Jeffrey
Lesser, "The Challenge of Ethnicity in Brazil"
Abstract:
Virtually every public discussion of Jews in Brazil in the first
half of the twentieth century was also about Japanese. What
could it mean that these groups, who arrived at different times,
inserted into the economy in different ways, and had little
to do with each other, were linked over and over again? What
is the place in Brazilian society for citizens who are neither
black nor white? By focusing on the unique nature of Jewish
immigration to Brazil, both from the perspective of all immigrants
to Brazil and from the perspective of Jewish immigration to
the Americas, this paper will try to explain why so many Jews
have "made it" in Brazil. By making comparison to other groups,
notably Japanese-Brazilians and recent Korean immigrants, I
will show how a combination of "non-blackness," ethnic solidarity,
and non-petty agricultural economic positioning led certain
groups to rise up the economic and social ladder in Brazil.
About
Jeffrey Lesser: Jeffrey Lesser is Professor of History at
Connecticut College. He is a specialist in Brazilian history
and his research focuses on issues of ethnicity, immigration
and national identity.
Lesser received
his B.A. and M.A. degrees from Brown University and his Ph.D.
from New York University. He is the author of _Negotiating National
Identity: Minorities, Immigrants and the Struggle for Ethnicity
in Brazil_ (Duke University Press, 1999), winner of the Best
Book Prize from the Brazil Section of the Latin American Studies
Association. His previous book, Welcoming the Undesirables:
Brazil and the Jewish Question (University of California Press,
1994), won the Best Book Prize from New England Council on Latin
American Studies. Welcoming the Undesirables was published in
Portuguese in 1995 and in Hebrew in 1997. He is also co-editor,
with Ignacio Klich of Arab and Jewish Immigrants in Latin America:
Images and Realities (London: Frank Cass, 1998). Lesser in now
working on a project that analyzes discrimination and transnational
identity among Brazilians of Asian descent.
Lesser has
held visiting professorships at Brazil's University of Campinas
and Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and was Chair of the
American Historical Association/Conference on Latin American
History Brazil Studies Committee. He has twice been a Fulbright
Fellow and has received research grants from the Ford Foundation,
the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council
of Learned Societies, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture,
the North-South Center and the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation.
