This collection of essays addresses various aspects of Arab and Jewish immigration and acculturation in Latin America. The experiences in the region of these two groups have never been the subject of joint and comprehensive scrutiny. The volume examines how the Latin American elites who were keen to change their countries' ethnic mix felt threatened by the arrival of Arabs and Jews. Their arrival was largely unexpected, and in some cases frankly undesired and practically banned.
Negotiating national identity was never easy, and many of this volume's multidisciplinary cast of authors examine discrimination and prejudice as a component of Arab and Jewish life in the region. These cultural, economic and political (public) negotiations left neither side unchanged: while Latin American society and post-migratory immigrant identities have been in a constant state of flux, the elite's desired homogenization of national or cultural identity has been precluded to this day.

Immigration, Ethnicity, and National Identity in Brazil, 1808 to the Present examines the immigration to Brazil of millions of Europeans, Asians and Middle Easterners beginning in the nineteenth century. Jeffrey Lesser analyzes how these newcomers and their descendants adapted to their new country and how national identity was formed as they became Brazilians along with their children and grandchildren. Lesser argues that immigration cannot be divorced from broader patterns of Brazilian race relations, as most immigrants settled in the decades surrounding the final abolition of slavery in 1888 and their experiences were deeply conditioned by ideas of race and ethnicity formed long before their arrival. This broad exploration of the relationships between immigration, ethnicity and nation allows for analysis of one of the most vexing areas of Brazilian study: identity.

Immigration, Ethnicity, and National Identity in Brazil, 1808 to the Present examines the immigration to Brazil of millions of Europeans, Asians and Middle Easterners beginning in the nineteenth century. Jeffrey Lesser analyzes how these newcomers and their descendants adapted to their new country and how national identity was formed as they became Brazilians along with their children and grandchildren. Lesser argues that immigration cannot be divorced from broader patterns of Brazilian race relations, as most immigrants settled in the decades surrounding the final abolition of slavery in 1888 and their experiences were deeply conditioned by ideas of race and ethnicity formed long before their arrival. This broad exploration of the relationships between immigration, ethnicity and nation allows for analysis of one of the most vexing areas of Brazilian study: identity.

Latin America is home to emerging global powers such as Brazil and Mexico and has important links to other titans including China, India, and Africa. Global Latin America examines a range of historical events and cultural forms in Latin America that continue to influence peoples' lives far outside the region. Its innovative essays, interviews, and stories focus on insights from public intellectuals, political leaders, artists, academics, and activists from the region, allowing students to gain an appreciation of the global relevance of Latin America in the twenty-first century.

Latin America is home to emerging global powers such as Brazil and Mexico and has important links to other titans including China, India, and Africa. Global Latin America examines a range of historical events and cultural forms in Latin America that continue to influence peoples' lives far outside the region. Its innovative essays, interviews, and stories focus on insights from public intellectuals, political leaders, artists, academics, and activists from the region, allowing students to gain an appreciation of the global relevance of Latin America in the twenty-first century.

This text tells the poignant and puzzling story of how earlier this century, in spite of the power of anti-Semitic politicians and intellectuals, Jews made their exodus to Brazil, "the land of the future." What motivated the Brazilian government, he asks, to create a secret ban on Jewish entry in 1937 just as Jews desperately sought refuge from Nazism? And why, just one year later, did more Jews enter Brazil legally than ever before? The answers lie in the Brazilian elite's radically contradictory images of Jews and the profound effect of these images on Brazilian national identity and immigration policy. Lesser's work reveals the convoluted workings of Brazil's wartime immigration policy, as well as the attempts of desperate refugees to twist the prejudices on which it was based to their advantage. His subtle analysis and anecdotes shed light on such pressing issues as race, ethnicity, nativism, and nationalism in postcolonial societies at a time when "ethnic cleansing" in Europe is once again driving increasing numbers of refugees from their homelands.

In A Discontented Diaspora, Jeffrey Lesser investigates broad questions of ethnicity, the nature of diasporic identity, and Brazilian culture. He does so by exploring particular experiences of young Japanese Brazilians who came of age in Sao Paulo during the 1960s and 1970s, an intensely authoritarian period of military rule. The most populous city in Brazil, Sao Paulo was also the world's largest "Japanese" city outside of Japan by 1960. Believing that their own regional identity should be the national one, residents of Sao Paulo constantly discussed the relationship between Brazilianness and Japaneseness. As second-generation Nikkei (Brazilians of Japanese descent) moved from the agricultural countryside of their immigrant parents into various urban professions, they became the "best Brazilians" in terms of their ability to modernize the country and the "worst Brazilians" because they were believed to be the least likely to fulfill the cultural dream of whitening. Lesser analyzes how Nikkei both resisted and conformed to others' perceptions of their identity as they struggled to define and claim their own ethnicity within Sao Paulo during the military dictatorship.Lesser draws on a wide range of sources, including films, oral histories, wanted posters, advertisements, newspapers, photographs, police reports, government records, and diplomatic correspondence. He focuses on two particular cultural arenas-erotic cinema and political militancy-which highlight the ways that Japanese Brazilians imagined themselves to be Brazilian. As he explains, young Nikkei were sure that their participation in these two realms would be recognized for its Brazilianness. They were mistaken. Whether joining banned political movements, training as guerrilla fighters, or acting in erotic films, the subjects of A Discontented Diaspora militantly asserted their Brazilianness only to find that doing so reinforced their minority status.

