THE LOYAL AND FAITHFUL EXECUTIVE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE NOMURA GROUP IN BRAZIL

BIOGRAPHY OF MASAAKI KIMURA by his descendants.

Immigration to Brazil

Born on October 8th, 1908, in the city of Sakaide, Kagawa-ken Prefecture, on the coast of the Seto Inland Sea, Shikoku Island.

His parents were SADANOSHIN KIMURA and AKI KIMURA, who had five sons (TOSHIO, YOSHIKAZU, MASAAKI, TADAHARU and SHIGUEYOSHI) and two daughters (ITOYE and TOYOMI).

They arrived in Santos - Brazil on March 27, 1925, after more than 60 days of travel aboard the ship CANADA MARU. They traveled together with the family of TAIZO OKADA and MOTO OKADA with their four sons (SHOHEI, YOSHITERU, MOTOICHI and KAORU) and two daughters (SATSU and FUMIKO)

They came officially with the support of the Japanese Government, which at the time encouraged immigration.

However, differing from most Japanese immigrants, they came with the intention of helping Mr. SADANOSHIN's younger brother, HAJIME KIMURA, married to SAKI, the eldest daughter of TAIZO OKADA's family.

Hajime, who was already living in Brazil, wrote to his family in Japan, saying that he had “bought” a farm in the municipality of Gavião Peixoto in the Araraquara Region, State of São Paulo.

Arriving at the farm, they discovered that it had not yet been paid for and the business had to be undone, as the family immigrated without money. Unable to return to Japan, they finally decided to venture out as pioneers in the colonization of new lands in the north of Paraná.

Note: The north of the state of Paraná was one of the last frontiers for the expansion of coffee agriculture, receiving immigrants from the State of São Paulo. 1925 was the year the Companhia de Terras Norte do Paraná was founded, the former name of the current Companhia Melhoramentos Norte do Paraná. Following the English model of rural subdivision, the company opened the railway along the spit and founded cities every ten or fifteen kilometers. In July 1930, the São Paulo - Paraná Railway Company opened a railway station three kilometers from the Invernada heritage site, which became known as Bandeirantes, due to the pioneers found here, and a village then emerged close to the station.

On September 27, 1931, coalition work began in favor of the station's progress. A year later, at the end of 1932, the two villages were unified and the city of Bandeirantes was founded on November 14, 1934.

Masaaki, then 17 years old, informed his family of his decision to remain in São Paulo to study while living in a boarding house. Without speaking Portuguese, he bought a Japanese-Portuguese dictionary to communicate.

He graduated in accounting from the traditional Álvares Penteado School of Commerce. After finishing his studies, he went to meet his family who were in the Bandeirantes-PR region, where they all worked as farmers, pioneer colonizers of the region.

In 1933, Masaaki married Fumiko Okada, at the Bandeirantes registry office, at the time still belonging to the Jacarezinho District, forming the fourth couple between the Kimura and Okada families.

The couple had four children: Dirce (19/04/1936), Satosy (25/12/1938), Silvio Tetsuya (12/06/1942), Sergio Sadao (01/07/1945). All born in the house where they lived on Nomura Farm.

Nomura Farm

“Mr. Tokushichi Nomura, founder of the largest securities brokerage in Japan, Nomura Securities Co., Ltd., was the man who created the economic conglomerate that bears his name, and which was also successful in economic activities carried out abroad, before the Second World War. In 1925, an acquaintance of his who had a relationship with Brazil told him about Japanese immigration to this country, which aroused great interest in him. He researched the possibilities of investing in Brazil and concluded that the investment was in accordance with Japanese immigration policy and also served as a stimulus to members of the "Japanese Colony" that was being formed in the country.

He decided to invest in Brazil, taking resources from his personal fortune, worth 1 million yen in the currency of the time. He hired and sent a competent agronomist to Bandeirantes, in the north of Paraná, and began planting coffee, establishing the Nomura Farm, which still thrives today in that location. With 70 years of history, more than 800,000 planted coffee trees and also caring for livestock, it has become one of the model farms in the region.”

Source: CARDOSO, Ruth Corrêa Leite. Thesis (doctorate) University of São Paulo, Family structure and social mobility. São Paulo, 1972.

In 1930 at the age of 22, Masaaki took on the position of Managing Director of Nomura Farm, to assist Mr. Shigeru Ushikusa, the General Manager envoy of the Nomura family.

WAR AND ADMINISTRATIVE INTERVENTION

During the period of World War II, Nomura Farm was under government intervention

Federal Government of Brazil for 10 years (1942 to 1952). Intervention or confiscation of land on properties

of foreigners were common facts at that time. At the end of the intervention, there was a period of hard work in the administrative and financial reorganization of the farm.

During this period, Mr. Shigeru Ushikusa was forced to leave the farm and went to live in Cambará, setting up a boarding house for students, while Masaaki Kimura defended the interests of the Nomura family with the interveners.

