Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Is This Argentina?
Why yes, it is Argentina....at least I think it is.
I buy most of my photos from flea markets and antique stores. From time to time, however, I dip my toe in the EBay sea. In this case, the EBay Sea of Japan. What I found intriguing about these two studio photos was the studio mark, Buenos Aires and Tokyo. At first, I found it an odd combination of cities. I kept thinking of all the German war criminals who ended up in Argentina and wondered if there was a similar post World War 2 migration of Japanese prison camp commandants. But then, I did a bit of research and found that there was a wave of Japanese immigrants to Argentina in the first decade of the twentieth century. Today, there is an estimated 32,00 people of Japanese descent living in Buenos Aires. It's estimated that 66% of third generation, and 78% of fourth generation Japanese-Argentinians also have European ancestry, so a well assimilated community.
Anyway, I'm fairly certain that these photos were taken in the Buenos Aires branch of the Kasay Photo Studios. The way I see it, if these were taken in Tokyo, there wouldn't be any Spanish in the logo. But these photos ended up in Japan, so wouldn't that indicate Japan rather than Argentina? I think this young lady ended up in South America with a very small chance of ever seeing her family again, and these pictures were sent home to let her mother know, "I'm safe."
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