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''New Worlds, New Lives: Globalization and People of Japanese Descent in the Americas and from Latin America in Japan'' () is a 2002 academic book edited by
Lane Ryo Hirabayashi Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, (October 17, 1952 – August 8, 2020) was an American historian who focused on the World War II internment of Japanese Americans. He recommended to use the term incarceration instead of internment. Hirabayashi grew up in Ca ...
, James A. Hirabayashi, and Akemi Kikumura-Yano and published by the
Stanford University Press Stanford University Press (SUP) is the publishing house of Stanford University. It is one of the oldest academic presses in the United States and the first university press to be established on the West Coast. It was among the presses officially ...
. The volume, edited by three
Japanese American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...
anthropologists, was produced by the
Japanese American National Museum The is located in Los Angeles, California, and dedicated to preserving the history and culture of Japanese Americans. Founded in 1992, it is located in the Little Tokyo area near downtown. The museum is an affiliate within the Smithsonian Affil ...
's International Nikkei Research Project.Yamanaka, p. 1081. The same project produced the ''Encyclopedia of Japanese Descendants in the Americas: An Illustrated History of the Nikkei'', and the two books are companion volumes.Igarashi, p. 328. "(the present collection is conceived as a companion volume to ''Encyclopedia of Japanese Descendants in the Americas'', another INRP publication)." The book addresses larger theoretical considerations of individual empirical cases as well as the cases themselves.Igarashi, p. 326. The book was published in Japanese by in 2006, under the title ''Nikkeijin to gurōbarizēshon : Hokubei, Nanbei, Nihon'' (日系人とグローバリゼーション : 北米, 南米, 日本).


Overview

''New Worlds, New Lives'' discusses the effects of globalization on a Nikkei identity,Takenaka, p. 250. concerning those from the main islands of Japan and those from
Okinawa is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city ...
.Masterson, p. 530. This discussion of the Nikkei includes those from the
Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
,
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
,
Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...
,
Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...
and
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, and also the '' dekasegi'', Nikkei who reside in
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
.Moya, p. 389. The editors state that to understand how globalization has affected the Nikkei community one must put together Japan, the originating country, and the overall Nikkei community in a "triadic perspective";Takenaka, p. 250-251. According to the book, the "triadic framework" means examining Japan, the host country, and the ethnic organizations that link the host country and Japan along with the reproduction and maintenance of Nikkei ethnic identities. Yoko Yoshida of the '' Journal of International Migration and Integration'' wrote that "The greatest insight one can glean from this book is that only looking at ethnic groups in relation to their host societies does not capture the entire dynamics of the migration experience and the negotiation of cultural identity."Yoshida, p. 447. Ayumi Takenaka of the
University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...
argued that the book's chapters "neither address their relationship nor the impact of globalization." The book considers five results that may occur due to globalization. It may increase the Nikkei identity; erode the Nikkei identity; have no visible impact on the said identity; reduce the prominence of the Nikkei identity by, as Yoshida states, creating "global consciousness"; or generate an indicator of a decreasing Nikkei identity by establishing new "hybrid" identities.Yoshida, p. 446. Yoshida wrote that the editors of the book "fail to answer fully which outcome has emerged because globalization is never consistently conceptualized throughout this book." Of the chapters, half only cite their own case studies and do not cite anything else. Jose C. Moya of the
University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
argued that, in those chapters, this results in "a certain parochialism in their inability to engage the broader literature on migration and ethnicity." Keiko Yamanaka of the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
wrote that before this book was published, there was scarce information about the Japanese in South America in English, and a lot of the information had been published in Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese, inaccessible to Anglophones.Yamanaka, p. 1082.


Contents

The volume, divided into 20 chapters, includes 18 articles. Of the eighteen authors, seventeen are either Japanese or Nikkei. The book's arguments are presented in the second and third sections. The question of conjunction and disjunction of Nikkei identities is presented in sections two and three. Yoshida argued that this was "an interesting way to frame these sections". Yamanaka wrote that most chapters have general discussions on their topics and are short in length. Yoshikuni Igarashi of
Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...
stated that the average chapter length was 16 pages, and because of the short length the essays "read more like encyclopedia entries than critical essays."Igarashi, p. 327. Takenaka argued that concluded that "most of the chapters seem to address some aspects of conjunction and disjunction of identities in one way or another" and that the chapters should have been organized by topic or geographic region. Igarashi wrote that the book had organized its nomenclature along country-based boundaries. There are four chapters that discuss Peru. One chapter chronicle Japanese Peruvian history, covering from the year 1899 to the rule of
Alberto Fujimori Alberto Kenya Fujimori Inomoto ( or ; born 28 July 1938) is a Peruvian politician, professor and former engineer who was President of Peru from 28 July 1990 until 22 November 2000. Frequently described as a dictator, * * * * * * he remains a ...
. Another chapter refers to one opinion poll of Peruvian Japanese conducted in 1989 and another conducted in 1998 and compares and contrasts the two. There is an essay that discusses the Japanese political empowerment movements in three places: Brazil, Hawaii, and Gardena, California in
Greater Los Angeles Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino Coun ...
. There is also a section where the book discusses the formation of cosmopolitan, hybrid, and transnational identities. Robert Efird of
Seattle University Seattle University (SeattleU) is a private Jesuit university in Seattle, Washington. Seattle University is the largest independent university in the Northwestern United States, with over 7,500 students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate prog ...
stated that the essays by Yuko Takezawa and Makoto Araki examine the boundary of what a "Nikkei" is.Efird


