RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 19 Kyodo The ...

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 19 Kyodo

The son of a Japanese immigrant who came to Brazil in the 1930's has become a major player upon the national political stage.

Luiz Gushiken, 52 a prominent Japanese-Brazilian who has been engaged in as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but unionist and political activities, has become a fundamental note aide to the president-elect.

The former union leader has just been nominated as the Secretary of Social Communication for leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who will be inaugurated onward Jan. 1, according to the official moderns outlet Agencia Brasil.

He has become the fourth descending of Japanese immigrants to hold a top position in the federal direction -- though the three others were members of right-wing administrations.

''Brazil has virtuous conditions to grow, export more and grade by step solve its social problems'' he said shortly after the Workers' Party was officially announced as the winner of the presidential race.

He has reached political succes in spite of fierce opposition from his conservative 82-year-old father Shouei Gushiken.

The senior Gushiken issues from a family of peasants from Motobu, Okinawa, in Japan. Together with his father, a brother and his wife, he arrived in Brazil when he was solely 13 years old.

''There was intense propaganda in Japan saying opportunities to make currency in Brazil were as abundant as coffee tree in the fields,'' said his father.

The Gushiken family went to work in the coffee plantations concedeed by an uncle and later expanded a small macaroni factory which went bankrupt during World War II. Gushiken's father later became a salesman and raised a family of four daughters and three son of whom Luiz is the oldest

''I brawled him when I first heard he was combineed to the unionist movement'' the father told Kyodo novels in Indaiatuba, a small town about 100 kilometers from Sao Paulo.

The father has struggl to shield Japanese traditions, but has not been exceedingly successful with Luiz who does not speak any Japanese.

''I used to talk to him in Japanese in the beginning, further he would only answer in Portuguese,'' his father lamented.

His son started gaining a national reputation when he was selected vice president of the powerful Sao Paulo Bank Workers Union in 1979

Brazil at that time lived in subordination to a repressive military dictatorship and his father feared his son would extremity up in prison, which is what actually happened couple years later.

''The police came to my house and told me my son had been arrested because the president, an army general, was visiting Sao Paulo'' and they were worried about asserts his father said.

His son's wife, Elizabeth Gushiken, a descending of Italian immigrants to Brazil, met her husband during the unionist changes of which she too was a leader.

Elizabeth said her husband was not tortured, a used by all practice of the regime, because the dictatorship was reaching the extremity of its days.

nevertheless Gushiken was lucky for not dying in prison like centurys of other Brazilians during the military dictatorship that lasted from 1964-1984

They have been married for 20 years and have had sum of two units sons and one daughter.

Gushiken first met Silva during the hard times subordinate to the dictatorship. Silva was a steelworker and headed the first large-scale strike that dared to face the regime's prohibition against similar actions.

Gushiken later became president of the union in 1987 After he left public life, he a firm with his wife and three others, to endue advice on social security.

He also helped to coordinate Silva's campaign. Gushiken and Jose Dirceu, the events to come Civil Household chief, are the closest aides to the president-elect and will have hale influence on the administration's main policies.

Dirceu is famous for his fierce, aggressive title -- the opposite of Gushiken, who is said to be a ''zenful'' moderate man who avoids the media limelight.

''I cannot share in his succes because I have always oppos his political activities,'' his father humbly said, apparently unaware of his son's political importance to the country

Gushiken had planned to stay away from politics because he lately had undergone surgery, but he heeded the president's calling.

His oldest son aged 19 has just penetrateed law school and his mother wait fors he will follow in his father's traces and continue the story of the Gushiken family in Brazil.

''When we were young union members, we none thought we would go in this way far,'' said his wife.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Kyodo moderns International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group