Return: Nationalizing Transnational Mobility in Asia - Brossura

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0822355310 ISBN 13: 9780822355311

Casa editrice: Duke University Press, 2013

Riassunto

Since the late 1990s, Asian nations have increasingly encouraged, facilitated, or demanded the return of emigrants. In this interdisciplinary collection, distinguished scholars from countries around the world explore the changing relations between nation-states and transnational mobility. Taking into account illegally trafficked migrants, deportees, temporary laborers on short-term contracts, and highly skilled ÉmigrÉs, the contributors argue that the figure of the returnee energizes and redefines nationalism in an era of increasingly fluid and indeterminate national sovereignty. They acknowledge the diversity, complexity, and instability of reverse migration, while emphasizing its discursive, policy, and political significance at a moment when the tensions between state power and transnational subjects are particularly visible. Taken together, the essays foreground Asia as a useful site for rethinking the intersections of migration, sovereignty, and nationalism.

Contributors. Sylvia Cowan, Johan Lindquist, Melody Chia-wen Lu, Koji Sasaki, Shin Hyunjoon, Mariko Asano Tamanoi, Mika Toyota, Carol Upadhya, Wang Cangbai, Xiang Biao, Brenda S. A. Yeoh

Su questo libro

Informazioni sull'autore

Xiang Biao is University Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Global "Body Shopping": An Indian Labor System in the Information Technology Industry.

Brenda S. A. Yeoh is Professor in Geography at the National University of Singapore. She is a coeditor of The Cultural Politics of Talent Migration in East Asia.

Mika Toyota is Associate Professor in the College of Tourism at Rikkyo University. She and Yeoh are coeditors of Migration and Health in Asia.

Estratto. © Ristampato con autorizzazione. Tutti i diritti riservati.

RETURN

Nationalizing Transnational Mobility in Asia

By Xiang Biao, Brenda S. A. Yeoh, Mika Toyota

Duke University Press

Copyright © 2013 Duke University Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8223-5531-1

Contents

Acknowledgments............................................................
vii
Introduction Return and the Reordering of Transnational Mobility in Asia 
XIANG BIAO.................................................................
1
Chapter One To Return or Not to Return The Changing Meaning of Mobility 
among Japanese Brazilians, 1908–2010 KOJI SASAKI..........................
21
Chapter Two Soldier's Home War, Migration, and Delayed Return in Postwar 
Japan MARIKO ASANO TAMANOI................................................
39
Chapter Three Guiqiao as Political Subjects in the Making of the People's 
Republic of China, 1949–1979 WANG CANGBAI.................................
63
Chapter Four Transnational Encapsulation Compulsory Return as a 
Labor-Migration Control in East Asia XIANG BIAO...........................
83
Chapter Five Cambodians Go "Home" Forced Returns and Redisplacement 
Thirty Years after the American War in Indochina SYLVIA R. COWAN..........
100
Chapter Six Rescue, Return, in Place Deportees, "Victims," and the 
Regulation of Indonesian Migration JOHAN LINDQUIST........................
122
Chapter Seven Return of the Global Indian Software Professionals and the 
Worlding of Bangalore CAROL UPADHYA.......................................
141
Chapter Eight Ethnicizing, Capitalizing, and Nationalizing South Korea 
and the Returning Korean Chinese MELODY CHIA-WEN LU AND SHIN HYUNJOON.....
162
Contributors...............................................................
179
References.................................................................
183
Index......................................................................
205

CHAPTER 1

To Return or Not to Return

The Changing Meaning of Mobility amongJapanese Brazilians, 1908–2010

KOJI SASAKI

In 1938, Shungoro Wako, an officer of the Japanese Imin Takushoku Gaisha(Company for Emigration and Colonization) in Brazil, made this remarkin the introduction to his collection of statistical and historical data onJapanese migrants in a rural region in São Paulo:

If someone asks me to choose between return and permanent settlement,I, with all my sincerity, would never hesitate to answer, "Iardently desire to return." ... [However,] I will work very hard untilI am buried in this country [Brazil]. I will cherish the visions of mydear homeland [Japan] and will pray for its prosperity until the lastmoment of my life. Nonetheless, I will dedicate my body and soul toraise my children as outstanding Brazilians. (1938, 3, 11)

His painful inner struggle may look puzzling to today's readers. Whatcompelled him to suppress the burning desire to return? How should wereconcile his deep attachment to Japan and the determination to raise offspringas Brazilians? It is evident from his writing that his dilemma didnot arise from his calculation of conflicting personal interests, but wasrather deeply ideological and even morally charged. Indeed, to return ornot to return was a question of utmost importance among the Japanesecommunity in Brazil during a good part of the twentieth century. Never astraightforward question, whether or not to return aroused considerableagony and confusion. The intention to return was driven not only by economicconsiderations but also by migrants' emotional perceptions of theirrelations to the larger global political order, particularly the rise and fallof the Japanese empire and the consolidation of the Japanese and Braziliannation-states.

