No place to call home: Japanese Brazilians discover they are foreigners in the country of their ancestors

Takeyuki Tsuda

From my window on the train rolling into the station in Tokyo, the people waiting on the station platform were a blur. As we slowed down to our precise stopping point, Japanese faces came into focus. The doors opened, and people shuffled in or out of the car. Just before the doors closed, three men strolled in. Compared with the other passengers, these Japanese appeared quite different, their demeanor casual and leisurely. Two were dressed in shirts of bright mixed colors and jeans with a stripe down the side. The third wore a T-shirt with the word "Brasil." They were in the middle of a loud, boisterous conversation, in Portuguese.

"It's really funny," one of them remarked, leaning against a handrail with his hands in his pockets. "He goes on talking and talking, but the Japanese don't understand him."

"The poor guy," another said. "It's because his Japanese is old-fashioned. Not only that, it's a dialect from Okinawa." They laughed.

Instantly the three men--Brazilians of Japanese descent--drew the attention of the surrounding native-born Japanese. Some looked up from their newspapers to stare. Other gave furtive glances, pretending not to notice the strangers. Two women sitting beside me turned their eyes away from the men and looked at each other. They exchanged one word: gaijin ("foreigners").

I felt like an eavesdropper two times over. Born in the United States of Japanese immigrants, I, too, was a gaijin at least technically. But my parents had seen to it that I absorbed their native language and culture, and I had visited "the homeland" many times. In Japan, by observing all the social graces, I could often pass for a native. My anthropological fieldwork, however, focused on Japanese-Brazilian immigrants, like the three men on the train. To learn about their prior lives in Brazil, I had spent more than eight months in Porto Alegre and Ribeirao Preto, conducting interviews and participating in community activities. Now, to understand the experiences of the Japanese Brazilians who had come to live in Japan, I was spending much of my time working alongside them in a Japanese factory. I was probably the only other passenger who could follow the conversation in Portuguese. Yet for the moment I kept mum and observed passively. Juggling my various private and public identities in the field was a strain, and I was off duty.

Brazilians of Japanese descent began arriving in Japan during the late 1980s, in search of high-paying factory jobs. Their anomalous ethnic status attracted considerable attention from the start. "The first time the Japanese Brazilians came to town, I was really surprised," one young Japanese man told me. "I thought, wow, look at these weirdos! What in the world are they anyway? They looked Japanese, but they weren't real Japanese. They acted completely differently, spoke a foreign tongue, and dressed in strange ways. They were like fake Japanese, like a fake superhero you see on TV."

With a population of about 280,000, Japanese-Brazilian immigrants have become the third-largest group of foreigners living in Japan, after the Koreans and Chinese. To social scientists they are "return migrants," because they are going back to their ethnic homeland. Yet most of them were born and raised in Brazil, do not speak Japanese very well, and have become culturally Brazilian to various degrees.

Such ethnic return migration is a worldwide phenomenon. In recent decades more than half a million people of Korean and Japanese descent, who were scattered across China, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, have return-migrated to Korea and Japan. In Europe, there has been a massive return of several million ethnic German, Hungarian, Italian, and Spanish descendants from Eastern Europe and Latin America to their homelands. Motivated by long-held traditions, millions of Jews, notably from Eastern Europe, have settled in Israel.

Because they and their forebears have become assimilated into the culture of a foreign land while living abroad for generations, the return migrants often find themselves treated as ethnic minorities in their "home" countries. Many of them work as unskilled manual laborers, which confines them to low social and economic status. Hence, whatever nostalgic longing and attachment they might have felt toward their ancestral homelands, return migrants often find the reality of their new circumstances alienating. In response, many adopt a strong sense of national allegiance and identification with the country they left behind, stronger than any they ever felt before. Others assume the identity of a diasporic people, whose sense of belonging cannot be defined in nationalist terms.

