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“Constructing an Ethnic Space through Cultural Production: The Case of the Tusan and Nikkei in Peru”

Included in Le comparatisme comme approche critique. Local et mondial : Circulations / Comparative Literature as a Critical Approach. Local and Global: Circulations. Vol. 5 Ed. Anne Tomiche. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2017. 269-78

To read the printed copy click here

Ignacio López-Calvo

University of California, Merced

In spite of the unquestionable influence of the Chinese and Japanese communities in Peru’s history and culture, the study of their cultural production has been, for the most part, overlooked. This presentation will focus on the cultural production of these two Peruvian minorities and migrant groups. Through their literature, they negotiate cultural difference and propose a decolonial knowledge that repositions contemporary Peruvian culture as transnational. As will be seen, writing ultimately provides these communities with a voice and a collective agency. Asian Peruvian cultural production contests the traditional dichotomy that limits Peruvian culture to the traditional confrontation between the Andean/indigenous and Criollo/coastal worldviews. However, for different reasons, while certain Asian Peruvian authors reflect their ethnic background in their writings, others do not; these differences can be considered as evidence of the heterogeneity within their respective ethnic communities. The emergence of Tusán (Chinese Peruvians) and Nikkei writers in Peru in recent decades reflects the emergence of two diasporic, minority discourses. In the case of Tusán cultural production, we go from Zulen’s indigenist writings, to Siu Kam Wen’s self-exploitation narratives, to Sui Yun’s and Julia Wong’s cosmopolitan perspectives, Julio Villanueva Chang’s chronicles and profiles, or Mario Wong’s and León’s analyses of political violence in 1980s Peru. Nikkei cultural production, in turn, offers Seiichi Higashide testimonial of the deportation of Japanese Peruvians to internment camps in the United States, explicit Okinawan nationalism in the works of Doris Moromisato, Ricardo Ganaja, and Juan Shimabukuro Inami, Nippo-Peruvian self-identification in Augusto Higa’s fiction and testimonial, Fernando Iwasaki’s ostensive delinking from Nikkei or Japanese identity, Carlos Yushimito’s post-nationalist and post-identitarian short stories, and José Watanabe’s politics of cultural belonging.

Beyond the study of the exotic ethnographic object or of stereotypical representations of the cultural other, it is far more appropriate to problematize stable Tusán and Nikkei identities, allowing them to emerge, with all their complexities, as fluid, hybrid, and changing subjectivities. In both Sino-Peruvian and Nippo-Peruvian literature, authors and characters undergo processes of de-ethnification and re-ethnification that complicate the idea of a unified identity.

Tusán Ethnocultural Discourse

Certain Tusán literary and cultural productions, e.g., Pedro Zulen’s privileging of indigenous issues, Mario Wong’s and Julio León’s narrative rendering of political violence, Julio Villanueva Chang’s stress on international topics and personalities in his chronicles and profiles, or Eugenio Chang Rodríguez’s experiences as a Peruvian academic living in the United States, are void of ethnicity. In contrast, other Sino-Peruvian works rely on Chinese ethnicity as a source of inspiration: Siu fictionalizes his trials and tribulations, as a Chinese-born, Peruvian-reared young man, in confronting racial discrimination and family self-exploitation; Julia Wong and Sui Yun reflect on their ethnicity through a post-national and cosmopolitan approach. Some texts denote a yearning for an unrecoverable past (e.g., Siu Kam Wen’s La primera espada del imperio2 and Julia Wong’s Bocetos para un cuadro de familia3); others denounce past oppression and marginalization to avoid future silence, dismissal, and societal amnesia (Siu Kam

Viaje a Ítaca4, and Julia Wong’s Doble felicidad5). I believe that the conjuring of a historical past, i.e., a timeless ancestral land and traumatic episodes of oppression in Peru, denotes an incipient and veiled Tusán nationalistic discourse. An internal colonial scar resulting from historical discrimination, along with a nostalgia for an often idealized, mythical Chinese past, inform the creation of an imagined Tusán community. The Tusán identity emerging from this cultural production is, therefore, the outcome of a process of reification of fantasies and of sometimes idealized individual and social “memories”. In some cases, it leans dangerously toward self-orientalization and self-nativism (Siu Kam Wen’s La primera espada del imperio); in others, the author excludes her non-Chinese readers from knowledge shared by all Chinese (Julia Wong’s Los últimos blues de Buddha6). All in all, among authors who establish direct links between their ethnicity and their writing, we find the unstated intent of first shedding their internal colonial trappings to then affirm their own identities as either Peruvian or cosmopolitan subjects.