Part One

The first section is Part One: The Impact of Globalization on Nikkei Identities. It includes two chapters. Prior to those two chapters is the introduction to part one by
Eiichiro Azuma Eiichiro Azuma (born 27 September 1966) is a Japanese-born American historian, writer, and professor. He has served as a Professor of History and Asian American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. The focus of his work is Japanese America ...
.Hirabayashi, Kikumura-Yano, and Hirabayashi, p
ix
(Table of Contents, first page).
Harumi Befu wrote "Globalization as Human Dispersal: Nikkei in the World", the introductory chapter, which puts Japanese immigration in a historical context.Masterson, p. 531. "Doris Moromisato Miasato argues that women are virtually shut out of leadership roles in the most vital groups, such as the prefectural ''(kenjinkai)'' associations. She suggests that traditional patriarchical patterns in the Japanese-Peruvian community have submerged a complex and adaptive feminine perspective under the simplified term of ''Nikkei identity''." This chapter is an overview of Japanese immigration from the 15th through the 21st centuries.Moya, p. 390. This chapter argues that the Japanese government encouraged immigration after 1870 in order to relieve pressures of a growing population and Befu believed that the Japanese government had acted in a callous manner towards these immigrants. Befu believes that the emigration policies of Japan had significant influence from the country's desire to gain a prominent position in the international system. Befu categorizes into three phases the transition of Japanese immigration processes: pre-modern, modernization, and post-World War II. Befu categorizes Japanese immigrants into eight groups: pre-modern immigrants, pre-
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
immigrants, post-World War II immigrants, war brides, multinational businesspersons and their families, Japanese engaging in marriages to foreigners, and who Igarashi calls "those who have forsaken Japan".Igarashi, p. 327. Befu believes that examining the development of Nikkei communities in relation to the international economic and political structures is the best way of understanding them. Yoshida wrote that "Nevertheless, the rest of the book lacks a consistent and explicit engagement of this theme and the concept of globalization is used differently in the various works." The second chapter in Part One is titled "The Impact of Contemporary Globalization on Nikkei Identities" and it is written by the volume's three editors.


Part Two

Part two, titled "Conjunctions of Nikkei Identities," discusses the "conjunction" of a Nikkei identity, meaning maintaining and spreading the identity. Part 2 has eight chapters organized into two subparts: "Community Formations and Linkages" and "The Politics of Ethnic Reproduction: Education and Representation." The introduction to part two is written by Lloyd Inui. In subpart one, Jeffrey Lesser wrote "In Search of the Hyphen: Nikkei and the Struggle over Brazilian National Identity." This chapter discusses the interaction between
Brazilian nationalism Brazilian nationalism refers to the nationalism of Brazilian people and Brazilian culture. It became strong during the declaration of Independence of Brazil, in the 19th century. History Brazil was initially a colony of Portugal, established d ...
and the identity politics of Brazil's immigrant groups. Lesser's chapter chronicles the Brazilian Japanese peoples' attempt to find a place in the world society as the '' dekasegi'' can be perceived as foreigners in both Japan and Brazil. The other articles in subpart one are "Licensed Agencies for Relief in Asia: Relief Materials and Nikkei Populations in the United States and Canada" by Masako Uno, "An Approach to the Formation of Nikkei Identity in Peru: Issei and Nisei" by Raúl Araki, and "The "Labor Pains" of Forging a Nikkei Community: A Study of the Santa Cruz Region in Bolivia" by Kozy Amemiya.Hirabayashi, Kikumura-Yano, and Hirabayashi, p
ix
(Table of Contents, second page).
Amemiya's essay discusses efforts by the Japanese community in the Santa Cruz region to commemorate their history. The articles in subpart two are ""The Twain Shall Meet" in the Nisei? Japanese Language Education and U.S.-Japan Relations, 1900-1940" by Teruko Kumei, "The Nikkei's Education in the Japanese Language in Paraguay: The Japanese Educational System and Its Influence on the Colonies" by Emi Kasamatsu, "Peruvian Nikkei: A Sociopolitical Portrait" by Amelia Morimoto, and "Pathways to Power: Comparative Perspectives on the Emergence of Nikkei Ethnic Political Traditions" by Lane Ryo Hirabayashi. Yoshida wrote that "I found that most of the literature cited in the second section lacks a specific link to the theme of globalization and its effects."


