Japanese Peruvians
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 22,534 by self-reported ancestry according to the Peruvian National Census (2017). 200,000 have been estimated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (2023) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Lima, Trujillo, Huancayo, Chiclayo | |
| Languages | |
| Spanish • Japanese | |
| Religion | |
| Predominantly Roman Catholicism, Buddhism, Shintoism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Chinese Peruvians, Japanese Americans, Japanese Canadians, Japanese Brazilians, Asian Latinos |
Japanese Peruvians (Spanish: peruano-japonés or nipo-peruano; Japanese: 日系ペルー人, Nikkei Perūjin) are Peruvian citizens of Japanese origin or ancestry.
Peru has the second largest ethnic Japanese population in South America after Brazil. This community has made a significant cultural impact on the country, and as of the 2017 Census in Peru, 22,534 people or 0.2% of the Peruvian population self reported themselves as having Nikkei or Japanese ancestry, though the Japanese government estimates that at least 200,000 Peruvians have some degree of Japanese ancestry.
Peru was the first Latin American country to establish diplomatic relations with Japan, in June 1873. Peru was also the first Latin American country to accept Japanese immigration. The Sakura Maru carried Japanese families from Yokohama to Peru and arrived on April 3, 1899, at the Peruvian port city of Callao. This group of 790 Japanese became the first of several waves of emigrants who made new lives for themselves in Peru, some nine years before emigration to Brazil began.
Most immigrants arrived from Okinawa, Gifu, Hiroshima, Kanagawa and Osaka prefectures. Many arrived as farmers or to work in the fields but, after their contracts were completed, settled in the cities. In the period before World War II, the Japanese community in Peru was largely run by issei immigrants born in Japan. "Those of the second generation [the nisei] were almost inevitably excluded from community decision-making."