Japanese Peru

According to a theory popularized early this century, wayward Japanese fishermen landed on South America's Pacific shore in the 1400s and stayed to start a dynasty that ruled the Andes. Manco Capac, the legendary founding father of the great Inca Empire, was said to have been an immigrant from Japan posing as a god.

Fifty-six years after Art Shibayama and his family were forcibly brought to the United States from Peru and placed in a Texas internment camp, he vows to continue his battle to right the wrong committed by the U.S. government against hundreds like him. "I am very tired," said Shibayama, 69, Monday at a news conference at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo, "but I have no choice but to continue." Shibayama and members of two other Japanese American families were on hand as Rep.

Alberto Fujimori sat in his living room and watched himself star on the evening news: driving his tractor unannounced into the poorest of Peru's slums and then, from atop his "Fujimobile," berating Peru's oligarchy before a cheering throng. The bespectacled university administrator was buoyant as he noted high points in the replay of his campaign rally a few hours earlier. And he was not the least bit surprised by its success.

Activists fighting for redress for Peruvians of Japanese descent who were deported from Latin America and forced into U.S. prison camps during World War II announced Wednesday the launch of a campaign to put pressure on the government to make a formal apology and offer reparations. The "Campaign for Justice" was announced by Robin Toma, a civil rights attorney representing three Japanese Peruvians in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court.

Fifty-six years after Art Shibayama and his family were forcibly brought to the United States from Peru and placed in a Texas internment camp, he vows to continue his battle to right the wrong committed by the U.S. government against hundreds like him. "I am very tired," said Shibayama, 69, Monday at a news conference at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo, "but I have no choice but to continue." Shibayama and members of two other Japanese American families were on hand as Rep.

Activists fighting for redress for Peruvians of Japanese descent who were deported from Latin America and forced into U.S. prison camps during World War II announced Wednesday the launch of a campaign to put pressure on the government to make a formal apology and offer reparations. The "Campaign for Justice" was announced by Robin Toma, a civil rights attorney representing three Japanese Peruvians in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court.

Alberto Fujimori, agronomy professor and former university president, is an example of how the hard-working children of poor Japanese immigrants have made this impoverished country their land of opportunity. But Fujimori's spectacular emergence as the favored candidate for Peru's presidency goes far beyond the well-known pattern of Nisei success. Peruvian media are calling it the Fujimori phenomenon.

People cried "Banzai!" and relatives laid out a meal of seafood and rice wine when Peruvian President-elect Alberto Fujimori returned Wednesday to his family's ancestral home, the sleepy Japanese town of Kawachi. "It was an emotional and sentimental visit," said Fujimori, an ethnic Japanese whose parents left this town early in the century to seek a better life across the Pacific.

Bogged down in political struggles, sometimes against the opposition Republican Party and sometimes against his fellow Democrats, President Clinton has not devoted much time or energy to getting the North American Free Trade Agreement through Congress. Last week he said this will change, which is reassuring. For if NAFTA is rejected, the repercussions could be severe both for this country and Latin America.

The police came to take the family away--a husband and wife and four children, each allowed to pack one suitcase. The family land, including a cotton plantation, was lost forever. Placed on a ship, guarded by soldiers with machine guns, they sailed across an ocean to an internment camp. The camp was in Crystal City, Texas. And the soldiers with the doughboy helmets who took Alicia Nishimoto and her family from Peru were members of the U.S. Army. It is a little-known, dark chapter in U.S.

According to a theory popularized early this century, wayward Japanese fishermen landed on South America's Pacific shore in the 1400s and stayed to start a dynasty that ruled the Andes. Manco Capac, the legendary founding father of the great Inca Empire, was said to have been an immigrant from Japan posing as a god.

Alberto Fujimori sat in his living room and watched himself star on the evening news: driving his tractor unannounced into the poorest of Peru's slums and then, from atop his "Fujimobile," berating Peru's oligarchy before a cheering throng. The bespectacled university administrator was buoyant as he noted high points in the replay of his campaign rally a few hours earlier. And he was not the least bit surprised by its success.

Alberto Fujimori, agronomy professor and former university president, is an example of how the hard-working children of poor Japanese immigrants have made this impoverished country their land of opportunity. But Fujimori's spectacular emergence as the favored candidate for Peru's presidency goes far beyond the well-known pattern of Nisei success. Peruvian media are calling it the Fujimori phenomenon.

HIP-HOP. Solo performance. Traditional masterpieces. Multimedia, musicals and more. This is the face of Asian American theater, which isn't just stories about angst from a racial point of view anymore. As demographics change, so do artistic forms and cultural taste. Nowhere is this more evident than in the variety of work being created by new immigrant groups and established Asian American theater companies nationwide.

Commandos stormed the diplomatic compound Tuesday where leftist rebels were holding 72 captives, ending Latin America's longest such standoff with a daring daylight attack that liberated 71 hostages and left one dead, along with two soldiers and all the rebels. The raid by 140 commandos of the Peruvian marines, navy and army began at 3:20 p.m. at the residence of the Japanese ambassador.