A discontented diaspora

In this book, Brazilian scholar Jeffrey Lesser explores broad questions about ethnicity, the nature of identity in a diaspora, and Brazilian culture. He does so by examining the particular experiences of young Japanese Brazilians who came of age in São Paulo during the 1960s and 1970s, an intensely authoritarian period under military rule. Lesser draws on a wide range of sources, including films, oral histories, "wanted" posters, advertisements, newspapers, photographs, police reports, official records, and diplomatic correspondence. He focuses on two specific cultural arenas—erotic cinema and political activism—that highlight the ways in which Japanese Brazilians imagined themselves as Brazilian.