Part Three

The third part, titled, "Disjunctions of Nikkei Identities," discusses globalization-induced "disjunctions" of a Nikkei identity. This part, which has a total of nine chapters, is divided into three subparts: "Gender and Identity," "The Dekasegi Phenomenon," and "Emerging Identities." Richard Kosaki wrote the introduction to part three. Included in subpart one is "I Woman, I Man, I Nikkei: Symbolic Construction of Femininity and Masculinity in the Japanese Community of Peru" by Doris Moromisato Miasato. Miasato's essay discusses the role of gender in Japanese Peruvian communities. Miasato argues that the Japanese-Brazilian community's patriarchical patterns are hiding a feminine perspective present in the community and that many vital Peruvian Nikkei groups including prefectural associations of ''kenjinkai''. Another chapter compares and contrasts the formations of the Peruvian and United States Nikkei communities in terms of class, nationalism, and race. In addition, the subpart has "Migration as a Negotiation of Gender: Recent Japanese Immigrant Women in Canada" by
Audrey Kobayashi Audrey Lynn Kobayashi (born 1951 in British Columbia) is a Canadian professor and author, specializing in geography, geopolitics, and racial and gender studies. She was the vice-president of the Canadian Association of Geographers from 1999 to ...
. This essay, which chronicles Japanese women who had recently emigrated to Canada, argues for a conclusion similar to that of Miasato's. Igarashi stated that both essays show the importance of women in the Nikkei communities. The next article is "Race, Gender, Ethnicity and the Narrative of National Identity in the Films of Tizuka Yamazaki" by Naomi Hoki Moniz. This chapter discusses the Brazilian filmmaker
Tizuka Yamasaki Tizuka Yamasaki (born May 12, 1949) is a Brazilian film director. Early life and work Born in Porto Alegre, at the age of 2, Tizuka moved back with her Japanese immigrants parents to the city of Atibaia, in the state of São Paulo. In her teena ...
. The first article in the second subpart is "The Japanese-Brazilian ''Dekasegi'' Phenomenon: An Economic Perspective" by Edson Mori. The second article is "The ''Dekasegi'' Phenomenon and the Education of Japanese Brazilian Children in Japanese Schools" by Masato Ninomiya.Hirabayashi, Kikumura-Yano, and Hirabayashi, p
xi
(Table of Contents, third page).
This essay is about children of Nikkei Latin Americans living in Japan and their issues in the Japanese educational system. The third article is "The Emigration of Argentines of Japanese Descent to Japan" by Marcelo G. Higa. The first article in the third subpart is "The Nikkei Negotiation of Minorit/Majority Dynamics in Peru and the United States" by Steven Masami Ropp. The second is "The ''Uchinanchu'' Diaspora and the Boundary of "Nikkei"" by Makoto Arakaki. This essay, a discussion on the specific Okinawan identity, chronicles the use of academic conferences, business conferences, and organizations to create a worldwide Okinawan perspective. The third article is "Nikkeijin and Multicultural Existence in Japan: Kobe after the Great Earthquake" by Yasuko I. Takezawa. It discusses the civil responses to the Great Hanshin–Awaji earthquake. Yoshida wrote that compared to the chapters of section two, "the chapters in section three more convincingly show how Nikkei communities have been affected by globalization."


Part Four

The concluding essay is "Retrospect and prospects," written by the three editors of the volume. In this chapter the editors wrote that the primary concern of the book is not the experiences of individual ethnic Japanese but instead with the concept of ethnic Japanese communities being "ethnic reproduction".Igarashi, p. 329.


Reception

Daniel M. Masterson of the
U.S. Naval Academy The United States Naval Academy (US Naval Academy, USNA, or Navy) is a United States Service academies, federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as Secretary of ...
argued that the book's editors "are to be complimented for this anthology's important contribution to the field of Japanese migration studies." Moya states that the book is a "commendable effort", but that there is a sense of "conceptual looseness", or a lack of ability to compare the Nikkei of various countries because the authors did not collect and use the same statistics for all Nikkei groups. Moya concluded that "the book contains much that should be of interest to the readers of this journal." Efird states that "not just essential reading for students and scholars of Nikkei issues" but also is an "instructive rimeron the contingency of ethnic identity." He argues that the main weakness is "scant attention to the increasing intermarriage between Nikkei and other ethnic groups." Igarashi argued that while the book's editors successfully created an encyclopedic reference about ethnic Japanese and the recent academic discussions about them, this resource "remains, regrettably, largely unusable because of their fragmented presentation", stating that "the appeal of the collection will likely be limited to a handful of Nikkei readers." Igarashi wrote that the book "reconfirms" the "boundaries of the Nikkei" by trying to create a comprehensive resource and that it is difficult to analyze the cases in the volume due to the amount of information.


