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OverviewIn A Discontented Diaspora, Jeffrey Lesser investigates broad questions of ethnicity, the nature of diasporic identity, and Brazilian culture. He does so by exploring particular experiences of young Japanese Brazilians who came of age in São Paulo during the 1960s and 1970s, an intensely authoritarian period of military rule. The most populous city in Brazil, São Paulo was also the world’s largest “Japanese” city outside of Japan by 1960. Believing that their own regional identity should be the national one, residents of São Paulo constantly discussed the relationship between Brazilianness and Japaneseness. As second-generation Nikkei (Brazilians of Japanese descent) moved from the agricultural countryside of their immigrant parents into various urban professions, they became the “best Brazilians” in terms of their ability to modernize the country and the “worst Brazilians” because they were believed to be the least likely to fulfill the cultural dream of whitening. Lesser analyzes how Nikkei both resisted and conformed to others’ perceptions of their identity as they struggled to define and claim their own ethnicity within São Paulo during the military dictatorship.Lesser draws on a wide range of sources, including films, oral histories, wanted posters, advertisements, newspapers, photographs, police reports, government records, and diplomatic correspondence. He focuses on two particular cultural arenas—erotic cinema and political militancy—which highlight the ways that Japanese Brazilians imagined themselves to be Brazilian. As he explains, young Nikkei were sure that their participation in these two realms would be recognized for its Brazilianness. They were mistaken. Whether joining banned political movements, training as guerrilla fighters, or acting in erotic films, the subjects of A Discontented Diaspora militantly asserted their Brazilianness only to find that doing so reinforced their minority status. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Jeffrey LesserPublisher: Duke University Press Imprint: Duke University Press Dimensions: Width: 15.60cm , Height: 2.10cm , Length: 23.50cm Weight: 0.499kg ISBN: 9780822340607ISBN 10: 0822340607 Pages: 256 Publication Date: 14 September 2007 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Out of stock  The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available. Table of ContentsIllustrations and Tables ix Preface and Acknowledgments xi Abbreviations xv Prologue: The Limits of Flexibility xviii Introduction: The Pacific Rim in the Atlantic World 1 1. Brazil's Japan: Film and the Space of Ethnicity, 1960-1970 25 2. Beautiful Bodies and (Dis)Appearing Identities: Contesting Images of Japanese-Brazilian Ethnicity, 1970-1980 47 3. Machine Guns and Honest Faces: Japanese-Brazilian Ethnicity and Armed Struggle, 1964-1980 74 4. Two Deaths Remembered 108 5. How Shizuo Osawa Became Mario the Jap 122 Epilogue: Diaspora and Its Discontents 148 Notes 153 Glossary 189 Bibliography 191 Index 215ReviewsA Discontented Diaspora is the best work that I have read on the people of Japanese descent in Latin America, bar none. Jeffrey Lesser's research does no less than create a whole new vocabulary for the study of evolving Nikkei personal, artistic, and political identities. This is a book that I wish I had written. --Lane Hirabayashi, senior editor of New Worlds, New Lives: Globalization and People of Japanese Descent in the Americas and from Latin America in Japan Two books in one: a lively and engaging examination of Brazil's 'model minority,' and a probing analysis of the ambiguities and complexities of Brazilian 'racial democracy.' Highly recommended. --George Reid Andrews, author of Afro-Latin America, 1800-2000 A Discontented Diaspora is the best work that I have read on the people of Japanese descent in Latin America, bar none. Jeffrey Lesser's research does no less than create a whole new vocabulary for the study of evolving Nikkei personal, artistic, and political identities. This is a book that I wish I had written. --Lane Hirabayashi, senior editor of New Worlds, New Lives: Globalization and People of Japanese Descent in the Americas and from Latin America in Japan Two books in one: a lively and engaging examination of Brazil's 'model minority,' and a probing analysis of the ambiguities and complexities of Brazilian 'racial democracy.' Highly recommended. --George Reid Andrews, author of Afro-Latin America, 1800-2000 Author InformationJeffrey Lesser is Winship Distinguished Research Professor of the Humanities, Professor of History, and Director of the Program in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Emory University. His books include Searching for Home Abroad: Japanese-Brazilians and Transnationalism and Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities, and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil, both also published by Duke University Press. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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