The New Nikkei: Transpacific Shin Issei and Shifting Borders of Community in Southern California

Abstract

Increasing immigration from Asian countries to the United States post-1965 and subsequent global transformations in local urban communities is well researched and documented. Less visible as a point of investigation are the parameters of contemporary Japanese immigration to the U.S. in the last 25 years and its effects on existing Japan America. This brief paper is a preliminary attempt to rectify the relative dearth of scholarly research on new Japanese arrivals and introduce several theoretical questions that can lead to further discussion. Who are shin Issei and what their motivations for leaving Japan? What are the outlines of their transmigrant lives in Los Angeles? Finally, what are the social tensions that arise with their presence in already established Japanese American communities in Southern California? It is argued that discussion on these issues can promote a framework for future research on the renegotiation and transformation of a shared Japanese American identity.