Japanese Migration Patterns to Mexico: Settler Colonialism and Corporate Mobility

Abstract

This article describes two distinct periods in the migratory flow of the Japanese to Mexico under the framework of settler colonialism. A historical review revealed that some agriculture colonies were formed by the Japanese in the south of Mexico with the goal to settle those lands. This was possible thanks to inter-governmental agreements in the early 1900s. Recently, the migration flow of the Japanese to Mexico is due to corporate mobility, mainly in the Bajío region in Mexico where many Japanese automakers are located. The implications of both types of immigration in both regions are described as part of this research. This research contributes to the understanding of migration flows and mobility patterns of the Japanese in Mexico.

1. Introduction

In the main cities of the Bajío region in Mexico, large signs written in Hiragana welcome the Japanese. There are also medical service signs in Hiragana. Moreover, in some restaurants in Guanajuato, notices inform about the obligation to leave a tip for a service; this is not customary in Japan. Furthermore, the municipal governments of the Bajío region aim to design and release a version of official web platforms in Hiragana. These facts reveal that the presence of the Japanese community in this Mexican region is strong, especially in economic terms, as well as socially and culturally. Recently, in the context of the development of the global economy, emphasis has been placed on the temporary migration of skilled workers from transnational and multinational companies, which is known as corporate mobility, which is a new migration pattern.

In contrast to corporate mobility, one century ago, in the Mexican state of Chiapas, the first Japanese migration flow to Mexico was registered. However, the Japanese immigrants worked in the farms and agriculture; therefore, they did not influence the region to the extent of having large signs written in Hiragana. This flow from the 20th century is commonly referred to as settler colonialism and it has its unique characteristics.

Japanese migration is the result of various economic and political processes originated by the contexts of the departure and destination places. In a schematic way, we distinguish two general patterns of migration that occurred during the 20th century. First, migration originating from economically impoverished places, places maintaining political-social conflicts, and sometimes places with environmental deterioration. All this leads to the accelerated mobility of the population through expulsion to overcome unfavorable living conditions. This migration was driven by Japanese state policy and is also referred to as settler colonialism (Lu 2022). Second, there is corporative mobility in the globalization framework through the organization of multinational companies, via the flow of foreign investments labelled as direct investment. These two types of migration are historically observed during the 20th century in the Japanese migration to Mexico.

Most migration studies focused their attention on the process of emigration and immigration derived from expulsion for various reasons (Sassen 2015). This process has been extensively documented in multiple social, economic, and ecological aspects. However, there are no studies of migration from the perspective of settler colonialism and corporate mobility from the point of view of the expansion of transnational economies in the global framework. Studies on the mobility of international workers under the scheme of temporary business migration, which includes visitors, intracompany transfers, professionals, traders, and investors, are not prevalent in the literature. This topic is relevant given that globalized production systems accentuate mobility. This is the case with the direct investment made by automobile companies in Mexico, which has been concentrated in the Mexican Bajío region, as this production model implies the mobility of international workers from Japan.

This article describes two distinct periods in the migratory flow of the Japanese to Mexico under the framework of settler colonialism. The first flow examined was in the 19th century when the Japanese created agricultural settlements in Chiapas and the second flow was the corporate mobility due to the automotive industry in the geographical region of the Mexican Bajío, which included the States of Aguascalientes, Jalisco, Guanajuato, Michoacan, and Queretaro shown in the map in Figure 1. Both flows had similarities because they were caused by intergovernmental agreements and differed in the effects on the local population.

2. The Settler Colonialism Pattern as a State Policy and Economic Expansion in the Early 20th Century

The concept of settler colonialism is part of the historical studies of imperialism and colonialism. The latter is a political category that refers to the imposition of foreign ways of living and thinking in conquered territories. Settlements can be small settlements, cities, or parts of countries. These various sizes of settlements have been the subject of study of colonialism, for example, Sánchez and Pita (2014) analyzed the case of Israel’s colonization of Palestine recorded in 1948 and the United States settlement in northern Mexico in 1848. Other studies investigated Japanese colonialist settlements in Korea and Manchuria (Elkins and Pedersen 2005). In this article, the concept of settler colonialism is limited to settlements in small geographic areas because of economic relations between two countries that give rise to economic relations between countries.

Settler colonialism is the result of the expansion of the capitalist production model, with its definition encompassing various dimensions: the main one consists of the establishment of power relations between nation states to undertake specific economic projects. In the current stage of globalization, these relations, which are expressed in economic and trade agreements, preferentially cover the interests of global companies. The location of colonial settlements is related to the exploitation of natural resources or the location of labor. This situation, in the case of Japan, is clearly seen in the colonial agricultural settlements of the early 20th century in the southern part of Mexico.

