Beyond Brazilian Racial Categories: On Afro-Japanese Brazilian Connections

• In Event: Afro-Asia in Latin America: Religion, Literature, and Film

Abstract

Many Japanese immigrants first felt their connection to Brazil’s former slaves before their arrival to Brazil. They acknowledge that their immigration only became possible after Brazil abolished slavery. Furthermore, oftentimes the Japanese immigrants arrived and were taken to live in old slave quarters, or senzalas, further creating a sense of solidarity between the Japanese immigrants and the former slaves. And yet, many Japanese immigrants had never encountered a kokujin, or Black, until they arrived in Brazil. This paper explores the arrival of Japanese immigrants to Brazil and their first encounters with Black Brazil. Using Japanese-language texts, such as Tahata Saburō’s “Yasei,” Onodera Ikuko’s Uruwashiki gogatsu ni, and Endō Isamu’s “Kuroi mago” I argue that despite the fact that Japanese-Brazilians labeled Black Brazilians as moreno, mulatto, or kokujin, othering them as “foreigners” their “contact zones” on plantations and in schools allowed for connections: interactions, trysts, friendships, and love. These moments allow readers to push back on dualistic understandings of race in Brazil that depict a black-white axis. Here, a new narrative of Afro-Asia appears from beyond these Brazilian racial categories, one that emphasizes struggles of acceptance and exclusion and includes these into the Brazilian national narrative.

Author

• Zelideth M Rivas, Marshall University