There is also a turn, in Tusán cultural production, toward cosmopolitism (Sui Yun and Julia Wong) and postmodernism (Mario Wong). It is tempting to see a connection between this evolution and the neoliberal, late capitalist reforms that have taken place in Peru in recent decades. After all, Frederic Jameson argues that “every position on postmodernism in culture – whether apologia or stigmatization – is also at one and the same time, and necessarily, an implicitly or explicitly political stance on the nature of multinational capitalism today7”. Jameson links the economic changes that took place in the base during this third stage of capitalism to the generation, in the superstructure, of postmodern cultural production: “What has happened is that aesthetic production today has become integrated into commodity production generally: the frantic economic urgency of producing fresh waves of ever more novel-seeming goods . . . now assigns an increasingly essential structural function and position to aesthetic innovation and experimentation8.”

I argue, however, that in the case of Tusán cultural production other factors are involved (cultural trends and personal beliefs or circumstances, among others) that are perhaps more influential than the economic changes taking place in Peru and in countries where Sino-Peruvian authors live. While it may be argued that ideological transformations in Peru are indeed intimately linked to recent economic changes, the evolution of Tusán cultural production has not been tied to the emergence of a modern, capitalist publishing industry. This is particularly relevant to a literary corpus that finds its identitarian coherence along ethnic rather than social class lines.

Inter-ethnic minority relations must be taken into account when studying these works. Besides the interactions between Afro-Peruvians and Chinese during the coolie period and Nikkei-Tusán relations (noticeable in Julia Wong’s and Seiichi Higashide’s works), some authors confess to having learned important lessons from other minority groups. Siu, for example, admits, in the preface to the Casatomada edition of El tramo final9, the profound influence on his work of Isaac Goldemberg’s (b. 1945) literary depictions of his Jewish Peruvian ethnic group. Given that Goldemberg was born in Chepén, like Julia Wong, he apparently influenced her writing as well. Of particular interest is Zulen’s inter-ethnic relation with the indigenous community and his devotion to their emancipation, while surprisingly keeping silent in regard to physical attacks on the Chinese community. Furthermore, the identification of Tusán and Nikkei authors with Peru’s indigenous people may be read as a creation of strategic and imaginary genealogical links to aid in the national acceptance of their belonging. Authors such as Pedro Zulen, Julia Wong, and Ricardo Ganaja at times go so far as to claim their own indigeneity by rhetorically considering themselves as “one of them”. Similarly, Sui Yun appeared dressed in Amazonian indigenous attire at the presentation of one of her collections of poems.

Interestingly, Sui Yun and Julia Wong have expressed their awareness of how the People’s Republic of China’s new economic and political influence on Latin America (the ironic term “Lachinoamérica” depicts this power) has changed the image of local ethnic Chinese communities in the region and will probably increase their political weight as well. It is to be expected that, since Chinese corporations see Sino-Latin American communities as a strategic asset, Tusán cultural production will gain increasing traction. Thus, whereas in Siu Kam Wen’s and Julia Wong’s stories the shop counter becomes the quintessential Tusán chronotope, the office of a Chinese corporation or bank may become the new chronotope in the future. As Lausent-Herrera argued, ethnic Chinese in Peru and other countries (approximately fifty million Chinese living abroad) may resent China’s excessive influence in their local affairs. Another possible risk for the survival of the Tusán community in Peru, in my view, is similar to what the Nikkei community is facing: the possibility of renewed immigration. In Peru, however, the creation of the Asociación Peruano China, led by the influential Erasmo Wong, is proof that the Tusán community is aware of their strategic position. It plans to stand its ground against the increasing power of mainland Chinese corporations and the influence of new immigrant entrepreneurs at the head of many Chinese associations in Peru. In the first chapter of China, Past and Present, Nobel laureate Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) states: “Nothing and no one can destroy the Chinese people. They are relentless survivors. They are the oldest civilized people on earth. Their civilization passes through phases but its basic characteristics remain the same. They yield, they bend to the wind, but they never break10.” If one follows the historical trajectory of the Chinese and Tusán in Peru, from oppression to expression, from semi-slavery to major contributions to Peruvian society and culture, it is safe to assume that they will resiliently continue to develop new strategies for empowerment. Hopefully, Tusán cultural production will remain one of these strategies.

