An Ethnography of the Lives of Japanese and Japanese Brazilian Migrants. Ethel V. Kosminsky
It has, as Oscar Nakasato beautifully portrayed in his novel Nihonjin (2011), a movement and life of its own, based on the comings and goings of generations of its inhabitants. His book traced the genesis of the initial Japanese immigration (first generation) to Brazil (a coffee plantation in São Paulo State), and followed the third generation as they return to Japan as immigrants in their ancestors’ native land.
When the second and third generations returned to Japan, they found a world far different than that of their parents and grandparents in the 1920s. This ethnic return migration affected their ethnic identity. If in Brazil they were called Japonês/Japonesa (Japanese male and female), in the land of their ancestors, they were seen as foreigners, even if they shared the same phenotype. Their cultural identity was now Brazilian. Many emphasized this identity as a reaction against discrimination (Tsuda 2009, 2003)
In Brazil, not all Japanese immigrants saw themselves similarly. They separated into two ethnic groups: those who had come from Nippon and those from Okinawa, an island that Japan conquered in 1879. Japanese immigrants devalued people from Okinawa, who had their own language, their own cooking, and their own culture. They did not want their children to marry Okinawan immigrants. According to Kubota (2008), there were conflicts between the two groups in Campo Grande City located in Mato Grosso do Sul State. Nihonjin (Japanese people) used derogatory terms to refer to Okinawans such as “Black Japanese” or “non-Japanese,” although there were more Okinawans than Nihonjin in this city. For this reason, the immigrants founded two associations: the Clube Nipo (Japanese) and the Clube Okinawa. During her fieldwork, Kubota observed that the two groups and their descendants never felt comfortable with each other. In contrast, Brazilians from a variety of origins did not perceive the differences between Okinawans and Nihonjin.
Soba, a dish that originated in Okinawa and was incorporated by Nihonjin, became so popular that Brazilians currently consume it too. Soba became a symbol of the entire Campo Grande Japanese colony, and in 2006, it became a national cultural patrimony according to Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico National, IPHAN (Historical and Artistic National Patrimony Institute) (Kubota 2008). Although the differences between the two groups still persist, they have lessened in Brazil.
Applying Weber’s definition of ethnic groups (Weber 1978: 385–98), Tsuda elaborates the concept of ethnic return migration as a new kind of transnational migration in which poorer countries have expelled diasporic descendants to their richer ethnic homelands. Homeland governments, such as Japan, welcome them back “through preferential immigration and nationality policies as ‘ethnic brethren’” (Tsuda 2009: 6, 7).
Ethnic return migration is not a new phenomenon in the history of capitalist societies. However, it presents peculiarities according to the stage of capitalism in each society. In the nineteenth century, an ethnic return migration sent former enslaved Africans and crioulos 1 from Brazil to Lagos (a city currently located in Nigeria). Brazil was then a capitalist plantation society based on slave labor. The return migration started in 1830, and most of the migrants belonged to the ethnic group Yoruba. It was not a matter of choice for them. They were coerced to choose between working for plantation owners and leaving the country. Brazilian politicians and elites were afraid of slave revolts, as slavery was the only secure way of ensuring labor. Some free men decided to remain in the cities, although they were politically persecuted, others went to work in plantations, and those with enough capital returned to Africa.
The return migrants were seen as foreigners in Africa, although they made use of this identity on their behalf. They were merchants; they exported slaves and azeite-de-dendê 2 and imported aguardente 3 and tobacco. Others were proud of working as artisans as they did in Brazil. Brazilian women were well known as seamstresses and cooks. African Brazilians were seen as a sophisticated bourgeoisie. They retained the Portuguese language as much as possible and preserved the Portuguese names of their former masters, and they professed Catholicism (Carneiro da Cunha 1985).
African Brazilians preserved their separate identity as a badge of distinction. According to the circumstances, they were either Brazilians, returnees, or returnee Yorubas. However, the most important trait of their identity was Catholicism. Their ethnic Brazilian identity in Lagos was only possible as a local identity not as a remnant of earlier circumstances (Carneiro da Cunha 1985: 15).
Japanese Brazilians are more than a labor migration. They are part of a kind of transnational migration that involves ethnic return. Some migrants settled permanently in the host society, some went back and forth between Japan and Brazil, and some returned to their homeland and remained there. Although they belonged to the middle class, the economic crisis of the 1980s in Brazil and the Japanese preferential immigration policy for “ethnic brethren” compelled them to migrate to Japan to work as cheap labor in its factories (Tsuda 2009: 230).
However, Japanese Brazilians occupy a status of lower middle class in 2004 based on their level of education as most had only as elementary or middle-school education. Among those Japanese Brazilian laborers interviewed in Japan in that year, nobody had a master’s degree or Ph.D., while in Brazil, Japanese descendants have a higher scholarship than the population median (Beltrão and Sugahara 2006: 70).
Japanese Brazilian immigrants arrived in Japanese society as marginalized minorities in their ethnic homeland. Their position in the labor market, their cultural differences (many were second and third generation born and raised in Brazil) and even their different phenotype due to mixed ancestors, and the position of Brazil as a developing country are responsible for this social exclusion (Tsuda 2009: 228).
Comparing the two kinds of ethnic return, I observe that African Brazilian immigration to Africa was not a transnational migration, unlike the contemporary ethnic return. The Brazilians who returned to Africa remained there, and became merchants, among other occupations. Thus, they moved up the social ladder in a highly stratified society. They used their identity as foreigners on their own behalf as a sign of distinction. Japanese Brazilians who migrated to Japan moved down the social ladder in a very rich country, which is divided into social classes and racially stratified. They faced discrimination because they took on the least-valued occupations in Japanese society due to their cultural identity as Brazilians. They reacted by affirming their Brazilian identity strongly. They lived among themselves, mainly apart from Japanese society.
The social incorporation of Japanese immigrants and their descendants in Brazil was not easy. Brazilians called them Japonês/Japonesa (Japanese male and female) even if they were second and third generation. Gradually, things changed. Many became owners of small agricultural properties; others settled in cities. Most became members of the middle class and were respected and considered to be “intelligent” and “hard workers.” As Japan ascended as a world technological power, Brazilians looked upon the immigrants and their descendants with a newfound respect and admiration. Yet, none of this had any effect on the way transnational migrants seeking work in their ethnic homeland were viewed. A grandson heard from his grandfather before his emigration to Japan: Ojiichan (Grandpa) opened his dull tired eyes and said in crude words that Brazil is my homeland. I didn’t confront him, I only understood that ojiichan liked me, and he didn’t want his grandson to endure his experience of exile (Nakasato 2011: 173).
Racial ethnic similarity is no guarantee of social acceptance of immigrants, as we will find in interviews with Japanese Brazilian immigrants about their experiences in Japan. Many were mistreated. Sociocultural ethnic differences overcame the shared phenotype and were extremely difficult to deal with.
Diasporic return is an ongoing process, which involves first-generation migrants as well as the second and third generations. Ethnic return migrants create links between the ethnic and birth homelands. However, diasporic return often makes the migrants’ link to their ethnic homelands ineffective and can re-enforce their parochial nationalist feelings, such as Japanese Brazilian immigrants who affirmed their contrasting (Brazilian) identity by dancing and enjoying Carnival in the streets (Tsuda 2009).
However, as this book is centered in Bastos, I was not able to observe the contrasting Brazilian Japanese identity in Japan. The contrast between Japanese descendant identity and Brazilian identity is not so evident in Bastos due to mixed marriage and to Japanese descendant adjustment to Brazilian food and language. Although, the Japanese culture