The next dimension of the concept of colonial settlement consists of the occupation of a territory by a group of foreigners, which generates diverse forms of relations with the local population. Traditionally, the relations of confrontation between the colonizers and the indigenous populations have been emphasized. However, in the globalization phase, relations are marked by the economic, social, and cultural hybridization of the foreign and local populations.

Finally, another dimension of the concept is the length of stay of the foreign population. The population that forms the settler colonialism is either permanent or temporary. In the first case, they are immigrants who become permanent residents. In the second case, we refer to expats that moved due to work. In addition, settler colonialism favors a flow of mobility of the foreign population, an example of which is transitory or tourist mobility because in some cases, family members visit other family members who moved away temporarily for work.

Settler colonialism as a pattern of migratory flow consists in the settlement of foreign individuals in specific local lands with the objective of expanding the foreign outreach. In this case, the foreign (ejector) government and local government are involved and in mutual agreement. The ejector government considers population export as a fundamental necessity in economic expansion. Therefore, the ejector government plans and promotes migration to fulfill its economic and political expansion. Concretely, an economic and social organization is developed to mobilize the impoverished population to other regions to improve their quality of life.

Japanese migration and emigration historically stem from economic cycles and settler colonialism policies. From the end of the 19th century, two clear stages of Japanese migration to Mexico can be discerned. The first was the period of agricultural opening and the policy of settlement in the southeast of Mexico at the end of the 19th century, which identifies the moment when Japanese migration to Mexico began. The second stage was the Japanese expansion under the modality of forming productive colonies (Tovar González 2006).

The first stage of Japanese migration to Mexico was the opening of the agricultural sector and the policy of settling the Mexican southeast. The model of Japanese migration to Mexico at the end of the 19th century is unique and can be termed as entrepreneurial–agricultural under the colonist modality. This colonist model is different from the Japanese migratory experience toward the United States or Brazil because the significant flow of Japanese mobility, in the case of Brazil, occurred under labor contracted to work on coffee farms (Lesser 2003; Cintra 1971; Lu 2022).

The independent Mexican government of the 19th century considered foreign im-migration as a solution for the colonization and settlement of certain unoccupied parts of the national territory. Colonization was the remedy against the economic and demographic problems of the country, such as the delay in agricultural techniques, the lack of population in various places, and the transformation of traditional Mexican society with the presence of a foreign population (Martínez Rodríguez 2010). The independent governments approved various laws for the alienation of vacant lands, and in 1863, the Law of Occupation and Alienation of Vacant Lands was enacted. Other laws were promulgated in 1875, 1883, and 1894. The general objective was to establish productive colonies of foreigners. Therefore, a strong flow of immigration went to Soconusco, Chiapas, which included Germans, Chinese, Japanese, and North Americans.

In 1888, the first treaty between Mexico and Japan was signed, initiating diplomatic relations, which remained in effect until 1924. The Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation between Mexico and the Empire of Japan establishes in Article IV the privilege of entering, remaining, and residing in the entire territory. It also included the right to rent and occupy houses and warehouses in the country; to trade all kinds of legal commercial products, manufactures, and merchandise; and finally, to undertake and continue all other legal occupations (Ota Mishima 1976).

The policy of territorial expansion through the formation of colonies was sponsored by Japan’s protectionist measures. In the 19th century, as international companies sought labor for construction and agricultural projects, the Japanese government oversaw the emigration process and working conditions with colonization in mind: “To establish Japanese colonies through the purchase of extensive vacant lands that the Mexican government offered for colonization purposes” (Tovar González 2006). Thus, Mexico is recognized as one of the first destinations for Japanese migration to Latin America.

This type of migration combined, on the one hand, Japan’s expansive interest, which ventured into spaces controlled by the new Western nations with the foreign settlement policies of the Mexican governments, and on the other hand, the demographic growth and difficult economic situation in Japan led the Japanese government to open up to the outside world (Tovar González 2006). Particularly in Mexico, the mobility of Japanese workers occurred under the auspices of the governments of Mexico and Japan through the latter’s acquisition of agricultural land. Thus, Japanese migrants became colonizers with the character of agricultural businessmen.