Nikkei Ethnocultural Discourse

Why study literature and other forms of cultural production in relation to Nippo-Peruvian identity and history? Nikkei writing may be interpreted as a call for acceptance into the imaginary of the Peruvian nation, which challenges the traditional criollo-indigenous duality (as Sino-Peruvian, Afro-Peruvian, or Jewish Peruvian cultural productions do as well). While some discursive practices establish cultural differences between Nikkei and non-Nikkei, or between Okinawans and Nihonjin, others are devoted to proving the essential Peruvianness of Nikkei writers and their ethnic community. These works construct an ethnic space that inscribes the Japanese and their descendants in Peru’s present and future history (in this regard, Alberto Fujimori positioned the Nikkei community as a model for a future Peru). It also reflects the process of racial formation and the evolution of this community’s public image from the negative “yellow peril” to the more recent idea of a “model minority” that can set the path to a better future for the country. A series of symbolic and historic milestones has become recurrent in this racialized group’s representative writings: the inception of the immigration process, the lootings of May 1940, the deportations during World War II, the victory of Alberto Fujimori in the 1990 presidential election, and the dekasegi phenomenon, which threatens to continue weakening a community that has lost many of its young and most promising members. Nikkei writing also depicts the evolution from insular mentality with closely and firmly integrated organization and institutions to a new generation of Japanese Peruvians who are open to integration and intermarriage, and whose choice of ethnic self-identification is less rigid. Evidence of a surviving fear of victimization persists, as found in the Nikkei community’s anxiety about the potentially adverse consequences of Fujimori’s victory in the 1990 presidential election.

Several texts, such as Augusto Higa’s La iluminación de Katzuo Nakamatsu11, or Doris Moromisato’s Diario de la mujer esponja12 expose the at times insurmountable obstacle that their Asian phenotype poses for the Nikkei in their quest for integration into mainstream Peruvian society. On the other hand, this physical appearance nowadays carries with it positive connotations of honesty and diligence, a stereotype that, paired with Japan’s international prestige, Fujimori used to his advantage during his political career. His campaign’s motto during the first presidential election, “work, honesty, and technology”, suggested that Peru was a country in need of “Japanization”. More importantly, besides the many cases of nativism, xenophobia, Nippophobia, and racism depicted in works such as Adiós to Tears13 by Seiichi Higashide, several texts, such as Okinawa, Un siglo en el Perú14 by Doris Moromisato and Juan Shimabukuro Inami, Okinawa, el reino de la cortesía, y testimonio de un peruano okinawense15 by Ricardo Ganaja, La iluminación de Katzuo Nakamatsu by Augusto Higa, and Doris Moromisato’s poetry collections also show the often painful process of transculturation and cross-cultural hybridization that have taken place in Peru since the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants. In addition, they reveal an obvious negotiation of national allegiances and cultural identities that exposes the fluidity of identitarian layers. This process sometimes allows the character or testimonialist (author of the testimonio) to enjoy multiple public and private identities, or to enter and leave Japaneseness strategically, depending on what approach is politically advisable in each case.

Referring to Chinese in West Indian literature and to those narratives used in the articulation of national identity as belonging, Anne-Marie Lee-Loy argues: “There is more than one way to imagine the boundaries of national belonging, and the fictional images of the Chinese capture this inherent instability16.” Indeed, one could argue that the same may be said about the Japanese in Peru: Japanese and Nikkei characters often represent the human borderland between the Peruvian and non-Peruvian, becoming self-evident in the recurrent phrase “even the Japanese”. In texts written by Nikkei authors, traces of an inner struggle are found, a quest for one’s own identity that goes beyond the authors themselves to encompass the rest of their ethnic communities. These heterogeneous representations and explorations of the self also contest the often stereotypical, anamorphous, or grotesque Japanese and Nikkei characters appearing in works by non-Nikkei Peruvian authors, such as José María Arguedas’s novel El sexto17; Mario Vargas Llosa’s novels La casa verde, Historia de Mayta, and Travesuras de la niña mala18; and Mario Bellatín’s novel El jardín de la señora Murakami19, Shiki Nagaoka, Una nariz de ficción, Biografía ilustrada de Mishima, and his short story “Bola negra20”, among many others. And by so doing, it explores and challenges notions about what it means to be a Nikkei and what constitutes Peruvianness.

