAIS
Fig. 4.1 Young Niseis—the first generation born in Brazil—provide military ser-
vice as recruits to the “Tiro de Guerra” in Tupã. Integration begins to make
progress
The exceptionally high concentration of “Axis subjects” put a police

eye on the city when the agitation began to ignite in the colony. Their
surveillance would soon bear fruit. It was in Bastos that the police discov-
ered there were gangs of Japanese con men specializing in making money
at the expense of the Shindō sympathizers. They were “victory swindlers”
as the newspapers styled them. Their main trick consisted of selling phan-
tom lands in the islands of the Pacific and false passage on imaginary ships
that were already en route to Santos to begin repatriating the colony. When
DOPS succeeded in getting its hands on the shiftless Shigueyoshi Kagawa,
pioneer of this profitable activity, they found dozens of maps with plots of
land in “lands conquered by Japan” in his pension room in Bastos. The
vast archipelago located between Australia and Vietnam that separated the
Indian and Pacific Oceans had been completely allotted after these wise
guys advertised it as “spoils of war” conquered by Japan. On the major
islands such as Borneo and Sumatra, there wasn’t a square meter of land
CHAPTER 4 123
left, since all the lots had been sold. Under Kagawa’s mattress, the police
found the hefty sum of 80,000 cruzeiros amid the receipts for payments
and contracts.
It was also the police’s rigorous vigilance that led them to discover,
reputedly in Bastos, the first radio run by Shindō Renmei. DOPS knew
that Shindō had set up clandestine stations at various points in the state to
deliver “victor” news transmissions in Japanese. With the aid of a radiom-
eter (a radio wave receiver that determines the origin of emitted signals),
the police wound up tuning into a certain Radio Bastos. Although no
clandestine station was ever found in the city, several excerpts of the
“news” captured on air gave a sense of the delirious state in which half, if
not the majority, of the Japanese community was living.
News coming from German radio on September 12: The president of the United
States, Mr. Truman, is unable to respond to questions from the American people
about the end of the war. The people responded by assaulting him with gunfire,
shooting him in his right leg. Truman fled for Canada accompanied by thirty
officials.
Japan has appointed a new president of the United States. It is Colonel

Lindbergh.
The Prime Minister of England, Winston Churchill, has disappeared. A gen-

eral was sent to look for him in Italy, but since the war with Japan is already
over, there was no need to find him.
MacArthur committed suicide.
On September 1, the Soviet Union will commence disarmament.
The rumor that Japan lost the war came from the Jews in Rio de Janeiro, who
are fleeing for São Paulo, because the people in Rio already know of Japan’s
certain victory.
In Manila and Okinawa eleven ships from enemy squadrons have been cap-
tured. On the Ural front, 1.5 million Soviet soldiers have surrendered. All the
Allied Forces will be under Japanese control for the next ten years. The Brazilian
Minister for Aeronautics, Salgado Filho, left for Tokyo to accept unconditional
surrender in the name of the Brazilian government… They are waiting in
Tokyo for the representatives of forty-six nations to do the same.
124 F. MORAIS
Our forces are eliminating and mopping up the remaining forces of China and
the Soviet Union. As of now more than 7.5 million American soldiers have sur-
rendered, 15,690 aircraft and 6,500 ships have been captured, of which 350 are
in perfect shape in Yokosuka, and 600 in Shimizu.
San Francisco, California, is under the control of the Japanese forces. At this
very moment that we are broadcasting, fires are raging throughout the city. In
a proclamation to the people of New York, our Armed Forces declared Japan
does not wish to dominate the United States, but only to make a show of force.
On September 7, thirty of our ships disembarked for Central America, one part
of this force bound for Washington.
All Japanese outside of Japan will return to the homeland to make ready for the
colonization of the islands conquered in the Pacific.
England, the United States, and nine other countries will be obligated to pay
indemnities to Japan for damages caused by the war, as announced by President
Lindbergh.
A Japanese squadron is expected to arrive in Rio de Janeiro.
It was also in Bastos that the first news arrived of a strange weapon that
was being used by the “victors” against the “defeatists:” mustard bombs.
Nicknamed “sweet beaks,” these wooden boxes were sent anonymously to
the homes of the makegumi. When the packing seal was opened, the bomb
exploded. The “sweet beaks” weren’t fatal, but their load of mustard pow-
der penetrated into wounds caused by the explosion—usually the face and
arms—which caused excruciating pain in their victims (Figs. 4.2–4.3).
The city’s chief of police was practically born for the job. Famous for
the enthusiasm with which he exercised his authority, the delegate Luiz
Bernardo de Godoy e Vasconcelos was regarded as a “hideous” man who
enforced the law by “cracking the whip.” Brave and accustomed to single-
handedly confronting “recalcitrant” Japanese in the city, he decided to
apply his approach to the wartime legislation, which in this postwar era no
longer existed. When the Director of the Secret Service of DOPS called
him asking for “extraordinary efforts” in surveillance of the colony, he
took it as an invitation to unveil what was unquestionably the most oppres-
sive list of restrictions imposed on “Axis subjects” during World War
II. Harsh not only in content but also in the language employed, it
revealed Vasconcelos’ depths of hatred for the Japanese (Fig. 4.4).
CHAPTER 4 125
Figs. 4.2–4.3 A diabolical invention of the kachigumi: the “sweet beaks,” bombs
that don’t kill, but impregnate their victims upon explosion with painful amounts
of mustard
126 F. MORAIS
Fig. 4.4 A letter from the Bastos police to the Japanese community
CHAPTER 4 127
To the Japanese,
Notwithstanding the mild, or even complacent, treatment by this precinct for

the subjects of a Nation that yesterday was on the path of defeat, and today have
been humiliatingly and painfully beaten, you fail to understand our benevo-
lence, our humane conduct toward you.
You have abused our patience, the superior condescension by authorities that
govern a superior people, that have not treated you as enemies, as defeated ene-
mies. We have treated you as human beings, however useless this rendered our
superior condescension.
In light of this demonstration of your bad faith, your haste to resist, your
insane stubbornness, this precinct informs you of the following measures, result-
ing in severe punishment should you fail to obey:
(a) you will speak in Portuguese in public places or places accessible to the
public (public streets, places of business, offices, etc.);
(b) until further orders are given, all of the following are explicitly prohib-
ited: your gathering in private homes, clubs, or schools without permission from
the authorities, regardless of pretext; to practice or play athletic sports; or to lis-
ten to foreign broadcasts;
(c) we will hold responsible business owners, directors, and managers of estab-
lishments that permit any of the acts contravening the above prohibitions;
(d) rumors will be energetically reprimanded.
Bastos, September 28, 1945

Chief of Police
Luiz B. de Godoy e Vasconcelos
Racist, prejudiced, and imprudent, the police chief chose to isolate, like
a ghetto, nothing less than seventy percent of the city’s population.
Perhaps understanding that this was a fight between the Japanese them-
selves, not even this statistic shocked him. Accompanied by two soldiers,
the police chief went through all sections, as the neighborhoods were
called in Bastos, and disarmed the immigrants who still had weapons in
their homes. For Godoy e Vasconcelos, a “weapon” could be a carbine or
revolver, or even a switchblade, baseball bat, or knife to gut pigs. For
maintaining in an armoire, like a relic, an old uniform used in the Russo-
Japanese War of 1905, the elderly Itiro Yamanaka was arrested with his son
Saburō and sent to São Paulo, where both spent six months in the
Detention House. Neither did the famous and inoffensive sword of
Colonel Jinsaku Wakiyama escape their dragnet, which the police chief
128 F. MORAIS
knew only served as an ornament that completed the ceremonial wardrobe

of the veteran. Far from posing a risk to anyone, the elderly Wakiyama
seemed more interested in saving his own skin: feeling unsafe in the city
when the temperature was heating up on his brethren in Bastos, he gath-
ered his belongings and moved to the capital. Although he tried to leave
without attracting attention, before heading for São Paulo, he stopped for
a few minutes to see his old friend and successor to lead the Cooperative,
Ikuta Mizobe. It would be the last time the two met (Fig. 4.4).
Slightly built, quiet, and methodical, Ikuta Mizobe was exactly what he
appeared, a career bureaucrat, the type who even his Japanese friends never
saw without jacket and tie. Unlike the majority of the colony, which was
composed of simple folk, Mizobe was an educated and urbane man, who
began his career in his native city in Yamaguchi prefecture. When the emi-
gration movement to Brazil gathered force, his name was immediately
recalled by the colonization enterprises as a specialist in organizing and
administering cooperatives. Running a cooperative in the open expanses of
the agricultural frontier mostly entailed wearing the hats of mayor, judge,
police chief, and banker—which gave Mizobe this prominent position in
the city. Fifty-three years old, married, and the father of two children, he’d
spent two months living in the house he bought when the war ended. It
was a wooden house, like nearly all of the houses in the city, but comfort-
able and custom-made by builder Jacob Ferro on Rua Getúlio Vargas,
right in the center of Bastos. On the morning of August 15, Mizobe left
the house early, and on the way to the Cooperative, stopped at the only
hospital in the city to enjoy the privilege of listening to the radio for a few
minutes with Dr. Katsuto Hamano. Thanks to being Nisei, born in Brazil,
Hamano was excluded from the list of “Axis subjects” prohibited from
owning radios. It was there, in the doctor’s company, that he learned the
news that would lead to his death. World War II had come to an end, and
Japan had unconditionally surrendered to the Allies (Figs. 4.5 and 4.6).
Although he felt as patriotic as any other Japanese immigrant, Mizobe
lamented defeat and did what he thought proper, which was to convey the
news that same day to the Cooperative employees. He knew he was pok-
ing a hornet’s nest, but remained impassive even after he began to receive
threats. He did not ask for police protection or change his habits. When a
pamphlet or letter full of insults landed in his hands, he ordered one of his
employees to deliver it to the police—not because he wanted them to take
protective measures, but only because it was his duty to inform them. It
was in the same fashion that he received a copy of the fake circular directed
CHAPTER 4 129
Figs. 4.5–4.6 A tokko ̄tai spends hours waiting for the right moment to kill
Mizobe (at right). When the police arrive at the dead man’s house, they discover a
live grenade (at left)
at the functionaries of CAB in his name (and with his signature forged),
denying what he’d said on the previous one, distributed on August 15,
with news of the war’s end. He took the paper, read it without revealing
any emotion, and ordered it sent to the police. He would do the same
with the threat letters slipped under the door of his house, such as the one
he sent the police a few days before his death:
You defended unconditional surrender? Then Mizobe, puppet of the Jews, you
will be eliminated from the Japanese race with blood! We will use all methods:
firing squad, life imprisonment, deportation to an island, sterilization, lynch-
ing, etc. When you are erased, the situation in Bastos will improve one hundred
percent. Wash your throat, dirty heart!
Shindō Renmei
̄ a Era
February 21 in the 21st year of the Show
Ikuta Mizobe did not appear surprised when his wife Koto told him of
the unannounced visit they received that Monday, two days before her
husband’s murder. An unknown Japanese man—apparently a coffee plan-
tation laborer, barefoot and in short sleeves—appeared at their house and
read her the verse, “The father’s corpse exposed to the wind and the rain,”
taken from a millennial poem entitled “Hakkotsu no chichi.” The man
130 F. MORAIS
knocked on the door, read from a piece of paper, and left without saying
another word other than the poem, but this was enough for Koto, a
woman familiar with the symbolism and allegories in Japanese, to break
down and cry. Upon hearing his wife’s report, Mizobe also understood,
with a cold fatalism, the significance of the stanza read by the stranger. It
was pointless to ask for anyone’s protection, his death was imminent.
Until 10 p.m. on March 6, 1946, everything was the same as usual for
Ikuta Mizobe. He woke early, shaved, trimmed his fine mustache, and left
for the Cooperative. Along the way he stopped at the hospital to hear the
news on Dr. Hamano’s radio, worked until midday and ate right there, in
the office of CAB, the bentō his wife had prepared for him. Since he was
expecting visitors that night, he left early for home, where he was hosting
the young athlete Yoshito Nomura, the son of a friend in Marília. After
dinner that night his visitors arrived: CAB’s warehouse manager, Ichigi
Furusawa, and his wife, Matiko, who’d come over for tea and a quick
round of fuda, the Japanese card game. At 11 p.m., when his guests
decided to leave, it was already two hours that death incarnate lay hidden
in the bushes of the house, in the form of the driver, greengrocer, and
fencing instructor Satoru Yamamoto, twenty-seven years old.
The man chosen to kill Mizobe had been in Brazil since 1933. Together
with the brother with whom he emigrated, Yamamoto worked for several
years as a camarada, as they called the day workers in the countryside,
planting and harvesting cotton on the Anze plantation in Araçatuba, and
Myamoto plantation in Guararapes. It was in the latter town that he
received one of those pamphlets warning of the risks of planting mint and
cultivating silkworms. When Brazil broke off relations with Japan in 1942,
he concluded that if these activities would benefit Japan’s enemies, then
planting cotton as he’d done before was going to help Brazil, which was
also Japan’s enemy. Armed with this firm logic, he decided to grow only
vegetables. By gathering all his savings, he bought a small used truck and
vegetable garden in Araçatuba, and became a truck driver and farmer.
It was at a farmer’s market in this city, where every morning he sold his
produce, that Yamamoto was informed by another seller, Tadao Shiraishi,
about the progress of the war. The head of Shindō Renmei in Tupã,
Shiraishi wound up convincing Yamamoto to leave his farm and dedicate
himself exclusively to the organization. And it was as a member of Shindō
that Yamamoto received instructions to apply for work at the Cooperative
in Bastos to serve as their informant there, keeping an eye on the defeatist
conduct of its director, Ikuta Mizobe, who they grew more suspicious of
CHAPTER 4 131
with each passing day. On the day the war officially ended, Yamamoto
spent that Sunday in Mirandópolis overseeing a kendo competition.
Disturbed by the news of Japan’s defeat, which had just taken place, he
interrupted his weeping compatriots, whom he encountered at the club,
by shouting: “Japan never lost a war! Japan cannot be defeated!”
Upon return to Bastos, he couldn’t sleep. With the help of a friend, he
went about assembling and sending those terrible mustard bombs to the
“defeatists” in the city. But news about the war’s end, which mattered the
most, continued to be obscure. The information was contradictory at
best, and no one knew for sure what had happened. Yamamoto decided to
seek counsel from the elderly Senjirō Hatanaka, one of the pioneers of
immigration in Bastos, and a person highly esteemed by the colony. He
left Hatanaka’s house—“my last hope,” he later said—worse than he
arrived: the old man said that Japan had, in fact, been disgracefully
defeated. From there he went to the house of Tadashigue Katō, where to
his relief, various leaders of Shindō “passionately proclaimed Japan’s vic-
tory.” At the end of this meeting, Yamamoto was counseled to “cut all
relations” with the defeatists and received a new task: to teach Japanese in
a tiny, secret school in the Cascata section in Bastos.
He remained in Cascata until the end of January, when he was called to
a meeting in Tupã, where he was harshly and unjustly reprimanded by the
leaders of Shindō “for leaving the Cooperative before capturing the sym-
pathy of the director.” Despite having requested to be let go from CAB on
the orders of Tadao Shiraishi—the same person now criticizing him—
Yamamoto listened to the sermon in silence. Shiraishi spoke bluntly: “So
long as we do not take care of the bosses who spread the word of Japan’s
defeat,” he shouted, “confusion will reign in the colony.” According to
him, all leaders who “are nothing but Jewish puppets” should die.
In Bastos, the one leading these puppets is Ikuta Mizobe. If we take care of
him, the situation in the city will improve one hundred percent. Mizobe is a
defeatist propagandist, taking advantage of the position he occupies at the
Cooperative. He is a true traitor to the nation.
Satoru Yamamoto clearly understood where Shiraishi was going and

thought it best to establish his limits.
I will continue in the movement against mint planting and silkworm cultiva-
tion, but I don’t wish to kill anyone.
132 F. MORAIS
The branch leader of Shindō was unwavering.
A grain of wheat can produce thousands. In the same way, eliminating a

grain of wheat can save thousands who are in Bastos.
The preaching paid off. At his own initiative, Yamamoto set Mizobe’s
execution date for March 10, when they observed Army Commemoration
Day in Japan. Shindō found the date “inconvenient” and moved it up by
three days. At 7:30 p.m. on March 7, when the director of CAB arrived at
home for his last dinner, Yamamoto descended from the back of the white
horse on which Tadao Shiraishi had brought him from the Cascata section
to the center of Bastos. Manuel Neto, the Alagoan guard who worked for
the Sericulture Institute of CAB, which had its headquarters next to
Mizobe’s house, had received instructions from João Mancini, one of the
managers at the Cooperative, to keep an eye out for any unknown Japanese
who came near the house (despite the threats he’d received, Mizobe
insisted on having nothing more than a stray dog to stand guard). Armed
with a .32 revolver and a battery-powered flashlight to see in the dark,
Manuel Neto didn’t even notice when a figure crawled through the thicket
and arrived at a place where he could hide with a view of the house. It was
Yamamoto, crouching in the clump of bushes between a storage hut and
a tiled wall, a few feet from the entrance of the house. A hundred yards
away, on an abandoned patch of land, Shiraishi waited on horseback for
him to return.
Months later, when he was interrogated by the police and confessed to
the crime, Satoru Yamamoto still remembered the details of the hours
prior to the execution:
Mizobe had visitors so I had to wait almost three hours. While I waited, I uri-
nated three times. At first, the house dog barked a lot, but eventually got tired
of barking and settled down. I slipped away from my hiding place once to tell
Shiraishi that Mizobe had visitors and it looked like they weren’t leaving any
time soon. I told him we should postpone the plan, but Shiraishi didn’t agree. So
I went back to my hiding spot. Just as I was about to get up, I heard someone’s
voice—it was one of his visitors saying goodbye—and I was satisfied. After his
visitors left, Mizobe closed all the windows and turned off the lights in the entry-
way. For a moment, there, I hesitated, wondering whether to run away or shoot
through the bedroom window made of glass; then I spotted a figure coming out
of the kitchen. I looked closely but couldn’t make out who it was. The person,
CHAPTER 4 133
dressed in a kimono, closed the garden gate and went into the outhouse located
there. I still couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. It would be shameful to
shoot Mrs. Mizobe. I drew as close as possible, almost a meter and a half from the
outhouse, to see if I could hear his cough and know it was him. Still nothing. At
that moment I heard another voice, which seemed to be a girl’s, shouting, “Papa,
are you in the outhouse?” To which he replied, “Yes, I am.” I was satisfied to
know it was, in fact, Mizobe who was inside the outhouse. I spied through the
lock when Mizobe stood up and calculated his height. I figured I would hit the
heart if I aimed a foot below the neck. When I arrived from Cascata, I had
received a Mauser from Shiraishi, which I practiced with in the middle of the
woods and learned it had a habit of recoiling a hand’s breadth upwards from
the fired shot from a distance of fifteen yards. I had confidence in my aim,
because when I was a driver I practiced many times. As a rule, if I aimed a foot
and a half below the throat I was sure to hit the heart. But since this firearm had
a habit of recoiling upwards, I calculated the crosshair just a foot below the
neck. That way, when I got Mizobe in my sights, I fired the first round by raising
the firearm from lower to higher. I hit the target. Mizobe staggered clutching his
chest. I was ready to take more shots from behind the tank for washing clothes,
but Mizobe suddenly collapsed without uttering a word, as if swimming in the
air. At that moment his daughter came running out of the house and his wife
rushed to the garden where she hugged the lifeless corpse of her husband. Pressing
against the wall. I ran to the front of the house and jumped the gate leading to
the garage, where I tripped on a furrow in the ground made by the rain. When
I got to my feet, I heard the night guard from the Sericulture Institute blow his
whistle and saw his revolver was pointed at me. I turned in his direction and
heard someone coming down the street, but couldn’t tell who it was, all the while
I was about fifteen yards from the guard. When I aimed my gun at the guard,
he ran behind the fence and blew on his whistle again. I took off heading east,
passing the house of Dr. Ferraz, and reached Shiraishi, who was behind the hos-
pital. I gave him the signal to make good our escape. Shiraishi, mounted on the
horse, disappeared down the street. […] I went past the tennis courts and behind
the mulberry trees to my house in Cascata. Shiraishi fled toward Quatá, passing
through Esperança and Monteiro. I couldn’t sleep for three nights afterward.
When she left the house, alarmed by the sound of gunfire, Koto
Mizobe found her husband face down a few feet from the outhouse
door, his red and blue kimono soaked in blood. At his side, revolver in
hand, was the guard Manuel Neto. The young houseguest, Yoshito
Nomura, woke their neighbor, the doctor Takao Mori, to try to save
Mizobe’s life, but the director of the Cooperative was already dead.
Based on the police investigation, he was going to die one way or
134 F. MORAIS
another. In the heat of making his escape, Yamamoto abandoned in the

bushes a live grenade he’d been ready to use.
Before Mizobe’s first friends arrived at the funeral on Thursday morn-
ing, police chief Godoy e Vasconcelos had already put twenty Japanese
behind bars, of which a dozen were suspected of ties to Shindō Renmei.
The interrogations revealed one of the principal mandates of the organiza-
tion, to never give up a comrade, no matter what the circumstances.
Among the members of the organization, giving up a comrade was a crime
almost as grave as the fumie—the ultimate crime of stepping on the image
of the emperor or the Japanese flag. To the good fortune of those arrested,
the police chief had not established any relationship between Shindō and
Mizobe’s death. When questions were asked about the crime, they dis-
sembled and distracted the police’s attention. This lasted for days. One of
the arrested was Tadashigue Katō, in whose house the murderer received
his first orders from Shindō. Like nearly all of his compatriots, he denied
any association with the secret society and insisted to the police that
Mizobe’s death must have been the work of an ex-employee of the
Cooperative fired by the director. Without the least bit of ceremony, he
heaped suspicions of corruption and adultery on the memory of the hon-
est and dignified Mizobe. According to Katō’s version (which Shindō
spread around the city), the one who ordered the killing was “one of his
lovers or, who knows, one of the victims of the embezzlement Mizobe
perpetrated on the Cooperative’s coffers.” Lacking any means of extract-
ing from the Japanese more than they were willing to reveal, the police
chief soon had to set them free. Every movement was immediately trans-
mitted to Shindō Renmei’s leadership in São Paulo. The first step taken by
Katō when he regained his liberty was to notify his superiors (Figs. 4.7–4.9
and 4.10–4.12):
Shindō Renmei Headquarters

By virtue of the assassination of Ikuta Mizobe here in Bastos, eight of our core-
ligionists were arrested, but today (March 18) several were freed: Samejima,
Kato ̄, Mizuno, and Chida (the younger brother). They were not asked a single
question about the suspect in the homicide, they were only interrogated for an
hour and a half about Shindō Renmei. […] The identity of the killer is still
unknown to them. The authorities seem embarrassed about it. Forgive this mes-
sage written in haste upon release from jail.
Kato ̄—Bastos affiliate of Shindo ̄ Renmei
Three days later, the police chief was ready to capitulate to the Japanese
plot and set free the remaining prisoners suspected of ties to the secret
CHAPTER 4 135
Figs. 4.7–4.9 The police raid Shindō Renmei headquarters in São Paulo (at
top), and find stockpiles of bombs and the sect’s registration forms, such as that of
Tarō Mushino (at bottom)
136 F. MORAIS
Figs. 4.10–4.12 The radio transmitter used to receive news from Japan (at top
left), yellow slickers used by the tokkōtai (at top right), and weapons utilized in
operations, among them the indispensable tantō (at bottom)
organization due to a total lack of evidence. Once more, the São Paulo
headquarters was the first to learn of it.
Shindō Renmei Headquarters

With apologies for brevity and getting straight to the point, after some days, our
coreligionists arrested on suspicion of murdering Ikuta Mizobe were released
yesterday (the 20th) without incident, so they can all be at ease. Moreover, we
are not the target of any inquiry related to the incident, but were only ques-
tioned about the objectives of Shindō Renmei, we were simply asked two or three
more questions about other topics before being sent home. In sum, I believe the
authorities’ work is the result of ruses by the defeatists. […]
Sincerely,
Ichisaburō Chida—Shindo ̄ Renmei branch in Bastos
CHAPTER 4 137
The freeing of their militants without anyone being suspected of

involvement in the execution of the “defeatist” Mizobe was celebrated by
the leaders of Shindō Renmei in São Paulo. It was clear there was a mobi-
lization afoot in the colony in Bastos to obstruct and confuse the police—
for the leaders of the clandestine organization, it was a clear demonstration
that the kachigumi’s ideas had penetrated among the immigrants. Just as
lost as the police, the press contributed to the confusion surrounding the
investigations, every day inventing the name of a new “fanatical killer.”
For lack of a consistent suspect, police chief Godoy e Vasconcelos drew his
gaze back to the guard Manuel Neto. After all, he was found next to the
dead man when the crime happened and armed with a Colt .32 revolver—
the same caliber bullet that killed the Japanese. It was only two weeks later
that the guard would be declared innocent, when the results of ballistic
examinations returned from the capital proving the bullet that killed
Mizobe was not fired from Manuel Neto’s revolver. About the real mur-
derer, however, there was no news whatsoever.
* * *
The DOPS police only connected the two ends of this ball of yarn—the
death of Ikuta Mizobe and Shindō Renmei—almost a month later, on
April 2, 1946, when the former diplomat Shiguetsuna Furuya escaped an
attack on his life and the businessman Chūzaburō Nomura, “The Ramie
King,” was shot dead by the Japanese fundamentalist organization. The
head of the Secret Service of DOPS, police chief Geraldo Cardoso de
Mello, was reached that morning on the radio by the Campos Elíseos
Palace, the seat of São Paulo’s government at that time, while he super-
vised the examination of Nomura’s cadaver in his home on Rua Zacarias
Klein in Jabaquara, three miles from the Japanese neighborhood. It was
the Secretary of Public Security, Pedro de Oliveira Ribeiro Sobrinho,
informing him he had just signed a decree determining the opening of a
formal inquiry and process for deporting all those involved in Nomura’s
death and the attempted murder at Furuya’s home. On orders from the
federal interventor, Macedo Soares, the inquiry would be conducted by
Cardoso de Mello himself. Armed with these powers, the police chief con-
vened the available investigators to review all they had regarding Japanese
sects in the police archives. It took only a few hours to conclude that
Mizobe’s and Nomura’s deaths, as well as the attempt on Furuya’s life,
came from the same source: the home on Rua Paracatu, no. 98, in the
138 F. MORAIS
Bosque da Saúde neighborhood—the same address Junji Kikawa gave to

DOPS at the start of the year, when the colonel tried to register
Shindō Renmei.
The over-the-top efforts set up by the police that night proved unnec-
essary. When Cardoso de Mello and the chief of Personal Security, Alfredo
de Assis, broke down the front door of the split-level, dozens of police
armed with rifles, pistols, and machine guns were already posted to every
door and window in the house. The eleven Japanese found inside, on the
other hand, were unarmed and appeared disinclined to offer any sort of
reaction. According to a journalist present at the police raid, they “showed
no surprise, maintaining their calm and trying to make us believe it was
just a friendly get-together.”
In the conference room of the house, beneath two Japanese flags, the
police arrested Ryōtarō Negoro and Seiichi Tomari—substitutes for the
vanished Colonel Kikawa to lead the organization—and nine other immi-
grants, among them Eiiti Sakane, the bearded Japanese who was one of
the seven that tried to decapitate Corporal Edmundo in the “case of the
flag” that occurred in Tupã at the beginning of the year. The others were
Shindō branch leaders in the interior of the state. On the wall, alongside a
photo of Emperor Hirohito, there was a standard with an enormous
cherry blossom bordered in white: this was the symbol of Shindō Renmei,
the League of the Imperial Way. Kikawa spoke the truth. There was no
doubt this was the headquarters of the Japanese terrorists.
There was an open passage through the wall in the backyard leading to
the neighbor’s house, also occupied by Shindō Renmei. In the rooms of
both buildings, the police found Shintoist altars, practice spaces for judo
and jiujitsu, conference rooms, printing offices, photography studios, and
laboratories. There were stacks of paper, documents, internal orders,
threat letters, “black lists” of “defeatists,” boxes containing thousands of
cruzeiros in packaged banknotes, circulars, fraudulent photographs, and
little bundles made for the killers containing weapons, flags, and manifes-
tos. They recovered a rusty revolver and two decrepit derringers, but no
other firearms were found in the house. The “subversive material” scat-
tered in various rooms of the head office, however, was abundant. In a
room lined with cork insulation boards, they had installed a powerful
radio transmitter, capable of communicating in seconds “with the Japanese
metropolitan area,” according to the didactic explanation of the engineer
Negoro. To the amazement of the police, he candidly offered to demon-
strate how to use the equipment. If the police wished, he would contact
CHAPTER 4 139
Japan directly, so all could verify “the excellent quality of the reception.”
He was prevented from doing so by Personal Security Chief Assis, who
rebuffed “the audacity of this criminal.”
The reporters seemed to delight in the insolent behavior of Shindō
Renmei’s leaders, newly baptized by the journalists the following day as
“the Japanese Ku Klux Klan” and “The Oriental Gestapo,” always punctu-
ated with exclamation points. Curiously, in spite of their exaggerated con-
demnations of Shindō’s crimes, most of the journalists and intellectuals
could not conceal their admiration for such exotic specimens. The journal-
ist Agostinho Rodrigues Filho, who covered these occurrences for the
magazine Diretrizes—a publication considered leftist and run by Samuel
Wainer, the journalist who six years later created the newspaper Última
Hora—wrote emotionally about what he’d witnessed:
I watched the testimony given by members of the infamous Shindō Renmei. I

saw fearless criminals, unaware of their own offenses, indifferent to the conse-
quences of their attitudes, who assumed full responsibility for the cruel acts they
coldly narrated. Good men with pure lives, who’d spent twenty or thirty years in
honest labor in the countryside or the city, who obeyed the law and were respected
for their social customs, abruptly turned into implacable murderers.
In a prophetic article published in the newspaper A Gazeta, the mod-

ernist poet Menotti del Picchia spied a “patriotic faith” behind Shindō
Renmei’s crimes and predicted the position the recently defeated country
would come to occupy a half-century later:
Politically imprisoned by Occidental forces, the Japanese will be the most capa-
ble front lines of the capitalist world in the Orient. One need only cultivate the
nationalist mentality, that rigid barrier forged in fanaticism. For Japan, for
the emperor, for the flag, the patriotic faith of every subject of the Mikado is
capable of all these crimes. The tokkōtai are the result of this exacerbated cli-
mate of love for a tradition more than slightly millenarian.
The exhibition of “trophies” snatched from the Japanese took place the
next day, when the police called a press conference with Personal Security
Chief Assis, whom the newspaper A Gazeta described as “the man of the
moment, who was tasked with a difficult mission in the name of the São
Paulo police, as well as law and order, to the challenges hurled at the capi-
tal and the countryside by elements of these terrorist organizations.” Assis
lay on the dais a mountain of papers, flags, and photographs found at
140 F. MORAIS
Fig. 4.13 A fake postal stamp from the Philippines, invented by Shindō Renmei,
“alluding to Japan’s victory”
Shindō Renmei’s headquarters: six Japanese flags; four photo albums of

members from the organization directory; five packets of doctored photo-
graphs of Japan’s surrender (in which General MacArthur appeared to be
the loser); fake editions of the American magazine Life, in which the photo
captions were switched for others, making Japan the victor of World War
II; packets containing bundles of false yen notes, the devalued Japanese
currency; photos of signboards threatening the “defeatists;” and a list of
their business partners, monthly payment receipts, and maps of the State
of São Paulo, with the location of each of Shindō’s branch offices. In a
chest of drawers, they found packets of fake Japanese postal stamps sup-
posedly issued by the Japanese government to celebrate the victory over
the Allies (4.13). In the midst of this profusion of paperwork, the police
discovered a new “black list” of forty names of those Shindō Renmei con-
demned to die in the colony for betraying the nation.
CHAPTER 4 141
Only three of the immigrants marked for death were not businessmen:
Yoshikazu “Paulo” Morita, a functionary for the Japanese section of the
Swiss Consulate in São Paulo (who served as the interpreter for DOPS in
Marília during the interrogations about the threats to decapitate the cor-
poral of Public Forces in Tupã) and the journalists Sukenari Onaga, for-
mer owner of the Nippon Shimbun, and his son, Hideo, a reporter for the
Jornal de S. Paulo. Together with a small group of colleagues, including
Claúdio Abramo and Hermínio Sachetta, Hideo had left the Folha da
Manhã (the embryo for what would years later become the newspaper
Folha de S. Paulo) in protest against the sale of the paper to the industrialist
Francisco Matarazzo II, the “boy count.” Emboldened by the democratic
winds that swept Brazil at the end of the Estado Novo, the group founded
the Jornal de S. Paulo, an agile and modern daily. It was there Hideo pub-
lished the reports that so irritated the fanatics in Shindō Renmei. For him,
it was necessary to divide the colony into three groups: the rogues who
were making money off the fanaticism of the colony; the ignorant Japanese,
who bought their baseless lies; and the “educated” or “enlightened” ones
stigmatized as defeatists or traitors. A few days after the death of his friend
and neighbor, Chūzaburō Nomura, Hideo Onaga published an article
addressing the matter.
[…] Japanese ships docking in Rio de Janeiro and waiting to collect subjects
who believed in Japan’s victory. Passages already sold… To pay for their passage,
which cost thousands of cruzeiros, not counting reservation fees, the poor
Japanese sold their lands (at cutthroat prices, under pressure), they withdrew
their savings from banks, suspended their children’s education in schools, des-
perate to put together the money necessary to pay their way… heading to the
promised land of their unscrupulous countrymen. The hotels and pensions in
São Paulo were crowded with people who came to wait for the ship or at least
greet the emperor’s special envoy. Of course there were neither a ship nor special
envoy. The ship suffered a breakdown and was forced to return to Japan. The
special envoy would come by airplane. All the while in the countryside the colony
celebrated Japan’s victory. The police brass, who knew why they were celebrating,
couldn’t help but smile sympathetically… Were they seeing this? The police brass
received a direct order from the representatives of the Japanese government to
immediately free the Japanese celebrating the nation’s victory upon penalty of
severe punishment. […] From this came the idea of exterminating their ene-
mies. The first was in Bastos, killed by gun shots. The second was in São Paulo,
a former journalist… An ex-diplomat barely escaped with his life… All of the
third group are included in the death lists of these organizations that act in the
name of patriotic and pompous causes…
142 F. MORAIS
For the police in São Paulo, however, the discovery of the most impor-
tant “yellow lair” transformed Shindō Renmei into a thing of the past. All
that remained was to apprehend the old colonel Junji Kikawa and the still-
unknown murderer of Ikuta Mizobe, who remained at large. According to
the words of Personal Security chief Alfredo de Assis, “we caught them
red-handed.” The policeman savored the victory over the “yellow peril”
and offered details to the reporters:
On March 5, forty Japanese subjects arrived in São Paulo from Quintana,

