http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/busin … d=1&hpRita Yamaoka, a recently jobless mother of three, faces a heart-wrenching decision. The Japanese government has offered to pay thousands of dollars to fly her family home to Brazil.
But if she takes the money, Mrs. Yamaoka and her husband, Sergio — a Brazilian national of Japanese descent — must agree not to seek work in Japan again.
The repatriation offer is part of a new drive to encourage Japan’s sizable pool of Latin American factory workers to leave the recession-wracked country.
Japan’s repatriation offer is limited to the country’s Latin American guest workers, whose Japanese parents and grandparents emigrated to Brazil and neighboring countries a century ago to work on coffee plantations.
In 1990, Japan — facing growing industrial labor shortage — started issuing thousands of special work visas to descendants of these emigrants. An estimated 366,000 Brazilians and Peruvians now live in Japan.
Well at least you aren't being deported.