Japanese-Brazilians and Ethnic Identity.
Takeyuki Tsuda's Strangers in the Ethnic Homeland examines particular questions about one ethnic group in one nation and indirectly opens general questions about group identity, immigration, and assimilation. His particular thesis affirms that the concept of ethnic identity is more complex and mutable than early studies have shown. The influx of Japanese-Brazilians to work in Japan shows that ethnicity is more complex than race or genetic heritage and that alienated immigrants will draw upon cultural commonness to find a serviceable identity.
The experience of the Japanese-Brazilians in Japan offers a study in point. The Nikkei, a term native Japanese use for
emigrants and their descendants who return to Japan, applies to 250,000 Brazilians of Japanese descent who live in close communities in Japan, a population Japan encourage for economic reasons, with stipulated ethnic preferences.
At the Discover Nikkei website, researchers find questions likeùWhat does it mean to be Nikkei? Is it a matter of blood, kinship, and descent? Is it a matter of self-identification and affiliation? Does being Nikkei mean keeping a connection to Japanese traditions? Moreover, does the identity diminish with each generation?
These questions as subsumed in Tsuda's topics. Nikkei identity is not static. Identity bears symbolic, social, historical, and political meanings. Ethnic groups, in fact, may be identified not only by race or nationality but also by language, religion, cultural heritage, and location.
In Japan the process of community formation reveals the evasive nature of Nikkei identity, and the transnational dimensions of community formations.
The gate was opened in 1990, when the Japanese government passed immigration reforms that granted the descendants of Japanese emigrantsùup to the third generationùthe right to reside and work in Japan for three years. This legislation was me...