Migraciones (Nov 2014)
Immigrant associations and ethnic identity among Japanese immigrants and their descendants in Argentina
Abstract
Japanese migration to Argentina started in the early Twentieth Century, with the arrival of Japanese men from other Latin American countries and did not stop until the 60’s even though as time passed the composition of the immigrant group changed and so did their objectives. Japanese immigrants soon created voluntary associations where they gathered, a trend that still survives to these days. The different kind of associations they created, their aims and later development as well as their relationship to the Japanese government, are broached in this paper. It focuses on the changes Japanese associations have suffered along the process, a) as support devices for young men that arrived as dekaseguis in early times, and whose stay was extended indefinitely, b) during the Second World War crisis c) with the arrival of Japanese newcomers during the postwar period, d) attending to the cases of Japanese migrants arriving from the Dominican Republic, Paraguay and Bolivia; and, finally, dealing with the dilemma aroused by the decision to settle definitively versus the desire to preserve Japanese traditions and identity
