is a Japanese-language term used by ethnic Japanese in countries in North America and South America to specify the Japanese people who were the first generation to immigrate there. are born in Japan; their children born in the new country are (, "two", plus , "generation"); and their grandchildren are (, "three", plus , "generation"). The character and uniqueness of the is recognized in their social history. History The earliest organized group of Japanese emigrants settled in Mexico in 1897. In the 21st century, the four largest populations of diaspora Japanese and descendants of Japanese immigrants in the Western Hemisphere live in Brazil, the United States, Canada, and Peru. Brazilian Brazil is home to the largest ethnic Japanese population outside Japan, numbering an estimated more than 1.5 million (including those of mixed-race or mixed-ethnicity), more than that of the 1.2 million in the United States. The Japanese Brazilians are an important part of Asian ethnic minorities in Brazil. American The first members of the emigrated not directly to the mainland United States, but to Hawaii. These emigrants—the first of whom arrived on board the steamship City of Tokio in February 1885—were common laborers escaping hard times in Japan to work in Hawai'i. Their immigration was subsidized by the Hawaiian government, as cheap labor was needed for important commodity crops, especially its sugar plantations. Numerous Japanese eventually settled in Hawaii. Emigration of Japanese directly to the mainland began in 1885, when "student-laborers" landed on the West Coast of the United States. The earliest of these emigrated to San Francisco. Their numbers continually increased in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Their purpose in moving to America was to gain advanced knowledge and experience to develop the modern society at home. Both students and laborers were attracted by the image of the United States as a country that welcomed foreigners. When they first arrived in the U.S., they had not intended to live there permanently, but rather to learn from Americans and to take that knowledge back home. While they encountered discrimination, they also made opportunities, and many settled in California, and later in Washington and Oregon as well as Alaska (to a lesser degree). Canadian Within Japanese-Canadian communities across Canada, like their American counterparts, three distinct subgroups developed, each with different socio-cultural referents, generational identity, and wartime experiences. The narrative of Japanese-Canadians include post-Pearl Harbor experiences of uprooting, incarceration, and dispersal