Journal | Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale
Journal issue | 54 | 2020
Research Article | Migrant and Minority Nostalgia in Karen Tei Yamashita’s Circle K Cycles
Migrant and Minority Nostalgia in Karen Tei Yamashita’s Circle K Cycles
Abstract
This essay explores the concept of nostalgia through an analysis of Circle K Cycles (2001), a creative (auto)ethnographic text in which the Japanese American writer Karen Tei Yamashita portrays Japanese Brazilians’ ethnic return migration to Japan in the 1980s and 1990s. In the face of social marginalisation and the hegemonic pressures of Japanese culture to conform to a standard of ‘pure Japaneseness’, Japanese Brazilians reinforce their attachment to Brazil, which they express in the form of nostalgia, or saudade. Yet Yamashita criticises any idea of cultural separateness and ‘purity’, both by experimenting with form and by describing phenomena of cultural hybridisation.
Submitted: Sept. 3, 2020 | Accepted: Sept. 7, 2020 | Published Dec. 22, 2020 | Language: en
Keywords Karen Tei Yamashita • Ethnic return migration • Japanese Brazilians • Asian American literature • Circle K Cycles • Nostalgia
Copyright © 2020 Grazia Micheli. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/AnnOc/2499-1562/2020/54/009
