The Question of the Difference: a study with the descendants of Japanese immigrants in Brazil

Abstract

The main objectives of this work are: to understand the perceptions that undergraduate students, descendants of Japanese immigrants, have on themselves; to identify the images that Brazilian undergraduate students whose ascendants are not Japanese have on the Japanese descendants; to compare these images to the expected images the Japanese students have on others’ perceptions about them. In such a way we conducted half-structuralized interviews with the Japanese descendants and applied a Likert type scale of 5 points questionnaire to the non Japanese group. The analyzed data don’t allowed to conclude on the existence of preconceptions in relation to the Japanese descendants , but it shows the Japanese and their descendants are perceived as different by the own Japanese descendants and their friends, which points to the importance of deepening the discussion about the identity formation of the immigrants and their descendants in Brazilian society.