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Okinawans and their descendants in Brazil maintain provincial language in affectionate and family settings
Analysis of the Kyūyō Association's first newsletter and interviews with Okinawan immigrants and descendants in Brazil highlight processes that restricted and enabled the language
Between 1908 and 1941, 190,000 Japanese arrived in Brazil, about 10% of whom were natives of the Okinawa province – Photo: Reprodução/Facebook/Okinawa Festival AOVC
In 1879, Japan annexed the former Ryūkyū Kingdom as the Okinawa Province, undertaking a government effort until 1945 to assimilate local languages into the nation’s official language. In this process, the Okinawan people faced decades of stigmatization and cultural marginalization. Meanwhile, after the abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1888, the alleged labor shortage prompted the creation of agreements between Brazil and Japan, despite the preference for white and European immigrants. It was in this scenario that many Okinawans, seeking socioeconomic advancement, crossed the ocean bringing with them the languages that Japan itself was trying to silence.
Of the approximately 190,000 Japanese who arrived in Brazil between 1908 and 1941, about 10% were natives of the Okinawa province, seeking to accumulate some wealth and return with better conditions. In these historical processes, Uchināguchi – the language of the Okinawan people – became severely threatened with extinction, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In her research at the Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Human Sciences (FFLCH) at USP, Luísa Teruya investigates how these events influenced the exchange of the original language for Japanese or Portuguese.
A set of documents was gathered and studied through the French school of discourse analysis, including the first edition of the Kyūyō Association’s newsletter (an association of Okinawan immigrants) from 1928, and interviews with immigrants and descendants of Brazilian Okinawans. Upon examining these records, the researcher noticed that the power dynamics of institutional and public discourses influenced the loss of Uchināguchi in at least one generation. This occurred amid a struggle where the original language remains associated with the familial and the emotional. “It is always in this place of being the language of the parents, the grandparents, that [the interviewees] understood and could not speak”, said Luísa Teruya about the interviews she conducted.
Luísa Teruya – Photo: Courtesy of Luísa Teruya
“The stories were passed on in this language. The teachings were passed on in it. This marked me deeply because it is a collective issue” – Luísa Teruya.
For the researcher, the characteristics of this process allow us to understand what was constructed discursively. According to her, the history of Okinawans in Brazil cannot be read solely in terms of erasure or assimilation, as it is marked by its own contradictions. “Even though [Uchināguchi] is not fluent among the younger generations, nowadays it occupies this place as our family language, which unites us. Something very strong and very symbolic”, explained Teruya, who is of Okinawan descent. She also argues that, despite the risk of extinction, Uchināguchi connects them as a history, and their choice of lexicons produces effects of belonging.
Okinawan disputes
Japanese immigrants came to Brazil under pre-determined obligation contracts with farms, due to agreements made between the country and Japanese emigration companies. Okinawans were supposed to know Japanese – although it is not possible to confirm the application of this rule to everyone. They were accepted with caution, only due to the intermittent waves of European immigration that, according to the thinking of the republican elite, would “improve” the country racially.
“Then, for example, in 1908 we have the allocation of immigrants on farms. In these first waves, there were many escapes because the conditions were precarious and something was promised that was not real,” the researcher explained. “These [escapes] were justified as ‘no, look, Brazilian government: the Japanese are not like that, the Okinawans are,'” she continued.
At the beginning of immigration, the percentage of Okinawans compared to the total Japanese immigrants was 40.6%, according to the book 1 Século de História em Fotos – A Comunidade Okinawana no Brasil (1 Century of History in Photos – The Okinawan Community in Brazil). In 1913, the percentage dropped to zero. During this first restriction, only Okinawans associated with those previously settled in Brazil entered the country. Despite the pre-existing associations, in 1926 the Kyūyō Association was founded to bring together Okinawan immigrants residing in various locations in Brazil and as a form of organization in the face of restrictions.
Advertisements for Okinawan enterprises were common in the Okinawan Association’s newsletter – Photo: Courtesy of Luísa Teruya
The inaugural newsletter of this association, published in 1928, contains 12 signed texts and notice boards with financial reports, debates, and explanations of issues related to the community, as well as advertisements for Okinawan enterprises. For Okinawans to be read as Japanese, that is, worthy of the same opportunities as the others, the newsletter establishes its position as the official one, incorporating the Japanese discourse itself. “An article will talk about the pursuit of money, but without neglecting morality. These are not self-deprecating texts, but are rather aimed at being a good Japanese. To show oneself as worthy, to police oneself more than others, ,she commented.