In 1897, a project to establish a Japanese colony in Chiapas was realized. Viscount Takeiki Enomoto, a former Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Japan, organized a colonization company for migrants to Mexico. He negotiated with Porfirio Díaz (President of Mexico, between the years 1876 and 1911) the contract of sale and colonization of 65,000 hectares located near the Cintalapa River. The agreement was signed on 29 January 1897, between the Mexican and Japanese governments, setting the price at MXN 1.55 per hectare. That year, the first 36 Japanese colonists arrived, coming from the port of Yokohama to the port of Chiapas. In Acacoyagua, in the Soconusco area of Chiapas, the Enomoto Colony was formed for agricultural exploitation. However, the first generation of Japanese colonists failed in their attempt to cultivate coffee and this generation of immigrants divided, where some moved to the center of the country, and only 13 migrants remained in the Sononusco area. Following this failure, in 1901, Viscount Enomoto transferred his rights over the colony to Tatsujiro Fujino. The new colony, keeping the original name, acquired 1315 hectares, dedicating itself to agriculture and livestock. In this second wave, 15 Japanese families participated.

In 1908, Japanese migration moved to other areas of Mexico, Peru, and Guatemala (Tovar González 2006), and in 1931, the Confederation of Japanese Associations of the Mexican Republic was created. After 120 years, in 2017, the first arrival of the Japanese in Mexican territory was celebrated in Acacoyagua. The organization was led by the Enomoto Association of the State of Chiapas with the participation of the Nikkei community of Latin America.

3. The Pattern of Corporate Worker Mobility in the Early 21st Century: Japanese Case

The pattern of corporate mobility includes several components, such as the migration of highly skilled individuals; the migration of students; and the migration of multinational corporation’s employees, also commonly known as expatriates. The migration of expatriates follows the company structure and objectives, and the company is the one that defines and plans the mobility of their specialized workers under the working conditions of each corporation to enhance global production. Expatriates are a modality of Japanese labor migration derived from the global production model of multinational companies. This type of migration has particularities because it is the result of direct foreign investment, which implies, in a planned manner by corporations, the mobility of capital, labor, and employees. Therefore, in this article, we group this mobility under the term of corporate mobility.

Corporate mobility finds its clear expression in the reorganization of production in the sixties. The consolidation of the transnational model led to the formation of specialized companies aimed at providing services to the parent company, as well as to other companies. In these new companies, qualified personnel from various countries were hired, who were referred to as expatriates. This mobility of workers from around the world opened the door to the structuring of a corporate-type migration process that acquired various dimensions: (A) concentration of international workers in specialized companies in various countries, and (B) migration of workers from the multinational parent company to its branches around the world, for example, the mobility of Japanese workers from Japanese automotive companies from Japan to Mexico. Studies on Japanese expatriates and their work practices focused on disparate countries: Scotland (Wright et al. 2001), Malaysia (Wilkinson et al. 2001), Thailand (Shibata 2008; Michinobu 2009; Sakai et al. 2008), Mexico and the United Kingdom (Lowe et al. 2000), and Hong Kong (Kitamura 2016).

The concept of expatriates has two aspects, according to studies on Japanese mobility: the self-initiated who seek employment on their own initiative, for example, in business and academia (Birchley 2016). On the other hand, there are the so-called assigned expatriates, who are workers placed by companies in their subsidiaries, which means the mobilization of skilled workers from the home countries of multinational companies to perform specialized tasks in the production process in various countries. Studies on expatriates focused on aspects of their transcultural experiences of Japanese in the United States of America (Komisarof 2009). For example, the role of emotions in intercultural experiences was analyzed, as they affect international adjustment and the training process (Gullekson and Dumaisnil 2016). Furthermore, there is ongoing academic concern about intercultural communication and local linguistic patterns versus the language of the Japanese (Wright et al. 2001).

The elements that create the conditions for the reproduction of corporate migration are, first, bilateral trade agreements. Second, there is the action of local governments that favor the formation of the corporate community. This requires the installation of local diplomatic offices in the form of consulates, and the incorporation of a foreign language into local life, such as the formation of local labor resources through hybridization in the educational system and ethnic shops as corporate communities demand ethnic products.

The term revolving around corporate temporary labor migration in the Japanese case is “kaigai chuuzai in”, which is comprised of middle-class professionals with expectations of mobility and temporary residence outside of Japan. They are the workers assigned in a foreign country at all levels of Japanese corporations within global interests. This term covers the situation of being assigned abroad. As such, it becomes a significant experience for the worker and their family. It includes businessmen, blue-collar technicians, and corporate workers who are assigned and reassigned back to Japan or relocated to other countries. A particular type of Japanese worker abroad is the Shosha man (Laborde 2015). They are employees of Japanese trading companies operating under the Sogo Shosha operational model. These companies promote and increase trade and the flow of Japanese investments. Sogo Shosha companies operate with highly qualified workers who are graduates of Japanese universities, as well as native Japanese workers (nisei (second generation) or sansei (third generation)) from the country, who have studied for a master’s or doctorate in Japan.

