Transnational Migration and the Nationalization of Ethnic Identity among Japanese Brazilian Return Migrants

Abstract

By examining the ethnic experiences of Japanese Brazilian return migrants in Japan, this paper explores how the dislocations of migration can produce a form of deterritorialized nationalism in which national loyalties are articulated outside the territorial boundaries of the nation‐state. The Japanese Brazilians respond to their ethnic exclusion in Japan, as well as their negative experiences with Japanese cultural behavior and discrimination, by discarding their previously stronger Japanese identity and affirming their Brazilian cultural distinctiveness through contextually redefining their ethnic behavior. The resulting resurgence of Brazilian national sentiment becomes an ethnic counteridentity that is asserted in opposition to what is perceived negatively as Japanese. This indicates that transnational movements of people which cross national boundaries do not necessarily subvert the hegemonic dominance of the nation‐state over individual consciousness.