This chapter examines the changing perception of return among theJapanese in Brazil from the beginning of the twentieth century to the earlypart of the twenty-first century. It follows the analytical strategy of regarding"return" as an idea, or, more precisely, as an imaginary that definesthe directionality of one's physical movement, gives particular meaningsto mobility, and shapes the mobile subjects' self-positioningin the world (Xiang, introduction, this volume). By taking mobility as a mediumthrough which the migrant intentionally acts on the external world, thischapter teases out how the meaning of return changes with the rise and fallof the Japanese empire over three time periods. These narratives span thefirst half of the century, the establishment of a new world order centeredon nation-states since the 1950s, and the reemergence of transnational networkswith intensified globalization after the 1980s.

While the meaning of return has been contested and never stable, aparticularly sharp historical turning point took place in the 1950s. In thefirst half of the twentieth century, the migrants' return was discouragedbecause Japan was preoccupied with its imperialistic expansion project;furthermore, return was unlikely due to economic and transport constraints.Nevertheless, return remained a major concern among the migrantsduring that period and it was in fact an important topic of heateddebate among them whether they should return and under what conditions.This continued to be the case for a short while even after the SecondWorld War ended in 1945. In the second half of the century, however, returngradually lost its ideological and sentimental connotation as the migrantshad succeeded in establishing a respected minority status in Braziliansociety. As a result, when tens of thousands of descendants of formerJapanese emigrants (Nikkeijin) headed to their ancestors' homeland in the1980s and 1990s, they hardly viewed their experience as a return. Rather,the cultural and linguistic differences caused an immense sense of alienationon the part of these migrants. The Japanese government, on the otherhand, exploited the ambiguity of their status by creating a special legal migrationchannel for these descendants on the basis of their blood relationswith Japanese citizens. This channel, exclusive to the Nikkeijin, allowedthem to live and work in Japan relatively freely, although it was less liberalin allowing, let alone encouraging or supporting, the Nikkeijin's permanentsettlement. Under this system of quasi-return, the preference forethnic homogeneity and the need for cheap labor in a time of increasingglobalization were also reconciled. In this sense, the history of return is ahistory fraught with changing logics of what it means to be a mobile subject.Specifically for the Japanese Brazilians, their subjectivity shifted continuallyfrom self-styled imperial subjects to national citizens (of Brazil)and to transitional labor.

The Desire to Return as a "Disease"

The Japanese emigration to the Americas began as part of a state-initiatedprogram designed to counter the twin problems of overpopulation andrural poverty during the Meiji period (1868–1912) (see Gaimu-sho 1941).In the late nineteenth century, the government sent groups of Japaneseto Hawaii and North America. With the rise of the anti-Japanese movementin the United States in the early twentieth century, however, the Japanesegovernment and numerous "emigration companies" (private enterprisesthat specialized in recruiting and sending Japanese citizens abroadfor fees) looked to South America for alternative destinations. Meanwhile,Brazil was looking for a solution to the labor-shortage problem that it facedon its coffee plantations following the abolition of slavery in 1888 and theItalian government's prohibition of emigration to Brazil in 1902 (Lesser1999, 85). These events resulted in massive migration from Japan to Brazil.After the first Japanese migration to São Paulo in 1908, initiated by theprivate Imperial Colonization Company, more than 183,000 Japanese hadheaded to Brazil until 1941 (Gaimu-sho 1941, 179–80).

The migrants largely perceived their emigration to Brazil as an alternativeto the rural-urban seasonal migration (dekasegi), which was commonlypracticed by Japanese farmers in the Meiji period. The farmer-migrantsundertook work in the Brazilian coffee fields for a number ofyears, and they expected to return to Japan after that. "Kokyo ni nishikiwo kazaru" (to return to the homeland dressed in brocade), as the Japanesesaying goes, was the ultimate goal of migration. This mentality wasfurther reinforced by the fact that the reality of working in the Braziliancoffee plantations was far from what was originally promised in the advertisementsof the emigration companies. In addition to the extremely harshworking conditions that were carried forward from the slavery system, thepoor harvest in the first years and low wages fell greatly short of the migrants'expectations. The Japanese migrants were eager to return to Japanas early as possible, and they were largely indifferent to improving theirlong-term life prospects in Brazil.