Marília, Pompéia, and Tupã, carefully instructed on what they should carry
out in the capital. Divided into eight groups of five—the tokkōtai, or “Special
Attack Unit”—constituted a veritable terrorist shock troop, whose fanati-
cism demanded the sacrifice of their very lives to execute the Japanese who
doubted their nation’s victory. But since last night, thanks to the energetic
actions taken by the police, this threat no longer exists.
According to the police, before leaving, each member of the tokkōtai

received the significant sum of one thousand cruzeiros from “a very impor-
tant and influential person,” along with a set of instructions that began
with orders to find work in the capital to avoid raising the authorities’
suspicions. The police chief got the group’s name right and the date when
they left for São Paulo. But there were only ten, not forty men, and the
danger was far from over.
The killers had been activated since the makegumi in São Paulo pub-
lished the manifesto declaring the end of the war and Japan’s defeat in the
newspapers. Tasked by Shindō Renmei’s leaders to organize “Kamikaze
Battalions” (as the tokkōtai were also known), the farmer Sunao Shinyashiki
from Quintana went off looking for what he called in his own words,
“young men ready to give their lives for Japan and the imperial family.” In
just a few weeks, he had ten names selected. At the end of February, the
group met for the first time late at night in Quintana at the home of
Massao Honke, who was himself a tokkōtai volunteer. Shinyashiki reiter-
ated, once more, that their objectives lay before them: they were going to
kill the traitors to the homeland; however, this would not be a crime, but
a “cleansing” of the colony. The condemned would be given a chance to
take their own lives if they preferred, rather than face execution. When one
of the groups completed its mission, that is, to eliminate all the “defeat-
ists” on their list, then they would present themselves to the police.
Anyone captured by the police during an operation should surrender
without resistance as the group had nothing against Brazil or the Brazilians.
CHAPTER 4 143
Anyone who had a revolver should bring his own; those who didn’t would
receive money in São Paulo to buy a used one. Lastly, no one should admit
they had any connection to Shindō Renmei.
On the night of March 5, at exactly 7 p.m., Companhia Paulista’s night
train left Tupã bound for São Paulo. Precisely thirty minutes later, the
train made up of twenty cars stopped at Quintana Station. A young
Japanese man, his face partly obscured by a hat, and with his ticket in
hand, looked through the windows and saw the first-class car, where the
seats were cushioned and the headrests covered by immaculate white pil-
low covers, only to realize he was in the wrong car. He walked along the
old steam locomotive pulled up at the station and entered the second-class
car, where the seats were benches of hardwood. He was the farmworker
Massakiti Taniguti, thirty-two years old, a cotton planter in Quintana.
After a quick stop in Paulópolis, the train arrived at Pompéia Station at
7:50 p.m., where just over a dozen people were waiting to board. Among
them were five young Japanese men who sat separately, as if they’d never
met before. They were Tatsuo Watanabe, a pharmacist, thirty-three years
old; Hiromi Yamashita, a traveling salesman, twenty-one years old; Shimpei
Kitamura, a dry cleaner, twenty-six years old; Tokuiti Hidaka, a salesman,
twenty years old; and Tarō Mushino, a farmworker. The majority had only
been to São Paulo once before, en route from the Port of Santos to the
interior when they first arrived in Brazil. Contrary to what police chief
Assis asserted during the press conference, with the exception of Watanabe,
who had 5000 cruzeiros hidden deep in a bundle (money he’d been given
by someone he only knew as “Tsuji,” owner of the Confeitaria Deliciosa
in Quintana), the others were traveling only with the clothes on their
backs and supplied with bentō boxes of rice, vegetables, and smoked fish.
The two youngest, Yamashita and Hidaka, who still lived with their par-
ents, had to make up a story to travel with the others. This despite the fact
that Hidaka already had been in trouble with the police for taking part in
the attempt to decapitate Corporal Edmundo in Tupã, a feat that also
involved another passenger on the trip, the dry cleaner Shimpei Kitamura.
At 7 a.m. sharp, as befitted a Paulista train, the twenty cars pulled into
Luz Station in the heart of São Paulo, where Sunao Shinyashiki waited for
the six men to arrive. Their first days in the capital were spent in a phan-
tasmagorical place: The Orient Dry Cleaners, owned by Kamegorō
Ogazawara, a fifty-seven-year-old extremist. Their first instructions were
given in rooms full of dyeing tanks spread out in the basements of various
attached houses. The feeble lighting there came from a handful of bulbs
dangling from the ceiling. Under an unbearable heat, dozens of
144 F. MORAIS
semi-nude Japanese with their heads protected by turbans and glistening

with sweat, spent days and nights in labor seemingly without end. They
ran from one end to the other, raising and lowering clotheslines covered
with pieces of steaming fabric that had been dipped in boiling tanks of
aniline—and in each tank a different color. It was in this rainbow-hued
hell that Kamegorō Ogazawara gave out daily instructions to the tokko ̄tai—
apparently unbothered by the prospect of being overheard by his employ-
ees, who disappeared and reappeared behind clouds of steam, the whole
time inhaling an asphyxiating smell of ammonia emanating from the
aniline.
To everyone’s relief, four or five days after they arrived, Ogazawara
announced that the group would change its hiding place, as it was neces-
sary to free up the two cramped rooms the six occupied next door to the
dyeing tanks for other young men arriving from the countryside. At dif-
ferent hours and on different days, they left the Japantown, went across
town, and headed for Santo Amaro, in the farthest reaches of the south
zone, where a new “yellow lair,” as the newspapers later called them, was
ready to take them in. The address given by Ogazawara—a patch of the
scrubland given the surprising name Paris Avenue—was a small farm
whose owner awaited them in the doorway. To some he introduced him-
self as Tsurutarō Ushisawa, his real name, and to others as “Kenjō Sawai,”
his stage name by which he preferred to be called. The agreed-upon pass-
word seemed illogical for a place exclusively dedicated to growing vegeta-
bles. To enter each new arrival had to repeat the same phrase to Sawai:
I come from the countryside and would like to learn how to raise chickens.
This was sufficient to get past the thick veil of vegetation protecting the
farm from indiscreet gazes. Despite the fact that fate had turned him into
a modest planter of cauliflower and radishes, fifty-one-year-old Kenjō
Sawai was a man of refined tastes. In his youth he was a professional singer
of Japanese operettas; it was from this era he got the pseudonym which he
permanently adopted. Slim and completely bald, he never succeeded in
becoming a star beloved by the masses, but it was thanks to his voice that
he resisted the temptation to emigrate to Brazil for more than a dozen
years. In 1931, however, the economic crisis buffeting Japan left him with
no alternative. At mid-year he disembarked at Santos. Although officially
in possession of a pair of arms suitable for plantation work, Sawai managed
to work half the year in his chosen profession. He made his way around
CHAPTER 4 145
the colony by train and bus, on horseback and by car, singing at birthdays
and weddings. Unfortunately, his patrons were too poor to offer many
luxuries, and thus he had to change tack to remain in the world of the arts.
He became an importer of Japanese films, which he transported by himself
to the countryside to exhibit from one town to the next in the regions
with the greatest concentration of Japanese immigrants. Sawai had his life
in order, having married an immigrant with whom he had five children.
He’d lived in peace until World War II broke out. As an impresario and
importer of films, he saw himself targeted in various articles of the harsh
Brazilian legislation against “Axis subjects” and had to shut down his cin-
ematic operation. He put everything he had into buying the farm, where
he now planted vegetables.
When the war ended, Sawai, an ardent patriot, tore to pieces the news-
paper that published the declaration by the “enlightened” Japanese before
his wife and children. He swore he would do everything to mercilessly
punish those “shameless traitors” who had signed the document. As soon
as he found out about Shindō Renmei’s existence, he did not need any
enticements. Through a friend, he made the acquaintance of Sunao
Shinyashiki, who in turn put him in the service of the organization. Upon
learning what they had in the works, Sawai offered to host some of the
tokko ̄tai coming into São Paulo at his farm, according to Shinyashiki “to
cleanse the homeland’s honor with blood.”
At the back of his property were two large wooden sheds with floors
covered in tatami for judo practice that could be used to receive a number
of visitors. From that moment on, Sawai’s farm was converted into the
seventh “base” that Shindō Renmei had installed in the capital to shelter
the makegumi’s assassins. The other locations included The Orient and
Aragaki Dry Cleaners, and four other farms similar to Sawai’s, all located
in distant neighborhoods on the periphery of São Paulo or in neighbor-
ing cities.
Upon arriving at Sawai’s farm, the young men coming from the Orient
discovered they weren’t alone. In addition to Sunao Shinyashiki, they also
met up with four Japanese, all around thirty years of age, whom they
already knew from their preparatory meetings back in the countryside.
Fumio Ueda, Kazunori Yoshida, and Massao Honke were from Quintana,
while Mitsurō Ikeda was from Pompéia. The owner of a small stamp fac-
tory, Ikeda (who for some reason preferred to be called “Antônio” rather
than Mitsurō) stood out for his elegance. Tall, slender, and good-looking,
he had a thick head of hair and fine mustache that was in fashion in those
146 F. MORAIS
days, which made him look like a movie star. Equally ostentatious was the
scarf tied around his neck and lustrous riding boots that came up to his
knees. But it wasn’t for his looks that he was chosen by Shindō Renmei.
Such was Ikeda’s fame on the Alta Paulista, it was said he could smash a
matchbox thrown in the air with a shot from his .45 caliber revolver.
At the reunion of the ten men at Sawai’s farm, the first two platoons of
assassins were readied. For some reason, Shindō Renmei decided the
tokko ̄tai should always attack in groups of five. Over the next two to three
weeks, the group repeatedly heard their instructions for when they went
into action, either from Ogazawara himself, from The Orient Dry Cleaners,
or from Sunao Shinyashiki. Occasionally, one of the young men disap-
peared for a few days, only to return talking about meetings at the Orient
or “Tomizuka’s farm,” where other groups of young men were staying.
The recommendations were more or less the same as usual: they were to
wear the Japanese flag under their clothes, and before taking action, they
must first present the traitor with a “suicide note” along with a tantō, or
Japanese dagger suitable for the practice of seppuku or “hara-kiri,” the
ritual suicide. Although Shindō Renmei was described by the press in São
Paulo and Rio as an organization that “used modern techniques for its
diabolic work,” in its meetings its amateurish approach suggested instead
a group of children playing pretend. On the night of February 23, for
example, the ten young men staying at Sawai’s farm were invited to a
meeting with Ogazawara and Shinyashiki to announce the names of the
first three “dirty hearts” they marked for death: Shibata Miyakoshi,
Chūzaburō the “Ramie King” Nomura, and the ex-diplomat Shiguetsuna
Furuya. Two were signatories and one an idealizer of the manifesto to the
colony. When one of the young men who came up from the countryside
asked where the condemned men lived, Shinyashiki responded they would
figure it out at the end of the meeting by “checking the phone book” for
the capital. And in order for the assassins to familiarize themselves with
their future victims, Kamegorō Ogazawara passed around to the tokkōtai
a circular with old clippings from Japanese newspapers with photos in
which the three men appeared (Fig. 4.13).
Therefore, the fiasco that resulted from the debut of Shindō Renmei’s
“killing machine” should not have come as a surprise to anyone. At the
crack of dawn on March 31, the ten were awoken by Shinyashiki and
Ogazawara with one order: they had thirty minutes to get ready, because
the three “defeatists” had to be dead that very night. Alongside the two
handlers, a new face appeared: the journalist Seijirō Mihara, who’d been
CHAPTER 4 147
enlisted to circulate the “suicide notes” of those “defeatists” who chose to

commit suicide. Ogazawara made a point of stressing the inclusion of
Shibata Miyakoshi on the condemned list as further proof of the “impec-
cable character” of Colonel Kikawa. Even though he was friends with
Miyakoshi going back to Japan (it was he, in fact, who’d written to Takao,
the colonel’s son, to convince him to emigrate to Brazil), as Kikawa put it
“national honor comes before personal sentiments,” and decided on his
execution. Divided into groups of twos and threes, they set out from Santo
Amaro still at early dawn, having agreed to reunite at four o’clock in the
morning, in front of Rua Pamplona, #12, in the immediate vicinity of
Avenida Paulista, from which point they would settle the score with the
makegumi. Although the presence of eleven Japanese (at the last minute
Shinyashiki decided to take part in the operation to motivate the others) at
dawn outside Japantown could have drawn the attention of the police,
they met at the previously determined time and place. The operation had
everything right going for it, if not for a detail this band composed almost
entirely of men from the countryside had overlooked: Miyakoshi’s man-
sion was on the same street, and only a few yards away, from was probably
one of the most heavily policed buildings in the city, the home of Count
Matarazzo, the richest man in Brazil. The Japanese had to make a U-turn
and give up their plan. Half a century later, the tokkōtai Tokuiti Hidaka
embarrassedly remembered the botched job that morning:
“We were so lost in that unfamiliar city that we must have looked like eleven
Japanese hicks visiting the door of Matarazzo’s house like tourists at dawn…”
The superstitious Shinyashiki thought the action’s failure was an omi-

nous sign and decided to put off the other two executions until the follow-
ing night. It was daylight by the time the desolate eleven returned to
Sawai’s farm. At dawn on April 1, they were roused again from their beds,
and this time only by Kamegorō Ogazawara, who had given up on return-
ing to Miyakoshi’s house. The targets that night were the former diplomat
Shiguetsuna Furuya and the industrialist Chūzaburō Nomura. The ten
assassins were divided into two groups. The first, commanded by Tatsuo
Watanabe, was made up of two members from the “flag incident,” Shimpei
Kitamura and Tokuiti Hidaka, the elegant “Antônio” Ikeda and Kazunori
Yoshida. It was tasked with eliminating Furuya. The second, led by
Massakiti Taniguti, included the blacksmith Massao Honke, Fumio Ueda,
Hiromi Yamashita, and Tarō Mushino, whose job was to kill Nomura.
148 F. MORAIS
Along with the revolvers and flags wrapped around their torsos, Ogazawara
provided each one with a yellow slicker like the ones used by peddlers in
São Paulo, most of them Japanese. The final order was that upon finishing
their operations, the groups should disperse and each should go to a pre-
determined hideout.
The five in the first group left the farm before midnight. To avoid
attracting attention, each boarded the train at a different place, which then
brought them close to Furuya’s address—also found by Watanabe with
help from the phone book—in the Aclimação neighborhood, not far from
the Japantown. Since the gate was open, they entered without being seen
and hid in the bushes in the garden. They remained there crouching in
silence until around five o’clock in the morning, when a light came on and
someone opened the window as if he’d heard a suspicious sound. It was
Shiguetsuna Furuya. Upon seeing Watanabe point both revolvers at the
window and fire, the other four, who were awaiting orders, also began to
fire. For a few moments, the garden of Furuya’s house lit up like a bonfire
emanating from the barrels of the five Japanese men’s guns. When the
infernal din was over, the tokkōtai discovered to their dismay that the
impossible had occurred: Furuya was still alive. No one had managed to
hit him from five yards away, even though they fired seventeen times from
their revolvers and five of those shots came from the gun of “Antônio”
Ikeda, said to be the best shot in the colony. When they saw that Furuya
had fled to another room, Watanabe and Ikeda unsuccessfully tried to
break down the front door of the house. Hearing the whistle of a night
watchman, Watanabe shouted that he would surrender and ordered the
others to do the same, but only Ikeda obeyed. By the time the police
arrived, Yoshida, Hidaka, and Shimpei Kitamura had already disappeared
into the hills of Aclimação, each to a different hideout. Following
Ogazawara’s orders, Kitamura presented himself as “Gōtō” at a chicken
farm in the Rudge Ramos neighborhood on the way toward Santos, where
a room had been prepared for him. Yoshida headed to the farm of a certain
Matsura, in Osasco, and Tokuiti Hidaka returned to the foul-smelling and
unkempt little room at Kamegorō Ogazawara’s dry cleaners (Fig. 4.14).
The second group, led by Massakiti Taniguti, left Sawai’s farm at four
in the morning after receiving their weapons, the yellow slickers, and
Japanese flags. A few minutes later, two taxis crossed the thickly forested
brushland that comprised the Jabaquara neighborhood, a few miles from
Sawai’s farm, leaving them in the vicinity of the estate where Chūzaburō
Nomura lived. The five put on their slickers and took up their arms.
CHAPTER 4 149
Fig. 4.14 Bastos street scene with cars
Massao Honke stood guard at the house gate, while Taniguti, Hiromi
Yamashita, Fumio Ueda, and Tarō Mushino went around back and beat
on the door to the kitchen, where Nomura’s wife was making coffee.
Hearing the sound of a key locking the door, the four broke into the
house. Ueda grabbed Nomura’s wife from behind, holding her in a stran-
glehold with his left hand, and covering her mouth with his right. The
tokko ̄tai whispered in the ear of the terrified woman:
“You have nothing to fear, Shindō Renmei doesn’t kill women or children.
We came to kill your husband, the traitor to our nation.”
Someone who heard the noise shouted from within:
“Don’t let dad leave the room!”
Yamashita and Mushino tried to enter the room where they heard the
voice, but Nomura’s son, who was there inside, had locked the door. At
that moment, the master of the house appeared barefoot and in striped
pajamas. Without saying a word, Taniguti pointed his revolver at Nomura’s
head and pulled the trigger. A red stain seemed to sprout from his neck
and he staggered around, spilling blood all over the house as he grabbed
150 F. MORAIS
at the furniture. It looked as if he were trying to enter the room whose

door his son had locked. Yet he stayed on his feet. Yamashita and Mushino
appeared and shot him several more times. Ueda let go of Nomura’s
screaming wife in the middle of the living room, and also took two shots
at him. Nomura collapsed. Not knowing what to do with the suicide note
and dagger he was holding in his hands, Yamashita dragged Nomura by
the arms into the middle of the living room where the light was better, to
confirm he was dead. He was dead, but Fumio Ueda nevertheless stepped
back a few paces, pointed the barrel of the gun at his heart, and fired the
final shot point-blank at Nomura, shouting,
“Die, you filthy traitor!”
The operation lasted only a few minutes. The four ran out of the house,
where Honke waited at the gate, and made for the woods of Jabaquara.
Yamashita lost a shoe scaling a low wall in Nomura’s garden. Honke pulled
off his slicker and stuffed it in a hole, while each took off in a different
direction. Taniguti and Ueda arrived by late morning at Tomizuka’s farm
in Chácara Flora, on the same southern part of the city where Massao
Honke was already holed up. Hiromi Yamashita went to Luz Station and
caught a train for the town of Suzano, on the outskirts of São Paulo,
where Fukujirō Hoshino’s chicken farm was located. The only person not
to appear at any of the hideouts was Tarō Mushino, who, it was later
learned, got lost in the city and ended up staying at a friend’s house within
the limits of Penha. At the farm in Chácara Flora, Honke and Ueda were
advised by the owner Tomizuka to find a more secure place, so they moved
to Kamako Aragaki’s dry cleaners, also in Santo Amaro, where Sunao
Shinyashiki was waiting for them. They could not have chosen a worse
place to hide: three days later, DOPS showed up and arrested everyone,
except Shinyashiki, who had left a few hours earlier, leaving a suspicious
feeling in the air.
A week after the first appearance of Shindō Renmei in the capital, the
police reports delivered to the interventor’s office of Macedo Soares
exhibited a discouraging outcome to the kachigumi: besides the five
tokko ̄tai and nearly the entire leadership in the slammer, almost seven hun-
dred Japanese had been arrested on suspicion of links to the organization.
Now, however, even the police were sure this wasn’t the last of the blood-
shed among the Japanese. There were still tokko ̄tai on the loose, and they
simply didn’t know who, how many there were, or where they were hiding.
Chapter 5: The Police Discover the Fumie,
the Torture That Only Harms a Prisoner’s
Soul
A week after Chūzaburō Nomura’s murder and the frustrated attempt on

Shiguetsuna Furuya, the police had already arrested more than 2000
Japanese. Although those arrested were from a considerable range in their
ages, one peculiarity was noted by everyone: there wasn’t a single woman
among them, which was a faithful portrait of the secondary role reserved
for women in Japanese culture. When someone asked the arrested men
why there were no women in Shindō Renmei, the answer was always the
same: “This is between men. Japanese women’s place is in the home.” In
fact, at the end of the legal process against Shindō Renmei, out of a total
of 5000 indicted persons, the names of the women involved could be
counted on one hand.
The DOPS jails filled to capacity, the new waves of prisoners were
passed along to the Detention House, State Penitentiary, and police dis-
tricts throughout the city. The obsessive organization of Shindō Renmei’s
leaders made the police’s work easier, the archives at their headquarters
contained lists of thousands of militants with the addresses and role of
each person. Moreover, their detailed accounting recorded the fate of
every cent raised by the organization, enabling the police to discover
which part of the cult received the bulk of Shindō Renmei’s resources: the
Suishintai, or “forward guard,” that provided the manpower for the
tokko ̄tai platoons. Despite the abundance of information at the police’s
disposal, the interrogations moved at a snail’s pace. First, it was because

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70562-6_6
152 F. MORAIS
the majority didn’t speak Portuguese, which forced the police to assign an
interpreter to be on duty along with a policeman and clerk for each depo-
sition. And, it goes without saying, none were willing to talk.
In the first interrogations, the police imagined they’d discovered a fail-
safe way of learning who was and who wasn’t a Shindō Renmei militant. It
was enough to ask who won the war. If the prisoner responded, “Japan,”
there was no doubt he was a terrorist. The problem was that almost no
one answered differently. Only one or two out of every twenty prisoners
said that the war had been won by the Allies. The method was abandoned
when a policeman from the countryside arrived escorting two buses of
prisoners coming from the region around Marília. He told them that
according to the police chief in the city, the secret was to force the prison-
ers to step on a fumie, literally meaning, to step on the image:
“Put a Japanese flag or portrait of the emperor on the ground and order the
Japanese to step or spit on it. If he refuses, it’s because he belongs to Shindō.”
The fumie was a practice originating in the early seventeenth century,

during the era of the samurai. In order to discover whom among the
Japanese the Jesuits had converted to Christianity, the authorities placed
an image of Christ on the ground and forced a suspect to step on it.
Whoever refused was arrested for being a Christian. For the majority of
the Japanese in Brazil, the fumie was more humiliating and painful than
physical torture, and the police used it more frequently. Seen as fanatic
criminals, the Japanese prisoners deserved no one’s compassion. Since
they had neither a Japanese embassy nor consulate in Brazil to protest on
their behalf, the police felt comfortable using violence to extract informa-
tion from the prisoners. Whoever refused to commit heresy was punished
with beatings by truncheons on the soles of their feet, waterboarding, or
threats to be sent even without due process to the prison on Anchieta
Island, less than a kilometer from the coast north of São Paulo, where the
isolation would be almost absolute.
In this way, the fumie wound up being used indiscriminately on all
Japanese that fell into police hands, not just by jailers and investigators,
but even by police chiefs, as occurred to Yoshio Someya from Pompéia.
Arrested on suspicion of aiding the tokko ̄tai in his town, he was sent to the
Detention House in São Paulo, where he spent several days without any-
one saying a word to him. When it was his turn to be deposed, Someya
realized he was going to be heard by the very head of the Secret Service of
CHAPTER 5 153
DOPS, Cardoso de Mello. As he walked down the corridor to the police

chief’s office, he crossed paths with Seighi Fujihira, the director of Hoa
Industries, which manufactured spinning machines in Moji das Cruzes, a
city neighboring the capital. What was someone like Fujihira, a well-
known activist in the makegumi faction, doing at DOPS? Someya learned
the answer when he entered the office and saw on the police chief’s desk
a Japanese flag and an enormous portrait of Hirohito. That explained
everything; the industrialist had gone to DOPS to bring the photograph
and flag for the fumie. The chief threw the portrait on the floor and
ordered him to step on it. Someya refused to commit that heresy. The
police gave him another test by ordering him to wipe his shoes with the
flag. When he refused again, Cardoso de Mello asked him,
“Do you think Japan won or lost the war?”

Someya didn’t fall for the trap, but responded indignantly,
“The question shows your great ignorance, sir, which is unworthy of a
police chief.”
This insolence cost the Japanese dearly. Taken back to the Detention
House, he received so many blows to the soles of his feet that for the next
four days he had to crawl on his knees to get around his cell. His feet were
so painfully swollen they couldn’t be touched. Months later, Fujihira, sus-
pected of treason, was the victim of an attempted shooting, and only
escaped with his life, thanks to the terrible aim of the countryman who
attacked him. Besides the interrogation methods used in the sixteenth and
seventeenth century against the Jesuits, the Brazilian police wound up
inventing new ways for breaking the most irritating habits of the Japanese,
especially their implacable coldness with which the guilty and innocent,
young and old, comported themselves during the depositions. One tech-
nique (which required the cooperation of a Japanese translator) was to
insult the imperial family using haiku such as the following, which circu-
lated in the cells of the Detention House and DOPS:
Hirohito was beaten in the war,

He goes hungry—
Sipping on chicken soup with rice,
And dancing a jig.
154 F. MORAIS
Any vulgarity sufficed to try to beat the indifference of “these little men
who only seem to feel emotion when they hear about their homeland or
the emperor,” as one DOPS report put it. Not even the impeccable honor
of Empress Sadako was spared from an insulting haiku in which she
appeared as the lover of General MacArthur:
The empress arranged for herself a lover,

Whose name is Maca-san—
Now Maca-san comes in first,
And the emperor follows from behind.
The fanaticism of Shindō Renmei’s followers, however, was propor-

tional to the police provocations. Arrested in Tupã and brought to São
Paulo, Fusatoshi Yamauchi was never accused of anything, he was simply
the son of Kenjirō Yamauchi, the treasurer of Shindō Renmei. Although
he knew he would be released if he endured the police’s insults and kept
his mouth shut—including being threatened with whippings if he didn’t
trample on the flag—he still refused to step or spit on the photographic
poster of the emperor. The policeman who interrogated him in an office
on the fourth floor of the DOPS building in the city center asked
incredulously:
“If the emperor ordered you to jump out this window, what would you do?”
Yamauchi didn’t need to think before responding,
“I would jump.”
The investigator could not contain himself and shouted loudly,
“This is pointless, you’re going to Anchieta Island.”
Off he went, and there he remained until 1948, despite there not being
a single accusation made against him. If it had been revealed to the author-
ities that he was the father of young Brazilian-born children, Yamauchi
would unquestionably have been set free. But this would have meant leav-
ing his elderly father behind in prison, so he chose to remain imprisoned,
too. Upon receiving his liberty, Yamauchi saved up his money and bought
a 1200 cc Indian motorcycle and resolved to tour around Brazil “to com-
pensate” for the two years he spent in prison.
They saw everything at DOPS. Takeichi Maeda was beaten innumera-
ble times until he convinced the police he was no terrorist, just a harmless
seller of pornographic photographs. Tetsuo Ō kubo, one of the arrested
CHAPTER 5 155
whose name was found in Shindō Renmei’s headquarters, surprised the

police during interrogation. Accustomed to dealing with farmworkers
with little culture, the police at DOPS discovered they weren’t dealing
with the usual chicken farmer, but a man of erudition, a philosopher with
a doctorate from Princeton University. Convinced they had picked up a
makegumi by mistake, the police went straight to the key question: who
won the war? Ō kubo’s response provoked equal surprise to the announce-
ment of his academic degree:
“Japan won the war. If you can prove to the contrary, I won’t hesitate to
commit suicide in obedience to the principles of honoring the emperor.”
Pressed by the police, the philosopher confessed to having abandoned

his intellectual activities to devote himself wholeheartedly to the cause of
Japan, giving lectures at “conferences” for groups of sympathizers in the
interior of the state at the behest of Shindō Renmei. Since he was, how-
ever, “a pacifist by nature and conviction,” when he learned of the cult’s
terrorist plans from Ryōtarō Negoro, he distanced himself from Shindō
Renmei and dedicated himself to “reading and meditation.”
Gradually, the Paulista police were to discover that wherever there was
a concentration of Japanese people, Shindō Renmei had a branch there.
Not only in São Paulo, either. Among the figures banging on the doors at
DOPS to offer evidence against the Japanese terrorists, one day there
appeared the English industrialist Anthero Arnold to denounce the bands
of Japanese fanatics operating in the northern part of Paraná state. After
investing a large amount of money in setting up a company for industrial
uses of ramie fiber in the city of Assaí, Arnold discovered that his Japanese
business partner (who was supposed to be responsible for furnishing raw
materials) was receiving death threats from Shindō Renmei for persisting
in producing the plant despite all the warnings to the contrary. The terror-
ists’ allegations left the Englishman flummoxed.
“These lunatics say the material produced by ramie will benefit the Allied
war effort. But it’s been seven months since the war ended!”
Arnold and his business partner had already organized hunting parties
for the terrorists, but thought the police should catch their leaders.
According to the Englishman, the person instigating this fanatical behav-
ior was a con man who sold steamship tickets and nonexistent plots of land
156 F. MORAIS
in the Pacific. He inveighed against the fact that someone could act with
impunity against Brazil’s interests, without any kind of “clampdown by
the authorities.” The name of this swindler was not unknown to the police:
Tsuguo Kishimoto, an intellectual showman and entrepreneur who suc-
ceeded in circulating with the same resourcefulness in the colony and
Brazilian high society.
Overcrowded and lacking space to billet new prisoners, the police in
the countryside were dispatching hordes of suspects to the capital every
day. They usually came by train in groups of twenty or thirty prisoners,
guarded by ten soldiers armed with rifles with bayonets affixed. When
someone needed to use the bathroom during the trip, he was overseen by
two soldiers, one to stand guard at the door and the other who went into
the latrine with the prisoner to make sure he didn’t break the window and
jump out the moving train. The terrible conditions caused by overcrowd-
ing in the county jails of the Alta Paulista made the DOPS cells seem
practically luxurious by comparison. Sleeping in bunks rife with bedbugs
was preferable to “having to do your business, eat, and sleep in a cubicle
in which dozens of people were squeezed,” as Shōgurō Ogura, who was
transferred from Braúna to the capital, scathingly put it.
Distributed throughout various prisons and police precincts, some of
the prisoners moldered in line for weeks before being processed and inter-
rogated. It wasn’t uncommon for the police to entertain themselves with
the singular logic of the Japanese responses to questioning, as happened
when Ogura was identified as a criminal. The investigator repeated the
same questions he’d asked hundreds of times to other prisoners, which the
clerk typed down:
“Married?”
“Yes.”
“With a Japanese woman?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have children?”
“Yes.”
“Where were they born?”
“In Brazil.”
The policeman perked up.
“So, you have Brazilian children, but you became an enemy of Brazil?”
“My children aren’t Brazilian. They are Japanese.”
“If they were born in Brazil, they’re Brazilian.”
“My children have Japanese skin, Japanese blood, Japanese faces. That
means they are Japanese.”
CHAPTER 5 157
Interrogations like Ogura’s were repeated hundreds of times without

the police making any significant progress in their investigations. Aided by
the language barrier, the Japanese gave evasive answers, dissimulated, and
responded in metaphors that confounded the police. A week after the first
initiatives, the authorities realized there was no point in holding 2000
people in prison for the simple fact of being Japanese. After summary
investigations, more than a thousand suspects were set free. After the
enormous repercussions of the raid on Shindō Renmei’s headquarters, the
police had not made any further progress. Nothing permitted them to
affirm the organization had been disbanded. On the contrary, despite the
intense police activity, and just when they thought all the leaders were
behind bars, Shindō Renmei struck again (Fig. 5.1).
In the ensuing weeks, three makegumi from Marília were wounded by
gunshots from Shindō Renmei’s militants in Cafelândia. In Presidente
Prudente, after receiving death threats, Eikiti Tsuzuki was the victim of an
armed ambush by a tokkōtai, but escaped with his life. In Bastos, the hor-
rible “mustard bombs” wounded six more people without the police
being able to determine the perpetrator (who, they later learned, was
Satoru Yamamoto, the murderer of Ikuta Mizobe, still on the loose). After
continuous setbacks, the police marked an important move against the
fanatics on May 8, when they finally got their hands on the leader of
Shindō Renmei, Colonel Junji Kikawa. Although the police already knew
Fig. 5.1 Wherever Japanese immigrants are concentrated, Shindō Renmei

installs a local branch. In the town of Assaí, in northern Paraná State, Japanese
makegumi armed themselves and maintained patrols to protect themselves from
the kachigumi
158 F. MORAIS
his appearance, they were taken aback at how much he had aged since four
months earlier, when he arrived at DOPS asking permission to register the
cult. One night the interpreters José Santana do Carmo and Mário Botelho
de Miranda were called to assist an interrogation of Shindō’s leader. The
two encountered a man “hemiplegic, elderly, speaking intermittently, and
always relying on his cane.” When they asked him how to end the war
between the Japanese, Kikawa offered what he considered the “most just”
solution.
The best outcome would be to arrest everyone, all of the defeatists, who
grumble about Japan’s defeat, and us, the militants from patriotic associa-
tions. The police wouldn’t have too much trouble and the makegumi would
save their own skin…
The police explained that if they adopted his proposal there wouldn’t
be enough jail cells in São Paulo to imprison everyone. Kikawa was unper-
turbed. If necessary, he replied, Shindō Renmei would donate the resources
to the police or build for themselves as many prisons as were necessary
using their own money. Santana and Miranda came away from the encoun-
ter convinced that his imprisonment had been quite a feat, but it would
yield practically insignificant results, as the veteran revealed nothing the
police didn’t already know. What they didn’t know—them or anyone
else—was that even under arrest Colonel Kikawa would not only continue
to command the Kamikaze Battalion, the fearsome tokkōtai, but would
distribute circulars that threatened “to shoot, on the doorstep of the
Japanese consulate” (which no longer existed), all who were considered
“dirty hearts,” or traitors to the nation (Figs. 5.2–5.3).
The police operations throughout the state lent an idea of the scale of
Shindō Renmei’s activities. Dozens of issues of the magazine Life had been
altered with clandestine graphics. The most frequent falsifications involved
the substitution of captions on the photos, using Chinese characters to say
what they wanted. After being retouched, a page was photographed,
reprinted, and embedded once more in the body of the magazine. On the
news articles about the rendition ceremony aboard the Missouri in Tokyo
Bay, in which Japan surrendered to the Allies, swords were added manually
to the waists of the Japanese representatives, while arms held by the
American officials mysteriously disappeared, “to make clear who was sur-
rendering to who,” as one of the photographers in charge of the fraud
confessed. To leave no doubt in this respect, the Japanese battle flag was
CHAPTER 5 159
Figs. 5.2–5.3 “Traitors will be shot on the patio of the Japanese Consulate”
newspaper clipping (at top). Even imprisoned, Colonel Kikawa (at bottom), con-
tinued to command his tokkot̄ ai and terrorize the colony with absurd threats. He
called for “shooting the traitors” at a consulate that no longer even existed
160 F. MORAIS
“hoisted” by the fanatics on the ship’s mast, whose canons were “raised to
the sky signifying rendition.” Although the alterations were crude, easily
spotted by a child, the magazines were in great demand in the colony. One
photograph of Harry Truman alongside a military officer appeared in the
pages of Shindō Renmei’s version of Life as though it were a scene in which
“the American president and high-ranking official of the US Marine Corps
were showing reverence to Hirohito, who did not appear in the photo.”
Another photograph, taken at the arrival of the representatives of the
Japanese government in Manila to discuss the terms for cessation of hostili-
ties, was presented as “the moment in which the Japanese emissaries came
to receive, from MacArthur’s own hand, the offer of surrender by the
United States.” In the photo, groups of American soldiers who appear to
be conversing among themselves in the background are identified as “dis-
orderly troops, that is to say, defeated and with no one in charge.”
Photographs of Japanese ships moored side by side with American ones
were republished as “our war squadrons, escorting the squadron com-
manded by the Englishman Lord Mountbatten, who surrendered.” Since
there were no newspapers in color, even an innocent photograph published
in the O Globo newspaper, of a white flag with a black ball in the center (the
symbol of the rollicking Black Ball Club, a bohemian redoubt in Rio de
Janeiro), was copied and resold as further proof of Japan’s victory, “whose
flag is already hoisted over Rio de Janeiro.”
The police also discovered that Shindō Renmei maintained an “ideo-
logical magazine” that was published every two months, titled Hiraki
(“Opening” in Japanese), that was known in the colony as “the compa-
triot’s guide.” Printed in book format without illustrations, every issue of
Hiraki included a supplement with miniscule reports of current events
“received from all over the world:”
[…] The Panama Canal is occupied by the forces of the Japanese Imperial
Navy. […] The Allied squadron that surrendered is made up of approximately
600 ships and is being escorted to Sagami Bay, according to Radio Tokyo. […]
The money employed by the United States around the world is being confiscated
by Japan. […] The Jews will be prohibited from putting their money anywhere
in the world. […] All global communications will be under Japanese control
for the next three years. […] The Ural, belonging to the USSR, is declared
independent. […] The reconstruction of Germany and organization of New
Asia are being prepared. The time has come to show the world the greatness and
civilization of the Mikado’s people.
CHAPTER 5 161
To read any issue of Hiraki was to understand the degree of mental distur-
bance under which the ideologues of the sect lived. An interminable essay
published in a 1946 issue dedicated itself to reflecting on whether the news
that “last year the United States carried out an atomic bomb experiment on
Bikini Atoll, […] which did nothing more than sink two ships of low ton-
nage,” was true or false. This was written and published more than six
months after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were pulverized by atomic bombs,
killing nearly 200,000 Japanese. According to the essayist, the weak
American experiments with nuclear energy “only served to provoke laughter
from the entire world.” Another obsession of the writers at Hiraki was the
“world monetary union.” The author concluded that utilizing a single cur-
rency across the planet “would be a revolution for the financial world, and
there is not the slightest doubt it is currently under discussion how to imple-
ment this ideal.”
If there was a missing ingredient to the police’s torment, it came in the
form of counterfeit Japanese money. DOPS had already sniffed out some-
thing strange in the currency exchange markets, but by the time the police
got there, there had already been a veritable flood of yen in São Paulo.
There were just as many legitimate banknotes from Japan as contraband,
grossly fabricated, and smuggled into Brazil via Argentina. Since mid-1945,
when Japan’s imminent defeat was obvious, the value of the yen nosedived.
In February 1946 Japan had interred its currency, which was re-baptized
the “new yen” and brutally devalued relative to its already weakened previ-
ous value. Thanks to Shindō Renmei’s artistry, however, money deemed
worthless anywhere in the world experienced an euphoric escalation in
value in Brazil. Ever since Getúlio decreed the confiscation of bank deposits
by “Axis subjects” four years earlier, the colony was engaged in “hoarding”
every cent they got their hands on, as Finance Minister Souza Costa com-
plained. All savings during this period were accumulated in cash at home.
But since the dream of returning home to Japan nurtured by nearly ninety
percent of the colony would require vast sums of yen, tens of thousands of
Japanese who were inspired by the victors’ campaigns went about buying
the currency, boosting its value in the process. To meet the demand, gangs
of crooks bought yen by the kilo abroad to resell on the black market in
Brazil at prices three hundred percent above the last official quotation of
the nation’s currency, made back in 1942. Others preferred to simplify
matters and print mountains of banknotes in São Paulo itself that were
immediately brought to market as “newly arrived from Tokyo.”
162 F. MORAIS
Alerted by reports of counterfeit money, the police went back to check

the paper trail seized from Shindō Renmei headquarters in São Paulo.
There they found mysterious banknotes in dollars, pesos, and Dutch flo-
rins on which the name of the issuing country was embossed, “The
Japanese Government.” Afraid of having their organization associated
with swindlers and counterfeiters, the leaders of Shindō Renmei hastily
qualified that while yes, the banknotes found in their archives were false,
they were intended as propaganda. Pesos, dollars, and florins “issued by
Fig. 5.4 Shindō Renmei’s counterfeit currencies that “proved” Japan had con-
quered the world
CHAPTER 5 163
the Japanese government,” they insisted, were indisputable proof that

