Mieko Nishida
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780824867935
- eISBN:
- 9780824876951
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824867935.003.0009
- Subject:
- Sociology, Migration Studies (including Refugee Studies)
In June 1998 the Japanese immigrants monument was inaugurated in Santos, São Paulo after a decade-long campaign by Japanese Brazilians. Its statue of a young immigrant family (parents and a young ...
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In June 1998 the Japanese immigrants monument was inaugurated in Santos, São Paulo after a decade-long campaign by Japanese Brazilians. Its statue of a young immigrant family (parents and a young boy), divorced from the historical reality, quickly became a political vehicle for state diplomacy, as well as a popular tourist site. Eventually, in 2007, the Japanese government made a public announcement that the design of the statue was adopted for a commemorative 500-yen coin for the centenary in 2008, which was eventually abandoned due to a dispute brought by a Brazilian sculptor who holds its copyright. This episode illustrates that Japanese Brazilians are not completely in control of how their identity is constructed and represented under hegemonic power. The histories of the “Japanese” in Brazil needs ultimately to be re-thought and re-written with closer attention to the multiple, and historically changing, determinations of Japanese Brazilian identity.Less
In June 1998 the Japanese immigrants monument was inaugurated in Santos, São Paulo after a decade-long campaign by Japanese Brazilians. Its statue of a young immigrant family (parents and a young boy), divorced from the historical reality, quickly became a political vehicle for state diplomacy, as well as a popular tourist site. Eventually, in 2007, the Japanese government made a public announcement that the design of the statue was adopted for a commemorative 500-yen coin for the centenary in 2008, which was eventually abandoned due to a dispute brought by a Brazilian sculptor who holds its copyright. This episode illustrates that Japanese Brazilians are not completely in control of how their identity is constructed and represented under hegemonic power. The histories of the “Japanese” in Brazil needs ultimately to be re-thought and re-written with closer attention to the multiple, and historically changing, determinations of Japanese Brazilian identity.
Mieko Nishida
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780824867935
- eISBN:
- 9780824876951
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824867935.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Migration Studies (including Refugee Studies)
Much has been published on the history of Japanese immigration to Brazil, Japanese Brazilians in Brazil, and Japanese Brazilians’ “return” labor migrations to Japan (known as dekassegui). Yet none ...
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Much has been published on the history of Japanese immigration to Brazil, Japanese Brazilians in Brazil, and Japanese Brazilians’ “return” labor migrations to Japan (known as dekassegui). Yet none has gone beyond and above the essentialized categories of “the Japanese” in Brazil and “Brazilians” in Japan. This book demonstrates that Japanese Brazilian identity has never been a static, fixed set of traits that can be counted and inventoried. Rather it is about being and becoming, a process of identity in motion responding to the push-and-pull between being positioned and positioning in a historically changing world. The book is based on the author’s painstaking research in Brazil and Japan between 1997 and 2013, involving extensive life history interviews (and follow-ups) with 116 Japanese Brazilians of several generations and diverse social backgrounds, in combination with substantial archival research and multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork. This book examines Japanese immigrants and their descendants’ historically shifting sense of identity that comes from their engagement or experience of historical changes in socioeconomic and political structure. Each chapter illustrates how Japanese Brazilian identity is in formation, across generation, across gender, across class, across race, and in the movement of people between nations.Less
Much has been published on the history of Japanese immigration to Brazil, Japanese Brazilians in Brazil, and Japanese Brazilians’ “return” labor migrations to Japan (known as dekassegui). Yet none has gone beyond and above the essentialized categories of “the Japanese” in Brazil and “Brazilians” in Japan. This book demonstrates that Japanese Brazilian identity has never been a static, fixed set of traits that can be counted and inventoried. Rather it is about being and becoming, a process of identity in motion responding to the push-and-pull between being positioned and positioning in a historically changing world. The book is based on the author’s painstaking research in Brazil and Japan between 1997 and 2013, involving extensive life history interviews (and follow-ups) with 116 Japanese Brazilians of several generations and diverse social backgrounds, in combination with substantial archival research and multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork. This book examines Japanese immigrants and their descendants’ historically shifting sense of identity that comes from their engagement or experience of historical changes in socioeconomic and political structure. Each chapter illustrates how Japanese Brazilian identity is in formation, across generation, across gender, across class, across race, and in the movement of people between nations.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804778015
- eISBN:
- 9780804782043
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804778015.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter explores the issue of subterranean transnationality in Karen Tei Yamashita's novel Circle K Cycles. It highlights the focus of the novel on representational politics, and describes how ...
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This chapter explores the issue of subterranean transnationality in Karen Tei Yamashita's novel Circle K Cycles. It highlights the focus of the novel on representational politics, and describes how the persistent mythology of race-based cultural uniformity and the circular movement of Japanese Brazilian migration as its economic expression were visualized in the text. The chapter also considers Yamashita's experiment with the postmodern technique of collage and her mixing of sociological reportage with fictional representation at various junctures of the book.Less
This chapter explores the issue of subterranean transnationality in Karen Tei Yamashita's novel Circle K Cycles. It highlights the focus of the novel on representational politics, and describes how the persistent mythology of race-based cultural uniformity and the circular movement of Japanese Brazilian migration as its economic expression were visualized in the text. The chapter also considers Yamashita's experiment with the postmodern technique of collage and her mixing of sociological reportage with fictional representation at various junctures of the book.