Between 1980 and 1990, the Japanese economy experienced global expansion and Japanese corporations deepened the transnationalization of their workers. As mentioned, they are called kaigai chuuzai in. In this regard, the magazine Amerika chuuzai monogarati (American job assignment story) published in Japan tells the life of a Japanese couple and their son in New York. It presents amusing errors made due to the lack of linguistic skills and cultural differences. This magazine has familiarized the “kaigai chuuzai in” into the Japanese middle class. Kaigai chuuzai in encompasses the period of being outside of Japan. The migratory experience of this group is very different depending on the country of residence. For example, in the United States, they reside in large cities, whereas in Mexico, they live in medium-sized cities.

Most of the corporate employees assigned to tasks abroad are men. However, there are few studies on the impact on the transnational family. Specific analyses have been published about the lives of the wives of workers assigned abroad (Kurotani 2005). This group is commonly known as expatriate Japanese wives. Some wives stay in Japan to take care of children and the elderly. Women perform an important role during corporate temporary migration: “creating a Japanese home away from home and making a livable place for family members” (Kurotani 2005).

It is important to note that the purposes of this corporate migration are primarily to attend to transnational work tasks, government services, and professional purposes. They expect to return to Japan after a period of residence abroad of three to five years. Their economic and social privileges are brought to the host country. This maintains a distance from the host society and, in turn, creates an exclusive community. The mobility of Japanese workers is directed to multiple locations due to the global nature of Japanese companies. Under globalization, the global flows of people, ideas, and materials increase. This appears as a creative mix and economic and cultural hybridization in the world from the fact that the local constructs the global and vice versa, which is also called globalization from below and from above (Vila Freyer 2017).

4. Japanese Direct Foreign Investment in the Bajío Region

Almost a century after migration under the form of “colonist”, a new form of migration called expatriates, or corporate workers, was established. It originated at the end of the 20th century when protectionism in Japan allowed large companies to achieve technological advances and greater economic possibilities. Thus, in the second half of the 20th century, a new type of migration was recorded: the temporary migration of skilled workers from transnational companies, in other words, corporate migration.

The mobility of corporate workers, in its initial time, was in the industrial restructuring of the maquiladora (specifically electronic) model of the sixties, in which Japanese electronics companies were installed in the northern border region of Mexico, such as Sony, Sanyo, Hitachi, Casio, Toshiba, Kyocera, and Matsushita (Taddei and Robles 1997; Ham Chande 1994). The establishment of assembly plants led to the displacement of Japanese workers to the maquiladora zone of Tijuana and Matamoros (Sklair 1989). According to information from the Embassy of Japan in Mexico, 236 companies were established in the northern states of Mexico by the end of 2017, where most of the population and companies in the northern states were linked to the export-oriented maquila model and there were 1138 Japanese with temporary and permanent residence. The state of Nuevo León occupied the third place in Japanese population and had 98 companies. It is noteworthy that pioneering studies on contemporary Japanese corporate migration focused on the Japanese community residing in the city of Monterrey (Sordo and Doncel de la Colina 2018; Doncel de la Colina 2015; Hirai 2015). The maquiladora model attracted Japanese investments in 1964 and accelerated in the 1980s, with 26 in the 1980s, 45 in the 1990s, and 37 between 2000 and 2007 (Falck Reyes 2009).

In its current version of corporate mobility, it is expressed by the productive re-structuring under the globalization scheme of the 1980s, with the presence of workers from the major Japanese automotive corporations in the central Bajío region of Mexico, thereby crystallizing and accentuating corporate migration at the dawn of the 21st century. The Bajío, also called the central west, is made up of various states of the Mexican Republic, specifically, it is composed of the 73 municipalities of Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Jalisco, and Querétaro. In particular, the economic corridor that crosses León, Irapuato, Celaya, and Silao is dominated by the automotive industry.

The mobility of persons has acquired a broad meaning in migration studies, as it includes different types of movements, such as temporary labor migration, permanent labor migration, family reunification, and mobility under the tourist category. Expatriate mobility is a type of labor migration and has links with other types of mobility, for example, the mobility of expatriate workers’ families and tourist flows related to expatriates. In recent years, expatriate mobility in the Bajío region of Mexico increased until 2020, when it decreased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Before 2020, the mobility from Japan to the Bajío region was very high due to expatriate mobility.

