Domingos Chohachi Nakamura

Domingos Chōhachi Nakamura (ドミンゴス中村長八 "Domingos Nakamura Chohachi") (Fukue-jima Japan, August 2, 1856 – Álvares Machado Brazil, March 14, 1940) was a Catholic missionary and priest from the Diocese of Nagasaki (Japan). He worked tirelessly as a priest for 26 years in Japan and 17 years in Brazil where he died in 1940 with a reputation for holiness.
Life.
Nakamura was born in Fukue-jima, the main island of the Goto Islands (Nagasaki Prefecture). He worked for 26 years as a diocesan priest in the island of Amami Oshima (Kagoshima Prefecture), before emigrating to Brazil in 1923 to work on behalf of the Japanese migrants living there, where he worked until his death for 17 years. Nakamura was the first Japanese missionary to work abroad. Nevertheless, his age, working from 58 to 76 years old in the evangelization of Japanese migrants in the Brazilian states of São Paulo, Mato Grosso, Paraná and south part of Minas Gerais. He passed away in reputation for holiness in 1940, while in Álvares Machado. His process of beatification started in 2002, in the Diocese of Bauru. The postulator is Rubens Miraglia Zani.
During his 17 years of pastoral work in Brazil, he namely baptized 1.750 people (1.304 Japanese, 440 Brazilians and 6 Japanese-Brazilians). He was the first priest to work on behalf of the Japanese community in Brazil; nowadays, the majority of these Japanese descendants (nikkei) are Catholic, thanks to the evangelization work done throughout the 20th century by both Japanese and Brazilian priests.