Asia-Pacific Week 2006 Japanese Studies Graduate Summer School ABSTRACT

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Peru, because of its geographical position as well as socio-political factors, has a strong relation with Asia, especially with Japan and China. Japan and China are, actually, the countries of origin for the largest part of Asian population in the region. The first migratory movement from Japan to Peru dates back to 1899, with a group of barely 700 persons. Other migrants were to follow in the coming years until 1943, when Peru broke diplomatic relations with Japan, and then from the 60s, with massive immigration from Okinawa. The poet Jose Watanabe, himself son of a Japanese national, recollects the dreams and hopes of those migrants: "When we were children we used to hear that one day we would all be back to Japan. A dream that did not convince even our fathers. As the dream was fading the culture around us had already permeated our identities" These words are symptomatic of a condition shared by many second generation migrants, divided between the local culture and the memory of Japan inherited through the stories told by their parents. Descendants of Japanese migrants are referred to as nikkei, a Japanese word widely used also in Peru. Being nikkei implies the sense of belonging to a community where values and habits inherited from Japanese culture are shared. It has, in sum, mainly an ethnic basis. However, I propose a different perspective on Peruvian-Nikkeis, at least as far as second generation is concerned. I focus on the border of the community, in order to see the communicational space where people who, for reasons both related to personal life history or socio-cultural factors, do not feel an ethnic identity or stand. I argue that they are the actors of a dialogue which does not resolve in synthesis. Looking at these actors in the context of the heterogeneity of Peruvian society, I underscore the plurality of their discourse. This plurality can be obscured by the emphasis on an ethnic belonging, or, on the contrary, on their mixed blood (mŽtissage or mestizaje)._

In order to see these nikkeis as producers in interaction with the host society, the analysis focuses on Peruvian nikkei artists. Through the works and the life-history of nikkei painters, writers and singers, I want to show ways in which they use different cultural codes, to produce a discourse which betrays social conflict. I argue that their works and activity are not merely the products of an artistic subjectivity. More importantly, they disclose tensions and unresolved conflicts of a postcolonial society through a plural discourse reflecting and re-producing its heterogeneity. In a wider sense, they reflect a condition that we are all experiencing in the global era. In this context, strengthening one's ethnic belonging can be nothing but a momentary choice, subject to change. It's related to a decision, imposed or free, which leads to a schizophrenic vision of the self. Being a researcher, with a European background, in an Asian country, that is Japan, necessarily leads me to a refracted view on my research topic. It underpins the possibility of overcoming the dialectic relationship between two regions, Latin America and Europe, but also of freeing the nikkei from the dialectic relationship with Japan. This is also a position, probably shared by many researchers in the Asia Pacific, which, I think, links the area to the global society.

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