Most of the Japanese expatriates in Mexico work in the automakers in the Bajío automotive corridor. The Bajío region of Mexico (refer to Figure 2) is home to three Japanese automakers, namely, Mazda, Toyota, and Honda. Mazda Motor Corporation was established in 2011 in the municipality of Salamanca, Guanajuato. It has 5200 employees. Toyota has a plant in the region that was established in 2016 in the Amistad Industrial Park in the municipality of Apaseo el Grande, Guanajuato. On 6 February 2020, the Toyota Plant was inaugurated. Honda motors has two plants in the region, one established in 1986 in the El Salto Industrial Park in the state of Jalisco and a second one established in 2014 in Celaya, Guanajuato.

In order to study the effect of the opening of Japanese automotive makers in the Bajío Region on the Japanese mobility to Mexico, airport arrival information was used. The Migration Policy Unit of the Ministry of the Interior in Mexico provides the dataset of the Registry and Identity of Persons from air entry events to Mexico. The dataset contains the following data: year, month, airport of entry (IATA code), nationality (based on passports), world region, and number of tourists arriving at that airport on the given date. Data from January 2012 to November 2023 was processed to explore the dynamics of the mobility of Japanese citizens arriving via air to the territory of Mexico.

In total, in Mexico there are 66 airports, but only five of them are in the Bajío region: Aguascalientes, Jalisco, Queretaro, San Luis Potosi, and Guanajuato.

Table 1. Airports in the Bajío Region.

State	Municipality	IATA Code	Name	Japanese Arrivals (2012–Nov 2023)
Aguascalientes	Aguascalientes	AGU	Aeropuerto Internacional de Aguascalientes, o Aeropuerto Internacional Lic. Jesús Terán Peredo	53,470
Jalisco	Municipio de Tlajomulco de Zúñiga	GDL	Aeropuerto Internacional de Guadalajara, o bien, Aeropuerto Internacional Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla	25,527
Querétaro	Municipio Colón, Querétaro	QRO	Aeropuerto Intercontinental de Querétaro	35,958
San Luis Potosí	San Luis Potosí	SLP	Aeropuerto Internacional Ponciano Arriaga o de San Luis Potosí	22,264
Guanajuato	Municipio de Silao	BJX	Aeropuerto Internacional del Bajío o de Guanajuato	103,040

shows more details about the airports in the Bajío Region and Figure 2 shows the location of the airports within the Bajío Region.

In the period from January 2012 to November 2023, in total, 872,974 Japanese nationals entered Mexico via air; Mexico City international airport reported the entries of 596,169 Japanese nationals in that period. Figure 3 displays the number of Japanese nationals that arrived to airports in the Bajío Region (Table 1). In total, from January 2012 to November 2023, 240,259 Japanese arrived to the Bajío. As shown in Figure 3, most of Japanese arrivals were reported at the Silao Airport (BJX) in Guanajuato. There was an increasing trend of arrivals from 2012 to 2018 due to the opening of automotive plants in the region. From 2018 to 2020 the trend slowly decreased but it remained within the same ranges as years prior. The plot in Figure 3 shows the significant decline in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The recovery of mobility after the emergence of the COVID-19 epidemic has been slow. By the end of 2023, the number of Japanese nationals that arrived at Silao airport was like the number of Japanese arrivals in 2013 at that airport. As shown in Figure 2, the airport AGU was second in importance and did not have a clear trend from 2012 to 2020, which was the same as in the case of GDL airport. In contrast, the airport QRO had an increasing trend of Japanese arrivals from 2012 to 2020 and it reached similar numbers to AGU airport from 2018 to 2020. The increase in Japanese arrivals to QRO can be explained by the opening of other Japanese companies involved in the supply chain of Japanese automakers.

From the prospective studies conducted in the nineties, it was observed that economic and demographic growth would affect the different regions of the Bajío unequally. Especially regarding the state of Guanajuato, it was pointed out that the densification of the Celaya–León industrial corridor road of 128 km would continue. It was emphasized that the productive plant would be highly linked to global economic processes, such as the major project of the General Motors plant in Silao that began its production phase at the end of 1994, as well as by the “Guanajuato New Horizon” project, and the Guanajuato interurban train (Graizbord et al. 1995). The effects of the automotive industry, particularly the assembly of cars and trucks in the Bajío territory, affected the population growth. With the installation of the General Motors corporate office, the urban sprawl of Silao accelerated. For these reasons, the Mexican region of Bajío has been a space of attraction for foreign investment.

The registration of foreign immigrants in Mexico is a task of the National Institute of Migration and the most comprehensive data on them date back to the year 2009. In that year, the Bajío region was a recipient of 32,000 foreigners, with visitor, student, trust positions, and family member immigration statuses standing out as shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Foreign residents in the Mexican Bajío region with a valid immigration form in 2009 by federal entity according to immigration quality and characteristics.

