CELIA SAKURAI
Title
The Japanese-Brazilian culture, a confluence of cultures.
Abstract
The descendants of the 250,000 Japanese immigrants in Brazil inherited the Japanese culture brought by their ancestors a hundred years ago. Nowadays, these descendants are about 1.500.000 people, living in all parts of the Brazilian territory and some in different parts of Japan.
During the past one hundred years, the coexistence with Brazilians of other cultural backgrounds has been changing the original culture, which is also continuously nourished by the new trends that come from Japan, resulting in something new: a revisited Japanese culture or a Japanese-Brazilian culture.
Recent researches have shown that the Japanese culture has an special place in Brazil’s everyday life, for instance in culinary and fine arts, which have introduced and internalized, in the Brazilian population at large, new patterns of taste and aesthetic values.
We know for sure that many traits of the Japanese culture, reshaped by the Japanese-Brazilian experience, are strongly present in Brazil nowadays. In a complex process of social relations that mix a large range of cultural changes, the descendants of the Japanese immigrants have been contributing to the shaping of their own ethnic identity and, at the same time, to the general Brazilian cultural diversity.
Short Bio
Undergraduated in History (1974 University of São Paulo) and in Social Sciences (1981 University of São Paulo), Master in Political Sciences (1988 University of São Paulo), PhD in Social Sciences (2000 State University of Campinas), Post Doctoral – Núcleo de Estudos de População (2003 State University of Campinas).
Since 1990 has been studying the history of Japanese Immigration in Brazil. As researcher worked in IDESP 1990 – 2003, Memorial do Imigrante 2004-2007, Museu Histórico da Imigração Japonesa no Brasil 1998- 2012.
Some publications:
Books:
1993. Romanceiro da Imigração Japonesa. São Paulo: Editora Sumaré/FAPESP1995.
2007. Os Japoneses. São Paulo: Ed. Contexto. (2008 Jabuti Prize- Câmara Brasileira do Livro)
Academic essays
2004. Brasil. De los primeros immigrantes a los dekasegui. in Cuando Oriente Llegó a América. Washington DC: Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo: 135-160.
2008. A imigração dos japoneses para o Brasil no pós-guerra (1950 – 1980) in Cem Anos da Imigração Japonesa. História, memória e arte. Editora UNESP: 189 – 239.
2008. Resistência e Integração. 100 anos de imigração japonesa no Brasil Rio de Janeiro: IBGE. (organizer).
2010 O Espírito Comunitário Japonês (re) Interpretado no Brasil in Centenário: Contribuição da Imigração Japonesa para o Brasil Moderno e Multicultural. São Paulo: Paulo’s Comunicação e Artes Gráficas 109 – 116.