DECLINING JAPANESE-BRAZILIAN ADVANTAGE: RACIAL INEQUALITY IN SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL 1960-2000 By KUNIKO CHIJIWA A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2010 1 © 2010 Kuniko Chijiwa 2 With my loving and enduring memories of my father, my brother, and my sister, I devote this study to my mother, hoping for her longevity 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There is no way that I could have conceived when I stepped out of my proposal hearing in December 2004 at the Streib conference room that my dissertation would have been taken such a long time to finish. Without the trembled emotion for three family members who left in the last 5 years, I cannot conclude this excruciatingly long journey. First and foremost, I dearly thank my family for their unconditional love and profound understanding whatever I am. I owe you my life and I swear you that I will protect our mother from any cruelty in this world. Certainly, no aspect of my dissertation would have existed without my dearest chairs, Dr. Charles Wood and Dr. Stephen Perz. Although my situation has been winding for years, their support has always been immediate, especially when I needed it the most. My feeling toward them would rather be apologetic because I made them wait for quite a long time. The more I deeply appreciate thinking of what they have done for me over the years, the more I feel sorry for having consumed their time unnecessarily. Dr. Wood has been on my supervisory committee three times and stimulated my intellectual curiosity from my master‘s study in Latin American Studies to my doctorate study in sociology. I have learned from him so much more than I could have ever expected prior to coming to the United States. Not only had he changed my focus in the graduate program but also my life entirely after the completion of my master degree in Latin American Studies. I truly admire his earnest philosophy in research and teaching, his sincere manner toward every level of student, and his attitudes toward life. I truly hope I can learn more from him. Dr. Perz has always been an inspiration with his passion and exceptional ambition toward research, which I have never seen in other scholars. In a different way from Dr. Wood, he changed the course of my study in graduate school which enabled me to find my niche in scholarly research. I truly hope I can continue to be stimulated by his scholarly example and 4 learn how to vividly live like him. I have been so fortunate to be guided by the scholars who I deeply admire and trust. I thank both of them for every aspect of this long passage. Each conversation and meeting with my supervisory committee was full of ideas, beneficial criticisms, and joy. Dr. Barbara Zsembik supervised my master‘s thesis in sociology and I learned deeply how ‗numbers‘ can be kaleidoscopic. She is exceptionally meticulous in going through data and numbers, which took me to another level of the world of data philosophy. Dr. Charles Peek guided me to different level of statistical analysis which I would never thought I could achieve. His suggestions and criticisms were always intriguing and eye-popping that essentially advanced my dissertation. Dr. Timothy Fik is an economic geographer. I took one of his classes in the spring 2004 when I struggled with thinking of the world spatially with numbers. In the midst of four demographers on my supervisory committee, he always brought a different aspect and fresh air to my study. Each of my committee members established the root and trunk of my dissertation and deeply influenced my doctorate study. I will remember the dissertation defense meeting on November 19, 2010 with honor in discussing my research with such an excellent supervisory committee and truly fine people. In the fall 2005, I conducted qualitative research in São Paulo, Brazil. Due to my family tragedy occurring at the beginning of this research endeavor, it was not nearly as fruitful as I had planned. However, during this two-month research, while I was emotionally deteriorated, I received countless support from many Brazilian people. First I would like to show my sincere appreciation to all the Japanese descent women who told their stories in my interviews and participated in the focus group sessions. They impressed me with their beautifully formal way of speaking in Japanese, surprised me with their total Brazil-ness in their attitudes and in their dialogue, and shared with me insightful information about their lives. I certainly plan on introducing their voices in my future research. I deeply owe Mr. Junji Ishikawa, the president of 5 Associação Tokyo Nodai do Brasil and Mrs, Thuneka Tsubamoto for their generous support for my stay in Saúde. Without their casual but warm hospitality throughout those days, my stay in São Paulo would have been quite rough. I also had cheerful friends and at the same time greatly efficient assistants; Patricia Kanashiro, Silvana Santos, Priscila Barbosa, and Fukuko Morita. They assisted me in recruiting Japanese-Brazilian interviewees in the difficult time to find Japanese women who were willing to be interviewed because of the incidence of homicide of Japanese family who had just returned from dekasegi. I deeply appreciate their ever-lasting cheerfulness (That Brazil is all about!) and positivity, which was profoundly helpful throughout my time in São Paulo. My thanks also go to so many medical practitioners at Hospital Nipo- Brasileiro and Centro Avançado de Medicina Preventiva for sharing their time and unique knowledge about the Brazilian medical environment. Dr. Gerson Hamada shared his research project with me and helped me to obtain literature related to my study. I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Sunao Nishio and Dr. Elizabeth Tomoko Takitani for not only sharing the medical information related to my study but also their friendship till the very end of my stay in São Paulo. From the bottom of my heart I hope I can return to them what they have done for me. There is never enough space to mention all the people (I am so sorry) with whom I am deeply grateful to have met and thankful for their kind and warm help. Since coming to Florida, there is one place I feel completely at home—it is the Center for Latin American Studies. I love all the people there and I awfully hate that I cannot list all of them here. Truly I owe Mrs. Margarita Gandía for her unlimited assistance and for being an excellent listener and Mrs. Myrna Sulsona for always keeping my family in her thoughts and prayers before she passed away in 2006 (I wish you were with us…). There are many heartfelt memories at the Latin American Collection and in the interactions with the best and friendliest librarians of the world. My warmest thanks especially go to Richard Phillips, Paul Losch, and Justino 6 Llanque-Chana for providing the excellent atmosphere for us obtaining information and knowledge of the Latin American and the Caribbean regions. I am deeply indebted to the Center for Latin American Studies, the Department of Sociology, and the National Rural Behavioral Health Center, Department of Clinical & Health Psychology, University of Florida for their financial supports which enabled me to keep working on completing my graduate studies and to be trained as a researcher. I am very much grateful that I was accepted to attend the NIH-supported GIS Population Science Workshop at the Population Research Institute, the Pennsylvania State University in June 2006. It was a great honor to have the experience at the workshop under the supervision of Dr. Stephen Matthews, Yosef Bodovski, and other instructors which was intensive but the most productive two weeks. In my nine years of life in Gainesville, I was privileged to have wonderful colleagues and friends from the beginning. The memories with them in my mind will be the gems in my life forever. My warmest thanks go to Noemi Porro and Elli Sugita-Woods for their friendship over years. The funniest friend of mine, at the same time a very fine scholar, Valerio Gomes was the most helpful and reliable when I encountered issues in Portuguese. Probably he does not remember but I still keep a file holding many pages of helpful notes from him. Nine years is undoubtedly a long period of time and so many friends came and went in the blink of an eye and often I felt horrible thinking I could have done more for them. But certain relationships will remain long after we left the place we met. Therefore, I am especially grateful to Yuko Fujino and Clay Hipke for their unchanged friendship and supports under any conditions. At the end of this long journey, I should apologize for not expressing nearly enough my feelings toward my mother, Hiroko Chijiwa, and my husband, best friend and colleague, John Reitzel. They are so alike and they are wholly different from me. They are the mirror of my good-half and when another half of mine gets lost, I know who can find the crying-half. Thank 7 you two for not judging me and thank you two for being with me. You are (and, of course, our cats) the reason why I am still sticking in this cynical world. I tremendously owe our cats, Howie Jr., Ashra, Jessie, and Mi-chan for their passion to bother me, which sometimes works well with me when I forgot to eat and sleep.