worked in fishing and agriculture followed by non-professional workers, commerce, professionals and technicians. Up until the war, the treatment of Japanese in the country and their descendants had been favorable, very different than the treatment of Chinese in the country, which suffered discrimination and even expulsion in the early 20th century. The Japanese were relatively free from discrimination in Mexico, unlike the United States, Brazil and other countries in the Americas. One reason for this is that the Japanese population was not as prominent as the Chinese one in numbers and the work that they did, which included the construction of factories, bridges and other infrastructure was viewed favorably. The Japanese were not considered to be foreign exploiters, rather partners in Mexico's development because of their technical skills in fields such as medicine and engineering. In Chiapas where the earliest Japanese immigration occurred in the prior century, intermarriage was common, breaking down ethnic barriers. This has led to the end of a distinct Japanese population in the state, leaving only family names as a reminder. The official census of 1940s counts only 1,550 Japanese nationals in the country, the overwhelming majority men, although other studies put the number higher, as many as over 6,000. Even with the 6,000 figure, it pales against the number of Japanese in other countries in the Americas at the time such as the United States (285,000), Brazil (205,000), Canada (22,000) and Peru (18,000) . Japanese immigration halted by World War II to near zero, and those who were in the country were faced with restrictions and relocation after Mexico broke diplomatic ties with Japan in 1941. Japanese nationals and even those with naturalized Mexican citizenship were forced to move from areas along the Pacific coast such as Baja California, Sinaloa and Chiapas inland, with some forced into exile to Japan. The goal was to keep the Japanese in Mexico away from ports and from Mexico's border with the United States so that they could not be used as a “fifth column” by the Japanese government. Japanese nationals were forced to move to interior cities such as Puebla, Guadalajara and Cuernavaca. Most went to Mexico City and Guadalajara but there were concentrations in Guanajuato and Querétaro. It is estimated that about 1,100 people moved to Mexico City and Guadalajara alone. The Japanese community worked to buy properties to house the displaced including the former Temixco Hacienda