ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a brief history of early Japanese immigration to rural areas of Brazil, highlighting the fact that, in the years that preceded World War II, the teaching of Japanese to the children of these immigrants was seen as one of the most important ways of assuring their offspring's 'Japaneseness' in new country. It focuses the outward migration of Brazilian workers of Japanese origin to Japan in the 1990s and considers the impact of this migratory movement on their language ideologies, their cultural allegiances and their sense of identity. The migration of Japanese people to Brazil began in 1908. The push factor was overpopulation in Japan and social problems stemming from this. The pull factor was the demand for labor in coffee plantations in Brazil after the abolition of slavery. Between the late 1980s and early 1990s, Brazil experienced a severe economic crisis that motivated many Japanese and their descendants to seek work in Japan as dekasegi.
