Japanese and Nikkei at Home and Abroad: Negotiating Identities in a Global World

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For example, even though immigrants from disparate social and economic backgrounds in Japan came to Brazil—including agricultural laborers, independent farmers, shop workers, shop owners, school-teachers, dentists, and politicians—Japanese Brazilians, then and now, have tended to see themselves as members of the middle class.

Regardless of self-images eliding distinctions between social class and ethnic group, ethnicity and social class are indeed different. By sharing time and space, incipient social networks are formed. Pierre Bourdieu Bourdieu ; Bourdieu and Passeron claims that upper-class social networks tend to maintain and differentiate cultural and social positions and to pass them on to the next generation. But transnational migrant social networks may in part form differently. Regardless of differences in education, jobs and income, being away from their homeland, transnational migrants, facing common difficulties, tend to rally together to provide security in an unfamiliar and sometimes hostile environment.

This often takes the form of attempting to preserve certain values, customs, foodways, language and other cultural traditions. But as Eriksen Ethnicity, on the other hand, does not necessarily refer to rank. Japanese transnational migrants have made connections with various social networks and groups of people—both in the host nation and beyond, and within and among ethnic groups. But, at the same time, they tend to form strong social networks—especially for financial assistance—with people of the same ethnicity.

Once accepted, members pooled savings with others and lent this capital out to other members who needed loans.

The borrowers had to return their loan within a certain period. While some took money out, others kept banking their money in the pool. When Japanese began migrating to Brazil in , the majority became coffee plantation farmhands, living in slave-like conditions. This ethnic social network was formed through trust predicated on common social and cultural values and a common language. In this case, ethnicity was used to make judgments about the social qualifications of immigrants and citizens of a particular national heritage. The core concept of ethnicity, then—an imaginary home and origin—may function less as a direct result of social ranking like education and income , and may be used to classify entire ethnic minorities as an imaginary social class.

Some South American Nikkei and other Latin American transnational migrant workers are creating a new sense of ethnic identity by claiming to be simply Latin American, aligning themselves alongside non-Japanese Latin Americans. This seems a somewhat surprising development since non-Japanese Latin Americans had often resisted Japanese immigration, and Japanese Latin Americans often resisted assimilation see Adachi ; Reyes-Ruiz Today, boundaries of ethnic groups have become more fluid through advances in technology and transportation that facilitate the flow of peoples and long-distance communication.

People can create multiple homes and origins. Creighton shows how new senses of ethnic identity develop in unique ways. She argues that, in Latin America, Nikkei ethnic-identity formation encompasses much more than making connections to Japan or Japanese people. According to her, some Nikkei in North and South America wish to establish a Pan-Nikkei ethnicity with Nikkei people all over the world, and which excludes Japanese in Japan. This is because, first, differences in Nikkei experiences—like those of Japanese Americans, Japanese Brazilians, or Japanese Canadians—are quite different from those of Japanese in Japan.

Second, since the late s many Nikkei went to Japan as dekasegi workers, and found they were not welcomed as either long lost relatives or new immigrants making a fresh start. Needless to say, Nikkei dekasegi workers have faced much well-documented discrimination while living in Japanese society e. In North America, prewar Issei and their Nikkei children developed strong relationships, having shared common experiences in the internment camps and fought together for redress in the s, s, and s.

Growing up outside Japan in diverse socio-cultural, linguistic and political environments, Nikkei cultural values differ in certain ways from those of non-immigrant Japanese. Furthermore, American Nikkei believe that they worked hard to achieve their current social position in the United States after the hardships of demonization and internment during World War II.

The result in some instances is a deep divide between Japanese and Japanese-Americans, even in situations that contain none of the inherent conflicts involving Japanese and Latin American Nikkei. Springwood also reports on differences between Japanese and Nikkei Americans. He examines the ethnic conflicts of a Japanese American woman, Cathy, who, after being chosen to take over the family business back in Japan, experiences difficulty in learning the Japanese language and becoming at home culturally in Japan.

She married a Nikkei instead. For example, mainstream family values differ such that there is a different division of labor and conceptions about work and home.