It is in this conflict between the desire for belonging and the rejection of traits that identify them as natives of Okinawa that the struggle for the revocation of restrictions is founded. “So, outside the home, everyone speaks Japanese to appear Japanese; and there are those who do not want to, who say: ‘no, I do not even know how to speak Japanese.’ As much as it may seem that these are people against all these values, they are people who understand that they are not less, they do not speak less. These people also do not understand very well any difference between Japanese and Uchināguchi”,- the literary scholar said.
Post-war
Subsequently, in 1941, due to Japan’s entry into World War II on the side of the Axis (Germany and Italy), the association had to close its doors. Even before that, its activities were investigated by the Department of Political and Social Order due to the Vargas government’s nationalization law and the conflict with the teaching of Japanese. With Japan’s defeat in the war, the province was militarily administered by the U.S. until 1972. With the Okinawa archipelago excluded from the Basic Education Law of 1947, political uses within the administrative-bureaucratic system declined in favor of the “national” language.
Businesses in Okinawan communities persist as a symbol of historical continuity – Photo: Courtesy of Luísa Teruya
The U.S. military government began recommending to local leaders the use of Ryūkyū languages in education, in order to detach themselves from the “Japanese identity.” Understanding that defending a distinct Okinawan identity could prolong the occupation, the population decided to reconstitute basic education under the teaching of common Japanese. Despite this, community events emerged with speeches aimed at promoting their own so-called values, both in the archipelago in Japan and in Brazilian territory, influenced by the context of the increasing importance of ethnicity in the United States and its Brazilian reformulation towards a certain cultural relativism.
“There is an interviewee who came in the post-war period and attended school there. So Japanese is really one of her first languages. She does not know [Uchināguchi fluently] even though she speaks it at home. But she arrives here and it is the language, for example, of her husband’s family”, the researcher said, illustrating how this past connects the provincial people.
University to preserve
Leiko Matsubara Morales is the research advisor and a professor in the Graduate Studies Program in Japanese Language, Literature, and Culture at the Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Human Sciences (FFLCH). For her, the dissertation is part of an awareness movement that has already begun in the community. “The university is a relevant institutional locus for promoting research, dissemination, and consequently, for the preservation of languages, because it is there that we generate and strengthen critical mass on studies of those that are non-hegemonic but relevant for the preservation of diversity”, the professor explained.
She stated that Luísa Teruya’s work sheds light on an aspect of the diversity of the Japanese language itself, little known due to silencing, and also shows different peoples of Japan who came here. “Japanese is still very little studied in terms of research, so it is important to strengthen graduate studies. We still have a lot to do”, she continued. She emphasized that the interaction of the findings with Japan can promote actions such as the creation of university courses aimed at revitalizing the erased languages of marginalized communities, such as those of Okinawa and Ainu.
“On the other hand, the Brazilian government is also not exempt, as it could and should consider strengthening Japanese in the context of immigrants”, she stated. Today, these languages are studied as heritage, foreign, or additional, but also as Brazilian national linguistic heritage, with the proper strengthening of language courses, according to the professor.
Leiko Matsubara Morales – Photo: Courtesy of Leiko Matsubara Morales
The dissertation A Imigração Okinawana no Brasil Pré-Guerra (1908-1941): Língua, Discurso e Memória (Okinawan Immigration in Pre-War Brazil (1908-1941): Language, Discourse, and Memory) was defended in November 2025 at FFLCH and will be available in USP’s Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations after the review is completed.
More information: yttluisa@usp.br, with Luísa Teruya
*Intern under the supervision of Luiza Caires
English version: Nexus Traduções, edited by Denis Pacheco
Política de uso
A reprodução de matérias e fotografias é livre mediante a citação do Jornal da USP e do autor. No caso dos arquivos de áudio, deverão constar dos créditos a Rádio USP e, em sendo explicitados, os autores. Para uso de arquivos de vídeo, esses créditos deverão mencionar a TV USP e, caso estejam explicitados, os autores. Fotos devem ser creditadas como USP Imagens e o nome do fotógrafo.
A reprodução de matérias e fotografias é livre mediante a citação do Jornal da USP e do autor. No caso dos arquivos de áudio, deverão constar dos créditos a Rádio USP e, em sendo explicitados, os autores. Para uso de arquivos de vídeo, esses créditos deverão mencionar a TV USP e, caso estejam explicitados, os autores. Fotos devem ser creditadas como USP Imagens e o nome do fotógrafo.