During the first half of the twentieth century, Japanese immigrants entered Brazil by the tens of thousands. In more recent decades that flow has been reversed: more than 200,000 Japanese-Brazilians and their families have relocated to Japan. Examining these significant but rarely studied transnational movements and the experiences of Japanese-Brazilians, the essays in Searching for Home Abroad rethink complex issues of ethnicity and national identity. The contributors-who represent a number of nationalities and disciplines themselves-analyze how the original Japanese immigrants, their descendants in Brazil, and the Japanese-Brazilians in Japan sought to fit into the culture of each country while confronting both prejudice and discrimination.The concepts of home and diaspora are engaged and debated throughout the volume. Drawing on numerous sources-oral histories, interviews, private papers, films, myths, and music-the contributors highlight the role ethnic minorities have played in constructing Brazilian and Japanese national identities. The essayists consider the economic and emotional motivations for migration as well as a range of fascinating cultural outgrowths such as Japanese secret societies in Brazil. They explore intriguing paradoxes, including the feeling among many Japanese-Brazilians who have migrated to Japan that they are more "Brazilian" there than they were in Brazil. Searching for Home Abroad will be of great interest to scholars of immigration and ethnicity in the Americas and Asia. Contributors. Shuhei Hosokawa, Angelo Ishi, Jeffrey Lesser, Daniel T. Linger, Koichi Mori, Joshua Hotaka Roth, Takeyuki (Gaku) Tsuda, Keiko Yamanaka, Karen Tei Yamashita

Despite great ethnic and racial diversity, ethnicity in Brazil is often portrayed as a matter of black or white, a distinction reinforced by the ruling elite's efforts to craft the nation's identity in its own image--white, Christian, and European. In "Negotiating National Identity" Jeffrey Lesser explores the crucial role ethnic minorities from China, Japan, North Africa, and the Middle East have played in constructing Brazil's national identity, thereby challenging dominant notions of nationality and citizenship.
Employing a cross-cultural approach, Lesser examines a variety of acculturating responses by minority groups, from insisting on their own whiteness to becoming ultra-nationalists and even entering secret societies that insisted Japan had won World War II. He discusses how various minority groups engaged in similar, and successful, strategies of integration even as they faced immense discrimination and prejudice. Some believed that their ethnic heritage was too high a price to pay for the "privilege" of being white and created alternative categories for themselves, such as Syrian-Lebanese, Japanese-Brazilian, and so on. By giving voice to the role ethnic minorities have played in weaving a broader definition of national identity, this book challenges the notion that elite discourse is hegemonic and provides the first comprehensive look at Brazilian worlds often ignored by scholars.
Based on extensive research, "Negotiating National Identity" will be valuable to scholars and students in Brazilian and Latin American studies, as well as those in the fields of immigrant history, ethnic studies, and race relations.

Despite the increasing importance of the concept of "diaspora" and its widespread use in academic case studies and in the self-description of a number of minority communities and networks, the subject has received relatively little general scholarly treatment. "Diasporas: Concepts, "Intersections, "Identities, "addresses this lack by providing a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the political and cultural ideas and groups involved. Wide-ranging and interdisciplinary, the book contains examinations of major concepts and theories, including migration, ethnicity, and postcolonialism. It also provides introductions to selected key diasporas -- Jewish, Irish and African American among others -- as well as discussions of diaspora in relation to a range of important issues and processes, and explorations of new directions in research.

This collection of essays addresses various aspects of Arab and Jewish immigration and acculturation in Latin America. The experiences in the region of these two groups have never been the subject of joint and comprehensive scrutiny. The volume examines how the Latin American elites who were keen to change their countries' ethnic mix felt threatened by the arrival of Arabs and Jews. Their arrival was largely unexpected, and in some cases frankly undesired and practically banned.
Negotiating national identity was never easy, and many of this volume's multidisciplinary cast of authors examine discrimination and prejudice as a component of Arab and Jewish life in the region. These cultural, economic and political (public) negotiations left neither side unchanged: while Latin American society and post-migratory immigrant identities have been in a constant state of flux, the elite's desired homogenization of national or cultural identity has been precluded to this day.