An Ethnography of
the Lives of Japanese
and Japanese Brazilian
Migrants
An Ethnography of
the Lives of Japanese
and Japanese Brazilian
Migrants
Childhood, Family, and Work
Ethel V. Kosminsky
Foreword by Arthur Sakamoto
LEXINGTON BOOKS
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kosminsky, Ethel Volfzon, author. | Sakamoto, Arthur, writer of foreword.
Title: An ethnography of the lives of Japanese and Japanese Brazilian migrants : childhood, family, and work / Ethel V. Kosminsky ; foreword by Arthur Sakamoto.
Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020011615 (print) | LCCN 2020011616 (ebook) | ISBN 9781498522595 (cloth) | ISBN 9781498522601 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Bastos (São Paulo, Brazil)—Emigration and immigration—History—20th century. | Japanese—Brazil—Bastos (São Paulo)—History—20th century. | Japanese—Brazil—Ethnic identity. | Japanese—Cultural assimilation—Brazil. | Immigrants—Brazil—Bastos (São Paulo)—History—20th century. | Japan—Emigration and immigration—History—20th century. | Return migration—Japan—History—20th century.
Classification: LCC F2651.B28 K67 2020 (print) | LCC F2651.B28 (ebook) | DDC 981/.61—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020011615
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020011616
For My Parents, Annita Volfzon Kosminsky (In Memory)
Abraham Kosminsky (In Memory)
To Stephen F. Weinstein
Contents
Arthur Sakamoto
Preface: The Transnational Migration of Japanese Brazilians
1 An Overview of Japanese Migration to the Americas
2 Japanese Colonies in São Paulo State
4 Familial Organization in Japan and in Japanese Colonies in São Paulo State
5 The Japanese Brazilian World Upside Down
6 Intermediating Labor Force: Agents of Transnational Migrants
7 Transnational Migration: An Ethnographic Account
8 Labor Migration: Dekasegi
9 Living in Japan
10 Familial Relationships: Children and Teenagers
Conclusion
References
Index
About the Author
Arthur Sakamoto
It was a pleasure to read this wonderful book, and I am delighted to be able to recommend it to you. Although I have done some prior research on Japanese Brazilians, my analyses were based primarily on statistical data and published historical accounts. I did not know Ethel Kosminsky until last year when she contacted me about this ethnography that she was writing at that time. But I am very fortunate that she did because she has given me and everyone else the opportunity to read this superb book which is intrinsically informative as a detailed qualitative study as well as an important social scientific contribution to the English-language literature on Japanese Brazilians. There is much to appreciate in this book whether you are a social science scholar or a general reader interested in learning more about the drama of ethnic struggles and assimilation in a remote area of Brazil during the tumultuous era of the twentieth century.
Ethel Kosminsky’s research strategy is ambitious because it involves so many long interviews of many different persons of varying ages who had to be contacted and met face-to-face. Interviewing different generations of relatives is a painstaking process that also involves many hours of transcription and translation afterwards. This is an old-fashioned but laborious research methodology that is highly illuminating but which is becoming less commonly employed, because most sociologists these days are not as dedicated and professional as Ethel Kosminsky. The ethnography is enhanced by being interwoven and explicated with relevant social theory and sociological discussion, historical context, anthropological materials, and economic data.
For those of us who are of Japanese heritage but not Brazilian, I suspect that you find many familiar themes and stories relating to being a member of a Japanese family. You will at once recognize a kinship with individuals whom you never knew. You thereby come to a deeper understanding of your own identity and what it means to be part of the Japanese diaspora (including both positive and negative aspects).
At the same time, this familiarity is juxtaposed with a strangely different setting that evolves over time in ways that we could never have imagined. From the Brazilian jungle with homes built from mud and banana trees to a popular but fanatical political group of Japanese Brazilians who, nearly a year after the end of World War II, were murdering other Japanese Brazilians for merely acknowledging that Japan had lost that war. Reading this ethnography extending over the generations of Japanese immigrants, we feel weirdly transported into the lives of another Japanese diasporic community in a dramatically different societal context, thus coming to appreciate more fully the sociological