Japanese community of Mexico City
Many Japanese persons had moved to Mexico City in the 1940s due to wartime demands made by the Mexican government.
Multiple Japanese-Mexican associations, the Japanese embassy, the Liceo Mexicano Japonés, and other educational institutions serve the community.
[4] In 1941 the Mexican government began forcing Japanese from a zone in northern Mexico near the U.S. border and along the Pacific Ocean to move out.
[5] They were permitted to move to Guadalajara or Mexico City, so the Mexican government could more easily control them and engage in surveillance.
The Mexican government required all Japanese immigrants to move to either Guadalajara or Mexico City after it declared war against Japan in 1942,[6] and relocation began in January of that year.
There were no organizations or people who made an exact count of the internal migration, and Jerry García, author of Looking Like the Enemy: Japanese Mexicans, the Mexican State, and US Hegemony, 1897-1945, concluded that trying to determine the exact number of Japanese who settled Mexico City is "difficult".
[8] Stephen R. Niblo, author of Mexico in the 1940s: Modernity, Politics, and Corruption, stated that the decision to ask persons of Japanese descent to move to Mexico City "probably" shielded them from harm, and Mexican government officials of the era felt sympathetic towards persons of Japanese descent.
[5] The Japanese community in Mexico City housed new arrivals in a large building that they got permission to use, and they formed their own mutual aid committee,[9] the Comité Japonés de Ayuda Mutua (CJAM; "Japanese Committee of Mutual Aid").
[4] The CJAM, the sole official Japanese organization in Mexico during World War II,[3] originally located at No.
[8] In the 1940s the CJAM obtained a hacienda on 200 hectares (490 acres) of land in Temixco from Alejandro Lacy so it could house newly-arriving Japanese coming from other parts of Mexico.
[11] Officially the Japanese were allowed to leave Guadalajara and Mexico City in 1945 but many had left earlier than that to go to their prewar communities.
[16] The Asociación México Japonesa owns a cultural center, the Nichiboku Bunka Kaikan (日墨文化会館 "Mexican Japanese Cultural Center"),[14] located on land with 4.5 acres (1.8 ha) of space,[17] within the Las Águilas colonia of the Álvaro Obregón borough.
[18] The building has three stories and houses a 500 person banquet hall, meeting rooms, a Japanese restaurant, and offices.
As of 1983, the association's main source of operational funds was profits of the on-site restaurant, which made $20,000 U.S. ($61182.76 according to inflation) monthly as of that year.
[31] The Liceo Mexicano Japonés ("Japanese Mexican Lyceum") is located in the Pedregal neighborhood of the Álvaro Obregón borough in southern Mexico City.
