The Cuban government first sought to recruit Japanese workers into sugar plantations in the 1880s, but the Japanese government refused to give approval on the grounds of the terrible working conditions of Chinese workers in Cuba.
The first larger group of arrivals came from Mexico between 1910 and 1916, which would set a pattern for later decades, who were fleeing violence during the Mexican Revolution.
Some made it to the Isle of Youth, where some families established fruit and vegetable farms.
A few days later, on December 12, all Japanese descendants living in Cuba were declared "enemy aliens".
In 2008, the Japanese government conferred the Order of the Rising Sun with gold and silver rays on Francisco Shinichi Miyasaka Machida in recognition of his contribution to the welfare of the descendants of Japanese emigrants in Cuba.