Living Transnationally between Japan and Brazil

Based on over two years of participant-observation in labor brokerage firms, factories, schools, churches, and people’s homes in Japan and Brazil, Sarah LeBaron von Baeyer presents an ethnographic portrait of what it means in practice to “live transnationally,” that is, to contend with the social, institutional, and aspirational landscapes bridging different national settings. Rather than view Japanese-Brazilian labor migrants and their families as somehow lost or caught between cultures, she demonstrates how they in fact find creative and flexible ways of belonging to multiple places at once. At the same time, the author pays close attention to the various constraints and possibilities that people face as they navigate other dimensions of their lives besides ethnic or national identity, namely, family, gender, class, age, work, education, and religion

This book provides readers with a fresh perspective on Brazilian Nikkei migration to Japan. It provides a non-biased view on how “ethnic migrants” perceive what has been labeled as “ethnic migration.", In this comprehensive book, Sarah LeBaron von Baeyer offers an invaluable update to the literature on Nikkei (i.e. Japanese Brazilian) migrants in particular and to the study of Japan’s minority groups more broadly. . . . Living Transnationally Between Japan and Brazil is an important, comprehensive, and deeply researched book about the improvisational and ever-unfolding nature of transnational living. I highly recommend this book to scholars of Japan, minority identities, and transnationalism, and anyone else who is fascinated by the kaleidoscope of identities en route., Living Transnationally between Japan and Brazil: Routes beyond Roots makes an important contribution to the study of ethnicity and diaspora by interpreting ‘transnational living’ as a series of processes that create attachments across multiple borders—national, personal, and cultural. Sarah A. LeBaron von Baeyer’s fieldwork in Japan and Brazil demonstrates an insightful ethnographic lens. Her focus on three families and her astute analysis of identity expressions in foodways, dress, and leisure activities illustrates shifting identities among Japanese-Brazilians. This study teaches readers that living transnationally means many things at the same time and thus rejects essentialist claims about migrants and their lives., Living Transnationally between Japan and Brazil: Routes beyond Roots is a multi-sited ethnography and a much awaited research update on Nikkei Brazilians in Japan. The discussion of women’s conditions, children’s belonging and mobility, and these migrants’ religious life is an important addition to the literature. The family-oriented narratives and rich ethnographic details are distinct features of this monograph. Written in elegant prose, it is truly a joy to read., LeBaron von Baeyer’s deeply researched ethnography of Japanese Brazilian transnational migrants combines detailed life history accounts with careful consideration of how family, work, education, and religion differentially shape experience across gender, class, and generation. Spanning the economic crisis of 2008, the Fukushima catastrophe of 2011, and beyond, this excellent work highlights the way migrants of varying backgrounds, not just transnational elites, have embraced a kind of flexible citizenship that affords them resilience in troubled times, and that has given rise to unexpected forms of belonging.

Sarah LeBaron von Baeyer is lecturer in anthropology and East Asian studies at Yale University.