Other than the formal innovations of Watanabe’s take on Japanese haiku (adopting its visual and conceptual approach and its thematic content, but rarely its form), Nippo-Peruvian writing does not deviate much in form from the rest of Peruvian and Latin American cultural production. Neither does it present a significant chronological evolution in its themes or worldviews, which should not be surprising if we consider that most Nikkei Peruvian cultural productions have been recently published. What is recurrent, as mentioned, are the different levels of ethnic identification as well as the different phases, from ethnification to de-ethnification (or vice versa) and sometimes an ulterior re-ethnification, noticeable in particular in Ricardo Ganaja’s Okinawa, el reino de la cortesía and Higa’s La iluminación de Katzuo Nakamatsu and Japón no da dos oportunidades. On the other hand, while some texts concentrate on political and historical vindication while embracing internationalism (Adiós to Tears), others, such as Okinawa, el reino de la cortesía and Okinawa: Un siglo en el Perú, add Okinawan (sub)ethnic difference and pride. Equally important are the examples of the opposite: a more or less explicit rejection of ethno-cultural and national identity that sometimes flirts with a postmodern worldview, as seen in most of Fernando Iwasaki’s and Carlos Yushimito’s texts. When studying these authors’ works, it is particularly important not to overemphasize their Japanese cultural heritage to avoid reaching simplistic conclusions. Doris Moromisato’s poetry adds, to the Okinawan cultural identity already present in her narratives, dimensions of gender and sexual identification, as well as an ecological perspective. These approaches complement one another in and its place within Peruvianness.

Conclusion

My study of Tusán and Nikkei cultural production is an attempt to contribute to Antonio Cornejo Polar’s Escribir en el aire21 (Writing in the Air, 1994) by providing an Asian ethnicity component to his concept of sociocultural heterogeneity. Intellectuals such as Zulen, in fact, connect directly with Cornejo Polar’s analysis of the relation between writing and orality among Andean cultures: Zulen’s goal was to apply the power of the written word to gaining the liberation of indigenous peoples with only oral traditions. Through this literary corpus, Tusán and Nikkei struggles, desires, and dreams weave themselves into the fabric of Peruvian national imagination. To Cornejo Polar, the Peruvian subject begins to understand “that his identity is also the Other’s destabilizing identity, a mirror or shadow that he incorporates, in a dark and conflictive manner, as an option between alienation or fulfillment22”. Tusán and Nikkei writings sustain a longstanding Peruvian tradition of legitimization of the mestizo condition that, as Cornejo Polar points out, began with Inca Garcilaso de la Vega’s Comentarios reales de los incas (Royal Commentaries of the Incas, 1609). Tusán and Nikkei authors, through their writing, try to validate and vindicate their ethnicity. By historicizing their experience, they also demand a place in the Peruvian social imaginary. In Siu Kam Wen and Julia Wong, for example, the recovery of the collective history of the Chinese community goes hand in hand with the self-exploration implicit in their (semi-)auto-biographical texts. These authors claim the right to their ethnic heritage by proposing an alternative modernity and a decolonial knowledge liberated from traditional, Eurocentric, and homogenizing worldviews.

As Walter Mignolo posits, “it requires an act of humility to realize that there is no longer room for abstract universals and truth without parenthesis. And it takes a moment of rage and of losing fear to move from the colonial wound to decolonial scientia23”. Tusán and Nikkei writings provide numerous examples of these types of parentheses that negotiate cultural differences and suspend essentialist notions of overarching Chineseness, Japaneseness or Peruvianness. They likewise exemplify the movement from a simplistic cultural celebration or a nostalgic lamentation of past subjection to a development of an alternative, decolonial knowledge that challenges eurocentrism and other homologizing discourses. Homi Bhabha argues that “The study of world literature might be the study of the way in which cultures recognize themselves through their projections of ‘otherness24’”. Tusán and Nikkei literature often reflects this encounter with otherness, whether mainstream, criollo Peruvian or Nikkei culture. Several texts are avowed acts of self-exploration (most by Sui Yun, Julia Wong, Siu Kam Wen, Doris Moromisato, Augusto Higa) that also contribute to articulate a counter-narrative challenging how the Tusán and Nikkei communities have been racialized and “Othered”. Certain works may be read as both claim to national belonging (Zulen, Mario Wong, Julio León, Watanabe, Higa) and condemnation of the exclusion of Asian Peruvians from the national discourse. The erasure of this group from the national imagination is apparent, for instance, in the Casa de la Literatura Peruana’s selection of authors or in Escribir en el aire, which focuses almost entirely on the criollo- indigenous dichotomy, with sporadic passages devoted to Afro-Peruvians.

It is my hope that these studies will contribute to the inclusion of Tusán and Nikkei authors in the Peruvian cultural canon, which would amplify the understanding of what it means to be Peruvian and would also highlight the complexities of racial and ethnic identity in Peru and Latin America.

Notes

1 Part of the information included in this essay was previously published in my books Dragons in the Land of the Condor, Writing Tusán in Peru, Tuscon, University of Arizona Press, 2015, and The Affinity of the Eye: Writing Nikkei in Peru, Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 2013.

