Japanese and Nikkei at Home and Abroad: Negotiating Identities in ...

stratification. However, the idea of “your national origin” could be used as a reason to discriminate against migrants in a host society. For example, Japanese and Nikkei in North America and some Latin American nations became the target of discrimination during World War II, and many—if not most—lost their land and personal property (Hirabayashi and Kikumura-Yano 2006). In this case, ethnicity was used to make judgments about the social qualifications of immigrants and citizens of a particular national heritage. The core concept of ethnicity, then—an imaginary home and origin—are not the direct result of social ranking (like education and income), but are often used to classify ethnic minorities as an imaginary social class.

Ethnicity and Ethnic Identity in a Global World

“Global” Identity

Some South American Nikkei and other Latin American transnational migrant workers are creating a new sense of ethnic identity by claiming to be simply Latin American, aligning themselves alongside non-Japanese Latin Americans. This seems to be a somewhat surprising development since (1) previously, non-Japanese Latin Americans had often resisted Japanese immigration, and (2) Japanese Latin Americans themselvesalso often resisted assimilation (see Adachi, chapter 3; Reyes-Ruiz, chapter 7). Today, boundaries of ethnic groups become more fluid in a global world through advances in technology and transportation. People can create various homes and origins. For this reason, some sociologists now characterize the world as “stateless.” However, as the now-mobile world also provides increased opportunities to create relationships with different people, perhaps a better term might be “beyond-the-state.” The more people move around—connecting with people from various “homes”—the more complex the concept of ethnicity becomes.

In chapter 6, Creighton describes such a case, showing how new senses of ethnic identity develop in rather unique ways. She argues that, in Latin America, Nikkei ethnic-identity formation encompasses much more than making connections to Japan or Japanese people. According