Contornos e representações familiares: a constituição da família Japonesa no Brasil

Abstract

This study analyses the set up of the Japanese families in Brazil, between 1908 to 1970. It focuses the reactivation values and strategies passed on from the original society. They remained active for a long time, forging the links that permitted the establishment of a relationship network, which determined the collective options of “being Japanese” in the Brazilian society. The analysis of these strategies carried out by Japanese immigrants aiming to recreate their cultural environment in the adoptive country, bringing to the surface constitutive values of the family, such as work, education and religion. The control of values made possible for the immigrant to handle the codes and the rules that strengthen them. The family was not just the basic supporting point, but it represents an extended link covering those who had immigrated and those who had stayed in the native country. As a result, they searched in their traditions the elements that could make possible the constitution of representations in foreign countries.