Japan conquered the world (Fig. 5.4).
The four remaining tokko ̄tai from the attacks on Nomura and Furuya,
who were still on the run, spent a month and a half hidden in different
places. It was only in mid-May that they resumed contact with Shindō
Renmei. On Colonel Kikawa’s orders, they met at the Orient Dry Cleaners,
where they received instructions for the next operation. Based on a per-
sonal decision by the “unforgiving Colonel Kikawa,” the next makegumi
to be eliminated was his old comrade in arms back in Japan, Colonel
Jinsaku Wakiyama. Kikawa’s orders to kill his old friend, an elderly and
soft-spoken man, and one of the founders of Shindō Renmei (with the
original name Kōdōsha), did not disturb any of the four terrorists. Even
though no one asked about it, the owner of the dry cleaners, Kamegorō
Ogazawara, felt obliged to explain that Kikawa “had felt great emotion”
before deciding to execute his friend, but that in the end it came down to
“the duty of a patriot is to his nation, not to his friends.” Ogazawara had
ample reason to downplay the gravity of Kikawa’s gesture: although he,
too, was an old friend of Wakiyama’s, the dry cleaner was involved in a role
more or less as vile as the head of Shindō Renmei. According to his own
confession made to the police, in the weeks preceding the attack,
Ogazawara spied on his friend’s life. To provide accurate information to
the tokkōtai assigned to kill him, he frequently visited Colonel Wakiyama’s
house. On the pretext of bringing small house gifts, the dry cleaner came
by several times to observe at Wakiyama’s habits and the vulnerable areas
of the house, and to confirm he wasn’t being guarded by the police.
At Ogazawara’s direction, the four tokko ̄tai heard the same instructions
again, namely, to use the yellow slickers worn by peddlers, not to forget to
wear the flag beneath their clothing, and to bring the “counsel to commit
suicide” and the dagger for seppuku. They learned that because he was the
oldest among them, Shimpei Kitamura would lead the operation. Before
receiving the order to disperse, the group still had to wait for the journalist
Seijirō Mihara to write two long versions of the “counsel to commit sui-
cide.” Mihara in fact was merely playing the role of the calligrapher, since
the terms of this “counsel” were dictated by Ogazawara, who explained
the reason for the duplicate copies:
“You will go to the house of Colonel Wakiyama and do this service. If there
is still time, return to the house of Shibata Miyakoshi and try to finish him.
164 F. MORAIS
Figs. 5.5–5.6 Painter Seijirō Mihara (at bottom) and the equipment he used to
compose the “suicide notes” given to the makegumi (at top)
That is why it is better if you have two suicide notes, one for each of them”
(Figs. 5.5–5.6).
Two weeks later, on June 2, the four met again at 7 p.m. at the agreed-
upon locale, the lobby of Seyssel Circus on the main avenue of Japantown in
CHAPTER 5 165
Liberdade. The time and place were justified as follows: since on Sundays the
circus shows were always crowded, the four could circulate through the
throngs of people without being spotted by watchful eyes. Besides Kitamura,
there was Tokuiti Hidaka, the youngest of the tokkōtai from the “flag inci-
dent” in Tupã, as well as Kazunori Yoshida and Hiromi Yamashita.
Ogazawara’s orders did not seem logical, as the latter two were to go
unarmed, since their role was only to encourage Wakiyama to take the “coun-
sel to commit suicide” and the tantō, the sacrificial dagger. If he refused to
kill himself, Kitamura and Hidaka, who were armed with revolvers, were on
hand to dispatch him. As there was nothing further to be said, the four hailed
a taxi and at 7:30 arrived at the colonel’s house.
Despite the gloomy air of the four, Wakiyama’s wife did not hesitate to
invite them inside—they told her they had an important document to
deliver to the colonel. The sound of voices in the living room drew the
master of the house and his son. His wife explained that the men had
brought something important for him. Neither she nor his son budged
from the living room. It was Shimpei Kitamura who spoke.
“You will pay with your life for the crime of treason against our homeland.”
Despite the dramatic situation, the scenario seemed so inevitable and

foreseeable that none of the three—Wakiyama, his wife, and their son—
were surprised by the threat. At a look from their leader, Kazunori Yoshida
extended his arm and handed Wakiyama the “counsel to commit suicide.”
Next to him, Hiromi Yamashita stood at attention, extending his arms out
with a folded Japanese flag and the fearsome tanto ̄ on top of it. The colo-
nel took the three pages written in Japanese and started to read them. His
family and the four terrorists waited in silence as he haltingly paced from
one end of the living room to the other while stroking an imaginary beard
on his chin. Wakiyama calmly read the “counsel” which seemed to have
been written by a lunatic from the asylum.
Counsel to commit suicide

To the Illustrious Colonel Wakiyama
Our Great Empire of Japan with its glorious three thousand years of history, is
a divine country whose ruler is without equal in the world. Our national polity
is as everlasting as the existence of the sun.
[…] The incomparable and valorous imperial armed forces have continually
won victories on land, sea, and air. In the shadow of these victories, however, is
166 F. MORAIS
the sacrifice of those who launched themselves in bombardments against the

enemy warships, as if becoming one with their armaments in the ultimate
expression of Yamato damashii, manifesting fidelity to the emperor and dedica-
tion to the nation—a fact that would even move the devil himself.
[…] On August 15 in this twentieth year of the Show ̄ a Era, our violent and
perverse enemies could not resist our just cause, capitulated unconditionally
and pleaded for peace. In spite of this, the radio and newspapers in this country
promulgated false propaganda saying that our nation capitulated uncondi-
tionally. Amongst the 300,000 Japanese residents of Brazil two factions were
born: those who believe in the eternal national polity of the Empire, and the
faction which agrees with the enemy’s false propaganda, declaring that our
nation was defeated. This schism has escalated into outright hostility, leading to
bloody conflicts amongst our countrymen.
[…] The act of signing a document of false propaganda attesting to the defeat
of our nation, published by the enemy, constituted an act that defiles the pride
and dignity of the brave and faithful Imperial Army; the crime of treason
deserves ten thousand deaths.
And so we, the tokkōtai, out of respect for your position in the military of the
Empire, counsel you to maintain your honor as a soldier and pay with suicide
for the great crime of treason against the nation rather than prolong your life
and accumulate further crimes.
Signed,
The Tokkōtai
Wakiyama asked if he could read the document again as if he did not

understand what it meant. Shimpei Kitamura nodded and the colonel
paced around the living room for another few minutes, until finally he
handed the papers back to the man from Shindō Renmei.
“I would like to know if I can have some time to think it over.”

Again, it was Kitamura who responded.
“Unfortunately, I am not authorized to offer any more time. You must
decide now.”
A contained affliction passed over all of them: the victim, assassins, and wit-
nesses. Seeing that he could not escape with his life, Jinsaku Wakiyama
ended the conversation with dignity.
“I am no traitor to the nation and will not commit seppuku. You may do as
you please, I prefer to die as an honorable patriot.”
Shimpei Kitamura did not even wait for the colonel to finish speaking.
He drew his revolver and fired off a shot point-blank into his chest.
Wakiyama fell to the ground dead, but still received two more shots fired
CHAPTER 5 167
Figs. 5.7–5.8 The

body of Colonel
Wakiyama, who refused
to accept the offer of
suicide: “I am not a
traitor to the nation, I
will not commit
seppuku”
by Tokuiti Hidaka. Good aim was decidedly not a strong suit of the
tokko ̄tai. Although he was mere inches away from the body, Hidaka man-
aged to get only one shot into the colonel’s chest; the second bullet landed
in the colonel’s arm. Under the fearful gaze of his wife and son, the four
straightened up and gave a salute to the corpse, then ran out into the
street, where Shimpei Kitamura stopped the first taxi they found. While
the others got into the back, he sat in front and gave their destination to
the driver (Figs. 5.7–5.8).
“Take us to Rua Brigadeiro Tobias.”

Yoshida hesitated at the unfamiliar address.
“But shouldn’t we go back to the dry cleaners, or Sawai’s farm?”
168 F. MORAIS
Figs. 5.7 and 5.8 (contiuned)
Kitamura, however, seemed disposed to do everything according to the

instructions they’d been given. The operation that terminated in
Wakiyama’s death was carried out ritualistically and the deceased had been
given the opportunity to commit seppuku. If everything was to go accord-
ing to Shindō’s principles, they couldn’t return home and hide like com-
mon criminals: what they’d done by the deranged logic of the sect was not
a crime, but had meted out justice to a traitor. Kitamura was thinking
along these lines when he responded without looking back,
“We’re not going back to Sawai’s farm. We’re going to report ourselves to
the police.”
Said and done. A half hour later, the group presented itself to the surprised
investigators on duty at the Police Investigation Bureau.
Wakiyama’s death seemed to unleash a new wave of terrorist attacks
against the Japanese, except now the stage was the countryside. The police
CHAPTER 5 169
only became aware of this in the weeks to come when the triangle of towns
made up of Araçatuba, Bauru, and Presidente Prudente were engulfed in
violence. In mid-April, the region was rocked by the brutal deaths of three
Japanese from the town of Bilac, but the crime had nothing to do with
political terrorism. Refusing to pay the tab at a pension in the city, Antônio
Lopes Xavier, a mentally unstable soldier from the Public Forces, shot to
death the owner of the pension, Noboru Matsuyuki, his son Sanjirō, and
the Brazilian domestic servant Clarice da Silva, while also leaving wounded
Shiguero Kitano and the owner’s nine-year-old daughter, Kaoru
Matsuyuki. Although the crime had nothing to do with Shindō Renmei, it
would not take long before the whole population would come to learn of
the sect.
Akin to Bastos, Bilac was home to an extremely high concentration of
Japanese immigrants, such that for eleven years the city officially called
itself Nipôlandia, or “Japanland.” However, in November 1938, the
nationalism of the recently created Estado Novo led to the name being
changed to Bilac, in homage to the poet Olavo Bilac. The police were not
unduly surprised, then, when Shindō Renmei’s operations began to
explode there—which happened exactly at 7:34 p.m. on July 10, 1946.
This was the time written on a blackboard for a game of billiards by Gōiti
Mori, the first victim of Shindō, moments before he was shot dead. The
owner of a bar in the center of town, the forty-seven-year-old Gōiti was
already worried the kachigumi had their eye on him. Not because he was
one of the exalted defeatists, but for the simple fact that living well was
enough for the victorious faction to target someone. First, a Japanese
drunk showed up at the bar, making threats and promising any country-
man who spoke about Japan’s defeat would be “tied up and dragged
through the streets of the town.” At the time, Gōiti shrugged it off as
nothing more than the words of a drunk. The second time was when
Nobuo Satō, who was known for his connections to Shindō Renmei, made
some insinuations. Satō came into the bar, drank a few too many shots of
cachaça, and went out of his way to provoke him.
“You’re making a lot of money, aren’t you, Mori? How much are the
Americans paying you each month?”
On the night of July 10, Gōiti was busy attending to customers at two
billiard tables and talking to his older brother, the tailor Marui, aged fifty-
four, who had come to visit him. One of the billiard players, the Brazilian
170 F. MORAIS
Marcelino Bezerra, finished his match against Thierso Bortoluzzi, and

asked Gōiti to calculate the amount of time they’d spent at the table. The
bar owner went to the blackboard, which had the time when they began
marked in chalk, checked his Regent watch, and then wrote the current
time—7:05 p.m.—alongside it, telling Bezerra,
“You played for twenty-nine minutes.”
As he walked toward the cash register, two Japanese rushed into the bar
armed with revolvers and stumbled into the billiard cues. It was the
tokko ̄tai Namide Shimano from Penápolis and Hitoshi Ō hara from
Getulina. Without saying a single word, they each went after a victim.
While Ō hara fired at Marui, who was seated behind the counter, Shimano
went for Gōiti. He tried to escape through the back door of the bar, which
led to the private rooms where he lived with his family. Namide Shimano
leapt onto the bar counter, where he discharged the entire chamber of his
weapon. Hearing the sound of gunfire from inside the room adjacent to
the bar, Kameju Mori, Gōiti’s wife, thought the refrigerator motor had
exploded. Just in case, however, she grabbed her husband’s revolver and
ran into the bar. But there was nothing to be done. When she opened the
door, she found the lifeless bodies of Gōiti and her brother-in-law lying on
the floor of the bar beneath a faint cloud of smoke.
On the streets of a Bilac convulsed by crime, the next morning the
tokko ̄tai attack received cinematographic versions. The most rambling
claimed that when the terrorists entered the bar they jumped onto the bil-
liard tables and fired their sharp-shooting revolvers like two cowboys at
the Mori brothers. One of the eyewitnesses, Marcelino Bezerra, who’d
been playing billiard at the moment of the crime, gave two contradictory
accounts to the police. In the first, he said what actually happened, that
when he heard shots fired, he ran away into the street. In the second ver-
sion, Bezerra gave unbelievable details to the scene.
[…] the deposed, in spite of the rapidity of the scene he witnessed, can approxi-
mately identity the assailant, who was wearing an ordinary cashmere coat,
speckled black and brown, leaning more towards the latter color, and a shabby,
light-colored cap; the assailant was visibly pale and when he fired, gritted his
teeth and exposed on the left side of the upper jaw, at the incisor there was a
plaque in which a crown was embedded, or rather, a gold cap, or maybe it was
a crown after all […].
CHAPTER 5 171
The commotion caused by the tragic deaths of the Moris enabled to go

almost unnoticed on the day of the funeral the presence of two young
Japanese hailing from Tupã. Their purpose in coming to Bilac was a com-
mon custom in the region, to look for opponents to play baseball. In this
case, the challenger was the team from Anápolis, a colony near Tupã. The
young men went around asking questions about the local teams and man-
aged to find out what they had really come for: the home address of
Ossamu Sabanai, a thirty-six-year-old makegumi on whose head Shindō
Renmei had placed a bounty. Sabanai’s crime was the same as the other
victims were accused of committing, that is, believing Japan lost the war
and saying so publicly. When they reached his place, however, the two
discovered the address they’d been given was for his business, not his resi-
dence. Nevertheless, they went inside and learned from his wife, Yuki, that
her husband was at the Mori funerals and would head straight home. The
two strangers—in fact, two tokko ̄tai sent by Shindō Renmei—drank guar-
aná soda, ate some dried fish, paid the bill, and left.
The terrorists would only reappear at 7 p.m., at Sabanai’s house, in the
farming community of Piacatu on the outskirts of Bilac. He came home,
greeted his wife, and went out back as was his daily habit to bathe in his
ofuro ̄, but he didn’t even have time to take off his clothes. As he approached
the enormous circular wooden tub, with steam rising from its surface, he
saw two figures emerge from the brush, both armed with revolvers.
Attracted by the noise, Yuki arrived just in time to see two tongues of fire
shooting out from the barrels of the guns. There were only two shots, but
they hit their mark. Sabanai fell to the ground with two bullets in his chest.
In the darkness, his wife could only hear one of the men shout to the other
as they ran away,
“Yatta! Yatta!” [We did it! We did it!]
The audacity of Shindō Renmei to execute three people in less than

twenty-four hours, all in the same city, was treated by the police as an act
of defiance. Bilac awoke swarming with investigators who came from vari-
ous other municipalities and even the capital, with express orders to arrest
the perpetrators as quickly as possible, “to give satisfaction to Paulista
society,” as the federal interventor, Macedo Soares, told the newspapers.
But it wasn’t going to happen just yet. Sabanai’s killers were never heard
from again. Both of the tokko t̄ ai who shot the Mori brothers had taken a
different escape route. Namide Shimano went back to his farm in his own
172 F. MORAIS
town, Penápolis. Hitoshi Ō hara followed the instructions he received, and

hid in the house of a certain Itō, in Braúna. The next night, Ō hara had to
share his hiding spot with a Japanese stranger who banged on the door of
the house, covered in bruises and wounds all over his head and arms. It
was Akira Fujimoto, twenty-four years old, the tokko ̄tai who just executed
another bloody operation for Shindō Renmei in Coroados, a few
miles away.
The story Fujimoto told wasn’t too different from Ō hara’s, Shimano’s,
or the other assassins in the organization. Before reaching the tokkōtai,
orders were passed from person to person in the various branches of the
cult. Fujimoto received his from “the shoemaker Shichirō Ono from
Cafelândia,” who got it from “Sussumu from Guaiçara,” and so it went
down the chain which Shindō trusted would protect its leaders even if it
were broken by the police. Although it hadn’t actually worked (the entire
leadership was in prison), the tactic continued to be used by the organiza-
tion. Ono gave Fujimoto a wrapped bundle containing a Japanese flag, a
tantō knife, a manifesto-poem about their homeland’s military victory, a
0.32 caliber revolver (“with the model and number filed off,” the police
would later report), and a cardboard box with fifteen bullets. The order
was to meet at Birigüi Station with Namide Shimano (Ō hara’s partner in
the Mori murders in Bilac), and with a third tokkōtai called Noboru Nawa,
a young man who looked barely out of his teens. From there the three
headed to the Mil Alqueires Farm, in the neighboring municipality of
Coroados, to kill “the defeatist Tominaga.” Fujimoto did not even know
the first name of the victim. Without Shimano, who did not appear in the
agreed-upon location, the other two stopped a “gardener”—the name
given to the old wooden buses in those days—and at 6:30 p.m. they were
at the door of the warehouse where the makegumi lived. They went in
without knocking on the door and found four men and a woman, all
Japanese, sitting around a table. Nawa asked the woman which one was
Tominaga. The woman pointed at a strong man with a mustache sitting
across from her at the table (Fig. 5.9).
“He’s right here, he’s my husband.”
Fujimoto and Nawa drew their guns and started firing at him. But they
didn’t know they were in the presence of four experienced judo practitio-
ners. They vaulted over the terrorists, who shot haphazardly as they
CHAPTER 5 173
Fig. 5.9 The tokkōtai Noboru Nawa (the tallest figure) and Keishi Gōtō (at left):
beaten by judoka and shot in the back by the dentist Ymai
unloaded their cartridges. One man collapsed on the hard, earthen floor
with his chest covered in blood. When he tried to grab the revolver on the
floor, Tominaga saw his hand was pierced by Fujimoto’s dagger. There
was blood everywhere. When he managed to run out into the street,
Fujimoto saw Nawa, covered in bruises, trying to escape the fighters, who
pummeled him mercilessly before he, too, ran out the door. It was only
minutes since they’d entered the house, but the two tokkōtai fled, humili-
ated. Besides killing the wrong man—the one they shot was Shigueo
Toyoda, who was visiting Tominaga—and allowing the makegumi they
were supposed to kill to escape, they miraculously escaped with their lives
from the operation. When they were taken in, months later, the first thing
Fujimoto asked the police was whether they found in Tominaga’s house,
“a black felt hat made by Cury de Luxe, purchased at Casa Chic in
Cafelândia,” which he lost during the fight.
Even though Toyoda was killed by mistake, this was another cadaver on
Shindō Renmei’s account. In the span of twenty-four hours, the fanatics
had committed four murders, injured several more, and spread terror
174 F. MORAIS
throughout the colony. Despite the police’s efforts, the crimes went on
apace. Two days after the shooting at Tominaga’s house, a boy was injured
in Cafesópolis. On July 16, the makegumi Hiroshi Yamanaka, manager of
the Banco América do Sul in Bastos was sent to the hospital after being
wounded by shots from a Mauser pistol by unidentified Japanese attackers.
A tense game of cat and mouse was underway between the police and the
kachigumi. No sooner did DOPS arrive on the scene for one victim than
the alarm was sounded in another place. Thus, while the banker Yamanaka
was leafing through police albums trying to identify his attackers, Shindō
prepared another operation in the area.
On the night of July 17, five boys checked into the Hotel Isséia in the
heart of Cafelândia, and left immediately. They were Side Itō, Ytsuki
Sakuma, Keishi Gōtō, and the brothers Tadashi and Kazuo Ono. A half
hour later, they were in the home of someone they didn’t know in the city,
where they waited for the shoemaker Shichirō Ono, the uncle of Tadashi
and Kazuo, the very same who planned the unsuccessful attack on Kazuke
Tominaga at Mil Alqueires. The young men received instructions, a cloth
bundle with the usual equipment (revolver, bullets, tantō, Japanese flag,
etc.) and the names of their countrymen to be executed next: the dentist
Kisso Ymai and the wholesaler Shōhei Kussunoki. It was already known in
Cafelândia that sooner or later Ymai would end up on Shindō’s blacklist.
After all, at the beginning of the month the Folha da Noite newspaper
published a letter in which the dentist publicly denounced Shindō Renmei
and its fanatics.
It was not surprising, then, that his days were numbered. But if Ymai
had good reason to worry about threats against his life—he went to the
police for permission to carry a gun—the same was not true for Kussunoki.
A typical case for one of the “enlightened Japanese,” as the immigrants
who succeeded in life and became Westernized were called, Shōhei
Kussunoki was not, however, a makegumi, or proponent of Japan’s defeat.
He never received a single threat, and if there was any question about his
patriotism, one need only look at the wall of his office where even during
the war he maintained two large-framed photos of the emperor and
empress, whom he revered as much as any tokkōtai. Kussunoki never hid
from his wife, Mitsue, or their seven children that he prayed for Japan’s
victory, a country to which he never ceased hoping to return. When the
war ended, he was profoundly shaken by the news of Japan’s surrender,
which he could not believe was possible. Over time, he accepted the
defeat, but never publicly discussed the matter, not even in family
CHAPTER 5 175
conversations. According to suspicions that would last for decades among

those involved in the conflict, Kussunoki was put on the blacklist “by
someone motivated by jealousy.” This seems likely. The execution order
could have come from São Paulo, but the inclusion of his name was
defended by Shindō Renmei in Cafelândia with the vague accusation of
“not sharing the ideals by which the members of our organization live and
breathe.”
The five tokko ̄tai left the hotel of Yassuharō Satō, also belonging to
Shindō, at six in the morning. They had breakfast at a stand near the sug-
arcane fields and divided into two groups. Side Itō and Tadashi Ono were
to kill Shōhei Kussunoki, while Ytsuki Sakuma, Keishi Gōtō, and Kazuo
Ono were tasked with dispatching the dentist Kisso Ymai. At exactly
8:30 in the morning, the two bands of tokkōtai set off. While the first two
presented themselves as cereal buyers at Kussunoki’s depot, the group of
Sakuma, Gōtō, and Ono sat in the waiting room of Ymai’s office. Taken
by surprise, Kussunoki did not have a chance to react. Itō and Tadashi
Ono, who made up the pretext of wanting to buy a batch of grain, were
invited to join the wholesaler in the warehouse. Kussunoki walked a few
steps in front of his assassins down the dark corridors formed by immense
stacks of cereal bags. When he took a sample to offer to them, Kussunoki
was hit in the back by a shot fired point-blank. He still managed to stagger
a few steps, but died on the doorstep of his own house, next to the
warehouse.
Things were more complicated for the trio sent to kill Ymai. When he
saw the three patients with a suspicious air about them in the waiting
room, the dentist discreetly went to his quarters in the same building as
his office, and put his 0.32 caliber revolver in the pocket of his white
smock. It was Keishi Gōtō who asked,
“My friend Sakuma and I need to get cavities filled. Can you attend to us?”
Ymai asked him to take a seat, and when he stooped over to examine
the patient’s mouth, he felt a “hot pain” in his belly: the man had just
stabbed him in the gut with the blade of his knife. At that same moment,
the dentist saw Sakuma and Ono enter the office, the first with an open
switchblade and the second armed with a revolver. Ymai drew his own gun
and fired. In the effort to disarm him, Sakuma made a deep gash in the
dentist’s hand, but he kept firing. Attracted by the noise, Ymai’s wife came
into the office with a broom in her hands, which she used to furiously beat
176 F. MORAIS
the backs of the tokko ̄tai. Despite being wounded, the dentist kept firing
his revolver, forcing the three to flee. Keishi Gōtō, who had been grazed
by a bullet, was bleeding profusely from the back. The three ran away,
heading for the village of Guarantã, but they never reached the coffee
plantations. Surrounded by an armed populace, they were arrested and
taken to the police station in town. Ten blocks away, Kussunoki’s assassins
shared the same fate. A group led by police officer Ângelo Palmezan took
off on horseback after the two tokkōtai. After a short chase, Side Itō and
Tadashi Ono put their hands in the air and surrendered without a fight,
offering no other reaction. The dentist Ymai proved more fortunate than
Kussunoki, and survived his injuries (Fig. 5.10).
The arduous week, however, was not yet over. Along with the news of
the attacks that morning, the police learned that the previous night the
Japanese Toshi Horiuchi, an agricultural co-op director in the town of
Getulina, some nine miles away, had been shot to death by a band of nine
tokko ̄tai. In Lucélia, unidentified Japanese had shot Toshimi Assano, who
was now in a coma in the Santa Casa Hospital in Marília. While the Ono
brothers were confessing at the Cafelândia police station, their uncle
Shichirō was banging on the door of Maria Iwata in Borborema. Presenting
himself as a member of the Kamikaze Battalion, Ono read her the omi-
nous poem “The father’s corpse is exposed to the wind and rain,” while
his companion, Kiosaku Watanabe, gave her the letter explaining why her
husband, Tokuso Iwata, was about to be executed.
Looking in the eyes of your husband and spouse, I have great regret that I must
kill him. He is Nipponese, but he erred in believing Japan was defeated. His
time to die would have come sooner or later. It is true that a husband supports
his wife, and a wife supports her husband. Japanese women should respect and
obey their husbands—therefore, they are not responsible for what is happening.
That is why no harm will come to you. […] Even our friends must die if they are
enemies of the nation. Your husband is already dead. Your family and many
countrymen and friends will lament his loss. The occurrence today brings our
condolences to you, your children, and grandchildren. It is true a Japanese
mother has nothing more to think about; what had to happen has happened.
[…] We are in the enemy’s land thinking of those who died for love of country.
We, the white ants, cannot remain quiet.
Kamikaze Battalion
CHAPTER 5 177
Fig. 5.10 The magazine O Cruzeiro reconstructs the attempt on the life of the
dentist Ymai (at left, in bed), while a doctor removes the bullet from the back of
tokko ̄tai Keishi Gōtō
178 F. MORAIS
Five hours later, Ono and Watanabe made good on the threat by rid-
dling with bullets the farmer Tokuso Iwata, yet another victim of Shindō
Renmei. The “carnage” as it was called by the scandal sheet O Dia, in São
Paulo, did not only explode onto the front pages of the press in São Paulo
and Rio de Janeiro, but internationally, too. In an article entitled
“Honorable Homicide,” Time Magazine revealed Shindō Renmei’s prow-
ess to the Americans:
A year after V-J day some Japs in Brazil were still convinced that Japan was
undefeated. They had been told so by swindling fellow countrymen with a reason.
The swindlers were still selling Java and Philippine victory stocks to gullible com-
patriots. They were using terrorism to keep the myth and their market alive.
Working through the powerful Shindō Remmei [sic] society, the swindlers had
sparked fanatics into a homicidal campaign against all Japs “who did not behave
like patriots and deny the lie of Japan’s defeat. A gang, rounded up outside a
small town in the state of São Paulo, was typical. “It is an honor,” shouted one
gunman, “.. . [to murder] our defeatist countrymen!” For showing “defeatism,”
70 Japs have met death in the past five months.
Accused of behaving leniently toward a gang of fanatic murderers, the

interventor José Carlos Macedo Soares resolved to take the initiative. At
the recommendation of the Secretary of State, Edgar Batista Pereira, and
against the opinion of the acting Secretary of Public Security, Pedro de
Oliveira Ribeiro Sobrinho, Macedo Soares decided to put into practice a
tactic that was announced as “fighting mysticism with mysticism.” An ex-
ambassador and experienced politician, with two stints as a minister for
Getúlio Vargas, he was named Federal Interventor in São Paulo by Interim
President José Linhares, who succeeded Vargas when he was deposed in
October 1945. Interested in Japanese culture, about which he published
the essay “Public Spirit in Japan,” Macedo Soares believed the millenarian
Japanese sense of respect for hierarchy spoke louder than fanaticism. If the
supreme authority of the State spoke the truth to a live audience of
Japanese nationalists, they could not deny it. In other words, only by con-
trasting “the mysticism of authority” with “the mysticism of hierarchy”
would the Japanese hear him loud and clear. To the interventor, “the
admirable and blind obedience of the Japanese for authority” would pre-
vail over fanaticism. Convinced he was right, he ordered through the radio
and newspapers for the leaders of all the “victors’ movements” in the state
to attend a meeting with him the next day at the Campos Elíseos Palace.
Entrusted to “identify the leaders” before the official audience, the
Secretary of Security, in spite of their disagreement about holding the
CHAPTER 5 179
meeting, asked the National Agency, the news agency for the federal gov-
ernment, to distribute in the evening edition that would go to press in just
a few hours a summons. This rushed summons included even the Zaihaku
Gunjinkai, one of the many organizations that gave way to Shindō:
On orders of the Secretary of Public Security, all Japanese residents in the capi-
tal district affiliated with Shindō Renmei, Zaihaku Gunjinkai and other
organizations are required to present themselves to the Department of Political
and Social Order on the 19th between six and twelve o’clock.
Macedo Soares set the meeting for 1:30 in the afternoon. Determined
to reinforce further in the eyes of the Japanese the solemn character of the
act, he invited to the ceremony not only his entire secretariat, but also the
cardinal-archbishop of São Paulo, Carlos Carmelo de Vasconcellos Mota,
Ambassador Ragnar Kumlin from Switzerland (the country still handling
Japan’s interests in Brazil), and the commanders of the Second Military
Region, General Milton de Freitas Almeida, and of the Fourth Air Zone,
Brigadier Armando Araribóia. Two interpreters were summoned, Paulo
Yoshikazu Morita, who aided the police in interrogating the tokkōtai, and
the Brazilian José Santana do Carmo, a public translator. The cardinal, the
diplomat, and the two military leaders arrived at the palace just after noon,
as the host had requested, and went straight to a dining hall, where the
interventor awaited them for lunch. Upon arrival at Campos Elíseos, the
invited guests could see numerous groups of Japanese in the vicinity of the
palace, many who were there since six o’clock in the morning.
The lunch finished punctually at 1:30. The five guests got up and as
they walked to the Red Room where the meeting was scheduled, Macedo
Soares smiled at Manuel Sodré, a cabinet officer who came to meet them,
upon hearing the murmur of voices coming from the main salon where
the leadership was already waiting.
“How nice of them to come. Didn’t I say they would? Are there many?”
The assessor whispered something in his ear that he did not want the others
to catch. Macedo Soares didn’t like what he heard and slightly changed his
tone of voice.
“But sixty, my son? We talked about ten or twenty people…”.
The man turned pale.
“Forgive me, sir, but I didn’t say sixty. According to police calculations, it is
six hundred,” he repeated and spelled out, “six-hun-dred Japanese here.
They don’t speak Portuguese and aren’t very polite.”
Chapter 6: Japanese Are Hunted
and Dragged Through the Streets
of the City: The “Day of Reckoning”
Has Arrived
Despite spending hours on their feet, none of the Japanese in the palace
hall showed any sign of impatience. As one of the soldiers present said
afterward to the newspaper A Noite, “the steely gaze of those hundreds of
men revealed no impatience, anger, hatred, or discontent. It revealed
nothing.” Filling the Red Room and spilling out into all the nearby floors
and staircases, groups of Japanese gathered in the gardens of the state
government headquarters. The majority wore coats and ties, but many
provoked the curiosity of the functionaries and police due to their jik-
atabi—those “cow-hooved” shoes more common in the countryside. It
was an audience composed almost exclusively of men. Out of 436 Japanese
identified by DOPS police that afternoon, there was only one woman. Still
stunned by the unexpected crowd, the authorities formed a semi-circle in
front of the Japanese, who remained silent and impenetrable. The official
speaker announced the names and posts of everyone present from the
interventor to the two interpreters, and initiated the ceremony—an inter-
minably tedious succession of documents read from the Pronouncement
of the Throne, Imperial Rescript, and documents from the Japanese prime
minister. As everything read in Portuguese had to be translated into
Japanese and vice versa, it promised to be a long day.

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70562-6_7
182 F. MORAIS
As the interventor who was also the author of the thesis to “fight mysti-
cism with mysticism,” the first to speak was Macedo Soares. In a bowtie
and round glasses, he simply thanked all present, the Japanese and the
authorities, pointed out the democratic traditions of that meeting, and
said he would take the floor again at the ceremony’s close. He entrusted
the session to Ambassador Kumlin, and determined they should draw up
the minutes to the meeting as “a document that, at the end, all present
should sign,” emphasizing the word all. No one moved so much as a facial
muscle, not even after the interpreter turned the phrase into Japanese.
According to the newspapers the next day, “it was impossible to know by
looking at them what the Japanese thought of the whole matter” (Fig. 6.1).
In this tense atmosphere, Ambassador Ragnar Kumlin read the paper-
work. The first document, sent from Tokyo by order of the Supreme
Commander of the Allied Forces, was a letter to the Japanese residents of
Brazil by Shigeru Yoshida, Japan’s Minister of Foreign Relations. Lengthy
and replete with circumlocutions, it left no doubt that the war had indeed
ended and Japan had, in fact, surrendered to the Allies.
Fig. 6.1 The interventor Macedo Soares invites the fanatics to an audience at the
palace to try and put an end to the killings
CHAPTER 6 183
[…] To the Japanese residents of Brazil, for your part, you should not be led
astray by irresponsible rumors circulating overseas, rather, with dignity and
patience, you must face the harsh and severe reality that the last war ended in
Japan’s surrender, that the future will be full of difficulties, and that the duty
of the Japanese in Brazil is to live peacefully and employ your greatest energy to
your own affairs, in this way contributing to the prosperity of Brazil, your
adopted nation.
Just as the minister’s letter included references to the Pronouncement

of the Throne, it was read in its entirety with every phrase translated into
Portuguese and then read in Japanese. It was not missed by the audience
that the words unconditional and surrender, nonexistent in Hirohito’s
speech on September 2, appeared nine times in the documents read by the
Swiss ambassador. Afraid this might cause suspicions among the Japanese,
Kumlin made clear the originals for all of the documents mentioned were
at the disposal of interested parties at the Swiss Consulate in São Paulo.
Before ceding to the interventor, the Swiss ambassador reiterated that, in
the face of the documents he had just finished reading, there was not “the
slightest possibility for doubt with respect to the situation that has befallen
your country.” He finished his participation with harsh words for the vic-
tors’ faction, calling them “vile and unscrupulous individuals, persons of a
criminal and subversive character, who exploited the good faith and igno-
rance of the Japanese colonists.”
In spite of their being the object of Kumlin’s criticisms—after all, the
only people summoned there were the kachigumi—the Japanese remained
unmoving and silent. After several more hours reading rescripts and offi-
cial declarations, finally it was Macedo Soares’ turn to be heard. The inter-
ventor went further in criticizing Shindō Renmei, calling it a “secret
terrorist association” that had murdered its countrymen “for the simple
fact that they accepted the evidence of reality.” Calling the sect’s militants
“beings unworthy of our nation’s hospitality,” Macedo Soares promised
to harshly punish “those who insist on recalcitrance:”
“As we have seen from the reading of the documents, the situation in Japan
is clear and well defined. It is beyond doubt unconditional surrender. All
those implicated will be expelled from our national territory, but only after
serving the sentences they have earned by the gravity of their crimes.”
184 F. MORAIS
Next, the interventor read the final paragraph of the minutes he

ordered taken.
“The Japanese present here declare themselves in full accord with all they
have heard, and are committed to working with the national authorities to
avoid reproducing the above-referenced acts. The present minutes, having
been read and confirmed, will be sign by all those present.”
Before closing the minutes, Macedo Soares asked if anyone present

wanted to take the floor. A diminutive and bald Japanese, puffed up in a
suit that looked twice the size of its owner, raised his hand, identified him-
self as “Tatayo Omasa from Duartina,” and asked to speak, apologizing
that he did not know Portuguese. While he spoke, the interventor smiled,
appearing to celebrate the success of his theory to “fight mysticism with
mysticism.” But his joviality lasted only until Paulo Morita stood up to
translate Omasa’s words.
“We will sign nothing that speaks of Japan’s surrender! Our nation is waging
this war by divine order. We piously believe in victory for Japan! Our Japan
is a divine nation in possession of three thousand years of glorious history.”
Impassive until then, the 600 Japanese burst into applause and shouts
of “Excellent” and “Agreed!” Only they seemed not to notice the general
air of perplexity around them. A bulletin distributed by Shindō Renmei on
the very same day affirmed that “when the interpreter Morita translated
Omasa’s speech, we could almost see tears in the eyes of the interventor
and other authorities present. The military leaders, impressed with the
fighting spirit of the orator, smiled in admiration.” After Omasa, the only
woman present introduced herself as Mrs. Sachiko, representing the town
of Agudos, and spoke in Portuguese:
“Esteemed President of the State. None of us believes Japan lost the war. If
Your Excellency wishes to end the disputes and terrorist acts between the
Japanese, begin by announcing Japan’s victory and order an immediate sus-
pension to the false propaganda of defeat. Without these measures, the ter-
rorist acts will never cease.”
More applause and more consternation from the authorities. Macedo

Soares stopped the police from arresting the two orators, and maintained
the original schedule. If anyone else wanted to speak, the floor was open.
CHAPTER 6 185
Three more Japanese reiterated what had been said previously, making
clear the impasse at hand. None of them would sign the minutes if it did
not exclude all references to Japan’s defeat. A tall, thin man with a sunken
face presented himself as Seiiti Hayakawa, “a large business owner in
Tupã.” He only spoke in Japanese and insisted if the government wanted
an end to the killing, the price would be high.
“The government must do two things: authorize and reestablish the postal
service between Brazil and Japan, and prohibit the newspapers from pub-
lishing American propaganda speaking of Japan’s defeat. Since Japan is wag-
ing a holy war, the Brazilian authorities are wasting time trying to convince
the Japanese of their nation’s defeat. Not unless a representative of the
emperor personally brings us the news.”
The Japanese were exultant. Animated by the climate of victory, another

immigrant suggested the list of claims should include suspension of the
police investigations underway against members of Shindō Renmei. More
applause and cries of “Nippon Banzai!” At great cost, Macedo Soares
managed to make himself heard above the boisterous crowd. Convinced
that his “pacification meeting” had taken a disconcerting turn in the
wrong direction, the interventor did not appear to be the same person
who had spoken crudely to the fanatics hours earlier.
“My dear two hundred thousand Japanese residents of Brazil. You are a
treasure to Brazil. The most important part of the Brazilian population. I
want you to listen to me. Our nation of Brazil did not enter into a war with
your homeland of Japan. Japan was at war against Great Britain, the United
States, Russia, and China. As a result, I will have the expression ‘uncondi-
tional surrender’ removed from the minutes.”
Stunned by what they had just heard, Cardinal Mota and the two mili-
tary men exchanged surprised looks. Ambassador Kumlin, who had already
finished his role, left before the first Japanese spoke. Macedo Soares con-
tinued to make concessions. He promised to intercede together with the
federal government to reestablish correspondence between Brazil and
Japan, discounted as “unnecessary” having a representative of the Japanese
government come to São Paulo, and put upon the Secretary of Public
Security, Pedro de Oliveira Ribeiro, the embarrassing mission of respond-
ing to the request to censor the newspapers. Against the idea of holding
the meeting from the outset, Oliveira Ribeiro (who considered the
186 F. MORAIS
Japanese request “an outrage,” as he later fumed) had to practice political

and verbal contortionism to obey the interventor’s order. He didactically
explained to the immigrants that Brazil was a democracy and therefore the
press was free to publish what it understood best. However, to avoid sour-
ing the situation further, the secretary allowed for the possibility of the
government “appealing to the newspaper owners,” but impressed upon
those present the difficulty in stopping them from talking about the
“Japanese capitulation.”
For the Japanese this was still welcome. It had begun to grow dark
when the interventor drew to a close what he called “a historic encoun-
ter.” Excluding the words defeat, unconditional, and surrender, the min-
utes were signed by Macedo Soares, Cardinal Mota, the two military men,
the entire secretariat, and then by 334 of the 600 “Japanese subjects pres-
ent.” Despite the exigencies attended to, more than a hundred Japanese
refused to sign the document, alleging it was “American propaganda.” All
who responded this way were identified by DOPs police on the spot and
recorded as suspects. News of Shindō Renmei’s indisputable victory
reached the colony that same day by bulletins mimeographed in the capital
and distributed throughout the state. In them, promises no one had made
were credited to the interventor. A phrase published as if it had come from
Macedo Soares was reproduced in all the pamphlets: “I pledge that from
today onwards I will prohibit the publication of any reference to Japan’s
defeat or the secret society of the Japanese.” Public reaction to the meet-
ing could be seen the next day on the front pages of the newspapers in Rio
and São Paulo.
Yesterday’s meeting in the Campos Elíseos Palace resulted in complete failure.