2  Siu Kam Wen, La primera espada del imperio (The First Sword of the Empire), Lima, Instituto Nacional de Cultura, 1988. 


3  Julia Wong, Bocetos para un cuadro de familia (Sketches for a Family Portrait), Lima, Borrador, 2008. 


4  Siu Kam Wen, Viaje a Ítaca (Voyage to Ithaca), Morrisville, North Carolina, Diana, 2004. 


5  Julia Wong, Doble felicidad (Double Happiness), Lima, Editatú, 2012. 


6  Julia Wong, Los últimos blues de Buddha (Buddha’s Last Blues), Lima, Noevas Editoras, 2002. 


7  Frederic Jameson, Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Durham, Duke 
University Press, 1991, p. 3. 


8  Id., p. 5. 


9 Siu Kam Wen, El tramo final (The Final Strech), Lima, Casatomada, 2009.

10 Pearl S. Buck, China, Past and Present, New York, John Day Co., 1972, p. 19.

11  Augusto Higa, La iluminación de Katzuo Nakamatsu (Katzuo Nakamatsu’s Enlightenment), Lima, San Marcos, 2008. 


12  Doris Moromisato, Diario de la mujer esponja, (Diary of a Panja Woman), Lima, Flora Tristán, 2004.

13  Seiichi Higashide, Adiós to Tears, The Memoirs of a Japanese-Peruvian Internee in U.S. Concentration Camps, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 2000. 


14  Doris Moromisato and Juan Shimabukuro Inami, Okinawa: Un siglo en el Perú (Okinawa, A Century in Peru), Lima, Ymagino Publicidad S.A.C, 2006. 


15  Ricardo Ganaja, Okinawa, el reino de la cortesía, y testimonio de un peruano okinawense (Okinawa, the Kingdom of Kindness, and the Testimonial of an Okinawan Peruvian), Lima, OKP, 2008. 


16  Anne-Marie Lee-Loy, Searching for Mr. Chin: Constructions of Nation and the Chinese in West Indian Literature, Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 2010, p. 4. 


17  José María Arguedas, El sexto (The Sixth), Lima, Horizonte, 1969. 


18  Mario Vargas Llosa, La casa verde (The Green House) Madrid, Alfaguara, 1999; Historia de Mayta (The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta), Barcelona, Seix Barral, 1984; Travesuras de la niña mala (The Bad Girl), Lima, Alfaguara, 2006. 


19  Mario Bellatín, El jardín de la señora Murakami (Mrs. Murakami’s Garden), Barcelona, Tusquets, 2001. 


20  Shiki Nagaoka, Una nariz de ficción (A Nose of Fiction), Buenos Aires, Sudamericana, 2001; Biografía ilustrada de Mishima (An Illustrated Biography of Mishima), Lima, Matalamanga, 2009; “Bola negra” (“Black Ball”), in Tres novelas, Mérida, Venezuela, El Otro, El Mismo, 2005. 


21  Antonio Cornejo Polar, Escribir en el aire: Ensayo sobre la heterogeneidad socio-cultural en las literaturas andinas [1994], Lima, Latinoamericana Editores, 2003. 22  “Que su identidad es también la desestabilizante identidad del otro, espejo o sombra a la que incorpora oscura, desgarrada y conflictivamente como opción de enajenamiento o de plenitud.” (Antonio Cornejo Polar, Escribir en el aire, op. cit., p. 80. Unless otherwise indicated, all further translations are mine.) 


23  Walter Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options, Durham/London, Duke University Press, 2011, p. 114. 


24  Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture, London / New York, Routledge, 2004, p. 12. 


 *U.S. copyright law prohibits reproduction of the articles on this site "for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research" (see Title 17, US Code for details). If you would like to copy or reprint these articles for other purposes, please contact the publisher to secure permission. 

Centellas.2

Centellas

Mystical Chant

Planta

Stultitia

Jx

Interview on my research by the academic journal Verge. Studies in Global Asias 3.2 (Fall 2017): 13-16 (Special issue “Between Asia and Latin America: New Transpacific Perspectives”). Ed. Pedro Erber and Andrea Bachner

I was interviewed on my research by the academic journal Verge. Studies in Global Asias 3.2 (Fall 2017): 13-16 (Special issue “Between Asia and Latin  America: New Transpacific Perspectives”). Ed. Pedro Erber and Andrea Bachner   

For a published version, click here

1. Why Asia and Latin America? What led you to bring together these two regions in your academic research? On what specific regions, disciplinary fields, and texts have you focused your work on Asia and Latin America? 

