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A Discontented Diaspora: Japanese Brazilians and the Meanings of Ethnic Militancy, 1960-1980. By jeffrey lesser. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2007. 256 pp. $79.95 (cloth); $22.95 (paper).
In this engaging text, Lesser explores the relationship between the city of São Paulo, the country of Japan, and the Japanese Brazilian (Nikkei) ethnic group roughly during the period of Brazil's military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. He wants to know how ethnicity operated in this context, but is most concerned with the "unplanned effect of certain policies on ethnic identity" (p. 22, emphasis added). He tells us that he is "not trying to piece together a factual chronology of events" (p. 23) but rather provides a synthesis of largely unconventional and sometimes even amusing source material, ranging from movie posters to rare interviews with Nikkei militants from that time period, as he argues that "Nikkei in São Paulo, more than any other ethnic group in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, were essentialized by the majority and they essentialized themselves" (p. xxv). Lesser forces us to question monolithic portrayals of Japanese Brazilians, particularly those that reinforce the model minority stereotype, and intentionally draws our attention to realms that are not...