Ironically, the parents or grandparents of the Japanese Brazilians had left Japan in search of a better life in Brazil. Many of those emigrants were farmers, recruited as contract workers for Brazil's booming coffee plantations. The labor flow began in 1908 and continued into the early 1960s. Although most of the emigrants intended to return to Japan after several years, the vast majority settled permanently in Brazil with their families. There, they went on to become independent farmers and landowners. Many have since urbanized and their descendants have entered Brazil's middle class as professionals and business owners with educational levels and incomes substantially higher than the Brazilian average. Numbering more than 1.2 million, they constitute Brazil's oldest and by Elf its largest Asian minority.

Japanese Brazilians are now relatively well integrated into Brazilian society, but because of the attention that is given to racial appearance in Brazil, other Brazilians always refer to them as japones. I noticed this kind of treatment a few days after I arrived in Porto Alegre. "Oi, japones!" a Brazilian street vendor called out to me, trying to interest me in his goods. A little while later a bus-station attendant gestured, not at all impolitely, toward a bench where I could sit while waiting: "Espera aqui, japones." There it was again; I was beginning to realize it was common practice. "Even if we become completely Brazilian and act as Brazilian as possible," a young Japanese-Brazilian student told me, a hint of resignation in his voice, "we will always be seen as Japanese because of our faces. We can go to a soccer game and cheer on our favorite Sao Paulo team, or even dance samba in the streets, and in the midst of it, someone will say, 'Hey, japones!'"

But in contrast to most minority groups, who suffer from low socioeconomic status, prejudice, and discrimination, the Japanese Brazilians generally enjoy higher-than-average status and may even be admired for their "Japanese" cultural attributes. Indeed, the Japanese Brazilians in Brazil have capitalized on the prevailing favorable image by embracing their Japanese identities while generally distancing themselves from what they perceive to be the negative aspects of Brazilian culture.

In the early 1980s, eight decades after the first Japanese emigrants set foot in Brazil, the Brazilian economy entered a prolonged period of crisis. Meanwhile, the Japanese economy, which had grown beyond all expectations to become the second largest in the world, was suffering from an acute shortage of unskilled labor. Immigration-policy makers in Japan decided to admit nikkeijin (people of Japanese descent born and raised abroad) from South America as foreign workers. Government officials rather cavalierly assumed the nikkeijin would assimilate smoothly into Japanese society, providing much-needed immigrant labor without disrupting Japan's cherished ethnic homogeneity.

Seeking to maintain their standard of living, the Japanese Brazilians started arriving in Japan, and their numbers continue to grow steadily, despite that nation's current economic recession. Close to one-fifth of the entire Brazilian nikkeijin population now lives in Japan. Well-educated and middle-class in Brazil, most of them work as unskilled laborers in small and medium-size firms in the manufacturing and construction sectors. Still, based on the exchange rate, they earn five to ten times their Brazilian incomes. Like their own forebears, most of them arrive in the new country intending to work for just a couple of years and then quickly return to Brazil with their savings. Consequently, they have also become known as dekasegi, short for dekasegi rodosha, Japanese for "temporary migrant worker." But many have already brought their families to Japan, and the process of long-term immigrant settlement has begun.

Given my experience in Brazil and my familiarity with Japanese customs, I felt well positioned to explore both sides of the ethnic encounter between the return migrants and their native hosts. I started my research in Ota city and adjacent Oizumi town, three hours by train to the north of Tokyo. They are part of an industrialized area that has the highest concentration of Brazilian nikkeijin in Japan. The local government has welcomed the immigrants and provided them with an array of services, including both standard schooling and special language classes for the children.

In the anthropological tradition of "participant observation," I arranged to work in a factory, essentially as a return migrant myself, alongside Japanese and Japanese Brazilians. I tried to get to know my co-workers while I installed utility cables and pressure gauges on the inspection section of an air-conditioner assembly line. I also conducted interviews with Japanese Brazilians who were not factory workers--owners of ethnic businesses, graduate students, liaisons and assistants for local governments and labor-broker firms, and members of nikkeijin assistance organizations. After four and a half months I moved to Kawasaki city, near Tokyo, to do more interviews for another eight months.

