Jeff Lesser

During the first half of the twentieth century, Japanese immigrants entered Brazil by the tens of thousands. In more recent decades that flow has been reversed: more than 200,000 Japanese-Brazilians and their families have relocated to Japan. Examining these significant but rarely studied transnational movements and the experiences of Japanese-Brazilians, the essays in Searching for Home Abroad rethink complex issues of ethnicity and national identity. The contributors—who represent a number of nationalities and disciplines themselves—analyze how the original Japanese immigrants, their descendants in Brazil, and the Japanese-Brazilians in Japan sought to fit into the culture of each country while confronting both prejudice and discrimination. The concepts of home and diaspora are engaged and debated throughout the volume. Drawing on numerous sources—oral histories, interviews, private papers, films, myths, and music—the contributors highlight the role ethnic minorities have played in constructing Brazilian and Japanese national identities. The essayists consider the economic and emotional motivations for migration as well as a range of fascinating cultural outgrowths such as Japanese secret societies in Brazil. They explore intriguing paradoxes, including the feeling among many Japanese-Brazilians who have migrated to Japan that they are more "Brazilian" there than they were in Brazil. Searching for Home Abroad will be of great interest to scholars of immigration and ethnicity in the Americas and Asia. Contributors. Shuhei Hosokawa, Angelo Ishi, Jeffrey Lesser, Daniel T. Linger, Koichi Mori, Joshua Hotaka Roth, Takeyuki (Gaku) Tsuda, Keiko Yamanaka, Karen Tei Yamashita

Japanese Brazilians and Transnationalism

Searching for Home Abroad

"This book adds an important new dimension to the worldwide history of the Jewish refugees during the Holocaust."—Jonathan D. Sarna, Brandeis University "Lesser's book explains the Latin American Jewish experience more than any other book I know."—Robert M. Levine, University of Miami

Brazil and the Jewish Question

Welcoming the Undesirables

Colonização Judaica No Rio Grande Do Sul, 1904-1925, Espagnol ; Castillan

DIVAnalyzes the experiences of a generation of Japanese-Brazilians in Sao Paulo during the most authoritarian period of military rule in order to ask questions about ethnicity, the nature of diasporic identity, and Brazilian culture. /div

Japanese Brazilians and the Meanings of Ethnic Militancy, 1960–1980

A Discontented Diaspora

This book examines the immigration to Brazil of millions of Europeans, Asians and Middle Easterners beginning in the nineteenth century.

Immigration, Ethnicity, and National Identity in Brazil, 1808 to the Present

A comparative study of immigration and ethnicity with an emphasis on the Chinese, Japanese, and Arabs who have contributed to Brazil's diverse mix.

Jeff Lesser

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