Espelho de Amaterasu: a literatura produzida por imigrantes japoneses e descendentes no Amazonas (1930-2020)

Abstract

In the port of Santos in the State of São Paulo, in 1908, the ship Kasato Maru docked with the first Japanese immigrants in Brazilian lands. There was interest in labor on the Brazilian side and, on the other hand, the use of labor by the Japanese. Years later, Japanese immigration took place in the Amazon due to the immigration success in the Southeast. In addition, labor was needed in Amazonian lands as a way to obtain a new economic product for the region. Along with the knowledge of the immigrants, such as agricultural production, production management, arts, literary productions came as a way to subsidize the nostalgia for Japan and escape from the intense contact with the new traditions, thus designing a hybrid writing when contemplating the landscapes of the new land. In this context of production, intertextuality was born in the word drawn in Japanese or Portuguese, without hierarchies, but with the precision of handling migrant thought. In this sense, the investigation carried out analyzes three literary productions produced by Japanese or descendants in an immigration context, namely: Flowers and Butterflies by Sachiko Kawada, Amazonian Narratives by Toshio Shirayanagi and The homeland is so far away – Collection of essays by Amazonian immigrants by Toshiyuki Kawada. Analyzed under the theoretical light of Stuart Hall when punctuating the interweaving of the migrant's literary and cultural production in the Amazonian context. Still to better understand the migratory context of the Japanese to the Amazon, the research brings up the thoughts of Michele Eduarda Brasil de Sá and Linda Midori Tsuji Nishikido; still the criticism of Silviano Santiago, in the book A literature in the tropics and Antonio Candido, in the book Literature and society guide the process of literary production of Japanese authors and descendants in the Amazon. Thus, the investigation presents literary texts that are not very widespread in the scenario of Amazonian or national literature.