Approaching the native Japanese workers proved to be far more difficult than I could have imagined. I wore the same blue uniform as the Japanese-Brazilian factory workers, ate lunch with them in a separate room, clustered with them during breaks, and was heard speaking Portuguese. I was dismayed to realize that as far as the Japanese were concerned, I was as Brazilian as samba and carnival. None of the Japanese workers interacted with me socially: there were no greetings, no smiles of recognition in the morning, no small talk. They didn't even bother to ask or remember my name; instead they simply called me gaijin-san ("Mr. Foreigner"). For me it was quite disorienting.

It seemed as if it ought to be simple enough for me to introduce myself and clarify my ethnic and professional identity. In practice, though, it took a lot of persistence. The initial reaction was apt to be one of subdued surprise, because my fluency in Japanese was unexpected. When I then explained that I was from the United States, the reaction would be another expression of surprise: not being white, I hardly fit their stereotypical image of an American, and if I was American, why was I working in a Japanese factory and why did I speak Portuguese? My final revelation--that although I was working on an assembly line I was "actually" a graduate student doing research--generally elicited a skeptical "Really?" or a noncommittal "I see."

On one occasion I introduced myself to a foreman on a section where I worked for a few days. Later, one of my co-workers told me that the foreman thought I had lost my mind. "He can't deal with the fact that he is a dekasegi in Japan," the foreman supposedly said. "So he's creating some kind of fantasy that he's an American and doing research."

The Japanese workers were particularly reluctant to reveal their attitudes toward the Japanese Brazilians. The topic was controversial, and management put a lot of pressure on them to treat the nikkeijin well and avoid creating conflict. Outside the factory I had better success: there I was better able to present myself with Japanese manners and demeanor, and gain more candid interviews.

"The Japanese do not perceive the nikkeijin well," one middle-class Tokyo resident told me. "They are seen as people who were from rural villages and were poor. They were the type of low-level people who couldn't survive in Japan. So they had to discard Japan and go abroad." Native Japanese go on to assume that the Japanese Brazilians have now migrated to Japan because they could not succeed in Brazil either. Thus the migration legacy of the nikkeijin subjects them to a double social stigma.

The racial appearance that marks the japones as a minority in Brazil doesn't differentiate them once they arrive in Japan, but that doesn't spare the return migrants from being seen as an ethnic minority. Both the Japanese government officials, as well as most of the Japanese workers and residents I interviewed, were quite disappointed to discover how culturally Brazilian the nikkeijin had become. As a result, the return migrants became targets of common negative stereotypes of Brazilian or Latino character.

"Even if they don't have money to live tomorrow," an older Japanese woman told me, "they decide to enjoy life today and worry about tomorrow when it comes. They are open and jovial people, but careless, irresponsible, and lazy. Warm countries are like this." Some Japanese residents complained that Japanese Brazilians living in the neighborhoods make excessive noise in their apartments and party until late at night on weekends.

One Japanese worker expressed a common sentiment: "The nikkeijin don't work hard, and can't work properly. Lots of people resent them because they can't work well and cause problems for the Japanese workers, who have to work extra to make up for them." Most Japanese workers I interviewed did not seem fully aware that the nikkeijin, as a migrant labor force with high turnover, tend to be new workers with relatively little experience in the factory. In contrast, the Japanese employers generally had a favorable impression of the nikkeijin, compared with Japanese seasonal or part-time workers. But employers also had criticisms. "They are too individualistic, selfish, and think only about their own personal needs and not those of others," one employer told me. "They have no group consideration and don't help each other, but instead harass those among them who try to do more to raise group efficiency." Whatever their private prejudices, though, most native Japanese residents and factory workers I observed did not express those prejudices to the nikkeijin.

In contrast to my experience interviewing native Japanese workers, I found it easy to relate to the Japanese Brazilians on the assembly line. They were quite conscious of their counterparts in the United States, like me (the so-called nipo-americanos); most of them also knew what an antropologo was.