	Aguascalientes	Guanajuato	Jalisco	Querétaro	Total
Visitor	650	1293	15,980	1536	19,459
Minister of worship	27	76	497	112	712
Political asylee					0
Refugee	7		7	4	18
Student	55	63	2115	261	2494
Correspondent		2	2		4
Economic dependent	2	41	71	26	140
Pensioner	14	50	564	59	687
Investor				3	3
Professional	13	5	77	117	212
Trust position	62	81	863	322	1328
Scientist	1		26	6	33
Technician	13	10	68	26	117
Family	92	229	821	435	1577
Artist or athlete	9	1	29	10	49
Assimilated	26	99	483	46	654
Immigrated	235	879	2483	963	4560
Unspecified	0	4	25	23	52
Total	1206	2833	24,111	3949	32,099

Source: Own elaboration based on Table 3: foreign residents in Mexico with a valid immigration form in 2009 by federal entity according to immigration quality and characteristics (Rodríguez Chávez and Cobo 2012).

Table 2. Foreign residents in the Mexican Bajío region with a valid immigration form in 2009 by federal entity according to immigration quality and characteristics.

	Aguascalientes	Guanajuato	Jalisco	Querétaro	Total
Visitor	650	1293	15,980	1536	19,459
Minister of worship	27	76	497	112	712
Political asylee					0
Refugee	7		7	4	18
Student	55	63	2115	261	2494
Correspondent		2	2		4
Economic dependent	2	41	71	26	140
Pensioner	14	50	564	59	687
Investor				3	3
Professional	13	5	77	117	212
Trust position	62	81	863	322	1328
Scientist	1		26	6	33
Technician	13	10	68	26	117
Family	92	229	821	435	1577
Artist or athlete	9	1	29	10	49
Assimilated	26	99	483	46	654
Immigrated	235	879	2483	963	4560
Unspecified	0	4	25	23	52
Total	1206	2833	24,111	3949	32,099

Source: Own elaboration based on Table 3: foreign residents in Mexico with a valid immigration form in 2009 by federal entity according to immigration quality and characteristics (Rodríguez Chávez and Cobo 2012).

Furthermore, according to the statistics developed by the National Institute of Migration (Rodríguez Chávez and Cobo 2012), in the year 2009, there were 4912 foreigners of Japanese nationality registered in Mexico as immigrants and non-migrants distributed in the immigration categories shown in Table 2. Among the total Japanese foreign residents in Mexico, the most notable were visitors, students, trust positions, and family members. Of these, 46.6% were in the Federal District (Mexico City), 12% in the four states that make up the Bajío region, 9.7% in the state of Nuevo León, and 4% in the State of Mexico.

Table 3. Japanese foreign residents in Mexico with a valid immigration form in 2009.

Type of Immigrant	Number of Japanese Passport Holders in Mexico
Visitor	2462
Minister of worship	8
Student	79
Correspondent	3
Economic dependent	21
Pensioner	11
Professional	10
Trust position	109
Scientists	1
Technician	55
Family	105
Artist of athlete	7
Assimilated	34
Immigrated	1825
Unspecified	182
Total	4912

Source: Own elaboration based on Table 3: foreign residents in Mexico with a valid immigration form in 2009 by continent, region, and country of nationality according to immigration quality and characteristics (Rodríguez Chávez and Cobo 2012).

Table 3. Japanese foreign residents in Mexico with a valid immigration form in 2009.

Type of Immigrant	Number of Japanese Passport Holders in Mexico
Visitor	2462
Minister of worship	8
Student	79
Correspondent	3
Economic dependent	21
Pensioner	11
Professional	10
Trust position	109
Scientists	1
Technician	55
Family	105
Artist of athlete	7
Assimilated	34
Immigrated	1825
Unspecified	182
Total	4912

Source: Own elaboration based on Table 3: foreign residents in Mexico with a valid immigration form in 2009 by continent, region, and country of nationality according to immigration quality and characteristics (Rodríguez Chávez and Cobo 2012).

In accordance with the statistics of the Secretary of Economy, from 2000 to 2014, the amount of Japanese foreign direct investment amounted to MXN 7.866 billion (USD 1.434 billion in 2014). The Japanese capital in Mexico is mainly located in five sectors: (1) the automotive industry; (2) the auto parts industry, which is directly linked to the automotive industry; (3) the electrical industry; (4) the electronics industry, such as televisions and their components; and (5) the export maquiladora industry.

