Review of lesser, Searching for Home Abroad: Japanese Brazilians and Transnationalism.

• Date: 22 September 2004
• Author: Katsuyama, Yoko
• Published date: 22 September 2004
• Author: Katsuyama, Yoko

Jeffrey Lesser (ed.), Searching for Home Abroad: Japanese Brazilians and Transnationalism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.

THIS EDITED VOLUME OFFERS MULTIDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES ON JAPANESE immigrants to Brazil and their descendents, often referred to as Nikkeis in Portuguese. Japanese immigration to Brazil began in the early 20th century; today, there are over 1.2 million Japanese descendents living in Brazil. This immigration flow was reversed in the early 1980s, when second- and third-generation Japanese-Brazilians began to "return" to Japan, where they work primarily in small to mid-sized factories as unskilled workers.

The central focus of this volume is the flexibility and multiplicity of Japanese-Brazilian identities. The chapters on mainland and Okinawan migrants and their descendents in Brazil illustrate the highly contextual nature of their ethnic identities. For example, Koichi Mori's...