A reprehensible action by the Shindo ̄ Renmei fanatics.
Refusing to sign the minutes, imposing conditions, and even demanding press
censorship!
Shindō Renmei imposes conditions on the state government.
The Secretary of Security also promises to look out for the terrorists’
susceptibilities.
They continue to refuse to believe in Japan’s defeat!
Whether or not Shindō Renmei would stop killing after receiving so

many concessions from Macedo Soares, only time would tell. But even
without this pretense, the meeting at the palace achieved something
unprecedented in the history of immigration: it turned Brazilian public
CHAPTER 6 187
opinion against the Japanese colony. An editorial entitled “Japanese ter-

rorism,” published by the influential newspaper A Gazeta, summarized
the indignant results of the meeting at the Campos Elíseos Palace.
The meeting yesterday, attended by the terrorist members of that association of

delinquents called Shindo ̄ Renmei, is proof of the audacity by these foreign colo-
nies. They lacked basic decency in the presence of the federal interventor, who
honored them with an audience like that. […] Evil individuals, pernicious to
the core, incapable of being assimilated by racial labor, […] they throw them-
selves into wrongdoing with ferocity, not retreating from execution orders sent
from the secret society they obey. […] There is nothing further for the federal
interventor to do, except to send to the galleys these characters so lacking in
sentiment and a proper upbringing, obsessed by the megalomania of Hirohito,
the cartoon child of the sun. […] One of those at the Campos Elíseos Palace had
the temerity to demand that the newspapers be silenced about the treacherous
murders perpetrated at Shindo ̄ Renmei’s command. The yellows bared their
teeth as if Brazil were Korea or the Philippines. The Nipo-Nazi-Fascist chorus
is fooling itself. It will retreat, before the Brazilian people decides to rid our-
selves of them like the bandits they are. What transpired at the Campos Elíseos
Palace exceeds the boundaries of tolerance, patience and good will. There is no
doubt we will have to expel from our house the propagators of this crime wave
who are transforming Brazil into a refuge for bandits.
The barrage didn’t end there. The journalist and Japanese translator
Mário Botelho de Miranda criticized the interventor’s comportment with
the same severity:
He should have made the meeting […] in a true Japanese manner: the sole
superior gives strict orders to be heard and carried out, without the right to take
the floor; and he should have used the police to punish anyone right then and
there who tried to rebel during the meeting. It would have been better suited to
the psychology of the Japanese fanatics, instilling an inferiority complex by class
and physical force as they were accustomed to back in their own country.
“Fighting mysticism with mysticism,” as the interventor intended, was taken by
the Japanese fanatics as a sign of weakness. They took it as defeat and recog-
nized it as their “victory.” This is the psychology of the ordinary Japanese. What
can be said, then, to the fanatics? […]
The barrage of criticism went on. In his column in the Folha da Noite,
the columnist Maragliano Júnior ironized what he called “the insanities of
the yellows:”
188 F. MORAIS
The Japanese who go around killing their countrymen that don’t believe in
their nation’s victory demanded and obtained a compromise from the govern-
ment, which when pressed, removed expressions referring to the unconditional
surrender of the land of cherry blossoms from the minutes to make a truce in this
fratricidal war. As a friend of mine said: fine, do as they ask, they will quit their
insanities, calm down, and go back to planting the potatoes we need. It’s not
like we want to plant them ourselves…
To counter the wave of indignation the meeting provoked, the Campos

Elíseos Palace needed to mount a campaign to put out the flames the press
had ignited. The first to throw Macedo Soares a lifeline were two of the
authorities present that day, Brigadier Araribóia and Ambassador Kumlin.
In interviews distributed by the National Agency to dozens of newspapers
in Rio and São Paulo, the tone from both was the same. According to the
military man, the interventor had adopted an intelligent politics to “per-
suade and convince,” and had hit the nail on the head when he set out to
“fight mysticism with mysticism.” In a definitive affirmation, he assured
that the results of the meeting “would bear themselves out.”
“You will see the interventor’s patriotic initiative bear fruit in due course.”
Ambassador Ragnar Kumlin repeated this formula in another interview

given to the Rio-based newspaper A Noite that was also redistributed to
other media outlets as a press release by the National Agency. The Swiss
diplomat reiterated that the criticisms of Macedo Soares were premature,
insisting, “when dealing with psychological warfare as opposed to a blitz-
krieg, the effects take time to sink in.”
“We should not forget that before being a politician, the head of govern-
ment in São Paulo was already a capable and seasoned diplomat. He knows
when is essential to use force or reason.”
The public relations campaign didn’t stop there. Called in to help the
government, the anthropologist Octavio da Costa Eduardo, a professor of
sociology and political science, gave an interview to Folha da Manhã (sim-
ilarly republished in other newspapers) guaranteeing the interventor’s ini-
tiative had been “ethnologically correct.” The professor, however,
considered “impractical” the notion of shooting the members of Shindō
Renmei, as had been proposed by more radical elements, arguing “unless
CHAPTER 6 189
you want to make martyrs of them, which will only exacerbate further
these nervous tensions.” When asked his opinion about the threat of
expulsion from Brazil leveled at members of the sect, Octavio da Costa
Eduardo made a diplomatic escape, saying this gesture would impact “the
Paulista economy.” Even Padre Sabóia de Medeiros, who became a dar-
ling of the right after challenging the Communist leader Luís Carlos
Prestes to a debate on the radio, came out in defense of Macedo Soares.
The padre believed the roots of the problem borne out of the Japanese
colony resided in the “savage paganism of the yellows,” but was against
the mass expulsion of the criminals for economic and religious reasons:
“The plantation owners will ask next, ‘where are the whites to replace them?
Who’s going to plant rice?’ And the missionaries will also lament their
absence, saying ‘there they go, and with those souls go our hopes. Instead
of welcoming the gospel into their hearts, they will grow even harder…’”
In spite of all these efforts, no one had the slightest doubt the meeting
at the Campos Elíseos Palace resulted in a resounding fiasco. Bewildered
and in search of a means by which to communicate with the colony, the
government decided to authorize the re-opening of one of the most
important Japanese newspapers, the São Paulo-Shimbun, which had been
shut down during the war. At the authorities’ request, the former owner,
Kossugue Kohatsu, accepted the proposal, but made clear it would take
two months to bring it to the newsstands—and even then, it would be
published as a weekly, not a daily paper. They asked the owners of the
radio stations to issue successive bulletins “directed at the Nipponese
community so it would return to harmony.” Witnessing the visible inca-
pacity of the São Paulo government to put an end to Shindō Renmei’s
activities, the American consulate decided to get involved with a package
of measures dubbed “Operation Truth.” Cecil Cross, the consul-general
in São Paulo, convinced the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers,
the highest authority in Japanese territory, to send to Brazil by air tens of
thousands of copies of Japanese newspapers edited in Tokyo, Hiroshima,
Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Fukushima, Yamanashi, Nagasaki, Hokkaido, and
Okinawa (the cities from which ninety percent of the members of the
colony in Brazil came from), with plentiful coverage of the war’s end,
Japan’s defeat, and unconditional surrender. Within a matter of days,
trucks from the Army and Public Forces crisscrossed the interior of the
state distributing packages with copies of the Mainichi, Asahi Shimbun,
190 F. MORAIS
Tokyo Shimbun, and Yomiuri newspapers. The Supreme Commander rein-

forced the ammunition and sent to Brazil canisters of film containing
images of devastated Japanese cities, footage of the rendition ceremony,
and interviews with former Japanese leaders making clear the real situation
in Japan. No matter how blind the faith of Shindō Renmei’s militants,
there could be no further doubt that the “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity
Sphere” had been wiped off the map. What looked crystal clear even to a
child, however, did not enter the heads of the kachigumi. All these efforts
were in vain. To the frustration of Thomas Scott, press officer for the
American consulate, tasked with overseeing “Operation Truth,” the news
that reached the countryside was met by the majority of its intended audi-
ence with absolute skepticism. To the Japanese, it was just another game,
another trick of American propaganda to break the morale of the Japanese
throughout the world.
The interventor José Carlos de Macedo Soares, however, did not appear
to share the concerns of the American diplomats. On July 30, eleven days
after the meeting with the Japanese, he traveled to Rio de Janeiro to bring
Justice Minister Carlos Luz a report about the conflict in São Paulo. When
the appointment concluded it was already night, but the reporters stayed
on duty in the anteroom of the office waiting for news. Macedo Soares
insisted the meeting at the palace had been productive and, as if in response
to the criticism he received in the press, repeated the attitude of São Paulo
in relation to Shindō Renmei remained unchanged. “We are acting ener-
getically against the terrorists,” the interventor said, “but we will not step
one millimeter away from the law.” Asked by a journalist who wanted to
know if the war between the Japanese was reaching the end, Macedo
Soares calmly replied,
“In eight days, the terrorists killed ten people. After the meeting I organized
at the palace, there haven’t been any more crimes. I repeat to you gentlemen
what I assured the Justice Minister. The evidence indicates that all Paulistas,
Brazilian as much as Japanese, can sleep in peace.”
Several minutes after dismissing the reporters, the interventor caught

the express train Cruzeiro do Sul back to São Paulo. Five hundred miles
away at the same exact time, the truck driver Pascoal de Oliveira, whose
nickname was Nego (Black), was taking his truck down the dirt road con-
necting Bastos to Osvaldo Cruz, where he lived. He had almost reached
town when another truck cut him off while passing, almost sending his
Chevrolet Gigante off the precipice. After dinner, Nego went to the Chico
CHAPTER 6 191
Costa bar in the center of town, to drink some cachaça and talk with his
friends, as he did every night. The truck driver stayed there until almost
ten o’clock, but as he was getting ready to pay the bill, another truck
parked out in front, and its driver, Kababe Massame, a Japanese slightly
more than twenty years old, entered the bar. Recognizing the newcomer
as the person who cut him off on the road, Nego decided to have it out
with him. The discussion seemed to be nothing more than an exchange of
words between the two truckers, but Massame suddenly pulled out a knife
and delivered a fatal blow to Nego’s heart. None of the Japanese exhibited
any reaction. Taking advantage of the surprise of the Brazilians who tried
to save Nego—who died instantly—the murderer ran outside and disap-
peared into the darkness. News of the death spread that night, awakening
hatred in the Brazilians of Osvaldo Cruz they didn’t know they had. This
was no ordinary crime, but the murder of a Brazilian much beloved in the
city by a Japanese.
* * *
The Japanese population of Osvaldo Cruz did not reach the proportions
of Bilac or Bastos. Less than half of the twelve thousand local inhabitants
were Japanese, but popular opinion in the town held that only two of
them weren’t militants or sympathizers of Shindō Renmei: the pharmacist
Izuyo Suzuki and engineer Yutaka Abe. If Suzuki was more discreet in his
“defeatist” ideas, Abe made a point of boasting about being an assimilated
immigrant. Unlike the overwhelming Buddhist majority in the colony, he
frequented a Baptist church, became a naturalized Brazilian citizen, was a
subscriber to Brazilian newspapers, and enjoyed the privilege of being the
only Japanese in the town given permission to have a radio in his home—a
courtesy denied to most members of the Japanese community. Another
trace of Japanese tradition Abe abolished in his home was relying on an
old-fashioned matchmaker, the nakōdo, whose job was to mediate in wed-
dings between children of the Japanese. Yutaka Abe made it clear if his
children wanted to marry Brazilians (which in fact wound up happening
in both cases), his consent was already given. And if they were “not just
Brazilian, but black,” it did not make the least difference to him. The
nako ̄do, therefore, wasn’t going to set foot in his home. His family had
become so Brazilianized in this way that his son Shiguemizu (baptized
with the Christian name Marcelo), an adolescent just over twelve years
old, had a ready answer to his schoolmates who called him Japanese
(Fig. 6.2):
192 F. MORAIS
Fig. 6.2 The pharmacist Izuyo Suzuki (farthest left) and the engineer Yutaka
Abe (fifth from left) face arson and a bomb thrown under the bed of Abe’s son
“Shove it up your ass, you sonuvabitch, I’m not Japanese. I’m Brazilian,
born in Minas Gerais, uai.”
Even in this respect, Abe was different from his countrymen. Before
moving to São Paulo, the destination for the majority of the immigrants,
he tried his hand first in Araguari, in the Minas Triangle, where his chil-
dren were born. The war had not yet ended, but when he heard on the
radio that Japan lost Manchuria to Soviet troops, he had no doubt the
nation’s defeat was only a matter of time. Besides making his convictions
public, Abe told anyone willing to listen that he didn’t believe a word of
the widespread lies of Shindō Renmei such as the promised arrival of the
navy to repatriate the Japanese, or the unbelievable story of land sales in
the islands supposedly conquered by the Imperial Army in the Pacific.
Despite the scale of his vehemence, the kachigumi had not totally aban-
doned hope of converting him to the patriotic cause. Days after the war
ended, the Japanese-Brazilian club in town, the bunka, organized a meet-
ing to “discuss the real situation in Japan.” Although he knew the associa-
tion was infested with fanatics from the nationalist cult, Abe was unfazed.
CHAPTER 6 193
He asked to speak and said as bluntly as he could that the war was over,
Japan had lost, and this wasn’t just a rumor someone had told him. He
personally heard the emperor announce the act of surrender. The audience
was incensed. The real estate agent and carpenter San-Iti Chimen, who led
Shindō Renmei in the town, indignantly got to his feet and shouted at
the crowd:
“He’s lying!”
Instead of taking the bait, Abe reacted coolly.
“You don’t have a radio in your home, but I do. I could hear the interna-
tional news, but you couldn’t. How can you say I’m lying? If you want to
come to my house right now, I’ll turn on the radio and you can hear the
news about the war’s end.”
“No one wants to hear American propaganda,” they responded. The

exception was the pharmacist Suzuki, who apparently was the only one in
town to share Abe’s opinions. The two left the meeting at the bunka
accused of belonging to “an American fifth column,” amid loud screams
calling for “vengeance against the traitors.” Instead of bringing them
closer to their countrymen, the meeting expanded the gulf separating the
two friends from the colony. The audacity of the Shindō Renmei fanatics
in the town knew no limits. Convinced the war had not yet ended, and
their homeland was on the verge of victory, they extended their aggression
and arrogance not only to the makegumi, those traitors to the nation, but
also to gaijin, namely, the Brazilians. The threat that was previously mur-
mured about started to be trumpeted in loud voices in the streets of
Osvaldo Cruz. After the war was over, they weren’t only going to settle
the score with their defeatist countrymen, but also the Brazilians.
Abe knew San-Iti Chimen was capable of harm. One of the rare cases of
a rich kachigumi, he did justice to the origin of his name—San-Iti literally
meant three-in-one—he was already a bully with a cruel mug. Yet even
though he didn’t doubt Chimen and the kachigumi in town might do
something crazy, at the insistence of his Brazilian friends, he agreed to take
precautions. Every day someone in the family—Abe, his wife, his son
Marcelo, or daughter Toshiko, also an adolescent—was entrusted with
“making the rounds” before going to sleep, always with a revolver in
hand. Every night the big house, made of wood like nearly all of the
194 F. MORAIS
buildings in town, was patrolled in search of signs anything was amiss.

There were 150-watt light bulbs installed in all corners of the house to
illuminate the blind spots where an intruder might hide. As with Suzuki,
Abe was authorized by the police chief, Eduardo Paixão, to buy revolvers
for himself and everyone in his family, such that no one in the house slept
without keeping a loaded .32 under their pillow. The efforts were in vain.
Shindō Renmei had already called up their assassins to carry out the sen-
tence for Abe and Suzuki. In mid-July, the medic Eiiti Sakane (one of the
seven who participated in the frustrated attempt to decapitate Corporal
Edmundo in Tupã) convened a group of young men to murder the two
makegumi in Osvaldo Cruz.
The young men chosen were Sueto Yiama, Kazuto Yoshida, Kōhei
Katō, and Kōhei Itikawa, all farmworkers living on farms spread through-
out the region, with ages ranging from twenty-five to thirty. The group’s
first meeting with Sakane occurred in the back rooms of the Bar do Ponto,
where the four had been set up days earlier. The place was known in the
Japanese colony as a stronghold of the “victors” in the region. Its owner,
the martial arts master Takeikō Massuda, was suspected of using the estab-
lishment as one of the “sanctuaries” maintained by Shindō Renmei to hide
tokko ̄tai wanted by the police. Sakane gave each one a wrapped bundle
containing a revolver, twenty-five bullets, a Japanese flag, a tanto ̄, and two
thousand cruzeiros in cash. He announced two missions that had to be
executed immediately: Katō and Yoshida were to kill “the pharmacist
Assano,” while Yiama and Itikawa were to eliminate “the farmer
Muramatsu,” both residing in the same district of Inúbia. Despite not
knowing the full names of the victims, the four men set off on horseback
and left, still ignorant what crimes Assano and Muramatsu had committed.
The expedition was a fiasco. Toshimi Assano, who was a lawyer, not a
pharmacist, fulfilled all the prerequisites set by Shindō Renmei for being a
“defeatist.” A friend to the Brazilian authorities, he was the founder of
several plantations, owned trucks, and frequently negotiated major land
sales. He spoke three languages and worked for many years as a guide to
businessmen on trips from the United States and Europe, which brought
him into contact with wealthy Brazilians in the Alta Paulista region.
Whenever the opportunity arose, he advised his countrymen to “stay away
from this Shindō Renmei nonsense.”
When Katō and Yoshida dismounted from their horses, after journeying
two leagues to Inúbia, Assano was attending to a customer in his son
Jorge’s pharmacy, who had stepped out for a few minutes. The two asked
CHAPTER 6 195
which person was Assano, and when the Japanese behind the counter
responded it was him, Katō fired a shot at his countryman. The bullet
entered his temple and exited through the jaw, diagonally crossing his
head, but miraculously Assano was still alive. While Assano was slumped
over the counter, Katō took three more shots. The tokkōtai mounted their
horses and rode back to Osvaldo Cruz, leaving the makegumi behind,
wounded but still alive. Katō and Yoshida, in reality, were lucky they did
not cross paths with the brutish Vicente Careca, Assano’s henchman,
famous for catching boa constrictors with his bare hands and putting them
under his shirt. The duo consisting of Yiama and Itikawa, tasked with kill-
ing “the farmer Muramatsu,” never even found him, as this second victim
was away traveling.
Scolding the rookies for their incompetence, Eiiti Sakane decided to
join the group in the next operation. The target this time was closer, little
more than ten blocks from the bar where the group was holed up. It was
the houses of the pharmacist Izuyo Suzuki and the engineer Yutaka Abe.
On the chilly night of July 22, Sakane gathered the four of them in the
back of the bar and announced,
“Today’s the day. The duos from Inúbia will stay together. Katō and Yoshida
will blow up Abe’s house, while Yiama and Itikawa will burn down Suzuki’s.
I’ll go with the duo to bomb Abe.”
It was almost dawn when the five left Bar do Ponto, ducking in the
shadows. Carrying the bomb made by a blacksmith in Tupã in a cloth
rucksack, Sakane and the other two tokko ̄tai made for Abe’s house. On the
way to the pharmacist’s house, Yiama and Itikawa carried a gallon of gaso-
line in each hand. That night the Abe family had gone to a party in the
neighboring town, only to return at five o’clock in the morning. Exhausted
by the night’s revelry, the four went straight to bed without anyone mak-
ing the usual rounds. Minutes later, when they were all asleep, a crash
woke everyone in town. Placed beneath the floorboards of the house,
Shindō Renmei’s bomb exploded exactly under the bedroom where young
Marcelo slept. Besides leaving a hole one meter deep in the ground, the
bomb tore up the floor made up of three layers of peroba wood, and sent
a chest of drawers flying all the way to the other side of the room. A strip
of wood superficially grazed the boy’s chin, making him the only victim
injured in the attack. Amid the smoke billowing from the house, its four
inhabitants got to their feet with guns drawn, but there was no further
sign of the terrorists.
196 F. MORAIS
No sooner had the police arrived on the scene than someone brought
news of an incendiary attack at that same moment at the house of another
member on the makegumi blacklist in town, the pharmacist Izuyo Suzuki.
A spy informed the tokkōtai that Suzuki stored a great quantity of alcohol
bottles, and they had planned to make the property burn by throwing
gasoline on it and setting it ablaze. Before the flames could spread, how-
ever, the pharmacist came out of the house shooting, which forced the
fanatics to run away. No one got any more sleep that night in Osvaldo
Cruz. The police discovered the bomb placed under the Abe house was a
contraption made with a pesticide bag to kill ants loaded full of nails,
stones, and metal shrapnel tied with a long enough fuse to give the tokko ̄tai
time to get away before it exploded. The climate of revolt among the
Brazilians was widespread. A friend of Yutaka Abe, the bush clearer José
Pombalino, offered the services of forty thugs armed with carbines to
hunt the perpetrators of the two attacks. But the portly and calm Abe had
no interest in a vendetta. Instead of fighting fire with fire, he proposed
they all go to the local church where the padre led a mass praying for peace
in the town.
The prayers Abe asked for did not bring results. A week after the two
attacks, with the town still immersed in an atmosphere of revolt, the truck
driver Kababe Massame reignited the populace’s rage when he took
Nego’s life. During the long night that followed the crime, the town
seemed to be in a permanent state of vigilance. Groups of Brazilians armed
with clubs patrolled the vicinity of the house where Nego’s body was lying
in state. Massame disappeared after committing the crime, but during the
night, someone appeared at the wake to announce the murderer was hid-
ing in a latrine behind the house of some Japanese in the Vila California
neighborhood along the road leading out to more rural areas. The crimi-
nal had managed to wedge himself behind the toilet, where, several min-
utes later, he was yanked out under a shower of blows by a horde of
Brazilians coming from the wake. If not for immediate intervention by the
police chief, Massame would not have survived the fury of his captors.
When daybreak arrived, a group of Brazilians was having breakfast at
the Bar Do Ponto. The topic of conversation at all the tables naturally was
the previous night’s murder and the two attacks against Abe and Suzuki.
When the bar’s owner, Takeikō Massuda, went from table to table with a
breadbasket, he was challenged by one of the Brazilians.
CHAPTER 6 197
“Open your eyes, Japanese, because the people here are itching to nail one
of you to take revenge for killing Nego.”
Confident in his position as a ninth dan black belt, the high rank for a
judo fighter, Massuda was not intimidated by the almost exclusively
Brazilian crowd gathered around him, and snapped back:
“Why revenge for Nego? He wasn’t just Brazilian, he was black. As far as I’m
concerned, you could kill ten of those bums and it would be all the
same to me.”
This was the trigger for repressed rage to spill out into the open. The
Brazilian on the receiving end of Massuda’s outrageous reply got to his
feet ready to fight.
“Okay, you son of a bitch. You think you give the orders here in Brazil? Let’s
see if you’re man enough to kill a Brazilian.”
The scene that followed was witnessed by the young Marcelo Abe, who
would never again see anything like it, even after a half-century of special
effects in the movies made it so that invincible ninjas could fly across the
screen. With a single, deadly blow striking with the tips of his fingers at the
Brazilian’s Adam’s apple, Massuda put the man on the ground and out of
commission. The four friends having breakfast with him jumped on the
Japanese, but had to call for reinforcements when they realized they
couldn’t subdue him themselves. Many years later, Marcelo Abe would
recall, without hiding his enthusiasm, this unforgettable technical exhibi-
tion of a martial arts master.
“Out of nowhere there were ten Brazilians fighting with the owner of the
bar and getting beat up. He was a beast of a man, a black belt, no less. Pretty
soon it was more like twenty—and the guy beat the crap out of all of them.
Just as the fighting was getting good, a friend of my father’s shouted at me
to go home because they’d decided to pummel every Japanese they found,
and not everyone knew I was Abe’s boy. If I hadn’t left when I did, they
would have thrashed me, too.”
The boy went down Avenida Brasil in the direction of his father’s
house. He’d walked no more than a block when he looked behind him
and saw there were nearly fifty Brazilians up against Massuda. Badly
roughed up, the brave Japanese left the bar with his hands and feet tied up,
198 F. MORAIS
and was dragged through the streets like a sack of potatoes. A man at the
front of the group shouted like a madman,
“Lynch him! Lynch him! It’s payback time. Today this town will see no
Japanese spared!”
The feeling he got in that instant was that every Brazilian in Osvaldo
Cruz—young and old, black and white, rich and poor—had a score to
settle with a Japanese. Now that day had arrived. What was seen next was
not the work of rioters, as historian José Alvarenga, then-secretary for the
prefecture, would recall more than fifty years later. Still fearful of re-
opening a wound already healed, even after all those years, he remem-
bered the outbreak of violence that indiscriminately overtook all Brazilians.
“It wasn’t just the common people, there were prominent figures involved as
well. Ordinary folks took part, but many were also cultured and respected
individuals. I don’t want to mention any names, since their children and
relatives still live here. What I can say is even if common folks and people of
humbler origins collaborated in this, the ones who started the aggression
and the massacres were people we considered more enlightened.”
Without anyone being able to explain how it happened, peace-loving

family men seemed to wake up with a devil inside them on that chilly
Wednesday of July 31, 1946. It was no longer a matter who belonged to
Shindō Renmei, or about the victors against the defeatists, now it was
about a reckoning between Brazilians and Japanese—something that has
never been sufficiently explained. If Nego’s death was a fuse, it was ignited
by the reaction to Massuda at breakfast in the Bar do Ponto. After the judo
master was knocked unconscious and beaten within an inch of his life, he
was tied up with rope and dragged through the streets of the town. Instead
of being filled with remorse, the populace seemed emboldened by the
scene, such that minutes later bands of men consumed with rage were
going down the streets hunting for Japanese. They weren’t on the lookout
for anyone in particular, any Japanese would do. Man, woman, child, the
elderly, it didn’t make a difference. Fathers of Brazilian families invaded
houses as simple as theirs, and grabbed Japanese fathers, dragging them
out of their houses by their hair and humiliating them in front of their
wives and children. Japanese children watched, terrified, as their fathers
CHAPTER 6 199
Figs. 6.3–6.4 “The City of Osvaldo Cruz is Militarily Occupied” (at right).
Almost fifty Brazilians were needed to take on the judo black belt Takeikō Massuda
(at left)
were beaten up by the fathers of their Brazilian friends. The young Marcelo
Abe went up to the second floor of his family’s house, where he gained a
superior view of the center of confusion, Avenida Brasil (Figs. 6.3–6.4).
“The avenue was crowded with Brazilians looking for Japanese. People were
being beaten in every direction. One guy had lassoed a Japanese and dragged
him through the street.”
Someone found the idea of the lasso highly original, and soon everyone
was trying to lasso a Japanese to drag him through the streets. It was pay-
back for the threat to “show the Brazilians who’s in charge” when Japan
won the war. Riders on horseback circled the center of town looking for
immobilized Japanese to tie up and drag through the streets pulling the
end of the rope in their harness. Historian José Alvarenga, who saw it all
up close, called forth a bovine image to describe the living nightmare in
the town:
200 F. MORAIS
At the first light of day the tragic upheaval suddenly began, as if cattle had
burst from a corral and went on a wild rampage, stampeding and smashing
everything in sight. Ordinary people driven by animal instincts went out in
mad posses to hunt defenseless Japanese who had nothing to do with the murders
or operations by the fanatics of Shindō Renmei. They broke into their homes,
dragging them out into the street by force, ruthlessly abused them, flogged them,
injured them, dragged them by lassos through the street and trampled them.
Scenes like this were repeated alternately and spontaneously throughout the day
in different parts of town by groups that disbanded and formed anew with new
members. The Japanese endured it with resignation and without making any
reaction to the unjust violence to which they were inexplicably subjected.
Since the state of emergency laws from the war were still in force that
prohibited ownership or possession of arms, almost no one had revolvers
or shotguns at home, which unquestionably saved the lives of many of the
wounded from the slaughter in Osvaldo Cruz. Incapable of containing the
mass fury, the only two authorities in town, the mayor Valdemar Pio de
Oliveira and police chief Eduardo Paixão turned on the sound system that
reached the entire center of town through speakers hung on posts and
building marquees. At first, they tried to give orders, but in the end, the
two made desperate pleas for everyone to stop what they were doing and
go home, but no one paid any attention to it. In every corner of town one
could see Japanese bleeding, having been stoned and with nowhere to
hide. By the end of the morning, a generous soul took pity on the immi-
grants. Against the opinion of others, the doctor Oswaldo Nunes left his
house to tend to the wounded. His neighbors asked him to leave the
Japanese to their own fate. “Don’t go, doctor,” shouted men and women,
“let those sons of bitches die!”
As he approached the center of town, Nunes got a better sense of the
scale of the troubles in which the Japanese were caught up. According to
the doctor, a mob instigated by a “highly regarded citizen of Osvaldo
Cruz” tried to burn down a Japanese inn in which fifteen children were
hiding. Nunes was forced to carry his 0.45 caliber pistol and brandish his
Army Reserve badge to prevent the insanity from escalating around him.
Further along, he came across a Japanese who had been hiding behind a
mountain of rice sacks in a warehouse. Discovered by some Brazilians, he
was dragged through the street and stabbed multiple times in the chest
and back with a hole puncher used to take grain samples. Even the doctor
was shocked at the state the anonymous Japanese had been left in: one of
CHAPTER 6 201
the stabbings had punctured his lung, making the expelled air come out
near the armpit and producing bubbles of blood that spurted from his
wounds. Still, the preferred weapons were the lasso, rocks, and clubs.
None of the Japanese were spared. Nunes stopped next a few yards away
to help an old man, slender and white-haired, and suffering terribly from
the beating he received. In the middle of the clamoring attackers, the old-
timer managed to get away, stumbling and bleeding, and hid in a recess
where the doctor found him. In some cases, the wounded, no longer mov-
ing were grabbed by their arms and legs, and thrown in the air like sacks
of potatoes.
Shortly after midday a new threat terrified the Japanese even more, as
very soon dozens of Japanese young children would be coming from the
rural areas to take their classes, which began at one o’clock in the after-
noon. It was imperative to keep them from entering Osvaldo Cruz, lest
the tragedy already underway attain even worse proportions. A small
group of Japanese managed to sneak away from the battleground into
which the center had been converted, and headed for the colonies. They
arrived in time to send the children straight home.
The doctor tried to save at least a few Japanese, his friends, locking
them up in the one supposedly safe place in town, the jail of the local
police station, but he soon realized the conflagration would only be con-
tained with military assistance. He took the initiative himself to call the
commander of the Fifth Army Company, based in Tupã, which hours later
dispatched five trucks with troops armed with machine guns to militarily
occupy the town. By the time the Army fell in control of the situation, it
was already 11 p.m. In addition to millions of cruzeiros in property dam-
age, a full accounting of the revolt registered forty-nine people hospital-
ized, all with serious injuries. When one of the officials offered that it was
a miracle no one was killed, someone explained that it was nothing to
marvel at.
“They didn’t want to kill the Japanese, just humiliate them.”
The fact is it would take far longer for the souls of the Japanese to
recover than broken bones or heads. Although Shindō Renmei could not
carry out any more operations in Osvaldo Cruz, relations between the
colony and the two makegumi in town, Abe and Suzuki, only worsened.
The community suspected they had ordered the revolt, an accusation to
which Abe responded by pointing the finger back at them.
202 F. MORAIS
“You are the ones responsible for this. On the day the bomb exploded at my
house I had forty armed men ready to kill you. I didn’t let them do it. But
let’s be sure of one thing, if I die, there won’t be a Japanese left alive in
Osvaldo Cruz. This I promise you, half an hour after I’m dead, Pombalino’s
men will hunt the tokko ̄tai wherever they are.”
Shindō’s revenge would only materialize six months later, at the begin-
ning of 1947, when the police chief in town ordered Abe and Suzuki
arrested. This was not an order issued by a judge, but one which came
from the top brass of the police. Being the only one of the wanted men in
town, Izuyo Suzuki left his house handcuffed and was brought straight to
the local jail, where he spent a week incarcerated. Yutaka Abe was having
lunch with a friend of his, the police chief in the town of Oriente, sixty
miles away from Osvaldo Cruz, when he learned there were “orders from
São Paulo” to arrest him. The chief advised him to hide for a few days until
the situation was cleared up, but Abe decided to take matters into his own
hands. Instead of running away, he took the train to São Paulo, where he
had a vast circle of connections who could help him find out what was
behind this mysterious arrest order. It didn’t take much effort to get to the
bottom of it. After talking with influential friends, Abe was shocked to
discover the machinations to put him behind bars came from none other
than the recently elected governor of São Paulo, Adhemar de Barros.
What’s more, by ordering his arrest, Adhemar—who secured the electoral
support of Shindō Renmei in an exchange of favors—was paying the cult
back for one of the many campaign promises he’d made to the kachigumi.
Chapter 7: Eiiti Sakane, The Solitary Rōnin,
Prepares a Blood Bath in Tupã
The succession of crimes by Shindō Renmei caused the Japanese to leap

from the pages of police ledgers to the austere plenary of the Tiradentes
Palace in Rio de Janeiro, where since February the National Constituent
Assembly had come together, elected to ratify the new Brazilian
Constitution. During the first five months of their work, the conflicts
occurring in the interior of São Paulo didn’t merit space even in the con-
gressional pamphlets dedicated to the discussions and brief communiqués
by the congressmen and senators. The national repercussions to the disas-
trous meeting at the Campos Elíseos Palace, however, wound up deliver-
ing to the podium what at first glance seemed to the assembly delegates a
police problem. Infuriated by the murders in the hinterlands of São Paulo,
the debates rekindled one of the most polemical themes of the Constituent
Assembly of 1934—the question of immigration—and led to a revival of
the so-called eugenics camp, that eight years earlier succeeded in trans-
forming the “anti-Japanese amendment” into constitutional law. This
time the faction’s leader was Congressman Miguel Couto Filho.
Heir to his father’s name, votes, and xenophobia, the doctor from Rio
seemed even more vehemently anti-Japanese than Couto senior, who
threatened the Constituent Assembly in 1934, “to educate his grandchil-
dren in Japanese,” such was the panic the immigrants inflicted on him. Up
until that point, the issue had been brought to the Constituent Assembly
on only two occasions, and both times, it revolved around the same

