ABSTRACT
As Brazil is transformed from a nation of immigrants to one of emigrants, Japan provides a partnership – a nation of emigrants now welcoming a flow of immigrants, albeit with some ambivalence (Befu 2002, Reis 2002). The approximately 300,000 Japanese residents who have arrived from the nations of Latin America are today’s human evidence of a global economy at work. After facing the difficulties of a largely illegal influx of ‘guest workers’ from Asia and the Middle East (Shipper 2002), the Japanese government in the 1980s offered special visas to descendents of Japanese migrants to South America, the Nikkei, assuming common ancestry would guarantee ease of assimilation and control (De Carvalho 2003b). Forgotten was the transformation that takes place over two to three generations among immigrants to places as radically different in language and culture from Japan as Brazil and Peru (Tsuda 2003b, Takenaka 2003). Viewing their time in Japan as an opportunity to quickly acquire funds sufficient for a better life in their homeland, the new migrants lacked emotional preparation for the reality of a Japan that matches neither the images of their ancestors nor the blandishments of brokers and immigration officers desirous to provide needed labour for Japan’s economic machine.
