Until now, discussions of Japanese transnational migrants and Nikkei have focused on only a few social and political issues, such as racial discrimination—including the internment camps of North America during World War II—and “returnee” Nikkei dekasegi (temporary migrant) workers in Japan. The issues of ethnic identity in these people's daily struggles for social, cultural, and/or economic survival have yet to be examined in a global context. Furthermore, little attention has been given to Japanese nationals living abroad, an important group of people whose numbers are increasing rapidly. And while much previous work has been exemplary in terms of history or ethnography, less attention has been paid to fitting the Japanese case into a larger theoretical framework. This volume—the major focus of which is on the ethnic identity of post–World War II Japanese transnational migrants and Nikkei—thus fills an important gap in the literature on ethnic studies, diaspora theory, and Japanese studies.
This book consists of eleven chapters, divided into four parts: History and Theory, Nikkei at Home, Nikkei in Japan, and Japanese Overseas. Part I consists of two chapters. In the first, Nobuko Adachi discusses some theoretical issues involved in the formation of ethnicity in a global context and the problems concerning Issei and Nikkei communities today. She argues that ethnicity is not a fixed notion but emerges in complex ways in various social and physical contexts. Through social networking people relate to one another. Such social networks emerge in daily life, and ethnic identities are constructed and reconstructed through people's relationships as they struggle within the societies where they reside. In the global world, ethnicity becomes increasingly more dynamic in relation to transnational movements of people, and classic notions of ethnicity and race can no longer explain current ethnic and race relations.
In chapter 2, Harumi Befu provides an overview of the historical development of Japanese transnational migration. He believes there are three major time periods of Japanese emigrations to consider. He covers the history of governmental attempts to foster emigration and immigrant motivations for doing so. He describes the historical difficulties of assimilation among Japanese overseas. His chapter examines aspects of