How diasporic ties emerge: Pan-American Nikkei communities and the Japanese state

Abstract

This paper examines the development of global ethnic ties, focusing on pan-American Nikkei activities among later-generation descendants of Japanese immigrants. How do diasporic ties emerge across countries, and how are ties mobilized? Who promotes, and participates in, this process? Pan-American Nikkei activities emerged neither as a by-product of shared ancestry or experience nor as a result of continuous ties to their ancestral homeland. Instead, they emerged in response to changes taking place in their countries of residence. Precisely because Japanese descendants throughout the Americas became assimilated, acculturated and economically better off, community leaders had both the means and need to mobilize diasporic ties – in order to bolster their communities, and their status therein, in their respective countries. The most active participants in these activities were well-to-do community leaders.

Keywords:

• Diaspora
• Japan
• ethnicities
• identity
• role of sending state

Acknowledgements

I thank Yoshio Shibata, Wally Look Lai, Herbert Gans and Masayo Nishida for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. Luis Yamakawa, Luis Sakoda, Ron Uba, Stan Kanzaki and Francis Sogi kindly helped me obtain documents and information on past PANA conventions.

Notes

1. Since the late 1980s, large numbers of Latin Americans of Japanese descent have migrated to Japan. In 2005, there were over 376,000 South Americans officially registered in Japan (excluding undocumented workers), mostly from Brazil and Peru.

2. Japan has been involved more heavily in South America also because more emigrants were sent to South America under direct government sponsorship particularly after the Second World War.

3. Over 1,800 Japanese from Latin America (mostly Peru) were interned in Texas during the Second World War.

4. Current members are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, the USA and Venezuela.