Table Of Content“JAPANESE IN THE SAMBA”: JAPANESE BRAZILIAN MUSICAL
CITIZENSHIP, RACIAL CONSCIOUSNESS, AND TRANSNATIONAL
MIGRATION
by
Shanna Lorenz
B.A., Reed College, 1995
M.A., University of Pittsburgh, 1999
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of
Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
University of Pittsburgh
2007
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
This dissertation was presented
by
Shanna Lorenz
It was defended on
November 27, 2007
and approved by
Bell Yung, Professor, Department of Music
Mary Lewis, Professor, Department of Music
Hermann Herlinghaus, Professor, Hispanic Languages and Literatures
Dissertation Director: Andrew Weintraub, Associate Professor, Department of Music
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Copyright © by Shanna Lorenz
2007
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“JAPANESE IN THE SAMBA”: JAPANESE BRAZILIAN MUSICAL CITIZENSHIP, RACIAL
CONSCIOUSNESS, AND TRANSNATIONAL MIGRATION
Shanna Lorenz, PhD
University of Pittsburgh, 2007
This doctoral dissertation is an ethnographic study of musical culture among Japanese
Brazilians in São Paulo, Brazil. Specifically, the study explores how the musical culture
of this community has changed in recent years as a result of the dekasegui movement, the
migration of hundreds of thousands of Japanese Brazilians who have traveled to Japan
since 1990 in search of work. In order to explore these questions, I conducted fieldwork
between May and November of 2003 on three musical groups, Zhen Brasil, Ton Ton Mi,
and Wadaiko Sho, each of which have found different ways to invoke, contest, and
reinvent their Brazilian and Japanese musical heritages. By exploring these groups’
musical practices, texts, dance, costumes, and discourses of self-definition, this study
offers insight into shifts in the ethnic self-definition and racial consciousness of the
Japanese Brazilian community that have taken place as the result of face-to-face contact
between Japanese Brazilians and Japanese under the conditions of contiguous
globalization. This study contributes to our current understandings of the impact of
circular forms of migration on the musical culture and ethnic identity of diasporic
communities in the contemporary world.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................................................... IX
1.0 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 1
1.1 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND ............................................................................................ 4
1.1.1 Nikkei Immigration ..................................................................................................... 4
1.1.2 Ethnicity in Brazil ....................................................................................................... 7
1.1.3 The Dekasegui Experience ........................................................................................ 11
1.2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ........................................................................................ 13
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS .................................................................................................... 16
1.4 LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................................................................... 20
1.5 METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................. 26
1.5.1 Interviews ................................................................................................................... 28
1.5.2 Recordings ................................................................................................................. 29
1.6 ORGANIZATION .................................................................................................................. 30
2.0 ZHEN BRASIL’S JAPANESE BRAZILIAN GROOVE .............................................................. 33
2.1 UNCANNY GINGA ................................................................................................................ 33
2.2 HISTORICAL CONTEXT .................................................................................................... 36
2.3 ALLIES ................................................................................................................................... 40
2.4 BIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................... 47
2.5 NEW BEGINNINGS .............................................................................................................. 53
2.6 PERFORMANCE .................................................................................................................. 59
2.7 JAPANESE BRAZILIAN MIMESIS ................................................................................... 69
2.8 A COMMUNITY DIVIDED .................................................................................................. 76
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3.0 SETSUO KINOSHITA AND SAMBA TAIKO .............................................................................. 81
3.1 AFRO TAIKO INCURSIONS ................................................................................................ 81
3.2 THE STUDENTS ................................................................................................................... 87
3.3 BECOMING BRAZILIAN .................................................................................................... 97
3.4 NIKKEI GINGA ....................................................................................................................115
3.5 KINESTHETIC ACCENT ...................................................................................................123
3.6 TAIKO DE SAMBA ...............................................................................................................130
4.0 BEATING HEART/BEATING DRUM .........................................................................................140
4.1 BEATING HEART/BEATING DRUM ...............................................................................147
4.2 HISTORICAL CONTEXT ...................................................................................................155
4.3 CONTEMPORARY SOUNDS .............................................................................................162