Two experiences led me to carry out research on Asians in Latin America. The first one took place in early 2000s, back when I lived in Los Angeles, California. I met an elderly lady named Yuli in Alhambra, California, who looked like a Westerner but spoke Cantonese with the locals. I conducted a series of interviews with her with the initial idea of writing a testimonial or perhaps a fictional text based on her life. It turns out that her Chinese father, who lived most of the time in Cuba, had two families, one in Cuba and the other one in China. After Yuli’s mother died giving birth to her, her father took her to China where she was badly mistreated for years by her stepmother. At age eighteen, Yuli’s father took her back to Cuba and married her to one of his Chinese friends, but she divorced him and married a Chinese Cuban man with whom she eventually moved to the United States. 

The second and concomitant source of inspiration was my first reading of Esteban Montejo’s and Miguel Barnet’s Biography of a Runaway Slave (1966), where I found out about the Chinese community in Cuba. These two experiences, one literary and the other one in real life, led me to write Imaging the Chinese in Cuban Literature and Culture (University Press of Florida, 2008), which, to my knowledge, was the first literary criticism monograph focused on Asians in Latin America, along with another book published by Debbie Lee-DiStefano on the same year. I enjoyed writing this book so much that I decided to continue the research on the Asian diaspora in Latin America, this time in Peru. As a result, I published two other books: The Affinity of the Eye: Writing Nikkei in Peru (U of Arizona P, 2013) and Dragons in the Land of the Condor: Writing Tusán in Peru (U of Arizona P, 2014). In addition, I edited three volumes on Orientalism and East-West cross-cultural relations throughout the world: Alternative Orientalisms in Latin America and Beyond (2007), One World Periphery Reads the Other: Knowing the “Oriental” in the Americas and the Iberian Peninsula (2009); and Peripheral Transmodernities: South-to-South Dialogues between the Luso-Hispanic World and “the Orient” (2012).     

     

This work has evolved, therefore, from the imaging of the Chinese in Cuban cultural production, to the self-representation of both the Chinese and the Japanese in Peru and Brazil. Within the context of cultural nationalism, identity politics, and the politics of cultural belonging, I study representative works showing an immigrant or Mestiza/o consciousness in the context of what they mean to the construction of national projects in Latin America. Besides publishing research on the topic, so far I have organized eight international conferences on the Asian presence and cultural production in Latin America as well as on East-West intercultural relations, which have taken place, among other places, in Morocco, Russia, Japan, and India. 

2. Would you call the kind of research you do comparative? How would you describe the theoretical underpinnings of your work on Asia and Latin America? 

Part of my research definitely has a comparative nature. In three different books, for example, I have compared Spanish American and Brazilian authors of Asian ancestry both among themselves and with Asian authors and testimonialists.  For instance, I often compare the experience and cultural production of Sino-Peruvian authors with those of their Nippo-Peruvian peers. And in the book manuscript I have just finished, I often compare Nippo-Brazilian cultural production with that of Nippo-Peruvian authors, or the life experience of Nikkei in Mexico, the United States and other regions in the Americas and the Caribben. More recently, I have compared the works of Mexican/Peruvian novelist Mario Bellatin and Japanese author Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, and the work of Peruvian chronicler Julio Villanueva Chang with the literature Spanish Baroque writers. Most of these publications were written from the perspective of cultural studies, decolonial/postcolonial theories, and critical race theory. 

3. What sort of difficulties, both practical and theoretical, institutional and intellectual have you encountered so far in working concomitantly on both Asian and Latin America?

Clearly, the main difficulty I have encountered has been of a linguistic nature, since I cannot read Chinese or Japanese. Although most of the work I study was written in either Spanish or Portuguese, or was written in Chinese or Japanese but translated to English, I have encountered some texts and films that have not been translated yet. A few months ago, for example, one of my colleagues had to translate a Japanese-language documentary on Brazilian dekasegi in Japan for me. 

The second difficulty I encounter is that I write most of my research in English, so I constantly have to translate quotations from Portuguese and Spanish into English. I am not a professional translator, so sometimes I have to rely on the proofreading of experts. And of course, initially the world of Asian communities in Latin America and the Caribbean was completely new to me, so I had to travel to Cuba, Peru, and Brazil to buy books, conduct interviews, and visit key places and archives. I also took courses on Japanese culture and traveled several times to Japan, Korea, China, India, the Philippines, and other Asian countries in order to become more familiar with Asian cultures.