After the federal intervention ended, Masaaki and the Japanese officials went to labor court asking for compensation for the period of intervention and won for 14 families who lived on the farm. Masaaki brought the families together and warned that if they divided the compensation, the resulting amount would not be enough to solve each family's problems. He then proposed the purchase of a neighboring farm which, through agricultural activities, he would have the main responsibility to cover the studies of all members' children from the 4th year of primary school to college, in the best schools, anywhere in the country.

Thus, Fazenda Santa Terezinha was acquired, which has always fulfilled the commitments made for the education of its children. Over the years, the partners sold their shares until two remained: Masaaki Kimura and Yoshiteru Okada, the last being a director of the company since the beginning.

OTHER IMPORTANT FACTS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

1935: Masaaki Kimura was one of the founders of the Bandeirantes Cultural and Sports Association – ACEB. For many years he was its President and one of his greatest contributions was the construction of accommodation to receive the children of farmers who lived on farms in the region, to continue their studies in the city, as rural schools only taught up to the 3rd year of primary school.

1947: Participated in the founding of the Northern Paraná Sports League, through ACEB.

1957: Mr. Masaaki Kimura and Mrs. Fumiko Kimura became naturalized Brazilians.

1958: he was awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of Bandeirantes. Later, in 1972, he received the same title in the neighboring municipality of Santa Amélia.

1959 to 1962: he held a legislative position as Councilor of the municipality of Bandeirantes, where he prepared and approved several administrative and financial projects.

1964: Masaaki and Fumiko Kimura had the opportunity to return to Japan for the first time. During the trip, they visited Mexico, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Hawaii and the World Expo in New York. In Japan, they went to visit their homeland and attended the Tokyo Olympic Games.

1966: After the decentralization of the Cotia Agricultural Cooperative, which until the mid-nineties was the largest Cooperative in the country, he was elected General Director of the Northern Paraná Regional, based in Londrina.

EXCELLENCE IN COFFEE

One of Masaaki Kimura's greatest prides was having implemented modern agricultural and administrative techniques in coffee production, which made Nomura Farm achieve excellence in coffee production.

Hiring specialists in coffee, Law and Agronomy; the creation of fields for technical trials and agronomic experiments; the construction of a physical-chemical analysis laboratory, in addition to other unprecedented measures at the time, made Nomura Farm position itself at the scientific, technological and administrative forefront within national coffee farming. Important coffee organizations, such as the Brazilian Coffee Institute – IBC, have adopted the methods used by Fazenda Nomura as a quality reference.

In favor of the development of the entire sector, Fazenda Nomura made its structure and knowledge available through the provision of services to coffee growers and anyone who wanted to learn. Exchange agricultural engineers from several Brazilian states and also from other countries such as Paraguay, Argentina, Japan and others, came to Fazenda Nomura interested in learning modern techniques applied there.

Nomura Farm was also a pioneer in wheat planting in Paraná, so much so that Fernando Costa, Minister of Agriculture and Manoel Ribas, intervenor/governor of Paraná, came to the wheat festival in 1938. The farm, which in the beginning was a peroba forest and canelinhas, became a reference, a school for agronomists from various parts of the world, partly thanks to the vision and management skills of Masaaki Kimura.

Many settlers, tenant workers at Nomura Farm, became owners of their own land after a few years of leasing. In 1976, the farm had more than 300 families (1,500 people) working, living, enjoying its improvements and structures such as primary school, doctor, pharmacy, warehouse, social and sports club, church and football field. The primary school provided lunch and all school materials, also serving children from neighboring farms.

In 1972, Masaaki Kimura was appointed President of the Board of Administration and Education of the Faculty of Agronomy Luiz Meneghel in Bandeirantes.

* Published on Special Edition of Paraná Shimbun in 1976.

The translation of this publication into Japanese was one of the last requests made by Mrs. Fumiko Kimura, to be distributed to each of her grandchildren. The translation was done by Denys and his wife Azusa, who took the opportunity to complement and update some data.

ORDER OF THE RISING SUN

In 1979, he returned to Japan for the second time, to receive a commendation, the Order of the Rising Sun, awarded by the Imperial family, for Japanese people living abroad, and who provided relevant services to Japanese immigrants.

In 1983, he returned to Japan for the third time for the inauguration ceremony of the Seto Sea Bridge, which connects his homeland, Sakaide, to the island of Honshu.

FAMILY

Mrs. Fumiko Kimura, (11/17/1914), was an artist who produced more than 200 paintings embroidered in silk threads, whose art she learned at Nomura Farm itself, through Mrs. Ushikusa, who taught this art to the ladies from the farm. Mrs. Fumiko's paintings became so well known that they were the subject of several exhibitions, special reports in newspapers and television in the State of Paraná. Despite receiving several financial proposals to sell her paintings, she never sold a single painting, but gave gifts to relatives, friends and especially her children and grandchildren, some embroidered especially for them.