Such an attitude was however criticized in the 1920s by the educatedmembers of the migrant community, especially editors of immigrantnewspapers, leaders of immigration organizations, and Japanese diplomats.During the 1920s and 1930s, immigrant newspapers took it as theirprimary duty to analyze the life of the Japanese in Brazil and to critiquetheir behaviors. Usually featured on the front page, opinion editorials oftensought to pinpoint the problem with the wider Japanese migrant communityand even provided detailed guidelines on what constituted desirableattitudes and behaviors. In this sense, the newspapers were not mere disseminatorsof information but a means of moral guidance. The editorialsof such newspapers as Burajiru Jiho (Brazilian news, 1917–41) and NippakShimbun (Nippak journal, 1916–41) were particularly influential amongthe migrants. Despite their diverse social origins and political orientations,the editors agreed that the migrants should abandon their "sojourner mentality"(dekasegi konjo) and instead uphold the "determination for permanentsettlement" (eijuu ketsui). For instance, an editorial published in NippakShimbun in 1924 bitterly bemoaned the fact that the migrants lackedthe determination to stay: "Because the Japanese immigrants are not liberatedfrom the temporary, sojourner disposition, we have not succeededas much as we could have.... Most of the newly arriving immigrants haverepeated the same mistakes, without being able to establish a firm basis.Indeed, this temporary, sojourner disposition is the fundamental diseasethat inhibits the development of the Japanese immigrants" (Nippak Shimbun1924; my translation).

This criticism of the desire for return can be attributed to the perceptionthat some migrants' inclination for short-term economic success wasdetrimental to their own agricultural development in Brazil because agriculturaldevelopment required long-term investments. However, the educatedmigrants' desire to assimilate into the Brazilian society and oppositionto return reflected their consciousness about Japan's rise as aninternational power. To many migrants, Japan's rising status required itssubjects to demonstrate to the world respectful cultural dispositions. Theanti-Japanese movements in North America, which excluded Japanese immigrantsas racially and culturally inferior, made the migrants even moreeager to prove that they were capable of assimilating into the host society.For example, in 1921 Toshiro Fujita, the Japanese consul in São Paulo, advisedJapanese migrants in Brazil to follow Brazilian cultural norms. Heinsisted that every one of them "should respect the manners and customsof this country and make efforts in assimilating our clothes, foods, housingsand even the everyday behaviors into those of the people in Brazil"(Fujita 1921; my translation). Remarkably, this call for assimilation evenled to an official recommendation of naturalization, that is, acquiring aBrazilian citizenship. For instance, Burajiru Jiho, which was run by thequasi-governmental Kaigai Kogyo Kabushiki Gaisha (Overseas DevelopmentCompany), supported the naturalization of Japanese subjects in Brazilthroughout the 1920s (Burajiru Jiho 1920b; my translation). The newspaperstressed that the migrants should see themselves as pioneers in themission of Japan's overseas development, declaring that "there is no reasonwhy being a Japanese requires living and dying in Japan" (Burajiru Jiho1920a; my translation).

These views, stemming from agricultural and diplomatic reasoning, weresolidified in the late 1920s with the emerging cosmopolitanism of the Taisho(1912–26) and the early Showa (1926–89) periods. In the 1920s, a number ofJapanese local "overseas associations"—not-for-profit organizations set upby prefectural governments throughout Japan between the 1910s and 1930saimed at promoting overseas emigration and development through education,research, and recruitment—acquired lands in the rural São Paulo regionsto build new plantations to facilitate long-term settlement of the Japanesemigrants. Some of the settlers in these plantations were members of anewly formed middle class in Japan, who sought to use the migration andcolonial developments as an opportunity to carry out social experimentsthat were typically informed by cosmopolitan utopian visions (Gaimu-sho1953, 45). Yoshiyuki Kato, a leader of Burajiru Takushoku Kumiai (Cooperativade Colonização do Brasil; Society for Colonizers in Brazil), for instance,launched a movement in 1934 aimed at introducing Western-style collectivefarming and puritan moral values in the new settlements (Handa 1987, 454).With the motto of "loving the soil, settling permanently" (aido eijuu), themovement represented settlement as an expression of progressive thinking,contrary to the conservative desire to return.

