Edmundo Sussumu Fujita was the top-ranked candidate in the Rio Branco Institute entrance examination in 1975, becoming the first Japanese descendant in Brazil to join the Brazilian diplomatic career. His achievement was reported by several Brazilian and Nikkei newspapers at that time, and was even the subject of an article published by Folha de São Paulo in December 1974, year in which Fujita was approved in the first phase of the entrance examination. In that context, the fact that Fujita joined the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE) helped to reveal the absence of non-white people in its diplomatic corps until that time and to reinforce the debate about the possible existence of racism in Itamaraty. The present work, therefore, aims to discuss the repercussion of the entry of the first Nikkei in Itamaraty and the debates about the low ethnic-racial diversity in the history of the Brazilian diplomatic career. Analyzing Fujita's personal and professional trajectory, this work intends to show that this eventthe approval of a Japanese descendant in the MREdid not necessarily attest to a concern of the Itamaraty to expand access to its diplomatic corps, but that it occurred in very specific historical circumstances.
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