The Brazilian Second Generation in Japan and Ethnic Community – the Role of Bridge

This talk aims to examine how the Brazilian second generation residing in Japan wants to contribute to Brazilian community with their bilingual language capital. In Japan there are more than 60 Brazilian schools where Brazilian children can learn Portuguese and in Portuguese. For the Brazilian children who study in Japanese schools, especially in the towns where a lot of Brazilians live there are some Portuguese classes administrated by local governments or non-profit organizations. Some of the informants of this research had studied Portuguese after their entry to Japan at around 10 years old in a supplementary Portuguese language course offered by a Brazilian school and maintain their mother language proficiency. They graduated from Japanese universities and also have high level Japanese proficiency. They have supported their family to survive in Japan as guide and interpreter, chosen jobs, for example, language education, legal work to renew visas and passports, etc., to contribute to Brazilian community, and taught Japanese language to Brazilian children as volunteers. They try to bridge between local community and Brazilian ethnic community in various dimensions and they are aware and proud of the role. We can find the importance and necessity of this role in several original characters of Brazilian community in Japan. The first one is their limited contact with Japanese people in working space and locality. The second is the wide spread Brazilian ethnic business. These two points have related to low level of Japanese language proficiency of Brazilians in Japan. The third is the passage of time.More than 20 years of Brazilian immigration history in Japan made bilingual second generation grown-up. In these days the role of bridge or pipe line between local end ethnic communities constructed by bilingual Brazilians of first generation is being maintained, succeeded and renewed by second generation little by little.