Between 2009 and 2015, Japanese companies in Mexico doubled their number from 399 to 814. These companies concentrated their investments in (1) Aguascalientes (32.6%); (2) Mexico City (13.7%); (3) Guanajuato (12.6%); (4) Nuevo León (9.7%); and (5) Jalisco (9.6%). The main Japanese companies present in Mexico are Mitsui (established in 1955), Itochu established in 1956, Nissan established in 1962, Mitsubishi established in 1962, Sumitomo established in 1967, Honda established in 1985, Toyota established in 2002, and Mazda established in 2014.

Particularly, in the last twenty years, Japanese direct investment has increased significantly in the Bajío region, with an estimated amount of MXN 16,459 million in recent years. The total number of Japanese companies in Mexico in 2017 amounted to 1182, and according to data from the Consulate General of Japan in Guanajuato, the number of Japanese-origin companies in the Bajío was 632, meaning most of the Japanese companies in Mexico were in the Bajío Region.

The presence of the Japanese population, both temporary and permanent residents, has reached the figure of 11,211 people distributed in the country and the Bajío concentrates 40% of the Japanese in Mexico. There were 3570 Japanese living there, with 2600 residing in Guanajuato and 1200 in León, as shown in

Table 4. Number of Japanese and Japanese-origin companies in the Bajío Region, 2017.

State	Temporary and Permanent Residents	Number of Companies
Aguascalientes	1250	124
Guanajuato	2116	266
Jalisco	633	69
Querétaro	683	104
San Luis Potosí	345	59
Zacatecas	50	10
Total	5077	632

Source: Consulate General of Japan in the City of León, Guanajuato, 2018.

. The fact that a Japanese consular office was established in the city of León, Guanajuato, in 2016 shows the economic importance of the Bajío for the Japanese economy. This Japanese consulate general handles matters especially for the Japanese population of the following states: Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, Jalisco, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, and Zacatecas.

The Japanese presence, which is close to 5000 people, has had an impact in various orders in some municipalities. For example, in León, Irapuato, Celaya, and Silao, services in Japanese are implemented where Japanese language support can be requested in case of emergency. The municipal government of León seeks mechanisms that encourage exchange, understanding, and mutual knowledge between different sectors, such as economic, gastronomic, health, educational, and cultural. The municipal government undertook the creation of a website in Hiragana. The Explora Science Center projects the film Journey to Space in Japanese. The Secretary of Tourism of León organizes a course for the preparation of traditional mole for Japanese wives. In Irapuato, the municipality organizes cultural activities, such as art expositions and cultural talks, to integrate the Japanese population into Mexican life (Gobierno de Guanajuato 2024).

Japanese foreign investment in Mexico is the main driver of corporate migration. This investment is concentrated in the manufacturing sector (80%) with a positive impact on employment, exports, and technical training. In the cities of Salamanca, Irapuato, Silao, Celaya, and León, Japanese direct investment is channeled toward the automotive industry. In total, there are seven Japanese assembly plants from four Japanese brands: Honda (Celaya and El Salto Jalisco), Mazda (Salamanca), Nissan (Morelos and Aguascalientes), and Toyota (Apaseo el Grande and Tecate BC).

Guiterrez Arriola (1992) studied the Japanese automotive sector in the Bajío and its regional repercussions through the case of the Nissan company in Aguascalientes (established in the 1980s). The conditions that favored the start of Nissan’s operations were infrastructure in communications, industrial parks, service provision, a low-cost trained workforce, and educational institutions (Guiterrez Arriola 1992). Notable milestones of Nissan include the inauguration in 1961 of plant A1, and A2 in Aguascalientes, inaugurated in November 2013 with an extension of 1,827,000 square meters. It produces 65 cars per hour. Nissan employs 1300 people at plant A2, 7300 at plant A1, and about 15,000 at the CIVAC plant in 2015. That year, it reached the figure of 10 million units produced.

The Honda company produces the FIT, HR-V, and CR-V models. It had 5200 employees and produced 253,988 cars annually, of which 205,628 were exported in 2016. Mazda had 4600 employees and produced 149,235 vehicles, with 140,456 for export. Nissan, with 14,500 employees, produced 848,088 and exported 500,388. Honda were situated in both Salamanca and Celaya in February 2014. Honda in Celaya began construction in 2012 with an investment of 800 million dollars and 3200 jobs. In 2013, it began the construction of transmissions in Celaya, with an investment of 470 million. In 2014, the car plant in Celaya was inaugurated with the production of the FIT 2015, with a production of two hundred thousand units. Honda began its operations in Mexico in 1985 in El Salto, Jalisco.

