Becoming Nikkei: creating, challenging, and expanding Nikkei identification among Chileans of Japanese descent

Abstract The term Nikkei emerged in the Americas, post-Second World War, to describe persons of Japanese descent living abroad. Based on an ethnographic study with Chileans of Japanese descent, we propose that Nikkei can be productively understood as an ethno-regional identity. Building on and departing from scholarship that focuses on Nikkei identities in Peru and Brazil in national/global/diasporic terms, we highlight the role of Nikkei persons and groups in Latin America in developing Chilean Nikkei identity and community. While some Chileans come to identify as Nikkei, others are unaware of or distance themselves from it. While definitions of Nikkei vary, Chilean Nikkei organizations are expanding their understanding of the term. We discuss diverse members’ responses towards such inclusiveness as they negotiate the consanguineous boundaries of Nikkei identity. In theorizing Nikkei as an ethno-regional identity and highlighting the role of institutions in the formation and promotion of Nikkei identity, we contribute to decentering identity politics from individual choice and recentering identity in processes of diaspora formation and community-making.