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영어

There have been an increasing number of immigrants from abroad in Japan,especially after the 1990s. In this article, I focused on the Brazilian people of Japanesedescent, commonly known as “decasségui” in Portuguese. As a case study, Iconducted a fieldwork in three local communities: (1) Tsurumi word of YokohamaCity, Kanagawa Prefecture, (2) Hamamatsu City in Shizuoka Prefecture, and (3)Oizumi Town in Gunma Prefecture, where decasségui are concentrated. It is reported that over 300,000 or even 350,000 decasségui were present in Japanin 2008. However, due to the Lehman Shock in 2009, approximately 100,000 returnedto Brazil since then. And yet we need to point out that 200,000 arestill residing inJapan and that there is a better chance of their staying in the societypermanently. In this paper, I compared ethnic town sceneries of the tree Brazilian communities,especially by focusing on how they look different in terms of the shops and otherfacilities that they have created for their own community. Furthermore, I touched upon how researchers should conduct field research inethnic minority communities and commented on possibilities and limitations of“Multicultural Coexistence”of Japan.