Survival Strategies in Identity Politics

Ethnography of Brazilian Schoolchildren in Japan.

Abstract

This article describes three newcomer Brazilian children's strategies for surviving identity politics and their crosscultural adjustment in a Japanese elementary school. Data analysis from a three-year ethnographic research in Nagano Prefecture suggests that two key factors influenced these children's acculturation in the school: specifically, 1) interpersonal identity, in which the students constructed positive senses of themselves as they participated in social groups and built reciprocal relationships with other co-members; and 2) intra-minority politics, in which the students constructed positive senses of themselves by either associating themselves with or differentiating themselves from other students who were also different from the mainstream. The analysis shows how the three Brazilian boys actively took control of their identities and struggled to create positive senses of themselves. Futhermore, the agency displayed by the students illustrates the need for theories that do not rely solely on cultural mismatches or institutional assimilation pressures. These Brazilian students managed to integrate socially and advance academically by creatively using the skills and identity resources available to them, thus showing how the supposedly homogenous and homogenizing Japanese educational system can in fact serve ethnic minority children. The article ends by suggesting some options to empower such newcomer foreign students by maximizing advantages of community-oriented Japanese classroom practices.