The Benefits of Being Minority: The Ethnic Status of the Japanese-Brazilians in Brazil

Abstract

Gaku) Tsudawere better educated and of higher social status than previous immigrants.From 1953From to 1962, 50,000 , 50,000 Japanese emigrated to Brazil.Generally, these post-war emigrants went to Brazil with the intention of settling permanently, and many became small landholders in agricultural enclaves from the very beginning.Currently, there are about 1,228,000 Japanese-Brazilians in Brazil, the largest community of Japanese descendants (nikkeijin) outside of Japan.Almost all of the population (91 percent) is concentrated in the most developed southwest and southern regions of Brazil, most notably the states of São Paulo and Paraná.Most of the Brazilian nikkeijin are now second generation nisei (30.9 percent) or third generation sansei (41 percent), with a small, but increasing population of yonsei (fourth generation) (São Paulo Humanities Research Center 1987-1988).As Brazil's oldest and by far largest Asian minority, the Japanese-Brazilians are now generally well-integrated in Brazilian society, both socioeconomically and culturally.Most of them are urbanized and live in large cities, with only a small minority residing in the rural colônias.Socioeconomically, they are predominantly middle class and well-educated.The intermarriage rate is reported to be around 40 percent, and as a result, six percent of the nisei and 42 percent of the sansei are of mixed descent.Because of this high level of social integration, a considerable amount of cultural assimilation has also occurred among the nisei and sansei.Despite their socioeconomic and cultural integration in mainstream Brazilian society, however, the Japanese-Brazilians continue to assert a rather prominent "Japanese" ethnic minority identity, which remains considerably stronger than their identification with majority Brazilians or the Brazilian nation (cf.Maeyama 1996:398).Because of a strong consciousness of their distinctive ethnic attributes that constitute their "Japaneseness" in Brazil, the Japanese-Brazilians continue to emphasize their minority identities despite a growing realization that they have become considerably Brazilianized.Many of my nikkeijin informants privileged the Japanese side of their dual ethnic identity, claiming that they feel more "Japanese" than "Brazilian."Only a relatively small proportion of them had fully adopted a majority Brazilian identity.This paper examines the various components of this continued experience of Japanese ethnic distinctiveness and identity among the nikkeijin in Brazil.

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