References

* Efird, Robert (
Seattle University Seattle University (SeattleU) is a private Jesuit university in Seattle, Washington. Seattle University is the largest independent university in the Northwestern United States, with over 7,500 students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate prog ...
). "New Worlds, New Lives: Globalization and People of Japanese Descent in the Americas and from Latin America in Japan" (book review). ''
Pacific Affairs ''Pacific Affairs'' (''PA'') is a Canadian peer-reviewed scholarly journal that publishes academic research on contemporary political, economic, and social issues in Asia and the Pacific. The journal was founded in 1926 as the newsletter for the ...
'', ISSN 0030-851X, 10/2004, Volume 77, Issue 3, pp. 585 - 587. Available at Gale Group
Academic OneFile InfoTrac is a family of full-text databases of content from academic journals and general magazines, of which the majority are targeted to the English-speaking North American market. As is typical of online proprietary databases, various forms ...
, GALE, A128977571. * Hirabayashi, Lane Ryo, Akemi Kikumura-Yano, and James A. Hirabayashi. ''New Worlds, New Lives: Globalization and People of Japanese Descent in the Americas and from Latin America in Japan''.
Stanford University Press Stanford University Press (SUP) is the publishing house of Stanford University. It is one of the oldest academic presses in the United States and the first university press to be established on the West Coast. It was among the presses officially ...
, 2002. , 9780804744621. -- Book's chapter list cited to put information on the content in the proper order * Igarashi, Yoshikuni (
Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...
). "New Worlds, New Lives: Globalization and People of Japanese Descent in the Americas and from Latin America in Japan" (review). '' Journal of Asian American Studies'', ISSN 1097-2129, 07/2004, Volume 6, Issue 3, pp. 326 - 329.
DOI 10.1353/jaas.2004.0018
* Masterson, Daniel M. (
U.S. Naval Academy The United States Naval Academy (US Naval Academy, USNA, or Navy) is a United States Service academies, federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as Secretary of ...
). "New Worlds, New Lives: Globalization and People of Japanese Descent in the Americas and from Latin America to Japan" (book review). ''
American Anthropologist ''American Anthropologist'' is the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), published quarterly by Wiley. The "New Series" began in 1899 under an editorial board that included Franz Boas, Daniel G. Brinton, and John W ...
'', ISSN 0002-7294, 09/2005, Volume 107, Issue 3, pp. 530 - 531.
DOI 10.1525/aa.2005.107.3.530.2
* Moya, Jose C. (
University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
). "New Worlds, New Lives: Globalization and People of Japanese Descent in the Americas and from Latin America in Japan" (book review). '' The Hispanic American Historical Review'', ISSN 0018-2168, 05/2004, Volume 84, Issue 2, pp. 388 - 390.
DOI 10.1215/00182168-84-2-388
* Takenaka, Ayumi (
University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...
). "New Worlds, New Lives: Globalization and People of Japanese Descent in the Americas and From Latin America in Japan" (book review). '' Amerasia Journal'', ISSN 0044-7471, 2002, Volume 28, Issue 2, p. 249. * Yamanaka, Keiko (
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
). "New Worlds, New Lives: Globalization and People of Japanese Descent in the Americas and from Latin America in Japan" (book review). '' The Journal of Asian Studies'', ISSN 0021-9118, 11/2004, Volume 63, Issue 4, pp. 1080 - 1082.
DOI 10.1017/S0021911804002487
* Yoshida, Yoko. "New worlds, new lives: globalization and people of Japanese descent in the Americas and from Latin America in Japan" (book review). '' Journal of International Migration and Integration'', ISSN 1488-3473, 09/2003, Volume 4, Issue 3, p. 445-447.


Notes


External links

*
New Worlds, New Lives
' -
Stanford University Press Stanford University Press (SUP) is the publishing house of Stanford University. It is one of the oldest academic presses in the United States and the first university press to be established on the West Coast. It was among the presses officially ...
{{Japanese diaspora 2002 non-fiction books Stanford University Press books Books about North America Books about South America Books about Japan Japanese diaspora in North America Japanese diaspora in South America Diaspora studies