Japanese Brazilians During WWII
“Resisting Racism: Japanese Immigrants and Japanese Brazilians, 1930-1954″, given by Dr. Jeffrey Lesser (Emory University) on Wednesday, May 11 (2pm Central) via Zoom, will be the final event in a series on Japanese Latin Americans during WWII. Click here to register and click here to find out more about the series and the related exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Milwaukee.
Dr. Lesser is the author of multiple books on Brazilian ethnic identity, such as “A Discontented Diaspora: Japanese-Brazilians and the Meanings of Ethnic Militancy” and “Immigration, Ethnicity and National Identity in Brazil” which may offer relevant passages for coursework.
The National Diet Library of Japan has a series on the history of Japanese Brazilians for an overall approach, found here. The film “Okinawa/Santos” directed by Yoju Matsubayashi, looks at the 1943 deportment of Japanese Brazilians and other Axis Powers immigrants from port city Santos in Brazil’s São Paulo. Find an article on the film here. Mario Jun Okuhara, a filmmaker from Sāo Paulo, directed “Yami no Ichinichi – O Crime que abalou a Colônia Japonesa no Brasil” exploring the brutal conditions that Japanese Brazilians endured during this time. The film is available on YouTube in Portuguese. Discover Nikkei has an article on the Shindo Renmei group, an organization originally created to unify Japanese Brazilians but that later committed acts of violence against its own community. In 2013, the Brazilian government issued a formal apology for the “maltreatment and detentions” of Japanese Brazilians.