On some occasions, I have also had to explain my research to my peers, who looked at me in disbelief or confusion every time I mentioned that I studied Asians in Latin America. In one case, for example, the reaction was the following: “I don’t quite understand. So do you study Asia or Latin America?” This unfamiliarity with the subfield was also reflected in the peer reviews of my publications or even in the review of an NEH course on the cultural production of Latin American authors of Asian ancestry that I was invited to prepare. One reviewer, for example, claimed that I exaggerated about the suffering of Chinese coolies and Nikkei colonos in my proposal, “because Asians have always been treated very well in Latin America.”

           

From a theoretical point of view, for me it has not been difficult to apply decolonial/postcolonial theories, affect theory, and cultural studies to the texts and films I have analyzed.

             

4. Can you tell us about your plans for future research involving material from both Asia and Latin America? How do you see the future of this field of trans-regional research?

I have just finished a book-length study on Nippo-Brazilian cultural production that I hope to publish with Colorado University Press. In the near future, I plan to publish a book about the image of Asians in Peruvian literature from the perspective of affect theory as well as another one of Spanish-language Filipino cultural production.

As the co-founder and co-executive director (along with Cristián H. Ricci) of the open-access, interdisciplinary, academic journal Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, which often publishes articles and reviews on this topic, I plan to continue editing my peers’ work on these topics. I am likewise the co-executive director (along with Debbie Lee-DiStefano and Kathy López) of the Palgrave Macmillan Book Series “Historical and Cultural Interconnections between Latin America and Asia,” and I hope to receive many manuscripts dealing with this relatively new subfield in the upcoming years. I am also excited about the organization of another interdisciplinary conference on East-West intercultural relations in March 2017, which will take place at Seoul National University, in Korea.

*U.S. copyright law prohibits reproduction of the articles on this site "for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research" (see Title 17, US Code for details). If you would like to copy or reprint these articles for other purposes, please contact the publisher to secure permission. 

Ciervo

asinine

Relámpagos

Incendio

Pintazos

Sofía y Koda

garras

Nacionalismos

Review of Rafael Reyes-Ruiz's novel La forma de las cosas.

Reyes-Ruiz, Rafael. La forma de las cosas. Sevilla: Ediciones Alfar, 2016. 221 pp.

ISBN 9788-4789-8705-4

Ignacio López-Calvo

University of California, Merced

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En su nueva novela La forma de las cosas, el colombiano Rafael Reyes Ruiz (1961-) hace uso del suspense para dibujarnos una historia de encuentros fortuitos y desencuentros inevitables, de amor y desamor entre personajes transnacionales y aventureros. No es de extrañar el enfoque si se tiene en cuenta que el autor es un antropólogo de la Universidad Zayed de Dubái que se dedica a investigar las identidades sociales transnacionales en América Latina y Japón. Los capítulos de la novela alternan entre la narración en primera y tercera persona, pero coinciden en el tono de suspense y el halo de misterio que caracteriza a la historia, como si se tratara de una novela policial.

La forma de las cosas forma parte de la trilogía “El cruce de Roppongi”, enfocada en personajes expatriados que luchan por encontrar el norte en medio de su desarraigo en Japón. Como ya hizo en su anterior novela, Las ruinas, el marco espacial nos devuelve a parajes asiáticos (en este caso Japón, Tailandia y Macao) y a la continuación del secular encuentro entre Oriente y Occidente, pero esta vez manchados por las turbias sombras de las mafias internacionales. El protagonista caribeño y expatriado, Javier Pinto, cuyos padres viven en California, descubre desde la distancia geográfica su verdadera latinoamericanidad en un mundo cada vez más globalizado. Residente en San Francisco, California, turista, traductor de manuales de electrodomésticos en Tokio y aspirante a novelista o cuentista, conoce a una joven viajera en Bangkok con la que acabará casándose. Se trata de Roxana, hija de un exiliado iraní zoroastriano que trabaja en una tienda de alfombras persas en Múnich propiedad de su padre, que viaja todos los inviernos.