4.4 UCHINÂ POP ARRIVES .....................................................................................................168
4.5 DIASPORIC STIRRINGS ....................................................................................................175
5.0 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................182
APPENDIX A ............................................................................................................................................193
REFERENCES ..........................................................................................................................................194
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Ethnic and Gender Distribution of Thirty-Five Taiko Students...................................................... 92
Table 2: Musical Preferences of Twenty-Five Taiko Students ..................................................................... 95
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Zhen Brasil in “Japanese” Attire ................................................................................................... 34
Figure 2. Adolfo Mizuta Playing the Triangle .............................................................................................. 48
Figure 3. Zhen Brasil Performing “Kapotaro Nomato” ................................................................................ 72
Figure 4: A Shime Daiko from Setsuo Kinoshita’s Ensemble ..................................................................... 82
Figure 5: Setsuo Kinoshita Taiko Ensemble ................................................................................................ 88
Figure 6: Setsuo Kinoshita Taiko Ensemble ................................................................................................ 89
Figure 7: Nagadō Daiko from Setsuo Kinoshita’s Ensemble ....................................................................... 90
Figure 8: Setsuo Kinoshita, Tokinonagare Tour ........................................................................................... 97
Figure 9: Michikazu Sasaki and Kumiko Teraguchi Perform “Odaiko” .....................................................113
Figure 10: Setsuo Kinoshita Performing “Futbol” in a Brazilian Soccer Jersey .........................................113
Figure 11: Kumiko Teraguchi Performing “Futbol” in a Japanese Soccer Jersey .......................................114
Figure 12: Comparison Between Okedō Daiko Rhythm in “Taiko de Samba” and Typical Surdo Rhythms
from Conventional Samba ...........................................................................................................................132
Figure 13: Oscillogram and Spectogram of “Taiko de Samba”...................................................................135
Figure 14: Oscillogram and Spectogram of Caixa and Surdo Samba Demonstration ................................135
Figure 15: Ton Ton Mi ................................................................................................................................146
Figure 16. Paulo Oyakawa, Father of Cristiane, with the Family’s Sanshin ...............................................150
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This project would not have begun or concluded without the ongoing support,
intelligence, jokes, wit, and patience of my family and friends including Joshua Julian,
Helene Lorenz, Aaron Lorenz, Jim Lorenz, Paloma Martinez-Cruz, Sujani Reddy,
Carolyn Hersig, Roberto Eiti Hukai, Xela Korda, and Ema Luz Julian-Lorenz. My
advisor Andrew Weintraub challenged, questioned, amused, and inspired me from start to
finish. I’m very grateful for the dedication and intelligence of the University of Pittsburgh
professors who have given me such insightful and thorough feedback over the years,
particularly Bell Yung, Mary Lewis, John Chernoff, and Deane Root. Many thanks to
Hermann Herlinghaus for joining my committee on somewhat short notice and giving me
such excellent feedback. Alice Satomi, Tatsuo Sakima, Paulo Yamishiro, Yukahide
Kanishiro, Shuhei Hosokawa, Jeff Lesser, and Koichi Mori were particularly generous
with their time and advice before and during the time I was in Brazil. And finally, the
exceptional musicians I write about in these pages took me under their wings and inspired
me with their creativity, courage, and intelligence—a gift for which there are no adequate
words.
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1.0 INTRODUCTION
The title of this dissertation, “Japanese in the samba,” refers to an often-repeated
Brazilian phrase that means “someone is playing music badly.” While in English, the
word “samba” refers to a musical genre, in Portuguese it also refers to the place,
gathering, or circle within which samba music is played. An emblem of community
cohesion, joyful revelry, and friendly interaction, but also of cunning and trickery—the
qualities that Brazilians see as most essential to their national character—samba is a
circle that marks a boundary, including some and excluding others of those who would
enter its communal space. And Japanese Brazilians, marked as perpetual outsiders to this
circle, have come to represent the anti-samba within the parlance of samba practitioners.
With a population of more than 1.5 million, the Japanese Brazilian community constitutes
the largest population of Japanese descendents living in any country outside of Japan.
Since the 1930s, official discourses have championed a unitary Brazilian national identity
created out of the seamless hybridization of European, African, and Native American
cultural forms. Within the logic of this model, all citizens were understood to be mestiço,
(mixed-race) and therefore equal. However, the idea of racial democracy has silenced
political discussion about the continuing importance of race in Brazil (Hasenbalg 1979,
258). According to Twine (1998, 8), the “mythology of the Brazilian racial democracy is
still embraced and defended by non-elite Brazilians” and is “a primary obstacle to the
development of a sustained and vital antiracist movement in Brazil.” Indeed, for many
Brazilians, including the Japanese Brazilians who are the subjects of this dissertation, the
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Description:“JAPANESE IN THE SAMBA”: JAPANESE BRAZILIAN MUSICAL Japanese Brazilians' fascination with such genres as minyo and enka as a way
