Interviews

1. Defining the term "Nikkei" (Portuguese)

2. Brazilian of Japanese descents (Portuguese)

3. Japan's impact on the image of Nikkei in Brazil (Portuguese)

4. Change in sense of Nikkei Brazilian identity over time (Portuguese)

5. Nikkei community concentrated in São Paulo (Portuguese)

6. Changing life styles of successive generations (Portuguese)

Oi,Celia

Former Director, Museu Histórico da Imigração Japonesa no Brasil

Defining the term "Nikkei" (Portuguese)

(Portuguese) The term Nikkei, to me, encompasses a lot. I’d say that it’s a very complicated term. Why? Because it brings together the aspect, you know, not just of your appearance, but really your whole life. Cultural life, family life that you learned from your grandparents, from your parents, and that’s internalized. And then, with all of that Japanese culture – we should say half-Japanese, right, because it’s not purely Japanese either – you enter into society, and there you have to combine these two parts, these two cultures, Brazilian and Japanese. So, I think that the term Nikkei, for me personally, is a term that demands, or that demands of me that I live the Japanese part and the Brazilian part, which isn’t always possible, you know, for people to maintain such a nice harmony. Sometimes people experience moments of great conflict.

Hawaii identity Japanese Americans Nikkei United States

Date: October 7, 2005

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Ann Kaneko

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum.

Interviewee Bio

Célia Abe Oi was born in Itapetininga in 1950. Her grandparents had arrived in Brazil in 1929. Originally from a family of fishermen on the island of Atatajima, near the city of Hiroshima, upon their arrival they began working in the Brazilian countryside, initially in the cotton fields and later growing potatoes. Her parents and siblings also worked in agriculture. In 1968, she began studying History in college, and in 1979 completed her course in Journalism at the Cásper Líbero College. In the mid-1970s, she began working in the editorial room of the Portuguese section of the Diário Nippak newspaper. Célia contributed to various journals and publications tied to the Japanese-Brazilian community, until she became the director of the Museum of the History of Japanese Immigration in 1998. (July 26, 2006)