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If a child is sick in the United States, for example, most parents would not think twice about taking time off from work regardless of possible economic or career consequences. In Japan, however, it is improbable that a husband would take a day off to take his child to the hospital. If he did, it could compromise his future in the company, as his primary loyalty would be seen as being directed to his family rather than to the company. Dissimilar experiences and historical memories have created also different social values between Nikkei and Japanese in the eyes of many Nikkei.

Some Latin American Nikkei nevertheless have had a strong sense of nostalgia about an imaginary home—one largely created in their own minds—in an imaginary Japan. This Japan is the one they grew up hearing about from their parents or grandparents. However, dekasegi Nikkei workers often have a rude awakening on arrival in Japan. This is particularly true of those who were highly educated in Latin America, holding positions of prestige and responsibility who find themselves in Japan bereft of respect and social perks. For Latin American Nikkei, then, Japan is no longer a place of nostalgia, but a place of foreign-ness and isolation.

Creighton points out that today Nikkei from different nations are creating new Nikkei ethnic identities using the images of their own host nations. By holding conferences, the Pan American Nikkei Association PANA entertains Nikkei from other nations, organizes local sightseeing tours, serves local food, and presents local music and cultural events.

Thus, Latin American-ness, and not just Japanese-ness, is stressed. Stanlaw holds that current globalization is not forming ethnic identity at the national level, but is a very local and contingent phenomenon. This is because people create relationships with others through their everyday experiences and communication in a particular location or space. Consider, for example, the different experiences and outlooks of pre-World War II and post-World War II Japanese transnational migrants and their children, groups that scarcely associate with each other. These two groups have different ethnic associations.

The former created relationships based on their original migration as well as their wartime experiences and the redress movement. But many of the latter group of Japanese transnationals have radically different economic and social class origins, and radically different experiences than those of prewar migrants. Their relations to and perceptions of both Japan and the United States frequently differ in fundamentals as a result of their different experiences and future prospects. Stanlaw further points out that even local ethnic identities are multifaceted.

The first are in management. Usually married, they were sent to the United States along with their wives and children. The second group comprises subordinate technicians, generally single. These two groups have different social and economic backgrounds and different social and economic environments in the United States. As a result, each forms quite different associations with local people. Managers are encouraged to find housing all over town among local residents.

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Many speak good English and they strive to establish good relationships with local people by organizing events and activities that include them. By contrast, companies typically house single technicians in apartments in the same building. Because of the nature of their work, they have little direct contact with other U. On their days off, the technicians typically play golf together, go sightseeing in a larger city, shop at a local Japanese grocery store, or drink at a local Japanese bar with other single Japanese friends. Ethnic identity is not only a product of individual social circumstances such as class, but also of gender.

Yamamoto reports on the activities of female dekasegi workers in Japan, including those with unpaid jobs in family businesses, assembly line workers and entertainers. Regardless of their position in the labor force and family in Japan, most continue to perform according to their expected roles in Japan. This is not because migrant Nikkei women remain imbued with, and practice, Japanese social values while men fail to do so thereby earning Japanese disapproval.

It is because of the similarity of female gender roles at home and in Japan—child care, domestic responsibilities, elder care, and the like—which creates at least surface-level appearances of solidarity. Work roles and gender affect relationships with local people in host nations, and such experiences affect their lives even after they return home. In contemporary global society, different social status and circumstances, life stages, and gender all contribute to the myriad ways in which local relationships are constructed and created.

How does local ethnic identity connect to global ethnic identity? The parents of these German-born children are often Japanese who migrated to Germany for work for Japanese companies, and then stayed on after their terms of employment ended. Okamura argues that improved information and transportation technologies have changed our sense of social distance.

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Ethnic identity, in her view, then, is not based on geography but on language efficiency. Communication skills of the children of Japanese transnational migrants are closely monitored as they go through the German educational system. This is because many Japanese who live abroad wish their children to master Japanese—some even hope that their children will attend Japanese high school and university—enabling them to become skilled bilinguals who can function successfully internationally at work and in society.

The subjects taught are based on the Japanese national curriculum and many instructors are sent from Japan by Japanese agencies. In other words, even though ethnic identity is defined and created locally, efforts are made to keep up with the standards of the Japanese Ministry of Education. Locally based ethnic identities not only connect to broader universal ethnic identities through education, they also do so via the economy and media. While traveling abroad, changing political conditions made it impossible for them to return to Japan.