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70562-6_8
204 F. MORAIS
argument regarding the return of goods and bank funds to the “Axis sub-
jects” that had been confiscated during the war. Convinced there was no
longer any sense in sequestering the resources and property of foreign
residents of Brazil, Gabriel Passos, from the National Democratic Union
in Minas Gerais, and Manuel Victor, the Christian Democrat from São
Paulo, made recourse to “economic and humanitarian reasons” to pro-
pose that the government “immediately return the industrial, commercial,
and agricultural properties, and free bank funds belonging to the subjects
of the Axis nations.” The project was unsuccessful, failing even to establish
rigorous procedures to claim benefits (the foreigners had to exhibit “cer-
tificates indemnifying them of guilt,” provided by the police and Ministry
of Justice). Vociferously opposed to the proposal, Miguel Couto Filho
took the podium to warn that the return of goods would foment even
more of these activities by the “yellow cyst” that had taken root in
São Paulo:
“I charge to the nation that the rich Japanese in São Paulo, inspired by the
divine Hirohito, still intend to create a new Japan in Brazil. Skilled agents
and administrative counselors are trying to blind us so that with this
Constituent Assembly they can throw the doors of Brazil wide open to the
Japanese.”
Aided by Communist delegates, the writer Jorge Amado, and veteran

José Maria Crispim, Miguel Couto Filho succeeded in tabling the initia-
tive. The “Japanese Question” would resurface soon after the meeting
between Macedo Soares and the Japanese at the end of July. Three days
later, the Amazonian Pereira da Silva ascended to the podium at the
Constituent Assembly carrying a briefcase of clippings from the newspa-
pers about the encounter between the fanatics and the Paulista interven-
tor. Always referring to Shindō Renmei as “the yellow mafia,” the
congressman blasted Macedo Soares’ thesis on “serenity and prudence” in
relation to the Japanese (Fig. 7.1):
“It is inconceivable for representatives of the government to invite blood-

thirsty fanatics, who despise us with all their hearts, for an audience at the
palace itself, as in fact just took place in São Paulo.”
Since any criticism of Macedo Soares automatically received the sup-

port of the Communists, the first to applaud the orator was Carlos
CHAPTER 7 205
Fig. 7.1 The Communists Marighella, Prestes, and Gregorio Bezerra at the
Constituent Assembly insisted no concessions be made to the “Shindō Renmei
fascists”
Marighella, delegate for the PCB in Bahia, who would come to be cele-
brated as a guerilla leader in the 1960s:
“I am entirely in agreement with you, sir. The interventor in São Paulo has
a heavy responsibility in regard to the question you raise. Instead of looking
at the living conditions of the people, he prefers to make all manner of con-
cessions to the Shindō Renmei fascists, while his Security Secretary perse-
cutes workers in Santos.”
Pereira da Silva ended his speech by presenting an “indication”—the

name given to suggestions by the constituents to the Executive, with no
guarantee whatsoever of their being taken seriously—which proposed a
radical solution to the problem, namely, the immediate expulsion from
within the borders of the nation of “all Japanese connected to the terrorist
organization Shindō Renmei.” The Communist bench took to the micro-
phone in force to register their asides. The congressman from Rio, João
Amazonas (who years later broke with the Communist Party to form the
rival Communist Party of Brazil, abbreviated in Portuguese as the PCdoB),
ridiculed his colleague’s proposal, advising him to top the list of those to
206 F. MORAIS
expel with the name of the interventor, Macedo Soares. The Paulista
Ataliba Nogueira, from the PSD, felt obligated to defend the interventor,
but realized the Communists surrounded him on all sides. Marighella
took the floor again to accuse Macedo Soares of giving shelter to “an
openly fascist organization like Shindō Renmei.” Even the legendary Luís
Carlos Prestes, already immortalized by Jorge Amado as the “Knight of
Hope” (and now a senator elected by the Federal District), took the
opportunity to flog the Paulista interventor, the long-established execu-
tioner of the Communists:
“The interventor Macedo Soares who shows himself to be so tolerant when

it comes to the Japanese fanatics of Shindō Renmei doesn’t hesitate to per-
secute laborers who protest for their rights.”
The Communist congressman and former sergeant from Pará, José

Maria Crispim, one of the rebels of the Communist uprising in 1935,
demanded consistency from the representative from São Paulo:
“When the interventor refused to meet with striking workers, sir, you justi-
fied the decision by alleging they were breaking the law because of the strike.
Now the nation sees the same governor use this pretext to allow an audience
with Shindō Renmei’s confessed criminals.”
The future President of the Republic, João Café Filho, who was then
congressman for the PSP in Rio Grande do Norte, could not resist point-
ing out the irony.
“If the interventor from São Paulo only receives fanatics, we should trans-
form our workers into fanatics for the right to strike. Who knows, maybe
this way they will merit identical treatment as that which was given to the
Shindō Renmei murderers.”
The heated debates anticipated the discussion of how the future

Constitution should handle the question of immigration. In the weeks
that followed, a day rarely passed without the congressional pamphlets or
the weighty proceedings of the Constituent Assembly occupying them-
selves with debates about the Japanese sect. The fanatical kachigumi had
achieved the prodigious feat of aligning the left and the right against them
in their general hatred of the Japanese. To the Communists, Shindō
CHAPTER 7 207
Renmei was a band of fascists who should be rigorously suppressed. At the

other end of the spectrum, the ultra-conservative “eugenicists” and
defenders of the “theory of racial improvement” proposed simply closing
off Brazil to the Japanese. The leader of the “anti-Japanese bench,” Miguel
Couto Filho brandished at the Assembly a copy of his book titled For the
Future of the Nation—Avoiding the Japanization of Brazil, a work that
became the legal manual for the enemies of Shindō Renmei. One of the
few voices to speak out on behalf of the Japanese was the National
Democratic Union’s congressman from São Paulo, Aureliano Leite—cel-
ebrated as the great captain of the Paulista Revolution of 1932—who
fought until the end of the Constituent Assembly to defend a less restric-
tive immigration policy. The annals record the verbal battles provoked by
Japanese terrorism:
Mr. Manuel Novais (UDN-Bahia): Let us reflect well on the new currents of
immigration underway. We should not commit suicide anew allowing in the
human scum of Japanese, German, and Italian traitors. Brazil is not a reposi-
tory for the world’s moral and political trash.
Mr. Galeno Paranhos (PSD-Goiania): We must not permit new racial cysts
in Brazil.
Mr. Aureliano Leite (UDN-São Paulo): Racial cysts do not exist in Brazil.
Any idle talk of the kind is trading in fantasy. The danger of Japanese, Italian
and German imperialisms is gone, and there is no longer any reason for restric-
tions on immigration. It is indisputable Brazil needs labor.
Mr. Plínio Barreto (UDN-São Paulo): No to yellow labor.
Mr. Aureliano Leite (UDN-São Paulo): Even that will have to do when
white labor isn’t enough to work the fields.
Mr. Dolor de Andrade (UDN-Mato Grosso): Brazil is lacking approxi-
mately one million laborers.
Mr. Plínio Barreto (UDN-São Paulo): As long as they aren’t yellow…
Mr. Dario Cardoso (PSD-Goiania): Yes, the yellow race is trying to reestab-
lish itself, the best example of which is this secret society implanting terror in
São Paulo.
Mr. Aureliano Leite (UDN-São Paulo): This is the phenomenon called sen-
sationalism, something used for journalistic effect. Where will we find the labor
we need, if not by opening our doors to other nationalities such as the Spanish,
the Balkan, and the very same Japanese?
Mr. Plínio Barreto (UDN-São Paulo): No to the Japanese. Absolutely not.
Mr. Galeno Paranhos (PSD-Goiania): No Asiatics whatsoever.
208 F. MORAIS
The radicalism awoken by the matter lowered the level of the debates
to the point they didn’t spare even Emperor Hirohito, now demoted to
cleaning the chamber pots for the heads of the Allied Forces:
Mr. Leopoldo Peres (PSD-Amazonas): An alliance of the Asiatic puppet, the

once high-and-mighty and divine Emperor Hirohito, who is now the lowly toilet
cleaner for General MacArthur, with the Tamerlane of the West would secure
for the Mikado immediate possession of vast tracts to implant in São Paulo,
whose tentacles would extend to the far North of Brazil. To prevent that from
happening is, once again, proof that God is Brazilian.
Peres was not the only one to believe in the conspiracy theory that the
Japanese still intended to “occupy” parts of Brazilian territory. Showing
maps and documents considered top secret, Miguel Couto Filho insisted
that even after losing the war, the Japanese had decided to maintain in
South America what they called the “Great Yellow Axis,” an imaginary
line in which they would install colonies of fanatical Japanese beginning in
Santos and running through the State of São Paulo and Center-West of
Brazil, crossing Bolivia until it reached the Chilean ports of Antofagasta
and Iquique on the Pacific. According to the congressman, these two “yel-
low entry points into South America” would enable Hirohito to realize
the dream of constructing a “Japanese State” cutting through the three
countries.
What the congressmen and senators didn’t know was that the organiza-
tion which so polarized their debates was already in agony. The policy of
imprisoning the Japanese en masse, adopted by DOPS in São Paulo, put
almost 30,000 people behind bars. Out of them, 4000 were identified,
recorded, and indicted based on the National Security Law. The over-
loaded penitentiary on Anchieta Island housed two times more prisoners
than its normal capacity, and the Detention House in the capital was
packed with crowds of Japanese coming from all across the state. With the
leaders from the capital and the countryside in prison, the police finally
broke Shindō Renmei’s back. The journalists shared the police’s opti-
mism. If there were still operations in the countryside without anyone in
charge, the group’s destruction was only a matter of weeks.
* * *
CHAPTER 7 209
Themes of similar magnitude to those being discussed by the Constituent

Assembly did not belong to the realm of worries for Eiiti Sakane, not even
the tuberculosis transmitted to him by his wife, which ruined his lungs and
afflicted him terribly. His problem, these days, was solitude. Now that
virtually all of his friends and superiors were behind bars, Sakane lost con-
tact with what remained of the Shindō Renmei machine. He had reverted
back to a kind of rōnin, a warrior who suddenly finds himself by choice or
force of circumstances without a patron, having to start a solo career as a
wandering samurai. But Sakane was always a unique tokko ̄tai. Serious and
steely-eyed, in possession of a courage that knew no limits, he distin-
guished himself from the other Shindō Renmei assassins—mostly quiet
and circumspect youths—with his theatrical and exhibitionist character.
For him, the operations and attacks had to be done with an almost sceno-
graphic treatment. If they could not be ritually executed—to give the vic-
tims the right to commit suicide, offering them the Japanese flag and
tantō to commit seppuku and so on—then it should be done loudly and
spectacularly. This was the case in the bombing and frustrated arson he
planned and helped to execute in Osvaldo Cruz, and in the cinematic
arrival of Kazuto Yoshida and Kōhei Katō on horseback in Inúbia to kill
(again without success) Assano and Muramatsu (Fig. 7.2).
Eiiti Sakane came to Brazil in June 1927, a year in which the Japanese
population in the country barely exceeded 40,000 inhabitants. He was
nineteen years old and went straight to the ship from his parents’ farm in
the interior of Japan without ever setting foot in a big city. Upon disem-
barking in Santos, he spent a few hours filling out forms at the Immigrants’
Hostel Building in the capital, and went to sleep on his first Brazilian night
in Cafelândia, the town where he lived for the next three years working as
a coffee plantation laborer. He married and had three children with
Masako, a young immigrant woman he met on board the Buenos Aires
Maru en route to Brazil. In 1930 he moved to Marília, changing jobs to
become a cotton harvester. Months after her arrival, Masako unexpectedly
contracted tuberculosis, eventually forcing him to hospitalize her in São
José dos Campos, on the other side of the state. In order for the family to
be closer to their sick mother, Sakane moved with his children to Mogi das
Cruzes, on the outskirts of the capital, where there was a great concentra-
tion of Japanese immigrants. He abandoned farmwork to take a job in
trucking on the Rio-São Paulo highway, which allowed him to frequently
visit his wife whose hospital was located between the two metropolises.
210 F. MORAIS
Fig. 7.2 The tokkōtai Eiiti Sakane loses contact with Shindō Renmei and
becomes a rōnin, a samurai without a master
Returning to Marília after Masako recovered, Eiiti Sakane did not want
to live in the backwoods again. He secured a job as a clerk in a pharmacy
owned by a Japanese, and in a short time had learned to give injections,
change bandages, and knew by heart the names of medicines. And so it
was as a “medic” that he found a better job at the pharmacy of another
Japanese, but in the neighboring town of Tupã, where he made the
acquaintance of Kanji Aoki, the man who would change his life. One of
the local heads of Shindō Renmei, Aoki was admired for being simultane-
ously a refined intellectual and martial arts master. A judo teacher with a
CHAPTER 7 211
rigidly militarist background, he boasted of being able to stand barefoot

on the blades of two katanas, so powerful was his mind over his own body
(Fig. 7.3). Aoki didn’t need to say much to entice the new arrival with his
faith in the sect. Sakane was a true patriot, “a subject capable of giving his
life for Japan’s honor and for its dearest values,” as he would say himself.
Days after meeting Aoki, Eiiti Sakane proudly told his wife and children he
had quit the pharmacy to dedicate himself full-time to the patriotic cause.
He didn’t wait for Aoki to seek him out to test his resolve. On January
1, 1946, when he learned that a Brazilian officer had wiped his boots with
the Japanese flag, it was Sakane who proposed to the leaders of Shindō to
mount an immediate operation to avenge the insult by shooting Corporal
Edmundo. The plan was approved and in just a few hours he’d assembled
six tokkōtai. In a meeting with them and Aoki, he gave wings to his imagi-
nation. He told them the ideal would be to carry out the operation in a
fast and powerful car—“a Lincoln, for example”—and, instead of rusty
revolvers, to be armed with Mauser pistols, ten shots apiece, and the infal-
lible Parabellum automatic pistols made in Germany. Brought back down
to earth by Aoki, he agreed to have the firing squad become a decapita-
tion. It was also his idea to have the tokko ̄tai hunt Edmundo armed with
katanas, the fearsome Japanese sabers.
Despite the fact that nothing went right—the corporal escaped with his
life and the seven spent twenty-seven days in the slammer—Aoki rightly
knew he’d discovered a true samurai. He then arranged for Sakane to visit
São Paulo, so the sect’s leaders could get to know him personally, which
wound up happening at the end of March 1946. Sakane spent a few weeks
staying at Shindō headquarters on Rua Paracatu, which was plenty of time
for Kikawa, Tomari, and Negoro to see he was a real character who nur-
tured an uncontrollable hatred for the defeatists. “Makegumi aren’t
Japanese. They’re not Brazilian, either, not even Chinese or Korean,” he
would repeat this litany before finishing, “They’re just animals, it’s alright
to kill them.” Aoki’s recommendations were accepted, but out of pru-
dence, the sect’s leaders decided to limit Sakane’s field of operations to the
interior of the state. Too much commotion in the capital might turn into
a field day for the authorities. Eiiti Sakane was making preparations to
return to Tupã on April 2 when the police raided Shindō Renmei’s head-
quarters to arrest everyone they found there, including him. After a week
in prison, separated from the sect’s leaders, he was sent to the Detention
House, where he remained behind bars until July 2, when he was sent to
Tupã to respond at liberty to the police inquiry.
212 F. MORAIS
Fig. 7.3 Kanji Aoki standing barefoot on the blade of a sword to prove his men-
tal fortitude
Returning to the countryside suffering from tuberculosis and with all

of his companions in jail was too melancholic a return, even for this soli-
tary rōnin, who roamed the Paulista hinterlands in July 1946. Instead of
feeling depressed knowing that his imprisonment signified the end of
Shindō Renmei, it seemed instead to stimulate Eiiti Sakane’s theatrical
CHAPTER 7 213
impulses. If the patriotic organization was truly defunct, then it should die
a spectacular death. On the 21st of the month, Sakane reunited with some
twenty young men in a peanut planter’s shed in the neighborhood of
Jurema, in Tupã, who were probably the last tokkōtai still active in the
region. To boost their morale, he ordered the operations in Inúbia and
Osvaldo Cruz. Although the first ended in fiasco, the bomb at Abe’s house
and the initial arson attack at Suzuki’s revived their spirits. Now, however,
they were approaching an important date to the defeatists, which they, the
victory faction, would not allow to pass in silence: August 15, the first
anniversary of the “farce on the Missouri,” by which he referred to the
ceremony marking Japan’s surrender. It was necessary to commemorate
the date, certainly, but in a patriotic manner worthy of the kachigumi, for
the brazen killing of the makegumi, the traitors with dirty hearts. Sakane
announced that at 3 p.m. on August 15, bands of tokkōtai armed and
organized by him would execute fifteen defeatists in Tupã. Someone
remembered the chosen day had a more powerful meaning for the
Brazilians than that of the war. It was the day of the Assumption of the
Blessed Virgin, a national holiday observed by the majority of Catholics.
To use this special date for the massacre would provoke the ire of the
Brazilians, who had nothing to do with their holy war. Sakane took it in
stride. If that was the case, they would put it off until the 16th. So as not
to lose the symbolism, the attack would happen at 4 p.m. and the number
of deaths would rise from fifteen to sixteen.
Transformed by circumstance into the leader of the last tokko ̄tai, Eiiti
Sakane decided all the victims would be properly informed of their death
sentences. Handwritten notes, warning the makegumi about what awaited
them, were slipped under the doors to their homes and commercial estab-
lishments, which made clear the extent of the terror spread by the fanatics.
Takata: we are informed that you spread false news of the US-Japan War, say-
ing Japan was defeated and that you speak ill of the Imperial Family. We are
going to punish you by coming to take your life. Wash your throat so as not to
leave the stain of your shame on the blade.
Ishida: at the end of the US-Japan War, you propagated disrespectful words
against the Imperial Family. Not only that. You had our innocent countrymen
sent to prison who are now sacrificed. We will avenge your heavy crimes. We, the
faithful to the Imperial Family, will bring this vengeance upon you. Long live
the Great Japanese Empire! The victorious, powerful Japanese Empire, rulers of
the world!
214 F. MORAIS
Tushida and company: both of you preached calumny against the irreproach-
able Emperor of our Great Japanese Empire. We, the Japanese, will punish our
traitorous enemies. For this we take up arms. If you are Japanese, face us as
Japanese and take your punishment. If you will not face us in this way, then
await us with clean throats.
̄
Ohara: you will be punished for the crime of preaching disrespectful words refer-
ring to the Imperial House. Wash your throat and await us.
Motomatsu: you preached Japan’s defeat, collaborated with that band in the
appeasement committee and mistreated us. Now we furiously rise to eliminate
the haisen—the traitors with dirty hearts. Wash your throat!
Takano: you were included in the list of enemies of the nation for spreading
propaganda of our nation’s defeat. We also know you spoke with Ishida of
defeat. That is why we are coming for your life. Wash your throat and wait for us.
Nitto: after the end of the US-Japan War, you spread lies disrespecting the
Imperial Family and announcing Japan’s defeat. Though we are far from our
homeland, it is our obligation to respect the Imperial Family and save our
innocent countrymen. And you said things no Japanese should say. Wait for us.
In addition to the threatening notice, the photographer Kenjirō Nitto

also saw when he went out into the street that his house had been graf-
fitied with the ideograms of death: “Traitor to the Nation!” The “crimes”
committed by these sixteen condemned to die were the same as always.
Shūrō Ō hara, who owned the bazaar called Casa Ono, was accused of
distributing to the colony the newspapers sent to the countryside by the
American Consulate. Nitto was included on the list because “he spoke
badly of the Imperial Family” (Fig. 7.4). The inclusion of the accountant
Jorge Okazaki on the death list seemed to be the only obvious one, since
a bounty was placed on his head months earlier, when he served as inter-
preter to the police in the “flag case” back in January. Another of those
threatened, Kōiti Takano, seemed doomed simply for being Japanese. The
owner of two gas stands in Getulina, he had no choice but to close his
business when the American distributors stopped providing gasoline sup-
plies to “subjects of the Axis.” He sold the gas stands and moved to Tupã,
where next he was targeted as a makegumi by the Japanese nationalists in
the town. One day, Takano’s wife left the house and saw the outer wall
bore graffiti in charcoal with the fateful phrase “Traitor to the Nation!”
Sometime later, Kōiti himself received the anonymous letter threatening
to cut his throat.
Although the flow of money to its branch offices had been interrupted
by its leaders’ imprisonment and the closure of Shindō’s headquarters in
CHAPTER 7 215
Fig. 7.4 The façade of Nitto’s photography studio, which greets the dawn,
scrawled with the condemnation, “Traitor to the Nation!”
São Paulo, there were still wealthy Japanese ready to pay the fanatics’ bills.
The resources to finance Sakane’s operations came from the Casa Marília,
a large hardware store that also sold dry goods and groceries on Tamoios
Avenue in the center of Tupã. Its involvement with Shindō Renmei was
such that one of the partners, Seiiti “Paulo” Hayakawa, was already in jail
for several months in São Paulo, accused of co-authoring Shindō’s crimes
by financing the organization’s activities—something he never denied. The
radical Hayakawa had been the spokesman for the most absurd demand the
Japanese made at the Campos Elíseos Palace meeting: censoring the press
for news about Japan’s defeat. The operation planned by Sakane in Tupã
reached Hayakawa’s ears, who sent a message to his partner Tetsuo Kuga
from prison authorizing him to open Casa Marília’s coffers to help Sakane.
Several days later, Sakane received a packet of 5000 cruzeiros and the keys
to a truck to transport the killers on August 16.
Neither the distribution of the threatening notices nor the proximity to
the anniversary of the surrender, however, seemed to preoccupy the
Brazilians in Tupã. That was an internecine conflict of immigrants against
216 F. MORAIS
immigrants, and the city more than any other in the region, had learned
to accept living alongside different cultures. Founded in 1929 by the
planter Luiz de Souza Leão from Pernambuco on lands taken from the
Kaingang Indians, Tupã was successively occupied by colonies of immi-
grants from the most distant points on the planet. The first to arrive were
the Spanish, who settled in Juliápolis and São Martinho. The Japanese
came next and occupied the neighborhoods of Monteiro, Vanheri,
Bandeirantes, Anápolis, and Coim. The Italians went to the Toledo neigh-
borhood, and the Latvians concentrated in the Varpa district. Half of the
45,000 inhabitants of the town were foreigners, of which almost 13,000
came from Japan. Thanks as well to the contributions of these immigrants,
in 1946 Tupã enjoyed a surge in its rural economy propelled by great har-
vests of coffee, cotton, and peanuts. In addition to being the stage for the
“flag case,” the town once again ended up in the papers due to Shindō
Renmei when the police discovered the author of the fraudulent editions
of Life. It was the photographer Masashige Onishi, the same one who
took the celebrated photo of the “seven samurai,” copies of which were
sold as overpriced souvenirs in the entire colony. When interrogated by
the police, Onishi left no doubts about his patriotic fervor (Fig. 7.5):
Fig. 7.5 Hayakawa and Suga (shown wearing headbands): opening the coffers of
their business to finance the sect’s crimes
CHAPTER 7 217
[…] The declarant has a deep love for his homeland and educates his children
in Japanese fashion. He is a member of Shindō Renmei because, as a patriot,
nothing prevented him from belonging to a society whose principal scope is com-
bating the false propaganda of the United Nations, which holds that Japan is a
defeated country, while he maintains it is invincible. The declarant, being a
fanatic, is convinced of his homeland’s victory, otherwise he would not hesitate
to kill himself, the only attitude compatible with his patriotic sentiments. That,
in order to prove to his countrymen the false notices of Japan’s defeat, he repro-
duced many of the photographs published in the American magazine Life of the
ceremony of the Americans’ unconditional surrender to the Japanese generals
representing the Emperor, who in the opinion of the declarant, is a God in obe-
dience to whom he would kill whomever he must. The declarant is convinced the
notices of Japan’s defeat are false and untruthful, and, if the declarations
made here implicate him for expulsion, he will accept that order with great
satisfaction. If there is a war between Brazil and Japan, the declarant would
fight with all his force on behalf of his homeland against Brazil. […]
The day-to-day affairs in the town between Brazilians and Japanese were
always peaceful. If there was any discrimination against the immigrants, it
was on the part of the authorities. The average man on the street knew little
what the expression “fifth column” meant, as was frequently used to stamp
them as enemies. Occasionally there appeared in Tupã a lunatic like Kano,
a Japanese who, when he drank too much sake, would go to the red-light
district shouting that the Brazilians were crooks. When the war ended, he
claimed, Japan would “bring order around here and show the Brazilians
how to behave properly.” In such cases, a night in jail was enough to cure
his inebriation and cool off the nationalistic pride of the drunkard.
But this time things were different. From the night of August 15 into
August 16, the platoon organized by Sakane divided into three groups,
who stayed overnight in three different houses. Lacking the means to get
cars and sophisticated arms for the attacks, Sakane decided the impact of
the operation would be in its punctuality: exactly at 4 p.m., in different
places in town, sixteen of the “dirty hearts” would be snuffed out for the
crime of treason. After lunch the band met for a final reunion, this time in
the back of Fusakiti Fujii’s pharmacy. Systematic as always, Eiiti Sakane
handed out to each tokko ̄tai a piece of paper with the victim’s name, or
names, when someone was tasked with killing more than one person.
Sakane emphasized that he saved for himself the execution of Okazaki.
From the fanatics’ perspective, the privilege was justified. Were it not for
his Asian appearance, Jorge Okazaki could be seen as a perfect Westerner.
218 F. MORAIS
Christian and passionate about Brazil, he never hid his displeasure for the
Shindō Renmei militants and their exotic ideas. Owner of the largest
accounting office in town, he was the bookkeeper for the richest and most
powerful man in town, Luiz de Souza Leão, who had become his dear
friend years earlier when Leão baptized his daughter. Besides having the
typical profile of a makegumi, Okazaki’s scandalous collaboration with the
police transformed him into enemy number one for Shindō in town. When
Sakane finished speaking, Kōhei Katō, who was tasked with executing
Tushida, asked permission to make a special request of the leader. He felt
indebted to the organization ever since the failure of the mission in Inúbia,
when he couldn’t kill “the pharmacist Assano.” His heart was “stricken
with humiliation” by the botched job, and Katō wanted to redeem himself
by executing the most important of the “dirty hearts” in Tupã, Jorge
Okazaki. Sakane agreed to “trade Okazaki for Tushida,” and after distrib-
uting the guns, bullets, tanto ̄s, and Japanese flags, gave his final instructions:
“Should you succeed in your missions you must report to the police imme-
diately after the execution, without taking any further action.”
In the middle of the afternoon, the band spread out across town, each
on a path to his victim. At fifteen minutes to four, a young Japanese
entered a pharmacy in a cold sweat, hands on his stomach, and asked for
medicine to stop the pains that seemed to burn his guts. But before they
could assist him, the young man collapsed on the floor, writhing in agony.
The pharmacist himself diagnosed the problem: it was appendicitis and if
it suppurated, he would die. It was imperative to immediately bring him
to the São Francisco Hospital. As someone else went to bring their car
around, the owner of the pharmacy began loosening the young man’s
shirt in an attempt to help him breathe more freely. Feeling strange hands
touching his clothing, the unknown Japanese opened his eyes and like a
man revived from the dead, jumped up and took off running. It was the
tokko ̄tai Noboru Mihabara, the fruit seller charged with eliminating the
businessman Shūrō Ō hara, owner of Casa Ono, who coincidentally was a
regular customer of his fruit stand (Fig. 7.6).
He had good reason to be in a rush. It was exactly 4 p.m., the hour to
dispatch the makegumi leadership in Tupã once and for all. The sound of
the first gunshot shattered the afternoon calm. Then two more, followed
by another, all coming from Okazaki’s firm. Minutes earlier, Kōhei Katō
had snuck into the accountant’s office, jumped over the counter and
CHAPTER 7 219
Fig. 7.6 Okazaki (in back at the edge of the table) with Souza Leão (at left), at
the baptism party for his daughter in Tupã
seeing Okazaki standing in another room, fired off four shots without so
much as saying a word. A few hundred yards away, the tokkōtai Toshio
Hirama asked the young man working behind the counter at Nitto
Photography,
“Are you Nitto?”
When he answered in the affirmative, Hirama shot him twice, killing

the man. Without knowing it, Hirama had killed the wrong Nitto—the
dead man was Minoru, the younger brother of the photographer Kenjirō,
who was condemned to die by Shindō Renmei. Katō and Hirama stepped
out into the street after firing their shots as if nothing had happened. The
revolvers in their hands were still smoking. The first bystander to lay hands
on Katō was, ironically, a man who had already helped Shindō Renmei. It
was the lawyer Quirino Travassos who, together with Paulo Lauro, had
freed the “seven samurai” from the jail in Marília at the beginning of the
year. Aided by the taxi driver Olívio de Barros, the lawyer made a citizen’s
arrest of the Japanese, who responded, according to eyewitnesses, with a
cynical smile.
220 F. MORAIS
“Relax. You don’t need to arrest me. I’ve done my duty and will give myself
up to the police.”
To the amazement of both, Katō took a piece of paper written in

Portuguese and Japanese from his pocket and handed it to Quirino. It was
a letter he intended to give to police chief Benedito Veras when he sur-
rendered to the police, which explained the “patriotic reasons” for his
crime. It was no different with Hirama. After leaving Nitto’s studio,
revolver in hand, he was captured by a group of cart drivers that were at a
taxi stand a few yards away and handed over to the police. The sudden
fainting spell caused Noboru Mihabara to arrive at Casa Ono two minutes
late. Stricken with pain, he asked where was Shūrō Ō hara. To the tokkōtai’s
disappointment, the owner of the bazaar had just stepped outside, his
attention drawn by the sound of gunfire from Okazaki’s office. The
kachigumi knew he couldn’t run after Ō hara, but he still limped out into
the street into the crowd, searching for his victim. Holding his stomach
with his left hand, which felt like it was on fire, Mihabara staggered
through the onlookers headed for Okazaki’s office, until he could finally
see Ō hara briskly walking a few yards in front of him. When he got within
a yard’s distance, he drew his revolver in the middle of the throng, aimed
for Ō hara’s neck, and fired. It no longer mattered whether he hit or
missed. The only thing Mihabara wanted now was to give himself up to
the police and be attended to by a doctor. The bullet entered just behind
Ō hara’s ear, passed between his scalp and cranium, and exited two inches
away, out through his forehead. Ō hara was knocked to the ground by the
gunshot, but miraculously he was not badly injured. Astonished, the
onlookers in the street saw the tokkōtai fire his gun and collapse in a
heap—and proceeded to pummel and kick him. The massacre promised
by Eiiti Sakane was underway, but now against all the Japanese. Enraged
by the two killings, the Brazilians in Tupã resolved to imitate their neigh-
bors in Osvaldo Cruz and teach “those Japanese” a lesson.
It was no more than two or three minutes between the first shot fired
at Okazaki and the lynching of Noboru Mihabara. Several of the other
tokko ̄tai blanched when they saw the mob in the streets, clubs in hand to
hunt for the Japanese, turned tail and ran. Others found themselves in a
circus clown act, as happened with Sueto Yiama and Kōhei Itikawa, the
duo who participated in the attacks in Osvaldo Cruz. A few minutes before
zero hour, they met in the town center, coming from opposite directions.
Each wanted to know who the other’s victim was, only to discover Sakane
CHAPTER 7 221
had given the same name on both their notes of paper: Kenjirō Nitto,
whose execution was also handed over by Sakane to Hirama. Each of them
thought the other was going to take care of Nitto, so Yiama and Itikawa
split up, once again taking different routes.
Since Mihabara, crippled with appendicitis, was the only tokkōtai the
crowd got their hands on, he wound up paying for Shindō Renmei’s
crimes. Sergeant Mauro Ferreira from the Administration of the Army
Fifth Company left the warehouse where he was making purchases for the
barracks, and witnessed the first aggression when Mihabara fell to the
ground, both hands clutching his stomach.
“A soldier from the Public Forces came running to Okazaki’s office and
gave such a violent kick to the subject’s face that the tip of his boot went
straight into his mouth, smashing his teeth. That inspired the masses and
some twenty or thirty people started kicking him.”
Ordinary people going about their business—men young and old, as

well as women—approached to see what was happening, and found the
young Japanese unconscious and covered in blood on the ground, so they
took the opportunity to show their contempt for him. Some simply aimed
a kick at the inert object, while others stepped or jumped on him with
both feet. The doctor Luiz Cálgaro tried to save the unfortunate soul, but
was pushed back by the crowd (Fig. 7.7).
“Leave him be, doctor. Today these sons of bitches will learn to respect us.”
Those who couldn’t take part in the circle around Mihabara went into
the streets looking for any Japanese to assault. Cobblestones laid out on
the street corners, which would be used to pave the town center, were
converted into munitions for smashing storefronts and attacking immi-
grants. Although the ire was directed only at the Japanese, the Brazilians
thought it prudent to shut the doors to their own commercial establish-
ments. Attracted by the commotion already taking over the town center,
police chief Benedito Veras arrived revolver in hand to the area where
Noboru Mihabara was lynched. The Japanese was immobile, prostrate on
the ground. Under his shirt, which was unbuttoned by the police, was the
Japanese flag. A man with a bloodied baseball bat in hand triumphantly
told the chief,
222 F. MORAIS
Fig. 7.7 The tokko ̄tai kill the wrong man: instead of Kenjirō, the man they mur-
dered was his brother Minoru
“You can take that one, sir, he won’t hurt nobody. He’s dead.”
When Mihabara was thrown into the back of a truck, still unconscious,
his legs twitched. The men shouted,
“He’s still alive. Lynch him!”
Someone picked up a garbage can and smashed the head of the tokkōtai,
who now seemed to be actually dead. Benedito Veras stopped any further
aggressions, but not taking any chances, he had the arms and legs of the
Japanese tied up to make sure he wouldn’t escape—that is, if he had sur-
vived the lynching that left him disfigured. Coming to after he was brought
to the police station, Mihabara surprised state judge Antônio Porto
because in spite of the beating that left him unrecognizable, he was
enraged not at the lynching, but to learn Ō hara was still alive. Despite his
best efforts, Mihabara didn’t make it to the end of his deposition. Several
minutes after he started talking, he fainted, devastated by the pain of
appendicitis, and was delivered unconscious to the hospital.
CHAPTER 7 223
Lieutenant Edoardo de Cerqueira César, hero of the Brazilian

