‘Why Does a Nikkei Want to Talk to Other Nikkeis?’

Abstract

■ This article explores the complexities of Japanese Brazilian identity in contemporary São Paulo, home to the largest concentration of Japanese descendants outside Japan. In the city of São Paulo, Japanese Brazilians are racially placed as whites and also identify themselves as such, based on their collective socio-economic position as members of the urban middle class. Yet their claims to participate in whiteness are widely undermined by racial/ethnic references or markers such as ‘slanted eyes’. Such social markers serve to keep them separate from general white Brazilian society. Based on extensive life-history interviews and archival research in São Paulo, this article analyzes the meanings of the phrase ‘slanted eyes’ for Japanese Brazilian identities. After briefly examining Japanese Brazilian history in São Paulo, this article discusses the significant effects that their large-scale ‘return’ labor migrations to Japan (called dekassegui) have had on Japanese Brazilians’ self-perceptions since the mid 1980s. It also discusses Japanese Brazilians’ prevalent practice of ‘whitening’, and elite college students and young professionals’ collective ‘affirmation’ of Nikkei (Japanese descendant) identity. The article concludes by drawing important parallels between Japanese Brazilians and Afro-Brazilians with regard to collective identity formation in relation to race, ethnicity and class in the city of São Paulo. Ultimately, this article extends debates on whiteness beyond what is largely an Anglo-American literature and demonstrates how ‘minority ethnic’ groups such as the Japanese can adopt and adapt notions of whiteness in the case of São Paulo.