Four hundred years later, in , news of the discovery of the descendants of this mission was announced in Japan. Since then, Japanese tourists and the media have been coming to Seville in droves. Although their cultural values are Spanish and their physical appearance is not especially Asian, some have developed a nostalgia for the times of the samurai and created their own historical romance of an exotic past.

Global tourism, the intertwined economies, and the international media are now influencing how people relate to one another such that consciousness of Japaneseness may exist beyond time and space.

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The contemporary Japanese economy is also influencing lifestyle choices for Japanese women. For example, Thang, Goda, and MacLachlan describe Japanese women going abroad as a new type of transnational migrant. These days Japanese women do not go overseas because of economic hardship.

Instead, many go abroad to study English, to take long-term tours or trips, or to look for job opportunities not available to women in Japan. Some meet their future husbands overseas. Yoshida studied the cultural and ethnic identity of Japanese women who marry Indonesian men. Some of the women met their husbands in Japan while they were studying or working there, and their primary language of communication usually continues to be Japanese. Others met in North America while both were studying English or other subjects.

These couples typically communicate with each other in English or alternate between Japanese and English, the latter being the language they used since they met. Rarely is Indonesian used. However, regardless of the languages used between husband and wife, the wives have had to learn another new language to communicate with their in-laws, relatives and other contacts in Indonesia, such as Javanese or Chinese, as well as the corresponding customs and culture. Yoshida believes many Japanese women eventually become adept and flexible in dealing with Indonesian religion, cuisine, and languages.

Regardless of country or economic opportunity, there are few first-generation transnational Japanese who do not wish their children to learn Japanese language and maintain connections to Japan.

But we can see, also, how things have changed. For example, while Japanese transnational migrants to Brazil in the early s wanted their children to maintain their Japanese language Adachi , today Japanese migrants expect their children to become bi-cultural in order to survive and gain an edge in an increasingly global society. Concerns for the language abilities of children of transnational migrants do not just focus on gaining local acceptance or maintaining connections to home.

Today many Japanese settlers are concerned about how their children will adapt to the global economy. Thus fluency in the local language is a must, as is knowledge of another language, preferably English or Japanese. In this context, ethnicity has proven a highly useful concept, since it suggests a dynamic situation of variable contact and mutual accommodation between groups. Ethnic boundaries are being constructed and reconstructed in diverse social environment. By taking a close look at diverse cases of creation and recreation of identities by Japanese transnational migrants, we can gain deeper insights into ethnicity and ethnic identity in the current global context.

We discover that, depending on circumstances and conditions, ethnic boundaries are continually in flux. As with race, the significance of ethnicity is evolving over time. She is the editor of Japanese Diasporas: Negotiating Identities in a Global World. This is a revised and expanded version of the introduction to Japanese and Nikkei at Home and Abroad.

Abraham, Traci and Dan Serradilla-Avery. In Japanese and Nikkei at Home Abroad , ed. Ethnic Identity in a Transplanted Community. World Communication 28 2: Latin American Perspectives 31 3: We are Children of Nature: Japanese and Nikkei at Home and Abroad: The Forms of Capital. Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron. Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction. Bronson, Po, and Ashley Merryman. Metaphors of Japanese-ness and Negotiations of Nikkei Identity: Patterns of Race in the Americas. Race and Socioeconomic Inequalities in Brazil.

In Race, Class, and Power in Brazil , ed. University of California Press. Conflicting Presents, and Uncertain Futures , ed. Hobsbawm, Eric, and Terence Ranger. The Invention of Tradition. Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea, — Min, Pyong Gap, and Rose Kim. Struggle for Ethnic Identity: Narratives by Asian American Professionals.

Multicultural Identities in a Global Society: The intermarried Issei and Mestizo Nisei in the Philippines: Reflections on the origin of Philippine Nikkeijin problems. Unsung pasts, Conflicting Presents, and Uncertain Futures , ed. The Formation of Slave Society in Virginia, University of North Carolina Press. Critical Voices from the Margin. View online Borrow Buy Freely available Show 0 more links Set up My libraries How do I set up "My libraries"?

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