Title: The Identity Dilemma of Japanese Brazilians: Cultural Dislocation and Integration in Nihonjin

Abstract: In 1908, the first group of Japanese immigrants arrived in Brazil. Over the following decades, they were accepted by Brazilian society due to their outstanding achievements in agriculture and were hailed as a model of immigrant integration. Japanese culture also permeated Brazilian daily life to some extent. On the surface, Japanese descendants in Brazil enjoy a high degree of social acceptance and recognition. However, this appearance conceals identity struggles faced by Japanese immigrants and their descendants. The novel Nihonjin by the Japanese-Brazilian writer Oscar Nakasato tells the story of a Japanese family’s journey in Brazil from the perspective of a third-generation immigrant. Written in Portuguese with interspersed Japanese words, the novel conveys a persistent sense of cultural displacement. Moreover, themes of separation and death emerge repeatedly, serving as a metaphor for the complexities of integration across generations.This article aims to reveal the fundamental theme of Nihonjin: integration of Japanese immigrants in Brazil is an ongoing cultural negotiation that has spanned over a century, and the identity crisis of Japanese descendants remains unresolved.

Keywords: Japanese immigration, cultural integration, identity identification

Author: Lin Ma, Editor, The Institute of Foreign Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China.

DOI: 10.19967/j.cnki.flc.2025.02.003