Expeditionary Force campaign, was the sub-commander on duty in the
barracks at the Fifth Company when police chief Veras appeared looking
for Captain Gil Moss. The police chief’s white suit was stained with
Noboru Mihabara’s blood. Lacking sufficient men to control the senseless
crowd lynching Japanese in the streets, he pleaded for help from the Army.
Cerqueira César was unfazed.
“For someone who captured 19,000 Germans in Italy, rounding up four

hundred Japanese will be a piece of cake.”
Thirty riflemen from the Tiro de Guerra, who were playing basketball
in the sports area of the barracks got into a truck and were dispatched to
patrol the city limits. But when they took the curve at high speed from
Tamoios Avenue onto Aimorés, which had turned into a battlefield, the
truck overturned, injuring many of the recruits and contributing further
to the chaotic scene in the center of Tupã. Summoned in haste, the other
sixty soldiers, who comprised the rest of the available troops, were sent
into the streets to try to bring order to the situation. Their numbers, how-
ever, were insufficient. In every corner of town, the soldiers came across
Japanese tied up with rope being brutally beaten. One of them was hunted
like an animal on the roof of a house. The soldiers who found him grabbed
him by the balls and dragged him into the middle of the street, where,
practically castrated, they beat him to a pulp. Soldier Goldoni, a rifleman
from the town, commanded a patrol in an area a distance away from the
center, and went looking for a Japanese suspected of being a tokko ̄tai. The
subject was found by the soldiers at the bottom of a cistern, sitting on a
block of wood tied to the rope for raising the water bucket. Since he
refused to come out, Goldoni jabbed the rope with the tip of his bayonet,
pretending to cut the cord until the Japanese at the bottom started to
plead “for the love of God” to be lifted out of the hole. In another spot, a
young man was overwhelmed by the crowd as he desperately banged on
the door of his father-in-law’s house, begging for help. The old man
refused to open the door, fearing his son-in-law might be a tokkōtai.
Cornered by the group, the owner of a greengrocer managed to lock the
heavy steel door to his establishment before the Brazilians arrived (and
spent ten days there, eating his fruits and vegetables, until he felt safe to
open the door and go out into the street).
224 F. MORAIS
Terrified by what he saw, medical doctor Armando Cravo had to don

his old uniform as an officer in the Army reserve and arm himself with a
revolver to be able to go out into the streets and help the Japanese without
becoming a victim of aggression. Another greengrocer, fearing arrest or
lynching, did what he imagined would be the most eloquent proof he
wasn’t a tokkōtai: he wrapped himself in the Brazilian flag and went into
the streets. But the police and soldiers by then were no longer interested
in apprehending tokkōtai. By that point, they were intent on preventing
the day from ending in a bloodbath.
The idea of arresting all of the Japanese to protect them arose when one
of them spontaneously surrendered at the barracks of the Fifth Company.
It was the mechanic Hiroshi Yamauchi, son of Kenjirō Yamauchi, known
as the organization’s “ideologue” in the region. Since his father and older
brother, Fusatoshi, were imprisoned on Anchieta Island, the younger son
Hiroshi, twenty-six years old, was entrusted with the responsibility of run-
ning the family’s garage, a reasonably profitable business that employed
eight of his countrymen. Hiroshi realized it was getting dangerous toward
nighttime, a half-hour after his shift ended, and with the city still in tur-
moil. Accompanied by an employee of Russian descent, Nicola Gutinik, he
saw a group of seven or eight Brazilian bricklayers who worked in the area
standing outside the door of his garage, armed with clubs and shouting
insults at the Japanese. Convinced that indecision might cost him his life,
Hiroshi knew exactly what to do (Figs. 7.8–7.9).
“I handed the keys to the garage to Gutinik, who was a trustworthy person
and very honest. I slipped out the back, jumped over the neighbor’s fence—
going out the front was too dangerous, I would have been beaten with
clubs—and ran directly to the jail. It was better to go to the barracks than
end up in the hands of a mob. At least there I would be safe.”
He was not the only Japanese in Tupã who thought of this. In a matter
of hours, the police station cells and the accommodations in the barracks
of the Fifth Company were overflowing with Japanese, who came by the
hundreds in search of aid. When there was nowhere left to put them,
police chief Benedito Veras came up with a solution to create a concentra-
tion camp to intern the Japanese who were afraid of being harmed by the
Brazilians, dozens of whom were involved in the afternoon’s crimes and
had also been arrested by the police. To prevent them from “starting in
one another,” the police chief recommended a permanent presence by a
CHAPTER 7 225
Figs. 7.8–7.9 The town leaders in Tupã call upon the government: a concentra-
tion camp and the death penalty for the Japanese
226 F. MORAIS
platoon of Army soldiers on the spot, ensuring order between the “intern-
ees.” When dawn broke the next day, the town still littered with the rub-
ble of the previous day discovered something new: an empty warehouse
and plot of land on Rua Caetés, where there had once been a bocce court
used by the Italian colony, had been turned into a Japanese concentration
camp, and had already received its first inmates, some seventy or eighty
Japanese transferred from the barracks and the police station. When he
was brought from the barracks to the camp, Hiroshi Yamauchi could not
help but observe a bitter irony that he was being held prisoner in a place
that, for many years, served as his father’s garage, and, moreover, where he
spent his childhood. Waves of Japanese were being dumped there over the
next several hours. By order of the Army, patrols composed of a mixture
of soldiers and police—always accompanied by a trustworthy Japanese to
serve as interpreter—made the rounds of the town, day and night. Military
barriers closed the entry points into Tupã. With so many people arresting
Japanese, it was only natural the inmates of the “concentration camp”
swelled. Days after the lynchings, the place couldn’t hold anyone else. An
Army bulletin counted the population of the camp at 800 prisoners,
squeezed into a plot just over 300 yards, only half of which was covered.
The repression was so severe that, for the first time since Shindō Renmei
began its attacks, women were also being arrested. The five women
arrested were Sako Fujii, wife of the pharmacist Fusakiti Fujii, in whose
house the tokkōtai held the final meeting before the killings; Eso Hirama,
Toshio and Shigeuo Hirama’s mother, who candidly told the police that
she gave Buddhist rosaries to her sons to protect them when they under-
took the operation; and Sadako Hirama, twenty-one years old, Eso’s
daughter and the two tokko ̄tai’s sister, who handmade the flag Toshio
wore under his clothes. She told the police that if her family “had no male
elements,” she would not hesitate to enter “the corporation” and carry
out its leaders’ orders, just as willingly as her brother had done with
Minoru Nitto. Lastly, there were Gōtō and Teru Shinai, accused of con-
cealing arms in their homes at the tokko ̄tai’s request. As the only women
detained, they were placed in cells at the police station and spared the hell
of the “concentration camp” (Figs. 7.10–7.11).
The prisoners would still spend several weeks there, until they were
sorted out by the police, who decided their destiny (they were just as likely
to be sent to the penitentiary at Anchieta Island as to be sent home).
Everything about the “concentration camp” was improvised. The prison-
ers slept on the ground, using a hole in the ground as their toilet, and for
CHAPTER 7 227
Figs. 7.10–7.11 Sako Fujii, Eso and Sadako Hirama, Toshiko Gōtō, and Teru
Shinai. Out of 800 prisoners, only five were women
the duration of their stay, none took a bath. Occasionally, a relative

brought a small bowl of water and a piece of soap for basic hygiene. It was
the same with the food, which had to be brought by their families. At
night, the neighbors were impressed with the tone of melancholy; they
chanted patriotic songs and military anthems exalting Japan. The locale
turned into a tourist attraction not only for those in Tupã, but also for the
228 F. MORAIS
Figs. 7.10–7.11 Tupã Bus Station
planters from nearby towns, who made their way through the dusty streets
to see up close “the Japanese concentration camp.” To keep onlookers at
bay, the Army closed off the side streets to the plot of land with rope, and
set soldiers armed with rifles at intervals alongside it.
But not even the public exhibition of the Japanese in Tupã under con-
trol pushed back the atmosphere of terror that hovered over the town
since the day of the attacks. Day and night Army soldiers guarded the
house of the judge Antônio Porto, who several weeks hence would preside
over the local trials against Shindō Renmei. Patrols identified every
unknown person on the streets coming into the town. The soldiers were
especially vigilant with Japanese coming from towns where the fanatical
sect had important bases. Line after line of trucks transporting agricultural
products were stopped and inspected. At the least suspicion, a driver and
vehicle were taken to the soccer fields near the barracks, which became a
massive parking lot of trucks. The day after the attacks, 150 people of
standing in the town sent a telegram to the President of the Republic,
denouncing the climate of “unrest and insecurity caused by threats of new
CHAPTER 7 229
attacks on the part of the members of the Japanese secret society,” and
warning of the possibility for another “mass slaughter.” The solution pre-
scribed to Dutra by the residents of Tupã was bitter to swallow: it called
for the creation of a “concentration camp and dispersal of the Japanese,
here in numbers greater than twenty thousand.” But the population’s ire
was still not placated. On the 22nd, the leading citizens sent another tele-
gram to the President, this time without mincing their words:
Your Excellency President of the Republic

Catete Palace—Rio
We, who make up all the social classes in Tupã, belonging to diverse religious
faiths and politics, ask that you sentence to death all the Japanese assassins and
expel all members of Shindō Renmei from our national territory.
The town’s fears were unfounded. The mass prisons, tortures, count-
less evacuations, and internment of thousands of Japanese had achieved
their result. Except for half a dozen errant samurai, like Eiiti Sakane, who
still aimlessly roamed the Alta Paulista, Shindō Renmei had finally been
dismantled by the police. No further attacks could be attributed to a
decapitated organization, whose entire leadership was in jail. Whatever
happened going forward could only be the work of a solitary rōnin set-
tling scores in the hinterlands of the state.
Chapter 8: Prestes, Capanema, and Gilberto
Freyre Take the Stand: The “Yellow Mafia”
Splits the Constituent Assembly in Two
The crimes committed by Shindō Renmei in Tupã were still on the front
pages of the newspapers when the National Constituent Assembly decided
to open the voting process to proposals dealing with the question of immi-
gration. Besides amendments that established generic standards for the
Brazilian immigration policy, several projects pointed specifically to the
Japanese, such as Álvaro Castelo (PSD, Espírito Santo), who demanded a
mental sanity exam from “any and all representatives of the yellow race”
who intended to live in Brazil. None of these, however, caused as much of
a stir among the constituents as Amendment 3165, authored by Miguel
Couto Filho, who in only sixteen words intended to resolve once and for
all what he called the “Japanese Problem.” Making no preamble, he
launched directly into the question at hand:
Entrance into the country by Japanese immigrants of any age or of any origin
is prohibited.
The radical solution proposed by Miguel Couto divided the Constituent

Assembly. The first to speak at the podium was Aureliano Leite, who
branded the amendment as “unjust, odious, and unconstitutional.” At the
respondent’s microphone, Luís Carlos Prestes announced the Communist

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70562-6_9
232 F. MORAIS
bench had decided in favor of the amendment, which meant its author
could count on fifteen votes. “From a political perspective,” the secretary-
general of the Brazilian Communist Party intoned, “it is indispensable at
the present time to prohibit Japanese immigrants from entering Brazil.”
The celebrated sociologist Gilberto Freyre, elected constituent for the
National Democratic Union from Pernambuco, made one of his rare
appearances at the podium of the Assembly to speak against the amend-
ment. Freyre cited the generosity he had personally received from the
Americans when he was compelled to seek self-exile in the United States
“horrified by the excesses of the movement called the Revolution of 1930,”
“This is without speaking of the honors and benefits that have been granted by
the United States and Canada, to people like Einstein, Thomas Mann, and
Jacques Maritain, the great men who were rejected by hatred, intolerance, jeal-
ousy, and intrigue in their countries of origin. France did the same with Paulo
Duarte, Portugal with Cícero Dias, Bolivia with the now-illustrious senator Luís
Carlos Prestes, and Argentina with the esteemed writer Jorge Amado. Will we
respond to this fraternal spirit by closing our doors to the foreigners who come
to Brazil seeking to join our Brazilian community? It would be an archaism.”
With ferocious irony, Freyre described the Brazilians as “almost whites”

or “apparently whites,” to decry that xenophobia and racism could tri-
umph “in a democracy that already had at least one illustrious mulatto as
President of the Republic,” which was a reference to Nilo Paçanha from
Rio, who governed Brazil from 1909 to 1910. Not even ex-dictator
Getúlio Vargas, now reduced to the status of a senator elected by the
Brazilian Labor Party (PTB) from Rio Grande do Sul, managed to avoid
being drawn into the debates over the controversial amendment. In seven
months of sessions at the Constituent Assembly, not once did Getúlio
approach the podium or the respondent’s microphone. On the first and
last occasion that he decided to take the floor, he could not prevent the
“Japanese Question” from invading his speech. Accused of being com-
plicit in bringing the “yellow hordes” who arrived in Brazil during his
administration, by the National Democratic Union’s Ferreira e Souza
from Rio Grande do Norte, Getúlio retorted that the Japanese commu-
nity was already sizable when he rose to power in 1930, and insisted that
“Brazil in that period already had the biggest Japanese colony in the world
outside the Orient.” Instead of stimulating the arrival of more Japanese to
Brazil, the ex-dictator recalled, all of the restrictions imposed on foreign-
ers currently in the country were the result of decrees enacted in the fif-
teen years that he was President of the Republic. Further recalling that
CHAPTER 8 233
many years before the deflagration of World War II, it was he who imposed
controls on the Japanese colony with measures to prohibit the publication
of books, magazines, or newspapers in foreign languages. Nine years later,
Getúlio justified “the accuracy and providence” of this measure:
“In 1937, 300,000 Japanese occupied strategic positions on the coast of São
Paulo and in the entirety of the interior. They raised their Brazilian infants
and adolescents in the racial cult of foreign ancestors and instilled in their
souls a connection to the homeland of their parents, and not that of the
Brazilian nation.”
Vargas insinuated that if the parliamentarians were interested in finding

defenders of the Japanese, they should look to themselves and not the
administration he ran without ever needing any votes:
“Wealthy and powerful, organized and disciplined, the colonial zones pro-
vided strong electoral contingents to those who defended their politics.”
The debates continued until August 27, when the Assembly President,
Senator Fernando Melo Viana of the Social Democratic Party in Minas
Gerais, put Miguel Couto Filho’s amendment to a vote. Although it was a
Tuesday, a favorable day for voting that depended on a qualified quorum,
it was only in the evening when the work was about to end, that the table
counted the presence of 199 parliamentarians, seven more than the 192
needed for deliberations. Melo Viana was ready to wrap it up. Stating
there were sufficient numbers to proceed, he convened that same night an
extraordinary session to vote on Amendment 3165. Opening the micro-
phones for calling the “voting referrals,” a queue of parliamentarians
signed up to take the podium. As the first to endorse the amendment
alongside Miguel Couto Filho, the National Democratic Union’s José
Augusto from Rio Grande do Norte had the right of precedence. But he
had barely warmed up to his prolegomenon when the firefight got
underway.
Mr. Aureliano Leite (UDN-São Paulo): I’ll repeat what I’ve said before, the
amendment is unconstitutional, unjust, and odious. It is absurd for the
Constitution to consecrate a principle of this order. […]
Mr. Luíz Carlos Prestes (PCB-Federal District): In the years 1936, 1937
and 1938, there were roughly twenty-eight thousand, thirty-nine thousand,
and thirty thousand Japanese who came to our country. In the United States,
234 F. MORAIS
when the number of this immigration reached forty thousand, the government
took measures to prevent the concentration from continuing. It is indispensable,
therefore, to prohibit the entry of Japanese immigrants to Brazil. […]
Mr. Adroaldo da Costa (PSD-Rio Grande do Sul): The Japanese are like
sulfur, insoluble, they refuse to assimilate. They will form racial cysts. […]
Mr. Rui Almeida (PTB-Federal District): In 1938 I had the opportunity to
bring then Minister of War, General Dutra, who is today President of the
Republic, a complete report about the activities of the Japanese in São Paulo.
Back then several officials from the Japanese military command had already
entered the country as farm workers. It is surprising there are still defenders of
Brazil’s enemies showing their faces here! […]
(Unrecorded comments are exchanged)
Mr. Aureliano Leite (UDN-São Paulo): This amendment is inhuman.
Mr. José Augusto (UDN-Rio Grande do Norte): Inhuman would be to
allow our nation to be invaded by people who will not assimilate.
Mr. Wellington Brandão (PSD-Minas Gerais): Might I know why the noble
orator does not include the Germans in his amendment?
Mr. Hamilton Nogueira (UDN-Federal District): At the current histori-
cal moment, the undesirable immigration is Japanese.
Mr. Rui Almeida (PTB-Federal District): It is detrimental.
Mr. José Augusto (UDN-Rio Grande do Norte): It will be a calamity.
Mr. Hamilton Nogueira (UDN-Federal District): Even though we are in
agreement with respect to the yellow danger, I defend this is a matter for ordi-
nary laws. To include in the Constitution a measure that condemns Japanese
immigration is to affirm a racist principle, which we already condemned
in Nazism.
(Unrecorded comments are exchanged. The president calls for order.)
Mr. José Augusto (UDN-Rio Grande do Norte): I am just as anti-racist as
Senator Hamilton Nogueira, but this is not a racial question, but a polit-
ical one.
Mr. Aureliano Leite (UDN-São Paulo): At the same time that the great
nation of France provides an example to the world, intending to enshrine in her
Constitution the principle that there should exist no preconception of race or
religion, Brazil is being asked to follow a Nazi theory…
(Unrecorded comments are exchanged. The president calls for order.)[…]
Mr. Prado Kelly (UDN-Rio de Janeiro): Mr. President, surely you will have
noticed the subject vitally concerns the Assembly, because in fact we are caught
between two sentiments difficult to reconcile: in the first place, our anti-racist
vocation (Very good! Very good!), which prevents inclusion in the permanent
text of the Constitution a measure that would proscribe a people, regardless of
who they may be (Applause).
(Unrecorded comments are exchanged. The president calls for order.)
CHAPTER 8 235
Mr. Prado Kelly (UDN-Rio de Janeiro): The only imperialists in the world
are the Japanese. It is not possible, however, to stain the constitutional text, satu-
rated with such high and noble inspirations, with a measure such as is under
discussion, that diminishes our work (Very good! Very good!).
Mr. Nereu Ramos (PSD-Santa Catarina): I would like to already register
my vote: although radically against Japanese immigration, I will not give my
vote to include this amendment to the Constitution (Very good! Very good!).
Mr. Miguel Couto Filho (UDN-Rio de Janeiro): That is lamentable.
Mr. Pereira da Silva (PSD-Amazonas): Due to concessions of this nature,
Brazil has been humiliated.
Mr. Miguel Couto Filho (UDN-Rio de Janeiro): They have already taken
part of Amazonas and Pará.
Convinced the plenary would never arrive at a consensus decision,

Melo Viana put the amendment to a vote. Afraid its approval was inevita-
ble, Prado Kelly presented a proposed requirement that, if approved, the
amendment be included as a temporary measure, and not included in the
body of the new Constitution. After another hour of debates, the require-
ment was approved by the minimum margin of votes. But just when they
assumed the question had been resolved, a congressman introduced a
new doubt.
Mr. Medeiros Netto (UDN-Alagoas): I ask Your Excellency how those of us

should vote who do not want the amendment in either the permanent or tem-
porary text.
It wasn’t only the young Alagoan lost in doubt between the stars of
national politics. The old foxes were also confused.
Mr. Gustavo Capanema (PSD-Minas Gerais): I am in the same boat. I cannot

vote in this fashion, because I am against the amendment in any form.
Mr. Luíz Carlos Prestes (PCB-Federal District): I am aware several gentle-
men representatives will only vote on the amendment so long as it constitutes a
temporary measure. Without knowing the precept’s destination, they will vote
against it. We ask, then, that the vote proceed on temporary measures.
As he would recall many years later, Melo Viana sensed “the smell of
obstruction” in the air. The Constituent Assembly was being split in two,
and neither of the two factions was sure it could win the vote. To prevent
either side from obstructing the vote, he abruptly shut down the discussion:
236 F. MORAIS
Mr. President: I consider the amendment has been thoroughly discussed, as the
gentlemen representatives have manifested arguments for and against. The
Assembly has deliberated it, and if approved, it is to be placed in the Temporary
Measures. I will submit it now to a vote. (Clapping). Please rise, all gentlemen
who approve of Amendment No. 3165. (Pause).
Usually full of commotion, the plenary went silent before a president

who, for the first time, feared committing an error. It was not that Senator
Fernando Melo Viana was ignorant, nor was it the first time he was facing
such a grave political decision. Governor of Minas Gerais from 1924 to
1926, and Vice President of the Republic in the Washington Luís admin-
istration, he became involved in a political incident in the town of Montes
Claros, in the interior of Minas, a few years before the outbreak of the
Revolution of 1930. Militants backing Vargas stoned a caravan led by
Melo Viana, who came away slightly bruised. Despite his experience with
difficult situations, he seemed fearful of committing an irreparable
injustice.
Mr. President: My conscience falters at pronouncing the results. It must be han-

dled with the utmost importance and I do not wish to assume the responsibility
for announcing its approval or rejection without absolute certainty. I will now
proceed to count the votes.
In the primitive system of polling utilized by the Constituent Assembly,

the parliamentarians who were in favor of the issue voted by standing up
in the plenary. The desk secretary counted the votes one by one and then,
in case the vote was close, repeated the count the other way to avoid mis-
takes: those in favor sat down, those against stood up, and the new count
was taken. The result was too dramatic to be announced without solemnity.
Mr. President: There are 99 gentlemen representatives in favor; and 99 against.
A draw. He had to choose if the amendment would be approved or

shelved. Melo Viana spoke in a clear voice and announced,
Mr. President: I vote against the amendment. It is rejected.
* * *
CHAPTER 8 237
Despite the victory in the Constituent Assembly, the sympathizers of

Shindō Renmei, who represented more than half the Japanese colony, had
no cause to celebrate. Thousands of them were imprisoned, entire families
had been separated, and accusations of torture in prison were common.
After several months, in the second half of 1946, the crimes committed by
Shindō Renmei started to be tried in court, and the balance of police
operations gave the measure of the blow that had laid the fanatics low. All
told, there were 31,380 Japanese immigrants detained, photographed,
and identified. After successive triage, 1014 were denounced by the
authorities as the authors of crimes, for which the Public Ministry asked
for punishments ranging from a few months in jail to the maximum sen-
tence of twenty years. For the worst 190 prisoners, the leaders and killers
of Shindō Renmei, the prosecution requested their expulsion from the
country.
The population of the penitentiary at Anchieta Island rose with each
passing day. The prisoners were brought to Santos by train or Army trucks,
and from there left for the island. The trip meant twelve hours of suffer-
ing, as dozens of prisoners were thrown in the filthy holds of vessels, and
during the trip vomited, defecated, and urinated on the floor. Anyone who
complained knew they would be beaten with a truncheon as soon as they
arrived at their destination.
In the first few weeks, relations between the Japanese and the correc-
tions officers were extremely tense. Since nearly all of the prisoners knew
judo, jiu-jitsu, or practiced some other martial art, incidents were fre-
quent. The most serious of these occurred when the information circu-
lated among the guards that a “dozen toughs” intended to lead an uprising
and take over the island (according to the prisoners, this was a rumor
invented by the makegumi in São Paulo). The guards chose twelve
Japanese prisoners at random and put them in solitary. One protestor was
punished by a public lashing, but the Japanese was an experienced judoka
and reacted by attacking the soldier with a violent blow. When a group of
corrections officers armed with truncheons appeared to help their col-
league, fifty Japanese advanced against them and gave them a sound beat-
ing. Or, as one prisoner wrote in his diary, it was “a party of punches to
the face.” As punishment, they were all put in solitary, and the warden
determined from that day forward the Japanese could only move around
accompanied by armed guards. But the episode served to show the peni-
tentiary administration these were not submissive prisoners like the usual
inmates of the island.
238 F. MORAIS
Over time, however, the situation calmed down. The presence of the
Japanese changed the daily routine on Anchieta Island. At six in the morn-
ing, when the alarm bell would ring, the detainees turned toward the ris-
ing sun and performed saikeirei in reverence to the emperor, followed by
a minute of silence in homage to the memory of the war dead, then fin-
ished the ritual singing all together the Kimigayo, the Japanese national
anthem. Only then did they head to the mess hall where they were served
breakfast. Save for one rebel or another, none of the Japanese were held in
cells, unlike the common criminals, who spent the day locked up. The
warden recognized the new inmates on the island had abilities that could
help improve the conditions for the actual prisoners. In a few weeks, they
already had vegetable gardens growing in every spare corner, were raising
chickens and pigs, and they even had groups tasked with catching fish for
their meals. Whatever was left over from the production was sold on the
mainland.
In the penitentiary, each person had his own activity. Being mechanics,
Fusatoshi Yamauchi and the tokko ̄tai Massao Honke were assigned to
maintenance of the five police boats, some of which had the capacity to
transport up to 250 people. Thanks to good behavior, Yamauchi was
“promoted” to boat captain, which allowed him to frequently visit
Ubatuba, the town closest to the island on the northern Paulista coast,
where they made purchases for the penitentiary. There he befriended the
daughter of the warehouse owner, a young teacher who sympathized with
the hardship of the Japanese, and secretly passed messages between them
and their families. The major’s confidence in Yamauchi was such that when
he needed to go to the mainland to pick up some police or judiciary
authority, who would come from São Paulo to hear testimony from one of
the prisoners, the warden sent Yamauchi armed with a revolver—pru-
dently empty—so that no one would question why a prisoner was captain-
ing the ship. In his free time, Yamauchi also looked after the power plant
generating energy for the island.
The tokkōtai Tatsuo Watanabe, who took the train to São Paulo to
command the execution of Colonel Jinsaku Wakiyama, had turned into a
calm pharmacist to whoever was brought into the penitentiary infirmary.
He gave injections, prepared medicines, and when there were no doctors
on duty, helped deliver babies for the residents of the island, where, besides
the prison, there was a fishermen’s village. The Japanese custom of photo-
graphing every important occurrence led the major to permit them to
build a photographic laboratory in the jail for the development and
CHAPTER 8 239
copying of photos. The majority saved their last minutes before going to
sleep to write a few lines in their nikki, or Japanese-style diary. Since nearly
all the inmates were of humble origins, they wrote haiku, those brief
Japanese poems of seventeen syllables, in contrast to the classical poetry
that was aristocratic in form and content. Their free time was set aside for
sumo matches in a championship organized by the prisoners.
For some, like the photographer Noriyoshi Sakamoto, from Penápolis,
their lives changed for the better in prison. Although he was not accused
of anything (nor was he ever judged), Sakamoto spent two years on the
island splitting his time between work as a captain’s adjutant and as a
waiter in the prisoners’ mess hall. It was there he met his future wife, a
young woman who came frequently to visit her father, Kinzō Idemori.
Others used the time they spent in prison to dedicate themselves to “spiri-
tual enhancement.” Kenjirō, the father of Hiroshi and Fusatoshi Yamauchi,
always had one piece of advice on the tip of his tongue to offer his coun-
trymen: do not complain. In his view, soon enough “the hour and day will
come when the black clouds disappear and the sun will shine to prove our
innocence.” The serene Kenjirō was ready to forgive everyone, even
though he was a victim of arbitrariness and violence. The day he was
arrested in Tupã, his house was tossed by two police investigators who,
irritated at not finding any guns, took all the money they found and still
broke fifty Japanese music records. Once in São Paulo, he was forced by
the interpreter Paulo Yoshikazu Morita to perform the fumie by stepping
on a photograph of Hirohito, cut from the newspaper. Now in prison, he
received a visit from an emissary of Morita’s. Fearing that he would
become a victim of some tokko ̄tai still at liberty (like Eiiti Sakane, who
threatened him during the interrogations in Marília at the start of the
year), the interpreter asked Shindō Renmei’s forgiveness for working for
the police. Kenjirō replied that for his part he forgave him, remembering
“only a true pardon was capable of forgiving the unforgiveable.” But this
was a personal position. He could not speak for any tokkōtai still at liberty
who had scores to settle with Morita (Figs. 8.1–8.3).
One day a prisoner asked to be seen privately by Captain Enoque
Martins, who was on duty in command of the penitentiary. It was Satoru
Yamamoto, who, although he was the author of the organization’s first
crime to murder Ikuta Mizobe, director of the Bastos Cooperative, was
unknown to the police, one of the masses swept up without formal charges
in the police raids. Yamamoto began the conversation saying he couldn’t
bear any longer knowing the police, still searching for Mizobe’s killer,
240 F. MORAIS
Figs. 8.1–8.3 Hundreds of Japanese serve prison sentences on Anchieta Island:

fights with prison guards, sumo championships, and daily reverence to the Emperor
and imperial family
CHAPTER 8 241
Figs. 8.1–8.3 (continued)
continued to arrest and torture so many Japanese. Seeing those innocent

people suffer, Yamamoto resolved to tell the truth that he was responsible
for the murder. Taken to the police station in Bastos, where the crime had
been committed, he confessed in detail how he took the life of the town’s
Cooperative director. In the early 1950s, when still serving his sentence,
Yamamoto made another surprising revelation. Facing the cameras of
NHK, the Japanese national broadcaster, which produced a documentary
about Shindō Renmei, he revealed that he already considered himself par-
doned for the crime. “Ikuta Mizobe’s wife said I can live without its weight
on my conscience,” he told the reporters. “She doesn’t hate me.”
Everything indicated that, in short order, the wounds opened by
Shindō Renmei would soon heal over. With the end of the sect’s activities,
Paulistas got back to work as usual. What galvanized public opinion in the
state in the second half of 1946 were the elections to be convened the fol-
lowing January. For the first time since the Revolution of 1930, the state
governor would be elected by direct vote. The electorate seemed indeci-
sive choosing a name between the two favorites in dispute: the
242 F. MORAIS
ex-interventor Adhemar de Barros—candidate for the Social Progressive

Party, which he founded himself, some months earlier with the support of
the Communist Party—and the millionaire Hugo Borghi, of the inconse-
quential National Worker’s Party. Borghi had been launched by Vargas’
party, but involved in a business deal known as “the cotton scandal,” was
disinherited by the Getulistas. Next below them in the popular preference
came Mário Tavares, from the Social Democratic Party, and Antônio
Almeida Prado, from the National Democratic Union. In an era in which
public opinion polls were a luxury that only appeared in foreign maga-
zines, what mattered was a nose for politics, and while Adhemar was
favored to win, the election promised to be close.
There were no reliable statistics in 1946 to guarantee how many voters
the Japanese colony had in São Paulo. But the sly foxes working for
Adhemar had their calculations, according to which there were close to
15,000 children of Japanese immigrants at eighteen years of age, born and
registered in Brazil, and therefore eligible voters. Now, if the honorable
Adhemar de Barros was willing to court the modest votes of the
Communists by allying with his archenemy Luís Carlos Prestes, why not
treat with great care what the candidate himself called, in his nasal voice,
“this bunch of Japs.” It was precisely with them that the Social Progressive
Party decided to put in all its chips. Adhemar’s first overtures to Shindō
Renmei occurred at the beginning of the year, when the lawyer Paulo
Lauro, future mayor of the city of São Paulo and leader of Adhemarism,
came to the defense of the “seven heroes” in Tupã.
The link between two worlds so far apart was established by the most
mysterious and cunning personality in the thousands who gravitated into
the nationalist sect’s orbit, the journalist Tsuguo Kishimoto, who also
introduced himself as a lawyer, “revolutionary of 1932,” and the “secre-
tary of Dr. Adhemar de Barros for Nipponese matters.” An advisor to the
bosses in the upper echelons of the Japanese organization, he had come to
covet nothing less than the presidency of Shindō Renmei. It was likely to
be a natural aspiration, were it not for the fact that Kishimoto was just as
much a highly compensated informant for the secret service at DOPS as
for the Second Military Region. In the police archives, stacks of accusa-
tions against him could be found for crimes from blackmail, pure and
simple, to pro-Axis espionage, and running the gamut of denunciations of
extortion, false testimony, swindling, and using a false identity. Most sur-
prisingly in a profile so lacking in exemplary qualities, Tsuguo Kishimoto
CHAPTER 8 243
managed to always skim the surface and stay on the crest of events in the
colony, only to submerge when a new accusation was made against him.
The director of the magazines Dan and Rashinban, and later, the news-
papers Notícias Japonesas and Nambei Shimpō,, Kishimoto, who in 1946
was fifty-two years old, had access to the highest wheels of power in São
Paulo, and made money from it. His specialty was freeing Japanese prison-
ers for violating the wartime laws, and his method was simple: he charged
between five and fifteen thousand cruzeiros for each case resolved. A tenth
of what he earned was used to bribe clerks, investigators, and prison
guards, which resulted in his ability to get out of prison pretty much
whomever he pleased. Armed with his credentials as a police and Army
informant, he could even go to Rio de Janeiro to obtain friends at court
to free his countrymen—so long as they paid for it. This was the case, for
example, when Kishimoto freed from the Detention House none other
than the leader of Shindō Renmei, Colonel Junji Kikawa (whose freedom
cost the sect’s coffers the considerable sum of 30,000 cruzeiros). What is
intriguing about all of this is that Kishimoto himself was arrested several
times, accused of the most different crimes only to reappear once more,
insinuating his way into the latest occurrences in São Paulo. As before, he
offered his valuable services as much to the police as the kachigumi. It
seemed like Tsuguo Kishimoto did not lack for prestige, either. Sak Miura,
another journalist and editor-in-chief of the Nippak Shimbun, paid a heavy
price for the audacity of being his competition. He was expelled from
Brazil by order of the President of the Republic, due to the machinations
of this “Yellow Rasputin,” as the reporters called Kishimoto. Kishimoto’s
resourcefulness was such that he had rebounded, despite having his repu-
tation reduced to dust in 1942 after one of his stints in prison, when a
two-page report in the celebrated magazine Diretrizes dissected his
early life.
When the “seven heroes” of Tupã were imprisoned at the beginning of
the year, Seiiti Tomari resorted once again to the services of the melliflu-
ous Kishimoto. It was precisely the breach Kishimoto needed to drive the
first Adhemarist stake into the heart of Shindō Renmei. In April, however,
when the sect’s headquarters was shut down in São Paulo, even the
police—for whom Kishimoto was working—were shocked by the degree
to which he was involved with the fanatics. More than this, the police were
impressed by the mountains of cash Tsuguo Kishimoto fleeced from the
naïve bosses of Shindō Renmei to set their top leadership free. DOPS had
no alternative, but to put in jail one of their best gansos, a “goose” being
244 F. MORAIS
the pejorative name for a police informant. The newspapers insinuated it

had taken the Army and the police to apprehend him, and wondered aloud
what secrets the mysterious Japanese was hiding to merit such preoccupa-
tion. The rumors required the Secretary of Security to issue a statement to
the press with the official account of his arrest.
The Department of Political and Social Order publicly declares that the arrest
of Tsuguo Kishimoto, a naturalized Brazilian involved in the case of Japanese
who took part in Shindō Renmei, does not arise from any understanding
between his Excellency the auxiliary general commander and the director of
this Department, as was claimed by one of the newspapers in this capital. The
visits made by police chief Venâncio Ayres to our illustrious commander of the
Second Military Region were merely of a courteous character having nothing to
do with the rumored case of the Japanese terrorists except incidentally. Tsuguo
Kishimoto is an individual with heightened contact with the Political Police,
his activities being the object of rigorous investigations within the respective
ongoing trials.
The investigations must not have been so rigorous after all, as some weeks
later he was back out on the street, involved in Adhemar’s gubernatorial
campaign. As the months went by, Kishimoto went about reducing Shindō
Renmei’s resistance to Adhemarism. A natural resistance, since it was, on
the one hand, of the most unrestrained populism; and on the other, of a
blind political fundamentalism. In mid-October, Kishimoto felt secure
sending emissaries to Anchieta Island with the goal of finding out whether
the top leadership of Shindō Renmei would see their way to having the
organization eventually support Adhemar de Barros’ candidacy. If elected,
the candidate committed to throwing the weight of the São Paulo govern-
ment behind the effort to have the sentences commuted for the Japanese.
One obstacle had to be overcome, which was that Shindō refused to back
a candidate who accepted votes from the Communist Party. It took an
exhausting act of political maneuvering to convince the Japanese there was
no such alliance, only electoral support, and the Social Progressive Party
guaranteed the Communists would have no participation or influence in
Adhemar’s administration (which was true). During the negotiation pro-
cess with the Japanese, Paulo Lauro, which had defended them before,
publicly came out in defense of Shindō Renmei. It was no mean feat, as
the lawyer was at the peak of his prestige, such that months later he was
named mayor of São Paulo—the first black man to occupy the post. Paulo
CHAPTER 8 245
Lauro published articles in newspapers denouncing the legal injustices

that made the Japanese victims “by virtue of belonging to a peaceful asso-
ciation such as Shindō Renmei.”
So much confetti bore results. Days after those first forays an anony-
mous manifesto circulated in the colony, but its terms left no doubts as to
its provenance.
We hurriedly write to you, our countrymen, to inform you what was already
communicated through our connected elements, that our movement pro-
Adhemar de Barros of the Social Progressive Party, is nothing more than the
support that we Japanese, the parents of Japanese Brazilians should give this
candidate and his party, which show great comprehension and respect to the
Japanese colony, especially about Shindo ̄ Renmei, by backing the movement of
our Renmei. The fact that Mr. Adhemar de Barros has accepted votes from the
Brazilian Communist Party, however, does not prohibit us from lending our
support. But the truth is elsewhere, as evidenced by the declaration made by Mr.
Adhemar de Barros, published today, January 8, in the Diário de S. Paulo.
Therefore there is nothing to fear in this sense. If there is a need to curtail our
movement of support, we will telegraph our countrymen to alert you.
On Anchieta Island the alliance between Shindō Renmei and Adhemar

ceased to be whispered about after two trucks disembarked from the ferry
carrying ballots to be stamped by the prisoners with the name of their
candidate. Celebrated for the slick style in which he conducted politics,
Adhemar wanted to show the community a demonstration that the deal
was for real, and one day showed up in person to visit the Japanese prison-
ers at the Detention House. The candidate conversed with “the Japs,” ate
in the mess hall of the jail, and left with a new campaign promise: if elected,
he would do his utmost to free them. Irreverent even in the most solemn
situations, upon leaving he bid the tokko ̄tai farewell with a comparison
well suited to his style.
“I get you. Shindō Renmei is like Adhemarism: either they love you or they
hate you. There’s no middle ground.”
When the election was held in January 1947, Adhemar was voted gov-
ernor with 393,000 votes, 40,000 ahead of the runner-up, Hugo Borghi.
After he was sworn in, Adhemar didn’t live up to his well-deserved reputa-
tion for never keeping his word, at least in regard to the case of the
Japanese. Adhemar not only fulfilled his parochial promises to Shindō
246 F. MORAIS
Renmei such as ordering the arrest of the “defeatists” Abe and Suzuki
from Osvaldo Cruz at the organization’s request, but also in fact commit-
ted himself to solving the legal and financial problems of the colony. Two
months after assuming office, he asked for an audience with President
Eurico Gaspar Dutra, after which he publicly announced having requested
liberation of Japanese-owned assets confiscated during the war, which the
governor claimed was “a fortune of more than two billion cruzeiros.”
Ironically, if the politician considered a trickster kept his word, the same
couldn’t be said for the kachigumi. In the twenty-five cities where Shindō
Renmei had numerous bases, Adhemar was defeated in seventeen.
* * *
Before a year had passed since the first public appearance of Shindō
Renmei—the martial campaign of the “seven heroes” that night in Tupã
to decapitate the corporal—the Public Ministry had already decided how
Justice would punish the crimes committed by the sect. More than a thou-
sand Japanese were indicted as co-authors of the crimes, for which they
asked for sentences ranging from one to twenty years in prison. For the
190 leaders and assassins, it was proposed to deport them to Japan.
Although the adventures of Hirohito’s Kamikaze Battalion in Brazil had
come to an end, two ro ̄nin were still lurking in shadows by night. They
had already taken part in Shindō Renmei operations, and now, wanted by
the police, both lived clandestinely, spending their days in hiding and only
going out at night under cover of darkness. The hand of destiny, however,
put them in opposite situations. Eiiti Sakane, mastermind of the attacks in
Osvaldo Cruz and Tupã, thought his mission was over only when the last
defeatist was eliminated from his list: the interpreter, Paulo Morita, whose
death he planned months earlier. Meanwhile, the tokkōtai Namide
Shimano, the killer of Gōiti Mori from Bilac, had another preoccupation
besides the police on his heels: to escape his makegumi countrymen ready
to take justice into their own hands.
Chapter 9: A Tokko ̄tai Will Be Tortured
and Killed—The End of Shindō Renmei
Not even Namide Shimano’s companions knew much about him. The
mystery began with his arrival in Brazil. Born in Niigata, he emigrated in
1943, according to official registries, when not a single Japanese entered
Brazilian territory. From Santos he went directly to the farm of Katsuto
Yamamuro in the Três Barras neighborhood in Cafelândia, where he
worked for a year as a farmhand. From there he moved to the Santo Embré
plantation owned by Mongo Fukuwara in the same municipality. In 1945
Shimano leased a farm in the Tangará district, still in Cafelândia, where he
tried without success to make money by growing cotton. During this
period, he lived several months at the home of a distant aunt, Matzuco
Maebara, until he met Akira Fugimoto, the tokko ̄tai who lead the frus-
trated attack against “the farmer Tominaga” in Mil Alqueires. Not even
his aunt and seven cousins had direct knowledge of Shimano’s life; that at
27 years old, he was single, did not have a girlfriend, and only thought of
work. They didn’t even notice when their relative turned from farming to
terrorism. After all, he didn’t go around armed and never spoke of politics
or the war at home. Namide Shimano only participated in one operation
for Shindō Renmei. He was the author of the cinematographic execution
of Gōiti Mori, in the bar in Bilac, when the tokkōtai leapt onto the counter
to finish the victim who fled from the gunshots. He was summoned to
participate in the operation in Mil Alqueires, but wound up not being able
to join in, as a skirmish with the police in Getulina after the attack in Bilac