Additionally, in February 2014, the Mazda firm invested heavily to produce the models Mazda 2 and Mazda 3. By 2016, Mazda employed 4600 people, with an estimated production of 230,000 cars a year. Mazda’s investment was estimated to be 770 million dollars. In the future, Mazda will build a museum in Salamanca. According to statistics from the Mexican Automotive Industry Association, Toyota, with 1100 employees, produced 139,427 vehicles and exported 135,066 yearly. Therefore, it is clear that Japanese firms in the Bajío have caused a flux of corporate migration and they have influenced the culture of this region.

5. Conclusions

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the presence of Japanese in Mexico took the form of settlers with the aim of developing a colonial agricultural settlement, particularly the production of coffee, which was the black gold of those years. In the formation of the Japanese settlement in the state of Chiapas, various actors and entities intervened: the Mexican government; the Japanese government; Japanese shipping companies; and, of course, the Japanese population. This settler colonialism was part of Japan’s expansionist policy. However, this settler colonialism did not achieve its objective, where a few years later, these Japanese settlers were dispersed in the Mexican territory.

One hundred years later, Japanese economic expansion projects are aimed at acquiring large tracts of land in the state of Guanajuato for the installation of the Japanese automotive industry serving the local and U.S. markets. This situation is part of the economic agreements signed by the Mexican and Japanese governments. The substantial foreign direct investment by the automotive companies was accompanied by the mobility of Japanese workers to this Mexican region. This settler colonialism acquired the characteristic of being global since companies from other countries were installed to provide inputs and parts to the Japanese automotive industry.

The Japanese migratory flow to Mexico has been transforming over a century. Initially, the figure of the “colonist” prevailed, and currently, the flow is distinguished as “corporate”. The concept of corporate migration arises in the historical context of globalization, where the international dynamics of the state are in line with global markets. Corporate migration is shaped by economic conditions and political stability. A historical view of the movement of Japanese to the Americas reveals the various stages that underpin the corporate formation of people’s mobility.

The Japanese migratory flow, particularly in Mexico, has gained strength with the modality of corporate migrants. Workers were assigned abroad in foreign companies in the Bajío and northern regions of Mexico. The highly outward-oriented Japanese economy has strengthened the mobility of workers. In the Bajío region, it is noticeable how the region is marked by Japanese participation in local society, both economically and culturally. There is a growing economic interdependence between Japanese automotive companies and the municipalities of the region.

Mexico has gone from being a country of emigration to a region of transit for migrants and immigration. The various regions of the country have experienced changes in the mobility behavior of the population. For example, the Bajío region, which is traditionally known for its high emigration rates and considered a region expelling population, has recently experienced an influx of European, North American, and Japanese workers.

The current Japanese labor migration in Mexico is associated with the movement of qualified human resources within corporations. The model of Japanese migration is clearly defined by the policies of Japanese investment in Mexico. The Japanese maquiladora and automotive industry have a strong presence in Mexico. The automotive industry is concentrated in the Bajío region of Mexico.

The Japanese automotive industry is characterized by the geographical organization of production networks in a macro-regional scale and global auto parts trade. The establishment of an assembly plant in Silao, Guanajuato, led to the installation of more automotive companies, as well as supplier companies for the assemblers. This fact responds to the strategy of taking advantage of the competitive and comparative advantages offered by the region. The Bajío is a zone specialized in the automotive sector, which implies that it is highly vulnerable to changes in the economic sector. The formation of a regional cluster in the Bajío integrated Japanese companies, government institutions at both the local and state level, and the local educational system. Demographically, the automotive industry accelerated the population concentration around certain municipalities. The urban sprawl grew, and the demand for services, such as electricity, drinking water, housing, transportation, and public security, increased, which affected the trend of decreasing quality of life of the population (Guiterrez Arriola 1992).

On the other hand, the formation of a socioeconomic cluster of foreign workers implies communication in both languages (Spanish and Japanese). This can be seen in various signs on the streets of the main cities. The growth in the number of ethnic restaurants offering Japanese cuisine is increasing. The living conditions of the Japanese workers make rents more expensive, for example, properties for Mazda workers are offered at MXN 4500 per month, or houses with furniture and 6 rooms for MXN 30,000 per month. The formation of multicultural industrial cities in the Bajío leads to the co-existence of middle- and high-income migrants with low-income citizens. In the educational sector, there is an adaptation to a certain Japanese content. In terms of security, municipal governments undertake tasks to ensure safety for the Japanese community.

Overall, the presence of corporate migration establishes new relationships with local and national governments and shapes the regional economic structure, driving new public policies to meet the needs and expectations of multinational corporate migrants. Global settler colonialism is an element that has transformed the Mexican Bajío area. Schools under the Japanese model, health services, and government programs were created. Faced with the rapid growth of the Japanese presence, the question arises whether the Bajío is the formation of a multicultural society or global settler colonialism.