Imigração e ocupação na fronteira do tapajós: os japoneses em Monte Alegre – 1926-1962

Abstract

As soon as Dionísio Bentes assumed the paraense government command in 1925, he tried to stimulate the colonization of sertão paraense in order to become the agricultural production more dynamic. To accomplish the project, the government tried hard to attract the interest of Japan, offering for free lands for colonization. As result of this diplomatic agreement made between interested parts, from the end of 1929 the migratory process which spread until 1962 was begun, with interruption between 1937 and 1952. During almost three decades, about 1.600 families have disembarked in the paraense port. Most of them fixed in Pará state, forming a significant community of immigrants and their descendants. This paper is about the process which led the migration, construction of the way of life in Amazônia and rework of identity in the new environment. The main approach is Monte Alegre city colonization, in Baixo-Amazonas paraense, although it also refers to other localities in Pará and Amazônia. The analysis involves an effort to argue as much the colonizing process as the exercise in the construction of memory by the immigrants.