On a cold morning in Ueda, Nagano Prefecture, Sandra Takayama, then 10 years old, stood at the gates of her new school, unable to speak even the most basic Japanese. She had arrived in her new home with a Japanese surname and ancestry but little sense of what life in this otherwise unfamiliar country would hold.
Born in Lima, Peru, Takayama came to Japan with her mother in 1998. As a third-generation Nikkei — the term for descendants of Japanese living abroad — she had grown up hearing about her heritage but never imagined what living in Japan would actually feel like.
Like thousands of other Peruvians, her mother hoped a Japanese name would unlock opportunity and a better future for her daughter in Japan. She left behind her office job in Lima and began working in a factory in Nagano Prefecture.
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