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70562-6_10
248 F. MORAIS
injured one of his legs. But as had happened with the other remnants of
Shindō Renmei still at liberty, he lost all contact with the organization,
and did not even know who was giving orders—if there were still orders
to carry out. Despite being half-lame in his right leg and transformed into
a rōnin, Shimano remained ready to kill.
He wasn’t the only one. Among the makegumi, there was at least one
man who still had a score to settle with Shindō Renmei, and that was
Katsuo Yagui. Unlike Shimano, Yagui, forty-three-years old, was a descen-
dant of the last line of the social hierarchy in Japan, and proud of his noble
origins. His father, Buhati Yagui, was a member of the Akasaka Regiment
of the Imperial Guard, in the reign of Emperor Taishō (1912–1926),
Hirohito’s father. It was a privilege reserved for the descendants of samu-
rai, who were only chosen after a complete screening of their entire ances-
try. His son Katsuo, who reached his third year in medicine at Meiji
University in Tokyo, was a black belt in judo, an accomplished skier, and
one of the first long jumpers in Japan. At the onset of immigration to
Brazil, the elder Buhati was invited to settle there, not as a modest new-
comer, but as the “head of the delegation.” Settling with his family in
Braúna, in only a few years’ time, Yagui became more than just a prosper-
ous agricultural business owner. In addition to cultivating coffee and cot-
ton, he started buying other people’s production, becoming one of the
most powerful wholesalers in the region. On just one of the family’s farms,
the Kaikai, a total of 100,000 coffee trees were planted. Eventually, Buhati
entrusted his business interests to his son and moved to the capital in
order to dedicate himself exclusively to financial transactions on the
stock market.
Katsuo Yagui had a singular personality. At home he was a sophisticated
man, owner of a vast library where one found classics by Dostoevsky and
Tolstoy. He was a polyglot capable of reciting poetry in English to his
children. In the streets, he was not Katsuo. Whereas the majority of
Japanese adopted common names like Mário, Jorge, and Paulo as their
Brazilian names, he was known as Napoleon. His friends remembered him
fifty years later as a “stubborn,” “brave,” “cocky,” and “a grandiose type,
a Japanese of presence.” Given his profile, it was natural that Napoleon
Yagui became a target for Shindō Renmei. After the sect began its attacks
within the colony, after the war’s end, Yagui realized those lunatics would
end up crossing paths with him, and preferred to warn them that if they
CHAPTER 9 249
raised so much as a finger against his family, he would resolve the matter
personally and with bullets. He made the threat as a man known for his
deadly aim and for the fact that he went around carrying not one, but two,
revolvers in his belt.
It didn’t take much for the threats to reach not only Yagui, but also his
friend Yoshio Abe, a major agricultural producer like him, and equally
viewed as a makegumi to be eliminated by Shindō Renmei. Yagui didn’t
take the matter lightly. Instead of being cowed, he responded by inviting
Abe to his daily training sessions in target practice. If the tokko ̄tai showed
their faces, as had been promised, he wanted them to be ready. Napoleon
Yagui didn’t know it, but the date of his execution was already marked for
July 10, in the midst of the operations that took the lives of seven Japanese
in Bilac, Borborema, Mil Alqueires, Cafelândia, and Getulina.
The three killers appeared in Braúna at lunchtime. They came up
Avenida Rio Branco to the door of Napoleon Yagui’s house, but since his
truck wasn’t parked there, they walked back to a barbershop where they
conversed. They checked to see every time a truck passed along the street
if it was his. Not even the tailor Paulo Serizawa, son of a kachigumi, mis-
trusted the outsiders who spent the afternoon loitering in the street. That
lasted until four o’clock when Yagui finally parked his truck in front of his
house. He went inside to his bedroom, but when he returned to the living
room, the three tokko ̄tai were there waiting at the door. His wife, Matsu,
still greeted them and asked what they wanted. The strangers responded
by firing the guns they had hidden under cloth bundles. Matsu screamed
and tried to grab one of the terrorists, while her husband tried to unfasten
the holster to reach for his gun. Unable to get to his revolver, Napoleon
Yagui jumped on one of the tokko ̄tai, dragging him into the kitchen. His
son, Paulo, ten years old, clung to the hand of another tokkōtai, prevent-
ing him from aiming at his father, who delivered judo blows while shots
were fired at random. His daughter Rumi, then five years old, was by the
well in the yard when she saw her mother clinging from behind to the
waist of a man, and her brother Paulo swinging from the arm of another,
while her father was in the sights of a third. The man missed his first shot
and was readying his aim for the second, but by then Yagui was armed and
returned fire against the killers.
The tokkōtai saw their mission was doomed. The group fled into the
street heading toward Glicério with one of their number who appeared to
have been hit by a bullet. Alerted by the noise, the butcher Jasão, who
250 F. MORAIS
owned a corral behind Yagui’s property, ran to aid his neighbor, but the
tokko ̄tai were already at the end of Avenida Rio Branco, The butcher got
onto the first horse he could find, and lasso in hand, went after the terror-
ists, swinging a rope over his head and swearing he’d catch them. The
Western scene ended in slapstick. When he was a few yards away from the
fugitives, ready to lasso them, one unexpectedly turned and pointed his
revolver at the rider. As Jasão confessed afterward, when he saw the gun
he “shit himself” and did a U-turn, letting the killers, whose identities
were never learned, make their escape. From that day onward, everyone
knew the tokkōtai would pay dearly for breaking into Napoleon Yagui’s
house and trying to kill him. But Yagui also knew this was a job for profes-
sionals—for someone like Pedro Borges, a.k.a., Pedro Seleiro, “Pedro the
Saddler.”
Born in Chã de Alegria, in the backwoods of Pernambuco, before com-
ing to Braúna, Pedro Seleiro went all over Brazil doing the line of work
that was incorporated into his name: making saddles. At the beginning of
the 1940s, he succeeded in being named “ad hoc deputy sheriff”—or the
“sheriff in short pants,” the pejorative form by which people referred to
individuals in the community who, without any particular university edu-
cation, were sanctioned to carry out police duties in the absence of an
official sheriff. Tall, thin, big-nosed, and just over forty years old, Pedro
Seleiro was a man of few smiles and much action. Rain or shine, he had his
“broad-snouted” 0.44 Winchester rifle under his arm. A personal friend of
all the makegumi in town, when he got word of the attacks and threats, he
decided to become the worst nightmare of the Japanese linked to the ter-
rorists. At his own initiative and without anyone having to ask, he pro-
vided protection to Napoleon Yagui and asked his superior, the police
chief from Araçatuba, to authorize the Japanese to carry arms at all times.
When the response came back in the negative (“if he’s Japanese, the
answer is no and case closed”), Pedro Seleiro took the responsibility on his
own shoulders. Packing up revolvers and rifles, he went to Yagui’s house
and left the guns with him.
Look here, Napoleon, I know the law doesn’t allow it. But I know you and
you’re not going to die like a dog in the middle of the street. Take these
guns to protect yourself.
His service sheet did not speak well of his methods. In seven years, he
faced thirteen lawsuits for abuse of authority in the exercise of his duties.
CHAPTER 9 251
With this kind of fame, Pedro Seleiro preferred to deal with “the Japs” on
his own. For extraordinarily dangerous situations, he brought with him
the town’s night guard, but otherwise carried out the work on his own. A
few days after the assassination attempt against Yagui, he got word Shindō
was recruiting people from the Padre Claro neighborhood, where only
Japanese lived. Pedro Seleiro, who didn’t speak Japanese, went there
alone, invading homes, bashing heads, always with his rifle under his arm,
and came back hours later with six Japanese tied with rope. He tossed
them in a jail cell, locked the gate, and threw a few buckets of cold water
on the tile floor. Unable to sleep, the Japanese were exhausted the next
morning, which facilitated transporting them to the jail in Glicério. There,
too, it was the same. The police went through the streets and rifled
through the houses of Japanese in search of fanatics. One day an old, offi-
cial photograph of Getúlio Vargas was seen on the wall of a house with a
knife stuck in the middle of the ex-president’s face. The deputy sheriff
went to his horse to get the leather whip strapped to the saddle and lashed
the Japanese owner of the house until he left him bloodied on the ground.
That Pedro Seleiro hated the Japanese, everyone already knew. The
novelty was that the person making people suspected of ties to Shindō
Renmei lose sleep was Napoleon Yagui. Even after several weeks passed
and peace seemed to return to the town, it was common for a Japanese to
step off the sidewalk rather than cross paths with Yagui. One afternoon,
the farmworker Isao Makimoto, who hailed from the Moritomo neigh-
borhood in the rural area outside Braúna, came into town with his carriage
and five mules. Makimoto wasn’t a tokkōtai, but he had never hidden his
sympathy for Shindō Renmei. He stopped his carriage, got down slowly,
and when he looked to the side, saw Napoleon Yagui with his gun in his
belt and headed in his direction. In one bound, Makimoto disappeared
behind his mules, only to reappear on the sidewalk in front of the tailor
Serizawa’s, where he hid.
It was in this atmosphere that Pedro Seleiro got word on the last day of
September 1946 that a group of tokko ̄tai was secretly meeting in town. He
still tried to get reinforcements from Araçatuba, but was told by the sec-
tion chief to arrange something by himself, if necessary “with help from a
few Japanese friends.” Given permission by his superiors, Pedro Seleiro
told the story to Napoleon Yagui, who he tasked with assembling a pla-
toon to nail the kachigumi. Yagui enlisted some young men who were
crack shots—the confectioner Rioji Endō and farmworkers Takeshi
Shirakawa and Mitsuyuki Kōno—and called to join the caravan his friend
252 F. MORAIS
Yoshio Abe, who was similarly threatened by and at loggerheads with the
tokko ̄tai. A truck from Abe’s plantation, driven by another Japanese, also
armed, brought the group there at night. Altogether it was the driver,
Yagui, and Pedro Seleiro up front, and the others rode in back.
They had just arrived in the neighborhood of Perobal, where they
expected to catch the tokko ̄tai, as the day began to brighten. It was a dead
end. So they drove a while further until they came to the Senador colony.
Pedro Seleiro went first and the group followed a few yards behind. When
he opened the door to a house with the barrel of his rifle, the policeman
saw a Japanese flag within. He intimidated the owner of the house to find
out if anyone had met there. She denied it, but he refused to believe her.
It was then he spied a bed that looked recently slept in. He went over, put
his hand on the mattress, and felt it was still warm. Finally, the inhabitants
admitted to everything: the tokko ̄tai had been there, but had already left
for the house of a countryman, Jirō Tetsuya, in the neighborhood of São
Martinho, a few hours away.
The expedition headed into the bush. They cut through the lands of
the old Icatu village, belonging to the Kaingang Indians, and around ten
o’clock in the morning arrived in São Martinho. Pedro Seleiro tried to get
a city inspector from the area to guide them to Tetsuya’s house, but when
the man saw the number of armed men, he demurred and slipped away.
The group found their own way to the house, which was in the middle of
a coffee plantation. Pedro Seleiro went in front, his loaded rifle in hand,
and gave orders to his companions to wait at a distance—confident that
Shindō Renmei didn’t want trouble with the Brazilian authorities, he pre-
ferred to go in alone. If he needed help, he would give a shout. The
policeman stepped to the front of the house, identified himself, and gave
orders for the Japanese to come out with their hands in the air. Four
young men went running out the back door of the house, headed for the
coffee plantation. When Pedro Seleiro shouted “Police!” they started fir-
ing. He responded by shooting back, and at the same time, shouted to his
companions to hit the deck and fire at them. As bullets flew over his head,
he drew up behind the trunk of a mango tree, where he could see better
and protect himself from the tokkōtai’s bullets. Each time he fired his rifle,
Pedro Seleiro saw one Japanese running between the paths that divided
the rows of coffee trees. The man dodged from one side to another, shoot-
ing at Pedro each time he appeared. Fifty years later, the businessman
Alonso Borges still remembered the details of how his father, Pedro
Seleiro, ended the firefight.
CHAPTER 9 253
“My father counted the time it took for the Japanese to leap into action. He
counted once, twice, and when the tokkōtai jumped a third time, my
father got him.”
An accurate shot to the chest knocked Namide Shimano under a coffee

tree. Beneath his shirt soaked with blood was a Japanese flag, on which
had been written in Japanese, “It is good to die for the nation!” Pedro
Seleiro, the scourge of the tokkōtai, was going to have the honor of impos-
ing on Shindō Renmei the only casualty the sect suffered in its brief and
bloody history. With the corpse in the back of the truck, the caravan made
its way back the same way it came, going through Braúna and leaving the
body of the tokkōtai at the police station in Glicério.
This was the official version. As with the other occasions, an inquiry was
established, and then a lawsuit in which several people were accused, some
were judged, and others absolved. For the plot to be perfect, however, it
was necessary to destroy evidence of the “exam on the criminal’s body”
carried out on October 2, the day after the Japanese died, by the coroner
Romeu Ferraz of Araçatuba and by the clinician Amir Leite, resident of
Penápolis. The medical report signed by both doctors after they examined
Namide Shimano’s cadaver revealed that hatred was not a sentiment exclu-
sively held by the kachigumi (Figs. 9.1–9.5).
[…] The cadaver has an extensive hematoma at the level of the right frontal
lobe with irregular contours, purplish, measuring three inches by two at its larg-
est areas. At the level of the left temple and masseter muscle was another lesion,
not swollen, but equally purplish, measuring three inches by one in its largest
areas. Both lips showed swelling, and in the dental section of the upper lip,
showed a rupture perpendicular to the median line, concerning the mucosa and
adjacent articular muscle, measuring 0.4 inches in length by 0.2 inches in
width. All of these lesions, by their aspect and characteristics, resemble those
produced by blunt instruments.
[...] In the present case what is interesting to discuss is the diversity of projec-
tile calibers that struck the victim. They were unquestionably from different
firearms. The different diameters of the entry wounds prove this in abundance.
Which was the mortal blow? The one which pierced his thorax and struck both
lungs? The one that found his heart? Any one of these wounds were capable of
causing instant death in the victim. What does not admit of any doubt, mean-
while, is that he was first hit by a blunt instrument, although it is unclear what
kind. Hands, feet, a truncheon, a club? The blunt force lesions described in the
part referencing the external exam, were swelling and bruising produced while
he was alive. The organic reactions of edema and cyanosis demonstrate this.
Figs. 9.1–9.2 “Tough guy” Napoleon Yagui (at bottom) and his lieutenant,
Pedro Seleiro (top at center, with a mustache, seated next to Buhati Yagui on his
right): a day of reckoning was about to come for the tokkot̄ ai
CHAPTER 9 255
Figs. 9.3–9.5 Namide Shimano (at top) is caught alive by Pedro Seleiro, but
tortured and killed. Two kachigumi (at bottom) pray at a shrine constructed on
the spot where he fell.
Trying to recall what he knew about this period, Pedro Seleiro’s son
remembered his father might have kicked and beaten the corpse of the
Japanese with the butt of his rifle. This is not what the medical report had
revealed, but rather that the lesions had been “produced while he was
256 F. MORAIS
alive.” The ro ̄nin Namide Shimano was caught alive, tortured, and then
shot to death.
As fate would have it, however, something would bring the victim
closer to one of his executioners. In the municipal cemetery in Penápolis,
the tombstones of Shimano and Pedro Seleiro are separated by only twenty
yards. It was the same distance that separated them when the policeman
killed the tokkōtai.
On January 5, 1947, the presiding judge in Tupã, Antônio Rodrigues
Porto, decreed preventive imprisonment for Eiiti Sakane. It was a mere
formality, as this was the sixth or seventh prison order issued against the
last tokkōtai, without the police having the slightest idea of his where-
abouts. Sakane was preparing something. At the end of the previous year,
he pulled his wife and three children from Tupã, and hid them in a secret
locale. In the last two months he disappeared, only to reappear at the
beginning of January asking for shelter at a farm that had been used before
as a Shindō Renmei refuge in Osasco, a city in the São Paulo metropolitan
area. The kachigumi’s arrival in the capital had nothing to do with the
prison order in Tupã, of which he didn’t even have a clue. Eiiti Sakane was
there to fulfill the threat made a year earlier, in Marília, when he saw the
“police dog” Paulo Morita working as an interpreter for the police.
Morita can consider himself a survivor. His name had already appeared
on the first list of those condemned to die by Shindō Renmei. Despite
knowing he was marked for death, he continued to collaborate with the
police, denouncing his countrymen suspected of ties to the fanatics, and
appearing in public ceremonies alongside the police who brought the
Japanese nationalists to justice. Killing a makegumi like him was a question
of honor for Eiiti Sakane—Shindō couldn’t let him live. The tokko ̄tai
reserved this mission for himself. For a week, he tailed Morita every day
until he felt ready to act. The ideal hour to get him was early in the morn-
ing, when the interpreter, before leaving for work, took his daughter
Mayumi to the park in Aclimação, a few blocks from his house.
On January 6, a sultry Monday in summer, Sakane gathered three
friends and together they waited behind a wall on Rua Castro Alves, where
Paulo Morita lived. Around nine o’clock Morita appeared holding his
daughter of only eight months in his arms. When the two approached
Aclimação Avenue, Sakane headed them off and waited at the entrance to
the park. When Morita stepped onto the sidewalk, Sakane fired three shots
CHAPTER 9 257
into his chest. Then he took off running in the direction of the Paraíso
neighborhood, never to be seen again. Attracted by the gunshots, people
nearby tried to save the man lying in a pool of blood next to a desperately
screaming baby girl. A policeman appeared and took a document from the
dead man’s pocket to identify him. It wasn’t Paulo Morita, but Masaji
Suzuki, his brother-in-law. Shindō Renmei had sealed its criminal career
with yet another dramatic misfire.
Epilogue: The Final Balance—1000
Imprisoned, 381 Formally Charged, and 80
Expelled from Brazil, but President
Kubitschek Pardons Them All
During the thirteen months of actions by Shindō Renmei, twenty-three

people were murdered by the organization and 147 were injured. A total
of 31,380 Japanese immigrants were detained, identified, and booked by
the police in São Paulo, suspected of ties to the sect. Although 1423 were
accused by the Public Ministry, the Ministry of Justice only accepted
denunciations against 381 of them, who were the following persons: Akeo
Takabayashi, Asaju Omori, Atushi Tanaka, Bem Yamazaki, Bunichi
Namba, Chōkō Yamashiro, Chōnosuke Shimoishi, Chūji Yokoyama,
Chūzaburō Abe, Eiiti Kimura, Eiiti Sakane, Eijirō Ytami, Eiyti Murai, Eizō
Sanoki, Enkiti Mori, Etsunari Adachi, Fikar Sugayama, Fujio Umeki,
Fusashi Nakai, Genchō Tamashiro, Genichi Tsuya, Genkichi Kimura,
Genshiki Tamaki, Genzō Hidaka, Gōrō Kaida, Goshitirō Noda, Goto
Taketyo, Guenji Watanabe, Guenzō Shiratsu, Guiemon Sugahara, Hachiro
Matsumoto, Hachirō Oda, Hajime Ota, Haruiti Watanabe, Harutoshi
Nakauchi, Hatano Kanadi, Hatsusu Suda, Hazuni Huwahara, Hideki
Yoshida, Hideo Ono, Hidetarō Onishi, Hikohei Motoki, Hikosaburō
Kajihara, Hirokomi Takashima, Hiroshi Satō, Hiroshi Tomizuka, Hisacatu
Watanabe, Hisako Watabe, Ichirō Kawanishi, Iheji Kuroshima, Ikue Yuta,
Inawo Kano, Ioshio Nikuma, Isamu Matsumoto, Isao Rusano, Ishi Sagai,
Issamu Maeda, Itirō Mutō, Itisaburō Inakuma, Itoku Sakamoto, Iwao
Tadamura, Izao Bam, Jiichi Yamaguchi, Jinzaburō Asakawa, Jirō

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70562-6
260 EPILOGUE
Matsubayashi, José San-Iti Chimen, Jun Fugimori, Jiniti Yasaka, Kakujiro

Inamasu, Kamesaku Yamashiro, Kaneo Michiura, Kanisaku Maeda, Kanji
Matsuo, Kaoro Hino, Kassaburō Katayama, Kasuji Takahashi, Katsuji
Kimura, Katsuji Yamamoto, Kazuma Tanaka, Kazuo Tsuji, Kazuo
Yamazaki, Kazutoshi Yamamoto, Keijiro Aoki, Keiitiro Sakuraba,
Keizaburō Yamada, Keizō Katō, Keizō Ono, Keme Higa, Kenda Yamashita,
Kengo Ayabe, Keniiti Nakamura, Kenji Noguti, Kenjirō Nishi, Kenya
Otsuki, Kenzō Hida, Kenzo Kajita, Keuniti Obo, Kiichi Kawashima,
Kinnosuke Kobayashi, Kinyemon Yamaguchi, Kinzō Idemori, Kiomio
Tsuji, Kioshi Inoue, Kisaku Tanaka, Kitizo Assanome, Kiyobuni Hori,
Kiyohide Okuda, Kiyokarō Matsumoto, Kiyo Yamauchi, Kiyoshi Suzuki,
Kiyonori Nagae, Kōheijō Adachi, Kōichi Matsumoto, Kōji Okayama,
Kōke Kawano, Kōki Andō, Kōkichi Kume, Kōkiti Sawada, Kosako Susuki,
Kōtarō Fujimoto, Kōzō Katsumata, Kumata Nakamura, Kunioshi Maeda,
Kunioshi Massamoto, Kunitsuga Shigeumatsu, Kurazu Handa, Kyiomasa
Nomura, Kyōiti Arai, Kyōshi Hirose, Lauro Tadao Sasaki, Macao
Matsushima, Mamoru Fujisaka, Mankichi Azuma, Mansaku Fusada,
Manzō Nashinaga, Masaaki Okuyama, Masaki Takahashi, Masaki Yūsuki,
Masakisa Nogami, Masamitsu Idemori, Masao Ginbō, Masari Nagato,
Masaru Konishi, Masaru Okabe, Masashige Onishi, Masatarō Inakake,
Masato Matsumura, Massaki Okuyama, Massao Nakano, Massao Terada,
Massatero Hokubara, Massumi Tanaka, Masumi Ikoma, Masuiti Iwamoto,
Matazō Okamoto, Matsue Sasada, Matsushirō Kunii, Matsushū Myiasato,
Matsutarō Fujisaka, Matsuya Hirata, Matsuzo Massuda, Mazakasu Sassada,
Miike Mitsuri, Mineo Kosai, Minoru Hayashi, Minoru Myazima,
Minosuke Yokota, Mitio Suga, Mitsuaki Omoda, Mitsuji Iriya, Mitsuo
Fugii, Mitsuo Maruyama, Mitsuo Tokui, Mitsuyoshi Kondō, Miyuki
Yamaguchi, Moburu Nagamatsu, Mōitirō Iwata, Mongo Yoshikazō,
Monjirō Kaneko, Morikichi Sonohata, Morikichi Yoshikai, Morizō Chiba,
Motichi Itō, Motoi Bam, Motosuke Matsuka, Mitsutarō Fujita, Munetoku
Sinkai, Naenao Toyama, Nakanosuki Kolisu, Naokiti Marui, Nobudi
Minava, Nobuiti Matsumoto, Nobuji Ishizaka, Nobukazu Furukawa,
Nobumassa Ionochi, Nobuo Yokota, Nobuyasu Baba, Noguti Keisaburō,
Norimitsu Takaoka, Noriyasu Setō, Nuke Shigeto, Otokichi Marui,
Raizuti Miho, Rihei Ikeda, Rintarō Tachibana, Riozō One, Risaburō
Seno, Riuzō Takata, Ryōishi Kuwabara, Ryōiti Fujisaka, Saburō Azuma,
Saburō Nakagawa, Sadaji Yamano, Sadao Gondō, Saiji Yamashita, Saiti
Oku, Sakamatsu Fujimoto, Sakari Masuzawa, Sanzon Hamada, Satoru
Kondō, Satoro Nagao, Satoro Nawa, Seichi Banzai, Seiei Touma, Seigui
EPILOGUE 261
Satō, Seiichi Hayakawa, Seiichi Satō, Seiji Kawauschi, Seikyu Sakihara,

Seitarō Hirata, Seizaku Kurioshi, Sekati Kimura, Severo Hashimoto,
Shazuke Tanaka, Shichiji Yoshinaga, Shichirō Ono, Shigeo Hanada,
Shigeo Kōga, Shiguematsu Myiazaki, Shigueo Fukuma, Shigueo Fukuoka,
Shiguero Kubo, Shigueta Marubayashi, Shiguetaka Takagui, Shigueto
Gohara, Shigueo Koketsu, Shimichirō Iwahara, Shimon Kunioshi, Shingo
Shimbuya, Shinichirō Yakushijin, Shinobu Namimatsu, Shinro Sawada,
Shintarō Kitamura, Shintarō Misushima, Shinzō Matida, Shinzō Shimizo,
Shiogirō Okagawa, Shioji Ono, Shiokazu Kakuda, Shiroski Yamashita,
Shizuo Tanaka, Shōiti Kodama, Shōji Kimura, Shōji Matsumura, Shōjirō
Baba, Shōjirō Imai, Shonoski Nishimura, Shōnozuke Aikawa, Shōtarō
Kikuti, Shōzem Metoruma, Shōzuke Uematsu, Shūichi Maobara, Shūzō
Nakayama, Sinchō Nakamine, Sōiti Yamada, Sōkiti Shachiki, Sukeyoshi
Kajiwara, Sukimasa Okino, Tadaichi Kihara, Tadaiti Kokubo, Tadami
Tiba, Tadashi Hiroshima, Tadashigue Katō, Taizō Shigemichi, Takamaza
Furuzawa, Takanobu Sasaki, Takekatsu Mioshi, Takema Ueta, Takeo
Izumi, Takeo Miura, Takeo Sazaki, Takeo Yoshida, Takesaburō Kobayashi,
Takeshi Maeda, Takeshi Nishiyama, Taketo Nakagawa, Takeyoshi Kotaki,
Tamashiro Guenhei, Tamotsu Uemoto, Teiichi Hashimoto, Teiti
Ishihama, Teruji Yamaguchi, Tetsuji Toyoiama, Tetsuo Kubo, Tetsuo
Kuga, Tetsuzō Namba, Tiozaburō Nawa, Titomo Nishikawa, Tōiti Murai,
Tōkiti Tamashiro, Tokujirō Tamura, Tokumitsu Yamaushi, Tomechi
Sugahara, Tomedi Katakura, Tomekichi Murakani, Tomio Okazaki,
Tomitoshi Tōida, Tomizō Vaga, Tooru Shizaki, Toruji Shiguematsu,
Toshitarō Inoue, Toshimi Ohata, Toshio Kodomatsu, Toshio Sasaki,
Toshisaburō Takai, Toshita Takai, Tou Tamaki, Toyoso Mamiya, Toyotomi
Ishibashi, Tsugio Shiraishi, Tsugio Soida, Umekiti Mizuno, Ushi Uehara,
Wataru Seto, Yasaburo Oto, Yasakichi Matsumoto, Yashutaro Satō,
Yasokiti Namassu, Yasuhide Satake, Yasuki Shimizu, Yasuroku Nakaoka,
Yōkichi Fujisaki, Yoko Nishi, Yoritake Omi, Yosaburō Shinohara, Yoshitarō
Shiafuji, Yoshitaru Sugyiama, Yoshikazu Matsumoto, Yoshima Kondo,
Yoshimasa Nishishima, Yoshimatsu Wakabayashi, Yoshimitsu Imai,
Yoshinori Kotera, Yoshinori Sakata, Yoshio Iwamoto, Yoshio Kawaguchi,
Yoshio Oikawa, Yoshio Someya, Yoshio Tokimatsu, Yoshio Yassuda,
Yoshishige Nakauchi, Yoshitaka Oka, Yoshitake Omi, Yoshiuki Miyamoto,
Yōsuke Kano, Yōtarō Baba, Yshi Sakae, Yuguma Yamasaki, Yūjirō Assaki,
Yukimiti Kano, Yukiyaso Maehata, Yusurō Tanaka, Yūzō Suzuki, and
Zenkichi Ota.
262 EPILOGUE
At the end of 1946, President of the Republic, Eurico Gaspar Dutra,

issued a decree that identified “harmful elements against the national
interest” and ordered the expulsion from Brazil of the following eighty
immigrants accused of directing or executing the crimes of Shindō Renmei:
Azuma Samejima, Daisaburō Sassatani, Eiichi Shiozaki, Fukuo Ikeda,
Fumio Ueda, Fusatoshi Yamauchi, Handa Jūta, Haruo Izumissawa, Haruo
Watanabe, Hiroaki Izume, Hiromi Yamashita, Ichisaburō Chida, Ishin
Iwanaga, Itsushigue Otsuki, Jonejirō Kokubo, Junji Kikawa, Junji Shimizu,
Kamegoro Ogazawara, Kanekiti Shiotsu, Kanji Aoki, Kanji Waki, Kauemon
Kawabata, Kenjirō Yamauchi, Kenkuro Yonomata, Kitiro Kikkawa, Kioschi
Kawashima, Koi Suzuki, Kotaro Komada, Kozonori Yoshida, Kozuo
Miyahara, Kunichirō Amazawa, Magosabuio Osaki, Makoto Iwata,
Manyoshi Nakashima, Masakiti Taniguti, Massachi Kunii, Massaichu
Kaneko, Massaki Yunoki, Massanobu Satō, Massao Eguti, Massao Honke,
Massao Satō, Mitsurō Ikeda, Nobuyoshi Ozaki, Noriyoshi Sakamoto,
Ryōtarō Negoro, Saijirō Tanita, Sakuzō Kawashima, Seiichi Tomari,
Seijirō Mihara, Shigueuchi Murakami, Shimpei Kitamura, Shiogorō
Ogura, Shizutarō Monden, Shogero Inoue, Shōzaemon Shōji, Tadamune
Maeda, Tadao Takayasu, Takanori Izumi, Takashi Watanabe, Tatsuo
Watanabe, Teiji Kimura, Teizō Takashima, Tokuiti Hidaka, Tokujirō
Ohata, Tomoyuki Kawamorita, Toragoro Ninose, Torao Gōtō, Torato
Fujihara, Toyohei Negoro, Tsuneyoshi Sawada, Tsurutarō Ushisawa
(a.k.a. Kenjō Sawai), Wasaburō Hiraoka, Yonosuke Asakura, Yoshihide
Gōtō, Yoshio Tamura, Yoshitsugu Sonoda, Yoshiy Kiytirō, Yoshiyuki
Kondō, and Zenzaku Ogawa.
None of these individuals, however, were in fact expelled from the
country. The judicial measures sought by their attorneys delayed the exe-
cution of the expulsion decree until the mid-1950s. On Christmas in
1956, when the majority of them had already spent at least a decade in
prison, President Juscelino Kubitschek commuted their sentence and set
them all free.
In October 2000, there were only three known tokko ̄tai still alive:
Tokuiti Hidaka, owner of a bicycle shop in the city of Quintana, and
Hiromi Yamashita and Tarō Mushino, both retired and living in the city of
São Paulo.
Eiiti Sakane, the tokko ̄tai who became a ro ̄nin, was never apprehended
by the police. In the mid-1960s, he was seen by several Japanese present-
ing himself as Massao Kōga, a photographic equipment salesman.
People Interviewed
Ademir Gomes Konechu Kaingang Madoca Yagui Mueller

Akira Hiromi Manoel Coutinho
Alécio Gorzoni Marcos Agostinho Chimatz
Alonso Borges Mário Lemes Soares
Angelo Palmezan Mário de Oliveira
Antonio Casarotto Mário Noguchi
Antonio Rodrigues Porto Mário Nohali
Aparecida Luiza Gaspar Masamitsu Idemori
Braulino Volpon Massao Honke
Carivaldo Cançado Castanheira Massaro Misoguti
Carlos Lomberti Massayuki Kawano
Clemente Goldoni Mauro Ferreira Netto
Edoardo de Cerqueira César Motojiro Mogui
Fábio Liserre Noryoshi Sakamoto
Flórida de Campos Rodrigues Osvaldo Nunes da Silva
Francisco Ramos Cuares Ovídio Martinelli
Francisco Sanches Martins Paulo Serizawa
Fusatoshi Yamauchi Paulo Tioeturo Yagui
Gabriel Cavalcanti Petronilho José Ribeiro
Geraldino Rodrigues Ramos Ronaldo Goy
Guichi Maeda Rubens Cardoso

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70562-6
264 PEOPLE INTERVIEWED
Hatiro Ueno Rumi Yagui Hennies

Hideo Onaga Saburō Oguchi
Hilário Lopes Saburō Yamanaka
Hiro Miyagui Sadako Takeuchi
Hiromi Yamashita Sakae Ishida
Hiroshi Yamauchi Sérgio Namba
Hisako Hara Shiguemizu Abe
Issau Makino Shunso Nagai
João Alves dos Santos Sussumu Sonehara
João Mendonça Pinheiro Takao Oyama
João Neves Tamiko Yamauchi
Jorge Ono Tânia Sayuri Ida Matthias
José Alvarenga Tetsuo Hidaka
José Casarotto Tokuiti Hidaka
José do Prado Tomio Endō
José Leme Tomohiro Yanase
José Manzano Toshio Koketsu
Lourival Machado Yassuo Yamada
Lúcia Mayumi Sugimoto Yoshio Abe
Lucilo Jordão de Oliveira Yugo Assano
Archives Consulted
Arco-Íris Municipal Government

Bastos Municipal Museum
Bastos Police Station Archives
Bastos Town Hall Archives
Bilac Municipal Government
Birigüi District Courthouse Archives
Braúna Municipal Government
Cafelândia Police Station Archives
Carivaldo Cançado Castanheira Archives
Carlos Ferreira Damião Archives
Federal Senate –Subsecretary of Annals
Flávia Valente Archives
Fusatoshi Yamauchi Archives
Immigrant Memorial
Índia Vanuíre de Tupã Museum of History and Pedagogy
Janis Eddibergs Archives
Japanese Immigration History Museum
José Alvarenga Archives
Kanji Aoki Archives
Lins Town Hall Archives
Lúcia Mayumi Sugimoto Archives

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70562-6
266 ARCHIVES CONSULTED
Luiz de Souza Leão Archives

Massayuki Kawasaki Archives
National Library
Osvaldo Cruz Municipal Government
Paulo José de Oliveira Silva Archives
Paulo Tioeturo Yagui Archives
Penápolis District Courthouse Archives
Penápolis Museum of History and Pedagogy
Penápolis Police Station Archives
Pompéia District Courthouse Archives
Pompéia Police Station Archives
Roberto Yoshifumi Kawasaki Archives
São Paulo Court of Justice Archives
São Paulo State Public Archives
Shiguemizu Abe Archives
Suncho Nagai Archives
Tânia Sayuri Ida Matthias Archives
Tokuiti Hidaka Archives
Tupã District Courthouse Archives
Tupã National Guard Archives
Tupã Police Station Archives
Tupã Town Hall Archives
Tupã Municipal Government
Unesp de Marília Library
Unesp de Presidente Prudente Library
Unimar de Marília Library
Varpa Pioneers’ Museum
Illustration Credits
All efforts were made to determine the origin of the photos used in this
book. It was not always possible, but it will be our pleasure to provide
credit should any such case arise.
AP/Wide World Photos

Police archives of Tupã
Aoki family archives
Massayoshi Miyazaki family archives
Massayuki Kawasaki family archives
Shiguemizu Abe archives
Suncho Nagai archives
Tokuiti Hidaka archives
Fórum de Penápolis archives
Fórum de Pompéia archives
Fórum de Tupã archives
State of São Paulo public archives (Ivson reproduction)
State of São Paulo public archives
Bastos cemetery
Penápolis cemetery
Antonio Sérgio Ribeiro collection
Folha Imagem

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70562-6
268 ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
Bastos Museum
Índia Vanuíre Tupã Museum of History and Pedagogy
Sírio Cançado
Tribunal of Justice for the State of São Paulo (Juca Martins reproduction)
Tribunal of Justice for the State of São Paulo
Bibliography
Abe, Yoshio. Imin no hi (Lápide do Imigrante). Penápolis, private publication, s/d.