En un principio, lo único que busca el protagonista es un lugar barato donde se pueda vivir con poco dinero para poder dedicarse a sus dos verdaderas pasiones: leer y escribir. Pero su vida acaba siendo bastante más complicada. Casi sin quererlo, acepta un puesto de trabajo aparentemente rutinario en Tailandia que le ofrece un misterioso hombre de negocios japonés. Como descubrirá más tarde, su jefe está inmerso en el turbio mundo de las mafias japonesas, tailandesas y macanesas.
Con el tiempo, su matrimonio entra en crisis. Roxana, que ha pasado de ser una viajera ingenua a convertirse en una mujer sofisticada y segura de sí misma, le acusa a Javier de haberse vuelto como Hajime Ogawa de tanto trabajar con él: celosa de las posibles infidelidades de su marido, declara que su relación ha perdido la espontaneidad que la caracterizaba y se ha vuelto una ficción. Al final, deciden separarse. A la vez, el hallazgo de un documento en su oficina le abre los ojos al protagonista sobre el peligroso mundo en el que, sin darse cuenta, se ha metido. La primera parte de La forma de las cosas tiene lugar en 1989, cuando Javier comienza su nueva vida en Bangkok, donde vivirá seis meses, tras haber viajado tres meses por la India. Allí conoce a otro latinoamericano cosmopolita, un músico venezolano y también caribeño llamado César, que había vivido dos años en Australia. De repente, César lo confunde con otra persona, le llama Gabriel y le pregunta si no se acuerda de él porque estudiaron juntos en el Colegio Británico de Maracaibo. Curiosamente, Javier había aprendido inglés en colegio del mismo nombre, pero en otro país. Más adelante, César le dice, misteriosamente, que están en una encrucijada (en un principio la novela se iba a titular Cruce de caminos) porque han perdido la brújula.

El misterio de aquella conversación queda sin explicación, así como el hecho de que un
japonés llamado Ogawa le asegure de que los dioses lo llevaron a ese lugar en que se hallan. Ogawa le invita a tomar una limonada en su despacho, donde le ofrece un trabajo de intérprete y un sueldo que Javier no puede rechazar. El trabajo, junto al feliz momento que está pasando con Roxana, lo animan a quedarse a trabajar en Tailandia, aunque no sabe muy bien a qué se dedica su jefe ni tampoco entiende por qué necesita a un traductor cuando, en realidad, tanto él como los negociantes con los que trata se entienden bien en inglés. Esto le lleva a especular que lo utiliza para ganar credibilidad, para asegurarse de que no lo engañan, o que simplemente desea presumir de tener a un extranjero en la nómina de trabajo. Ogawa tan sólo le asegura que el negocio al que se dedica, la venta de joyas a turistas japoneses, es totalmente legal y que es además el principio de algo más grande. No obstante, su novia Roxana insiste en que Ogawa no le inspira confianza, lo que constituye un primer indicio. Más adelante, Ogawa le ofrece un puesto a tiempo completo como intérprete en Yokohama, donde será su mano derecha asistiendo a reuniones con inversores y colaborar en el desarrollo de estrategias de promoción y mercadeo.

Por otra parte, Javier piensa (en un principio erróneamente, si bien parece que lo que leemos es precisamente la narración que hace Javier de dichas vivencias) que esa aventura laboral puede servirle de inspiración para sus narraciones. En una conversación que tiene lugar una década más tarde, en 1999, Javier le cuenta a su amiga Lena que está trabajando en una antología de cuentos de viajes en lugares exóticos con momentos insólitos, encuentros inesperados y “temas como el descubrimiento, la duda y el miedo de perder el camino” (104), lo que le da a la novela rasgos metanarrativos. Si bien La forma de las cosas no se trata exactamente de historias de viajes, sí incluye personajes viajeros que se hallan muy lejos de su lugar de nacimiento, con frecuencia tratando de encontrase a sí mismos como los de la antología de cuentos que está escribiendo Javier.
Al final, Matsuda, un socio de Ogawa le revela al protagonista que en efecto, Hemispheres, el negocio de Ogawa donde trabaja Javier trafica tanto con la mafia japonesa como con la tailandesa y quizás también las de Macao. El restaurante, un negocio fallido, es además una tapadera y las mujeres que trabajaban en el restaurante son en realidad prostitutas: “Probablemente, los detalles personales en ese documento errante eran para chantajear a las mujeres o para amenazar a sus familias en el caso de que trataran de escapar o denunciarlos a la policía” (168). La novela concluye con el progresivo alejamiento de su jefe Ogawa por parte de Javier, quien ha tomado por fin conciencia del peligro que han estado corriendo tanto él como su esposa. Ahora Javier planea colaborar con su amigo César en la creación de un centro cultural latinoamericano clases de español y baile en las afueras de Roppongi.

En definitiva, la ágil prosa de Rafael Reyes Ruiz y su dominio de distintos dialectos del castellano hace su obra más cosmopolita. La forma de las cosas es una novela bien escrita, intrigante y que invita al lector a viajar por parajes exóticos, a presenciar la historia de un desamor y a lidiar con asuntos farragosos relacionados con las mafias internacionales, desde la perspectiva de personajes occidentales en Asia.

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