For their part, many Japanese Brazilians "return" to their ethnic homeland expecting to be socially accepted, if not eagerly welcomed, and are disappointed to find they are socially isolated and treated as foreigners. "To be considered Japanese, it is not sufficient to have a Japanese face and eat with chopsticks," one man said. "You must think, act, and speak just like the Japanese." In Brazil the Japanese Brazilians had considered their own demeanor to be relatively quiet and restrained. In Japan they discover that the ways in which they walk, dress, and gesture is strikingly different from those of the Japanese. At the same time, the return migrants contend that, compared with themselves, the Japanese are people lacking calor humano ("human warmth").

Some return migrants, having been raised on antiquated images of Japanese culture, are keenly disappointed to find Japan is so Westernized. But most of them also arrive with idealistic images of Japan as a highly developed First World nation with ultramodern cities, high-tech industries, and luxurious living standards. As a result, they are also disappointed to discover that the country has its share of narrow streets, small houses, poor neighborhoods, homes without flush toilets, and small, dingy factories.

Almost mirroring the Japanese on the assembly line, the nikkeijin were often critical of the native workers. "The Japanese think they are superior to us because they have been in the factory for much longer and have more experience," one woman maintained. "But the Brazilians work better. In my workplace, I do the work of three Japanese and do it more efficiently and seriously. The Japanese workers don't want to contribute to quality. If the Brazilians do better work, the Japanese get jealous."

Because so much of my fieldwork involved soliciting the views of the return migrants and the native Japanese toward each other, I often found myself enacting mutually incompatible nikkeijin and Japanese identities, often in rapid succession or even simultaneously. Fieldworkers have come to realize that their own cultural and personal biases and characteristics may directly affect the outcome of their work, and that a sanitized, depersonalized account actually undermines the very scientific objectivity it is supposed to express. The observer is also being observed by the natives, and what the natives perceive as the anthropologist's professional, ethnic, gender, class, and other characteristics will influence their responses. My own experiences were a constant reminder of the need to remain aware of such interpersonal dynamics in the field.

When denied their previously cherished Japanese identity, some Japanese-Brazilian return migrants look to religion to fill the void. Others, particularly those who are isolated from their ethnic peers, suffer from mental disorders, creating imaginary friends or even turning to suicide or to criminal behavior. But the most common reaction is a reaffirmation of their Brazilian identity. Although back home many were critical of aspects of Brazilian society, in Japan they tend to speak highly of Brazil's living conditions, natural resources and agriculture, sports heroes, food, and friendly people. Instead of striving to blend in as native Japanese, they begin acting in overtly Brazilian ways, speaking Portuguese loudly in public, wearing Brazilian clothes, and introducing themselves as Brazilians. They also take part--more actively than they ever did in Brazil--in events that feature Brazilian music, dance, clothes, and food.

Among the most visible of the "Brazilian" events are the samba parades, organized in communities with high nikkeijin concentrations. Although most Japanese Brazilians never bothered to participate in samba in Brazil (and even scorned it as a lowly activity), they suddenly find themselves dancing the samba in Japan and enjoying it a great deal.

Since most of them never became thoroughly knowledgeable about samba, however, their parades tend to be somewhat improvised and haphazard. In one parade I attended in Oizumi town, the samba costumes ranged from simple bathing suits, clown outfits, and festival clothes with Brazilian national colors to simple T-shirts and shorts. The contrast to the elaborate outfits expressly designed for samba festivals in Brazil could not be more striking. Furthermore, most of the nikkeijin did not even seem to know how to synchronize their body movements properly. Nevertheless, the performance affirmed their Brazilian identity, and the crowds of curious Japanese spectators, who clogged up the street with their cameras and camcorders, validated the dancers' sense of "otherness."

Even if they try to blend into the rest of Japanese society, the return migrants have little chance of doing so. The sizable number of them who give up their original plans to return to Brazil will live out their lives as outsiders. Many of their children, though, will be able to bridge the ethnic gap. They are not only learning to speak the language in Japanese schools, they are also adopting Japanese attitudes and even prejudices about the country their parents left behind. They will not long remain strangers in their ethnic homeland.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Natural History Magazine, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning