Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2019. xvii, 235 pp. (Map, B&W photos.) US$28.00, paper. ISBN 978-1-5036-0934-1.
Suma Ikeuchi has eloquently written a theoretically and conceptually engaging book about Japanese descent (Nikkei) Brazilians who “return” migrate as unskilled workers to Japan, their country of ancestral origin. Although they are admitted on preferential visas because of their Japanese ancestry, according to Ikeuchi, Nikkei Brazilians do not feel they belong in their ethnic homeland and convert to Pentecostalism as a respite from their difficult everyday lives. This book is a welcome addition to the literature, since the religious lives of Nikkei Brazilians in Japan remains a relatively unexplored topic. As an anthropologist, Ikeuchi conducted extensive fieldwork and skillfully employs a wealth of ethnographic observations and interviews while drawing conceptual and theoretical insights from anthropology and religious studies. As a result, I consider this the best book on Nikkei Brazilian migrants in Japan that I have read, despite some of its structural and conceptual shortcomings.
In order to understand why so many Nikkei Brazilians in Japan have turned to Pentecostalism, the first four chapters of the book provide background on their past migration histories as well as their immigrant labour and ethnic experiences in Japan. A well-known history of Japanese migration to Brazil and the return migration of their Nikkei Brazilian descendants to the ancestral homeland of Japan is complemented with some interesting material about the accompanying migration of religions between the two countries. Although Nikkei Brazilians are positively regarded as modern Japanese “model minorities” in Brazil (despite some negative images), when they migrate to Japan, they become a “backward” Latino minority who are treated as Brazilian foreigners (40–43). Not only do they experience a decline in socioeconomic status as marginalized migrant factory workers, they are ethnically stigmatized as low class, lazy, and prone to criminal delinquency. As a result, Brazilian Nikkei do not feel like they live in Japan as they toil away in factories where they must endure tough conditions and long working hours.
Despite initial plans to stay only temporarily, Nikkei Brazilians have become a permanent immigrant presence in Japan as many migrate back and forth, unable to establish a middle-class life in either Japan or Brazil, while becoming subject to both global economic forces and changing national migration policies. As a result, they are rendered rootless and feel suspended and trapped between both countries, often with uncertain future hopes and illusions of return to Brazil. Many obtain permanent residence visas in Japan not simply to settle there, but to facilitate their continued transnational mobility as a thoroughly Brazilianized minority who cannot become authentically Japanese. As they live in a state of cultural limbo with in-between identities, Nikkei migrant families (previous based on perceptions of “Japanese discipline”) have become disorderly and strained through separation, infidelity, divorce, emotional estrangement, and generational cultural and linguistic gaps.
In response, Nikkei Brazilian migrants convert to Pentecostalism in order to engage in a higher type of spiritual work and modern subjectivity that transcends their mundane factory work. Ikeuchi argues that this is a return to the present (the here and now) that enables them to renew their lives through a charismatic temporality (instead of focusing on past regrets or uncertain future hopes). Through the sacrificial blood of Jesus, they cultivate a sense of spiritual kinship and belonging with other Nikkei Pentecostal believers. This transcends the material, ethnic kinship of Japanese blood/descent, which has been insufficient to confer on them a sense of national belonging in Japan because of their lack of Japanese linguistic and cultural competence.
The book then provides us with ethnographically rich and theoretical-informed analyses of how Nikkei Brazilians engage in specific Pentecostal church rituals, namely the renewal of marriage vows and declarations of love as a transcendent emotion, as well as baptism and prayer. In fact, the last two chapters (before the concluding chapter) are less about the actual migratory and religious experiences of Nikkei Brazilians in Japan and more a general, theoretical, and even philosophical examination of religious faith with relevant ethnographic illustrations. Ikeuchi insightfully analyzes examples of individuals engaging in Pentecostal and Catholic religious practices that do not necessarily reflect their authentic inner selves because of diverging private beliefs or rote obedience to (sometimes nonsensical) external forms without personal understanding. Through an interesting comparison with Japanese religious life, Ikeuchi’s conclusion seems to be that such divergences between external practices and inner states can still be religiously sincere if based on relational commitments to social others (a moral, “accompanied self”) (170–175).
While the shortcomings of this book do not detract much from its overall quality, readers will find it hard to figure out where the book is headed because its overall narrative structure remains unclear until the end. There is no summary of the book at the beginning (only in the concluding chapter); the chapters and section titles are very short and abstract (“Contested,” “Of Two Bloods”); and the chapters cover various topics with no transitional paragraphs or sentences. Although the author actually worked in two factories for five months, none of this participant observation appears in the book. The relationship between Nikkei Brazilian and mainstream Japanese is never really explored despite the fact that the latter are being recruited by Nikkei Pentecostal churches in Japan and the religion itself stresses a transnational moral universalism that transcends national and ethnic boundaries (a peculiar omission for an author who is Japanese living in the United States). Although modernity is a dominant concept in the book, it is utilized too broadly. According to Ikeuchi, Pentecostalism constitutes modern spiritual subjects whose experiences contrast with traditional Japanese religions and arranged marriage practices. However, it also incorporates traditional familial gender roles that are morally compatible with Japanese cultural values. In terms of the temporal aspect of Pentecostal modernity, it not only represents what is recent (the present or here and now), but also what is ancient (patriarchal Christian gender roles); its signature emotion of modern love is also ancient and timeless. If the concept of modernity is deployed too broadly to encompass both the West and the rest, the modern and traditional, and the contemporary and ancient, it may lose its conceptual power.
Takeyuki Tsuda
Arizona State University, Tempe