Alvarenga, José. Janelas do tempo: Crônicas da cidade de Osvaldo Cruz. Editora
Stúdio Paganotti, 1986.
_____ and Gegauf, Stefanie Wirth. Osvaldo Cruz: Achegas históricas. 1994.
Amaral, Maria Andrade, ed. 100 anos de República (Um retrato ilustrado da históri-
ado Brasil), vol. V, 1941–1950. São Paulo: Nova Cultural, 1994.
Azerédo, Léo. Presidente Prudente e o creador de sua grandeza, 1944.
Behr, Edward. Hiroíto—Por trás da lenda. São Paulo: Editora Globo, 1991.
Benedict, Ruth. O crisântemo e a espada: Padrões da cultura japonesa. São Paulo:
Perspectiva, 1997.
Bird, Kai. O chairman John J. McCloy. Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 2000.
Butsugam, Sumi. “Os nisseis e a busca de sua integração na sociedade brasileira.”
Doctoral thesis. Presidente Prudente: Philosophy Department, Presidente
Prudente Sciences & Letters, 1973.
Carignato, Taeco Toma. “O caminho dos súditos: do terror ao terrorismo.”
Revista Psicanálise e Sociedade. São Paulo: PUC-SP, 1998–99.
_____. “Passagem para o desconhecido: Um estudo psicanalítico entre Brasil e
Japão.” Master’s thesis. São Paulo: PUC-SP, 1999.
Fausto, Boris, ed. Fazer a Ameérica: A imigração em massa para a América Latina.
São Paulo: Edusp/Memorial da América Latina/Fundação Alexandre de
Gusmão, 1999.
Félix, Sueli Andrucioli. Marília pioneira e os seus problemas “vistos” através da imp-
rensa. Marília: Instituto de Geociências Exatas, Unesp.

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70562-6
270 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fernandes, Alexandre. A verdade sobre a Shindô Renmei. São Paulo, 1949.

Filho, Agostinho Rodrigues. Bandeirantes do Oriente! São Paulo: Empresa
Bandeirantes Ltda, 1949.
Freitas, Luiz Mendonça de. Problemas básicos da agricultura paulista. São
Paulo: 1946.
Giovanetti, Bruno. Esboço histórico da Alta Sorocabana. Empresa Gráfica da Revista
dos Tribunais Ltda, 1943.
Handa, Tomoo. O imigrante japonês. São Paulo: T.A. Quieroz/Centro de
Estudos-Nipo-Brasileiros, 1987.
Hatanaka, Maria Lúcia Eiko. “O processo judicial da ‘Shindo Renmei’—Um frag-
mento da história dos imigrantes japoneses no Brasil.” Master’s thesis, São
Paulo, PUC-SP, 1993.
Kawasaki, Roberto Yoshifumi. A colônia japonesa em Tupã. 1999.
Keló, Maurício Pedro Campos. Kaingang: Pyry Nhenpe’ti-Kaingang: um sonha-
dor. Penápolis: Edição FASP, 1999.
Kokichi, Guenka. Um japonês no Mato Grosso (Subsídio para a história da coloniza-
ção japonesa no Brasil). Gráfica Siquiera, 1958.
Kurosawa, Akira. Relato autobiográfico. São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, 1982.
Leâo, Luiz de Souza. A fundação de Tupan, 1968.
Legrand, Jacques, ed. História ilustrada do século 20 (O mais atual registro do nosso
tempo). São Paulo: Publifolha/Folha da Tarde, 1996.
Miceli, Sergio, ed. Nosso século. São Paulo: Abril Cultural/Nova Cultural
Ltda, 1985.
Miranda, Mario Botelho de. Shindo Renmei—Terrorismo e extorsão. São Paulo:
Saraiva, 1948.
_____. Um brasileiro no Japão em guerra. São Paulo: Companhia Editora
Nacional, 1944.
Mita, Chiyoko. “Bastos: uma comunidade étnica japonesa no Brasil.” Doctoral
thesis in social anthropology. São Paulo: University of São Paulo, 1986.
Moraes, Carlos de Souza. A ofensiva japonesa no Brasil—aspecto social, econômico e
politico da colonização nipônica. Col. Documentos de Nossa Época, no. 17.
Porto Alegre: Livraria do Globo, 1942.
Moriama, Takashi. L’abécédaire du Japon. Paris: Picquier Poche, 1997.
Nakadate Jouji. “O Japão venceu os Aliados na Segunda Guerra Mondial? O movi-
mento social ‘Shindō Renmei’ em São Paulo (1945–1949).” Master’s thesis in
human sciences. São Paulo: PUC-SP, 1988.
Neves, Herculano. O processo da Shindō Renmei e demais associações secretas japone-
sas no Brasil. 1960.
Oliveira Silva, Paulo José de. Elementos formadores de Tupã—Os construtores da
Torre de Babel, 1999.
_____. Focalizando pelas antenas—Depoimento de Ronaldo Goy. 1999.
Oliveira, Hélio Lourenço de. Relatório da Inspeção Sanitária de Tupã. 1939.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 271
Ribeiro, Darcy. A política indigenista brasileira. Brasília: Serviço de Informação

Agrícola do Ministério da Agricultura, 1962.
_____. O povo brasileiro—A formação e o sentido do Brasil. São Paulo: Companhia
das Letras, 1995.
Saitō, Hiroshi. A presença japonesa no Brasil. São Paulo: T.A. Quieroz/
Edusp, 1980.
_____ and Maeyama, Takashi. Assimilação e integração dos japoneses no Brasil.
Petrópolis/São Paulo: Vozes/Edusp, 1973.
Seagrave, Sterling and Seagrave, Peggy. La dynastie du Yamoto—Histoire secrète de
la famille imperialle japonaise. Paris: Èditions Michalon, 1999.
Sugimoto, Lúcia Mayumi. Do café aos ovos—Uma pequena coletânea da história de
Bastos. Bastos: Câmara Municipal de Bastos, 1996.
Tidei De Lima, João Francisco. A ocupação da terra e a destruição dos índios na
região de Bauru. 1978.
Tobias, Rosmar. A história de Marília—Os primórdios da educação da Marília
(1925–1938). Marília: Editora da Unoeste, 1990.
Vieira, Francisca Isabel Shuring. O japonês na frente de expansão paulista: o processo
de absorção do japonês em Marília. São Paulo: Editora Pioneira/Edusp, 1973.
Vieira, Hermes and Silva, Oswaldo. História da Policia Civil de São Paulo. São
Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1955.
Willems, Emílio and Saitō, Hiroshi. Shindō Renmei: um problema de aculturação.
São Paulo: Revista Didáctica e Científica, 1955.
Yamauchi, Kenjiro. Resquícios da Grande Guerra. Translated by Rosa Hiroko
Matsuzaki. Hiroshima: Provincial Government of Hiroshima, 1979.
Yoshikawa, Eiji. Musashi. São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, 1999.
Cidade de Osvaldo Cruz. Commemorative album of the tenth anniversary of its
founding. 1951.
Coletânea histórica—Publicação comemorativa do 90 aniversário de Penápolis.
Penápolis: Museu Histórico e Pedagógico Fernão Dias Paes, 1998.
Dicionário básico japonês-português. São Paulo: Fundação Japão/Aliança Cultural
Brasil-Japão/Massao Ohno Editor, 1989.
“Edição especial—Presidente Prudente 57 anos,” Jornal Imparcial, 1974.
“Osvaldo Cruz,” edition of O Trabalho, commemorating the twelfth anniversary
of the city’s founding. 1953.
Sinopse estatística do município de Tupã. IBGE/Conselho Nacional de
Estatística, 1948.
VI Recenseamento geral do Brasil—1950. IBGE/Conselho Nacional de
Estatística, 1953.
Uma epopeia moderna—80 anos de imigração japonesa no Brasil. São Paulo:
Hucitec/Sociedade Brasileira de Cultura Japonesa, 1992.
272 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Periodicals
A Comarca (Penápolis)
A Noite (Rio de Janeiro)
A Noite Ilustrada (Rio de Janeiro)
A Tribuna (Santos)
Correio (Lins)
Correio da Manhã
Diário (Tupã)
Diário da Noite
Diário de S. Paulo
Diário Nippak
Folha da Manhã
Folha da Noite
Folha de S. Paulo
Folha do Povo (Tupã)
Jornal de S. Paulo
Jornal de Tupã (Tupã)
Jornal do Brasil
Manchete
Nosso Jornal (Osvaldo Cruz)
Nosso Século
O Cruzeiro
O Estado de S. Paulo
O Globo
O Imparcial (Presidente Prudente)
O Progresso (Lins)
Oeste Notícias (Presidente Prudente)
Revista Já (Diário Popular)
São Paulo-Shimbun
Index
A 103–104, 122, 124, 128, 145,

Abe, Frank, 26 161, 204, 208, 214, 242
African Americans, Blacks, 22,
53, 205–206
Afro Brazil Museum, 1 B
Allen, Ernest, Jr., 22n41 Bahia, 63, 79, 205, 207
Allied Forces, 2, 19, 43, 55, 80, 94, Barkun, Michael, 15
123, 128, 140, 152, 158, 182, Barros, Adhemar, 4, 5n5, 36, 38, 52,
189, 208 107, 113, 202, 219, 242–246
Amaral, Aracy, 37 Barroso, Gustavo, 20n37
Amazonas, 205, 208, 235 Bastos, 72, 74, 83–84, 102–103,
Amorim, Vicente, 3 110–112, 121–124, 126–132,
Amur River, 21 134, 136–137, 141, 149, 157,
Anami, Korechika, 90, 94 169, 174, 190–191, 239, 241
Anchieta Island, 4, 35, 152, 154, 208, Biden, Joseph, 7, 8, 10
224, 226, 237, 238, 240, Bilac, 169–172, 191, 246–247, 249
244, 245 Black Dragons (film), 22
Aranha, Osvaldo, 62, 63, 76 Black Dragon Society
Arendt, Hannah, 11, 16 (Kokuryu ̄kai), 21–23
Asahi newspaper, 189 Blood on the Sun (film), 21
Atlee, Clement, 93 Bolivia, Bolivians, 14, 80, 208, 232
Axis Powers (and “Axis Subjects”), Borghi, Hugo, 113, 242, 245
2–4, 10, 20, 36, 45, 55, 61, Borneo, 25, 122
63–64, 67, 69, 72–77, 79–81, Brasil Asahi newspaper, 60

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70562-6
274 INDEX
Bratac, 23, 57, 74, 76, 101 Communism, Brazilian Communist

Brazil, see Bastos; Bilac; Communist Party, 3, 8, 20, 35n63, 37, 59,
Party, Brazil; Constituent Assembly 93, 112–114, 189, 204–206,
of 1934; Constituent Assembly of 231–232, 242, 244–245
1946; Department of Social and Companhia Paulista Railway, 143
Political Order (DOPS); Concentration camps, see
Immigration; Marília; Minas Internment camps
Gerais; Ministry of Justice, Conspiracy theories, 6–8, 14–16,
Brazilian; Newspapers; Paraná; 20–21, 23, 25, 208
Paulista; Portuguese; Radio; Rio de Constituent Assembly of 1934, 58
Janeiro; Santos; São Paulo; Tupã Constituent Assembly of 1946, 4,
Brazilian Civil War, 59–60, 62, 75, 76, 203–207, 209,
207, 231, 235, 242 231–232, 235–237
Brazilian Expeditionary Force, Conway, Kellyanne, 7n9
76, 80, 223 Couto, Miguel, 58
Brazilian Integralist Action Party, Couto Filho, Miguel, 203, 204, 207,
20, 21, 59 208, 231, 233, 235
Brazilian Society of Japanese Culture Cruz, Ted, 8, 9n13
and Social Assistance Cult (fanaticism), 15, 37, 105, 151,
(Bunkyō), 39 155, 158, 172, 192, 202, 232
British Columbia, 14
Buddhism, 50, 68, 70, 100, 114,
191, 226 D
Burajiru Jiho ̄ newspaper, 60 Day, Takako, 22n40
Death squads, see Tokko ̄tai (special
attack unit)
C Defeatists and enlightened faction, 2,
Cagney, James, 21 4, 11–12, 14, 54–55, 95, 97,
California, 28, 80, 124, 196 109–111, 113–114, 116, 118,
Campos Elíseos Palace, 137, 178, 179, 124, 130–131, 136–138,
181, 186–190, 203, 209, 215 140–142, 146–147, 158, 169,
Canada, 14, 57, 123, 232 172, 178, 191, 193–194, 198,
Capra, Frank, 21 211, 213, 246
Catholicism, 58, 213 See also Makegumi
Children, 3–4, 13, 31, 34, 45, 56, 58, Dekasegi, 12
61, 67, 70–73, 83–84, 100, Department of Social and Political
103–104, 128, 141, 145–146, Order (DOPS), 4, 25, 36, 52, 72,
149, 154, 156, 174, 176, 75, 76, 81, 83, 86, 87, 95–106,
191–192, 198, 200–201, 209, 109, 112–115, 117, 118, 120,
211, 217, 242, 248, 256 122–124, 137, 138, 141, 150,
China, 13, 21, 94, 124, 185 151, 153–156, 158, 161, 174,
Cohen Plan, 20–21 181, 186, 208, 242, 243
INDEX 275
Detention House, 87–88, 92, 127, G

151–153, 208, 211, 213, 245 Gaijin, 44, 70, 107, 193
Dezem, Rogério, 5–6 Gazeta newspaper, 101, 139, 187
Dia newspaper, 178 Germany (Germans), 15–16, 19, 22,
Diário da Noite newspaper, 74, 96 33n59, 45, 55, 59, 61–64, 67,
Diário Oficial newspaper, 69 69, 74–80, 82, 123, 160, 207,
Diaspora, see Transnational diaspora 211, 223, 234
Dirty Hearts (book), 2–4, 6, 11–12, Globo newspaper, 160
19n35, 25, 31, 34–37 Great Britain (British), 61, 93–94, 185
Dirty Hearts (film), 3, 34 Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity
Dower, John, 12, 13n22 Sphere, 92, 190
Dutra, Eurico Gaspar, 20, 25, 36, 37,
64, 113, 115, 229, 234, 246, 262
H
Handa, Tomoo, 75
E Hawaiʻi, 33–34, 57
Eduardo, Octavio da Costa, 188–189 Hayashi, Brian, 27
Emperor Organ Theory, 18 Heagler, Dag, 100
English, 2, 6, 12, 21, 23–24, 61–62, Hidaka, Tokuiti, 34–35, 38, 50, 53–54,
96, 100, 102, 116, 155, 160, 248 143, 147–148, 165, 167, 262
Estado Novo, 3–4, 6, 17, 20, 59, Hinomaru (Japanese flag), 25, 34n62,
62–63, 113, 141, 169 35, 45, 47, 49–51, 55, 72, 74,
Ethiopia, 22 99, 104–105, 118, 134,
Eugenics, 20–21, 58, 67, 203, 207 138–140, 146–148, 152–154,
Extremism, 4, 11, 14, 18–20, 23, 32, 158, 160, 163, 165, 172, 174,
35, 102, 143 194, 209, 211, 214, 218, 221,
226, 252–253
Hirohito, Emperor of Japan, 5, 12–13,
F 17–18, 20, 25, 27, 29, 32, 37,
Fascism, 19, 20, 24, 30, 59, 61, 75, 43–44, 47, 55, 70, 84, 87–88,
187, 205–207 90–98, 101, 104–105, 108, 110,
See also Neo-fascist populism 114, 134, 138–139, 141, 152,
Flynn, Michael, 7 154–155, 166, 174, 185, 193,
Folha da Manhã newspaper, 141, 188 208, 214, 217, 238, 240, 248
Folha da Noite newspaper, 174, 187 See also Humanity Declaration;
Foujita, Tsuguharu “Léonard”, 37 Shōwa era
France, 37, 61, 232, 234 Hiroshima, 13, 30, 161, 189
Freyre, Gilberto, 232 Hitler, Adolf, 15–16, 59, 61, 62, 90
Fujimori, Alberto, 7 Hofstadter, Richard, 7–8, 15
Fumie, 134, 152–153, 239 Holocaust, 16
276 INDEX
Honke, Massao, 142, 145, 147, Imperial Army; Japanese

149–150, 238, 262 newspapers; Kachigumi;
Honouliuli interment camp, Makegumi; Newspapers; Radio;
33, 33n59 Tokko ̄tai (special attack unit);
Humanity Declaration, 12, 43 Tokyo; Yamato damashii
Japanese colony, see Bastos; Bilac;
Diaspora; Immigration;
I Liberdade; Marília; Santos; São
Ibirapuera Park, see Japanese Pavilion Paulo; Shindō Renmei; Tupã
Ideology (ideologues), 2, 17–21, Japanese generations, 5, 27–28, 31,
23–24, 30, 33, 59, 67, 106, 108, 52, 59, 94–95, 121–122, 128
118, 160–161, 224 See also Issei; Nisei
Ikeda, Mitsurō Antônio, 98, 118–119, Japanese newspapers, 24–25, 36–37,
145–148, 262 60–61, 70, 81, 100–101, 146,
Immigrants’ Hostel Building, 55, 209 183, 189–190, 214, 233,
Immigration, immigrants, 2–6, 9, 11, 234, 243
13–14, 17, 20–21, 23, 25, 34, See also Brasil Asahi newspaper;
36–37, 39, 44, 48, 50, 52, Burajiru Jiho ̄ newspaper;
54–61, 68–70, 72–80, 88, 98, Mainichi newspaper; Nambei
100, 102–103, 109, 117, 121, newspaper; Nippak Shimbun;
127–128, 131, 137–138, 141, Seishu ̄ Shimpo ̄ newspaper;
145, 157, 169, 174, 183–186, Yomiuri newspaper
191–192, 200, 203, 206–207, Japanese Pavilion, 1–2, 39
209, 215–217, 221, 231–235, Japantown, see Liberdade
237, 242, 248 Java, 25, 178
Imperial Army, 9, 19, 83–85, 87, 90, Jewel Voice Broadcast, 12
102, 166, 192 Jews, 15–16, 20n37, 28, 114, 117,
Imperial Rescript, 23, 93–97, 123, 129, 131, 160
100, 181–183 John Birch Society, 8
Imperial Sovereignty School, 18–19 Jornal Paulista, 36, 37n64
Internment camps, 13, 14, 26, 28, 32
Issei, 5, 17
Italy (Italian), 19, 33n59, 45, 55, 59, K
61, 64, 67, 69, 72, 74–75, Kachigumi, 2, 7, 11, 14, 17, 24, 25,
77–80, 100, 123, 207, 216, 28, 30, 33–35, 37, 81, 97–98,
223, 226 125, 137, 150, 157, 165, 169,
174, 183–188, 190, 192–193,
202, 206, 213, 220, 243, 246,
J 249, 251, 253, 255–256
Jackson, Michael D., 11 See also Victors, victory, and
Japan, see Axis Powers (and “Axis victorious faction
Subjects”); Hinomaru (Japanese Kaigai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha
flag); Hirohito, Emperor of Japan; (KKKK), 57, 100
INDEX 277
Kai-Shek, Chiang, 93, 110 Maeyama, Takashi, 4, 38, 39

Kamikaze, 80, 142, 176 Mainichi newspaper, 189
Kasato Maru, 55, 58 Makegumi, 2, 16, 34, 38, 95–101,
Kibei (Japanese-Americans educated in 124, 140–142, 145–147, 153,
Japan), 27, 30 155, 157–158, 163–164, 169,
Kikawa, Junji, 19, 83–90, 92–93, 95, 171–174, 178, 191, 193–196,
101–107, 109, 114–118, 138, 142, 201, 211, 213–214, 218, 237,
147, 157–159, 163, 211, 243, 262 246, 248–250, 256
Kikawa’s Idea, 87–88 See also Defeatists and
Koketsu, Shigueo, 44–45, 47, enlightened faction
51, 72, 261 Manzanar, 27
Kokuzoku, traitor to the nation Marighella, Carlos, 204–206
(Japan), 52, 82 Marília, 51–53, 57, 65, 81, 103–104,
Korea (Koreans), 5, 13, 21, 33n59, 130, 141–142, 152, 157, 176,
37, 101, 187, 211 209–210, 215, 219, 239, 256
Kubitschek, Juscelino, , 38, 262 Marx, Roberto Burle, 1
Ku Klux Klan (KKK), 24, 139 McLaughlin, Levi, 33n60
Kumlin, Ragnar, 179, 182–185, 189 Mello, Geraldo Cardoso de, 81, 95
Kushner, Barak, 17 Menotti del Picchia, Paulo, 139
Kyoto, 1 Miike, Takashi, 36
Minas Gerais, 58, 192, 204, 233–236
Ministry of Justice, Brazilian, 36, 60,
L 63, 76, 111, 116, 118, 190, 204,
Lauro, Paulo, 52, 219, 242, 244–245 246, 259
Leite, Aureliano, 207, 231, Miranda, Mário Botelho de, 114,
233–234, 253 116–117, 158, 187
Lesser, Jeffrey, 5, 21, 23 Miyasaka, Kunito, 101
Liberdade, 39, 72–73, 86, 103, 144, Mizobe, Ikuta, 103, 111–112, 121,
147–148, 165 128–134, 136–137, 142, 157,
Life magazine, 140, 158, 160, 216–217 239, 241
Lindbergh, Charles, 25, 123–124 Mongolia, 13
Lloyd, Frank, 21 Moore, Aaron William, 11
López-Calvo, Ignacio, 2, 3n2 Morais, Fernando, 2–4, 12, 19,
Loyalty Registration, 10, 26–27, 34–36, 38
29, 31–32 Mori, Gōiti, 169–172, 246–247
Lugosi, Bela, 22, 23 Mori, Jorge, 37
Morita, Yoshikazu Paulo, 52, 111, 141,
179, 184, 239, 246, 256–257
M Morocco, 22
MacArthur, Douglas, 12, 25, 44, Mourão Filho, Olímpio, 20
90–94, 123, 140, 154, 160, 208 Müller, Filinto, 62–63, 76
Macedo Soares, 19, 117, 137, 150, Mushino, Tarō, 135, 143, 147, 149,
171, 178–179, 181–190, 204, 206 150, 262
278 INDEX
N Nigh, William, 22
Nagasaki, 13, 30, 161, 189 Nikkei, 12, 21, 35, 37
Nakagawa, Martha, 26–27 Nippak Shimbun, 60, 102, 243
Nakamura, Kelli Y., 33 Nisei, 23–24, 26–27, 31, 36, 52, 59,
Nakane, Naka, 22 121–122, 128
Nambei bookstore, 73 Nisei Weekender, 23–24
Nambei newspaper, 60, 243 Noite newspaper, 181, 187–188
Nationalism (nationalist), 5, 13, 19, Nomura, Chūzaburō, 102, 118, 120,
22n41, 58, 82, 87–88, 97, 100, 130, 133, 137, 141,
105, 117, 139, 169, 178, 192, 146–151, 163
214, 217, 242, 256 No-No Boy, 26, 28, 31
See also Ultranationalism North America, 17
Nazism, 15–16, 19, 22, 30, 59–62, Northeast Asia, 17, 21–22
64, 76, 187, 234
Negoro, Ryōtarō, 89, 105–107,
109–110, 112, 114–115, O
117–118, 138, 155, 211, 262 O Dia, 178
Neo-fascist populism, 7, 15 Okada, John, 26–28, 30–31
Newspapers, 3, 23–25, 29, 36–37, 47, Okazaki, Jorge, 46–48, 51–52, 55,
60–61, 70, 74–75, 77–78, 81, 96, 214, 217–221
101–102, 108–109, 113, 118, Okinaka, Roberto, 1
122, 139, 141–142, 144–146, Okinawa, 13, 33n59, 123, 189
159–160, 166, 171, 174, 178, Okuhara, Mario Jun, 34–35, 34n62
181–182, 185–191, 204, 214, Oliveira, Xavier de, 58
231, 233, 239, 243–245 Onishi, Masashige, 53–54, 216, 260
See also Asahi newspaper; Brasil Onoda, Hiroo, 9
Asahi newspaper; Burajiru Jiho ̄ Opler, Morris, 27
newspaper; Diário da Noite Orient Bookstore, 73
newspaper; Diário Oficial Osvaldo Cruz, 190–191, 193–196,
newspaper; Folha da Manhã 198–202, 209, 213, 220, 246
newspaper; Folha da Noite
newspaper; Gazeta newspaper;
Japanese newspapers; Jornal P
Paulista; Nambei newspaper; Pacheco, Félix, 58
Nippak Shimbun; Nisei Pacific Movement for the Eastern
Weekender; O Dia; São Paulo World (PMEW), 22
Shimbun; Seishū Shimpo ̄ Pacific Ocean (and Pacific Islands), 13
newspaper; Tokyo Shimbun Pan-Asianism, 21
newspaper; Yomiuri newspaper Paraná, 5, 57, 109, 155, 157
New York Times, 9n14, 9n15, Patriotism, 24, 30, 33, 35, 53, 55, 71,
12n21, 23 80, 97, 102–103, 105, 108–109,
Niemeyer, Oscar, 1 111, 128, 139, 141, 145, 158,
INDEX 279
163, 166, 174, 178, 188, 192, Revolution of 1932, see Brazilian
211, 213, 216–217, 220, 227 Civil War
Paulista, 36–37, 39, 52, 56–57, 60, Rio de Janeiro, 58, 62–64, 76, 80, 99,
67, 71, 75, 79, 82, 100, 123, 124, 141, 146, 160, 178,
107–110, 112, 143, 146–147, 186, 188, 190, 203, 209, 229,
155–156, 171, 189–190, 194, 232, 234–235, 243
204, 206–207, 212, 229, Robinson, Greg, 24n44
238, 241 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 7, 62,
Paulista Synagogue, 20n37 64, 69, 76
Pearl Harbor, 22, 28, 33, 62–63 Roth, Phillip, 24
Peru, Peruvians, 7, 14, 80 Russo-Japanese War, 84, 127
Philippines (Manila), 9, 13, 123, 140,
160, 187
Portuguese, 4, 6, 20n37, 21, 44–46, S
49–51, 59, 61, 63, 65, 67–68, Sá, Edmundo Vieira, 45, 49–50, 138,
71, 87, 97, 100, 115, 127, 152, 143, 194, 211
179, 181, 183–184 Sakane, Eiiti, 48–54, 138, 194–195,
Presidente Prudente, 111, 157, 169 203, 209–213, 215, 217, 218,
Prestes, Luís Carlos, 59, 114, 189, 220, 221, 229, 239, 246, 256,
205–206, 231–233, 235 259, 262
Protocols of the Elders of Zion, 20n37 Sakura Teishin-tai, 37–38
Santos, 55–56, 77–79, 84, 98–99,
112–113, 122, 143–144, 148,
Q 205, 208–209, 237, 247
QAnon, 8 São Paulo, see Bastos; Bilac; Marília;
Queiroz, Protógenes, 35 Presidente Prudente;
Santos; Tupã
São Paulo Shimbun, 36–37, 189
R Sasaki, Kōji, 37
Race (racial democracy, racism), Schwarz, Roberto, 2
20–22, 24, 27–28, 38, 52, 58, Secret service, 20, 81, 95, 111, 117,
117, 127, 129, 187, 207, 120, 124, 137, 152, 242
231, 234 See also Department of Social and
Radio, 4, 20, 24, 28, 29, 32, 43–44, Political Order (DOPS)
69, 74–76, 80, 92, 96, 106, 109, Secret societies, 2, 4, 6, 14, 19, 21–23,
123, 128, 130, 136–138, 160, 35n62, 39n68, 47, 103,
166, 178, 189, 191–193 116–117, 134, 186–187,
Reis, Fidélis, 58 207, 229
Renunciation Act of 1944 (United Seishu ̄ Shimpō newspaper, 60
States), 32 Seleiro, Pedro Borges, 250–256
Revanchism, 6, 12, 36 Seppuku, “hara-kiri,” 90, 146, 163,
Revolution of 1930, see Brazilian 166–168, 209
Civil War See also Suicide
280 INDEX
Shigemitsu, Mamoru, 90 Third Meeting of Ministers of Foreign

Shimano, Namide, 170–172, Affairs of the American
246–248, 253, 255–256 Republics, 64, 80
Shinto, 18–19, 20n36, 44–45, 86, Time magazine, 24–25, 178
102, 109, 138 Tokko ̄tai (special attack unit), 88, 116,
Shindō Renmei, see Kachigumi; 118, 129, 136, 139, 142,
Kikawa, Junji; Negoro, Ryōtarō; 144–152, 157–158, 163,
Patriotism; Sakane, Eiiti; 165–167, 170–176, 179,
Terrorism; Tokko ̄tai (special attack 194–196, 202, 209–211, 213,
unit); Tomari, Seiichi; Wakiyama, 217–224, 226, 238,
Jinsaku; Yamato damashii; 239, 245–257
Yamauchi, Kiyo Tokyo, 21, 23, 25, 44, 57, 80, 90,
Shōwa era, 44, 95, 97–98, 129, 166 94–97, 100, 123, 158, 161, 182,
Silverberg, Miriam, 18n33 189, 248
Soares, José Lemes, 46–48, 51 Tokyo Shimbun newspaper, 190
South America, 1, 17, 29–30, 76, 208 Tomari, Seiichi, 89, 105–112, 115,
Southeast Asia, 13, 22 118, 138, 211, 243, 262
See also Borneo; Philippines; South Tomé-Açu, 79
Seas; Java Toyoyoshi Bookstore, 73
South Seas, 74 Transnational diaspora, 5, 21, 24, 29
Soviet Union, 13, 59, 93–94, 123, Treason (traitors, fifth column), 8,
124, 185, 192 10–11, 14–16, 21, 24, 29, 47,
Subjectivity, 11, 24, 36–37, 39 48, 51, 52, 55, 75, 81–82, 95,
Suicide, 31, 35n62, 90, 94, 97, 123, 101, 104, 111, 117, 131,
146–147, 150, 155, 163–167, 141–142, 145–146, 149–150,
207, 209 153, 158, 165–168, 193,
Suzuki, Masaji, 257 207, 212–218
Truman, Harry, 93, 123, 160
Trump, Donald, 6–10
T Tule Lake, 27, 31–32
Taiwan (Formosa), 13 Tupã, 44–48, 51–55, 98, 118, 122,
Takahashi, Satokata, see Nakane, Naka 130–131, 138, 141–143, 154,
Tamura, Hidekazu, 32 165, 171, 185, 194–195, 201,
Tanaka Memorial, 21 210–211, 213–220, 223–229,
Tarantino, Quentin, 36 231, 239, 242–243, 246, 256
Terrorism, 11, 18, 24–25, 31, 36, Turkey, 22
110, 138–139, 142, 152,
154–155, 159, 163, 165,
168–172, 178, 183–184, U
186–187, 190, 195, 205, 207, U-boats, German, 62, 64, 74–79, 104
213, 228, 244, 247, 249–250 Ueda, Fumio, 145, 147,
Tessaku (Barbed Wire), 27n50 149–150, 262
INDEX 281
Uesugi Shinkichi, 18 W
Ultranationalism, 18–20, 87 Wakiyama, Jinsaku, 84–85, 88,
United States, 7, 10, 13–14, 18n33, 101–106, 127, 128, 163,
21–22, 25–27, 30, 62–64, 69, 76, 165–166, 168, 238
80, 89, 93–94, 123–124, Wallace, Christopher, 8–9
160–161, 185, 194, 232 Watanabe, Tatsuo, 118, 143,
USS Missouri, 12, 90, 98, 158, 213 147–148, 238, 262
US War Department, 21 West Coast, see California
US War Relocation Authority, 26 World War I, 15, 31, 56
World War II, 2–3, 9, 11–12, 37–38,
43, 45, 47, 52, 55, 58, 61, 108,
V 117, 124, 128, 140, 145, 233
Vancouver, 14
Vargas, Getúlio, 3, 5, 7, 20–21,
58–65, 69, 75–77, 113, 128, X
161, 178, 232–233, 236, Xenophobia, 20, 67, 203, 232
242, 251
Vasconcelos, Luiz Bernardo de Godoy e,
124, 127, 134, 137 Y
Victors, victory, and victorious Yagui, Katsuo Napoleon,
factions, 2, 4–7, 11–12, 16–17, 248–252, 254
20, 24–25, 29–30, 33, 37–38, 43, Yamashiro, José, 36–37
51, 74, 80, 81, 89, 95–98, Yamato (race/people), 20
108–111, 116–117, 122–124, Yamauchi, Kiyo, 84, 89, 104–106
131, 140–142, 160–161, 165, Yamato damashii, 19, 70, 87–88,
169, 172, 174, 178, 183–188, 96–97, 103, 114, 166
193–194, 198, 204, 213, Yami no Ichinichi, 34–35
217, 237 Yomiuri newspaper, 190

(Historical and Cultural Interconnections between Latin America and Asia) Fernando Morais_ Seth Jacobowitz - Dirty Hearts_ The History of Shindō Renmei-Palgrave Macmillan (2021)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

(Historical and Cultural Interconnections between Latin America and Asia) Fernando Morais_ Seth Jacobowitz - Dirty Hearts_ The History of Shindō Renmei-Palgrave Macmillan (2021)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

(Historical and Cultural Interconnections between Latin America and Asia) Fernando Morais_ Seth Jacobowitz - Dirty Hearts_ The History of Shindō Renmei-Palgrave Macmillan (2021)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL

More information about this series at

Translated with a Critical Introduction

Historical and Cultural Interconnections between Latin America and Asia

Only Japanese words deemed unfamiliar to English or Portuguese

I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Fernando Morias for

Critical Introduction to Dirty Hearts 1

 Chapter 9: A Tokkōtai Will Be Tortured and Killed—The End

Fernando Morais (b. 1946) is a Brazilian journalist, writer, and politi-

 hapter 1: Seven Japanese Want to Decapitate a Corporal

Fig. 1.7 A group of Japanese immigrants who volunteered to

 hapter 2: Subjects of the Axis Powers Cannot Have Radios,

 hapter 3: A Little Old Man Terrorizes The Japanese Colony:

Fig. 3.4 Over a period of months, hordes of Shindō Renmei

 hapter 4: Mizobe Appears to be Swimming in the Air:

 hapter 5: The Police Discover the Fumie, the Torture That

 hapter 6: Japanese Are Hunted and Dragged Through

 hapter 7: Eiiti Sakane, The Solitary Rōnin, Prepares a Blood

 hapter 8: Prestes, Capanema, and Gilberto Freyre Take

 hapter 9: A Tokko-tai Will Be Tortured and Killed—The End

Black Swan Events

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

The frisson brought to mind literary scholar Roberto Schwarz’s notion

historical essay, novel, testimonial, and biography.”2 As indicated in the

been defeated. Taking advantage of the leadership and communications

(1901–1969),5 who became the first democratically elected governor of

associations, schools, etc.), suffered a form of ‘referential crisis.’”7 In the

Publication of this English translation of Dirty Hearts is timely for its

news, and “alternative facts.”9 These techniques have been utilized to

Politics” (1964) as a problem that transcended the particularity of a single

Onoda’s surrender took place in the presence of his former commanding

The internment of 120K American citizens of Japanese ancestry during

This blatantly false equivalency with the burgeoning sedition movement

The Japanese American Citizens League condemns any attempts to equate

Trauma and Treason in Narrative Form

The content of veterans’ memory writings, as well as their respective roles in

I would have us re-read this statement against the certitudes of Shindō

injured, sick, or seriously malnourished.”22 The extensive firebombing of

In the wake of defeat, approximately 6.5 million Japanese were stranded in

The homecomings for these veterans and settler colonists were by no

Secret Societies, Conspiracy Theories, and Fake News

undermine. Political scientist Michael Barkun pinpoints this tendency to

Conspiracy theories purport to be empirically relevant; that is, they claim to

The inherently unfalsifiable nature of conspiracy theories makes them

By adopting the aggrieved position of the victims in an existential struggle

compatriots helped purify the ideological landscape in the Japanese colony

Government by assassination was the apotheosis of extremist political

Another prominent conspiracy theory of the era was The Tanaka

independence movements in Ethiopia, Turkey, Morocco, and Southeast

also conveniently performed by Lugosi, and pursues the imposters to take

Subversive operations of Bratac, the Japanese commercial monopoly in

In presenting the dangers of a Japanese global conspiracy, whose spies

August 14, 1945, by which Japan—unfortunately—was defeated in the last

In keeping with the wartime actions of the Japanese American Citizens

had already concocted an elaborate and immersive hoax in which

Fortuitously, an article on Hirohito entitled “Rules for an Ex-God” pre-

Family and bring it in line with Japan’s new, American-written Constitution.

The Letter from São Paulo

28, asking a compound question of swearing allegiance to the United States

Critical Introduction to Dirty Hearts 1

Chapter 9: A Tokkōtai Will Be Tortured and Killed—The End

hapter 1: Seven Japanese Want to Decapitate a Corporal

hapter 2: Subjects of the Axis Powers Cannot Have Radios,

hapter 3: A Little Old Man Terrorizes The Japanese Colony:

hapter 4: Mizobe Appears to be Swimming in the Air:

hapter 5: The Police Discover the Fumie, the Torture That

hapter 6: Japanese Are Hunted and Dragged Through

hapter 7: Eiiti Sakane, The Solitary Rōnin, Prepares a Blood

hapter 8: Prestes, Capanema, and Gilberto Freyre Take

hapter 9: A Tokko-tai Will Be Tortured and Killed—The End

Olinto de França Almeida e Sá, Army Major, Superintendent of Political