When most people think of Latin Americans in Japan, their thoughts turn to Brazil. It's a fair response, Brazilians make up one of the largest groups of ethnic minorities in the country, numbering in the hundreds of thousands. As a non-Brazilian Latin American living in Japan, though, I used to wonder, what about the rest of us?
Here's a little background on me: I was born in the Dominican Republic and lived there for 11 years before my family moved to New York. I was no stranger to the stress of moving to a new city, but thanks to the huge population of Latinx immigrants there, I never truly felt like an outsider.
I came to Japan around nine months ago with absolutely no idea of what I was in for. I knew I wanted to learn the language, I knew I wanted to do well in my studies and, above all, I knew I wanted to immerse myself in the culture. The one thing I didn't know, however, was the impact my Latin American origin would have on my experience here. Although extremely nervous, I packed one too many bottles of curly-hair shampoo and hopped on the plane anyway.