Japanese diaspora in the context of "Latin American"

Japanese (日本語, Nihongo; [ɲihoŋɡo] ) is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people. It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide.

The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language. There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as Ainu, Austronesian, Koreanic, and the now discredited Altaic, but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance.

Japanese people (Japanese: 日本人, Hepburn: Nihonjin; IPA: [ɲihoɲdʑiꜜɴ]) are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Japanese archipelago. Japanese people constitute 97.1% of the population of the country of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 125 million people are of Japanese descent, making them one of the largest ethnic groups. Approximately 119.9 million Japanese people are residents of Japan, and there are approximately five million members of the Japanese diaspora, known as Nikkeijin (日系人).

In some contexts, the term "Japanese people" might be used to refer specifically to the Yamato people, who are primarily from the historically principal islands of Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku and constitute by far the largest group. In other contexts, the term could include other groups native to the Japanese archipelago, including Ryukyuan people, who share connections with the Yamato but are often regarded as distinct, and Ainu people. In recent decades, there has also been an increase in the number of people with both Japanese and non-Japanese roots, including those who are half Japanese.

Japanese Brazilians (Japanese: 日系ブラジル人, Hepburn: Nikkei Burajiru-jin; Portuguese: Nipo-brasileiros, [ˌnipobɾaziˈle(j)ɾus]) are Brazilian citizens who are nationals or naturals of Japanese ancestry or Japanese immigrants living in Brazil or Japanese people of Brazilian ancestry. Japanese immigration to Brazil peaked between 1908 and 1960, with the highest concentration between 1926 and 1935. In 2022, Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that there were 2 million Japanese descendants in Brazil, making it the country with the largest population of Japanese origin outside Japan. However, in terms of Japanese citizens, Brazil ranked seventh in 2023, with 46,900 Japanese citizens. Most of the Japanese-descendant population in Brazil has been living in the country for three or more generations and most only hold Brazilian citizenship. Nikkei is the term used to refer to Japanese people and their descendants.

Japanese immigration to Brazil officially began on June 18, 1908, when the ship Kasato Maru docked at Porto de Santos, bringing 781 Japanese workers to the coffee plantations in the São Paulo state countryside. For this reason, June 18 was established as the national day of Japanese immigration. Immigration to Brazil ceased by 1973, with the arrival of the last immigrant ship, the Nippon Maru. Between 1908 and 1963, 242,171 Japanese immigrants arrived in Brazil, making them the fifth-largest immigrant group after Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, and German immigrants. Currently, most Japanese Brazilians live in the states of São Paulo and Paraná.

East Asian people (also East Asians) comprise a wide variety of ethnic groups from East Asia, which consists of China, Japan, Mongolia, Hong Kong, Macau, Korea, and Taiwan. The total population of all countries within this region is estimated to be 1.677 billion and 21% of the world's population in 2020. However, large East Asian diasporas, such as the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Mongolian diasporas, as well as diasporas of other East Asian ethnic groups, mean that the 1.677 billion does not necessarily represent an accurate figure for the number of East Asian people worldwide.

The major ethnic groups that form the core of traditional East Asia are the Han Chinese, Koreans, and Yamato. Other ethnic groups of East Asia include the Ainu, Bai, Daur, Manchus, Mongols, Qiang, Ryukyuans, and Tibetans.

Nisei (二世, "second generation") is a Japanese-language term used in countries in North America and South America to specify the ethnically Japanese children born in the new country to Japanese-born immigrants, or Issei. The Nisei, or second generation, in turn are the parents of the Sansei, or third generation. These Japanese-language terms derive from ichi, ni, san, "one, two, three", the ordinal numbers used with sei (see Japanese numerals). Though nisei means "second-generation immigrant", it more specifically often refers to the children of the initial diaspora, occurring during the period of the Empire of Japan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and overlapping in the U.S. with the G.I. and silent generations.