Lesser draws on a wide range of sources, including films, oral histories, wanted posters, advertisements, newspapers, photographs, police reports, government records, and diplomatic correspondence. He focuses on two particular cultural arenas—erotic cinema and political militancy—which highlight the ways that Japanese Brazilians imagined themselves to be Brazilian. As he explains, young Nikkei were sure that their participation in these two realms would be recognized for its Brazilianness. They were mistaken. Whether joining banned political movements, training as guerrilla fighters, or acting in erotic films, the subjects of A Discontented Diaspora militantly asserted their Brazilianness only to find that doing so reinforced their minority status.
Jeffrey Lesser is Winship Distinguished Research Professor of the Humanities, Professor of History, and Director of the Program in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Emory University. His books include Searching for Home Abroad: Japanese-Brazilians and Transnationalism and Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities, and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil, both also published by Duke University Press.