Am I Japanese, Peruvian, or Both? the Ethnic Identity Formation of Second-Generation Peruvian Youth in Japan

Based on ongoing research, this presentation explores the ethnic identity formation of second-generation Peruvian high-school and college-age youth in Japan. It asks what ties, if any, does the second generation have with the two countries, and what is the nature of those ties? How do the youth interpret what it means to be Japanese and/or Peruvian in Japanese society? What role, if any, do the youth's parents' experiences in Japan play in shaping the youth’s ethnic identity? The youth are completing in-depth interviews and taking photographs of elements of their everyday life that they define as particularly “Peruvian” or “Japanese.” Preliminary findings indicate that the youth report a range of identities (hāfu, Nikkei, Peruvian, Japanese, Japanese+Peruvian), but they struggle to articulate how being Peruvian is a part of their daily lives. Instead, a Peruvian identity is symbolic, reduced to expression in birthday cakes, Christmas dinners, and occasionally speaking Spanish. The youth plan to remain in Japan, including obtaining Japanese citizenship, with few diasporic ties to Peru. Several factors are encouraging their assimilation, including the declining presence of co-ethnic migrants, the lack of ethnic institutions in the community, the pressure to assimilate in Japanese schools, and the transition to high school and tertiary education, where immigrant youth attend school with few co-ethnics. Nevertheless, this weakening of a diasporic Peruvian identity to symbolic status is surprising, given that Japanese identity is popularly defined as homogeneous and monoethnic. Immigrant and mixed-race people in Japan are also racialized as gaijin (foreigners, outsiders). This has resulted in identity quandaries for many Nikkeijin migrants, including the immigrant parents of the second generation, weakening their sense of belonging in Japan and strengthen their national (Brazilian, Peruvian) or alternate ethnic identities (Nikkei, Okinawan).