Imagined Remigration to New Territories of the Empire

The 1930s witnessed a decisive shift in the political landscape in Japanand in Brazil. After the Manchuria Incident in 1931, when Japan forcefullyannexed a large part of northeast China, the ultranationalist militarytook full control of the Japanese government. The Japanese public was convincedas well that Japan's imperialist expansion in Asia was justifiable andeven benevolent. While politico-theoretical concepts such as the GreaterEast Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the Southern Expansion Doctrine (Nanshinron),and Hakko ichiu (the whole world under one roof) were mostlyfocused on the new imperialist order in Asia, the immigrant intellectualsin Brazil actively sought to interpret these theories in order to redefinetheir positions (Handa 1966, 114). The earlier dichotomies of to return ornot to return, and of being Japanese or being a new Brazilian, were replacedby more complicated and varied concerns such as whether theyshould return to new Asian territories occupied by the Japanese empire.

This reorientation toward the expanding Japan instead of toward thehost society of Brazil was reinforced in the late 1930s as Brazil's nation-buildingefforts led to tougher restrictions on the immigrants' lives. WhenGetúlio Vargas took over the presidency of Brazil in 1937, his Estado Novo(New State) regime implemented a series of policies aimed at national unificationand imposed severe constraints on foreigners' activities. Educationand publications in the Japanese language, along with other languages,such as German and Italian, were strictly prohibited (see Comissão deElaboração da História dos 80 Anos da Imigração Japonesa no Brasil 1992,160). Moreover, Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 led to the cancellationof diplomatic relations between Japan and Brazil. This in turn resultedin the general repatriation of Japanese diplomats via the Swedish wartimecivilian exchange ship and left the Japanese migrants in a state of greatanxiety over fear of being abandoned and losing contact with the homelandgovernment. During these years, many were arrested for speakingJapanese in public. It was in this climate of great insecurity that ShungoroWako made the remark about his painful decision to stay in Brazil, whichI quoted in the beginning of this chapter. Despite Wako's determination tostay, a survey in a rural São Paulo region that he conducted in 1938 showedthat as many as 85 percent of the migrants there hoped to return to Japan(Wako 1938, 1). Despite such a rise in the desire for return, however, veryfew migrants could afford the costly trip to Japan (see figure 1.1).

This anxiety about the new political situation of Brazil, the resumeddesire for return, and the development of Japanese imperialism collectivelyresulted in a new conception of return. Rokuro Koyama, the editorof Seisyu Shimpo (News of São Paulo, 1921–41), one of the leading Japanesenewspapers in Brazil, argued that the Japanese in Brazil should remigrateto the Southeast Asia region that recently came under control of the Japaneseempire. According to Koyama, before Japan's expansion to the Chinesecontinent, the Japanese were forced to engage in what he called a "hybridmigration" (konko ijuu), wherein emigrants had to adopt the cultureof the destination country. The new geopolitical condition, he argued, allowedfor an "ethnically pure migration" (minzoku-teki jun ijuu), in whichthe migrants were no longer required to assimilate and would thus remain"pure" Japanese. He insisted that the assimilative policy of Brazil was inconsonantwith the latter migration and that the Japanese people shouldnow engage in nonassimilative migrations within the power zone of theJapanese empire. Seisyu Shimpo published a series of editorials in 1941 thatadvocated a "glorious retreat" (kouei aru taikyaku) from Latin America toAsia "under the Japanese flag" (Kawabata 1941; my translation).

Although some contending voices saw a retreat to the homeland assomething that would undermine Japan's expansion in the world (Kishimoto1947, 169), this imperialist concept of return acquired strong currencyin the migrant community. Ordinary migrants, whose life in Brazilsaw few signs of improvement but whose desire to return had beencriticized and suppressed by immigrant intellectuals, embraced this newnotion enthusiastically. Kiyoshi Ando, the editor of a literary journal inthe late 1930s in São Paulo, recalled that "this feverish desire was so influentialthat the majority of the people expected to remigrate to the GreaterEast Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere even after Japan's unconditional surrender"(1949, 311; my translation). Curiously, the migrants' eagerness for imperialreturn or remigration was hardly appreciated by their homelandgovernment, and the desire for migration from one colony to another waslargely unrealized. The imagined collective return from Brazil to Japan'sAsian empire was the migrants' cautious but desperate response to thedramatically changing political conditions, reflecting their predicamentof being caught up between cosmopolitan ideals, imperialist ideology, andemotional pining for home.

(Continues...)

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Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Duke University Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 2013
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0822355310
• ISBN 13: 9780822355311
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 216
• Redattore: Xiang
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: Mare Nostrum Group B.V.; gpsr@mare-nostrum.co.uk; ; Doelen 72; Breda; 4831 GR; Paesi Bassi